Free The Turning by Francine Prose Page A

they’re crazy! What could he have done?”
    “That’s what I think about Miles,” said Linda. “And that’s what I can’t figure out.”
    “Can’t you ask Miles?” I said. “I’m sure it must be a mistake.”
    “I don’t want to,” said Linda. “Not yet. I still can’t believe it. And I don’t want to upset him.”
    In the silence, broken only by the rocking of our chairs and the buzzing of the June bugs against the screens, I wondered if it was true. But e vil is a strong word. I knew that Linda was wondering, too.
    Suddenly, I remembered the ruined photo in the library. And the blind man talking about the island being haunted—and about the investigation. And, okay, the seagull’s warning. Plus I couldn’t help thinking about the man I’d imagined at the window. I tried to put it out of my mind.
    I said, “Linda, who was here before me? Who taught the kids before I got here?”
    “I thought their uncle told you. A very nice girl named Kate. But she left to get married and didn’t warn us and left us in the lurch.”
    “And before Kate?” I said. “Who was here before Kate?”
    “Before Kate?” Linda rocked back in her chair and took a swallow of tea. “That’s a longer story. I hope you’re not tired.”
    “I’m not tired at all,” I said.
    “Then I’ll tell you,” Linda said. “His name was Norris Holmes. The children’s uncle hired him when my husband became too ill to do the hard work on the island. Norris was a general handyman and gardener.
    “I never liked him, though, at least at the start. I couldn’t figure out why. I always had the feeling that there was something about his life that he didn’t want anyone knowing. But he was a good worker and very helpful with keeping up the place while I took care of the children and, more and more, of my husband. One thing I never trusted about him was that he was always talking about the exotic places he’d been—he’d climbed Mount Kilimanjaro; he’d trekked through Outer Mongolia. But sometimes I would ask him a question that he couldn’t answer, and I’d get the feeling that he was making it all up.
    “For several years, the children had a part-time teacher, a Miss Eldridge, who left to teach third grade in an elementary school on the mainland. Working in his usual mysterious ways, Jim Crackstone hired a full-time governess, a woman named Lucy.”
    For a moment I spaced out. The seagull in my dream had said, Lucy Lucy Lucy. I don’t usually remember my dreams, but this one had stuck with me....
    Linda said, “I knew there would be trouble from the very first time I’d introduced Norris to Lucy. Lucy was pretty, pale, with bright red hair—”
    “Redheaded?” I remembered the woman on the boat, and a chill went down my spine. I told myself that lots of people had red hair. Miles, for example.
    “Miles was thrilled,” said Linda. “To tell the truth, I’m not sure he’d ever met another redhead before.”
    “What did Norris look like?” I said. I can’t explain why, but I was already praying, Please don’t let him look like the guy I saw at the library window.
    “Dark-haired. Tall.”
    I thought: Like the guy at the window. But lots of guys were tall and dark-haired.
    Linda said, “I guess some women would have thought Norris was handsome. The problem was, Norris thought he was handsome, and men who can’t get over themselves just aren’t my type.
    “Later, looking back, I remembered thinking that Norris and Lucy recognized something in each other, the first minute they met. I had no idea what it was, but I didn’t like it. Or maybe that was something I began to think only after what happened later.
    “Otherwise, Lucy was pleasant and intelligent, and it’s possible that she would have worked out fine if it hadn’t been for Norris. She’d been to college, and she took the children’s lessons seriously. Until then, their education had been kind of spotty, though both kids were natural readers. In that