"We've waited far too long, incinerate this! To all the anarchy inside we can't escape, set it off, let it all burn down! To all the hell inside that's been controlling me, set it off, set it off, watch it all burn down!" Alrighty then, let's burn it.

Chapter Nine: Two Little Indians, Sitting in the Sun

It took Velma almost twenty minutes to drag Jennifer up the stairs and into her room. The woman's body was a lot heavier than she looked, and having to take care not to mess up any possible evidence made it even more cumbersome. By the time the feat was accomplished the sun was beginning to set and its fingers of light painted pink, orange, and yellow streaks across the sky. Letting go of the corpse, she swiped a hand across her forehead to rid it of the dampness before dropping to her knees beside the body. Jennifer's eyes were half-open and her neck was bent at an awkward angle. Rigor mortis hadn't set in yet. She figured she had a little more than two hours at the least. That meant she'd have to work fast.

Quickly she dug her fingers into the pockets of Jennifer's dress. She felt something, and, pulling it out, wondered where the older woman would have gotten such a thing. A miniature noose, knotted from the grey yarn she'd seen her using for knitting.

"I didn't know you could knot as well as knit," she thought aloud. As she turned it over in her hands something crusty brushed off of it. "Salt…" So Marianne was the one who had knotted it, and not Jennifer. Jennifer had not knotted it. That sounded funny. A smile played over her lips. "So you cannot. You cannot knot." Glancing down at the body so obviously dead, she amended, "Could not, cannot; cannot sounds better. I've come to an agreement with corny puns."

The question still remained. Why did Marianne knot a noose and keep it in her pocket? Maybe Jennifer's possessions would yield something else. Velma felt slightly awkward digging through the pockets of a cadaver, but that feeling was soon erased once she saw what else was in Jennifer's pocket.

She withdrew a crumpled, illegible piece of paper about the size of a business card, presumably ruined by seawater. Written on the back, in her own handwriting, was the warning, 'I thought I said tell No One about the passageway in the library. Instead you told Everyone. Fool. Enjoy dying – it will not be merciful.'

What was the significance of the capitalized pronouns? First the Curly Sewing Iron crew, now this again. She'd had to tell to prove her innocence, she justified to herself. If she even was innocent. "Everyone and no one," she mused. "Everyone starts with 'e'. Marianne, Sylvester, Jennifer, Daphne." Her eyebrows shot up. All four had the letter 'e' in their names. Even Sylvester's first name had an 'e'. But the No One? "No one…no one. Why no one, Owen?"

Click. There went the puzzle piece. No one and Owen could easily be switched. So tell Owen? That didn't make sense. The puzzle piece fit, but was it a false piece? She didn't know. Maybe. But for now that was all she had to go on.

And she would take whatever help she could get.

oOo

Daphne's side ached from running so far so fast. She was on the far side of the island now; but even that distance couldn't feel far enough. The waves crashing against the rocks below her reminded her of every death over the past weekend.

Crash! Freddy.

Crash! Mrs. Pickett.

Crash! Scooby.

Crash! Pickett.

Crash! Rogers.

Crash! Sylvester.

Crash! Marianne.

Crash! Jennifer.

Every person invited to Manse Island had come of their own free will. Every person who came to Manse Island was or would end up dead. She lowered herself to the ground, hugging her knees and staring out at the sunset. "Two little Indians, sitting in the sun. One got frizzled up and then there was one," she chanted softly. "One got frizzled up and then there was one. One got frizzled up. Daphne got frizzled up." It didn't sound very pleasant to be frizzled up, she decided. She wondered if the ferry master would see the pattern of the deaths and connect it to the rhyme. Maybe he would try saying the rhyme with the appropriate names in the place of 'one'. How would that sound? "Ten little Indians, going out to dine. Fred choked his little self and then there were nine," she tested. Somehow that made the death even more morbid. No, she hoped he wouldn't use their names in the rhyme.

Marianne's dead eyes stared at her from the water. She cringed at the dull glint of sun on waves and turned away. Since the deaths had sped up so rapidly this afternoon, she had her suspicions that there wouldn't be anyone left alive to tell the ferry master the story of ten little Indians who were snuffed out on Manse Island.

She made herself stand again. The short sitting session had done almost nothing for her aching feet and sides, but she needed to find a good hiding place to sleep for the night. She was not going back to the house no matter what. Her stomach rumbled and she glowered down at it. "I'm not going to go back just so I can eat. I won't starve in one night." While the light lasts, Daphne told herself, I'll try to find a shack or something. If it comes down to it I can hole up in one of the houses in the old fishing village. I'm sure the past won't mind some company.

oOo

Daphne's room hadn't had a hook on the ceiling. This was frustrating. None of the rooms did. Shaggy's had been the hardest for her to search, but she pretended he was just asleep and avoided looking at the sheet-covered body. As a result the search of his room was probably the quietest search of a ceiling ever accomplished.

Velma waited until the sun had disappeared behind the trees – but not the water; she knew the sun couldn't be completely gone yet due to the brilliant pink and salmon in the sky – before she crawled into bed with the book she'd settled on earlier. As long as Owen really wasn't her, the locked door to her room was comforting even though she'd methodically gone through the entire house and locked all doors to the outside. The quiet 'weeeek' of the book's binding as she opened it reassured her that this, at least, held some semblance of normality. She glanced over at the clock. Eight thirty-four pm. She'd turn out the light at ten if she hadn't finished it yet.

It was the middle of chapter five when her vision blurred the words on the page and her eyelids closed. If she had checked the clock again she would have seen it was only nine.

oOo

Daphne snuggled down as best she could in the hay she'd swept together. A hayloft wasn't her first choice for a makeshift bedroom, and it certainly wasn't a five-star hotel, but it would do. Her eyes were closed almost before she had finished finding a comfortable position.

The sun had gone down. The island was dark. And it was nine ten.

oOo

She jolted awake, knocking the book to the floor. What was wrong with her? Velma never fell asleep reading. She stretched and looked at the clock. Nine fifty-seven? Jinkies, she'd dozed awhile. She supposed she could allow herself a little longer than usual since she seemed to have already gotten some sleep. "Eleven tonight," she promised as she leaned down from the bed to pick up the book. "Let's see, I was on page eighty-six…just about to get into the good stuff." Flipping to her place, she settled back against the pillow to continue.

There are some fundamental plasma parameters that must be established before we continue. Here ion mass is expressed in the proton mass units μ = mi / mp. Temperature is expressed in eV. K is the wavelength; Z represents the charge state; k represents Boltzmann's constant; y represents adiabatic index (see chapter six for more on this subject). Quantities used but not listed here are in Gaussian cgs units.

Absent-mindedly she turned to chapter six and dog-eared that page for reference. This was going to be a good read.

The clock read 10:12.

oOo

Daphne woke up just as something creaked closed. Something else went click-click-click just before the searing pain in her left hand registered. Her fingers were trapped above her head. Twisting her neck to see, she found herself somewhere she never would have thought she'd end up.

Inside an oven.

There weren't any lights on outside, but she knew it would be useless anyway. By now her murderer would already be gone. The clicking she'd heard had to have been the oven turning on. She shifted, trying to stay above the swiftly heating coils below her. Staying completely away from all the heat would be impossible though, as she soon found out.

Her legs gave way and she hit the burning coils. Her mouth opened in a silent scream of pain and terror. Then she realized. She was feeling again. This was first-person Daphne, she could feel, she wasn't depersonalized anymore.

She was burning. She was alive – no, she was more than alive she thought with a queer sense of giddiness. She was burning and she was more than alive. Funny that it took dying to feel this way. She couldn't feel her physical body now, but she could see. She was dying. She was burning.

She was more than alive.

It was 9:31.

oOo

In the morning Velma awoke to a few rays of light trying to claw their way across her face. She rolled over to the other side and held the pillow over her head to shield her eyes. After a few minutes of contemplating whether staying in bed to sleep in a little longer or getting up to continue investigating would be more beneficial, she finally gave up and climbed out of bed to get her glasses. "It's only seven thirty?" she whispered incredulously, then felt silly. Why was she whispering? She was the only one in the house.

Unless Daphne came back to kill you and is waiting outside.

She wouldn't do that. Why would she do that?

Why not?

Because I don't have a motive for her.

Just because you aren't smart enough to come up with a motive for her doesn't mean she doesn't have one.

She flinched at the insult her mother's voice delivered. She knew she was smart. But the truth in the thought still stung. Daphne had no motive…that she could think of. That had always been the disclaimer she'd had to add. She sat down at the desk and drew out her notebook. She'd forgotten to cross off Jennifer's motive yesterday. Flipping it open, she reached for her pencil. When she touched nothing but the surface of the desk, she started and looked. Oh. She'd bumped it and made it roll a little ways away. No harm done.

Scratch-scratchity-scratch. Jennifer Morley now had no part in her notebook. Velma smiled. No part in her notebook and no part in her life, what little she had left of it, that was.

All of a sudden she jumped up, eyes wide. Today was the day the ferry master would come back. She'd made it! She could get off Manse Island alive; she wouldn't have to be frizzled up or hung or however her death was supposed to be. She could have danced. "Except that I'm a terrible dancer," she mumbled, grinning uncontrollably. What the heck? Nobody could see her.

She ended up tripping over the chair behind her and falling onto the ground with a heavy thud. The seat of the chair jabbed painfully into her right hip. Carefully untangling herself from the chair, she stood and surveyed the damage done.

"See, that's why when people do happy dances, you don't have one." She was still grinning. She righted the chair and moved it under the desk. Nothing could spoil the relief she was experiencing right now. She could go home. It would be a little bit difficult to explain the story of Manse Island to Gram and Gramps, but she would manage. What could they do, kill her? She laughed out loud at the thought. She'd survived. That was all that mattered. They'd learn to understand, and if they didn't?

Her grin widened. There was still the possibility she was Owen for them to contend with.