Island of a Thousand Springs by Sarah Lark

Author:Sarah Lark [Lark, Sarah]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Publisher: Bastei Entertainment
Published: 2015-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Nora had grown accustomed to looking out to the sea first thing in the morning and happily taking in the strip of blue behind the rich green of the forest. But the following morning, all she could see from the strip of jungle between the garden and the beach were the tops of the sturdiest trees sticking out from the reddish-brown water. The land was still flooded up to the foot of the hill on which the main house of Cascarilla Gardens stood. The slave quarters, or what was left of them, must have been completely underwater. Even the garden was a sad sight. The storm had uprooted a large portion of the trees and the rain had washed away most of the flowerbeds. Even Nora’s beloved pavilion was badly damaged. With a hint of humor, Nora thought of how it looked about as battered as she felt. Every muscle rebelled against her plan to get up and get dressed. She would have preferred to go right back to bed. But a long, hard day of work and grief lay ahead of her.

Máanu dutifully arrived to help her wash her hair and dress, but seemed almost more obstinate than usual. She didn’t answer Nora’s questions.

“How is the reverend? And his wife?” Nora eventually asked after their houseguests. Máanu would have to answer that question.

“The woman is crying,” Máanu explained, “and wants to get up and look for the child. She says that an angel came to her in the night and said that he is still alive—”

“That’s not possible,” Nora said.

Máanu shrugged again. “But she believes it. The reverend asked the backra to send out a search team for the body. Now twenty niggers are looking for it—”

“But that is madness,” Nora asserted.

It could still be dangerous to go into the areas that had been flooded on the previous day. The ground would be soft and muddy everywhere. There could easily be landslides, especially on the embankments.

But then she paused. There was no use in complaining, Reverend Stevens and his wife certainly would not leave until the child had been found. To that end, she might even have put a team at their disposal — just to get rid of the houseguests.

“Reverend Stevens can hold a service this morning,” she then said. “It doesn’t really help anything, but we have to bury the dead—”

Máanu smiled a contorted, wicked smile. “The slave cemetery is underwater,” she said.

Nora felt like she was going to explode. “Then a new one will have to be set up!” she said. “And we should also think about another location for the slave quarters. The old one is underwater after every storm, if I understand correctly. So it would make sense to rebuild them above the house.”

“Backra Doug already quarreled about it with Backra Elias this morning,” Máanu remarked.

Nora sighed. She could easily imagine how it transpired.

The mood at breakfast was tense, as expected. Doug had suggested that the new slave quarters be built near the stables.

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