Chapter One

There was no sound but the distant calls of crows deep in the woods along the south shore. Ripples had come to the lake surface as patchy areas of morning fog rose skyward and vanished while others drifted eastward driven by the rising breeze from the west.

The entry of Jane's paddle into the water was nearly silent as she pressed forward across the west-arm of the Great Grassy Bay; looming before her was the starkly barren northwest face of East Island. Another pull with her bent-paddle sent the Old Town surging ahead, ever closer to the island's forbidding shore line of rocks and boulders. At the last Jane held a stern-rudder on the starboard side which swung the bow 30 degrees to the south; enough to cast the canoe into a glide grazing the shore only inches from the rocks.

Jane leaned to her left and peered over the port-side gunwale the instant she heard the unmistakable harsh sound of the canoe scraping across rock. "Too close, I'd better swing out," she whispered. Scarcely had she uttered the words when in the morning light she saw the glint of metal; it was wrist-deep in the water next to a boulder and partially covered by algae. The water was warm on her hand as was the small strand of vegetation that caught on her rings as she reached in; yet the metal of the object felt strangely cold to her touch.

"How in the world could it have gotten here?" She murmured.

Without further thought she tossed it into her pack, grasped her paddle and lightly pushed the canoe away from shore.

Scarcely had she done so, when gripped by a sudden sense of uneasiness she again paused.—Later Jane Lindsey wo

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