The Lost

The rain began, pushed by the wind, so that it fell like needles. Isabelle and Father Joubay moved to the partial shelter of the windowless cabin, bracing themselves against the wooden walls that gave scant protection.

Were there any life jackets? she wondered.

The captain yelled back to them, “Life jackets are in the covered bin.”

Isabelle found only two. The orange kapok was older than she was and bug infested, but better than nothing. “You take it. You and the captain. I can swim.”

“No!” Joubay shouted and pushed the life vest back to her as if it were too hot to handle. “I will make the right choice this time. This is my salvation!” Father Joubay threw the other life jacket to the captain, who ignored it.

A strong wave poured more water on them and they were thrown to the other side of the shelter. Father Joubay fell to the deck and Isabelle slid down to sit beside him.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, no, Isabelle.” He reached for his hat but the water swept it away. “May God help you, child. For me, I welcome death, but I pray, with all my heart, that you survive even if this place is cursed.”

“What curse?” she asked again, pointedly. “Father, you know there is no such thing as a curse.”

“My dear, do you think that only God can work wonders? So can the devil, for that’s what a curse is. The devil’s miracle.”

Isabelle saw no fear in his eyes even as the rain and wind grew stronger, whitecaps crowning the waves that were now taller than the boat.

“Tell me what you mean,” she insisted and did her best to ignore the fear. She would put her faith in God’s wisdom and her own ingenuity.

“You will learn eventually, Isabelle. There is not enough time now.”

She stood up to see if the boat could possibly reach shore before it fell apart, but she could not see to the shore. The waves and the rain defined their world.

The boat rode up high, very high, and before it slammed into the trough of the wave, she saw lights above them, much closer now, but still too far away for the boat to make landfall before the worst of the storm overtook them.

The wooden trawler rose and fell, shuddering and rattling as the boards loosened and water seeped through the seams. Isabelle struggled to her feet, and helped Father Joubay stand as water pooled around their legs.

Another shudder and the roof of the cabin flew off. When the storm broke the boat apart, they could ride out the waves on one of the bigger pieces. The water was warm enough for them to survive for hours.

“Isabelle, listen,” Father Joubay shouted over the storm. He took her hand, pulling her down below the side of the wheelhouse so she could hear him. “When Sebastian Dushayne gave us permission to come to his island for a year of medical and missionary care?”

“Yes?” Hurry, she thought. We don’t have much time.

“There are two things you should know, Isabelle. One is rather odd.”

“Odd?” she prompted, worried that he would not finish before the waves swamped the boat.

“The first is that the island healer will not cooperate with you, and Dushayne insisted that I bring a doctor who could sing.”

Sing? A doctor who could sing? That was absurd. And besides, “I can’t sing and I’m a nurse, not a doctor.”

“You are as good as a doctor, Isabelle, and you have a lovely voice.”

“But that’s only in church. I only know hymns.”

He shook his head sharply as the waves took control of their lives. He shouted, “Sebastian loves music, especially music that is sung. It did not seem too much to ask. And if it was meant to be, I knew a singing doctor would appear, and you did. I do not think that will matter now. Kneel down.”

Father Joubay put his hand on her head and began to pray over her. “God keep you safe, Isabelle. Show Him that your love is true and pure and free.”

Show Him that your love is true. Is that what Father Joubay had said? God knew her heart better than anyone.

Isabelle felt the boat turn into the waves again, but this time instead of climbing over the mountain of water, it wallowed in the troughs.

The screeching wind made any more conversation impossible. His lips moved, but Isabelle could not hear what he said. Prayers surely. They held on to each other and, as the giant wall of water broke over them, she whispered, “God bless you too, Father.”

The storm came with such force that Sebastian Dushayne had to brace his body to stand at the open window and watch the harbor, his narrowed eyes the only concession to the rain that bit into him.

Anger pulsed through him, his rage matching the weather around him. Sebastian knew the boat would be lost the moment that the clouds dimmed the sun and the servants began to light candles.

The curse would not allow those on board the island trawler to reach the shore. Joubay and the doctor would die along with the fool who let money convince him that his boat could beat the curse’s fury.

The storm brought an early twilight, but Sebastian could see the boat as it struggled in the waves with a desperation that he could feel even this far away.

Joubay would pray. Sebastian knew better than to try that. God had no place here. This was the devil’s playground. The sounds of the revelry in the next room proved that. God’s minions were not welcome and lasted only as long as it took to seduce them with life’s pleasures.

The boat disappeared from sight and the words of the curse crawled through Sebastian’s memory as clearly as if it had been yesterday. Joubay, because you love this island, I cast you out. If you dare to return, you will die.

Even if Joubay was coming back with a solution to the curse, it would die with him. Sebastian wished he had never trusted, even for a moment, that there was a chance he could escape this island, his prison. He continued to stare at the roiling harbor. Suddenly, quiet settled around him as though a shield of silence held him between his world and some other place.

Two ephemeral shapes rose from the water, shrouded in the rain, but rising, rising, rising out of sight as a song echoed, sung in a lovely voice more than alto but not quite a soprano. “I will be with you always in light and in love. My light surrounds you with love from above.” The song ended, the cocoon vanished and the wind came back with renewed strength.

Cursing, Sebastian pushed the shutters closed, pressing with all his strength against the east wind that battered them.

He returned to the grand salon where the others partied, all of them unaware that people were dying within sight of this room. Why tell them, he thought. They were tourists, here for entertainment, for the taste of another time as if man had lived better or more fully in 1810.

If he told this group what was happening, they would be shocked and it would ruin the mood.

Sebastian had watched people die for so long he had grown used to it. He would take one of the women to bed and let her help him forget what he had witnessed.

The prettiest in this group, he was fairly certain her name was Genetta, reached for the one remaining cream cake and drank the last of the champagne with drunken greed.

No one complained. The group was already bored with the illusion of nineteenth-century life conjured for their entertainment and were well into the carnal pleasures that transcended time and place.

Genetta looked at him with a provocative pout and he nodded. She would be the one. Her gold blond hair was natural; her body was not too muscular, like so many other women these days. But Sebastian already knew what sex with her would be like.

She would be less entertaining than most. Not evil, not at all, but shallow and self-i ndulgent. And not very creative.

With a promise to bring back more champagne, Sebastian left the salon, found his way to the open courtyard, the i