To the island.

To Haven's End.

Then he fumbled with the clasp of the binoculars' case, pulled out the instrument, and with a deep breath heedless of the damp and knifing cold, placed it to his eyes.

Focusing each lens in turn, he saw trees virtually the same as those at his back, a narrow break for the road at the other end of the ferry line, and the trees once again, thicker and shadowed as they climbed the sloping island to the cliffs at the southern tip. A quick scan from one end of the four-mile island to the other and he lowered his arms. Nodded once to himself. Looked up to the sky and decided there were three hours of decent daylight remaining for his vigil. In a move more characteristic than the lines on his face, he tucked his chin toward his neck and considered: three hours, perhaps less. It would be sufficient. Since the day before Christmas it had always been sufficient. And each time he returned, he was slightly more confident, slightly more calmed. Tonight he would signal his gathering strength by turning off the light and sleeping in the dark. The dreams might not vanish, but they would be fought, not just endured.

Three short hours… across two miles of water.

He lifted the binoculars back to his eyes and began the slow searching.

Suddenly he caught his breath, blinked and staggered backward several paces. He nearly bolted for the car before realizing that the movement he had seen had not been on the island, the racing streak had not been someone running.

It was snowing.

Snowing: large, wet, spiraling flakes.

Marvelous, he thought with a self-mocking laugh. The Great White Hunter has to squat in a snowstorm.

From his right-hand pocket he yanked a gaudy yellow wool cap to pull down over his ears, over his forehead to his eyebrows.

Slowly, testing the road for snares of unseen ice, he moved down the slope to the landing dock, and sat on an overturned nail keg he'd taken from the shed when the watching had first begun. The water slapped at the pilings. Freakishly, the wind soared over his head, barely touching him. He patted a hand across his chest to be sure his cigarettes were there, drew back his feet to grip the keg's sides, and made his first check: a glance at the water beyond the edge of the dock, to the thin poles that rose there above the agitated surface, outlining a rectangle. There were eight, and the rope threaded through the iron eyes at the top of each, binding them together, was thick with new ice. He strained, and thought he could see the remains of the ferry now settled at the bottom. Charred and splintered and crumbling in the sand.