"Why are you doing this?" Sheila asked.

"Why? Why, my dear?" Rooster raised its head and growled softly up at its master. "Because the two of you can't seem to help yourselves from meddling in island business." The poker swished back and forth hypnotically in her hand. "Because someone has to deal with you before it's too late for all of us."

Martin backed into the door. He felt along the jamb. "Clarabelle, was it?"

She smiled. It might have been sweet if not for the menace in her eyes and her bad teeth. "That's right, dear. Clarabelle Leigh."

"I recognize that voice," Sheila said. "You're Ethel Kelly. Somehow you've... you've taken over her body."

The smile grew. "You really are quite a clever clog, my dear. Unfortunately, not a single soul in Barrows Bay would believe you."

"I believe her," Martin said, still reaching, bending ever so slightly at the hip for the shotgun against the jamb.

"Well, that comes as no surprise. After that foul business amongst the standing stones, I'd imagine the two of you are thick as thieves."

Sheila flashed him a fearful look.

"That's right, my dear. I know everything. I saw everything. I know about your filthy little dalliance and I know you've seen what we are. But I know something that you don't."

"What's that?"

"Geraldine spoke the truth, my dear. You've a bun in the oven. No bigger than pea at the moment, but that bun will grow. And I don't think you've got it in you to get the scrape this time, not after the last. No, you'll be stuck with this one." The brown teeth exposed further, as much a snarl as a smile. "That is, if we let you live."

Martin grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and swung it into his hands. The old woman—Ethel, Clarabelle or both—rounded on him with the poker.

"Put. The poker. Down."

He primed the weapon. No idea if it required it. Nor if he could bring himself to fire it on an innocent woman. He only intended for her to drop the poker.

She called his bluff, striking Sheila on the thigh with its iron hook.

Sheila cried out and grasped her leg. Blood oozed out from between her fingers.

"Put it down, or so help me..."

"So help you, who? The only god on this island is Mother. And she'll forsake her only begotten son, too. Just you wait, my dear."

"I'm warning you..."

"So you have." The woman stepped closer to him. Her milky cataract eyes regarded him as she raised the poker to Sheila's throat. She didn't seem to notice or care that the dog's growl at her feet had grown fiercer.

"Do it, dear," Ethel said with Clarabelle's lips. "Pull the trigger. Shoot an innocent woman in her home. Become the killer they say you are."

Ruby's words again. He tasted blood on the back of his tongue.

"Shoot her, Martin," Sheila moaned, the sharp end of the poker against her larynx.