by Dan Poblocki
“Josephine!”
“It’s just a question!”
Vivian glanced over her shoulder toward the doorway, as if worried that another member of the wedding party might be listening in. “Why are you asking it? What happened?”
Josie’s throat felt like sandpaper. “What would you say if I told you that I’ve seen a girl in my room?”
Vivian squinted. “What girl? Who?”
“Just a girl. I don’t know who. She’s come into my room twice. She doesn’t speak, and then she disappears into my closet.”
Vivian pursed her lips, as if suddenly coming to her senses. “I’d say we should ask the Gagnons who she is,” she said.
“I already mentioned her to them. They were really weird about it. They insisted that there was no girl. Beatrice thought that I dreamed her.”
“But you saw her?”
“Eli too.”
Vivian hunched her spine and lowered her voice. “Did Eli see her first?”
“No! It wasn’t like that.”
“Did he tell you that the girl was a ghost?”
Josie closed her eyes. She should have known this would be a pointless exercise. She could go on sharing the rest of her experiences — the fort, the wailing, the wind — but her mother’s disinterest was already apparent, written in furrows on her forehead.
“Listen, Josie, why don’t you stay by me for the rest of the afternoon. You can help me prepare my little speech for the ceremony. It’ll be a mom-and-daughter sort of deal. What do you say?”
Josie felt prickly at the words mom and daughter put together in that way — she and Vivian had never been a mom and daughter pair. But as Josie absorbed the idea, she found that it soothed her. “Okay,” she answered. “But don’t mention what I said to the Barkers. I’m not sure what I saw exactly, but I don’t want to get Eli in trouble.” She whispered, “His dad really is a jerk.”
Vivian blinked and then nodded. “Deal.”
AT THE FAR END of a long series of rooms, Eli came through a doorway and found himself inside a large chamber, the walls of which were lined with bookshelves. Until he’d stumbled upon it, he hadn’t realized he’d been wishing to find such a place. The answers to all his questions about Stone’s Throw Island might be hidden in one of these volumes. Maybe there was an old journal or a photo album nestled secretly on the crowded shelves. Or better yet, what if Eli discovered a yellowed and brittle handwritten note tucked inside a dusty old novel?
He thought of what Josie’d said minutes earlier, while they were upstairs in her room. Let’s just be ordinary for a while.
In other words, sit down, shut up, fold your hands, no elbows on the table, do as Mommy and Daddy insist. But he couldn’t stop the image of the girl racing down the hallway from flickering through his memory. On top of everything else he’d already experienced that day. Ordinary for a while? Ordinary like when he and Aimee were younger and she’d treated him like a human being? Ordinary like before she went away and everything changed? Ordinary for a while. In a house like this, where secrets had collected in its nooks and corners like dust bunnies? He wasn’t even sure what ordinary meant.
As he ran his finger along the edges of the nearest books, he noticed something odd about them. Each one appeared to be in pristine condition, as if no one had cracked any of them open. He glanced at the titles and the authors. All of them famous, all of them the big bestsellers he’d seen in the front window of the local bookseller on the main street of his town.
He stepped back, craning his neck as he peered up to the topmost shelves. Out of hundreds of books, there didn’t appear to be a single one that could have been here for more than a year.
The corporation that had bought the property must have added a collection of books that they thought guests would want to read. Mysteries. Romances. Thrillers. Histories. New books were a nice sentiment, Eli thought, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed imagining what he might have once found here.
The wind threw itself against the windows of the library, rattling the glass harder now. The thick velvet curtains were open. They rippled lazily as air pushed itself through old seams between the wooden frames. Rain sprayed the side of the house in harsh spurts.
Eli plucked a thin hardcover from a nearby shelf and leafed through it. On the cover, a statue of a girl stared out at him, her arms extended, holding out a stone book as if in offering. The description on the jacket looked creepy and compelling — ghosts and monsters and kids trying to solve the mystery of an author who’d gone missing. An appropriate read for an unexpectedly rainy day.
Feeling suddenly exhausted, Eli plopped down into one of the soft chairs in the corner of the room and opened to the first page. But voices drifted through the doorway from down the corridor. They pulled his attention away from the book before he’d even read the first sentence.
“ALLES LÄUFT NACH PLAN.” This voice, whispered harshly, was now coming from the adjacent room, just through the doorway opposite Eli’s chair.
“Nein. Sie müssen diese Gehorsamsverweigerung stoppen. Agent Coombs weiß was er tut. Wir warten auf die Dunkelheit, wie er es befohlen hat.”
Eli closed the book and hugged it to his chest. The second voice was familiar — deep, fuzzy — but the accent of the language muddled his mind and masked the speaker’s identity. He tucked his legs up underneath him, as if he might disappear into the soft cushions of the seat. He’d been able to comprehend the words Agent Coombs — clearly a name — but the unfamiliar sound of the rest of the German buzzed Eli’s brain, bringing him back to the cavern under the fort. The call for help echoed in his memory.
“Aber unsere Belohnung ist in Reichweite. Warum verzögern wir das, um diese Spiele zu spielen?” The first voice again, also familiar. High-pitched. Nasal.
“Keine Fragen. Wegtreten. Dies ist Ihre letzte Warnung.”
What were they saying? Eli held his breath, feeling it suddenly important that whoever was speaking not know that he was listening. He shifted in his chair, and a floorboard creaked beneath him.
The voices stopped, as if aware of his presence. As quick as lightning, Eli slipped from the chair toward the window, pulling the dark curtain in front of himself and leaning into the wall. He hugged the book to his chest. Then he turned toward a moth-eaten hole in the fabric through which he could make out vague impressions of his surroundings.
Two silhouettes filled the open doorway. One tall. One short.
“Is someone there?” asked the tall person, using the same deep, fuzzy voice that had been speaking German only seconds earlier. Now, with the cover of the foreign language removed, it was clear to Eli that the voice belonged to Bruno, Josie’s brother. The realization hit him like a fist in his gut.
He braced himself as his mind rushed to fill in the gaps that his fear had eaten away. If Josie had studied German in school, it stood to reason that her brother had done the same. Okay then, thought Eli. But who was the man Bruno had been arguing with?
“Only the wind,” said the shorter person. Eli recognized him immediately. It was Charlie Gagnon, the caretaker. “Trust me. I know this house like the back of my hand.”
Eli held his hand to his mouth. Something was very wrong here. He could feel it the same way one experiences static electricity, like a subtle shift in the air.
“Komm schon,” said Bruno, grasping Charlie’s shoulder. “I want to settle everything with the others. Make sure we’re all together in this.”
As their footfalls echoed into the distance, dissipating into the depths of the house, Eli crept out from behind the curtain. He needed to tell Josie what he’d just witnessed.
ELI RACED FROM the library through the sitting rooms that separated the eastern wing of the house from the foyer’s grand staircase, skipping over dark wooden thresholds that met glossy white marble, avoiding the edges of wrinkled rugs and claw-footed furniture. By the time he’d reached the hallway that led to the rear of the house, the book he’d taken from the shelf had nea
rly slipped out from under his arm. He listened intently for the sound of Josie’s voice and was surprised when, standing outside of the kitchen, he heard a joyful burst of laughter echo from the solarium. Turning to look, he saw Josie sitting with her mother at one of the small tables, shuffling a deck of cards.
Eli paused to catch his breath, his face burning red. Josie sounded like she was enjoying herself. And here he was freaking out. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said that she wanted to move on. What would she do when she saw him?
Turning into the kitchen doorway, he headed to the sink and splashed water onto his face. Through another door, steps away, he could hear Margo Lintel talking with her assistant, Gregory. They both sounded upset, saying something about contingency plans. Eli pulled himself away and went back toward the solarium, determined to reach Josie before he lost the nerve to share his new story.
At the small glass table in the solarium, Josie chuckled with her mother as they placed the playing cards onto the table between them. Vivian was the first to glance at him. A look of frustration flashed across her brow, but she smiled and said hello. Josie turned and forced a laugh when she saw him. “Hey, Eli,” she said, raising her voice over the patter of the rain against the glass cage surrounding them. “My mom was teaching me how to play Old Maid. Appropriate for a wedding weekend, right, Mom?”
“Absolutely appropriate,” Vivian answered, glancing down at her hand. “But don’t mention it to Aimee.”
Eli waited for an invitation, but neither of them extended one. “Cool,” he said. “I was wandering around.” He held up the book. “And I discovered a whole library at the other end of the house. Pretty interesting.”
“Sweet,” said Josie.
“And I know you mentioned that you wanted to do some reading today, so I thought, you know, I could show it to you. Maybe you could find something good too.”
“Oh, well, I sort of promised my mom we’d play this game, so …”
Outside, the mass of tall pines swayed violently toward the house as wind gusted from beyond the cliffs. “Yeah, that’s cool. I’ll just wait here ’til you’re done.”
“We’re going to be a while.”
“Really?” Eli asked, the words slipping rudely from his lips.
“Maybe we’ll join you after dinner, Eli,” said Vivian, placing another pair of cards onto the table.
“But … I also sort of have something kind of important to tell you, Josie.”
Eli watched as both Josie and her mother straightened their spines. Neither of them looked at him. “What is it?” Josie asked.
“I kind of thought I should —”
“I’d love to hear what you have to say,” Vivian interrupted. The jovial atmosphere into which Eli had stumbled moments ago had evaporated, replaced by a cooler climate. Another gust of wind shook the solarium’s windows. “No secrets in this family.”
Eli felt like they were testing him. Maybe they already knew what he wanted to tell them. Maybe they were part of the German-language conspiracy. How would he know without asking them? “Okay, well … Do you know if Bruno can speak German?” Josie and Vivian turned at once to glance at him. Neither looked happy. “I only ask because Josie said she’d studied the language at school.”
“For, like, two months, I did,” Josie answered.
“I don’t believe that Bruno ever learned German,” Vivian added. “Do you speak German, Eli?” It sounded like she wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction.
“It’s just, when I was over on the other side of the house, I heard Bruno talking with Charlie. But it sounded like they were speaking German.”
Vivian chuckled. “You probably misheard them.”
Eli soldiered on. “They mentioned the name Agent Coombs. Does that sound familiar?”
“Agent Coombs?” Vivian asked. “Who is Agent Coombs?”
“I have no idea. But it was all I could make out, because the rest of what they said was in —”
“German,” Vivian concluded with a wry grin. Across the table, Josie sighed and stared into her lap.
“Yes … I mean, that’s what it sounded like. It was really weird. Like, spooky weird. And I thought … well, since Josie and I already heard someone speaking what sounded like German earlier in the day —”
“Eli,” Vivian interrupted again, “Josie’s feeling a little exhausted from all this talk. That’s why we came in here to play this game. Let’s finish this conversation some other time. Okay, sweetie?”
“Mom!” Josie said, pushing her chair away from the table. “You don’t have to be so rude.”
“I wasn’t being rude.” Vivian gathered her cards together and glared at her daughter. “I was only trying to help.”
“I’m sorry,” said Eli, his face burning. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“No, no,” said Vivian, standing, reaching out apologetically. “It’s just been a long day. And this weather’s getting scarier by the minute. I want to keep everything light. Fun. No offense, Eli.”
“I just hoped Josie might have some ideas.”
“Why not ask Bruno?” Josie blurted out. “He probably knows better than anyone whether he speaks German.”
Eli felt his palms growing slick against the cover of the book he’d taken from the library. Forget it, he thought, turning toward the hallway. I’ll figure it out alone.
THE WIND CONTINUED to howl. Eli listened to it from the comfort of the big bed in his room upstairs. The clouds had grown so thick outside that the afternoon had given way to the darkness of evening a few hours earlier than anyone had expected. He passed the time reading his book by the light of the lamp on the bedside table, falling easily into the creepy adventure.
As the house creaked and the rain raged, his mind strayed every now and again from the story of the missing author to play with his memories of the day: the strange noises by the fort, the swastika button, the girl who kept disappearing into Josie’s closet. And for this reason, a nugget of dread had fixed itself in Eli’s chest, a sensation that he could not swallow down, no matter how hard he tried.
He was annoyed with Josie and Vivian. Josie had obviously shared with her mother some of what had happened, and her mother had tried to quell his curiosity. Eli hated whenever Aimee made him feel like an annoying little brother, but the feeling was magnified now that new members of his family were doing the same thing. They didn’t even know him yet, so why would they judge him like this? This place was haunted. Or something. It was as if the island were alive, as if it were trying to tell them something. No secrets in this family. Josie could deny it all she wanted, but that wouldn’t change the fact of what they’d both seen and heard.
Eli’s stomach rumbled, and he looked at the antique clock next to the golden lamp. An appetizing aroma wafted into his room from the hallway, and he anticipated his mother calling for him several seconds before it happened. “Dinner!” Cynthia cried out from somewhere down the hall. Still Eli hesitated getting up and going downstairs. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to look Josie in the eyes again. He also wasn’t sure what he would say to Bruno. What if Vivian had told him what Eli had said? What if everyone laughed? Or worse, what if no one laughed? Would he survive the wedding feeling like a pariah — the idiot little brother of the blushing bride?
A creak sounded in the hall. Eli froze, listening. A moment later, a broad-shouldered but lanky silhouette appeared in the doorway. Josie reached up and grasped the frame. “You coming?” she asked.
Eli sighed uneasily, his breath whistling past his lips. “Right behind you.”
As they walked down the hall, Josie glanced over her shoulder. “You really heard Bruno speaking German?”
“Yeah. I did. But I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“What do you think it means?” she went on.
Oh, so she is curious, thought Eli. He paused at the top of the landing in the grand foyer. “You really want to know what I think?” he asked. Josie nod
ded, wide-eyed, serious. “You’re not going to tell your mother on me?” This time, she shook her head. “I think that something on this island is playing with us. Something bad. Between everything that happened at the fort, and then hearing that totally bonkers conversation between Bruno and Charlie … it makes me wonder.”
“Wonder about what?”
“We already talked about ghosts,” Eli said. Josie rolled her eyes. “Hear me out. Your brother and Charlie did not sound like themselves. When they were talking, it was like they were, I don’t know, possessed or something.”
“Hoo-boy,” Josie whispered, clutching the banister at the top of the stairs.
“Don’t be like that. You asked what I thought.”
“And your answer now is possession? Like … demons inhabiting living bodies? Like in that crazy movie with the evil girl and the pea soup?”
“Not demons. I was thinking spirits.”
“Spirits? Like: you see dead people?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous,” said Eli. “But how else do we explain —”
“With logic,” Josie snapped. “And reason.” She shook her head. “I was more likely to go along with ‘crazy cannibalistic family.’ But this …” She laughed. “This is just too weird. My brother is not possessed, Eli, and he’s not a monster.” She turned and continued down the stairs.
“I’m not saying he’s a monster!”
“What are you saying?”
“You know what?” Eli called after her. “From now on, I’m keeping my opinion to myself!”
“Good idea!” she shouted up from the bottom step.
FOR DINNER, Beatrice and Charlie had laid out another spread, this time with a luxurious-looking seafood bisque and handmade lobster salad served in toasted hot-dog buns.
The group sat around the table in the dining room, tending an awkward quiet. Television static continued to blare from the great room — Otis had insisted they keep it on in case service was restored. The question that had been hovering over everyone for the past few hours was growing heavier, soaking with the weight of the downpour outside. Should we stay or should we evacuate? And if so, how?
