Anne finds me digging through my bag for my flashlight and calls for the others. Soon we’re gathered around the rocks, beams pointed downward.
Blackness and rock, nothing else.
Elliot bumps his shoulder against mine. “This might be heaven on earth.”
“That sounds like one of Gabe’s lines.”
“Oh. Um.” His eyes flit to mine, then back to the hole. “I was talking about the poem. Stars are in the heavens, and the Star Stones are on earth. Whatever’s down the hole could be the sign we’re supposed to see.”
“Think I can fit through there?” Anne asks, pulling a line of rope from her bag. She knots it around her waist. “Someone hold the other end.”
“And somehow I’m the one who’s going to die.” Charlie unties Anne. He pulls a handful of fancy ropes from his bag. Seems to be pretty much all he packed. He jangles a couple of carabiners and says, “Never know when you’ll need to rappel down something.”
Elliot rolls his eyes. “That’s not actually something real people consider.”
“What do you think, Anna Banana? Up for some exploring?”
And that’s how Anne ends up in an elaborate harness and helmet, feet dangling over a mysterious nothingness. She looks like a child playing in her father’s gear, small head in a too-big helmet with hair shooting in every direction. She’s attached to a bunch of nylon ropes that run through the three anchors Charlie has set into cracks in the rocks. I expect him to push her off the ledge in an attempt at adventure, but Charlie, it appears, is all caution when it comes to everyone but himself. He guides her forward. Feet, calves, knees, and thighs. It’s the hips that do her in.
“A shove might be nice,” she says, rocking her body side to side in an attempt to slide farther through the hole. Elliot presses on her shoulders, but she doesn’t budge. She flops backward, rests the back of her helmet on the stone. “Everyone’s always teasing me for being tiny, and just when I thought it might finally come in handy, I’m too big. What cruel irony.”
“That’s not irony.”
“Don’t lecture me, Elliot,” Anne says. “I’m half in the ground and possibly stuck.”
I crouch behind her. Tug her by the armpits until she’s able to wiggle the rest of the way out of the hole. She jumps to her feet, throws off the helmet, and wrestles with her harness. “Failure makes me hungry.”
It makes me hungry, too. I’m completely ravenous for the treasure.
“We can still look for the sign,” I say. “Let’s focus on that. Let’s check the Star Stones.”
“Give before you get,” Gabe says, voice low and hypnotic. “There’s nothing here for us. Not yet.”
“Are we waiting for something?” Anne squats beside him, rests a hand on his shoulder.
Gabe flinches.
“He’s not right. And he’s getting more and more not-right the longer we’re on the island.” Anne’s eyes are wide and worried. She whispers, “We should leave.”
The suggestion wraps around my chest and tightens. I can barely breathe at the thought of giving up this hunt. Of giving up on Sadie. “I can’t.” My voice croaks. I try again. “I can’t, not until I find the treasure. But you can leave me here. I’ll call for a boat pickup when I’m done.”
Elliot stares at Gabe. “I’m staying,” he says, and it sounds like an apology. “I’ve been waiting for this since before I was born.”
“Gabe?” Anne’s hands flutter in the space between her body and his.
“We’re not leaving without the treasure. Gotta tell the truth to get the truth,” he says. He pushes off the ground and hurries to a stone on the far side of the clearing. Anne starts after him, but Elliot calls her back.
“Let him be.” Elliot bites his lip ring with such force I’m afraid he’ll tear it out. He stares after his friend, a mournful expression on his face. “You two make dinner. Ruby and I are going to inspect the stones.”
Warm hand firm around my fingers, Elliot leads me to a towering slab of granite, far enough from Gabe that we’re not intruding but close enough for Elliot to keep watch. He presses his forehead against the cool rock. “I’m the one who’s supposed to lose my mind,” he whispers.
“It’s the island.” I’m not talking in excuses like poisoned lips. I know with strange certainty that this place is tormenting Gabe. It’s tormenting me, too. “It’s telling him things.”
“Why would the island talk to Gabe?”
“Maybe it’s sick of Thornes.”
Elliot stares at me a moment longer, then turns his gaze to the stone. It’s nearly a head taller than Elliot, as wide as both of us side by side. The top right corner has long since crumbled. “Same symbols my mother spent years trying to translate,” he says, running a hand over the etched stone. “No clues.”
We circle to the other side, which is free of any markings. It’s the same for the next four stones. Elliot and I approach the final monolith with lowered shoulders and little hope. We start at the back, prolonging the suspense. I whirl around the slab to find Elliot punching the rock.
“Idiot.” Without thinking, I catch his hand in both of mine. If Sadie were here, I’d be six steps behind her, watching as my sister’s lips met raw knuckle. I feel six steps behind right now as my thumbs brush away blood.
Elliot takes a long breath, gaze fixed on my fingers. Then he lifts his head. It’s only now that I realize how close we’re standing, how easy it would be to press my forehead into his.
But I don’t.
I drop Elliot’s hand and turn to the stone. Like the others, it’s free of the thick grooves that marked the first. A blot of blood stains the stone at shoulder height, a smudge of Thorne forever tied to the island. I’m sure Elliot will be absurdly pleased by that fact just as soon as he’s finished sulking.
“We’ll check again,” I say. “We’ll—”
“No.” Elliot is kneeling in front of the stone, hands laced behind his head.
There, carved into the rough stone, is a wide square slashed through with a lopsided line. It’s sloppy, but it’s our sign.
Elliot greets the stone like it’s an old friend, at once excited and restrained as he traces the shallow grooves. “We’re going to find the treasure,” he says. There’s a hint of a smile in his voice, but it’s mostly serious, like Elliot. We stand in stunned silence for a few seconds, staring at each other without really seeing.
I shake my daze and take a last look at the symbol. It doesn’t hold the answer to all my questions, but on an island that can sedate a smooth talker like Gabe, during a quest for unfathomable treasure, it seems a single answer is good enough. For now.
“I want you to remember that I raised you for seventeen years. All those clothes, all that food…” Though I can’t see him, I know my dad’s grinning. “I distinctly remember paying for your baby teeth.”
“Are you saying the Tooth Fairy isn’t real?”
“That I am,” he says. “Neither is Santa. Those presents were from me. I want you to remember that when you’re rich with pirate treasure.”
“Elliot says we’ll have to give the treasure to the Smithsonian.”
“What a buzzkill.” He repeats the conversation to my mom, who’s washing dishes and pestering him for details. “Your mom says he’s a good boy.”
“Um, okay.” I don’t actually enjoy talking about boys with my parents. “So I should go. Can’t hog the phone.”
“She can’t hog the phone,” he tells my mom. It’s like the speaker feature doesn’t exist. “Mom says she loves you and expects you to have fun.” He pauses, but only for a second. “But good, wholesome fun.”
I’m smiling as I walk back to camp. The air is heavy with the scent of smoke and fire when I reach the meadow. Gabe’s slouching against one of the ruins, mumbling, “ ‘Let go the lie and set the truth free.’ ”
I’ve read it a thousand times while studying the map, but I always imagined we’d skip that step and head straight to the next clue. And I know I
should stop and ask him what it means, how it’ll lead us to the treasure, but I want nothing to do with revelations of truth. So I hurry away.
At the opposite end of the field, Elliot’s reading and Charlie and Anne crouch over an open flame, squabbling like siblings over a pot of something green.
“I’ve fallen in platonic love with you, Charles Kim, but no, I do not trust your judgment. Not on a boat. And not in the kitchen.” Anne tilts her head. “Or the outdoor equivalent.”
Charlie spoons what appears to be green mashed potatoes into five bowls. Elliot and I exchange a glance, and I know we’re thinking the same thing because he whips his head around and yells, “Gabe! Anne and Charlie are going to poison us if you don’t snap out of it.”
Gabe stands up slowly, like the wind that beat down the valley has taken up residence directly in front of him. His feet shuffle through the grass until he’s standing over the fire. Anne hands him a bowl of green potatoes, which he looks at with a fleetingly curious expression before squeezing between Elliot and Charlie.
I’m assaulted by pungent oregano as I stir my mashed potatoes, revealing small chunks of hard brown. “So dinner…”
“Oregano,” Elliot coughs. “First used in the late seventeen hundreds. From the Spanish orégano. Wild marjoram. From Latin: origanum.”
Gabe takes a bird bite. Lets the rest plop back into his bowl. He eyes Charlie, who doesn’t seem bothered by the obscene greenness of the potatoes.
Anne delivers a smug smile—a particular arrangement of features that looks out of place on her face—and says, “Told you we should have gone with the cinnamon.”
Gabe chokes on his water. I narrow my eyes and watch as Anne and Charlie exchange a knowing glance. “My mom always puts cinnamon in sweet potato pie.” She taps a finger to her chin. “And mini marshmallows, but we don’t have any of those. I have jelly beans, though.”
Gabe slams his bowl to the ground. “If you bothered to read the front of the box, you’d know these are instant cheddar mashed potatoes. You don’t put cinnamon in cheddar potatoes, Anne. You just don’t.” He swings his head to Charlie. “And even though oregano is the better option, it’s only slightly better than putting garlic powder on Lucky Charms, especially when you dump the entire bag of oregano in a single pot. I’m not even going to comment on the bits of beef jerky that appear like rat turds throughout this green mess of a meal.”
At that, Anne and Charlie lose it. I mean, they just let go with laughter that causes tears and the occasional snort. I catch Anne’s eye and she delivers a clumsy wink that has her other lid partially dropping, too. I stare in wonder at these two people who would cook a terrible meal on the off chance it could fix their friend, and I know with sudden sureness that I’d eat green potatoes for a month straight if it meant my friends were okay.
The lightness lasts until the sun disappears and the fire snaps against the black sky. Gabe becomes increasingly agitated as we clean the dishes and set up tents. So I pull out my harmonica and play a fast and folksy tune. My pulse keeps the beat. Something more me than air pushes from my lungs, through these reeds, and into the night. The song’s the sound of me—hope, love, desperation—and I wish it were enough to bring Gabe back.
His hands twist in his hair. His head shakes side to side to side to side. “Just do it,” he says under his breath, and I only hear because I’ve paused for a drink of water. “ ‘Let go the lie and set the truth free.’ Let go the lie. Let go the lie.”
Elliot stops Gabe’s babble with a punch to his bicep. “You’re freaking me out. What the hell’s going on with you?”
“I did something last winter.” Gabe stares around the fire, crazed eyes scanning each of our faces. He flinches when he meets my stare. “You’ll hate me. You’ll all hate me.”
“As your best friends, we’re legally obligated to like you,” Charlie says.
Gabe rakes shaking fingers through his knotted hair. “The island’s in my head. Or…I don’t know. But it wants the truth.” He scrubs his face with the heel of his hand.
He speaks low, almost too low to hear over the crack of the flames. He seems to gather his strength—deep breath, squeezed eyes—and then in a wobbly voice he says, “I did something terrible.”
The island seems to hold its breath, greedy for Gabe’s confession.
“Remember Hodge’s party over winter break? Charlie, you lit fireworks in the backyard and burned off that freshman’s right eyebrow. Elliot, you were there, but you weren’t.”
“There were too many annoying people there,” Elliot says. “I locked myself in Hodge’s little sister’s room and read.”
“That’s not important,” Gabe says. Flames dance in his pupils as he stares into the fire. “Here’s what’s important: That bastard Ronnie Lansing—sorry, Anne—was there, and he started talking shit about my mom and how without a dad, I can’t have a Y chromosome so there’s no way I can be a guy. And, I mean, I was drunk. And I drank more, telling Ronnie and those guys to go to hell. But they just kept at it, you know?”
“They’re losers,” Elliot says. “They deserve whatever beating you gave them.”
Gabe shakes his head. “I should have. I should have laid into Ronnie and busted his nose, but I was out-of-my-mind drunk and for some reason that didn’t cross my mind. I just kept thinking about what they said and how maybe no one really believed I was a man.
“And there she was. I’m not going to tell you her name because I promised I’d keep her secret, but she was there and she was gorgeous. She wanted me. She kissed me first, you know? It was like, I don’t know…” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “It was like she could disprove everything everyone said about me.”
My stomach sinks. Part of me wants him to continue, but most of me doesn’t.
“I didn’t do it on purpose. You have to believe me.”
Anne’s hand snaps to her mouth and she whispers through shaking fingers, “What did you do?”
Gabe’s eyes are glassy when they meet hers. “We were in this room. I don’t know what room, but it was dark and we were kissing. And she was into it. At first. But then I heard this voice in my head that sounded like Ronnie and then I thought I’d show him I was a man.”
If I still have a heart, it’s not doing its job. It’s a stone in my chest, heavy like the rest of me.
Gabe takes a shuddering breath, and with his exhale releases fat tears. His fist pounds his head. “I thought she was into it, you know? I was kissing her so hard, pushing her so hard against the wall. And when I put my hand up her shirt I thought—I don’t know. I was so drunk on beer and anger that I convinced myself she jumped because my hands were so cold.
“Then she said no.” As Gabe talks, the fire whimpers and ducks, then dies. He looks at me now, stooped with shame. “She said no, and I didn’t listen.”
Anne takes a ragged breath. “Did you…”
“No,” Gabe says, and it’s the strongest his voice has been all night. “No, not that. But I may as well have. I lifted her shirt, and she said no again. She pushed against my chest, but I was stronger.”
He shakes his head. Releases a harsh laugh wet with tears. “I pressed her harder against the wall and I heard her say, ‘Please, stop.’ And you know what I thought for a split second? I thought, ‘I’m a fucking man.’ ”
“Gabe.” There’s a jagged edge to Elliot’s voice. “Did you rape that girl?”
Gabe buries his head in his hands. His shoulders shake with sobs. “No!” he cries. “Thank God, no. She was so afraid of me. Her face—I see it every time I shut my eyes. I ran. I ran out of the room and out of the house and out of the neighborhood, and I didn’t stop running until I was under the docks on the east bay. I beat the shit out of myself, but it didn’t make me hate myself any less.”
No one speaks for a very long time. It’s impossible to make sense of my emotions. Disgust marries pity, and I can’t seem to feel one without the other. This horrifies me. “And everything went ba
ck to normal?”
Gabe flinches at my words. “It had to. That Monday I went to school and apologized. I told her to tell someone. I wanted to be punished. I wanted anything but pretending it never happened. She didn’t want anyone to know. I couldn’t— After everything, I owed her that.”
“Dude.” It’s as far as Charlie gets. His mouth makes an O and he shakes his head like he’s shaking the story from his mind.
“Why do you listen to those shitheads?” Elliot shoots to his feet. “You’ve heard Ronnie tell me to blow my brains out. ‘Like father, like son.’ You hear that, but you don’t think I’m going to stick a gun in my face, do you?”
“I know!” Gabe pulls his knees to his chest. “I knew it then, too. That’s what makes me so horrible.”
Elliot runs a hand through his hair. “You say that. You say you’re horrible, Gabe. Well, if you felt so bad about it, why the hell did you keep flirting with every girl in Wildewell? Why have you been hitting on Ruby this entire trip? Why didn’t you try to be better?”
“Because!” Gabe’s voice is sharp. “You wouldn’t get it, Elliot, because everyone sees you as this tough guy. They don’t wonder if you’re a man. What do you think they’d say if I took a break from hooking up?”
“I don’t…I mean, what do you want me to say, Gabe? I’m trying to understand, but—”
“I don’t want your understanding,” Gabe says. “Do you have any idea what it’s like letting everyone see someone good and worthy when you’re a monster inside?”
“Yes.” The whisper’s out before I realize it. Gabe’s watery gaze meets mine. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Everyone has secrets.”
“It’s not the same,” Gabe says, standing. “It’s not the same.”
He disappears into his tent, leaving shock and silence behind. No one’s in the mood to talk, so we wordlessly work to snuff out the fire and get ready for bed.
Overhead, insects beat against the top of the tent, dark smudges against the dark night. Soft fingers rest over mine. I stare at Anne’s hand, and I know she’s not Sadie and she’s strange, but I hold tight and squeeze.
Gray Wolf Island Page 13
