THE KEEPER OF DAWN
By
J.B. Hickman
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used ficticiously. Any resemblence to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Shadeflower Press
Copyright 2012 by J.B. Hickman
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Visit J.B. Hickman's website at http://www.jbhickmanonline.com
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
For Melissa
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1: SONS OF GREAT MEN
CHAPTER 2: THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR
CHAPTER 3: 1608 BRICKMORE LANE
CHAPTER 4: RHODE ISLAND FOLKLORE
CHAPTER 5: THE BLOOD OF KINGS
CHAPTER 6: CROSSING OAK YARD
CHAPTER 7: THE HEADLINERS
CHAPTER 8: THE BEACH
CHAPTER 9: AN OCEAN AWAY
CHAPTER 10: LIGHTS OUT
CHAPTER 11: DEPARTURES
CHAPTER 12: WHITHER MUST I WANDER?
CHAPTER 13: HALO OF LIGHT
CHAPTER 14: THE RASPBERRY PATCH
CHAPTER 15: RENOUNCEMENT
CHAPTER 16: MAROONED
CHAPTER 17: CONFESSIONS
CHAPTER 18: MAKING THE FULL MOON BLUSH
CHAPTER 19: PROCURING CONTRABAND
CHAPTER 20: UPON DARK WINGS
CHAPTER 21: RELEASED TO THE WILD
CHAPTER 22: MUSTY, FROM BROOKLYN
CHAPTER 23: A TOUCH OF EVIL
CHAPTER 24: THE KEEPER OF DAWN
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
The thunder came early that day. The appearance of the island was what shook the first peal loose. Not a single head turned at the sound of the storm's approach. None of the others onboard the ferry could hear it. They were crowded together on the passenger deck that smelled of diesel fumes and day-old paint, the scent mingling with the salt in the air to sting my eyes. Their laughter, fissured by the wind, carried no farther than the ear it was intended for. In narrowbend corduroys and crumpled sports jackets two sizes too big, we were dressed a style all our own. I had seen it before. The V-neck argyles and L.L.Bean button-downs amounted to little more than an unspoken commemoration of our last day out of uniform.
A second round rumbled loose overhead, this time louder than before. Thunder through a clear blue sky. Thunder without rain.
I had kept it quiet during the car ride from Long Island. Sometimes I would hide from it by shifting my attention to an object in the distance and imagine what it would be like to be there. A stranger's house. An airplane high overhead. Even the moon. But out here there was only the island, which had risen from the gray-blue water like the humped back of a great whale. Its only pier jutted beneath a steep slope crowned with pines. Beyond this, a gravel road wound through a succession of hills in a meandering ascent that cut through the foliage like a long white scar.
What had been Father's departing words? I couldn't remember them now. They had become a stain in my memory, the letters bleeding indecipherably together. But their impact lingered. A single statement uttered over a newspaper at breakfast was what had pulled me out of Homestead Academy and enrolled me in a boarding school. Father had left for the remainder of the summer before the dust had settled. He had always been the great vanisher, disappearing for weeks at a time before parachuting back into my life, pretending to have never been away. Mother claimed he was a man of destiny. She never said this in his presence; only when he was away, to myself, or to my older brother, David. “Your father is a great man, Jacob,” she would say. But her tone contradicted her words, as if greatness was an affliction we were forced to endure.
Overhead, a narrow band of high altitude clouds brought depth to the morning sky. The flock of gulls that had been trailing us since the breakers was now reduced to a handful of birds. A boy in a bleached blazer threw his head back at a friend’s joke, his mouth split open without sound.
The thunder kept up, swelling to a single heavy roar. There was no stopping it now. It contained the momentum of a summer storm. It was happening again. I tried to resist it, but I could already feel the chill of a different season seep through my jacket. I could already smell the wood-smoke sweeten the air. When I closed my eyes, the crows took up their cawing, the shrill sound pulling me back to that fateful day in the valley.
* * * * *
The sky was lit with dawn’s first light. The night had brought another snowfall, perhaps the winter’s last. The wind here always blew. The only question was how hard and for how long. Evidence of its passing lay in drifts along the trunks of evergreen and birch. But now all was still. The snow continued to fall, settling into the nooks and crevices of the bare limbs.
The crows that meddled each winter in Mother’s feeder had gathered overhead. Silent and brooding, their heads turned to watch my passing, their dark eyes holding me in their stare. I had been here before. This same trail of footprints that cut through the snow was what kept me awake at night. But this time was different. Wasn't that what I liked to tell myself? I took another step forward and then stopped. This time I wouldn't go through with it. I stubbornly clung to the belief that my hesitation would prevent what I knew waited for me at the trail's end.
I found myself listening to the silence, struck by its completeness. Something vital was missing. Time had stopped, lodged somewhere in the heart of winter. In its place was a dead soundlessness that resonated from the wood of the trees, from the frozen ground, from the very air itself. Out of this came the simple desire to leave. A reminder that I only had to turn around and the gabled rooftop of home would come into view.
It was the caw of a crow that broke my trance. The bird had settled on a nearby branch, its feathers ruffled from the cold. It was close enough that I could make out my silhouette in the reflection of its eye peering down at me. I watched myself, a shadow among shadows, take a step forward. I couldn’t bring myself to look away from that pinpoint of darkness. I saw what it saw. The pale muted daylight. The snowfall drifting like ash spewed from fire. The branches crisscrossing the sky like cracks in ruined veneer. Despite my childhood having run its course over this same ground, nothing looked recognizable.
Suddenly a sound like thunder shot through the trees. The crows scattered through the air like shrapnel, spiraling overhead on a hundred beating wings.
I leapt forward, taking the footprints two at a time. Cold air tumbled down to fuel the fire in my lungs. Legs churning through kicked-up tufts of white; fists swinging, jabbing panicked blows at an unseen foe, beating back time. I knew where the tracks would take me, knew how the haze of smoke would hang over the ground as if to conceal what had been done. But knowing what lay ahead did nothing to slow my stride.
My breath was ragged by the time I reached the trail’s end. It was there that I remained, rigid with indecision. I could go no further on my own. No amount of effort could force me to look at what lay at my feet. Instead, I stood and waited. Waited for the residual veil of red mist to give way to the soft fall of powder. Waited for the recoil of thunder to come ricocheting back across the valley and obliterate everything in its path.
CHAPTER 1: SONS OF GREAT MEN
His arrival to the island, in his father’s helicopter the day after the rest of us had come aboard the ferry, was in itself an act of rebellion. I was buttoning the collar of my uniform when the helicopter lowered into the courtyard, kicking up a cloud of dust and loose debris. A tall man in a dark suit emerged from the cockpit, his silver hair motion
less in the wind brought down by the spinning rotors. He hesitated before descending the stairs, regarding the writhing grass and the old structure’s trembling rooftops as if his presence alone had caused the disturbance.
“Pompous bastard!” Derek roared from across the hall. He burst through our door a second later, his face resembling the screaming, bare-chested Sid Vicious depicted on his Anarchy in the U.K. T-shirt.
My roommate, Benjamin, cast a withering look at Derek before resuming to labor over his tie. Though we had been at school less than twenty-four hours, Derek Mayhew had already assumed the role of the nosy neighbor, treating our closed door as an open invitation.
“He’s rubbing our bloody faces in it!” Derek exclaimed. “I’ve got five-to-one odds he’s a politician. A crooked, backstabbing politician.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
My attention was so focused on the silver-haired man who waved enthusiastically to those gathered at the windows that I hardly noticed a boy emerge from the helicopter a moment later, adjust his sunglasses, and wander off in the opposite direction.
“Come on, Jake, just look how he’s waving. And that shitty grin? Besides, this wouldn’t be a prep school if we didn’t have to put up with some senator’s spoiled brat.”
“You’ll never find me in a helicopter,” Benjamin said, giving his tie an agitated tug. “I’m perfectly happy with my feet on the ground. Found that out at the Empire State Building. Can’t beat the view, but don’t get me anywhere near the edge.” Benjamin’s eyes blinked behind his spectacles. “As many times as I’ve worn one of these …” he muttered, unraveling the tie and glancing at his watch—a serious, adult-looking watch that was much too big for his wrist. “Boy, I hate being late. My folks will be here any minute.”
“Wouldn’t have to bother if you’d stayed home,” Derek said. “You home-schoolers got it made. Can wear pajamas all day and don’t have to put up with senators dropping in on your front lawn. Here, give yourself more length. The secret to a proper noose is you need just enough length to hang yourself.”
Benjamin grudgingly complied, lowering the tie over his expansive waistline.
“Happiest day of my life was when Wellington burned to the ground,” Derek said, returning his attention to the courtyard. “Who would've guessed we’d end up at some alumni’s resort that went belly-up in the sixties? I swear, this school has more lives than a black cat at midnight.”
I glanced in his direction. I didn't want to be here any more than Derek, but I envied his familiarity with the school's past. I was finding it difficult to rebel against the unknown.
The door swung open after a quick knock, and Charles Patterson, our hall’s prefect, stuck his head in the room. “Why aren’t you dressed, Mayhew?”
“I am dressed,” Derek replied. “Who’s the stiff in the suit?”
“Governor Forsythe.”
“Shit! I hate it when I’m right.”
“Get your uniform on. The ferry has arrived.”
Derek regarded Patterson. “The fairy has arrived indeed.”
Patterson’s expression darkened. “If you aren’t downstairs in five, I’ll have you cleaning the lavatory until Christmas.” Then he added, “I can’t believe you still wear that ridiculous shirt.”
“I always wear this shirt. Even under my ridiculous uniform.”
Patterson shook his head. “Get a clue, Mayhew. Punk’s a fad.”
“Get a clue, Loosy-Goosy,” Derek replied after Patterson had closed the door. “Punk will never die.”
* * * * *
We greeted the busload of parents on the courtyard’s southwest quad—an area that would be referred to from that day forward as Oak Yard. Half a dozen sapling oaks had been planted around a white gazebo the day before. Island birds flew about the terracotta rooftops, flashing their striped wings in the morning sun.
I walked alone through the crowd. Though I had rehearsed a dozen different greetings, Father’s response never wavered—a few simple words sealed with a handshake.
I found him seated alone at the courtyard’s central fountain. Though he faced the opposite direction, his rigid posture and receding hairline were dead giveaways. The sight of him brought to mind a picture in one of Mother’s photo albums. Spoken in a sentimental tone reserved for the retellings of the early years of their marriage, she would talk of when she and Father had stayed at the Hotel Nouveau, the luxurious resort on Raker Island that reminded her of the villa in the French Riviera where she had vacationed as a child. Her hand hovering over the black and white photographs, she spoke of how they had ferried to the island, climbed the historic Raker Lighthouse, and golfed together for the first and last time. The picture I thought of now was of Father standing in this same courtyard, his full head of hair shining in the sun, a hesitant smile caught on his lips.
I watched as he dabbed sweat from the back of his neck with a folded handkerchief. I reached forward, intending to place my hand on his shoulder, but stopped, my rehearsed greeting catching in my throat.
“Father.”
He turned, his startled expression caught in the glare of the sun. I blinked once, then again before staring at the stranger in front of me.
“I ain’t your father, kid. But I will take your picture,” the man said, hoisting a camera from his neck. “What do you say? Wanna make the headlines?”
I apologized and made a quick retreat. After making a second pass through the crowd, I verified my growing suspicion with the wiry French teacher, Ms. Cartwright.
“What did you say his name was?” she asked, straightening the folds of her dress.
“Hawthorne. Jonathan Hawthorne.”
“Hawthorne,” she said, running a finger down a list of names. “There’s no record of him boarding the ferry.” She peered at me over narrow glasses. “You’re sure he’s coming, right?”
The question hung in the air. No, I wasn’t sure. I was never sure with Father. But it was different this time, right? I was here because of him. The least he could do was show up. At that point I would have welcomed his obligatory goodbye. I was looking forward to that particular letdown. At least it would have been an acknowledgment that he had once again turned my life upside down. But there would be none of that. There was only Ms. Cartwright, here in the flesh, in the here-and-now, her beady eyes piercing the silence that had gone on entirely too long.
“I probably misunderstood,” I said, forcing a smile. “He probably said next weekend.”
Wellington’s headmaster, Mr. Hearst, conducted the parent reception from the gazebo’s shaded interior. Though his booming voice carried across the manicured lawn of Oak Yard, my eyes kept getting pulled to the front row where Governor Forsythe stood beside his son. The governor had such a commanding presence that I half-expected him to turn and address the crowd. His son, however, was a disgrace. His tie was loosened, his scuffed-up shoes untied, his shirt untucked and as wrinkled as a roadmap. At the start of the headmaster’s speech, he went into a sneezing fit as if allergic to ceremonial rhetoric.
My attention kept returning to him. He seemed apart from everyone around him, out of focus, as if he still hovered overhead in the helicopter. He had his own gravity, one that didn't orbit his father, and my eyes kept bouncing off one to the other.
“Dr. Richard Kirkland made a promise when he founded Wellington Academy one hundred years ago,” the headmaster proclaimed. “He made a promise to develop boys into well-rounded, well-educated men. And it is with great pride that I tell you, the class of 1981, that we have upheld his promise. Our campus at Eastbridge will be dearly missed, but we must persevere. We must carry on, for the bright future of these young men before us, and for future generations who will pass through these halls. No one from Eastbridge will forget the seven oaks that towered over the heart of our beloved campus.”
When he pointed up, the crowd’s gaze followed the trajectory of his hand. But any hope of stirring awake the memory of the oak trees from Eastbridge was d
ispelled by the lighthouse that loomed overhead, its base shrouded in dead vines. A clock tower rose from the opposite end of the courtyard, its face throwing back the reflection of the sun.
“Many of your fathers, even grandfathers, walked beneath those trees. So I ask each of you to maintain the tradition of Oak Yard. With the exception of this morning and commencement in the spring, students and teachers alike are forbidden from walking here. It is imperative that we respect our past. These trees may be fresh to the soil of Raker Island, but in time their roots will take hold, and they too will become a testament to Wellington’s past.”
The crowd watched in silence as the headmaster stepped from the gazebo and lowered the last of the seven oaks into the ground. He performed this task solemnly, as if lowering the casket of a dear friend.
Though many of the families lingered after the ceremony, I left immediately, hoping to have set foot in Oak Yard for the last time. I wandered aimlessly through the old hotel, each room persuading me to go somewhere else. I was on my way back to the dorms when I came across an unfamiliar corridor. The walls were bare, the plaster fallen away. Puddles of light trickled in through dirty windows. The thought of spending the afternoon with Benjamin and his parents was all the motivation I needed to sidestep the Under Renovation sign and proceed down the hall until the voices at my back fell beneath a whisper.
I climbed scaffolding speckled with paint and wiped a circle of grime from the window with my sleeve. Outside, parent-son triumvirates strolled through the shadow of the clock tower. Though it was a privilege for them to be here, Wellington’s traditions and prestige meant little to Father. It was Raker Island—a secluded isle off the coast of Rhode Island—that had convinced him to send me here. As long as I remained away from home, he could rest assured that I wouldn’t follow in David’s footsteps.
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