I laugh as the platform rushes past me at the second floor, brace my legs for the rough landing I'm about to make on the first. Judging from the speed of my descent, I must outweigh the platform by at least fifty pounds-a far different disparity than in my younger days, when there was some doubt about which was heavier.

Mother used to hate when I attempted it, insisting Father discipline me. Which he did, a sparkle in his eyes telling me he might like to try it too.

The impact of the landing makes me grunt and I laugh out loud, look up at the wood platform swaying in the air three stories above me. I move out from underneath it and slowly let the line play out until the platform clunks down in front of me. Out of force of habit I tie the line off, even though the rope's slack and the platform's now resting on the bottom floor of the house.

It's quiet here, a place of still air and dark gloom. The light that shines so brightly on the second and third floors seems to wane before it reaches this low. Away from the center of the room everything belongs to the shadows.

I force myself into the dark and run my hands over the rough stone wall until I feel the light switch. Its click echoes in the stillness and, for a moment, when the dim lights come on, the bare bulbs pushing light into all the shadows, I lose touch of the giddiness that has overtaken me and feel silly, a little ashamed, to be standing naked and barefoot in this place, still splattered with her blood.

This floor is the dark underbelly of the house and I know too well the secrets it holds. Here Don Henri built three supply rooms and eight prison cells. Long ago I turned one of the supply rooms into a freezer where we store our meats. Another one holds dry goods and household necessities, while the third serves as a place to store linens and Father's bales of hay.

The cells are another matter. In the old days Don Henri used them to punish his enemies and to hold humans for his future meals.

I prefer to keep the cell doors open. Shut, their iron bars remind me of the terror and suffering that lay behind them. One of the cells serves as my laundry now, another as a tool shop. Five of the other six still function as holding cells for those times that Father or I have found it convenient to keep one or more of our captives alive.

My nose wrinkles at the thought of the winos and beggars that, whenever no other choices present themselves, I occasionally must seize and bring home. "Those are the ones who'll never be missed," Father always insists. But he is never the one who has to cage, feed and clean them until the alcohol and drugs leave their wretched bodies and the regimen of good, healthy meals finally make them fit to eat.

Of course no alcohol or drug recovery program can boast of the cure rate my hospitality generates. I chuckle at the thought. A hundred percent of my guests have given up their addictions and not one of them has ever had the opportunity to backslide.

I pass the sixth and smallest cell. While it appears to be like the others, as Don Henri intended, in truth it's nothing but a passageway to a secret corridor and the secret chambers built under the house.

Beyond the cells I reach the third storeroom. There I load a wooden barrow with a pitchfork and four bales of hay as well as sheets and pillow cases for my bed. I also bring an empty burlap bag.

The woman returns to my thoughts and I alternately imagine a raven-haired Latin woman or a cocoa-brown island beauty-each with piercing, emerald-green eyes. I wonder what she'll be like as I roll the barrow onto the platform, then step off and operate the winch that raises the hoist to the second floor.

Father has barely changed position since I left. The sight of Maria's bones lying on the hay near him remind me of the night before and I feel a small twinge of regret. I try not to think about her as I gather up the bones and place them in the burlap bag.

I roll the barrow into the room and unload the hay in a different corner of the room, and use the pitchfork to spread it out and fluff it up. Then I turn my attention to the old creature still lost in sleep on the other side of the room. "Father, " I mindspeak, "I've made you a new bed. Come, get up for a minute so I can clean out your old one."

Father snores, says nothing, moves not a muscle. Since I've no intention of carrying him, I shake him until he finally flutters his eyelids and manages a solitary thought. "Peter, why must you torment me so?"

But he lets me help him up and guide him to his new bed before he returns to his dreams once more.

I make no effort to be quiet as I use the fork to scoop up all the old bloodstained hay and load it and the burlap bag onto the wooden barrow. The barrow squeaks as I roll it out of Father's chamber and onto the platform. I grin at the noise. A caravan of gypsies could celebrate a wedding in this room without disturbing Father's rest.

Once the platform has been hoisted to the third floor, I roll the barrow close to the great hearth and shovel forkfuls of hay over the glowing embers. Fire flares up and consumes the hay almost as quickly as I heave it forward. The brief eruption of heat feels good against my bare skin and I realize the day has turned cool.

I look out the window at the darkening sky and frown. Whitecaps run southward, chased by the angry chill of a north wind. Trees bend before its force. Their leaves may point south to where my love must live, I think, but the north wind that moves them brings me nothing.

It's the kiss of the south wind I yearn for as I turn my back on the window, busy myself returning the barrow, the pitchfork, the burlap bag and the platform to the bottom floor-thinking, how strange that my future, the discovery of my love, could be so dependent on the vagaries of something as simple as the wind.

I watch the Twelve O'Clock News to see if there's any mention of Maria's disappearance. I need to know if anyone saw her leave with me, if there's any alert for the boat. I don't expect there will be any, but still, when the newscast ends without any mention of her, I feel my muscles relax. All contacts, such as the evening I had with Maria, involve some risk. Father has said it many times, we are safest when we are invisible. Safe or not, I decide to rid myself of the boat tonight, at the same time as I dispose of Maria's bones.

I wash the floor clean of all traces of blood, put fresh linens on the bed and then I treat myself to a long hot shower. Afterward I lie down, clean and warm under my covers, and allow myself to nap.

The wind howls through my windows and cold rain slashes the island when I awake. I jump from my bed and rush to slam the room's windows and doors shut. "Damn," I mutter, thinking of the open windows on the third floor and in Father's chamber.

I pull on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and a pair of sneakers, then run up the staircase to the third floor, shake my head at the cold remnants of the fire in the hearth, the dampness sprayed by the wind throughout the room.

"Peter!" Father calls me as I pull the last window shut. "Come close my windows, the rain's coming in."

"Father, you can close them yourself," I say as I look around the room, and make sure everything's secure. Outside, rain drums on the windowpanes.

"Peter, you opened the windows. You damn well can close them."

I grin at Father's intransigence, walk slowly down the stairs to his room.

"About time," he says when I enter. He coughs and wheezes for my benefit, watches as I rush around the room slamming doors, shutting windows. "Start afire too," he instructs. "Take the chill out of the air."

I stack logs in the fireplace on the exterior wall, grab a few handfuls of hay from Father's bedding to serve as kindling. The fire will soon make the room intolerably hot, but I know Father won't care. Age has made him sensitive to cold and far too fond of heat. I strike a match and watch the hay catch fire, the flames blossom and lick around the logs.