by Bryan, JL
“I…maybe?” Stacey seemed thrown off balance by the offer.
“Isn't Satilla the island with the high walls?” I asked. “Who lived there, again? The Rockefellers?”
The crewman shook his head. “No, some other old dead rich people from up north. How about some RC Cola?” he asked Stacey.
“No. Yes, actually, on the RC. Then we’ll head back to the passenger area.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “You? Pringles, RC? Try ’em together, you’d think they were made for each other.”
“No, thanks. I’ll probably grab a water from the cooler, if that’s okay.”
“You got it.” He gave Stacey another smile before departing.
“Well, now we have to wait here for your drink order,” I said.
The door to the wheelhouse opened, and Captain Walker acknowledged us with a gentlemanly tip of his Atlanta Hawks cap. “You want to know our destination, and you’ve been more patient than I would have. Satilla Island. Do you still choose to go? Or no?”
“That’s the walled-up island, right?” I asked. “Who lived there? The Carnegies?”
“The Carnegies had Cumberland Island,” Walker said. “The estate on Satilla was built by the Grolman family.”
Stacey and I shared a blank look.
“Sorry, I don’t recognize that one,” I said.
“Yeah, unless you mean Grolman Animal Lard.” Stacey chuckled. “We use that at The Country Barn restaurants. Which is why the food tastes better than everywhere else.” Her family owned a small chain of Deep South themed restaurants serving deep-fried everything.
“I believe it’s the same,” the ferryman said, drawing a surprised look from Stacey.
“They made their fortune in lard?” I asked.
“Grolman was a cattle baron out west,” he replied.
“Did that make him an outsider here, among New York society?” I asked. “Is that why he built the wall around his island?”
The ferryman shrugged. “Who knows why they did as they did? They were all crazy. They stopped coming down here ’round the Depression and the war and never came back. But they left pieces of themselves, like snakeskin. The snake crawls on, looking shiny and dazzling new outside, but he’s still that same mean old snake inside.” He chuckled to himself, looking out at the horizon.
“Can you tell us who we’re working for?” I asked him. “Other than the law firm?”
“The lady in charge is Darika Mahajan,” he said. “She’s very…focused. Knows what she wants. She’s unhappy all the time now, because the work is so far behind.”
“What work?” I asked.
“Bringing back the old Grolman place. Remaking the island.” He looked at the wild forest along the beach. Having passed the tourist hub of Tybee Island, we now skirted green nature preserves and wetlands.
“Who is she working for?” I asked.
“Yeah, I thought Satilla Island was a state park, or a national one,” Stacey said. “Are we secretly working for the Fish and Wildlife Department? Is the island haunted by ghost crabs?”
He grinned. “The ghost crabs belong there. Why do you ask if it’s haunted?”
“Just, uh, a lucky guess, I guess?” Stacey suggested.
Something in his amused look told me he didn't believe her. “You aren’t worried about the island’s spirits?”
“Does it have spirits?” she asked.
“Older folks say it has bad root.” He said ‘older folks’ like he wasn’t wrinkled and white-haired himself. Maybe he’d been much younger when he’d heard older folks talk about it. Or maybe an older generation still lived on the islands, people in their nineties and hundreds.
“Bad magic?” I asked, and he nodded.
“Root lives all over the world, good and bad. In some places, the good grows extra thick. Some other places, things go the other way.” He shook his head. “But never mind, here’s the second thing. I’ve seen the faces of the workers coming back from Satilla Island. I bring them over—carpenters, landscapers, all kinds. And I bring them back. They all quit, after a few days or weeks. I can see in their faces when they’ve made up their minds to quit, to stay off the island for good.”
“Why do they quit?” I asked.
“They don’t say it to me or my nephews, but we hear them whispering. Sometimes they’re injured. Usually, they see things. You can tell the ones who’ve seen things by the look in their eyes.” Walker nodded at the deep water ahead. “Maybe you shouldn’t go. As I said, I only take you where you want to go. And soon enough, you’ll be coming back. Could be hurt. Could have that fear in your eyes, or a bad spirit riding you home.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said.
He laughed. Maybe he thought I was kidding. Or maybe he could tell I wasn’t.
“Well, thanks for the warning, but we’ll go ahead to the island and give it our best shot despite the ghosts,” I said. “Like you said, they’re everywhere, anyway.”
He nodded, looking me over carefully, like he was seeing something he hadn’t before. “As you like. I’m only the captain of the boat, not of you. Excuse me.” He tipped his hat before closing the wheelhouse door, apparently satisfied he’d done his part to give us a warning and an informed choice, regardless of whether he agreed with our decision or not.
Chapter Three
The handsome crew guy finally returned with Stacey’s ice-cold blue can of RC and an unopened Pringles snack pack.
Stacey and I returned to the benches in the covered passenger area and watched the sunrise like tourists on a day trip. It was nice. She even shared her Pringles.
The ferry took us south past wild and largely uninhabited islands, like forested Sapelo Island, once ruled by the RJ Reynolds tobacco guy, and also once home to a number of independent Geechee towns, now reduced to just one. Stacey knew about it and filled me in. I wondered if our ferryman had relatives there.
At Jekyll Island, a dead oak forest lined the beach. Giant old trees lay toppled across the sand, their roots killed by saltwater, the dried carcasses of their trunks bleached bone-white by the sun. The Jekyll Island Club had been the summer home of Gilded Age barons like the Rockefellers and Morgans. They’d followed the Carnegies, who’d made a private domain of Cumberland Island—not Satilla Island, as the captain had reminded me.
Satilla Island, our destination, lay south of Jekyll and north of Cumberland, but farther east in the Atlantic, and much smaller than either one.
Satilla was imposing in its own way, though, as it came into view, with a high forested bluff near the center, made higher by a three-story mansion at the island’s peak, made of unusual bricks with a dark golden hue. Portions of a perimeter wall of those same bricks could be glimpsed through the foliage of the forested area, high above the rocky, marshy shore.
As our ferry slowed, Stacey said in a low voice, “You know we’re crossing right past The Hole, right?”
“The Hole?” I asked.
“The Hole,” she repeated, getting overly dramatic about it. “A deep underwater depression, home to a large population of the Atlantic Ocean's biggest sharks. The diving is supposed to be breathtaking, if you know what you’re doing down there. And potentially deadly otherwise.”
“That better not be an invitation.”
“It’s fine! The sharks don’t really attack that much. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, it could be very bad to try swimming from the island to the mainland at the wrong time. I actually did go hiking on Cumberland Island once, years ago, and we didn’t swim because of all the sharks nearby.”
“So, this island is like Alcatraz,” I said. “But with sharks as the prison guards.”
“I think Alcatraz has shark-infested waters, too. But no alligators, which this area has a ton of. So maybe it’s worse than Alcatraz.”
We approached Satilla Island’s swampy western shore, the mainland-facing side, sheltered from the ocean by the island’s rocky bulk and its dense forest of live oaks. The live
oaks grew wide with long limbs, but low and serpentine, constantly pruned by salt and strong ocean wind, their odd curves and angles once prized for shipbuilding, back when ships were made of wood.
The wharf featured a shelter resembling a small Victorian house with tall gabled windows. The shelter had once protected guests from inclement weather, but now its windows were broken, leaving only jagged remnants of glass, and its door was completely missing. The whole structure leaned to one side. I supposed it would still provide better protection against the rain than nothing, though. Any roof in a storm.
As his two-man crew tied up the boat, Captain Walker frowned at the imposing dark mansion that overlooked the island.
“Maybe you should change your mind,” he murmured, barely loud enough for us to hear, as if concerned someone on the island would hear him. I didn’t see anyone, just a gray road paved with crushed oyster shells curving steeply up and away from the landing into the thick wilderness. “Part of me does think I shouldn’t bring anyone else here. But what can I do? It’s my work, and their check cleared the bank.”
“Don’t worry, this is my work, and I need the paycheck, too,” I said. “We’re in the same boat.”
“Hey, literally!” Stacey swept her arm at the ferry around us. “We are literally all in the same boat.”
“Not for long.” The ferryman went to drive our van down the ramp.
“Ellie, do we have a good feeling about this, or a bad feeling about this?” Stacey asked. The island’s bulk blocked the sunrise, keeping us in a realm of deep shadows. Walker turned on the van’s headlights before driving down the ramp.
“You’re the parks and outdoorsing expert, Stacey. What do you know about this island?”
“All I know is people can't visit Satilla because it’s a wildlife sanctuary. There's not even a ranger station. Nobody comes here.”
“Does that mean the state of Georgia is hiring us? That would be…different.” I headed down the ramp and along the concrete dock. “I never really saw myself as a government contractor. Do we have to hire a lobbyist now?”
“If it’s the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, you’ll know them by their khaki shirts and green pants,” Stacey said.
Walker had parked our van on the oyster-gray road and left it idling as he stepped out. He cast another wary look up at the big, dark house above, as though expecting it to creep down toward him if he turned his back on it too long.
Ahead, up the steep road and surrounded by the gnarled limbs of the live oak forest, stood a black steel gate twenty feet high and topped with barbed spires. Whoever built it had been very serious about keeping out the riffraff.
An arch made of dark golden brick spanned over the gate. From either side of it extended the brick wall that encircled the forested bluff of the island’s interior.
“You both be careful.” The ferryman spoke quietly on his way back to his boat, swerving to avoid us as if he thought we might be a little bit cursed and didn’t want to be touched by our evil fate. “Watch for the wildlife. I’ll see you when you’re ready to cross back.”
“What wildlife?” Stacey asked, but he was already busy directing his little crew to depart before the heavy clouds above could begin their threatened downpour.
I looked both ways along the shore for any sign of animals big enough to maul us.
“We’ll be fine,” Stacey said as the ferry pulled away, leaving us alone together on the island. “Right, Ellie? We’ll be fine?”
“Of course,” I replied, more to assure her than to voice my own feelings, which were definitely mixed.
Up the steep road, the gate rumbled and creaked, then gradually began to open, driven by unseen heavy machinery. The greasy smell of petroleum lubricating oil, maybe for the massive hinges, mingled with the muddy, fishy smell of the marsh.
The gate’s sound and vibration disturbed a group of blue egrets who’d been nosing in the shallows for food. They took flight, squawking complaints like they planned to give the marsh a bad Yelp review later.
Beyond the gate, the long, tentacle-like live oak limbs coiled into a low canopy. Resurrection fern grew thick atop the oak limbs, while thick gray swathes of Spanish moss hung below them like the beards of ancient prophets. Poison ivy and thorny vines claimed any remaining open space. Below the canopy, multi-bladed saw palmetto leaves walled in the oyster-shell road, wide and dense enough to conceal any wildlife.
“So…” Stacey said after a few minutes. “I guess the welcome wagon's in the shop.”
“We’ll take the open gate as an invitation.” I started toward the van.
We pulled forward through the gate, which was so large I felt like I was driving into the mouth of some strange, giant monster. That feeling was only amplified as we drove through the tunnel of shadowy green surrounding the road, down the monster’s throat into a twilit underworld, cut off from the summertime heavens above.
The gate closed behind us, the heavy machinery locking us inside.
“Watch out for the little helpless wild animals,” Stacey said as I drove cautiously along the dim, unfamiliar road. The forest had grown in so close that I had to stay more to the middle than the side, watching for oncoming vehicles as well as animals. In much of Georgia, the humid subtropical wilderness was constantly trying to reclaim the land, and Satilla Island was no exception. We were just as far south as the steamy Okefenokee Swamp, almost to Florida. Left to its own devices, the island would become a jungle.
The road snaked through the woods, rising up a steep grade all the while. Little spur roads of dirt and gravel branched off toward small brick outbuildings, or the ruins of them. We only caught glimpses of these through the undergrowth. I stuck to the larger paved road, which I assumed to be the main one. I didn’t really appreciate being left to guess so much, though.
I slammed the brakes when a large gray canine appeared around a bend in the road, very close to us, crouched and taut like it had been preparing to leap across the road as we appeared.
“That looks like a wolf,” Stacey said.
“A very stoic wolf,” I added, because it wasn’t moving at all. “I bet he’s been reading Marcus Aurelius.”
“Or she,” Stacey said. “Okay, it’s a statue. Really lifelike, though. It got me for a second.”
We drove on past the wolf statue, which turned out to be mounted on a stone pedestal concealed by vine-choked hedges. Maybe the statue was a practical joke, meant to scare visitors as they arrived from the wharf. The effect while riding in a more vulnerable horse-drawn wagon or buggy would probably have been more startling.
Next we passed a grove of trees centered around a silvery marble archer woman, her tunic and hair rippling as if blown by a breeze as she threatened to shoot an arrow our way. A trio of marble hunting dogs surged around her in apparent excitement, eager to be unleashed toward us.
“Do you think that’s Artemis?” I asked Stacey. “The Greek goddess?”
“Could be. I love her shoes.” The tall huntress wore sandals laced all the way up to her knees.
We passed another grove, this one choked by a sprawling infestation of thorny vines. If it housed another statue, the overgrowth blocked us from seeing it.
Then, abruptly, the wilderness ended. We’d reached the crest of the bluff.
Ahead, the earth was churned up everywhere, raw and red. Trees had been ripped up by the roots and placed in a big deadfall off to one side. Mud-spattered yellow bulldozers and excavators sat abandoned like cars dropped off at the junkyard, forlornly waiting for their drivers to return.
The oyster-shell road curved wide to provide new arrivals a long look at the immense house, which resembled a medieval manor made of strange dark golden bricks.
The great mass of the mansion blocked the sunrise behind it, leaving its face shadowy and hooded under the eaves. The high, narrow arched windows sat high above ground level, reinforcing the apparently extreme desire for privacy that seemed to have shaped this walled island. The steep bla
ck roof was, surprisingly, made of modern solar shingles. Sitting on the crest of the bluff gave the house access to sunlight all day, or at least during breaks in the frequent coastal rain.
The road took us under the squarish covered porte-cochère at the front of the house, supported by thick columns, where coaches and buggies of yesteryear would have discharged guests. It seemed like the place to park, so I did.
“Well, this house could hold a whole pack of ghosts,” Stacey said as we stepped out. “It’s huge. Is this the biggest house we’ve ever investigated?”
“If you don’t count skyscrapers or hotels.” I looked it over. Rows of the high, narrow windows were spaced along the front of the house, yet the overwhelming impression was still one of a mostly blank solid brick facade. Blackened brick chimneys resembling nineteenth-century factory smokestacks made it clear this place had been built during the age of coal. “Maybe even if you do.”
We approached the double front doors. Like the gate, the doors opened as we approached.
“What if nobody lives here, and the house hired us itself?” Stacey whispered as we looked warily into the gloomy, marble-floored interior. “Like maybe it’s been upgraded to a smart house, and it’s smart enough to realize it has a ghost problem?”
“We are working toward that, but we have a long way to go,” said a woman’s voice from somewhere inside, which was a little jarring. She stepped into view, a small woman with large, dark eyes that took us in carefully. She wore a perfectly tailored black suit and golden earrings and bracelets. Her outfit probably cost more than a year of my rent. “I’m Darika Mahajan. Welcome to the lodge.”
I introduced myself and Stacey. “You’re the one who’s hired us?”
“Yes. I’m sorry for the over-the-top secrecy. I’m sure it may seem paranoid to you, but we have our reasons for avoiding publicity until we’re ready.”
“We take confidentiality very seriously for all of our clients,” I said.
“Good. Come inside, please.”
We followed her into a front hall with a high, recessed ceiling that was like a black sky overhead, its massive columns and distant ceiling beams hewn from California redwood—entire tree trunks, judging by the size of them, sanded and polished to a high gleam. A second-floor gallery looked down on the room, not accessible by any stairs I could see, hung with frames that were large and ornate but empty, their paintings removed.
