by Jan Fields
“You’re right, not much,” the old woman said.
“Mrs. Harlow,” Annie asked, “did my friends give you any idea of what they planned to do while in Preacher’s Reach?”
“No, they said they wanted to go out to the island,” Mrs. Harlow said. “I told them to check with Bob Maynard for a boat. I babysat that boy when he was in diapers. I like to send him a speck of business when I can.”
“Has Bob Maynard ever been in any trouble?” Ian asked.
“No, not really,” Mrs. Harlow said. “Though I still believe he was part of the miscreant group that tossed toilet paper into my trees one Halloween. Made a horrible mess when it rained. And he was quite sweet on my daughter at one time, but nothing seemed to come of that. It may be just as well, considering the toilet paper incident.”
“Sounds terrible,” Annie said.
“If I’d gotten outside a bit faster, I’d have taken a switch to those boys,” Mrs. Harlow said. “But they only did it the one time.”
“That’s good,” Annie said.
“Overall though, he’s a good boy,” Mrs. Harlow said. “But you know how boys are, so easily led astray.”
“Mrs. Harlow,” Ian said, “we thought we might ask at the newspaper office. Do you know if anyone will be in there today?”
The old woman nodded, smiling. “My Nora should be there, getting the Monday paper ready.”
“Your Nora?” Ian echoed.
“Yes, my daughter,” the old woman said. “She went off to North Carolina to learn all about being a newspaper publisher, and then she came back here and started the paper back up. She’s even won a couple awards.”
“You must be very proud of her,” Annie said.
“I am,” Mrs. Harlow said; then she sighed. “Now if she had just met a nice young man and had given me some grandchildren. But I guess you can’t have everything.”
“I guess not,” Annie said. “I think we’re going to stop and speak to Nora for a few minutes. Do you think she’ll have time?”
“Oh sure,” Mrs. Harlow said. “My Nora has manners, not like some I could name. She’ll be happy to see you.” The old woman stood stiffly and pushed some pamphlets into Annie’s hand. “Here are the maps I told you about. You should visit some of the places in the moonlight.” She leaned close. “It’s very romantic.”
Ian flashed her a smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”
12
The old woman’s back was bent, but she leaned over still further until her face loomed close to mine. Her breath smelled like stale cigarettes and death. “Do you think you’re safe, boy?” she asked me. “Do you think the devil’s hounds cannot find such a little, little boy?” The old woman tapped her nose then. “They don’t need to see you. They smell you. Nothing smells quite like a Fuller.” I tried to scream for my mother, but my throat felt closed, and I could barely breathe. The old witch ran bent fingers through my hair and laughed, pointing at my lap. To my shame, I had wet myself from fear.
—Steven Fuller, 1925
The walk back across the broken pavement seemed even hotter than before. It was warm for an October day. “I do believe I’ve lost my thin Texas blood,” Annie said. “This heat is brutal.”
“I am going to appreciate autumn when we get home,” Ian agreed as they reached the door to the newspaper office. As Mrs. Harlow had suggested, the door opened easily.
The interior of the cinder-block building felt like an oven. They found a woman hunched over a desk, frowning into a bulky computer monitor. The woman looked to be somewhere in her early forties with dark blond curls pulled back into a bushy ponytail. The woman looked up as they came in. “Can I help you?”
“Nora Harlow?” Ian asked.
“That’s me,” she said. “Something I can do for you?”
“I hope so,” Annie said. “We’re looking for some friends and thought they might have stopped here when they were in town.” Annie held out the photo of Alice.
The woman took the photo, mopping her forehead with her arm as she looked at it. “I remember her. Alice—her name is Alice, right?”
Annie smiled. “Right. And she would have been with Jim Parker.”
Nora nodded. “He had a fine camera with him. I wish I could afford equipment like that for the newspaper. He said he was going to take some photos out on Fuller’s Island.”
“Yes, and we know they made it out there,” Annie said. “But they’ve disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” The woman’s eyes widened. “Around here?”
Annie nodded. “She told me they were going out to the island for some twilight photography, and I never heard from them again.”
“You don’t think they could have just finished up and moved on?” Nora asked.
“Alice knows Annie worries,” Ian said. “She wouldn’t have stayed out of touch this long.”
“Plus, we know they took a boat out to the island and never brought it back,” Annie said.
“Have you talked to Chief Harper?”
“Yes, and he sent an officer out to the island but didn’t find anything,” Ian said.
Nora frowned. “Did he say which officer?”
“Leroy.”
Nora shook her head. “Leroy couldn’t find his, um, head with both hands.” She stopped and sat back in her chair. She looked pensive for a moment, and then added, “Chief Harper is a good guy, but he’s not fond of tourists. A lot of our local guys are like that.”
“I’m not much interested in Chief Harper’s prejudices,” Ian said. “We just want to find our friends.”
“I don’t like hearing that they disappeared on the island,” Nora said. “I’ve been out there—not in recent years—but back when I was a teenager. The buildings are falling down. It’s not a safe place. I told your friends that, and if they’re missing … .”
“You think they could be hurt,” Annie said.
“They could be,” Nora agreed. “You should get Bob Maynard to send a boat out and look around. I know he takes tourists out there. The fishing around the island is fantastic.”
“Bob Maynard didn’t seem overly interested in helping us,” Annie said. She longed to tell Nora what Ellie had told them, but didn’t want to get the girl in trouble. “A lot of people around here don’t seem interested in helping us.”
“Let me see what I can do,” Nora said. She fished in her pockets until she came up with a cellphone, and then punched in a number. “Hi, it’s Nora. I’m trying to find out what happened to a couple of tourists who wanted to take pictures on Fuller’s Island. Can you take me out there?”
Annie held her breath, waiting to hear what came next.
“All of them? You have all of your boats out of the water? Come on, Bob, this is Nora you’re talking to. No, I’m not. No. Look, rent me a rowboat then. Why are you being such a jerk?” At that the call ended, and the look on Nora’s face made it clear that Bob had hung up on her. She looked up at Ian and Annie. “Just what hornet’s nest have y’all been kicking?”
“We’re just looking for our friends,” Ian told her.
Nora stood up and smiled. “And suddenly, I want to do a little looking of my own.”
“Can you get us out to the island?” Ian asked.
“Not with Bob’s help, but he’s not the only boat in the sea,” she said. “Look, give me a little time and let me see what I can turn up. Can I get your phone numbers? I’ll call you and tell you what I’ve found.”
Annie smiled and quickly scrawled her number on the torn bit of paper Nora had given her. “I really appreciate this,” she said. “We’ve run into so many stone walls.”
“You kick a wall long enough,” Nora said, “and it crumbles. And I really want to see what’s behind this one.”
“Bob Maynard isn’t the only person who is keeping secrets,” Ian said. “Alice and Jim stayed at the Preacher’s Rest Inn, but when our own police chief called around, no one would admit to renting to them. And we believe they ate at Sandy’s Pizza, b
ut we got very nervous denials there too.”
“What exactly were your friends here to do?” Nora said. “They told me they just wanted to take pictures of the old buildings. I don’t see how that could produce this kind of reaction. We get tourists tromping around all the time. The ghost busters alone are like mosquitoes around here.”
“That’s really what they came to do,” Annie said. “Take pictures.”
“No secret investigative journalism stuff?” Nora asked.
“No.”
Nora crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “This doesn’t make any sense. Well, I’m a newspaperwoman—when I find a good hornet’s nest, I gotta poke it. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Just don’t get hurt,” Annie said.
After a few more assurances of calls and carefulness, Ian and Annie walked back outside. Ian pulled out his phone and called Mary Beth as they walked across the paved lot to a small patch of scrubby grass that circled a swamp maple nearby. The shade of the tree offered some welcome cover from the sun.
Annie leaned against the smooth bark of the tree. “Well, it’s good to find someone else who thinks this is all very weird.”
“I have to admit, I’d hoped Nora could find us a boat,” Ian said. “Something a little more seaworthy. I’m still not excited about our night excursion.”
“She still might,” Annie said. “Local people might not be as quick to shut her out.”
“It sounded like Bob Maynard was,” Ian said. “Maybe we should take her with us to the island tonight.”
“I don’t think we should without asking Ellie,” Annie said. “The girl was scared. I don’t want to put her in any danger.”
“If she regularly takes a boat that she admits to bailing around these shores at night,” Ian said, “I’m not sure we’re the ones putting her in danger.”
Annie smiled. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” she teased.
Ian crooked an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, they heard the quick toot of a car horn. They turned toward the parking lot to see Mary Beth’s SUV pull up. Annie was thrilled to slip into the cool interior of the car. It was almost like jumping into a pool after being out in the roasting sun.
“I hope you two did better than us. We ran into so many brick walls,” Mary Beth complained, “that I’m surprised my nose isn’t flat.”
“We had a little better luck,” Annie said. Then she launched into a description of their conversations with both Mrs. Harlow and Nora.
“Nice to find someone else on our side,” Mary Beth said when Annie finished.
“Except she seems to be getting the same kinds of answers we did,” Stella added.
“So far,” Ian agreed. “But she’s going to keep digging, and she knows these people.”
“It sounds to me like we’re basically done for the day,” Stella said. “Until you hear from Ellie, I vote for a nice relaxing afternoon at the inn.”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Mary Beth said. “I could spend a few hours crocheting. I’ve been so busy I haven’t finished even one piece for the tornado victims gift drive. After I talked everyone into taking part in the drive, it won’t look good if I don’t have anything myself.”
“OK,” Ian agreed. “I brought along a book to read.” Then he glanced at Annie with a smile. “Unless, that is, you want to wander with me in the field behind the inn and commune with the spirits?”
“Not in this heat,” Annie said. “Though I wouldn’t mind communing with a tall sweet tea.”
When they reached the inn, they found that Mrs. Ayers had made pitchers of sweet iced tea. Apparently the Sunday “brunch” crowd lasted most of the day, as a number of people had settled into the wicker chairs on the long porches and sipped tea.
Stella and Mary Beth headed for their rooms to collect needlework projects, while Annie and Ian found chairs on the porch and gratefully accepted glasses of ice-cold tea. Ian wrinkled his nose at the first sip. “It still seems a little sweet to me,” he said.
“The sugar helps you feel less drained by the heat,” Annie said.
“Really?”
Annie laughed. “No, probably not, but it sounds good.”
Ian leaned back in his chair and chuckled. He closed his eyes and rubbed the cold, damp glass against his brow. “Now that helps with the heat.”
Annie gazed across the street from the inn, and suddenly realized she was looking at a cemetery. “Ian,” she said. “Didn’t Mrs. Harlow say the cemetery was behind the inn?”
“The one across the street was for white folks,” a woman beside them said. “The one out back was for slaves.”
Annie turned in her seat to face a tiny dark-skinned lady who wore a white hat perched on top of her close-cropped gray curls. “Oh,” Annie said.
The lady smiled at her. “All sorts of folks are buried in that cemetery now,” she said, nodding toward the street. “The folks in the old graves would be right disgruntled to know who they’re sharing ground with these days.”
“Do you think so?” Annie said, musing. “I would like to think people get over themselves after death.”
The other woman chuckled. “Could be. Though I’ve found folks can hold onto things for a long, long time. Certainly they can down here. You have a bit of the South in your voice, but you’re not from around here. Texas?”
“Yes,” Annie said, smiling. “A little town called Brookfield. Though I live in Maine now.”
The other woman nodded. “I thought your friend sounded like a Yankee. So what brings y’all down here?”
“We’re actually looking for friends who came here and disappeared,” Annie said.
“Oh my, that sounds ominous. You mean disappeared from Preacher’s Reach?”
“Or from Fuller’s Island,” Annie said.
“That island can be dangerous,” the other woman said. “Nasty swamps and crumbling buildings.”
“And curses?” Annie asked.
The woman snorted. “I hope you don’t put any stock in such foolishness.”
“No, but I didn’t think grown people could just disappear either.”
“You’re right there,” the woman said. “If someone disappears, the answer isn’t in any demon dog curse.”
“So you do know the story,” Annie said.
The other woman leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “My family has lived ’round here for a long time. I’ve heard all the stories.”
“Do you know why people would cover up a disappearance?” Annie asked.
“It’s been my experience that most folks do bad things for one of two reasons,” the woman said, her eyes still closed. “Money or fear. You just gotta find out which one is happening here.”
“Do you know which?” Annie asked.
“No, ma’am,” the woman said. “I do not, but I surely haven’t seen much money in Preacher’s Reach in a long time. If someone’s found a way to get some, they’re likely doing something God would frown on fiercely.”
Annie leaned back in her own chair again, gazing across the street but not really seeing anything. Money or fear, was one at work in Preacher’s Reach? Or were both?
The long days of worry finally caught up with Annie as the drowsy afternoon heat lay on her, and she fell asleep. She dreamed she was wandering through a strange mazelike version of Grey Gables looking for Alice. She kept calling her friend’s name and hearing a faint call in return, but no matter how many halls Annie walked down and how many stairs she climbed, she couldn’t seem to get any closer to Alice.
She awoke with a start when Ian laid his hand on her arm. He was holding his cellphone to his ear. “Ellie,” he mouthed.
Annie turned to glance at the chair on the other side of her. The tiny woman in the white hat was gone. In fact, the porch was empty except for Ian and Annie. Annie noticed the sun was low in the sky and realized she must have napped for a couple of hours.
“I don’t know how much we’ll be able to fi
nd in the pitch dark,” Ian said. “I hate to run the risk for nothing.”
He seemed to listen for a long time, and Annie felt almost itchy as she waited to learn what Ellie had said. Finally Ian said, “Is that safe?”
More waiting. Annie resisted the urge to tug on his arm and demand to know what Ellie was saying. All she’d manage to do then would be to make sure neither of them heard the girl. “OK,” Ian said sharply. “We’ll be there.”
As he slipped his phone back in his pocket, he said, “We should go find Stella and Mary Beth. No point going through this more than once.”
Annie was wild to know what Ellie had said, but she nodded and followed Ian into the inn. Next time, she decided, she’d be sure to give out just her number so she didn’t have to suffer so much from curiosity.
They found Mary Beth and Stella both in a small sitting room across the foyer from the dining room. Their friends looked up at them curiously. “Did you get the call?” Mary Beth asked.
Ian nodded as he walked over to sit on the chair closest to Mary Beth and Stella. Annie sat on an ottoman beside him and tried not to fidget. “Ellie will meet us at the same place and same time as last night,” he said.
“You’re going to try to find Alice and Jim in a maze of broken buildings and swamp after midnight?” Stella asked incredulously.
Ian shook his head. “We’ll be doing a little camping out. Ellie will hide her boat from prying eyes, and we’ll wait for dawn. Then we’ll start searching.”
“That makes a little more sense,” Stella said. “But it still sounds unpleasant.”
“It’s search and rescue,” Mary Beth said. “Not a spa day.”
“Maybe it’s search and rescue,” Stella said. “And maybe it’s just search … and be miserable.”
Annie held up a hand. “It does sound unpleasant, but we need to do it. And you’ll be safe and dry right here, Stella.”
“I think it would be wise for those of us who are going on this adventure to catch a nap if possible,” Ian said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
The group made plans for meeting up, and then each of them drifted off to their rooms to rest. Annie doubted she would be able to sleep, especially after her nap on the porch, but she soon discovered she was wrong. The poor sleep from days of worry had caught up with her in a big way, and she nodded off immediately.
