Gray Wolf Island

by Tracey Neithercott

  “Doris!”

  She shoots me a look that says she’s lovingly infuriated with me. “It’s okay to joke now and then.”

  “Fine. Yes, Gabe Nash is an exquisite lawn ornament.” But I’m not looking at Gabe. I’m staring at the silver sea. And like I do every time I see the ocean, I think of Gray Wolf Island and buried treasure and a promise I can’t keep.

  I park Doris’s wheelchair at the far end of the library, where a wall of windows overlooks the garden. It’s overrun by butterfly bushes, azaleas, hyssop, monkshood, and dogwood trees that spill petals across the lawn. A layer of dirt left over from this week’s landscaping coats the outer glass, so the light streaming into the room has a hazy, lazy quality.

  Unlike Doris.

  “I can’t just fall asleep, Ruby. It doesn’t work like that,” she says, rolling her eyes. I want to tell her that that is exactly how it works, but we’ve been over this before. And besides, she thinks I only fall asleep so easily because I’m depressed, which I’m not. Not really. Mostly I can’t think of anything else to do with my time. And in sleep I can forget what I did.

  I don’t tell Doris that, though. I don’t tell anyone.

  “Read me something good.” A mischievous smile and a wink tell me exactly what kind of book she has in mind, but narrating sex scenes to an old woman is about as enjoyable as cleaning bedpans. Unfortunately, I have firsthand knowledge of both.

  “I’ll read you something academic. That ought to put you right to sleep.”

  “You know what you need, Ruby?”

  “A paying job?”

  “An adventure.” Doris squints at me so hard I’m afraid she’s stuck that way.

  Then I remember the way she looked at Gabe Nash earlier, like she might gift-wrap him and give him to me with a bow. “I’m not really the adventuring type.”

  “Oh, fine.” She shakes her head. I get the feeling I’ve disappointed her, but I’m used to it. I disappoint myself on a daily basis. “At least pick one about indigenous peoples. Ours is a history you kids ought to learn.”

  There is no shortage of historical texts on these shelves. In its past life, this building dealt in the rare and exceptional, and the research within these walls was the first step to discovery. Its former owner, renowned American antiquities dealer Bishop Rollins, was a true believer, and the town’s most prominent one at that. Like so many before him, he was drawn to quiet Wildewell by the tempting tale of Gray Wolf Island. He wasn’t the first to commission a dig, but he was the only one who stuck around after the money ran out and the treasure, if there is a treasure at all, stayed buried.

  My fingers trace worn spines as I walk the perimeter of the room. Paperback romance novels and used sudoku books, which the library has collected in the five years since Rollins’s death, squeeze beside books older than my grandparents, giving the wall the appearance of a grin with too many teeth.

  In the far corner of the library, towering mahogany shelves hold dense reads with thick spines. I suck in a deep breath, savoring the musty, dusty scent that seems to float like motes in the air. “Smells like knowledge,” Sadie used to say when she brought worn books home from the library in her never-ending quest to discover the secrets of Gray Wolf Island. I hated the smell until she was gone. Now I love it.

  I walk with my head tipped sideways until my gaze falls on a shelf labeled NATIVE STUDIES. It’s packed with cracked spines, monstrous things that promise dry sentences and tedious facts and a nap for a very old woman. I tug Twelve Thousand Years: Native Americans in Maine from its tight slot between two equally formidable books, both of which crash to the floor as Twelve Thousand Years thuds into my chest. I fumble for the fallen books, but before I slide them onto the shelf, I notice a thin paperback hidden at the back.

  Treasure Island.

  As I look at the flapping flag on the book’s cover—black as sin and adorned with a skull and crossbones—I know with an odd certainty that it was left for me: a gaping grin of bones meant to mock the standstill I’ve been in since the day Sadie died.

  But no, it’s more than that. It’s adrenaline in my veins. Anticipation in my chest. It’s the sense of something more that makes my skin buzz and my arm hairs stand.

  I snatch the book from the shelf and walk away.

  Doris is asleep by the time I return, white hair fluttering in the breeze from the air conditioner. I tug her blanket to her neck, fingers brushing papery skin, then settle onto a couch so stiff it has to be expensive.

  The slim book sits on my lap like an anchor. Holding me here, to this spot in Bishop Rollins’s house, to this moment that feels like more than it is.

  I fan the pages, skimming the chapter titles and not thinking about the story or even the treasure. My mind is on Sadie and the day she stole lip gloss from the pharmacy. The way she flipped the pages of her book—fast, fast, faster—until she couldn’t keep the secret any longer.

  My mind is on Sadie’s red fingernails the day the butterfly died. The way she let the polish smear against a stark white page because she’d been inexplicably bitten by the poetry bug.

  My mind is on Sadie when I discover the treasure map.

  The first clue is inked in the empty space after the book’s final words—a square with a slash through its center. Slanted writing begins after the symbol and runs onto the next page. I read and reread and reread, not quite believing that the scribbled poem is a map to the treasure. Sadie’s treasure. I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Then I read it again.

  Many will try,

  will seek, will fail

  to discover a treasure

  and pull back the veil.

  To throw out the false

  and welcome the true,

  Only one will triumph.

  And that could be you.

  Your adventure begins

  with stars trapped in a sign.

  Navigate with them and

  our paths will align.

  Discover the spot where

  morning sun scorches sand

  and the ocean beats its anger

  into the land.

  Head west, dear friend,

  if you want to have fun.

  Too far to the south,

  and your quest is done.

  Go down to go up,

  pay no heed to the dead.

  If you’re on the right track,

  you’ll see gray wolves ahead.

  Find heaven on earth—

  a sign you will see.

  Then let go the lie

  and set the truth free.

  Into the depths

  is your eventual demise.

  Part the water instead

  for the ultimate prize.

  Night descends quickly and

  dark is made near.

  It cloaks you in shadows,

  but strangle your fear.

  And in the black

  you’ll find the star

  to guide your way,

  to take you far.

  Take caution, dear friend.

  Do not be misled.

  If trickle turns torrent,

  you’ll soon end up dead.

  When narrow opens

  up to wide,

  take a deep breath

  and step inside.

  Look for the place

  where stone stabs at sky

  and the earth sings a mourning song

  for your echo to reply.

  Search for the six,

  sturdy, solid, and true.

  For centuries they’ve been waiting,

  waiting for you.

  Hidden stays hidden

  until the ray

  that guides your gaze

  does a secret betray.

  Only the worthy

  can see the clue

  to the greater treasure:

  to know what is true.

  I leave you now

  With an immense quest.

  Your strength, your intellect,

  yo
ur honor it will test.

  But if you are brave

  and if you are wise,

  if you’re determined,

  you—only you—will find my prize.

  My body vibrates, each part of me moving at a different frequency so the whole feels disjointed and dizzy. How is it that Bishop Rollins never found this? A treasure map. In Treasure Island. A heavy laugh escapes my lips, and I clap a hand over my mouth so I don’t wake Doris.

  It has never been my adventure, this Gray Wolf Island business. That was all Sadie, and I was just along for the ride. When she died, it never felt right, me continuing on without her. But now I feel a wave of pure want for an adventure.

  So I steal the book.

  Poppy March looks like she’s seen a ghost. Blond hair swishes in the wind, but when I step onto the sidewalk, the strands sort of freeze in midair. All of Poppy freezes, really, except for her thin lips, which puff out a breath too soft to hear. Doesn’t matter. I can see what she says as if she shouted it. Sadie?

  “I’m sorry, no.”

  She blinks once. Twice. She shakes her head and slaps on a smile. “Oh…”

  “Ruby.”

  “Right, Ruby. I’m sorry—” She waves her hand around, like she’s trying to erase the past minute. “I forgot.”

  People have a tendency to do that, forget me. Ronnie Lansing, the degenerate Sadie dated for half of freshman year, went a good two months before realizing I wasn’t just Sadie’s ghost going about like death never happened. It’s understandable, really. Without Sadie, there’s not much of me to remember.

  Besides, this is Sadie’s turf. She spent countless hours locked in the back room of the Wildewell Historical Society and Museum, trying to piece together the mystery of Gray Wolf Island. I’d assume I was her if I hadn’t—

  I’d assume I was her if she hadn’t died.

  “She asked you to find the treasure,” Poppy says. At my shocked expression, a bittersweet smile crosses her face. “About a month before she died, she told me you’d be coming here for information about the treasure and that I should help you. When you didn’t show up, I figured she never…well, that she never got the chance to ask.”

  I stare at the sidewalk. A crack splits the concrete, and in that space a yellow dandelion pokes through the earth. I used to think that kind of thing was beautiful, but really it’s just a weed. “I should have come sooner,” I say.

  Poppy’s face softens. “Don’t be so hard on yourself—you’d just lost your sister.”

  For one sinful moment I drink up her sympathy, but then I remember. I didn’t lose anything. I took something.

  “I have to run an errand, but my nephew’s inside. He can show you around the treasure room.” She shoots me a sad smile before scurrying toward town. “And, Ruby? It doesn’t matter how long it took you. She knew you’d get here.”

  I only nod. I think what Sadie knew was that I couldn’t say no to her.

  I thunder up the museum’s wooden steps. Back when boatmen got fat making regular trips to Gray Wolf Island, this was someone’s home. The museum retains the original architecture—something my Realtor mom likes to point out each time we pass—with grand gables, a rounded tower covered in gray shingles, and a porch that hugs the whole house. I yank open the door and step from muggy afternoon into air-conditioning.

  A lonely chair sits behind the information desk, and I release a sigh of relief. This task feels too personal—too tied up in my life with Sadie—to include a museum worker. I climb to the second floor, past empty exhibit rooms with pieces of historical Wildewell. It’s the stuff of endless field trips: a warped mirror that shows inverted images, an iron lantern that only burns during daylight, a giant clock with two faces that tells time forward and backward.

  But nobody visits the Wildewell Historical Society and Museum for that. They come for the room at the end of the hall. Today, sunlight is streaming through windows set high in its rounded walls, highlighting motes that seem suspended in air, like the room’s holding its breath until tourists take over. My footsteps break the quiet, a steady thud, thud, thud until I’m inches from Gray Wolf Island. The mural is longer than I am tall, swirls of brown and green alone in a sea of blue brushstrokes.

  I’m not sure how long I stand there before metal clinking against metal pulls me from my thoughts. I whip around to find Elliot Thorne squatting in front of a display case. He’s curved over a small lock attached to the glass.

  “It’s your fault for leaving me without keys,” Elliot says without looking away from the lock. His words jumble around the paper clip between his teeth. Long fingers jiggle two other paper clips in the lock. “Besides, I don’t work for you.”

  “Well, if you did, you’d be fired,” I mumble.

  Elliot’s head jerks up. Dark hair flops into his eye, and he bats it away. “I thought you were my aunt.”

  “Your aunt thought I was my dead sister, so this is an improvement.” I turn back to the mural, studying the way the eastern cliffs drop into the sea, the jagged line of the mountains that peak in the northwest, not far from an almost insignificant dark spot. It’s strange to see the island’s greatest mystery—and its greatest lure—reduced to a fist-sized splotch of brown.

  “Hey, give me a hand.”

  I’d like to ignore Elliot, tug Treasure Island from my bag, and match parts of the poem to points on the map, but I figure at some point I’m going to need to see whatever’s in that case, so I drop my purse on the floor by the mural and cross the room. “It’s your lucky day,” I say, squatting beside him. “I have two.”

  Elliot rolls his eyes. “See that plastic piece at the top? I need you to press it up as I turn the pick and open the door.”

  I do as he says, and in seconds the glass door slides to the side. “Of course you know how to pick locks.”

  “Of course,” he says, smirking. This is a thing Elliot has been doing for the past two years, ever since he went from class brain to tattooed bad boy. It’s annoying, and not just because smirks are always annoying, but because Elliot Thorne is the worst bad boy I have ever met.

  I was as fooled as the rest of Wildewell before Sadie pushed me into my one great act of disobedience. She’d spent sophomore year pointing to Elliot’s long body in the crush of students, watching intently as he strolled out the front doors and never came back. “You could learn a lot about independence from that guy,” she said.

  I scowled and hated Elliot a little more. Later that week, on a day that smelled like damp leaves, Sadie and I spied Elliot leaving school before fourth period. “He’s all alone,” she said. “He’s having an adventure.”

  “I don’t want an adventure.” That was Sadie’s job.

  She leaned her head on my shoulder and whispered in a voice almost too faint for me to hear, “Sometimes it’s okay for us to be apart.”

  I shot to my feet. Didn’t even look back as I fled from Sadie. And that afternoon, when I should have been in gym, I followed Elliot as he skipped the second half of school. After all Sadie’s speculations on Elliot’s solo activities, I expected to witness vandalism, a drug deal, or some petty theft. Instead, I ended up on a public bus to the nearby university. I ended up in the back of a lecture hall, falling asleep to a lesson on a subject I forgot on my way home.

  Since then, I’ve had a hard time taking his bad-boy act seriously, and now is one of those times. I leave him in front of the gaping glass case and return to the map. My copy of Treasure Island is familiar beneath my fingers, and I flip to the last page on the first try.

  “You’ve heard about the Star Stones, right?” Elliot appears beside me, bringing with him the scent of lavender. I realize his mom probably buys his laundry detergent, but who ever heard of a lavender-scented bad boy?

  His fingers trace the mural where six stones nestle among trees in a valley that dips between mountain and cliff. To help people who can’t see the star symbol, the artist painted a light yellow line from one stone to the next.

 
“I’m not new.” Everybody knows about the Star Stones, just as everybody knows about the hole and the Virgin Mary and Sadie’s cancer. Everybody knows about everything in Wildewell.

  “Doris Lansing says they have nothing to do with the pit,” I say.

  Elliot scoffs. “You don’t erect stones at each point of a star for no reason. Unless you’re an asshole.”

  “Maybe the treasure’s buried there.”

  “The team that found the stones in 1886 thought the symbols covering the northern Star Stone were a map. They did a dig a few years later. There’s a cave below—a whole system of limestone caves—but that’s it. Decades of searching since, and nothing but empty caves.” He traces the shape into the wall, pressing hard enough to turn his fingernail violently white. “They missed something.”

  In Elliot’s mouth, the word they is a slur. But he’s a Thorne. They’ve always found the idea of other treasure hunters particularly distasteful.

  I leave him there, fingernail scratching at the mural as if the treasure’s buried behind it. As if a hole in the wall will sate his curiosity about a hole in the earth.

  “Holy shit,” Elliot says, and in the silence of the small room, the sound seems to shout. He gapes at me with eyes so wide I can see the whites from across the room. “Ruby,” he says.

  I’m surprised he knows my name, and not because most people call me Sadie’s sister or nothing at all. I’m surprised because Elliot and I have spoken only twice, years ago when he was a different person.

  He widens his eyes even more. “Ruby.”

  Even before he redecorated his wardrobe and his body, Elliot had this look about him—a certain slant of the lips and squint of the eyes—that gave the impression he was in on a secret no one else was smart enough to learn. But now he’s looking at me with a smile that says we’re partners in something, something rare and important.

  It’s a frightening thought.

  I drop my gaze, and that’s when I see it. Caught in a death grip.

  A black-and-red cover and a bone-white skull.

  Stealing back my book is an unbelievably easy task. Elliot’s staring at the map when I cross the room and snatch Treasure Island from his fingers.