Island of Bones

by Gaby Triana

  “They must’ve taken a photo of it for posterity before covering it up.”

  “They should’ve just left it. It looked beautiful,” I said. It didn’t make sense. Had I bought a house and it came with a gorgeous handmade mosaic mural, I would’ve featured it, not covered it up.

  “Where did you say that tool shed was again?” Luis wiped sweat from his brow. The humidity and fatigue was starting to get to him. I felt grateful to him for helping me out when he didn’t have to.

  “Over there.” I pointed to the end of the seawall which disappeared into a thicket of mangroves. The water from the inlet sloshed into the tangled mess of roots, and the thick scent of rotting wood and algae infiltrated my nostrils.

  “God knows the last time anybody came out this far,” Luis said, pushing through denser and denser foliage. “You can tell she’s had trouble taking care of this place.”

  “I know. See it there?” I pointed to the little house that finally broke through the greenery, there at the edge of the property. “Could be a toolshed.”

  “I think that’s more like an old pump shed.”

  “Pump shed for what?”

  “For a pool or something electrical that used to be out here. In fact…” His foot kicked at something hard underneath the fallen leaves and palm fronds.

  Above us, the trees swayed in the storm front. I hugged myself in the now cool draft, just as the sun hid behind an overcast of clouds. “We should start wrapping this up. I’ll find something to use for the wall, my nail scissors, a butter knife, anything.”

  “Wait, something’s under here.” Luis pushed at the ground with the toe of his sneaker and lifted up a corner. “It’s plywood. Good, we can use this for her last window.” He tugged at the corner of wood and lifted it out off the grass. Disturbed ants and centipedes crawled everywhere.

  Luis indicated to the other end of the plywood, so I could lift it, but it was in fact three big sheets of plywood all laid on top of each other in sequential order to cover a large area. I helped him lift the first one so we could set it vertically against a palm tree. “There’s a hole under there,” he said.

  The ground gave way to a concave, cemented bowl that was cracked and stained and hadn’t been used in ages. “Looks like an old pool.”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what it looks like.” He crouched to stare into the dry basin filled with leaves and uneven layers of porous concrete. “Looks like they stopped using it long ago and have been filling it up with concrete.”

  “It’s a weird place for a swimming pool,” I said. “The corner of the yard.”

  “Maybe it was centered back when it was one property, but when they added more land, it got forgotten here in the corner.” Luis shook his head and surveyed the area. “So much wasted property. I wish I had the money to buy this place up and fix it up nice. I hate seeing all this go to waste.”

  “Me, too. Believe me.” Especially since half of it used to belong to my family. I walked over to the little wooden house and tugged at the door knob. “It’s locked,” I said, tugging at the shaky door. I was sure if I just pulled at it hard enough, it would bust open.

  Ellie, go.

  If that was my grandmother asking me to leave, then I definitely had to know what was inside.

  “You okay?” Luis looked at me with concern. “You don’t look well when you’re here, I have to say. You’re a completely different person from when I met you in town.”

  I nodded absently. “There’s energy here that doesn’t sit well with me. I never thought I’d say that, but there it is.” All this talk of energies and gut feelings and hallucinations had me feeling less like my old self but more like my real self than ever before.

  He nodded with a sigh. “I feel it too. It’s like whatever, or whoever, is here doesn’t want us around.”

  I couldn’t deny it anymore. The ghosts—yes, real ones—were everywhere. “But then, I feel good energy too, like my grandparents’.” I hugged myself in the wind that was growing harder and cooler by the minute. “A battle between good and evil. It’s all here, and I feel like I’m at the center of it.”

  I was saying too much. I sounded crazy, but then again, if anyone would get it, it’d be Luis. He smiled and rested his shoe against the pump shed door. “A healthy skeptic, huh? Sounds like you knew more than you let on before.”

  “Hey, I was trying to stay sane before, okay?” I chuckled. Now, there was no point. The only way to get to the bottom of all this was to proceed full force, full crazy, and see where it all led.

  “We’re all going insane, Ellie,” Luis said, reaching for the door handle, getting ready to pull. “Some just get there faster than others.”

  Then, he yanked—hard.

  And when he did, his hand slipped off the handle. So did his other foot. And for a moment, I saw the darkness, the shadow people, heard the grunt, but it hadn’t come from Luis. It came from something else, something hidden in plain sight, something just beyond the invisible veil. The entities protecting this corner were watching. It wanted Luis—us—dead. I saw the hatred, the anger, the ghastly offense that we were trespassing in this forsaken corner of the yard as a sheen of black energy washed over Luis’s entire body.

  Backwards, he slid into the hole that was the old pool…

  …slamming his neck on the sharp edge of the other sheet of plywood laid down.

  The raw-cut jagged edge severed his neck. His head snapped backwards like a PEZ candy dispenser yawning open, and Luis tumbled into the abandoned pit, blood pooling all around him, spreading into the bumpy ridges of the uneven concrete like spidery veins. His gaze looked up at me for help, but it was too late.

  The light had gone from his eyes.

  SEVENTEEN

  I screamed.

  No birds scattered. No cries echoed.

  The heavy greenery absorbed all sound. Nothing stopped for me or Luis, yet everything had changed in an instant. One moment he’d been speaking to me, and the next, his body was broken inside a hole in the ground. I tore my gaze away from his helpless, confused stare, a vision that would haunt me the rest of my life.

  “Fuck…” I pulled out my phone to call 911, but for the life of me, I didn’t know how to dial, how to log in with my thumbprint, how to anything. I couldn’t think. I could only hear the sound of him gasping as he fell, heard the crack of his neck as it hit the plywood.

  “What happened?” Syndia arrived at my side out of breath, hammer still in her hand. Her and her damn hammer. She spotted Luis’s lifeless body and didn’t so much as gasp or cover her mouth. She stared at it expressionless, inhaling a slow breath. “It was his own fault.”

  My head whipped toward her. “How could you say that? What the hell is wrong with you?” I wanted to push her into the pool to see how she’d like it and had to bargain with myself not to. “Why do you have a fucking empty pool back here for your guests to fall into anyway?” I shouted.

  “I told him not to go back here. I told him it was dangerous,” she insisted.

  “That doesn’t mean he deserved it!” I sounded wild and irrational, though I was the normal one, yet nothing felt normal or ever would again. “God damn it!”

  I had to pull myself together long enough to make a phone call. There was some trick to this—pressing the side button, holding down the home button, some shortcut for calling emergency services. I couldn’t think of it. My brain simply wouldn’t compute. I sank to the ground and rocked myself in a heap. “Jesus…think, Ellie.”

  “Don’t call. He’s beyond help,” Syndia muttered.

  “I still have to call,” I growled at her. “We can’t leave him here like this.”

  “The storm is coming in. Emergency won’t respond ‘til it’s over.”

  “We still have to call,” I insisted.

  She remained quiet a moment, long enough to remind myself how to dial 911. I was two numbers in when my phone screen shattered in my hand, as Syndia’s hamme
r came down and busted it into a million pieces.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I shot up and pushed the woman backwards. She stumbled into Nottie’s arms, and they both looked at me like I was the insane one. “Why would you do that?” My chest felt like it was imploding, like I’d never take in a full breath again.

  “I told you not to call.”

  “I don’t care what you told me, you crazy bitch!” I howled.

  “Neither or you listened. If you’re not careful, I’ll do the same to you.”

  “What does that mean?” I shook with rage. “Are you threatening me, Syndia?”

  I may not have been the start of any problems, but I would definitely end them with violent force if it came down to it. I was stressed and without my pills, and now was not the moment to fuck with me.

  Taking steps at me with her hammer, she slammed the butt of it into a palm tree, leaving two scars in the tree’s flesh. “I told you both to leave,” she hissed. “I warned you, but you both stayed. You’re not taking what’s mine, Whitaker.”

  “Are you insane?” I yelled. “Do you even hear yourself? You’re out of your fucking mind, you know that?”

  “Of course, I know it. It’s why I warned you. Believe it or not, I care.”

  “You care?” I laughed maniacally. “You just busted my phone, you’re threatening me with a hammer, and I’m supposed to believe that you care? You only care about your delusions. If there was a treasure, your grandfather would’ve left it for you, and his spirit would’ve told you where it was. Which means you’re bullshitting, Syndia. You can’t hear him and you only let guests stay here in case they can. Face it, the treasure doesn’t exist!”

  My words hurt her as though I’d wielded them with daggers.

  The rain began coming down in heavy sheets, creating little expanding circles in Luis’s deep red blood. Soon, the pool would fill with water, yard debris, God only knew what else the storm would bring, and a precious soul would be covered like yesterday’s garbage.

  I had to leave La Concha, had to grab my things, and casually walk out of here. As much as I wanted to figure out my grandmother’s past, it wasn’t worth my life. I wasn’t sure that Syndia would try to kill me, but judging from how empathetic she hadn’t been just now, I couldn’t take the chance.

  Rushing past her and silent Nottie, I headed to my room. Not sure where I would go, but the police station sounded as good a place as any. I could tell them what happened, show my phone as proof of a crazed innkeeper over at La Concha Inn, and hope that they’d let me stay for the duration of the storm. A shelter would also take me in, but without a phone to find one in Maps, I’d have to walk in the emerging winds looking for one.

  I entered my room, looking back to make sure Syndia wasn’t following me. She and Nottie hung back at the scene, getting drenched and staring down into the pool at Luis’s freshly dead body. I felt bad leaving him there, but there was nothing I could do for the moment. I couldn’t believe I had just witnessed such a horrible death.

  As soon as I entered my room, though, something hit me. A clear sense of déja-vu.

  The anguish I felt came alive, and I had to pause to catch my breath. The energies were growing stronger. The elements, my grandmother’s voice told me, heighten your perception.

  I didn’t want rain or wind heightening my perception. I didn’t want to see or hear or feel any ghosts around me. I’d seen more than enough of my share since I’d arrived. I’d seen too damn much. All I wanted was to get out of here, get back on my meds, and go home. Yes, my mother had tried to warn me, but I never imagined that the danger would come from Syndia herself instead of the hurricane.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, gripping my head.

  I couldn’t stop the visions from pummeling me.

  Nana cried, rocked on the edge of the bed next to me. Was she real? I didn’t know anymore, not that it mattered. Her thoughts were my own… How would she live without her love? How would her baby grow up without a father? She’d become one of those widowed young women who few would take pity on. They would say she deserved it. She’d have to fend for herself, work two jobs, but those weren’t the worst parts. The worst parts would be the lonely nights without Bill. She’d never marry again, never love again…

  “Stop.” I gripped my temples.

  Cold energy shifted all around me. I heard the rain outside, but I also heard the pounding of my heart, my grandmother’s heart, something rhythmic. My grandmother rocked some more, then stood up to scream at the night sky. Yes, it was nighttime outside in this waking daydream. The room filled with sweet scents of rain.

  I was dreaming. Hallucinating again. None of this was real.

  He wouldn’t have left me, she kept saying. He wouldn’t have…

  “They killed him, Nana. They killed him on his way home to you. They took his Spanish gold then used the money to buy you out. It was a shitty thing, but it wasn’t his fault,” I told her. “There was nothing you could do.”

  They took what was ours. He never had the chance…

  “What chance?” I asked.

  He never saw the gold.

  A hallucination talking back to me in real-time? Could Nana hear me in 1951? What did she mean he never saw the gold? How else would they have gotten a hold of it? He was the treasure hunter, the adventure seeker of the family. McCardle could only pilot a ferry back and forth along one route, and apparently pirate innocent lobster fishermen.

  The pounding in my head grew louder. I screamed to release myself from it.

  The vision disappeared but something else replaced it—pounding at the door.

  “Who is it?” I called. The police? Syndia, asking to be let in? I couldn’t piece together the fragments of dreams and reality fast enough, until it dawned on me. The pounding was hammering and drilling coming from outside while I’d been in a trance.

  “No. No!”

  Rushing the door, I yanked at the knob only to find it wouldn’t budge. In the middle of the wooden door, several screws had been pushed through. The edges where light would’ve bled in were dark, and I knew she’d covered the door with the piece of plywood Luis had found. Underneath the door, shadows moved back and forth under the rain.

  “Let me out!” I banged on the door, my palms turning bright red. “Let me out of here! You can’t do this!”

  “I can’t let you out yet, Whitaker. I can’t trust you. I’ll let you out once the storm is over.”

  “Let me out now! I don’t have any food or water. You can’t do this.”

  “Drink water from the faucets. You’ll be fine.” Her footsteps disappeared down the hall.

  My heart—I thought it would collapse from the stress this bitch was causing me. This couldn’t be happening. She had trapped me in here and all I had were my things, a bed, an empty dresser and my own messed-up situation. No phone, no food, and Hurricane Mara about to hit.

  Fucking great.

  Pulling out one of the empty drawers, I heaved it at the door but it only bounced off, causing dents and scratches. I lifted it and tried again, this time opening up the wood shutters and aiming it at the windows, already secured with storm plywood outside. I threw the drawer, cracking the window. All the good that would do me with planks of wood covering it.

  One of the drawer’s ends split into shards.

  “My god, this isn’t happening.” What would I do for two days inside this room, assuming Syndia would ever let me out? What if something happened to her during the storm and no one would find me here for days? Weeks? Months?

  “Nana, Mayai…” I picked up the side lamp and was about to throw it when I realized I’d be breaking my only source of light in this room. I put the lamp back on the nightstand like a good girl.

  I had to calm down, or the anxiety would eat me alive. I needed my medicine. I didn’t care what Mayai told me about connecting better without them. I wasn’t built to be this psychic. I couldn’t handle it.

/>   Pacing back and forth, I knocked things to the floor and punched at the mattress to relieve anguish. Searching through my purse, I hoped to find a loose Zoloft somewhere, but only found a headache pill so I swallowed it back dry. The pressure in my temples would form a migraine soon, and the growing low air pressure outside wasn’t helping.

  I stared at the space where Luis and I had tried chipping away plaster earlier this afternoon. Now he lay dead at the bottom of a pool. A hazardous hole in the middle of the yard. I doubted this establishment ever had their licenses to begin with. Nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. My first hurricane and I’d be spending it as a prisoner.

  I could cry about it, or I could keep tearing apart this wall.

  Pulling out another drawer, I aimed the corner of it into the wall and slammed it. A tiny chunk of plaster chipped off. I slammed the drawer again in the same spot. More plaster chipped off. Again and again, I used the drawer as blunt force, chipping away at the same spot until eventually, about an inch depth of plaster was gone. Underneath, light blue glass shone through.

  My fingertip confirmed it—smooth tile.

  The mosaic was there, just underneath the surface. It would take me forever to expose it without the right tools. Luckily, a storm outside began rolling in, I was locked in Room 3 for the foreseeable future with nothing better to do, except chip away at a wall to quiet my raging mind.

  A meow startled me. I whirled around to find Bacon sitting up, eyes squinting.

  “How did you get in here?” Demanding info from a cat—a new low.

  I knew for a fact he’d been outside before Luis had slipped and fallen in the pool. I knew for a fact he hadn’t followed me in here. He wasn’t a ghost. He was real and solid and made of cat parts, so how…the hell…did he get in this room? I had no idea but I did know one thing—if he’d found his way in, that meant there was a way out.