She made her way left along the last sidewalked stretch, making a little loop so that she came out right in front of the short road that led up to the camp. She had been afraid that she would find somebody walking on it, one of those women coming in to town to shop or have lunch, but there wasn’t anybody there. She looked right and left to see if anybody was watching her and then felt foolish doing it. In places like Bellerton, if somebody wanted to see you, they saw you. There could be dozens of old women sitting behind the drawn living room curtains of all the houses she could see. There was just no way that she would ever be able to tell.
She started up the camp’s road, limping a little on her heels, propelled forward half by determination and half by fear. Almost as soon as she started to make the climb, she felt that everything was different. The air was charged out here. It even smelled unusual. The flowers on the bushes at the roadside looked heavier and brighter than the same kind of thing Rose had seen in town. Maybe something happened to people when they came up here on their own. Maybe they got drunk on the air, and did things they didn’t know they were doing.
Rose must have been drunk on the air herself. She was already at the gate to Bonaventura and she didn’t remember getting there. She had expected it to be closed, locked tight to keep out the media and the curious, but it wasn’t. Rose stepped through it onto the gravel drive and felt her ankle twist. It was impossible to walk on gravel in very high heels. It was impossible to do anything when you couldn’t get any air. Rose pulled her foot up and her heel out of the soft ground under the stones and leaned over to examine the damage. She was still half gasping for breath when she saw a shadow fall across hers and heard Zhondra Meyer say, “Well, what is it? Are you hurt? Do you need something? You’re not here to stay. You’re the woman who runs that religious gift store in the Victorian house in town.”
Rose straightened up, very carefully. She had always found looking at Zhondra Meyer painful. Zhondra was so beautiful, and so strong a presence. Being very close to her was like being enveloped in light. Rose felt that Zhondra was sending out rays, like heat, but stronger than heat.
“I—” she began, and then, “My name is Rose MacNeill. We’ve been introduced before.”
Zhondra cocked her head. “But you are the woman who owns the religious gift shop. I’ve seen you a million times.”
“Yes,” Rose said. “Yes, I am. Christening presents. Gift Bibles. Note card sets with pictures of Christ Our Lord and Savior on every sheet. That kind of thing.”
“I know the kind of thing,” Zhondra said. “I’ve been in your store. But what do you want up here?”
Rose’s lips felt suddenly dry. Every part of her felt suddenly dry. And hot. And afraid. She wanted to step back a little, out of Zhondra Meyer’s orbit, but she was afraid she would stumble again.
“She came into the store, you know, on the day of the hurricane,” Rose said. “Carol Littleton, I mean. She wanted to buy a christening present for her granddaughter.”
“I know she did. Is that what you came up here about?”
“No, no. I was just thinking about it. About how strange it was. I wasn’t very nice to her.”
“Most people weren’t.”
“I’ve known people like that,” Rose said. “People who seem to—to almost attract abuse.”
“You mean people who cause their own abuse? You mean the abuse is their fault?”
“No, not exactly,” Rose said. “It’s just that it seems as if there are some people, if you froze them solid and put them in a room with twenty-five other people, and then you got some real psychopath to go in and pick the one he wanted most, they’d be the ones who got picked. Bad luck, maybe, or—what did we use to say a few years ago? Bad karma.”
“I didn’t think Christians believed in karma.”
“They don’t. Goodness, you should hear Pat Robertson talk about Eastern religions. I don’t know if you know who Pat Robertson is. He’s on this thing called the Christian Broadcasting Network. He—”
“I know who Pat Robertson is.”
Rose turned to look at the house, the massive blocks of it, the peaks and towers. It was just like the worst kind of fairy tale castle, the one the wicked stepmother always lived in. Rose rubbed her arms with the palms of her hands. She felt hot. She felt cold. She felt as if she were about to faint.
Rose looked back to Zhondra Meyer and saw that her eyes were deep and still and perfect.
“I think,” Rose said carefully. “I think that I have come to stay. As a guest. If you know what I mean.”