by Dan Poblocki
And now everyone expected him to simply welcome a new “sister” with open arms? Josie Sandoval: the girl who smirked whenever he said anything. Yeah, right.
On the path to the house, as Eli walked in silence, a golf cart zoomed past, its tires tossing a small spray of stones in its wake. He leaped out of its way, onto the dewy grass. Eli was about to shout a piece of his mind, when he realized that his companions, Vivian and Josie, were staring at him. “That was close,” said Vivian, her soft voice an antidote to the poison of his sudden frustration.
“Too close,” Eli mumbled. “Geez. What an —” Charlie Gagnon, the caretaker, who was behind the cart’s wheel, called an apology over his shoulder. It had all happened so quickly, Eli barely had time to register his embarrassment. “Sorry,” he said. “Everyone all right?”
“Totally fine,” said Josie, that smirk decorating her face again, this time seeming to pass a hidden message. You almost swore in front of my mom!
Eli had to keep himself from smiling back. He didn’t want her to think they were friends now.
Several hundred feet back down the hill, Eli’s parents waited on the wharf with Margo’s assistant for Charlie to return and pick them up. If Otis had heard what Eli had almost just said, he’d have sent Eli to his quarters for the rest of the day before forcing him to make a public apology at dinner that evening.
Vivian Sandoval blinked, reading the worry in Eli’s forehead, and then waved the group forward to follow her up the path. “We’ll just have to watch out for the cart on its way back down. Apparently, a driving test isn’t required to operate one of those things.” Eli laughed, grasping the handle of his suitcase harder so that it wouldn’t slip out of his sweaty palm. “So, Eli?” Vivian went on, dragging her own luggage, flipping her silver-colored shoulder-length hair away from her face. “You were about to tell us all about yourself?”
“I was?”
“Well, if you weren’t, I think now’s a good time to start, you know, before you’re run down by another golf cart in the prime of your youth.”
Eli smiled, then glanced ahead at Josie, who seemed determined to keep her vision focused on the ground. Her long brown hair hung limply past her wide, bony shoulders. She was obviously embarrassed by her mother’s boldness.
“There’s not much to tell,” said Eli. Of course there was, but where was he supposed to start? I’m turning thirteen in December. My favorite subject in school is English. I’m writing a graphic novel with my best friend about an invisible dolphin with telekinetic powers. I accidentally killed my pet hamster in the spring by leaving its cage too close to an open window one night. “I’m happy to be here.”
“Mm. What a polite thing to say. Josie, isn’t Eli polite?”
Eli slowed. Was she making fun of him? Adults weren’t supposed to do that to kids, were they? Not so blatantly anyway.
“Very polite,” said Josie, keeping her eyes fixed on the path.
Vivian turned back to look at him, raising an eyebrow as if daring him to challenge her. He wasn’t one to turn down a challenge, not from someone other than his father. “Did you hear what the weird old wedding planner was telling the caretaker back at the wharf?” he asked. Vivian shook her head. “She said she saw a whole bunch of people watching us from the shore as the boat approached. And the caretaker told her that no one else was on the island but him and his wife. Bizarre, right?” There. How polite was that?
Vivian’s face lit up. “Very bizarre. Did you see any people watching us, Eli?”
“Nope,” he said, struggling to keep up with Josie, who was now several steps ahead. The group was almost halfway to the house’s front door. “But it doesn’t surprise me. What the wedding planner said she saw. A lot of these islands out here have some really odd histories. People tell stories.”
This got Josie’s attention. She glanced over her shoulder. “Really? Like what?”
“Oh, the usual. Ghosts. Weird lights. Sea monsters!” He smiled. “All sorts of fantastical phenomena.”
Eli had grown up many miles inland. The most interesting of the island stories had traveled from the gulf and the bays to the people of the suburban towns as if swirling up the tidal estuaries that stabbed into Maine’s immense jagged coast. Many of the folks who had houses out on the islands lived there only part-time, and they brought their legends home with them in the off-season.
“Fantastical phenomena,” Vivian echoed. “You’re a poet, Eli.”
“The creepiest story I’ve heard is about a family that inhabits a deserted island out here somewhere. The family usually lives off the fish they catch around the shore. But sometimes they’ve been known to leave their island to go hunting for … different food.” Eli paused, knowing the response that would eventually come.
Josie was the one who asked, “And what kind of food would that be?”
“Humans,” Eli said.
“That’s disgusting,” she said, suddenly speeding her pace up the hill.
Vivian chuckled. “He was joking, honey. Josie! Slow down.”
Eli didn’t answer. Of course he wasn’t joking — by fifth grade, every kid he’d gone to school with had heard the story of the feral cannibal family — but he decided not to say anything more about it at the moment. It was one thing to be called polite by a couple of strangers at your sister’s wedding. Polite implied you were slightly boring. Ordinary. Plain. Polite meant your parents should be proud of you. Being called disgusting, however, was another thing entirely. Eli smiled to himself, unsure at this point which he preferred.
THE CARETAKER’S WIFE greeted them at the house’s entrance. She stood almost six feet tall and was as skinny as a scarecrow, in a floor-length pale pink dress, shapeless and sack-like. Her long gray hair was twisted tightly into a bun that sat on top of her head. There was something about her that at first made Eli nervous, but when she said, “Welcome,” her smile was so honest and kind, he relaxed a bit, loosening the grip on the handle of his case. In one delicate hand, she held up a small metal tray on which she’d balanced three glass flutes filled with golden liquid. “Champagne for the mother of the groom. And sparkling apple for the kids.”
Eli felt his skin flush. Kids? Really, lady? It made him think of Aimee’s outburst. Which is it, people? Am I a kid? Or should I grow up? Glancing briefly at Josie to see if she was having a similar reaction (she wasn’t — her expression was blank and mysterious), he placed his suitcase by the others that sat just inside the foyer. Josie and Vivian did the same, then graciously took their glasses.
“I’m Beatrice Gagnon,” the woman said. “Come in, please. Everyone is starting to gather in the solarium.”
“Well, thank you,” said Vivian, raising her glass to Beatrice, then clinking it against Josie’s and Eli’s. “This is all very nice.”
“Nice?” Beatrice sniffed, then glanced around the great marble foyer wearing a look that said Vivian had used a ten-cent word to describe something that she considered priceless. The room was a perfect white cube. The ceiling soared nearly thirty feet. An elaborate crystal chandelier hung just over their heads, a dozen arms reaching out from its center like some ornately festooned insect. Dual staircases hugged the white walls on either side of the double walnut doors, meeting at a second-floor landing. Tall ferns fanned out from fat white ceramic pots that sat on each side of the balcony. A doorway beyond the wide marble banister above led to a tunnel of darkness where the bedrooms were hidden behind closed doors. “Well, yes, I suppose it is nice. Come along now. Don’t want to keep everyone waiting.”
Eli peered out the front door and watched as Charlie’s cart rumbled back down the hill to pick up his parents and Margo’s assistant at the wharf. “They could’ve walked,” he whispered to himself. As the ferry had approached the shore, Eli had imagined that the island contained a type of enchantment — not literally, of course — but it seemed charming enough to captivate a couple of dyed-in-the-wool Mainers. Back on the mainland, they would have scoffed at the idea of a
two-hundred-yard golf-cart shuttle ride, but here, the luxury made them wide-eyed with wonder. Maybe the island’s magic would make everyone more pleasant for the weekend?
“Eli?” Josie called to him from the arched entry just below the staircase’s landing. Beatrice and Vivian had already gone ahead. “You coming?” It was the first thing she’d said to him all morning that didn’t make him want to pull the hood of his jacket over his head and hide — the first time her smile didn’t seem like a weapon.
“Oh. Yeah.” He slugged down what was left in his glass. “It’s just … I think this stuff has gone to my head already.”
“Right,” said Josie, drawing out the word. “Apple juice can be so intoxicating.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the entire wedding party, except for Margo, had gathered in the room off the back of the house, the one that Beatrice called the solarium. Its walls and ceiling were made up entirely of large panes of glass attached by thin strips of a dark metal. The floor was a brick patio. The room was shaded by several tall pines that stood outside across a small patch of grass. The ocean was visible through the branches, glistening in the morning light. Inside, the air was warm and humid — a welcome sensation after the damp chill of the boat ride. A strong scent of flowers was apparent, though Eli saw none.
“Obviously, the name is a joke,” said Eli’s father. A tall, wide man, Otis Barker stood beside his wife, resting his hands on his round stomach. “It has to be. Stone’s Throw Island? We’re a dozen miles from the coast at least.”
“Out here, we’re actually closer to Nova Scotia than to Maine,” said Bruno, patting Aimee’s hand. “I looked it up.”
“A joke,” said Charlie Gagnon, who stood in the kitchen doorway across the hall. “You could look at it that way. This land has had many names over the years. I can’t remember what the natives called it once upon a time. Stone’s Throw is the latest iteration, a remnant from the last owner’s tenure. The new owners thought it was quaint, so they kept it.”
Eli sat beside Josie on a small wicker love seat, his knees squeezed together, his hands clenched tightly in his lap. The adults — his sister and her fiancé included — had helped themselves to more champagne, and they all appeared to be getting a little giddy. Faces were flushed, and tongues were wagging. Eli was glad he was too young to participate. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he didn’t have total control over himself. Maybe he’d have shared his annoyance that he hadn’t been allowed to invite his best friend, Shane Mullins. Or that his phone had no service here. Or that the only other person here his age was a girl whose occasional gaze made him feel like a weirdo. He’d gotten similar glances at school from his classmates last year whenever they overheard him conspiring with Shane about the graphic novel they were making together.
Or maybe he’d say something even worse if he’d had champagne, something about his selfish sister, something about her fiancé’s plastic smile.
“Who are the owners?” asked Eli’s mother, Cynthia. Her voice was as thin as her frame. Wavy dyed-blond hair hung lifelessly from her head, and large diamond-drop earrings dangled from her earlobes.
“You mean, what are the owners?” Charlie laughed, a private joke between he and himself. “The island was bought last year by a small financial corporation down in Portland. An investment, I suppose, to rent us out for special events. We’ve had five weddings and two birthday parties this past summer. Even so, this island is still our home. Beatrice and I have lived here since the eighties, when we were hired by the previous owners. They rarely visited. Their loss!”
Cynthia leaned forward, a wide grin on her face. “Maybe you two will still be here in ten years … for Josie and Eli! Wouldn’t that just be the cutest? Can we book this far in advance?”
Eli froze, eyes wide with horror.
A moment later, the group caught on, their laughter resounding off the glass walls and ceiling. Even Josie pretended to chuckle. But from the corner of his eye, Eli noticed her jaw tighten as she clenched the arm of the love seat.
“I hope you don’t think me a busybody for asking about the house,” Cynthia said to Beatrice, as if already forgetting her own joke. “I was just curious.”
“Of course not, honey,” said Beatrice, continuing to chuckle. “This is our job. Free rent. They pay us to maintain the place. We were worried when we learned we were being sold last year. Thankfully, the corporation kept Charlie and me on. And, after being isolated for so long, we love having guests!”
“Oh, let’s not talk about rent and money and such things,” said Margo, pushing past Charlie and Beatrice into the solarium, waving her hands about as if to clear away a stink. Her cheeks looked especially red, Eli thought. Maybe she’d had some of the champagne too. “How about we show everyone to their rooms?”
“Wait,” said Josie before anyone had a chance to stand. “Mr. Gagnon, I was wondering if you could tell us about the cannibals.”
Eli’s eyes grew wider than before.
Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “The … what?”
“Isn’t there supposed to be a family of cannibals living on an island out here? Don’t they sometimes come to other islands … you know … to, like, hunt people?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Bruno laughed. Too loud. “My little sister loves inventing stories.”
“I didn’t make it up,” said Josie. “Eli told us all about it on the walk up here. Didn’t he, Mom?” Vivian sat in her chair, her mouth opening and closing silently, as she searched for an answer.
Eli’s parents and his sister glared at him from across the room. “Everyone back home knows the stories about these islands,” he said. “I just shared one of them with Josie and Mrs. Sandoval.”
Otis stood up from the couch where he’d been sitting. “And that’s exactly what it is,” he said, his voice quiet, sounding falsely jovial. “A story. We’re all here for a good time. To celebrate Aimee and Bruno. Let’s save the scary tales for later. What do you say, son?”
Eli hitched a breath. He felt like his insides were melting. “Sorry,” he said, glancing at Josie. She raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
Had she done this on purpose? Tried to get him in trouble? Well, it had worked. And now he was even more annoyed than he’d been before.
So a few minutes later, while the rest of the group was following Margo and Charlie and Beatrice upstairs to the sleeping quarters, Eli snuck out the front door before his father could squirrel him away to a secluded corner and speak to him with his real voice, the one he used only in private.
FROM THE DIARY OF DORY M. SAUVAGE
Saturday, August 29, 1942
Dear Diary,
You will never guess what happened! Last night, I accidentally picked up the phone and overheard Francois talking to his roommate about a secret trip they’re making to Savage Island on Labor Day weekend. Only a few days from now! It’s to be just the two of them and their girlfriends, Esther Acker and Betty Bellamy. Supposedly, the boys are planning to take my father’s Chris-Craft out of the Haggspoint marina and return it before anyone finds out.
Can you believe the nerve of my brother? The island house has been closed up since the war started, so the entire staff has been attending to my parents at the mainland house. They’ll be all alone out there. Who knows what kind of trouble they’ll get into?
I cannot believe they didn’t invite me!
Granted, I’m leaving shortly for Miss Ligustrum’s School for the start of my ninth-grade year, but it would have been easy enough to take a train from Boston. They could have picked me up at a station somewhere along the way. I suppose I’ve finally reached an age when Frankie no longer views his baby sister as a precocious and amusing pet. Should this make me sad?
On the phone it sounded like the whole thing was Emil’s idea. That boy’s a troublemaker, but oh, how I adore him! His blue eyes are like sapphires. And the way his hair sometimes flops over his forehead drives my heart like a locomotive. His accent i
s to die for. Is there any language more beautiful than French? Enchanté! He’s come to visit a couple times this summer. Who knows when I’ll see him again?
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if I found a way to tag along? I’d have to convince my roommate, Hilary, to cover for me with Miss Ligustrum for a few days, but I can’t imagine it being a serious issue. If I could make it to Haggspoint before my brother, I may be able to sneak into the storage compartment on Daddy’s boat and hide there until we get to the island. Then I’d jump out and force Frankie to deal with me!
Or, even better, what if I were to keep myself hidden when we reach the house? Play a few tricks on them as punishment before finally revealing myself? Oh boy, I’d love to see the looks on their faces.
My dearest diary, I must leave you for now. I have some planning to do.
Sincerely yours,
Dory M. Sauvage
JOSIE REGRETTED SAYING IT the moment the words escaped her mouth: the thing about the cannibal family, blaming it on Eli. She’d realized just how cruel she’d been when she looked into his wide, worried eyes. But Eli’s mother, that snooty Cynthia woman, had to understand that her little joke about the two of them falling for each other, and getting married in a decade, was not going to fly. Weren’t they supposed to be family now? Yuck.
Upstairs, nearly a half hour after the incident, Josie flopped down on the queen-size bed in the big room that Margo, the wedding planner, had reserved “especially for her.”
She’d never imagined herself falling in love or getting married, particularly not like this, on an (ooh-la-la) island, where it was supposed to be beautiful and romantic and memorable. Maybe one day, in her own way, she’d find a person she wanted to be with, but she wasn’t buying this fairy-tale-princess dream that everyone was always trying to shove down her throat.
