"Restful, like Devon on a Monday, cooling my fingers in the bay – we've been learning a song, but it's a long and lonely blues." Ah, yes, the sweet song of dying in an orderly fashion.

Three: Eight Little Indians, Travelling in Devon

Velma watched quietly as Shaggy sifted through the pile of fishing nets on top of Schooner Rock. He glanced up and caught her eyes, a smile playing over his face. "If it makes you feel better, like, I think you're a good girl."

She couldn't look away. His eyes were teasing, but there was an underlying glint of seriousness. He meant what he said. "You don't care about my…problem?"

"Psychoneurosis? Nah. Some of my best friends are crazy." He stood up and raked his long fingers through his hair, sending involuntary shivers chasing down her spine. "Nice view up here, don't you think?"

She finally tore her gaze from him and instead stared out at the mist-covered ocean. The churning waves and seawater blowing violently into her face were actually calming, she realized. "I like it. The fog just hides the mainland."

"It's strangely comforting to think that we can't see anyone, and they can't see us. Even with a murderer on the island. Does that make me weird?" he asked, as if to himself. He walked forward three steps to come beside her.

"No," she said softly, scared almost to say it. "It just makes you like the rest of us."

"I don't think so." He hesitated a moment, then his hand shyly crept up to take hers. "I think we're different. You were getting rid of persecution, and I was protecting the natural world as it is. The rest of them don't have real reasons – money, jealousy, even annoyance. You see, Velma? We're the odd ones out."

The odd ones out. She could bear being different, again, if he was too. "Why do you suppose Owen brought us here then, if we don't belong?"

"Oh, but don't we? We're just different. We still escaped the law, only we had better motives for committing the crimes we did." Abruptly he turned, letting go. "Here, we've finished our assignment. Sylvester did say we shouldn't – what word did he use again? Oh yeah - like, lollygag, didn't he?"

She couldn't suppress a laugh. "Yes, that's what he said. Was there anything interesting in the fishing nets?"

"You mean besides some surprisingly alive bugs? Not really," he admitted.

They were quiet as they made their way down the weathered path. Velma stumbled along behind Shaggy, trying to keep up with his long-legged pace through the strong wind. A storm must be coming, she thought. I hope it holds off a while before it rains.

Pickett held the door for them and ushered them inside. "A storm is brewing; at best we have an hour or two," he fretted, closing the big oak door against the buffering winds. "The rest of them are in the sitting room if you'd like to join them."

Shaggy went in, but Velma's eye was drawn to something else. Yesterday she hadn't noticed the painting in the hall, but now she realized that it was…curious. It showed a blackened weeping willow tree with a twisted trunk. Beside it a shadow of a man was climbing a ladder to the sky, and in the background skeletons fought each other with fiery swords. On top of the burnt tree was a reddish-brown bird with outstretched wings and a desperate expression, entirely engulfed in flames. A bloodied series of handprints marked the trunk of the tree in the center of the painting, implying that a man had tried to climb it. For what purposes, she wasn't sure. On the ground in front of the tree a man with a torn shirt, presumably the man who had tried climbing the tree, was on his hands and knees, his anguished face turned to the night sky. He was bleeding from a wound in his chest, and sweat poured down his neck. Blood, sweat and…he wasn't crying, she realized. Blood, sweat, and one thing missing. Velma followed the man's gaze up to the sky. With a jolt she realized there were no stars. She shivered at the thought – the heavens with the stars ripped out. What a strange thing to put in one's front hall.

oOo

Scooby crept away as the others talked. He didn't mind the wind; his fur would keep him warm enough. The Great Dane left the house and began trotting down to the jetty. He'd seen a beach there, and he'd thought maybe there would be some starfish to throw back. He didn't notice the figure following a few meters behind him.

Carefully he picked his way down the rocky path to the shore. It was so steep, he thought. Perhaps he could figure out how to get back up later. Cross that bridge when he came to it and all. Down on the beach now, he sat down, finding no starfish, to watch the ocean. The rolling, wild waves looked the way his mind felt. The fishing village had dug up parts of him he hadn't thought to be alive anymore. He found himself remembering Timothy's night spells, when he would hear a whimpering and find the boy curled up on the floor, shaking and unable to wake himself. He could still see the little boy's terrified eyes, wide but unseeing, open but not awake, and when Scooby roused him the hiccupping sobs and whisper of "Thank you, Scooby. You're the bestest." Why did he drown the boy? He was selfish, so selfish, that was the only reason, and he knew it.

"Scooby?"

The quiet, sudden voice yanked him from his thoughts, but he managed not to jump. Scooby half-turned to see the brunette girl with glasses. "Rello."

"Why are you out here alone?"

"Ri ras rust rhinking."

"About what?" Timothy asked a lot of questions, too. Always asking, always inquisitive…

"Rimothy."

"Oh." She quieted and began methodically plucking what little grass there was from the sand. "Was he…nice?"

"Rice enough. Re riked to ray rith roats." He loved his little boats. Ships and pirates were a daily game. "Rhat rabout rou?"

"Me?" She folded the blades neatly. "I don't know. I guess…I guess I'm wondering if there was anything else I could have done, instead of killing them. Told somebody, maybe." She sighed and let the wind blow the stacked blades of grass away. "But nobody would have believed me."

"Rhy rot?"

"Because I'm eccentric. They would have thought it was my psychoneurosis talking, not me." She reached up and tucked some brown hair behind one ear. "But enough about my problems. What was Timothy like?"

Scooby thought for a moment. "Re ras small. Ris race ras rort of rudgy, rand ris reatures rere reasant. Ronde, rue-reyed. Red-raced. Roud, rand ralkative, rery ralkative. Re riked rasking ruestions. Rand…" He hesitated to tell her about the night spells. Why should she have to know the pain of them, barely more than a child herself? But she had asked, and she wasn't shoving the wrongness of his death in Scooby's face. "Re rad right rerrors."

"Night terrors?" There was a questioning tone that implied she hadn't known anyone who got them. "Like what?"

"Re rould ralk rinto rhe ritting room, rometimes reven routside, rand curl rup reaming rand rhimpering. Rit was ry rob to rake him up."

"Oh," she said softly. "I'm sorry, Scooby. I wouldn't have asked…I should have, really. I'm sorry."

He let himself smile for the first time since he waved good-bye to Jonathan. "Rit's okay." She hadn't known, poor girl, about Timothy at all. Curious eyes led to curious questions, then to the solemn silence of knowing. Learning really was a funny thing; one always craved it, but once it was attained one wished it could be undone. Knowledge was a burden, yes, and the young ones always thought it light enough until it was too late. Scooby watched the rollicking waves, and he knew. "Rou rould reave."

"Leave? Why?" She was shredding grass again.

"Rhe rothers rill re rooking ror rou."

"Why me, and not you?" Stubborn child.

"Ri'm rust a rog. Ro on."

"What if Owen – ?"

"Ri'm rot rared." He looked at her. "Ri'm rared of reverything, rut rot row. Rif it's rime, Ri'm ready."

She stood but waited for what seemed like eternity. "I wish I were as brave as you, Scooby. But I'm afraid I'm not. I'm not brave…"

oOo

Jennifer looked up from her knitting when she heard the door open. "Velma! What were you doing out there?"

"Talking to Scooby," responded the brunette, shaking the sea spray from her short hair. "It isn't storming yet."

"You don't need to be running around catching cold in any case," Jennifer said sternly, picking up her needles again.

"Yes, Mother," Velma said with a hint of sarcasm, causing Jennifer to remember suddenly what she had done to her real mother. She came into the sitting room and sat down carefully in the rocking chair. "Where did everyone else get off to while I was gone?"

"They're checking the island one more time," Daphne said, offering a smile. "If they find Owen, Sylvester suggested we lynch him."

The younger girl visibly flinched, paling. "Lynch? The last part of the rhyme though…"

"Well, he won't be hanging himself," Marianne said dryly, "so you needn't worry about the rhyme ending with Owen."

She relaxed. "What if they don't find Owen?"

There was a silence. Finally Jennifer said calmly, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, dear. For now, I believe I spotted a Scrabble kit on the mantle under the rhyme if anyone should like to play?"

Marianne and Daphne thought it sounded nice and got it down while Jennifer continued her obsessive knitting. Velma went to fetch a book from the library.

From time to time Jennifer would look up and twist her head around to see out the window. The wind still blew as if it intended to rival the Big Bad Wolf, and there was the occasional raindrop that ended its moment of glory on the pane of glass, but other than that the storm did not break full-force and the men did not appear. She wouldn't admit it, but the woman was beginning to feel uneasy being alone in the house. As the eldest of the group it would be her responsibility to protect the other three should Owen enter, and while her fingers were quick with the needles she doubted knitting needles would offer much protection against a ruthless killer.

At last the door banged open and the three men stumbled in. The tallest of them held a limp figure in his jacket. He staggered into the sitting room and fell to the ground, shaking with tears. Rogers looked up at them and pulled his hood back. He cradled the lifeless body, hiding its head, and choked, "He stayed in Devon…like, Scooby stayed in Devon…"

Velma went white and dropped the book with a thud to the carpeted floor, crouching beside the distraught young man. "Oh, no," she whispered, stroking the dog's dripping velvet ear. "What…how?"

"We found him on the beach," Sylvester said in a calm, quiet tone. "His head has been coshed in with a blunt, heavy object. Presumably he died before the second blow was even begun."

"But…I just…" Velma looked up to meet Rogers' eyes. Each's pain was mirrored in the face of the other.

Jennifer snapped her fingers. "Please, save tears for later. Would anyone care to tell us if Owen was found?" The way those two were situated in such close proximity set off her teacher's instinct. It took all her willpower not to call them out into the hall.

Pickett answered her question. "Owen is not anywhere on the island. Forgive me, but I fear that leaves only one conclusion."

Daphne interrupted with a rose-petal soft voice edged in hard steel. "Owen must be one of us."

The silence was deafening. "Who saw Scooby on the beach?" Sylvester asked. His iron-grey eyes roamed from one face to the next.

"I did," Velma said meekly, looking scared. "He told me to come back to the house."

"So, if no one else will speak, Miss Velma here was the last to speak with Scooby alive?" None of the company moved. Sylvester nodded as if that solved all problems and lit his pipe.

"Or," Jennifer said in a low tone, "she is simply the only one willing to admit to talking with him. I, for one, believe that if indeed Velma was Owen she would be smart enough to keep such information to herself."

"Perhaps you are Owen," challenged Sylvester, "and you're trying to divert suspicion from yourself by defending another."

"Bradley!" Marianne uncrossed her elegant long legs and gave the older man a look. "Tension is what Owen wants. Don't give a killer a knife."

Rogers stood, still cradling the third little Indian. "Velma is not Owen." He sounded so sure that Jennifer almost wondered what had been in his drink that morning. Of course, she told herself, it could have been whatever happened when they searched Schooner Rock and the surrounding area. Together. Alone… The scruffy-haired boy turned and left. His grief-laden footsteps could be heard on the stairs as he carried Scooby's body to the dog's room.

There was an awkward silence. "Well!" Pickett said abruptly, rubbing his hands together, "who would like some dinner?"