Ottaline put down one iron as it cooled and took the other off the stove in the linen room. Providence stood just behind her folding the bed sheet. She turned and looked over her shoulder. "Make sure you fold those flat or they won't all fit in the closet."

"Yes, Ottaline," Providence said smartly. "After all you are the lady of the house."

"Stop that!"

Providence laughed. "Mrs. Ottaline Jewel Heritage, lady of Heritage place." She swept her hand to her forward dramatically and danced around the linen table with an imaginary partner. "I bet you want to kiss him, don't you?"

"That's it!" Ottaline put down the iron and lunged for her sisters.

Providence spun out of the way and ran into the kitchen across the hall then outside where Ottaline tackled her and tickled her as punishment. They two rolled in the grass soiling their pinafores and making a mess of their hair.

"All right, all right!" Providence cried when she was sore from laughing. "I take it back."

Ottaline let her up and they sat in the grass. "So you're not cross with me anymore about that?"

Providence shook her head. "No." A frown slowly came to her face and she sniffed the air. "Is something burning?"

"The ironing!" Ottaline jumped up and ran back into the house with Providence right behind her. She snatched the iron off the sheet and put it back on the stove. When she lifted the sheet she could see Providence's face through the burnt hole.

"Well at least it was one of ours," Providence said. She finished folding the other sheet while Ottaline tossed the burned one aside. "Do you want to go look at the wreckage today?"

"It's going to rain," Ottaline reasoned. "But just let me leave a note and we can go."

Providence left the room. "I'll leave it," she said.

"Make sure it's where it can be seen!" Ottaline called after her. After shutting down the linen room she went into the kitchen and took two fish strips left over from breakfast and some bread then packed it in a basket. By then Providence was finished writing the letter which she brought to Ottaline to inspect. Finding it legible the girls left the house for the shore.

/

"Mr. Richmond left no time getting the ship tugged off the rocks," Providence said as she pulled the wagon up the beach. "Some of the other children were out here the very next day trying to find treasure in the debris. Silly isn't it? Mr. Idris says it wasn't that sort of ship."

Ottaline picked up a shell and put it in the wagon then looked out to sea. Now that the ship was gone she couldn't tell where the rocks were that it got hung up on, yet she knew from her own experience that they were there, waiting.

Providence pulled the wagon up beside the peak and waded into the surf, walking slowly along with a hermit crab until it became lost in the waves. "I don't see any debris," she called to Ottaline behind her. "It's erased like it never happened."

Ottaline looked up at False Light Peak as she walked backwards. "Let's climb it," she said.

"What?" Providence gasped. "You want to go up there?"

"You've always wanted to so why not?" Ottaline said. She tied her bonnet tighter under her chin and approached the base of the cliff. She had climbed trees before and knew it was all a matter of hand and foot placement. "Just follow my lead." She grabbed hold of a protruding rock and hoisted herself up. She grabbed another and up she went some more.

"I hope no boys pass by," Providence said as she started up the cliff. "I can see your drawers."

"As long as they're white."

"Ottaline!"

Ottaline laughed. "Just concentrate on climbing," she said. Every second she checked back for her sister to make sure she was doing all right. She found the cliff strangely easy to climb as it began to slope and hand and foot placement became easier. It wouldn't be difficult for a grown man to do at all. Not even Granville.

"Are we almost to the top?" Providence called up.

Ottaline reached her hand out once more and felt grass. With a satisfied smile she hoisted herself up then turned around and helped her sister. "We did it my boon companion!" Ottaline cheered. They then went over to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the ocean.

"You can see Mr. Heritage's Island from here," Providence pointed out. "And look, I never realized how many rocks blocked Indian Cove."

"I think I can see a few deer on the island," Ottaline said. "See there just below the fog?"

Providence squinted her eyes. "That's no regular deer, that Bach!" She waved her arms. "Bach! Bach!"

Ottaline laughed. "Stop it, Rovy you sound like a chicken."

Providence dropped her arms. "But how did he do it?" She knelt down and looked down into the dark churning water. "He'd never stand that tide."

"He's a lot stronger than a man," Ottaline said. "He had to have swam."

Providence got to her feet again and looked out at the island. "You think so?"

Ottaline nodded. "Oh, Rovy look at your pinafore," she said. "The grass stains were bad enough, now there's dirt in it."

Providence smeared at the black spots on her pinafore making a larger smudge. "Ottaline, that's not dirt that's ash. And look it's all over your boots."

Ottaline looked down at her brown boots dusted with black. Turning her hands over she looked at her sooty palms. "That couldn't be from the sheet."

They looked down at the same time and stepped back from the black spot in the grass that they hadn't noticed before.

Providence picked up a blackened stick then looked at her hands. "Someone had a fire." Her eyes grew wide as a similar expression came to her sister's face. There was a light, I saw a light.

"False Light Peak," Ottaline whispered the dangerous name.

"The legend is not a legend," Providence said.

"Ships lured in so they would wreck," Ottaline said. "They weren't pirates, Rovy." She put her hand over her heart to keep it from jumping out of her chest.

"And someone is doing it again," Providence said.

"I bet I know who," Ottaline said. "How long has the Richmond family lived here?"

"I don't know."

"Think, Rovy," Ottaline said. "Mr. Idris' family made money as planters right? Mr. Heritage's family was in the shipping industry. The Gentry's own mines. The Vanderbilt's are into railroads and I could go on and on but I have never heard how the Richmonds made their money. Never."

"But what about the plantation in Georgia?"

"That's Kennedy money," Ottaline said. "Esau Richmond just owns them. He owns everyone in his family and I'm starting to think he owns a few souls in this town too."

Providence shook her head in confusion. "But if the False Light legend is real then what about the others? Are they're really monsters in Richmond Wood?"

Ottaline looked down at the ash pile then at her sister. "There's a little truth in every legend."

/

When the girls got home they saw a motorcar out front where the driver stood smoking to pass the time. They went into the house and Ottaline went into the parlor to announce their return but stopped short when an old man turned to her.

"Is this one of them?" he asked Granville who was seated across from him.

"This is Ottaline Sabbath," Granville said. "She's the eldest." He looked pass the old man to Ottaline. "Please go get your sister and return."

Ottaline nodded and went out back to get Providence. She could feel her heart pounding as she did not know what was about to happen. By the time she reached the back porch tears where in her eyes and she could barely speak.

"Rovy, Mr. Heritage wants us both in the parlor." She managed.

Noting the distress in her sister's face Providence stopped tending her rabbits and followed her inside. When they reached the parlor they stopped in the doorway but Granville beckoned them inside with his hand. The girls sat neatly next to him on the couch with Ottaline in the middle, directly in front of the old man.

"Ottaline, Providence, this is Mr. Maxwell he's the benefactor of the colored orphanage in Charleston."

"Pleased to meet you girls," the man said. He then pointed his finger. "This one looks a lot like her grandmother." He pointed at Providence.

Providence looked at her sister for understanding but Ottaline looked ready to cry.

"I was at the orphanage when your grandmother left your father and his brother in their care. I tried to reason with her to keep them but she said she couldn't although I offered her employment in my home. She said she already had a child at home and just couldn't afford two more."

"Two?" Providence questioned.

"More?" Ottaline said. "You mean our father had siblings?"

"Yes," Maxwell said. "I believe the other boy was adopted."

Ottaline and Providence looked at each other. They had family out there and maybe one of them would want them.

"The only other help I can give you is the name Carrie," Maxwell said. "That was your grandmother called herself. I told your father this when he came to work on my place but I guess he wasn't that interested. Maybe he was bitter. It often goes like that with unwanted children." He sighed. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you more."

Ottaline dabbed her tears. "So you're not sending us away?" she said to Granville.

"Of course not," Granville said. "I wanted you to hear what Mr. Maxwell had to say about your family."

"Do you think we can find them?" Providence asked.

"It is possible," Mr. Maxwell answered. "You just have to ask the right people and search the right places." He smiled. "Just keep knocking, little one, you'll be surprised of the doors that will open to you."