Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

Just as silently, Pendergast shook it.

The boat parted the cerulean water in a silky motion, the warm air riffling Constance’s mahogany hair and playing over her long dress. She reclined on the turquoise-colored upholstered seat next to Diogenes, who was at the wheel. They had taken his yacht from South Beach Harbor to a place called Upper Sugarloaf Key. There, at a bungalow nestled among pines on the water, they had exchanged it for a smaller boat with a shallow draft. Diogenes had spoken of it in reverential tones: a nineteen-foot Chris Craft Racing Runabout built in 1950, which he’d had restored with new bookmatched sides, new decks, and a meticulously rebuilt engine. The boat’s name, in gold leaf edged in black, was PHOENIX, with HALCYON KEY below.

Now, as they neared their destination, a change came over Diogenes. Not a voluble man to begin with, he had become more communicative, if not talkative. At the same time, his normally masked face had smoothed out and relaxed, his expression becoming almost dream-like — a most odd change from his normally acute, watchful mien. The wind stirred his short, ginger hair and his eyes were narrowed, looking ahead. As Petru Lupei, he had among other things covered his dead white eye with a colored contact lens, but she noticed that at some point he had removed it, bringing his eyes back to their heterochromic state, along with removing the dye from his hair. His Van Dyke was already starting to regrow. His whole way of moving, of speaking, seemed to have changed as well, physically becoming the Diogenes that she remembered from almost four years ago, but mentally different; not so hard-edged, not nearly so arrogant and acerbic.

“On the right,” he said, his hand moving from the chromed wheel toward a cluster of tiny islands covered with palmettos, “are the keys called the Rattlesnake Lumps.”

Constance gazed in their direction. The sun was low on the horizon to her left, a great yellow globe throwing a dazzling path across the water, painting the tiny islands in a golden light. Everywhere she looked there were low islands, uninhabited and wild. While she had never really thought much about the Florida Keys, the beauty and serenity of this place — and its tropical isolation — was something she never would have expected. The water was shallow — she could see the bottom zipping along below — but Diogenes handled the boat with sureness, apparently knowing the shallow, winding channels by heart.

“That little key to the left is called Happy Jack, and the one ahead is Pumpkin Key.”

“And Halcyon?”

“Soon, my dear. Soon. That large key on the right, almost entirely mangrove, is called Johnston Key.”

He turned the wheel and the boat eased left, bringing them toward the setting sun, passing Happy Jack on the left and Johnston on the right.

“And that, straight ahead, is Halcyon Key.”

Beyond Johnston, silhouetted in gold, she saw a large island surrounded by four tiny humps. As the boat approached, a long beach came into view, with a low, sandy bluff at one end, and beside it the white rooflines of a large house. Mangroves extended across the lower two-thirds of the island. The islets were also clusters of mangroves, some with tiny beaches at the seaward end. A long pier extended from the key, with a little wooden gazebo at its terminus.

Diogenes brought the boat in smoothly to where the dock made an L. He threw out a couple of fenders, reversed the engine for a moment, and the boat came to rest. He killed the engine, hopped out, tied up, and held out his hand. She grasped it and stepped out on the weathered pier.

“Welcome,” Diogenes said. He reached into the rear cockpit of the boat and pulled out her things. “Do I dare say, welcome home?”

Constance paused a moment on the pier and breathed in. The air was rich and fragrant with the sea, and the sun was just setting into the palms that fringed the beach. To her right she could make out, beyond the scattering of more uninhabited keys, the great expanse of the Gulf.

Two awkward pelicans sat on posts side by side at the far end of the pier.

“You are rather quiet, my dear.”

“This is all very new to me.” She inhaled, braced herself, tried to shake the feeling of being a stranger; of venturing into unknown and dangerous territory. She wondered, briefly, if she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life and would come to regret it bitterly. But no: she had to forge ahead and not look back.

“Tell me about the island,” she asked.

“Halcyon Key is about nine acres in extent,” said Diogenes, strolling along the dock with her luggage in his hands. “Six of that is mangrove and the rest palm trees, sandy beaches, and that bluff, there, which is unusual for the Keys.”

As they walked down the pier, the two pelicans raised their wings and flapped heavily away. Reaching the end of the pier, Constance followed Diogenes along a wooden walkway above the beach, through a cluster of mangroves, which suddenly opened into a wide area covered with sugary sand, shaded by numerous royal palms rising above lush gardens. In the middle of this open area stood a large, two-story Victorian house painted white, with wraparound verandas on both floors and a square tower rising at one end. It was a sprawling, airy house, the roof peaks and gables shining in the light of the setting sun.

“It was built in 1893 by a wealthy Bostonian,” said Diogenes, “who retired here with his wife. They had romantic ideas of turning it into an inn, but once here they found it unrealistic and lonely and soon left. After that it had a string of impecunious owners and went downhill — until I bought it twenty years ago and had it restored to its original splendor. We’re surrounded on all sides by the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge. This key with its house was grandfathered in when the refuge was created.”

“I don’t see any boats around.”

“The water’s too shallow, and the channels too tricky, for most motorboats. You’ll see kayakers in the warmer seasons, though.”

“It is beautiful,” she murmured.

“Come.” He led her up the stairs and onto the broad veranda, which looked out over the lush gardens to a wall of mangroves. He opened the door for her and she stepped inside. A front hall with walnut wainscoting led to a staircase, with a living room on the right and a library on the left, each with large fireplaces, Persian rugs, and two Venetian chandeliers. The house smelled pleasantly of polish, beeswax, and potpourri.

She felt his eyes on her, awaiting her reaction. When she said nothing, he continued: “I’d like to introduce you to my factotum.”

She looked at him sharply. “You have help?”

“Yes.” He turned. “Mr. Gurumarra?”

A man silently appeared, as if out of nowhere. He was very tall and slender, with very dark skin, an extremely wrinkled face, and a head of tight white hair. It was impossible to guess how old he was; he seemed timeless.

“Mr. Gurumarra, this is Miss Greene, who is the new resident of Halcyon Key.”

The man stepped forward and shook her hand with his own, which was dry and cool. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Greene.” He spoke very formally, with an Australian accent.

“I’m pleased to meet you as well, Mr. Gurumarra,” said Constance.

“Mr. Gurumarra is from Queensland. He is Aborigine. Whatever you need, he can fix it here or bring it to the island for you. I suspect you will be needing a new wardrobe appropriate to the warm climate. If you put together a list, Mr. Gurumarra will take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

The man seemed to melt silently back into the shadowed corridor.

“He has been with me ever since I bought the island,” said Diogenes. “His discretion is absolute. He does not cook — that is my domain — but he keeps the house in order, shops, and handles all the little details of life that I find so irksome.”