The Lost

“My friends, you have drunk enough of my spirits. I appreciate your keeping the evening with me and will see you tomorrow if you need a headache cure.”

No one objected. All finished the last of their drinks and staggered out of the house with a chorus of “Best wishes to the mistress of this house.”

Esmé stared at Isabelle for almost a minute. “You come back to me with a pure spirit. I will not ask how that can be or doubt my insight. If I had been drinking with my friends, I would not be so certain, but I refrained, intent on discrediting you. Now it appears it was a waste of restraint.”

“I ca

“Few appreciate how expensive honesty can be.”

“I respect your work, Healer, and will never do anything to undermine your wisdom, unless I know that someone’s life is in danger.” Isabelle paused and when Esmé gave a grudging nod went on. “Yes, I do know how expensive honesty can be.”

Esmé stood up and poured more tea for herself and a mug for Isabelle. To each she added a dollop of spirits from a clay jug and set both on the table.

“He hurt your heart,” Esmé stated.

“Why is he so hard? Why is he so alone? There is immense kindness in him. I have seen it, felt it. Why, if he has a good heart, does he think that lust and drunke

“Sip your tea and wrap yourself in a shawl. It is a long story and one that will test your faith in my honesty.”

Isabelle took the shawl Esmé handed her and, though the evening was not particularly cool, wrapped the gossamer-light piece around her shoulders.

“Sebastian Dushayne was assigned here as a soldier when the castillo still housed warriors, though they were English soldiers and not the Spaniards who had first built it. Captain Dushayne fell in love with a local girl. Her mother was the village healer. Not me,” Esmé hastened to add. “Despite the mother’s misgivings, which were far more insightful than most people’s, she allowed her daughter, Angelique, to marry Sebastian.”

Esmé sipped her tea and added more spirits.

“Sebastian Dushayne wanted Angelique. He said he loved her, but he wanted her beauty, her sweetness, her pure heart. And it was a fine match. Her goodness tempered his carnal wants and his commanding presence made Angelique aware of the value of a forceful personality.”

Isabelle settled back into the cushions of the sofa to find comfort where she could. This story was not going to have a happy ending.

“After a great storm swept the region, Angelique told her husband that she must go to help her sister on another island. Sebastian allowed it but insisted that she come back quickly, afraid that separation would be too great a test of his vows. Can you see that his love was mixed with too great a need to control?”

Isabelle saw that in him still. The way he told people what to do, never asked a question, demanded rather than suggested.

“Finally, when she had been gone too long, Sebastian Dushayne insisted his wife return. Despite the fact it was the month of the worst storms of the year, Angelique tried to obey him and was lost at sea. Of forty people, only three women survived and one man of God.”

“Man of God?” Isabelle straightened.

“Yes.” Esmé nodded. “Father Joubay took a place in the dinghy. If he’d given the spot to Angelique, she would have lived.”

“Oh, dear God.” Isabelle raised her hand to her mouth.

“The healer cursed both Joubay and Sebastian Dushayne to an eternity of suffering for causing the death of her beloved child. Joubay was forbidden on the island, the one place he wanted to live more than anyplace else, until he could undo his wrong. Dushayne was given total control of this island, but only this island. He was condemned to live here, unable to leave the island, for as long as it took for him to win the love of another woman as pure of heart as Angelique.”

“This is true? You swear it?” Even if Esmé swore, Isabelle was not sure she would believe it.

“Yes, Isabelle, I swear on my skill as a healer. And what I have told you is not even the hardest part to believe.” Esmé pushed her tea away and closed her eyes for a moment.

“This happened in the fall of 1810. Sebastian has been living here, frozen in age and time, for almost two hundred years.”

Isabelle stood up, knocking over the mug. “That ca

“Yes, it is. I swear it on Angelique’s grave. Sebastian can use the modern version of anything already invented in 1810. He can read any book he chooses and wear any style clothing he prefers, but he ca

“What happens if he tries?”

“Whatever it is does not work, or bursts into flame, or disintegrates.”

Isabelle allowed herself to believe it for a moment. The castillo was lit by candles. She had seen no sign of a computer or a telephone. There were no battery-operated radios or even an old-fashioned boom box, and that was odd for a man who loved singing.

“But worst of all, Isabelle, Sebastian Dushayne ca

“But people can come here from the big hotel on the main island?”

“Yes, Sebastian holds his version of a nineteenth-century soiree, which draws tourists to the castillo and they are only too happy to fill his needs. He is a man of broad sexual tastes and greatly interested in experimentation.”

“Stop!” Isabelle insisted. “I do not want to hear any more. I do not believe you. You’re insane or trying to manipulate me.”

“Think what you will, i

Standing up, Esmé ignored the spilled tea and took Isabelle’s arm. “Think about it, dear girl; sleep and pray to your God. Joubay found his answer in you. Who knows? It could be that I am mistaken. If that is so, and I am wrong, we will become enemies. My mission in life, as the healer’s descendant, is to see that Sebastian Dushayne is punished into eternity.”

Isabelle must have looked as stu

“Murder you?” Esmé’s shock was sincere. “Never. But there are other ways to make you unwelcome here. Please, don’t let it come to that. Avoid him. He deserves his misery.” The healer patted her arm as she showed her to the door. “For two hundred years. This has been going on for two hundred years. You are not the first i

Home was five doors down, and even though Isabelle walked very slowly it was not nearly a long enough walk to sift out the truth of the healer’s story.

Hanging her dress on one of the hooks, she brushed her teeth halfheartedly and climbed into bed. Sleep was impossible, but Isabelle felt safest in her snug bed tucked into the alcove.

The sheets were soft with many washings and as white as island sun and lemon could make them.

Relaxing a little, Isabelle began to pray. If she did not actually fall asleep, she did begin to dream. Father Joubay came to her and sat on the edge of her bed, which was, suddenly, aboard a ship being tossed about in an insane sea.

“We are safe,” he assured her. “He is the one in danger.”

In the way of dreams she could see a man swimming, struggling against the waves, but swimming away from them and not to them.

“It really should not be hard to believe that a devil’s curse could hold this man and this curve of land in thrall.” He picked up a wooden cross from the shelf at the head of her bed and held it to his heart. “Isabelle, you believe in the miracles that are in the Bible.”