Gray Wolf Island

by Tracey Neithercott

  “You’re the sheriff. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  “Tried that once. They just sent down another sheriff to police me into policing everyone else. No, I have to do this.”

  “Whatever it is, just get it over with.”

  “We’ve been lenient letting you stay here since Bishop died. But it’s been four days, and now you’ve got to go.” He scratches his neck. “This isn’t your home.”

  “I’ll be out in a few days.”

  “Listen, Coop, I hate to do this. I really do. But I need you out today.” He stares at the sea instead of me. The crash of waves against rock is loud this afternoon. “This place is Wildewell’s now, and Captain Thirwall is in a tizzy over possible theft and vandalism what with Mr. Rollins gone.”

  “I’d like to vandalize his face.”

  “That’s not how vandalism works,” he says. “And you really shouldn’t say stuff like that to me. I’m the sheriff. I don’t want to arrest you for threatening assault.”

  I sigh. “If you arrest me, at least I’ll have a place to sleep tonight.”

  “You have a place to sleep tonight. My sister is waiting for you.”

  He says it like that settles things. I guess it does.

  I gather my belongings in a small bag. Steal a few of Bishop’s books. He’d be okay with that, I think.

  In his bedroom I find my treasure. A small metal sailboat. I pluck it from Bishop’s dresser, shove it in the red backpack.

  When I’m done, I enter his study. Of all the rooms in his house, this one misses him the most.

  I sit behind his desk. Run my hand over the polished wood. Indian laurel.

  My finished poem is on the desk. So is the last book Bishop ever read. He thought it’d be hilarious to hide the poem in Treasure Island. Got a real laugh out of that idea.

  I pick up the book. Flip to the last page.

  The old man would want me to finish this thing.

  I write the poem, making my letters old-fashioned and fancy. When I’m done, I snap the book shut.

  Two bags wait for me by the door. I head for the library first.

  I have a book to hide, then a treasure to bury.

  I end up in the back of a police cruiser, wedged between a door with disabled handles and a heavy red backpack. I keep thinking Sheriff March is going to look in the bag and arrest me for theft now that Captain Thirwall put the idea in his head.

  We near an old house. Gray shingles. White trim. These arched windows that make me think of Bishop’s history books.

  The sheriff strides to the front door. A towering woman with wild eyes answers it.

  They disappear into the house.

  The sun disappears over the horizon.

  I’m disappearing, too.

  Bart’s gone. Left with Bishop.

  Cooper’s on his way out. Not sure where he’s headed, but it’s not here.

  Soon I’ll just be Nameless Boy, and even that will vanish.

  One day I’ll be a hint of a memory. Or maybe Wildewell won’t remember me at all. Minds wiped clean as mine was that morning on Gray Wolf Island.

  A quiet tap, tap, tap on the window.

  I turn my head. Standing beside the car is a skinny kid. He’s young, maybe nine or ten.

  “Open the door,” I say.

  He tugs it open. Cool September air chills the sweat at the base of my neck.

  I stand on drowsy legs. They prickle as I walk.

  “What’re you doing?” The boy follows me to a stone wall. It connects to more stones that connect to a rocky cliff.

  “Guess I’m staying for a bit.” I stretch the ache out of my legs. “Where’s your uncle?”

  “Helping Dad. He’s having a bad week.”

  The sky darkens, revealing a slice of moon. The beach fades in the darkness. Nothing down there but the crashing waves.

  “Did you know he has post-traumatic stress disorder from the war?” The boy works a stone loose from the wall. “Mom says trauma comes from the Greek word for ‘wound.’ ” He shakes his head but doesn’t glance at me. “I hear what they say about him in town. That he should stop being so sad and angry. He doesn’t try to be sad and angry.”

  I nod. “It’s like a wound. You can’t tell someone to stop bleeding so much.”

  I’m tipping over the edge of drowsy when a strange sensation jolts me awake.

  Someone’s watching me.

  Hairs on the back of my neck reach for the ceiling.

  I lie real still. Keep my eyes shut.

  Deep breaths of sheets scented with Mrs. Thorne’s homemade lavender detergent.

  Then, a creak.

  I shoot upright. The couch squeaks beneath me.

  The dark’s a solid form filling every inch of the room. I blink and blink. My eyes are slow to adjust, but when they do they snag on a chair in the corner of the room.

  In the chair is a man.

  And he’s staring at me.

  “We hurt the children,” he says.

  I don’t reply.

  “We hurt the children.”

  I clench my blankets in a fist.

  The tall shadow leans forward. “You think they’re in heaven?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Head shot. Them’s the orders.”

  His voice is low. Almost too low for a human. It sends a chill through the room.

  “You think they’re in heaven?”

  “Sure,” I say. “They were only kids.”

  “Yeah.” The man leans back against the chair. “Better to go when they’re still innocent enough to get in.”

  The man stands. Pauses before leaving the room.

  “Don’t grow up,” he says over his shoulder. “It’ll turn you into a monster.”

  Bone on stone. That’s the sound of dying on Gray Wolf Island.

  Gabe’s nose presses sideways against the stone. A river of blood clots in the dirt. “Charlie.”

  “I’m here.” Charlie stands above us, hands fisting his hair. He blinks and blinks and blinks. “I’m right here.”

  “Tell Charlie,” Gabe says, his voice a muffled gurgle. He winces. “Hurts.”

  “I know it hurts, man.”

  Gabe’s eyes meet mine, and I want to look away. I did this. Holding on to my secret so tight, that’s what’s really killing Gabe. But I won’t turn away. I rest a hand against his cheek. “You’re almost there, Gabe.” I swallow back everything waiting to release. “Can you see it? All that treasure? It’s miles and miles of gold and every bit of it is perfect.”

  He swallows hard. “Tell Charlie it’s better like this.”

  Then he blinks, one last time.

  “Stop this,” Elliot says to Gabe, though I think he’s really talking to the island. He kneels by Gabe’s head. Covered in blood and lit by only a sliver of moonlight, Gabe’s sandy brown hair looks raven black. Strands stick out in every direction, some shooting skyward, others plastered to his forehead. The back is wet and matted. He’d hate that. With gentle fingers, Elliot smooths it down, over the divot of skull cracked in the rockslide. Then he gently flips Gabe onto his back.

  Elliot stares at his hand, trembling and crimson. “This isn’t real.” Elliot wipes his hand against the ground. He rubs harder, as if resurrecting Gabe is as simple as wiping away his blood.

  “This—” Elliot stares at his palm, a dirty mess of pebbles and blood. “It’s not here. We’re not here.”

  I wrap my arms around him, trapping his arms at his sides. “Elliot,” I say, voice froggy from the sadness caught in my throat. “He’s gone, Elliot.”

  My secret did this. I can see it now, like a backward premonition. Crisp in the way understanding gets only when you’re viewing the past.

  I held on to the truth, and now Gabe is gone.

  My chest aches with guilt and grief. I’m not fifty feet underwater like I was when Sadie died, but I’m still in the middle of the ocean, coughing salt from my lungs.

  We stare
at him for a long while, long enough for blood to run down the back of his head, down his neck, down to his shoulder blades. Long enough for the blood to wing out on either side. Elliot stumbles back before it hits his knees. Anne doesn’t care. She lets Gabe’s blood feather against her skin, then she leans forward and sprinkles his body with sadness.

  The cave cries with her, dripping tears from the tips of stalactites. They’re liquid light in the hazy gloom. Where they wet the earth, white flowers push through the rock. They cradle Gabe’s body, shoving so close to his skin that his fingers are forced to spread. White buds hug his sides. Petals kiss his cheeks.

  They grow and grow until Gabe is covered, and it’s the most awful and awesome thing I’ve ever seen.

  The island croons. It’s the whistle of wind through the crack in the ceiling. It’s the rush of the ocean, somewhere outside this cave. It’s a low and lovely melody, and I find myself humming along. Anne gives the song words, tear-drenched things that tell the story of a broken boy who sought a treasure but found his way. Of a boy with broken bones who had never been so whole.

  Charlie’s body shakes with silent sobs. “It was supposed to be me,” he says. “He saved me and I never even tried to save him. Not tonight, and not any of the days before.”

  Nobody says anything but we all know: It’s a particular kind of cruelty to get a glimpse of destiny’s cards and still lose the game.

  “I should have known!”

  “Stop,” Anne says. “It was an easy mistake.”

  Charlie barks a laugh. “I’m Korean, Anne. Korean. Gabe and I look nothing alike.”

  “You got flashes.” I draw a ragged breath. “His hair was black with blood. And it was dark. Dark enough to mistake the back of his head for yours.”

  “The fingers,” Charlie says, staring at his hands. “It always seemed wrong how much thicker they were than mine are now, but I thought…Well, they were coated in dirt and blood and I thought they were swollen from a fight or whatever awful event killed me.”

  Charlie’s shoulders droop under the weight of solid sorrow. I imagine if we try to bring it on the boat, we’ll sink straight to the bottom of the ocean. “The thing is, all of Wildewell’s expecting my death. They’ve been saying goodbye for almost my whole life.”

  I lay a hand over Charlie’s. “It shouldn’t have been Gabe. But it shouldn’t have been you, either.”

  White flowers flatten against rock as Elliot stalks to the opposite side of the small cave. His hands fist at his sides. “It didn’t happen,” he says to one of the tall stones. He punches the rock, leaving behind a red smear. He punches again. And again. “It’s not real.”

  The fog rolls in, white and heavy. It hides half of the beach and the ocean beyond.

  “Advection fog,” the boy, Toby, says.

  I’m lying on the stone wall, partway between Thorne Manor and the drop to the ocean. Directly below, a powerboat clunks against a dock.

  Toby sits in the grass, tying his shoes. His dad’s taking him fishing, just the two of them.

  I don’t like fishing. Bishop took me once, but it was a whole lot of doing nothing.

  I swing a leg off the edge of the wall. “Is that a special kind of fog?”

  From the looks of the stuff, it could be.

  “I thought you were smart.”

  “I’m smart—not a meteorologist.”

  He sighs. “Mom says it forms when warm, moist air flows over a cool surface, like the water. The water vapor condenses and forms a fog.”

  His words kick the otherworldly out of the atmosphere.

  “You should use your brain a little less and your imagination a little more.”

  “Mom says you don’t need imagination when you know the answer.”

  But it’s cooler to pretend the fog is a veil between our world and the next. Or a sign of something big to come.

  The back door squeaks. Slams against its frame.

  The shadow man from last night stands on the deck. His face is more frightening in the light than the dark. Sharp angles and handsome features layered over darkness.

  He walks down the driveway. “Toby, let’s go!”

  The boy watches his dad jangle the keys as he walks to the car. Before he runs off to his father, he looks up at me and says, “It’s a good day today.”

  “Elliot Thorne, you better not be sitting on that wall again.”

  I’ve yet to determine if Wendy Thorne objects to everyone sitting up here or just her sons.

  I slide to the ground.

  Her body follows her voice, rounding the side of the house and heading straight for me. She stops short when she sees me. Her eyes dart from me to the wall to the drop beyond.

  “This was built with Thorne Manor,” she says. “That makes it old. Very old.”

  I nod. “You’d have to be an idiot to sit up there.”

  Her eyes narrow. “How wonderful your shorts aren’t damp from sitting in the wet grass.”

  “It’s a miracle.”

  She opens her mouth to reply, but a thunderous clap cuts her off.

  The world is frozen.

  The breeze stills. The ocean stops crashing against the cliff. I don’t breathe.

  And then the world unfreezes.

  “Was that a gun?”

  “Did it come from the beach?”

  “Where’s Toby?”

  We don’t waste time with answers.

  My feet collect raindrops as I speed across the lawn. They collect broken shells as we cross the garden path. They collect sand on the way to the beach. Then they stop.

  Left, right, front, back. It’s all the same in this fecking fog.

  A scream.

  “Toby!” Wendy yells.

  At first all I see is the red. Inside the fog, that’s about all there is.

  White, white, white, red.

  “Turn around,” the fog whispers. Wispy coils twist around our ankles.

  We push forward.

  The fog sighs, then thins.

  We have to get real close. Almost toe to toe with him.

  “Oh God.” Wendy stares at the crimson sand. Not at Toby’s body, though.

  “He’s in heaven now,” the man’s voice says on the other side of the fog. His hulking shadow follows.

  Wendy flinches. “Who did this?”

  The man doesn’t answer.

  “No.” Wendy’s head shakes back and forth. And back and forth. “No, Patrick. You didn’t, love. Tell me you didn’t. It’s not real, is it?”

  “Had to,” he says.

  Her eyes lock on the gun in his hand. Won’t look away. She whispers, “What have you done?”

  “Head shot. Them’s the orders.”

  She stares at her son. Back at the man.

  He raises the gun to my head. “I’m helping, you see?”

  My heartbeat can’t decide between speeding and stopping.

  The man mops his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. Wendy and I snatch those few seconds when his eyes are obscured and we run.

  Wendy calls my name, and it sounds like it’s been ripped straight from her soul.

  And then he’s on me. Knocking me to the ground, knee across my stomach. I yell for help, words made of sand and fear.

  That’s when I notice the rock. Dark against Wendy’s pale hand. She’s less than ten feet from where the man now stands.

  He’s not looking at her. Hasn’t noticed her.

  She’s made of fog, moving like mist across the beach. Closer, closer.

  “They made me do it. Came down from above. And I just can’t—” The gun wobbles in his shaky hand, but it doesn’t stray from my forehead. “I can’t live with that anymore.”

  “Don’t,” I say, and it must be magic making my voice so strong and sure. “Don’t do it. Please.”

  “They’ll make a monster of you. Like they did with me.”

  Wendy wears the fog like a cloak. Invisible until she’s an inch away.

  “I’m going to send you to h
eaven.”

  The man’s staring at me. Doesn’t notice Wendy’s knuckles gone white around the stone. Doesn’t see her smash the rock’s sharp edge into his head.

  He cries out. Stumbles. He’s on all fours, blinking.

  She hits him again, hard. The man goes down. She snatches up his gun.

  I’m shivering, teeth chattering. It’s the youngest I’ve ever felt.

  “He killed him,” I say. “He…he shot Toby.”

  “Elliot,” Wendy says. “Elliot, listen to me. You’re confused. You climbed the sourwood tree. The one in the center of town with droopy sprays of bell-shaped flowers. And when you came down, you had three branches of flowers in your fist, and you gave me two because you thought they were so pretty. And I loved them so very much.”

  Her eyes are intensely green, her voice so earnest I begin to see ivory flowers scattered in the sand. “We walked home, down to the foggy beach. And I didn’t know. I didn’t know you’d eaten the flowers until too late. And Toby, he wanted that treasure like Patrick always has. He thought he’d walk across the ocean for it, but he couldn’t swim. You know he couldn’t swim.

  “And Patrick, he’d been hunting. There was a deer on the shore. Deer from his hunt. You thought something else, but it was the flower’s magic making you see horrible things. It was just a deer.”

  And because she says it, it becomes true.

  “It was just a deer.”

  And because I say it, it becomes true.

  Wendy begs me not to tell.

  She does it after washing Toby’s body in tears. She does it while staring at her unconscious husband with a terrible kind of love. She does it while holding the gun in her hands, and that’s the only reason I agree.

  He will not go free.

  “Go on ahead,” she says.

  I step into the fog. I don’t look back.

  Not when I hear Wendy wail.

  Not when I hear the second gunshot of the day.

  The truth is all that remains.

  It’s been locked up for so long I hardly know how to get it out. But I will. I won’t be the reason anyone else dies.

  “I need to tell you,” I say. “I need to tell you now before the island takes someone else away.”