by C B Cox
“Hush now, child. There’s no need to explain, Mrs. Madison.” I open my mouth, but she corrects herself before I can speak. “Sorry, Hope. Eliah mentioned you don’t like folks using your married name.”
Her nose wrinkles. Mischief dances in her eyes. I like her.
“That’s right … I don’t. Only … you and Eliah have been so kind to me since I arrived. You hardly know me, yet you’ve welcomed me into your home. Fed me. Offered me words of comfort. Been sensitive to my marital status. I mean … I turn up out of the blue, and, like a hurricane, leave all kinds of destruction in my wake. You’re probably wondering what’s going on?”
I give her my biggest smile and she reciprocates. She drops into the chair opposite, straightening her pinafore.
“I won’t deny I’m curious, yes. We did wonder?” she says with a sympathetic nod, reaching over, patting my hand.
I draw a long breath. Order my thoughts.
“Charles and I, we’re getting divorced. He’s had affairs. He won’t come clean, but I’m working on the assumption he’s a serial adulterer. I don’t know the full extent of his infidelity. I probably never will. To be perfectly honest, I’d rather not know. Naively, I thought we had the perfect marriage; assumed he was as happy – as happy as I was. Of course, he wasn’t. He’s an adulterous manipulative monster. My world has fallen apart. These past few months, I’ve been in a very dark place. For the first time in my life, I’ve experienced depression.” Dorothy squeezes my hand. My pain reflects in her eyes.
Finding comfort in her understanding and sympathy, I continue. “Since we separated, he’s been feeding lies to his family and our friends. Telling everyone that our marriage is on the rocks, because I’ve become overly obsessive about my writing. He’s been going around saying I’ve been shutting him out of my life. Peddled the lie that I’m not to be disturbed until my next ‘blockbuster’ is complete. Nothing, repeat nothing, could be further from the truth. I’ve worked out his agenda. He’s been isolating me. Blaming me for our break up. Making out that I’m a selfish, crazy obsessive. I believe psychiatrists call it, ‘projection.’ Well, it’s worked. I’m persona non grata in our social circle. For all they care, I might as well be dead.”
I sigh and shrug. Fall silent.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” says Dorothy.
“To an extent it is. I’ve isolated myself. I’ve had to. I have contractual commitments to meet. I wrote a novel during my isolation. It didn’t pass muster. My publisher rejected it. My agent, Martha, persuaded me to take a working sabbatical on Tern Island. She knew that if I got away from Charles’s malign influence, I’d get over him. That, I’d start to see things with more clarity. Get back to being my usual, cheerful self. Shake off the depression. I plucked up the courage. Told him I needed to get away. And, to my surprise, he promised to leave me alone. Like a fool, I believed him. Now, he won’t leave me alone. He’s forever phoning and texting. I got so angry after one text that I smashed my cell phone in a fit of temper. It was his fault. And now he’s stalking me. He keeps coming to the island and bothering me. Asking for a reconciliation. I can see right through him. He has an ulterior motive. I just know he has.”
I look past Dorothy and see my reflection returned in the oven door glass. I’m pinching the Cupid’s bow on my lip and staring into space.
I huff. “Now that I’m here, all manner of weird things keep happening. Is there any wonder I’m a nervous wreck? Some days it borders on hysteria. Deep down, I know I’m blowing things out of all proportion. Most probably because I’m mentally exhausted. I’m determined not to let things get on top of me. I need to start over. Prove to everyone that I can cope on my own.”
Dorothy listens without interrupting. Talking to her is cathartic. I haven’t talked to anyone like this – other than Martha – for a long time.
“What happened at the beach today with Levi?”
“I was swimming. I think Levi thought I’d gotten into trouble. He appeared from out of nowhere. He surprised me. I panicked. There was a scuffle. I went under. I thought I was going to die. He frightened me, Dorothy.” I study her reaction. It’s the first time since I’ve started talking that we’ve made eye contact.
“Please, Hope, don’t blame Levi. He’s a good boy. He has ‘difficulties’ that’s all. He doesn’t understand the world. The doctors, they say he has the mental age of a nine-year-old child.”
I shrug. “That’s as may be… Thing is… He can’t go around frightening people. We could have drowned.” I recognize that she will always side with her son, but she’s also responsible for him.
“He’s let us down. Eliah and I, we’ve always told him to stay out of the water. He can’t swim … not properly, anyway. He never learned. Oh, how we tried. We put it down to what happened to him,” she says, sobbing weakly.
“What happened to him?” I sip coffee. Wait, interest peeked.
“It was fifteen years ago. He was eight: a happy, healthy boy. Four of them were playing on the island – your island – by the cliffs on the south side. Levi was there with two older boys, and Curtis Jackson. The older boys were from the town. Curtis Jackson lived in the big house. The tide was out. They were daring one another to jump from the cliff top into the surf. You’ve seen how steep it is. How sharp the rocks are. When the tide’s in it covers the rocks. It’s a very dangerous place.”
“What happened?”
Dorothy’s gaze fixes on the clock on the wall behind me. Ticks echo around the kitchen.
“They were taking it in turns to take a run up to the edge of the cliff and pretend to jump over. None of them dared do it. They knew how dangerous it was. After several aborted chicken runs, they must’ve got bored. They grabbed Levi and threw him over the cliff.”
Tears trickle down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Dorothy. You’ve said enough. I should never have asked. It’s none of my business. It was crass of me.”
“No. I need to tell you. You need to understand.” She pulls a hankie from the pinafore pocket, continues. “Levi, he landed on a rock just as the tide rolled back. Smashed up his legs real bad. That’s why he limps. His head burst open like a watermelon smashed by a hammer, and he sank under the surface of the ocean. As fortune would have it, a lobsterman was passing in his boat. He saw something fall over the cliff. Went to investigate, he did. When he pulled Levi out of the ocean, he was almost dead. He recognized Levi and brought him straight here. Fortunately, we got to him to the hospital just in time. My Levi was in a coma for three weeks. I thought we’d lost him. When he regained consciousness, he was like he is now.”
She closes her eyes for the briefest time. Sighs. I wait. The tension in the room is palpable.
“The others ran away. They kept quiet about it for weeks until one of them – Miles Kingston – buckled under the pressure and told his parents what happened. He swore on the Holy Bible that it was Curtis who’d thrown Levi over the cliff. The police got involved, but it was Miles’s word against his. The Jacksons were a very wealthy family, back then. The police took their side over ours.”
As she speaks, her eyes remain fixed on the clock. She blinks occasionally, remembering events she’d rather forget.
“I’m not saying Curtis had malicious intent. Most probably, it was a schoolboy prank gone wrong. Anyhow, Angela and Carl, they sent Curtis away to boarding school soon after. The other two families moved away. So I guess, we’ll never know.”
She sits up straight and fixes me with moist eyes. There’s tremendous dignity in the face of tragedy.
“I’m so sorry. It’s a terrible thing to have to live with,” I say. I have no words of consolation.
How can anything I say make it right?
“It happened. We adapted. Levi is strong. He’s a good boy. He’s a big help around the store. Now that Eliah is getting older, its good to have him around to help with the lifting. The Lord, he brings blessings alongside adversity,” she says, crossing herself.
“Is that the reason Eliah doesn’t like Curtis? He told me about young bucks and fallings out, but this is on another level. It must be hard for you both?”
“Yes, it’s hard, all right. We try our best not to dwell on the past. Carl Jackson offered Eliah $10,000 in compensation. He wouldn’t take it. Too proud. But what does that say about Curtis’s guilt?”
I can’t answer her question. It’s rhetorical anyway.
“Levi, he is no angel. I know that. He’s done some bad things in his time. He’s just a boy who doesn’t know his own strength,” she says with a sigh, staring at the clock. “When he was a teenager, he loved playing on the island. He’d catch rabbits and shoot deer in the woods. When Curtis came home during the summer, he’d bully Levi. Threaten him. Frighten him away from the island. Back then, Curtis thought of the island as his own personal fiefdom. The Jacksons allowed the children from the town to play there unsupervised. People thought of it as a children’s playground, open to all.”
Wide eyes bore into mine.
“Until we bought it and turned it in to a rich man’s playground?”
“I didn’t mean it that way, honest I didn’t,” she says, twisting her wedding ring, nervously. “It didn’t help when that hiker girl went missing around the time the Jacksons became bankrupt. Things were never the same after that.”
“A missing girl?”
“Yes. A teenager girl. A backpacker from Canada. Her name was Leona Watson. The last anyone saw of her, she was setting off alone across the causeway to the island. No one has seen or heard from her since. They never found a body. The police interviewed Levi about her disappearance. They interviewed her boyfriend, too. Curtis was interviewed. Seems she’d been arguing with her boyfriend and they become separated. Anyway, Angela and Carl, they were close friends of the Chief of Police. I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions. Levi was their main suspect. They took his clothes, sent them away for forensic examination, but they didn’t find anything to implicate him. As far as I know, it’s still an unsolved case. Eleven years is a long time with something like that hanging over a family. Levi is oblivious to it all. At least, I think he is…” Her voice trails off. The color has drained from her face.
Dorothy’s revelations are a shock. I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.
“Curtis returned to the big house after his parents were killed in a skiing accident. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d done terrible things here, or if he was a potential suspect in the girl’s disappearance, would he?” I say.
Dorothy shrugs. “Perhaps, you’re right. All I know is, Curtis Jackson regards that island, your island, as his and his alone. He always did, and he always will. He doesn’t care to share it with anyone.”
“Even now?”
She shrugs. “I’ve said too much. Take no notice of me. I’m just a crazy old woman. I’m sorry Levi frightened you this morning. I’ll make sure that he doesn’t bother you again,” she says, rising up, bringing our conversation to an abrupt close.
“Please, don’t punish Levi.”
“Oh, I won’t punish my son for being who he is, my dear,” she says, jaw set firm.
I lift up and place the throw on the back of the chair.
“I’d better get back. I’ve taken up too much of your time, already.”
“Eliah,” she shouts. “Mrs. Madison … she’s leaving. Go fetch her bicycle.”
I’m dismissed.
“I’ve made chocolate cake. Take one with you. You need fattening up. I can’t have my customers wasting away to skin and bone,” she says, handing me a candy-striped confectionary box. She smiles. It’s a tight smile.
“That’s very kind of you. Thank you, Dorothy.”
“It’s no trouble. You’d better be off, before the tide turns. Promise me, you’ll take care of yourself.”
“I will. I promise.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Eliah is waiting outside, holding my bicycle upright. He takes the cake box from me and places it in the basket alongside a brown paper bag.
“Hope you don’t mind, only I put some essentials together for you: eggs, coffee and fresh bread. I can’t have you leaving empty-handed.” His warm smile is comforting.
I’ll look like an egg, soon.
“Thanks,” I say, swinging a leg over the frame, hitching up onto the saddle. “Add it to my tab. I don’t want to run up a huge debt. If I drop dead, I don’t want to leave you bankrupt,” I say, with a smile.
“I’ll send it over with, Levi…” He realizes what he’s said. His words peter out.
Good God. Please don’t.
“Great,” I smile, concealing my horror.
It’s obvious he senses it.
“Take care now.”
I push off and freewheel down the inclined path. In my peripheral vision, I see him waving.
Levi stands in the barn door opening, leaning against the jamb. His eyes address the dirt. He spies me from under his mop of hair. Swings inside and disappears from view.
A chill races down my spine.
I reach the causeway just as the rising tide laps over the surface. I press hard on the pedals and don’t put my feet down until I reach the island. It occurs to me that I’m becoming a more confident cyclist.
The sun has chased away the threat of rain. Rock pools succumb to the ocean.
Reaching the island, I dismount, turn and watch the ocean roll over the causeway. I close my eyes and listen to the ocean lapping at my feet. My fingers loosen their grip on the handlebars, and my shoulders relax.
I hear drips of water impacting against a hard surface.
Is the ocean finding its way into a subterranean void?
I smile as I remember when, as a child, I raced indoors to tell my father that I could hear water rushing underneath the sidewalk. I remember being fascinated as my father described the labyrinth of tunnels and pipes that exist beneath the city for water supply and sewage. When a sinkhole appeared a few months later a block or so along the street, I remember him saying, “Hope, water will always find a way. You most likely heard a leak. A leak that made the sinkhole.” I was as proud as punch. Boasted to anyone who would listen, that I possessed superhuman hearing. As a child, I was always making up fantastic stories.
Bella is waiting for me on the porch in her dog basket. Poor dog must be starving. I left her at sunrise and it’s now a little past midday. She rises. Tail wagging. She lets out a low humph – somewhere between a bark and a snort.
I race to the kitchen. Reclaim her food from under the sink. Fill her bowl with kibbles. She sniffs at it. Rolls the kibbles around the bowl with her nose, disinterestedly. Her nose is dry. She looks a little thin. I sit down and nuzzle into her.
“What’s up, babe? Don’t you like this brand? Time for a treat. I’ll cook you a lovely chicken fillet,” I tell her. I hope she’s not ill or pining for her old life.
I’m not in the mood to write. Another day is lost. Bella scoffs the chicken as if she’s never eaten before. She clears her dish within a minute. I push mine around the plate. I almost died today – it’s no exaggeration. My conversation with Dorothy Wiley has set my imagination running wild.
My anxiety reaches a new high.
What was it she said?
I replay the conversation in my head. Charles visited the island with other women. Curtis threw Levi over the cliff. As a result, he suffered life-changing injuries. Dorothy mentioned Levi had done bad things, too.
What things?
Years ago, a young female Canadian backpacker disappeared in the vicinity. She was last seen on the causeway heading towards the island. No body was ever found. Therefore, the case must still be open. It’s too much to comprehend. I’ve worn rose-tinted glasses for far too long and past events make my current marital and creative difficulties seem insignificant: like the briefest of rain showers on a blossoming spring day. I spend the afternoon killing time, reading and drinking coffee.
As the sun sinks over the horizon, I give u
p on the day. I take a long hot shower, drag on pajamas and go to bed. Exhausted, sleep comes quickly. I wake after an hour. Try desperately to get back to sleep, but can’t. It’s impossible. I’m tormented by dream devils. Dorothy’s revelations ping like a pinball around my brain. The house creaks and groans. Bella pads up and down the stairs, and when moonlight illuminates the bedroom, it forces me awake. Exhausted, I swing out of bed, drag on my cardigan, amble downstairs and make a steaming cup of hot chocolate. I take it outside and settle in the rocker.
My foot connects with something soft on the mat. I look down. A child’s cuddly toy – a well loved, faded to gray puppy – lays on its side on the deck. One ear and a glass eye are missing. Neat stitching holds four frayed limbs in place, but only just. The initials ‘L.W.’ are machine stitched in neat italics across its belly.
I collect it. It’s damp to the touch. I press it against my chest.
Levi Wiley?
I peer into the gloom. See the moonlit ocean hanging above the ranks of pines and the outline of the cliff top above the cove. There’s no sign of Levi, or anyone. I shudder to think that he may have been creeping around the lodge while I’ve been trying to get to sleep. I picture him slaughtering rabbits and shooting deer. I recoil at the thought. I didn’t hear a thing. I wonder if the toy puppy is an offering? Is it Levi’s way of making amends? Or is it intended as a warning? Why didn’t I insist that he be told to stay away from the island, when I had the opportunity?
I despise this place…
I sip hot chocolate. Rock in the chair. Unable to keep my eyes open, I rise up. Go inside. Take to my bed. Force myself to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Day 30 - July 4th
When I wake, it’s mid-morning. Here I am again. New day. Fresh start. I refuse to let this be my groundhog day.
Last night, I got to thinking. I’ve been here too long. Tern Island is driving me nuts. I’ve set myself a target of two weeks to finish my manuscript. It’s realistic. I can do it. I need to return to New York and civilization. Formalize the divorce. Hit the bestseller list. Find a new apartment. Write the next… And the next… I know what I’ve got to do.
