The Island(93)

She tried the handle.

The door opened. This particular vehicle had a key and a push-button start. It was a Wi-Fi proximity key. As long as the key was somewhere in the car, all you needed to do was put your foot on the brake and press the start button.

The kids climbed inside. She put her foot on the brake and pressed the start button.

Nothing happened. She pressed it again. Nothing. A third time—nothing. She searched the car but there was no sign of the key.

“The key must be inside the house. Wait here, stay low, keep the doors closed, I’ll be back in a second,” Heather said. She handed Olivia Matt’s .22 rifle. “I think there’s two rounds left in this thing. Stay in the car. If anyone tries to drag you out, shoot them.”

Olivia nodded. “I will,” she said.

Heather closed the driver’s-side door and took the empty Lee-Enfield rifle and ran to the house. Everyone was outside attending to the fire. Where would they keep a key? She looked for hooks on the wall or a little dish by the front door. Nothing like that. If she didn’t find that key, they were lost. You couldn’t hot-wire a modern car the way you could an older model. The proximity key needed to be in the goddamn car.

She remembered the stairs up to Ma’s room.

She took them three at a time.

At the top of the steps there was a very long hall with half a dozen doors.

“Shit.”

The first door she opened was a man’s bedroom with a pair of jeans lying on the floor.

The second room was a bathroom.

She was running out of time.

“What are you looking for?” a voice said.

It was a very little girl with big brown eyes.

“I’m looking for my car keys and my phone,” Heather said.

“Did you set the grass on fire?” the girl asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry about that. I probably shouldn’t have done that. I thought everyone would go and fight the fire and we could escape.”

“It’s OK. It goes like that every year in the summer. We’re used to it. I’m Niamh, by the way,” the girl said, offering her hand.

Heather shook the hand. “Heather,” she said solemnly.

“Your phone and the keys will be in Ma’s room. At the end there.”

“Thank you, Niamh,” Heather said.

She walked to the end of the hallway. The door opened onto a hot, dusty, stuffy room with a massive four-poster bed, a tallboy, and other ancient pieces of wooden furniture. The walls were covered with faded black-and-white photographs of men with elaborate beards and women with elaborate dresses. There was a framed ship’s ticket from Liverpool to Sydney and next to it a photo of a pretty, ridiculously young girl with a suitcase trying to look like a grown-up.

“Jesus! What do you think you’re bloody doing!” a voice said.

Heather turned. It was Ma with a little blond-haired boy she was leaning on for support.

“It’s time for us to go,” Heather said.

“I don’t give you permission to go,” Ma said.

“You’re not in a position to give permission,” Heather said.

“It’s my island!”

“It’s not your island and it never was. Where’s the key to the Porsche?” Heather asked, pointing the rifle at Ma’s head.

“You won’t shoot.”

“Ask Jacko if I won’t shoot. I’ll shoot you and your grandson.”

“You’re an animal!”

“Where’s the key!” Heather screamed, pointing the empty rifle at the little boy’s head.

“Nightstand. Right next to the bed,” Ma said.

Heather saw the key in a little dish beside the bed on top of all their phones. She shoved the key and the phones in her pockets.

“What’s all that yelling, Ma?” a dazed-looking Danny asked, wandering in from the hall. Heather pointed the empty Lee-Enfield at him.

“Hands behind head, kneel on the ground! Now!”

Danny got down on his knees and put his hands behind his neck. “This isn’t fair,” he wailed.

Heather walked behind him. “I’m sorry about Ellen. I really am,” she said and hit him in the back of the head with the heavy rifle stock. Danny fell face-first onto the ancient floorboards.

“As soon as they see you coming, they’ll back the ferry offshore. You’re screwed,” Ma said with a cackle.

“We would be screwed if this was an island,” Heather replied.

A cold lick of hatred in Ma’s eyes. She fortune-told. She could see what this young woman would do to all she had built here if she was allowed to live.

It was also a look of recognition. A mirror. She’d come here as a young woman and mixed things up and married in and destroyed things and built things all those years ago.

Ma lashed weakly at her with her cane. “I’ll have you, you bitch!” she said furiously.

“Well, you’d better move fast.”

Heather ran down the hall. She waved goodbye to little Niamh and bolted down the stairs. She darted across the farmyard to the Porsche.

“It’s me,” she said as she opened the driver’s-side door. Olivia, in the front passenger seat, grinned and relaxed her grip on the rifle. Heather placed her foot on the brake and pushed the start button, and the Porsche roared into life.