§ § § - March 8, 1980
In just a few minutes they had reached the bungalow in question; Roarke drew in a breath before knocking on the door, and after about ten seconds Mary Ann Carlin opened it. "Oh! Please come in," she said cordially, gesturing to the room's interior.
"Thank you, Miss Carlin," Roarke said, entering the room with Leslie close behind him. Mary Ann smiled at the girl.
"Hello, Leslie," she said.
"Hi, Miss Carlin," Leslie said, a little bashful. Roarke paused to regard his ward with an amused little smile; shy though she genuinely was around their guests, famous and otherwise, she somehow always managed to win them over enough to sign her autograph book, and this was true of Mary Ann Carlin as well. Leslie thanked her and glanced at Roarke, then said a little sheepishly, "Sorry for holding up the whole works, Mr. Roarke."
Roarke chuckled. "It's a small thing." Of Mary Ann he asked, "Are the accommodations satisfactory?"
"Yes, they're beautiful, Mr. Roarke," she replied enthusiastically.
Roarke smiled broadly with appreciation. "Oh, I am very pleased."
"But what happens now?" Mary Ann inquired.
For a moment Roarke hesitated, glancing at her, noticing that Valerie had been seated in a chair near the window—perhaps deliberately. Leslie, still standing near the glass-topped coffee table in a conversation nook to the right of the small entry foyer, eyed the puppet warily; but Valerie didn't move, as if she had to draw all her energy from Mary Ann and otherwise was incapable of acting on her own.
"First, I must ask you if you are sure you want to go through with this," said Roarke, studying Mary Ann with concern.
"Oh yes," Mary Ann assured him.
"Are you willing to risk the many possible dangers that will confront you?"
Mary Ann met his gaze and said quietly, "I have to." They all looked at the puppet then, and Mary Ann took a few steps toward the chair, staring pensively at it. "Valerie's influence and personality frighten me, Mr. Roarke. I'm afraid she wants to take possession of me. And I've gotta get her out of my mind for forty-eight hours so I can decide what to do with my life!"
"That is precisely the danger," Roarke said. "You see, I can accomplish what you wish only by making an extension of your split personality."
"What do you mean?" Mary Ann asked, confused.
"I must make the division absolutely complete, by giving life—" Roarke caught himself at Mary Ann's taken-aback reaction, and corrected, "Apparent life—to your other half."
They looked at the still, silent puppet again, and Mary Ann ventured finally, "You mean...bring Valerie to life?" Roarke nodded solemnly, and Mary Ann's face split into a disbelieving grin. "But that's impossible; she's a wooden dummy!"
"Oh, he can do it," said Leslie, catching Mary Ann's surprised attention; the girl bit her lip and slanted a glance at Roarke, mumbling, "I just wish you didn't have to."
Roarke cast her a brief glance of reassurance before focusing on Mary Ann again and explaining gently, "Miss Carlin, this is Fantasy Island. Things are possible here which can occur no other place." Again Mary Ann eyed Valerie, and Roarke added, "I'm sorry, but there is no other way—so you must decide if you are willing to risk it."
"Risk it? I'll do anything to be completely free of her for a weekend."
"Very well," Roarke murmured assent, and with that he turned to face the chair, and the puppet, head-on. Clutching her autograph book, Leslie edged over to stand beside her guardian, watching him carefully, though without saying a word; though she had never seen him do something like this before, she knew this would require full concentration on his part. She also had no doubt he could indeed bring Valerie to life, and her dread of seeing a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood Valerie was enough to glue her to his side. Mary Ann gave her a questioning look, and she smiled faintly, putting a finger briefly to her lips.
Roarke released a breath, settled himself and stared intently at Valerie, without moving or acknowledging either Leslie or Mary Ann. The room dimmed, with Valerie's chair and the three of them in pools of soft light; Roarke frowned a bit in concentration, never breaking his nearly unblinking stare. For a long moment, no one moved; then the room darkened entirely, and Leslie gasped softly to herself.
Flickering, pulsing dashes, swirls and spirals of light in rainbow colors spangled the room as if they were in a discothéque; again Leslie turned her attention to her guardian and thus noticed Mary Ann, on his other side, look up and around them in bewilderment at the lights all over the walls and ceiling. Roarke was statue-still, gaze fastened on Valerie as if the puppet were all that existed. Two spots of light highlighted Valerie's eyes, flashing in rotating red, blue and green at such speed the individual colors were all but indiscernible. The disco colors pulsed and swirled; Leslie even thought she heard some sort of ominous sound effects to go with it, but the room was unearthly quiet otherwise, and she began to inhale and exhale deeply, deliberately, to stave off the fluttering in her gut. Mary Ann spared her one last glance before her eyes were drawn to Valerie, where they remained.
With an abrupt hiss, three glacier-blue lights, like lasers, snapped on, centering on Valerie's eyes and the oversized faux gem on one of the puppet's hands that served as the suggestion of a ring; the lights from Valerie's eyes seemed to connect with two identical lights blazing from Mary Ann's eyes. The ventriloquist herself was caught as still as Roarke, gaze locked on Valerie; she didn't even seem to breathe.
The lasers vanished from Mary Ann's eyes and she shifted her stance as if unaware anything had happened; but the lights remained on Valerie, their eerie pale blue making Valerie's head look like a skull. Leslie swallowed and looked up at Roarke, but he still hadn't moved, was still glaring hard at the puppet.
At last the laser lights faded, followed slowly by the colored disco effects, and the room fell pitch-black and silent once again. After a few seconds, normal lighting returned, and Leslie squinted briefly before focusing on the figure in the chair. No longer did it contain a wooden puppet; now it held the figure of a coldly beautiful brunette, dressed in Valerie's top hat and tuxedo jacket and ruffled blouse. She sat in the puppet's exact pose, gazing doll-like at the opposite wall, with the faintest of smiles.
Mary Ann asked in almost a whisper, "Is she really alive, Mr. Roarke?"
"Yes," Roarke murmured, his gaze still glued to Valerie. Leslie found herself staring at Valerie too, on her guard, wondering how anyone who was truly alive could sit there like a doll, so still and vacant. Then Roarke turned to Mary Ann. "And how do you feel, Miss Carlin?" he queried softly.
Mary Ann lifted her shoulders and gazed back at him, her expression one of quiet joy. "Wonderful. I've never felt freer or better."
Roarke cracked a small, brief smile. "I am so pleased."
"Oh, and I don't want to waste a minute of it. In fact, George asked me to have lunch with him and take a tour around the island. I'm gonna find him right now." Mary Ann took a last look at Valerie, then departed the bungalow with a smile. Roarke and Leslie watched her pull the door closed behind her.
"She's a very stupid girl," said a soft, icy voice from the corner, the second the door had shut after Mary Ann.
Roarke looked sharply at Valerie, who still sat in the same position, but now without the smile. Their gazes met as she turned to stare at him. "No," he contradicted quietly. "A very nice girl. And very vulnerable."
Leslie inched a little closer to Roarke as Valerie got up and approached them, her face expressionless, yet conveying a frozen malice that seemed to radiate from her. "But she really didn't understand what you said," Valerie remarked calmly. "This is a contest to see whose personality is dominant—hers, or mine."
Roarke nodded. "That's true," he conceded.
"She thinks she might want to leave this island without me." Valerie's gaze shifted at last, to the door Mary Ann had just departed through. "She's half right. I think only one of us will leave...and it'll be me—even if I have to kill her."
For a very long minute or two Roarke and Valerie stared at each other, as if in a contest of their own, blue eyes and dark ones locked together as though each trying to bore into the other, to erode the other down. Leslie, beginning to feel mesmerized, squeezed her own eyes shut and lowered her head; and for the first time Valerie seemed to notice her standing there. She eyed the girl up and down, noticed the book Leslie still held, and smirked. "Did you have sweet little Mary Ann sign that?" she asked.
Startled, Leslie looked up into Valerie's frozen blue eyes, and automatically nodded, unable to say a word. Valerie snickered; it was not a pleasant, or even amused, sound. "Good thing you did. That might be the last time she ever signs an autograph." With that, she mockingly doffed her hat at Roarke. "See you later on."
Only when she had left the bungalow did Roarke seem to relax; he turned to Leslie and stilled again, surprise on his features. "Did you know you're shivering?"
Leslie hugged herself, eyes fixed on the chair where Valerie had been sitting. "She's...she's like a walking iceberg, Mr. Roarke."
Roarke nodded, gathering her into a hug. "I'm afraid so, Leslie. But we have no hand in the events to come. Only Miss Carlin and Valerie can determine the outcome of their contest—and Miss Carlin can rely on no one but herself if she is to win."
‡ ‡ ‡
Early that evening, with Mana'olana helping out at the hotel restaurant after Jean-Claude, the irascible French chef there, had called Roarke insisting on help with feeding a crowd of revelers at a wedding reception, Roarke took Leslie and Tattoo over to the pond restaurant for the evening meal. "Order whatever you like," he said, gesturing at the menus on their table. "Think of it as a special treat."
"Especially you, Leslie," Tattoo teased. "You won't have Mana'olana on your back telling you to eat till you explode."
They all laughed at that, and perused menus for several minutes before making their decisions and relaying their orders. The waitress, a blonde whose hair was cropped somewhat similarly to the style of skater Dorothy Hamill's and who was clad in a strapless bikini top and a short sarong skirt, asked what they wanted to drink; again, Roarke told them to order what they wanted, and Leslie decided to try an exotic tropical punch consisting of several island fruits—papaya, mango, pineapple, guava and passion fruit, along with a few she had never tried or even heard of, such as rambutan, dragon fruit and something called acai berry. Tattoo went for a couple of fingers of bourbon, and Roarke opted for a low-alcohol rosé wine. The waitress delivered these in short order and told them their meals should arrive in about twenty minutes, then departed.
"I'll be starving by then," Leslie murmured.
"Mana'olana would love to hear you say that," Tattoo said, teasing again.
"Don't tell her, or I'll sic Chester on you," Leslie threatened with a grin.
Roarke laughed. "Sometimes I think you two are brother and sister, the way you carry on. Did all the deliveries come through as anticipated, my friend?"
"No problem, boss, except for one thing. Mr. Sensei at the ferry dock said they told him that shipment of weird bird feathers you ordered last month was delayed. He thinks it should be here by the middle of next week, but he's gonna check and get back to us."
"Good, good," said Roarke.
"Weird bird feathers?" Leslie repeated.
"They are for a fantasy I have scheduled for later in the season," said Roarke. "I can't brook much more delay, though; those feathers will be needed soon if the item they're to be a part of is to be ready in time. I'll call Mr. Sensei myself on Wednesday." Tattoo nodded, and they fell silent for a few minutes, sipping at their drinks.
Leslie glanced idly toward the entrance and stared when she saw a familiar figure pause there before entering. Valerie had changed from her half-tux to a close-fitting, low-cut black evening gown, and admittedly looked stunning in it; but her icy beauty had warmed very little, if at all. Roarke noticed Leslie staring, followed her gaze and froze in the act of lifting his glass to his lips. Tattoo in turn caught sight of him and looked around as well, his eyebrows shooting up at sight of Valerie. Several men leaving the restaurant passed her, eyeing her with naked lasciviousness, but she seemed not to see them.
They watched Valerie stroll through the restaurant, heading deliberately for a table near the back, where they could now see George Reardon was sitting, clearly waiting for Mary Ann Carlin. Valerie leaned over the back of a chair and said something; he stood up, they had a few words, and then she reached out and pushed him back into his chair with her hand on his shirt placket.
"Isn't there something we can do?" Leslie asked Roarke at last.
"Leslie, have you forgotten what I told you in Miss Carlin's bungalow?" Roarke admonished her. "Not only can we not do anything, it's not our place. It is Miss Carlin's battle to fight, and win—if she has the strength."
She sighed, and as if drawn, her gaze shifted back to the rear table—just as Valerie got to her feet, pulling George Reardon to his and gently tugging him along with her to the entrance and out the door. Reardon didn't resist; he looked a little puzzled, but he put up no protest, and they even saw him smile a bit as Valerie towed him out.
"Who was that?" Tattoo asked.
"Valerie," said Leslie, and at his blank look, elaborated, "You know—Mary Ann Carlin's puppet."
Tattoo did a double-take and stared at the empty entranceway as if he could still see Valerie through the walls. "That was Valerie?" Eyes nearly round, he released a long, low wolf whistle. "That was one sexy chick!"
Leslie snorted and muttered, "You're just hopeless." Roarke chuckled, but Leslie could see the concern lurking in his dark eyes, and had a horrible feeling she knew what Valerie's intentions were toward George Reardon.
It was full dark when they got home; Tattoo glanced at the clock and decided to go back to his cottage and retire for the night, wishing Roarke and Leslie a good night's rest as he departed. It was nearly time for "King's Castle", Leslie's favorite show, and she was about to make her excuses to go up and watch when Roarke paused in front of his desk, frowning slightly as if having just belatedly remembered something. "What's wrong?" Leslie asked. "I was going up to watch 'King's Castle', but if you need me..."
Roarke came back to the moment and shook his head, smiling. "No, that's all right, Leslie. Go on and watch if you like; there shouldn't be any problems. I'm simply going to make a check on Mr. Farley."
"Oh. Well, I hope he's doing okay," Leslie said, and Roarke smiled, watching her go up the stairs before slipping through into the time-travel room.
Some few seconds later he settled down on the tiny porch of a little hut, raised on stilts off the dusty ground; the dried palm fronds that comprised its walls fluttered slightly in a soft breeze. He had to wait only a moment before David Farley popped out from between the two entrance flaps, strapping a thin leather belt around his middle; he seemed to sense something, looked around and blinked. "Mr. Roarke!"
"I had a strong feeling you wished to see me, Mr. Farley," Roarke said.
Farley let out a breath and his shoulders sagged. "Look, it's not working out. It was bad enough when my real life was wiped out, but...but now my fantasy life is being wiped out too! Things've gone to hell here with everybody I care about. I—I can't even explain why I've been gone for two years. Not to Prester John and especially not to Mara." Roarke nodded, and Farley turned away in defeat. "How could they understand?"
"You disappoint me, Mr. Farley," Roarke remarked. "It seems you've failed."
Farley's head whipped around and he gaped. "Failed? Well, it's not my fault—"
"Why, you told me you were Jungle Man," Roarke interrupted him. "I believed you. But you are thinking and talking like Mr. David Farley, unemployed actor."
"Wait a minute—!" Farley began.
Roarke overrode him, arising. "Do you wish to leave Fantasy Island and leave those people to their fate? Is that your concept of the character you said you had become?" Farley started to shake his head and say something, and Roarke pressed him, "Is it?"
Farley hesitated, then looked away, shame settling over his poster-idol-handsome features. Roarke relented a bit and resumed his seat, observing, "The alternative is to continue your fantasy, to be Jungle Man—a man of action, and above all, courage. A man who lets his actions speak for themselves, and as I recall in nearly three hundred episodes, a man who never explained anything to anybody." Farley seemed to be considering these words, and Roarke smiled. "Isn't that the simple directness you and the audience loved?"
Farley stared at his feet for a moment, but still remained silent; once more Roarke arose, gesturing to the dusty little clearing in front of the hut and the abundant, trackless rain forest trying to encroach upon it. "There is Jungle Man's world," he said. "Your world—if you make it yours."
Farley turned back to stare at him for a moment, then gazed out into the trees, drifting toward the ladder that led off the little porch into the clearing. "You know, Mr. Roarke, I'm beginning to see what you mean," he mused, half to himself. That was more than enough for Roarke, who smiled to himself, turned and departed without a sound.