Gray Wolf Island

by Tracey Neithercott

  “I invited them.” A ladybug lands on my bare knee. Little legs tickle my skin. When we were kids, Sadie and I made wishes on the insects, rubbing their backs three times for good luck. This summer, the house has been so overrun by ladybugs that my mother has started sucking them from the windows and curtains with a vacuum. With that many around, it seems less like random signs of good luck and more like, well, an infestation of insects.

  “In what I may later consider a spell of terrible parenting, I’m going to overlook the whole trespassing thing. But only because Bishop Rollins is dead and nobody polices the island.” She’s talking about the treasure hunt. I considered lying—I’m a liar, after all—but I knew I wouldn’t need to. “I know how much she wanted this for you. I want this for you.”

  I can’t look at her with all that love just spilling over, everything I don’t deserve puddling in the space between us. Times like this, I wish she’d figure it out—that Sadie’s eyes weren’t bloodshot from sickness, that I’m filled with a disgusting darkness.

  But my parents will never suspect that evil lives in me. And I’m too much of a coward to tell.

  My mom leans forward, squeezes my hand. “I would have hated to see you miss out simply because you can’t go alone.”

  “I can go alone,” I say.

  “No, you can’t.” I open my mouth, but she cuts me off before I can respond. “That was an order, not a challenge.”

  My dad appears in the doorway, keys dangling from his fingers. Straight from work at the law firm, he’s polish and poise, hair combed to the side, tie tight around his neck, jacket stiff over his sturdy frame. His gaze ping-pongs between me and my mother. “Is this a girl thing?”

  My mom waves him into the living room. “A group of kids invited Ruby on a camping trip. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “I invited them.”

  “That’s great, sweetie,” he says, stealing a bowl of honey-roasted peanuts from the coffee table and tossing them into his mouth one by one. “I’ll get the tent from the attic for you.”

  “We’re not camping,” I say. “We’re going to find the Gray Wolf Island treasure.”

  I expect him to choke on a peanut in surprise, but he doesn’t even lift his eyes from his honey-roasted fingers. “You’ll still need a tent for that, right?”

  “How about the red one we used a few years ago? That fit you and Sadie comfortably,” my mom says. “Unless Anne’s sharing a tent with her great-grandmother—then you can use the small blue tent and the boys can use the red if they need one.”

  “Doris is just lending her boat. She’s not coming with us,” I say. “I mean, c’mon, Mom, she’s like a billion years old.”

  My mom seems to sink into the chair. “Well.”

  My dad shakes his head. “You’re not attending an unchaperoned camping trip with teenage boys—”

  “And Anne,” I say.

  “Teenage boys and Anne to a potentially dangerous hole in the earth, all of which requires trespassing.” He turns to my mother. “This doesn’t concern you?”

  My gaze jumps from my dad to my mom, who, while not quite bubbling like she has been, gives me a suspiciously sincere smile.

  “Of course it concerns me. She’s our…daughter,” she says, and my mind adds only in her slight pause. “But I’m just happy she’s getting out of the house. Talking to people other than us or Doris. It’ll be good for her to act like a kid again.”

  “But that Wade kid is wild. What if he asks her to jump off a cliff?”

  “He isn’t even going,” I say. “But if he was, why would he ask me to jump off a cliff?”

  My dad’s too busy being outraged to answer. He moves closer to my mom. “And Elliot Thorne is a hoodlum. Aren’t you afraid he’s going to coerce her to, I don’t know, steal something?”

  I flop back into the couch, letting the puffy cushions swallow me whole. “That’s the whole point of a treasure hunt, isn’t it?”

  “I hate when you use logic on me,” my dad says over his shoulder. He refocuses on my mom. “This could take a long time. She could get pregnant spending so much time with those boys.”

  “It doesn’t really work that way,” my mom says with a laugh. “Besides, we’ll give her one week—no more.”

  Another ladybug lands on me, a fat one that’s more rust than red. I scoop it into my palm, let it walk down my forefinger. “She wanted me to go.”

  My dad looks at me. Really looks at me. “I know,” he says. “I know you miss her.”

  He says it like I’m the only one who notices Sadie’s gone. Like he doesn’t read poetry in the dark just to feel close to her again. Like my mom doesn’t wash her pillowcase in tears. Like the entire town doesn’t miss her, even Kit the cat, who came by every Thursday for the milk and tuna Sadie would leave for him on the front porch. One Thursday after she died, I saw the stray moping about like he’d lost his twin.

  “She made me promise. Please don’t make me break it.”

  “You fight dirty, my child.”

  My mom glances at my father with thick brows raised high. He nods, as if she’s spoken aloud, and I’m reminded of Elliot and Gabe’s silent conversation the other day. Of so many conversations with Sadie. It’s what happens when two people’s lives are linked for so long. Their thinking becomes so familiar they stop needing to speak to say what they mean.

  “I trust you,” my mom says. “So go. Have fun and make new friends—do things you’d normally do with Sadie, or even things you wouldn’t have done if Sadie were here.”

  “Safe, legal, and moral things,” my dad says with a grin that slowly slides down his face. Without it, he looks like something old and worn. “And whatever you do, don’t fall down that pit.”

  A week later, my parents drive me to town. We roll down our windows, let the scent of summer swirl through the car—bark mulch, fresh-cut grass, and the lavender that turns the rolling hills purple. My mom cranks the radio, and the Violent Femmes sing about blistering in the sun. Her shoulders shimmy and my dad shakes his head, but the skin by his eyes crinkles.

  It’s times like these, when everything feels so absurdly perfect, that I miss Sadie most. She’d be smiling right about now, high on the anticipation of an adventure. She’d tilt her head way back, thrust her arm out the window, and open her hand wide to feel the air between her fingers.

  It’s a shame I’m the sister who got to live.

  We crawl in tourist traffic down Main Street, past shops painted every color of pastel. My dad parks in front of Cooper Country Store, a blue-shingled cottage covered in a rainbow of old buoys. “Don’t forget to call home,” he says, engulfing me in a hug. “Don’t hike at night—it’s dangerous. And always use the buddy system, okay?”

  “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

  He squeezes me one last time, then lifts my backpack onto my shoulders. He grips the straps and says, “She’d be proud.”

  I nod, then follow my mom’s bouncing ponytail around the side of Cooper’s. Gabe’s leaning against the building, hands shoved casually into his salmon-colored shorts. He looks like he should be holding the kind of old-fashioned tennis racket nobody uses unless they’re wearing Ralph Lauren and appearing in an ad campaign. Elliot stands beside him, looking like the kind of guy who’d beat up a Ralph Lauren model.

  My mom waits until we’re two feet from the boys before discussing my underwear. “They’re lightweight,” she says, shoving five more pairs into the mesh pouch on the side of my backpack. It’s one of those tall ones people use when traveling around Europe and staying in places that have bedbugs instead of bellhops. Though I filled it to nearly bursting—I’m in charge of toiletries and one of the lightweight backpacking tents Charlie lent us—I’m sure there’s a spot inside that could hide my zebra-print panties.

  She shoots the boys her mile-wide smile and shakes her head. “Nothing worse than dirty undies.”

  My face flames. “Oh God.”

  Gabe drops an arm over my shoulder. “So hot-pi
nk zebras…”

  “Komodo dragons,” Elliot says. At our blank stares, he rushes on. “Scientists used to think the bacteria in their mouths killed their prey, but really they’re venomous. Well, that and they have serrated teeth that’ll tear a chunk of your flesh off. But the venom makes you bleed faster. That’s a lot worse than dirty underwear.”

  “Listening to you lecture is worse than dirty underwear.” Gabe shoves Elliot toward Cooper’s. “I’m going to buy Ruby’s love with sugar.”

  Elliot punches Gabe in the stomach, then waves at my mom.

  “I like him,” my mom says.

  “He has piercings. And tattoos.”

  She straightens my ponytail. Kisses my forehead. “This will be good for you.”

  I leave her there, white blouse billowing in the breeze, and follow the seashell-covered path that leads to a private marina. A clutter of bobbing boats with bare masts edges the dock.

  Captain Thirwall, an old sea salt with worn-leather skin and hair the gray of the ocean during a storm, sits at the stern of his boat, chewing a pipe he never lights. A blue captain’s hat sits atop a cooler on the dock, but he uses a hand to shade his eyes as he watches me approach the Gold Bug. It looks like a toy boat come to life: gleaming white bottom, teak deck, and polished oak trim.

  “Do something about that Indian girl,” the captain grumbles. “Been lying there since noon.”

  I follow his gaze to the end of the dock, where Anne’s lying on her back. She gazes up at me with one eye. “I lost a bet with myself.”

  “Then I guess you also won,” I say.

  She rolls her head from side to side. “Self-bets don’t work that way. See, I was getting the boat ready this morning and I got a feeling like maybe four of us wouldn’t be leaving for Gray Wolf Island. I told myself I didn’t have to share my jelly beans if that happened.”

  “And you thought I’d be the one who didn’t show up?”

  “Of course,” Anne says. “But only because you hate adventure. And maybe people.”

  A laugh bursts from deep in my chest. Her lips tip up into a soft smile.

  “Anne Lansing, you sorceress.” Gabe taps her foot with his. “What magic made our surly Ruby laugh like that?”

  “I’m funny, Gabriel.” She rises to her feet, picks up my backpack—which is nearly as tall as she is and probably just as heavy—and heaves it onto the boat. Gabe follows her instructions as she prepares to set off, their bodies wrapping around the mast and each other as they tighten cords and remove the sail cover and make a million small adjustments only a seasoned sailor could keep straight.

  I turn at the sound of approaching footsteps and catch Captain Thirwall eyeing Elliot as he strolls down the dock. Elliot fits with the peaceful marina about as well as a nun in a knife fight: black pants, tank top with a grinning skull, and tattoos on display. As he passes the captain, Elliot sneers and extends his middle finger.

  He stands beside me at the end of the dock and says, “The sky was red last night.”

  “Well, it’s blue right now.”

  The sun glints off the silver hoop in Elliot’s lip when he smiles. It’s a tiny, unsure thing that makes me think it’s not so absurd to hope we’ll one day be friends. “Yeah.” He tilts his head way back. “It’s just— Well, it’s about how the sun’s light is scattered through the dirt in the atmosphere. When it’s red at night there’s high pressure, so the weather will be good the next day. Today.”

  He sits on the captain’s cooler and spends the next ten minutes asking over and over if I’ve packed Treasure Island. As if I could possibly forget it.

  “All aboard!” Anne shouts.

  The captain chews the end of his pipe. “You kids have permission to use that boat?”

  He says “you kids” but he’s looking at Elliot. Anne bounds from the boat. “Don’t worry, Captain. My great-grandmother knows we’re using it.”

  “You stay far from that island. Even the ocean around it is cursed. No place for a bunch of kids.” He shakes his head, extra slow so we know he finds our adventure especially silly. “No place for a couple of girls, and it sure as hell ain’t a place for a boy who might bite the barrel of a gun on a good day.”

  Elliot shoots to his feet. Stomps down the dock, launches himself into the boat with such force I’m amazed he doesn’t fall straight through the bottom. I hop aboard, strap on a life vest, and settle on the empty oak bench at the stern. Anne’s small body flits about the compact space as she tests the wind and positions the boat. A clobber of footsteps joins the scraping-metal sound of the sail rising up the mast. Charlie appears at the edge of the dock, backpack slipping down his shoulder.

  “Hurry, before my mom finds out I’m gone!” Charlie tosses his bag onto the boat, then leaps into the cockpit, nearly decapitating himself on a long beam that juts from the mast.

  “I thought you weren’t coming because you’re going to die,” Elliot says.

  “Probably will.” Charlie flops down beside him. “But imagine the fun I’ll have first.”

  I tilt my head to the sky and close my eyes, letting the rocking boat lull me into almost-sleep. Serenity stops when a stream of swearwords rumbles from Captain Thirwall’s lungs like a fit of coughing. Furry eyebrows meet in the middle of his red face. “Don’t think you’ll get away with this!” he yells to Elliot, who’s grinning beneath the captain’s sea-beaten hat.

  “Sorry, can’t hear you!” Elliot yells. The captain flings a few more curses our way, but Elliot just tips his hat.

  “You look ridiculous,” Gabe says. And he does, but also kind of nice.

  In the honey-hued light of early evening, with my entire life behind us and Gray Wolf Island somewhere ahead, I get the dizzying sensation that everything that comes after this will belong to a new girl.

  Two months, and here’s what I know: I have dark brown hair. The color of Bishop’s desk. I have green eyes. Bright as island grass.

  I stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror the night Bishop brought me home and studied myself. Looked for the familiar.

  Didn’t find it.

  All that really matters about me is the hair Bishop called Indian laurel brown and the eyes he said are Gray Wolf Island eyes. It may not be who I was before, but that’s who I am now.

  I know I can’t fish, but Bishop says I’ll learn. I can mow the lawn, but Bishop says I do a shoddy job. I know I can read and write, and now that’s my job.

  Bishop never did hear from that new assistant, so I’ve slid into the role like my entire life was waiting for it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the missing assistant. If I went to meet Bishop on Gray Wolf Island, knocked my head on something hard, and landed right where I was supposed to be.

  That’s not what happened.

  The assistant was older, and Bishop estimates I’m between twelve and fifteen. I tried to tell him I’m twenty-one, but he just shoved a cold soda in my hand and took a sip of his Scotch.

  Two months, and here’s what I know: I haven’t been reported missing.

  I am no one.

  But Bishop’s making me into someone.

  I’m sitting in Bishop’s immense library, sifting through a stack of books, when Bishop walks into the room.

  He’s not a big man. Barely taller than me. But he’s got this presence about him. Bed-and-Breakfast Mary calls it a largeness. Makes him feel about twelve feet tall.

  “Listen up, Bart,” he says, sitting in the chair next to me. Everyone else in Wildewell knows me as Cooper, but Bishop’s convinced I’m Bart. It makes me feel mildly repulsive, but it makes him happy so I go with it. “I’m going to bury a treasure on Gray Wolf Island.”

  “There’s already a treasure on Gray Wolf Island.”

  Mary calls Bishop a true believer. He came to Wildewell thirty years ago. He’d made a bazillion dollars in the antiquities business, which he still sort of dabbles in. He’d heard about the Gray Wolf Island treasure pit from a lobsterman up north, who said the Ark of the Covenant was buri
ed somewhere down that hole. Bishop knew that was one hundred percent horseshit, but he was drawn to the pit anyway. When Gray Wolf Island calls, he says, it holds you by the balls and doesn’t let go.

  It’s true, too. For years he tried to forget about the island and the hole, but it just kept calling Bishop, Bishop, Bishop! until he had to come to Wildewell and he had to buy up Gray Wolf Island and he had to excavate the site in search of treasure.

  Even now, over a decade after he shut down the dig, he’s still searching on his own. Can’t get the island out of his head.

  I’ve spent two months poring over dusty books. Looking for clues. Looking for missed details.

  It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. Pretty sure I’d think that even if I could remember myself.

  I hold up the book I’m reading, Norwegian Runes and Runic Inscriptions. “What do you think all this is for?”

  Bishop laughs. “You becoming a believer?”

  I roll my eyes, but he knows it’s mostly for show. He smiles like I belong to him. Sometimes I wish I did.

  “Why are you burying a treasure on Gray Wolf Island?”

  He fiddles with this smiling Buddha statue on the side table. “You remember that trip I took last month?”

  I nod. He was gone eight days.

  Eight days is a very long time.

  “It was my last trip to the island, Bart. It’s been three decades and I’m an old man. It’s time to call it quits.”

  “You’re giving up on the treasure?” I don’t know why, but this makes my throat tight.

  He ruffles my hair. I’m too old for that, but I let him do it because it makes him happy. “Time to give something back.”

  “You can give back and keep searching.”

  “I could,” he says. “But I’m tired. I’m not sure anyone will ever find it, and that’s…”

  “That’s what?”

  I’ve never felt more like I belonged than right now. With Bishop’s tragic eyes.

  He doesn’t show those to just anyone. Maybe to no one else.