Islands (40 page)

We threaded our way over to Hasell and turned onto East Bay. The wind was cool and heavy with Confederate jasmine and oleander. I kept my eyes shut, clinging to Henry. The giggles kept bubbling up. I could not see whether there was much traffic on East Bay, but I had no sense of it. The bike murdered the silence.

“Where are we going?” I called to him. It did not seem important.

“Damned if I know. Maybe to Daytona, to the famous coleslaw pit. Maybe to the IHOP for breakfast. Maybe just around in circles. You pick.”

“I want to go to Sweetgrass,” I said, and suddenly knew that I did, more than anything. I ached for Sweetgrass and the river and the new green marsh.

“Sweetgrass it is. There’s one thing I want to do first, though.”

“What?”

“Show you.”

We bowled down to the Battery. The grand old houses were all dark, sleeping. Off beyond White Point Gardens I could see the first delicate shell-pink flush of dawn on the harbor. Against my face, Henry’s vest smelled rough and masculine and somehow contentious. I giggled again, and opened my eyes.

Midway down the Battery, Henry hit the brakes and gunned the motor. The howl from the Indian broke the world apart. The bubble flew into a million shards. I threw my head back and yelled.

“
Yeeeee-HAW!
”

Behind us, on the High Battery, window after window bloomed into furious light.

Acknowledgments

Y
OU WILL NOT FIND
the beach house, nor the dunes it sat upon, on Sullivan’s Island, though you might still find a few old houses like it. And there is not, as far as I know, a cluster of small tabby houses on a wide creek on John’s Island. But to me, Charleston and the Low Country are a state of heart as well as of fact, and it is that which I have tried to evoke.

Moreover, none of the people in this book live anywhere but in my own mind. If there are similarities to flesh and blood Charlestonians, I hope they are comfortable ones.

My thanks again to Duke and Barbara Hagerty, who have shared some of their most treasured place names, and who are, to me, the heart of Charleston still. Thanks, too, to Nance Charlebois, who got me hooked on Harleys and coleslaw wrestling. And all thanks to the dedicated people who work to protect the beautiful Gullah language and culture.

And finally, as always, to the A team: Heyward, Martha, and my beloved longtime agent and editor, Ginger Barber and Larry Ashmead. Thanks for the memories, guys.

About the Author

Anne Rivers Siddons
has written fifteen bestselling novels, including
Outer Banks, Colony
, and
Up Island
, which are available from HarperCollins e-books.

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Credits

Jacket illustration by Greg Harlin

By Anne Rivers Siddons

Fiction

Heartbreak Hotel

The House Next Door

Fox’s Earth

Homeplace

Peachtree Road

King’s Oak

Outer Banks

Colony

Hill Towns

Downtown

Fault Lines

Up Island

Low Country

Nora, Nora

Islands

Nonfiction

John Chancellor Makes Me Cry

ISLANDS. Copyright © 2004 by Anne Rivers Siddons. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub edition March 2004 ISBN 9780061745317

FIRST EDITION

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