by Gwenda Bond
The island did not care for its spirits being held quiet.
Spirits that clamored, desperate to speak, more desperate to be heard. The boy had finally come home after too many years away. But the devil's hands have hushed and smothered them. Only those preparing to cross the border speak, and only to each other. The living cannot hear those awaiting resurrection. The living never have.
The dead hear every twisted syllable.
The waves and the sand and the trees listened. The island listened, and waited.
He has fashioned his will into a reality intricate as blood and iron and words. Soon, he will unlock the passage.
Soon, the spirits will not be silent.
10
Biscuits and Roses
Despite the need to get moving and find a way out of the whole 'being doomed' situation, Miranda lingered as long as she possibly could in the guest room the next morning.
She let Sidekick out the door, knowing someone would give him backyard access, and finally managed that bath. Pacing around the guest room afterward, she picked a random book out from the shelf in the corner and started reading. The book was titled The Haunting of Hill House and unsurprisingly involved an old house that was supposed to be full of angry ghosts. When the sense of dread in the book began to mix with the one already hovering around her like an aura, she tossed it aside and checked the clock.
10am.
Sigh. She straightened her T-shirt, and left the room.
She almost missed the single flower waiting on the floor outside the bedroom door – a perfectly formed rose made of… duct tape. Intricate silver folds shot up in a spray of triangular points to form the bloom, tear-shaped leaves dropping from the thick stem.
Picking the unreal flower up, she twirled it, feeling a lot better about facing Sara's disapproval if Phillips wasn't going to be guy-like and ignore the night before's almost. That was what she'd feared, mainly because the only guys she knew were jerks (witness Bone).
She slipped the rose stem through a loop on her jeans. The motion reminded her of sliding a hammer into place on her tool-belt. Concern spiked through her for the people at the show – even His Royal Majesty and demon Caroline. And, of course, Polly. Missing Polly.
The smell of frying food tempted Miranda the rest of the way down the stairs and to the kitchen. Sara stood at the stove, transferring crisp slices of bacon onto a plate covered with a paper towel. Sidekick waited next to her, tail thudding against the cabinet, observing her every move with great hope. A heap of scrambled eggs waited on another plate.
Miranda hovered at the entry. "Should I set the table?"
Sara's head whipped toward her, startled, and Miranda couldn't stop a cringe as she waited to see whether she was in for cold distance or a heated talking-to.
Instead Sara gave her a non-angry mother smile. "Why doesn't my son ever make that offer? That'd be great." She waved her spatula, "Plates are right up there, silverware in that drawer."
Miranda took several plates and picked out some silverware. They came from matching sets. A novelty.
Sara craned her neck and yelled, "Phillips, breakfast!" No response, until she added, "Phillips – I know you can hear me. Oh, and Miranda is already down here."
Feet battered the steps in a fast drumbeat, and Phillips swung around the edge of the arch. Miranda finished the last place setting and slid into a chair. She held up the rose, giving him a nod, then placing it awkwardly on the table next to her plate. I'm a moron.
But the weirdest thing happened. Miranda could've sworn Phillips looked slightly embarrassed.
He moved in close enough to the counter to grab a piece of bacon, handing her half as he sat in the chair next to hers.
He gave me bacon.
Sara joined them, setting the plates of food in the center of the table. She raised her eyebrows at the fake rose, but didn't ask about it. Snapping her fingers, she said, "Biscuits," before turning and attending to the oven.
Phillips lowered his voice so he spoke only to Miranda. "It's a Steampunk rose – I didn't make it, bought it from another delinquent at school."
She had to say something. "It's beautiful. And, um, it'll last forever."
He smiled at her, and she wished with everything inside her that the snake would disappear and she could live in a normal world with this strange boy who – for some reason – had decided he liked her.
Miranda crunched her bacon, taking in the fluffy golden tops of the biscuits on the plate Sara carried to the table. They looked like someone who grew up around there made them. As Sara slid into her chair, Miranda reached over and took one.
"Where'd you learn to make actual biscuits?" Miranda asked.
Miranda fully expected to discover that New Mexico was a hotbed of biscuit activity and her impressions gathered from an inadequate education were wrong. When you'd never been anywhere, it was impossible to know what other places were really like.
Sara gave Phillips a look before answering, and Miranda wondered why the question had brought a strange stillness over the sunny kitchen. "The recipe is Phillips' grandmother's," she said. "She taught me before she passed away."
The Witch of Roanoke Island. Miranda was desperate to ask about her, given what Philips had told her about the voices he heard and his conversation with his father.
"I never met her," Miranda said. She'd sometimes fantasised about the Witch of Roanoke Island becoming her defender, after her mom died. Giving the jerks at school boils if they taunted her, or giving her a magical potion that made her normal. Broke the curse. She reached up and touched her father's birthmark.
"She was a strong woman," Sara said, again watching Phillips. He didn't react except to keep chewing his eggs. "She couldn't stand the thought of someone living here who couldn't make her son and grandson the right kind of biscuits. The house has been in the family for generations, but it's always passed down to the daughters before. Biscuits are part of its legacy."
Miranda tried to remember if the chief had any sisters or brothers. "Why not this time?"
"She only had a son – there'd always been a girl child in the family line, as far back as anyone remembered. And they'd always lived well into their nineties, active right up to the end."
Phillips stopped eating, but he didn't interrupt.
"Technically," Sara said, "the house belongs to Phillips. His grandmother felt strongly it should be his. That this was the place he was meant to be. We don't really know why though. We only know the island's not good for him."
Phillips said, "Mom."
Miranda realised Sara was fishing. She wants to know what the letter said.
She went on, "He and his father are both tied to this place, in different ways. I don't think I can fully understand. I never had that. My roots moved when I did. My roots are my family."
Phillips' hands landed on the table on either side of his plate and he stood. "We really should get going." He cast a pleading glance at Miranda, added, "Unless you aren't finished with breakfast?"
Miranda's plate was still half full… but she was staving off awkward. "Sure, let's go." She grabbed a biscuit. "Thank you for breakfast." And for the bits of info. "Should we take Kicks? Is he trouble?"
Sidekick gazed at Sara as if she might drop a crumb or a piece of bacon on his head. She scratched behind his ear and he leaned into her fingers. Sara said, "You guys go on, do your investigation. We'll make do. But you be careful. Phillips, we'll talk later."
Miranda didn't realise until Phillips steered her through the front door with his hand on her back that he hadn't given any hint of where they were headed in such a hurry.
"Where are we going?" she asked. "Your dad's work?"
"Dr Whitson's place."
The name meant nothing to her. "Who?"
"Oh. You know, Dr Roswell."
Miranda stopped on the steps down to the yard. The day was cooler than the one before, a promise of fall wrapped in late summer colors, and a strong breeze wrapped around her. T
he breeze wasn't unusual – there was always a breeze, whirling in from the outer islands and the ocean, flying across the salt-free Sound. But this wind didn't come from the ocean. It had begun somewhere else and now danced around them, the whole island in its cooler embrace.
Of course, it comes from the ocean. Where else would it come from?
An image flickered in her mind of that enormous black ship on the horizon, moving fast toward the island, sails filled with uncanny billowing speed on a windless day.
She chose her next words carefully. "I need help, not a kook."
"He was my shrink." Phillips took her hand and tugged, and she knew she'd go anywhere he suggested. "He knows more about the island's history than anyone around and we're in kooksville here. We need a kook's perspective."
Miranda had no feelings about Roswell one way or the other, another colorful local character she mostly avoided. But he was Bone's dad.
"Do you mind if we swing by and pick up my car?" Miranda said. "I miss her."
Phillips' eyebrows rose. "Sure."
Her hand warmed in his as they walked to the car. What did the day have in store? What would wreck the fragile connection between them?
Sure as the ghosts in Hill House, something was coming. The breeze told her that.
Pineapple had done Miranda the favor of starting. Phillips had frowned at the word scrawled on the yellow car's side, suggesting they hit a car wash on the way, but she told him not to worry about it. Part of the price of being me, she told him, and he let it go. Being behind the wheel made her feel more in control of their destination and what they'd find there.
"Why does he live all the way out in Wanchese? Do you know?" Miranda asked, cutting Phillips a look.
Phillips hadn't been watching the scenery. He leaned against the door, angled in toward her. The weight of his gaze on her profile made it difficult not to blush. She was grateful the snake was on the other side of her face, hidden for the moment.
"I never asked him. It's probably cheaper out here?" Phillips reached a hand over to brush a hair off her cheek and Miranda hiccuped Pineapple's wheel. He laughed. "Am I making you nervous?"
The car windows were down to make up for the lack of a/c. The day was a joke of perfect. The mystery breeze, the bright blue sky, the too-green trees and grass. Why had she remembered the black ship?
"It's not just you," she said, truthfully.
"Good," he said, then, "Not good that you're nervous, but good that I'm not why. Roswell's OK, I swear."
"If you vouch." She considered warning him about Bone, but that would ruin the main point of driving Pineapple. She didn't expect to get anything useful out of Mr Crackpot Theories, so the best she could hope was to find out if her status on the island would spook Phillips now that he was back.
Now that he's back and you want him to be yours.
Her fingers tightened on the wheel. It was as if a spirit or a demon had invaded her mind and body.
"Did you know your grandmother that well, Mr Homeowner?" Why was she prodding him? Because she wanted him to tell her about the letter – the letter she shouldn't even know about. She couldn't explain it, even to herself.
He slipped around a fraction in the passenger seat, looking out at the scenery. "Not that much. My dad always made sure we had limited time together. He didn't want her teaching me stuff."
Leave it alone. "Did you want her to… teach you stuff?"
Phillips exhaled. "No, I only wanted it to go away. To go somewhere so I could be normal."
"That would be nice," Miranda said.
"That's not what I–" Phillips tapped his fingers against the door, a repetitive pattern. "You are normal."
Leave it alone. "Just what every girl wants to hear."
Miranda wished the silence that followed didn't strike her as familiar, but it did. You have to know how easy he is to push away.
Wanchese was on the far side of the island, which still wasn't that long a drive. May as well have been a world away. Far from the tourist haven of Manteo, Wanchese possessed a wilder feel, despite having a couple of bed and breakfasts and boat rental places, and a harbor packed with commercial fishing vessels. This wasn't where the big money was – it was where the fishing village was.
There was no picture-prettified downtown to echo Manteo's, not even a Main Street. Most of its locals hoped to remain lost to the tourist flood by keeping a firm hold on this tip of the island. This was the perfect place to live if you didn't want to be bothered.
"Turn here," Phillips prompted. He pointed to a road ahead that shot through trees.
A short way into the woods, they came to a small rise with a nice cottage on top. The house must have been originally intended for a timeshare, by the looks of it. The sandy paint had faded over time, though, and now the place looked more like a home than a getaway. Bone's truck occupied the driveway.
She put Pineapple in park and Phillips climbed out of the car. He poked his head back in after a moment. "You coming?" he asked.
"Against my better judgment," she muttered. Pineapple's motor died with a rattle of agreement.
11
Crackpot Theories
Miranda examined the cottage from the yard. This was definitely a house designed as a vacation home. The bedrooms would be farther apart than normal, a large common room and kitchen separating the parents' room from the children's. A deck at the back stretched into the woods, the edge of the railing just visible.
Phillips turned from the front door. "Miranda?"
So he knew she was stalling. Why am I trying to scare him off? She didn't have an answer. And she'd have sworn the snake crawling up her cheek heated under his questioning look. Burning, glowing, flashing "not normal". Wait until Bone saw her.
Miranda tromped up the steps to join Phillips, the house too simple to justify further lingering to study it. The door swung open as she reached his side.
Bone appeared in the doorway, wearing a light blue Tarheels T-shirt. His cheeks hollowed even more than usual as he exhaled in surprise, mouth dropping open into a black hole.
She suddenly regretted her plan. What if Phillips did get spooked? Miranda angled her head so her hair hid the mark on her face.
"If you're here to try to get me in trouble, I didn't have anything to do with your car," Bone said. "So forget it."
Phillips' eyebrows shot up – he practically talks with those things – as he gave her a questioning look. He said, "Did he–"
"Forgotten," Miranda said, not to Phillips but to Bone. "I know it was you, but we're here to see your dad." Bone's mouth opened to say something, and she sighed. "Not about you, Bone. About something else."
She looked over and discovered Phillips hadn't taken his eyes off her yet. His eyebrows finally dropped, and he said, "You must be the Boner."
"Just Bone," Bone gritted.
Miranda bit back a smile. "Where's your dad?"
"In the library," Bone said, suspicious.
Phillips said, "You could wash the car while we're talking to him."
Bone snorted, stepping out onto the porch. "I didn't have anything to do with it. I already told you."
Was Miranda imagining it or was Bone actually nervous? They were far out in the woods, but, come on, Phillips wasn't a bruiser, and neither was she. And his dad was home.
She let her own eyebrows shoot up in an imitation of Phillips. "Are you scared?"
Bone straightened. "Scared that bad luck just showed up at my doorstep." This was the Bone she knew and loathed. "Bad," he added for good measure, "luck."
Phillips nudged Miranda through the door with his shoulder. She had to get way too close to Bone to enter, but she did it. Phillips moved fast behind her, lightly pushing her the rest of the way inside. His hand shot back to slam the door and lock it. With Bone still standing outside on the porch.
"I don't want to be in the same house as the broken Bone," Phillips said.
Miranda idly worried that Bone would do something else to poor Pinea
pple. She hadn't imagined his fear though, and he wasn't banging on the door. Good enough. She tipped her head to Phillips in thanks.
Phillips called, "Dr Whitson? It's Phillips."
Miranda tried to figure out where a library might be inside the neat house with the exact floor plan she'd predicted from the yard. Who'd have guessed Bone would live in such tidy digs – or his eccentric dad, for that matter? Clean hardwood, modern furniture, and no TV in sight. It could have still been a timeshare waiting for the next guests to arrive.
