This posting is in response to a request from Misheemom. Though part of it was posted as a preface to Ultimate Reckoning under the MagicSwede1965 account, I decided it might be fun to post the whole thing in order to provide just a touch of extra backstory for Leslie, as well as some insight into her mother's thinking. Enjoy!
§ § § -- April 1965 – Plainville, Connecticut
"This has to be the most harebrained scheme I've ever heard of," Michael Hamilton complained in exasperation. "Come on, Shannon, everybody knows that man's a fraud."
Michael's wife Shannon, eight and a half months pregnant, mirrored his exasperated expression. "Are you 'everybody', Michael?"
He threw his hands in the air. "I don't know what in hell makes you insist on taking this trip when you're in the last month of your damned pregnancy, and all so you can ask some glorified magician a few questions! Do you realize just how much of my hard-earned money you're about to blow on a certified quack? He's a swindler, Shannon! Just an over-celebrated scam artist with a well-oiled publicity machine!"
"And just how much do you know about him, anyway?" Shannon demanded. "All your opinions about him are exactly that, Michael—opinions, and uninformed ones at that. You're completely different from the man I used to know. Ever since I got pregnant, all of a sudden you've turned cold and hard. Tell me the truth. You never wanted this baby, did you? For heaven's sake, you've even objected to my visits to the doctor."
Michael looked guilty, just long enough that Shannon drew in a stunned breath of realization. "My God…you really didn't want the baby."
Michael blew out a gusty sigh and half turned away from her. "We had everything going for us before you got pregnant, Shannon. Now we're going to be saddled with a kid that'll bog us down and prevent us from doing all the things we've dreamed of doing."
"Interesting that that should concern you now," Shannon observed, scowling, "when we didn't do any of those things before I found out I was pregnant. I keep telling you, you should come to Fantasy Island with me. Wasn't traveling one of those things we meant to do on a regular basis when we first got married?"
"This is different," Michael insisted.
"How?" demanded Shannon. "Just because I happen to have a fantasy I want Mr. Roarke to grant, you think this couldn't be a pleasure trip that you and I could share? From all I've ever heard about it, the place is a gorgeous tropical resort to rival Hawaii or even Tahiti. It may even surpass them. I just don't understand why you're so against this trip."
Michael turned back to face her and squinted at her. "Your mother suggested this trip, didn't she. It had to be her. You'd never have thought it up by yourself."
"So what if she did? You're avoiding the question. Why don't you want me to go to Fantasy Island?"
Once more Michael turned away from her, resting his right elbow in his left hand and rubbing his forehead with his right hand, wincing and squeezing his eyes shut, as though fighting the onset of a headache. "Why do you want to go?" he countered.
Shannon hesitated before replying. It was touchy territory between her and Michael, this business of the Hamilton curse. When they had first gotten married nearly ten years before, she and Michael had spent some time with his parents, Thomas and Dora Hamilton; and during a quiet conversation on the patio, Dora had asked whether Michael and Shannon planned on having children.
"Yes," Shannon had said, at the same moment Michael had uttered a vehement "No!" A stunned silence had fallen over all four of them then, and the newlyweds had stared at each other in surprise and disbelief.
"You never told me you didn't want kids," Shannon had said, hurt. She had dreamed all her life of having a large family, as she had grown up the only child of parents who had both also been only children. "I thought for sure we'd have a nice big brood, since neither of us has any brothers or sisters. It's lonely to have no siblings."
Thomas had glanced back and forth between them and remarked, "You two should have discussed this before you got married. I thought you liked kids, Michael."
"Not enough to have my own," Michael had retorted.
Dora sighed. "Michael Roscoe, if this has anything to do with that curse…" she had begun. Both Thomas and Michael had shot her angry glares.
"Dora—" Thomas began.
"Shannon is part of this family now, and she has every right to know about the curse," Dora had stated firmly. With that, she had turned to Shannon and told her the whole sad story of the curse and its effect on the Hamiltons. It seemed that every generation of the family had been killed in a fire, always leaving just one survivor to keep the family alive. Dora had done some research, but resources and information were limited and she knew only that the curse had afflicted every generation of the family that had left any written records. Stories circulated by more recent ancestors suggested that it went back as far as the colonial days, when the Hamiltons had first arrived from the British Isles; but there was nothing with which to substantiate this.
"I think the whole curse thing is a load of crap," Michael had said when his mother was finished. "Just because it seems to be a Hamilton tradition to die in a fire, that makes it a curse?" He looked so skeptical and spoke so loudly that Shannon suspected it was a case of the Shakespearean "he doth protest too much". But she hadn't said anything at the time; the whole idea had given her food for thought, and she'd wanted to chew on it for a while. For years she'd been torn between thinking there was no point in perpetuating the family and thus the curse, and wanting to defy the thing and have children anyway. In late summer of 1964, when Shannon had discovered she was pregnant, the whole issue had been rendered academic. It was then that she'd started wondering if there were some way to find out the truth of this whole crazy legend, and had mentioned it to her mother one day. Ingunna Hansson Reed had peered at her with interest. "That curse of your husband's, then?" she had inquired in the melodious accent of her native Sweden.
"I'm afraid so, Mamma," Shannon had said. "After what happened to Thomas and Dora…" She cut herself off, pushing the memory away. In 1960 the house where Michael had grown up had burned to the ground; Thomas and Dora, trapped inside, had both perished. Shannon had remembered the curse then, too; but at the time Michael had been stunned with grief and she hadn't had much opportunity to consider it. Now that she was pregnant, it was a different story.
Ingunna nodded, her blue eyes shaded with sadness. "Such a horrible thing. Yes, min dotter, I understand your concern."
"But it's a curse," Shannon had protested, feeling foolish. "Curses aren't supposed to actually exist. They're imaginary, like ghosts and mermaids and the old Greek gods."
"Not so quickly, min lilla," Ingunna had said, raising a finger and smiling knowingly. "Don't dismiss them so. Oh, I know your late pappa raised you to believe that psychics and fortune tellers are false, and he was correct, because most of them are pretenders. But there is one who is not. One man alone on this earth can be trusted to know all about things that people today consider mythical and imaginary. And if this curse disturbs you so, then you must go to him and find out the truth." She had smiled at Shannon's perplexed stare. "His name is Mr. Roarke, and you can find him on his lovely Fantasy Island."
So after months of consideration and worry, Shannon had finally written a letter to Roarke, with her mother's help, explaining her concerns and requesting that he help her find some answers. In early April the reply had come accepting her request and enclosing a small green pass which, the letter explained, she was to hand to the ticket agent at the gate in the Honolulu airport where she would board the charter plane to Fantasy Island. She had been told to come on the weekend of April 24 and 25; her departure was now only a few days away, and ever since she had disclosed to Michael that she was going, he had been angry and argumentative, trying his worst to talk her out of the trip and then giving her the third degree when she stubbornly stuck to her decision to go.
"Shannon," Michael said, dangerously low. "Why are you going?"
She gave up. "If you really must know, it's the Hamilton curse."
Michael swore loudly and colorfully. "You actually believe in that?"
"Well, what am I supposed to think?" Shannon shouted, losing her patience with him at long last. She rarely raised her voice, so it was gratifying to her to see Michael taken aback at her sudden volume. "Your mother and father believed in that curse, and look at the way they died. Logically, you and I are going to be next, and this child might find itself the next lone survivor who has to face the damned thing and die the same way. I'm tired of all this. I want some answers, and since you have no intention of humoring me, I'm going to someone who'll take me seriously! Now does that answer your question, Michael Hamilton?" Without waiting for an answer, she shouldered past him and marched through their little ranch house to the bedroom they shared, intending to start packing.
But he followed her, silent and uncharacteristically meek. For a few minutes he stood in the doorway watching her pull a suitcase out from under the bed and lay it open atop the spread, then choose clothing for the trip and carefully fold it away inside the case. She made a production of ignoring him, until at last he heaved a great sigh and cleared his throat. "Uh…listen, did you get the doctor's okay to make this trip? It's a hell of a long way from Connecticut to the South Pacific, you know."
Shannon paused long enough to direct a cool gaze at him. "I have a note from the doctor, yes. He could see how much this bothered me and was afraid it would make me ill if I didn't address my concerns, so he cleared the way for me. Like it or not, I'm going to Fantasy Island, and I'm going to find out what this curse is all about."
Michael shrugged, and Shannon went back to her packing. Another five minutes slid by, and then she heard him grumble, "Fantasy Island. It even sounds like a fraud."
§ § § -- April 24, 1965 – Fantasy Island
Shannon gazed in wonder out the window of the little pontoon plane as it lost altitude, orbiting what must be the lushest piece of land she had ever seen. Now and then she spotted little thatched-roof huts dotting the cliffs and beaches; children playing in the sand waved at the plane as it soared past. They rounded a sheer cliff over which dropped a magnificent waterfall; somewhat beyond that, she noted a few contemporary homes through gaps between the trees. Just before the plane lowered again, she caught the barest glimpse of a white bell tower before it got swallowed by all the dense vegetation.
A few minutes later there was a gentle thump and water sprayed across her window; she turned reluctantly away from the view to gather up her things and saw the pretty Asian stewardess hovering next to her seat. "Let me help you."
"Yes, thank you," Shannon said gratefully. She had to be assisted all the way to the disembarkation ramp, as her pregnancy had made her uncommonly ungainly in the last week or so. She suspected her baby's birth wasn't all that far away and hoped there was a good hospital on the island in case she went into labor.
The stewardess relinquished her to two strong young Polynesian boys who each took an arm and guided her down the ramp. In spite of their presence, the young girls standing in rows on either side of the wooden dock still managed to drop leis over her head, and she was well and truly bedecked when she paused near some forsythia bushes, in front of a perch occupied by a large, colorful parrot which eyed her with little interest. She accepted a glass of ginger ale and sipped at it, trying to take in everything at once.
Then Shannon heard low voices over the hula-style music and spotted two men garbed entirely in white but for their black ties. The one was a pleasant-looking sort, graying at the temples but handsome and quite distinguished-looking, while the other couldn't have exceeded four feet in height. The smaller man was noticeably younger than his companion, with a shock of thick black hair. That must be Mr. Roarke, she realized, studying the taller man and thinking back over what her mother had said. If Ingunna was right, she would soon have answers to all her questions. Her mind drifted a little and she looked down at her swollen abdomen, laying a protective hand over the baby within.
"My dear guests!" exclaimed a voice suddenly, and she focused again on the tall graying man. "I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!' He raised his glass to her and to the young family who stood several yards away from her.
Shannon raised her own glass in response and found herself warming to Roarke's welcoming smile. The unsettled feeling that had been with her for so long actually seemed to recede for the first time, replaced by a hope that left her as lightheaded as if she had been imbibing champagne.
