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hadn’t voiced the question that was in his mind. “But Missy never wants to go and I always have to talk her into it. She’s a scaredy-cat.”

“What about the night I met you on the beach? Missy wasn’t with you then.”

“I was looking for Snooker and Missy wouldn’t come. She said he was gone and wasn’t coming back and there wasn’t any use looking for him.” Robby looked dejected. “I guess she was right,” he said softly, as if the admission hurt him.

“Do you ever see anyone else when you’re out in the storms?”

Robby thought about it and decided that the only time he’d actually seen anyone was a few weeks earlier. “We met Old Man Riley once. He told us stories about the Indians, and how they used to kill people on the beach and hold ceremonies and all kinds of stuff. But that’s all.”

They walked in silence for a while as Brad tried to make sense out of what Robby had said. It seemed, on the surface, as if nothing particularly unusual was happening. And yet, Brad was sure there was something else just beneath the surface. He decided to ask one more question.

“Aren’t you ever frightened when you’re out by yourself and the storms are blowing?”

Robby Palmar looked bewildered. “No,” he finally said. “Why should I? I belong here.” Then, before Brad could absorb what he had said or question him about the previous night, Robby turned and began running back to the house. Brad watched him go and wondered what he had meant. Wasn’t Robby, like the rest of his family, a stranger here? How could he “belong”?

As soon as Brad returned to the house Glen drew him aside, his expression a mixture of curiosity and concern. “Well?” he asked expectantly.

“I don’t know,” Brad said slowly, wishing he could come up with an easy explanation for the events that were ensnaring Clark’s Harbor. “It has something to do with the storms. Robby says they ‘excite’ him. And if they excite him they must do the same to other people. Only they don’t calm the other people down. The storms must turn them into monsters instead.”

Brad didn’t tell Glen what Robby had said about Missy. For the moment, he decided, he would keep it to himself. At least until he had a chance to talk to Missy directly.

As the afternoon light began to fade Dr. Bradford Randall stared out over the Pacific Ocean and tried to keep the dogs of fear that were nibbling at the edges of his consciousness at bay.

There was an explanation for what was happening around him. He could find it.

But even if he found it he wasn’t sure he could do anything about it. He remembered the old adage: everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Maybe there was nothing that could be done about it.

23

Elaine Randall hadn’t slept well. She was uneasy in their new surroundings, but there was something more—what Brad had told them the night before. It hadn’t sounded logical. And yet she knew that weather could affect people. Ionization, the Santa Ana winds, that sort of thing. But here, in Clark’s Harbor? It may not have made sense, but it was frightening. So she had lain awake most of the night, listening to the steady roar of the surf. And thinking.

Twice she had gotten up, both times without disturbing Brad, and stared out at the beach. It was clear and she had seen the Big Dipper glowing brightly in the black sky. A half-moon had turned the beach a burnished pewter tone.

Near dawn she had finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

Now she was up, battling with the recalcitrant wood stove, poking at the remains of a dead fire. Rebecca had showed her how to bank the fire last night, but Elaine wasn’t sure it had worked. She grasped a poker in her right hand. A small bellows sat on top of the stove, ready for her to use in the unlikely event a spark should appear. She jabbed viciously at the largest chunk of wood remaining in the firebox, and was surprised when it broke in two and exposed its glowing interior.

She crammed a wad of newspaper into the firebox, picked up the bellows, and began frantically pumping. She heard Brad come into the kitchen but was too intent on getting the fire going to offer more than a muttered “good morning.”

Brad watched her for a few minutes, then took the bellows out of her