The Island(35)

Owen nodded. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. Dad might know what to do, but she doesn’t.”

“Come on, guys!”

“No! Don’t touch me!” Olivia said and began to hyperventilate.

Owen and Olivia were looking at her the way they often looked at her: with contempt. This time, of course, through a veil of grief, terror, tears.

Heather closed her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to be their stepmother. What she’d wanted was to have a roof over her head and be comfortable and have nice things and maybe see a bit of the world. What she’d wanted was Tom. She was far too young for motherhood. She had literally never thought about it. She was exactly the wrong age to be Olivia and Owen’s mom. When she attempted to play with them, she wasn’t like one of those cool mothers who goof around and make everyone feel at ease. No, she was like one of those older kids on the periphery of the playground who are too lame to make friends with people their own age.

You couldn’t say she hadn’t tried.

She had tried.

If the kids didn’t want to come, well, she could escape by herself.

Easily.

Yes.

That acknowledged, Heather nodded, opened her eyes, and squatted down in front of Olivia, who was still in a panic. “Take deep breaths, honey. That’s it. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Big breaths. Good. Doing better?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now, listen to me, Olivia. If we stay here, they are going to kill us,” she said, enunciating every word.

Olivia took thirty seconds to think about it. A little sob went through her like a wave. She nodded and held up her hands. Heather sawed through the rope until Olivia was free. “They hurt,” Olivia said.

“Rub them until you get the circulation going again. They’ll start to feel better soon,” Heather assured her. She looked back up at the house. The lights were off now. The only light on in the whole farm was the arc light directly in front of the shed. Not good.

She forced a determined look onto her face, crawled to Owen, and began sawing at his bonds.

“How are we going to escape?” Owen asked her.

“I don’t know…yet. But we’ll think of something.”

“What are you thinking of doing?” Petra asked.

“Getting out of here and running away,” Heather said as she continued to saw.

“I think there might be a way out,” Olivia said quietly.

“What?”

“There was a little girl here earlier. She said she could come in to see us. She said there was a loose board on this side of the shed. I’ll check it out,” Olivia said.

“But what will you do if you get away?” Petra asked. “What will you do after?”

“Phones don’t work here, so we’ll have to get off the island to call the police.”

“You are going to swim to the mainland?” Hans scoffed.

“No. We’re not going to swim. We’ll think of something.”

“You are making a mountain of a molehill, I think,” Hans said and then added something to Petra in Dutch.

Heather nodded to herself and sawed through the final bit of hemp, freeing Owen. “Rub your wrists, get the blood back into them,” she said softly.

Keeping low, Heather scurried across the shed to where Olivia was pulling at the wall.

“Look at this,” Olivia said, tugging at a loosely fitting plank near the floor. “The little girl said it was a different wood. It’s coming out as I pull it.”

“It’s not only the wood; these are just one-inch nails. We can do this if we pull together,” Heather said.

She and Olivia tugged and out the plank came with a loud tearing sound.

They froze for a minute to see if there was any reaction outside.

A dog barked in the distance but no one came.

“We did it!” Olivia whispered.

Heather looked through the hole. There, outside, just fifty feet away in the deep darkness, was what they had called the heathland.

They had created a big enough gap in the shed wall for a child to crawl through, and perhaps if they dug underneath it, an adult could squeeze through too.

“It’s good,” Heather said.

“Are you quite sure your husband was killed?” Hans asked. “Perhaps there was an altercation and you did not see what happened to him? Perhaps he has been taken to a hospital?”

Heather crawled back over to Owen. “Get yourself together. We’re leaving,” she whispered.

“Is that what we’re doing, Olivia?” Owen asked his sister.

“Yes, it is,” she said.

“We’re going to take the water bottle, if that’s OK,” Heather said to Petra. “We’re going to need it more than you.”

“It is not your water. It is for all of us!” Hans protested.

“They will need it more,” Petra said.

Heather crawled back to the hole and began digging into the earth with first the penknife and then her hands. The dirt was thicker and heavier than it looked and it did not give easily. It had been baked hard by the sun for any number of summers. She dug deeper and made a little furrow. “What do you think?” she said to Olivia.

“I can get through,” Olivia said.

Heather nodded.