Gray Wolf Island

by Tracey Neithercott

  “That’s sad, Bart.” He stares out the window. The library overlooks a garden and a tidy lawn, then turns rocky. Below the cliff is the deep blue ocean. He’s looking there, at the invisible speck on the horizon. At Gray Wolf Island.

  “It’ll be my legacy,” he says after some time.

  “Okay.”

  The old man shakes his head. “You’re too young to understand.”

  “Maybe I’m older than we think.”

  “Maybe you’re younger than we think. You know, your voice cracked the other day.”

  “I’d just woken up.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m serious about this treasure.” He turns to me. “You know I never married.”

  I nod.

  “There were women,” he says. “There were women, Bart.”

  “I believe you.” Bishop is super rich. I bet all the ladies wanted to date him back in the day. Even now, when he’s all wrinkled and gray, Doris Lansing—who’s even more wrinkled and gray—says he’s as handsome as Sidney Poitier. I have no idea who that is.

  “But I never married. Never wanted to settle down. Was always looking for the next adventure.” He sighs. Deep, trouble-bearing sigh. “I’ve lived a good life. Been all over the globe. Never had kids, though. They wouldn’t have fit into my world.”

  He calls me a kid, and I fit into his world. I don’t say that, though.

  “I’m eighty-six years old, Bart. I have all this—” He waves a hand around the library. It’s loaded with books and antiques he collected over the years. “And when I go, the memory of me goes, too. No one’s telling stories about me around the dinner table. No one’s remembering that Christmas I wore a Santa costume.”

  He stares at the ocean again. “No legacy but a buried treasure.”

  “I’ll help.” I open my mouth. Pause. Shut it. Best leave it alone.

  “Whatever it is, say it.” He’s straightforward like that. It’s one of my favorite things about him.

  “I’ll tell stories about you.” I look away from him. “I’ll remember.”

  “You can’t even remember your own name.” His voice is gruff but kind.

  “Maybe it’s Bart.”

  Forty-five minutes later, I’ve had enough of adventure. I bolt from the boat, clattering down the dock as fast as I can go with a heavy pack on my back. I zigzag on jelly legs until I’m away from that infernal boat and its diabolical captain.

  “That was…” Anne searches the clouds for words. “Well, I really like you, Charles Kim, but I won’t ever ride a boat steered by you again.”

  To be fair, Anne wasn’t much better. She nearly sideswiped another boat, which is why Charlie took over in the first place. He moved about the boat with a keen understanding, like he grew up with a hard back and sails for skin. But Charlie likes to fly. He caught the wind and let it push the boat to stomach-dropping speeds. He rode with the port side lifted in the air and the starboard kissing the sea.

  “Elliot, what’s the etymology of adventure?” Charlie hikes his backpack higher on his shoulders. The shovel attached to the outside clanks as he races ahead. “Elliot, answer me. What’s the origin of adventure?”

  “In the late fourteenth century it meant ‘a perilous undertaking,’ which is also the definition of a sailing trip with you.”

  There is something seriously wrong with these people. I should have hired a real captain to bring me to the island, someone with leathery skin and wrinkles to prove he’s been at sea often and still hasn’t died. I should have rebelled for once and come here alone. Now I’m stuck on an abandoned island with a group of people who talk nonstop and hardly ever leave me alone.

  I scan the desolate beach. A stretch of sand is the toothy smile beneath a thick mustache of pine trees. Welcome, the island seems to say with a rustle of branches and the gentle shh, shh of waves hitting the beach.

  “We can make it before dark.”

  I follow Elliot’s gaze to an outcropping that divides the beach in two. The boys are unreasonably excited to see the Roaring Rocks formation. It doesn’t match up with a clue from the poem, but daylight’s fading—Gabe worked this morning, so we got a late start—and it’s as good a place as any to camp for the night.

  We leave footprints in the unspoiled sand as we trek down the beach. How many footprints has the ocean licked away, erasing all signs of discovery and exploration but the stubborn dock? If I crossed the beach and strode into the forest, would I find grass worn to dirt by trucks and excavation equipment, or has the island devoured those, too?

  “So, Ruby, with only two tents, you and I might have to share.” Gabe appears at my left, having somehow defied the wind that whipped everyone else’s hair into tangles during the boat ride here.

  “I’m with Anne.”

  Anne races to my side, sneakers swinging by laces knotted around her backpack strap. Her feet slap shallow water. It’s clear blue, not murky like the ocean that hugs the mainland. “I’ve never been invited to a sleepover before.”

  “You don’t sleep,” Gabe says.

  “Sleepovers aren’t about the sleep, Gabriel. They’re about what comes before.”

  “That,” Gabe says, “is exactly why I want to share a tent with Ruby.”

  I roll my eyes. How Gabe gets so many girls with his over-the-top flirting is a mystery.

  We walk in a strange silence full of sound: the whisper of waves, the crunch of sand beneath our feet, the caw of gulls overhead. And when the wind blows a moment later, a whirling, belligerent thing, it seems to suck the sound from everywhere that’s not here.

  An hour and a half later, we stop on the last stretch of smooth beach before it turns rocky. After setting up the tents, we wander toward the Roaring Rocks—a collection of boulders jutting into the sea. They curve around a narrow inlet and connect with a twelve-foot-high crag on the other side. Beyond that are more beach and a cliff that may or may not be our starting location.

  The sun dips its belly into the water, and my shadow steps away from me. I know I should follow Anne and the boys into the ocean, but I just need a moment. A short little second to get past the fact that I’m here with four people and not one of them is my twin.

  Elliot squints in my direction, lips slowly tipping into a smile. It’s the kind of look that makes me want to be seen. “Get over here, Ruby!” he yells. “You’re blurring around the edges.”

  I wave but stay put. Sadie never understood it, but I’m a perfectly content observer of fun. The boys don’t know this.

  Elliot shakes his head, mutters something to Gabe. I can already tell it’s nothing good because Gabe’s face takes on an expression that, I’ve learned, foreshadows roguish behavior. I’m proven right when he scoops me up from the stone, flings me over his shoulder, and carries me to the rocky inlet where the others have gathered.

  Charlie smiles when he sees me. “You can’t miss this, Ruby. Well, I guess you could, but then all of us would be laughing and telling stories about the Roaring Rocks and you’d be left out. Then we’d feel bad, and it’d ruin the whole memory.”

  My cheeks warm with embarrassment, but I’m smiling. There’s something about Charlie that feels like magic, like just being near him might bring the dead to life.

  I toe the edge of the rock and peer over. The water recedes down a narrow passageway walled in by tall rocks, revealing a small, semi-submerged cave.

  “This is the best time to see it,” Elliot says. “Before high tide, when the waves are high and fast like this.”

  I glance at his profile: eyebrows raised, teeth biting his lip ring. He cranes his neck to the ocean. “Are we waiting for something?” I ask.

  The look he gives me is an unnerving mix of mischief and glee. “When waves push down this channel with enough power, air gets trapped in that cave. It’s supposed to make this rumbling sound before the water escapes. It’s why they call this place the Roaring Rocks.”

  “That’s not even the fun pa
rt,” Charlie says. He says something else, but his words are lost in the ferocious water that rockets down the passageway and into the cave. White surf hits the back of the cave with a thunderous reverberation. Water in the channel is frothy white and rising, and when it leaves the small cave it shoots skyward, drenching us from head to toe.

  I push salty strands of hair from my eyes and watch the water recede before it spits a shorter blast of ocean at us. Elliot is whooping. Anne and Gabe are giggling. I’m smiling in a way I haven’t for a very long time. And Charlie, well, he looks like he’s soaking up all the life he can before he goes.

  The sun drips light down the face of the sky, fierce reds and oranges pooling on the surface of the water. For the long moments before the sun dunks beneath the waves, we’re kings and queens with skin like fire.

  YOUR ADVENTURE BEGINS

  with stars trapped in a sign.

  Navigate with them and

  our paths will align.

  We head back to the beach, solid figures turning to shadow as twilight descends. Anne and I shuck our soaked clothes while the boys collect wood from the edge of the forest, mysteriously unaffected by cool night air against wet cotton. The island doesn’t have cell reception, so I use the satellite phone we nabbed from the Gold Bug to call my mom, who wants to know if I have a best friend yet and if he’s covered in tattoos. It’s a short call.

  I emerge from our tent to find half the contents of Gabe’s backpack strewn across the sand: a bear-proof canister filled with food, a sealed bag containing collapsible bowls and a handful of sporks, a container of oil, and a titanium pot with a lid that doubles as a pan. He and Elliot are kneeling beside a pile of wood. Elliot flicks a lighter, touches flame to firewood, and waits for the burn.

  When the fire’s warm and strong, Gabe sticks five foil-wrapped somethings in the pan and holds it over the flame.

  Charlie kicks up sand as he approaches. He’s shed his shirt, and his skinny chest shines white and bright as the moon. “I want steak.”

  “We’re not carting a cooler around the island,” Elliot says. “You want meat, go dive for some fish.”

  Gabe removes the pan from the fire, then tosses us each a foil packet. My fingertips burn as I unwrap the package, releasing a puff of steam and the scent of banana and peanut butter. My tongue’s a riot of sweet-and-salty flavor.

  “You know, food is the way to a man’s heart,” Charlie says around a mouthful of sandwich. “Is that why I’m finding you strangely attractive right now?”

  Gabe rolls his eyes.

  “I’m serious. It’s like eating love.”

  A nervous look passes over Gabe’s face, but it’s gone in an instant. He winks at me. “What can I say? I’m good at love. Real good.”

  “Sex,” Anne says. “He’s talking about the sex.”

  I don’t dare look at Gabe. I’m thankful for the dusk that masks my blush, thankful for Elliot’s obsessive focus on the treasure. “See, Ruby? You can trace a hundred slashed squares in the stars.”

  I follow his gaze to the pinpricks of light now appearing in the dimming sky. “We kind of already established you’re always right.”

  Elliot traces a square into the sand. He draws a line through the center of the square, starting an inch above the shape and extending an inch below. The side of his hand erases the symbol, and he starts again. “But if it’s not related to the poem, then what’s the point?”

  Nobody knows, so nobody responds. Charlie breaks out the Captain Morgan, which he stole from his older brother’s stash because it had a pirate on the front and we’re looking for treasure. Anne takes a sip before passing the bottle to Elliot. She turns to Charlie.

  “Are you here to disprove destiny?” Her large eyes look watery in the firelight. “Or are you chasing your death?”

  Charlie groans. “I’m here because I can either change my fate or I can’t.”

  Elliot lobs a shell at Charlie’s face. It bounces off his forehead. “And I’m either going to punch you or I’m not. How is that an answer?”

  “Look, if I can change what I saw, then I can stay alive. If I can’t, well, then I was always going to end up on the island, wasn’t I?” Charlie laughs, and it’s like a stone sinking down a bottomless pit. “I just wanted to get it over with.”

  Anne leaps to her feet. She rounds the fire, sinks to the ground in front of Charlie. “I believe you can question fate. I believe you can use your visions to beat fate.” She bites her lip, then unwinds a leather bracelet from her wrist. “Are you wearing this in your vision?”

  Charlie shakes his head, and Anne loops the leather around his arm. She sits back on her feet. “We’re going to save your life, Charles Kim. As long as you wear that, your vision is wrong. If that can be wrong…”

  “So can my death.” A flash of a Cheshire cat smile. Charlie raises the rum above his head. “To the treasure! And to staying alive!”

  Elliot’s shoulder bumps mine. “Play us something.” At my blank look, he says, “I heard you play at school one day. You were waiting for your sister. I was on the bench next to you, and—” He sort of stops there. Nothing but a sigh and a quick glance away.

  “Keep going,” Charlie says. “I don’t think she sees you as a full-on stalker, but I’m sure you can change her mind.”

  “Shut the hell up, Charlie.” Elliot looks at me from the corner of his eye. “You brought your harmonica, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” I bury my head in my hands. “But I can’t play in front of people.”

  Something taps my head, and I look up. My Marine Band diatonic dangles from Anne’s fingers. “This is a moment,” Anne says. “We need a soundtrack to remember it by.”

  I run my fingers over the cover plate. Sadie had it engraved with my initials for our twelfth birthday. My blood stirs at its touch, notes itching to slide out.

  I wrap my hands around the instrument and press it to my lips. A single note, that’s all they’re getting. At least it is until I taste the music in my mouth. Then I’m closing my eyes and shaping the sound into something bluesy. I try to hold tight to the music, keeping it slow and low, but it rips right from me.

  I let go. I’m breathing impossibly fast, kicking up the beat, bending notes and pulsing sound with a flutter of my hands. I blow the final note and with it escapes the scent of tuberose, as if my music has drawn a little bit of Sadie from my mind.

  When the sky is black and the fire’s a struggling thing, Elliot draws another slashed square in the sand, then promptly curses its existence. He doesn’t use expletives this time, but even God is a blasphemy when the word’s sliding off Elliot’s tongue.

  He kicks the symbol away. “I have met my nemesis.”

  “I thought your family had a direct line to the island itself.” I edge my fingers closer to the fire, letting the meager flames chase away the night’s chill. Smoke dances from the fire and burns my eyes. There’s a filmy otherness to the beach, everything light and smudged. A few feet from me, Gabe helps Anne bury a sleeping Charlie in the sand, and he looks practically angelic. But then I blink the world into crisp and clear.

  Elliot lets loose a string of swearwords, and I turn to find him tangled in Gabe’s backpack and splayed out in the sand.

  “Are you, like— Is this you drunk or something?”

  “Am I slurring my speech?” He rolls his head in my direction. “I could be having an ischemic stroke.”

  Well, that answers that.

  “You’re fine,” I say. “I thought maybe you’d poured your clumsiness from a bottle.”

  “Because tough guys like me always get drunk?”

  It’s too dark to tell if he’s joking. I sincerely hope he is. “Because guys pretending to be tough generally get drunk.”

  “Except here’s the thing,” he says, shifting closer. He smells like salty sea and smoking wood. “Actually, no, I’m not going to tell you.”

  I look out to the ocean, a writhing black mass. In the dark, we’re even farther from
Wildewell than we were in the light. “That sort of teasing is against the laws of the universe.”

  Elliot’s smile cuts through the night. “So arrest me. It’ll up my street cred.”

  I groan. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

  “Okay, fine. Here it is: I don’t really like the taste of alcohol.”

  “Scandal.”

  He shrugs. “It’s not very good.”

  Elliot has a menacing look about him in the daylight, but at night he’s the sort of boy who inspires mothers to buy their daughters Mace. So when he’s like this, all boyish grins and startling charm, it’s a lot like sticking your hand in a fire and getting frostbite.

  I smile at Elliot, but he’s not looking my way. His gaze is fixed on the sand.

  “Holiest of all shit. I figured it out.”

  We move closer to the firelight. Elliot draws six dots in the sand. “Four corners of the square and the top and bottom of the line, right?” He connects the dots to form the slashed square.

  With a grin, he clears the sand and draws the six dots again. “Or the six points of a hexagram.”

  “Is there a purpose to this geometry lesson?”

  “The purpose,” Elliot says, connecting the lines into a six-pointed star, “is that this is our star trapped in a sign.”

  DISCOVER THE SPOT WHERE

  morning sun scorches sand

  and the ocean beats its anger

  into the land.

  It comes to me as the sun is poking its nose over the earth. “It’s sunrise!”

  Gabe grins around his toothbrush. The air’s soaked with the scent of mint and brine. “I’m honored to be here for your first time.”

  I’m too excited to roll my eyes. But really. “No, I figured out the next clue.”

  He stares at the pink sky and says, “Nice day to discover a treasure.”

  The mere mention of the treasure draws Elliot from the boys’ tent. He stumbles onto the beach without a shirt, tattoos on full display: designs on each arm, a colorful circle over his heart, and a wolf spanning the length of his right side. In this moment, Elliot Thorne looks every bit the rebel he professes to be.