Cristobel by Diane Guest

IN THE HUMID, SWELTERING HEAT OF THE CARIBBEAN, SOMETHING COLD AND DEADLY STIRS.

Deserted by his mother, J.C. spends his school holidays at her old family home, a lush tropical estate known as Cristobel. There, too, is his brother August, his stepfather Marcus Leyland and Marcus's new young wife Justine. But something is wrong. The Cane Cave where the rum kegs are kept feels remote and mysterious. Once J.C.'s favourite spot, it now terrifies him. Justine too suffers from a strange distress, driven inexplicably to attempt suicide by jumping over the cliff one hot night. Marcus, usually so aloof, fears for her sanity and turns to his psychiatrist brother for urgent help. Stefan Leyland is not convinced that Justine is mad. Her anguish and J.C.'s terror have disturbingly similar elements. Can it be that somebody is deliberately trying to hurt them? There's Remus, a local boy who bears a long-standing grudge; Amalie, J.C.'s Haitian nurse, rumoured to be a witch; and the strange presence of the ghostly woman in white . . .

Reason struggles against voudun threats and the dead become indistinguishable from the living as the storms threaten to break over Cristobel.

How long J. C. slept there in the sand he wasn't sure. He knew it must have been a while because when he opened his eyes, the sun was gone, the clearing in semi-darkness. His first reaction was one of panic. They had left him alone. And then he felt Amalie's hand on his shoulder. 'Come, petit,' she said. 'We are done here. It is time to go.'

Later, when he thought about it, he still wasn't sure what it had all been about. He asked August, but his brother seemed sort of out-of-it, like he wasn't sure either but didn't want to admit it. And that night, when J. C. finally crawled between the cool white sheets in his own safe, familiar bedroom, he folded his hands over his heart and said his real prayers. The ones to the real God.

He prayed that his mother would come home, and that he'd never have to go to the place of monkeys again. 

Genres: Horror - American Author