"Hey, pal, you want me to shave your head?"

He smiled, of a sort. "You won't stay very long, will you? Mom's real sad you won't come. Me, too. I thought we were gonna be a family now." He frowned his puzzlement. "You gotta stay?"

"Just till I'm sure, pal, just till I'm sure."

Peg called to him softly as the bus's engine belched exhaust.

"Then listen," Matt said, pulling on his arm until he was kneeling beside him. They hugged, and Colin kissed his cheek, hugged him again. "Listen, I think everybody wasn't right about Lilla. She didn't let them get me. She really didn't."

"I know, I know." He stood. "You practice your drawing now, you hear? You be sure your grandmother lets you practice."

"I'll draw Lilla."

"A tree, the gulls, but I don't think your mother would appreciate a picture of Lilla now."

He pouted. "Nobody listened to me," he said almost angrily. "I kept saying she was a witch, but nobody listened."

They'd been over this ground a dozen times already, and Colin had exhausted himself trying to make the boy see that just because she befriended him didn't make her a saint. But he'd been too put upon by the other kids, for his art and his looks, and it wasn't surprising that he grabbed affection where he could.

"Time, pal," he said instead, and helped the boy up the steps.

And the following day Colin was gone as well, driving in a rented car toward Maine, not very far each day, less as each day passed, until as last he couldn't stand not knowing and returned to the motel.

From gossip and papers he learned of the inquiries, the few unanswered questions no one seemed to care about since the island wasn't a place people worried about for long. There had been funerals for the few bodies found in the burned houses and along the shore of the bay. And those who had left before, left again because rumor had it the island was haunted. Flocks laughed, albeit uneasily; fire and wind was better than anything resembling magic.

Lee and Hugh returned two weeks later. They walked into his room, he embraced Lee and shook Hugh's hand, and they said nothing because there was nothing to say.

The watch began on Christmas Eve.

Peg and Matt returned the day after Christmas, and there were smiles and laughter and an exchange of simple presents. He rode each day to the landing and watched the island turn to winter.

Three hours.

He lowered the binoculars and let himself sigh as loudly as he could, as though at last the nightmare were expelled from his lungs. No boats had gone there, no sign of life, nothing at all.