by Dan Poblocki
Josie saw what was coming a moment before it happened. She started to reach out toward the group, but she wasn’t fast enough. Bruno raised his hands so quickly that Margo, Aimee, and Vivian didn’t notice they’d all been knocked backward until they were lying on the ground.
Bruno swung himself forward into a crouch and struggled to rise. But after his initial burst of energy, he seemed to falter, his legs wobbling before he could make it all the way up. Falling to his knees, he called out weakly, “Achtung … Achtung, meine Brüder!” Bloody saliva oozed from his mouth and dripped down his chin. In the shadows, the spittle looked like ink.
Brüder. A word Josie definitely recognized. “Bruno!” she shouted. “You’re my brother. No one else’s. Stop this!”
He ignored her. Raising his hands to his head, he closed his eyes and wavered. He looked like he might pass out again.
Vivian rolled out of his reach. Rising to her feet, she took Josie’s hand. “That is not your brother. Not right now.” Aimee, Beatrice, and Margo moved away too, standing in a circle around Bruno, watching the groom-to-be as if he might burst.
“Achtung …” he whispered, unable to catch his breath. All the fight had gone out of him. Then he collapsed to the ground, falling unconscious again. Vivian knelt beside him and reached out to check his breathing.
“It’s not safe here,” said Eli, coming up behind his mother, steadying himself on Josie’s shoulder. “Josie’s right. We’ve got to move.”
“And what about Bruno?” Aimee asked. “Do we just leave him here?”
The group glanced wordlessly at one another. They already knew the answer. They also knew they had no other choice.
BEATRICE LED THE WAY back across the spit, suggesting that they stay near to the cliff, that it was less likely they’d be surrounded if the men could only come at them from one side. But with the violent wind, they had to be extra careful not to step too close to the edge. After everything they’d already been through, none of them wished to end up pulverized on the rocks below.
The wall of trees darkened as they came down the slope. Josie and Eli kept watch for shadows that looked like they might be alive and dangerous. Missing one shoe, Eli was also careful to avoid pointed sticks and stones. The group remained close together as they walked the jagged path. “Maybe the men never heard Bruno’s cry,” Cynthia suggested. The others murmured their assent. The sounds of crashing waves and distant thunder kept their voices from spreading too far.
“We should stay off the main path through the woods,” Beatrice suggested, taking Margo’s arm, as if they’d recently become the best of friends. “I’m pretty sure I can lead us through the rough.”
“And what happens then?” Aimee asked. “We can’t go up to the house. Josie said that they’d gone looking for her there.”
“We’ll stay along the island’s edge,” Beatrice said. “If we can make our way to the wharf without being seen, maybe we can wait out the storm in the boathouse. Sonny should arrive close to dawn. At this point, that must be only a few hours away.”
“Now there’s a plan I can get behind,” said Vivian. Everyone else muttered in agreement.
As they stepped into the cover of trees, Josie felt comfortable telling them her own story of how she discovered the secret ladder in the closet and what she found when she explored the attic. She removed the water-warped book from her pocket and showed the group, sharing the story that Dory had written in it, sparing no detail. It was still too dark to see if any of the writing had survived the dive to the bottom of the black pool.
When Josie was finished, the others chimed in, drawing connections to everything that had happened. Eli was impressed. The group was finally, almost totally in sync with his impressions of the island. They agreed that it was haunted. And they believed that the spirits had taken control of the men for a singular purpose: to destroy Dory Sauvage’s daughter.
Unsurprisingly, Margo remained quiet throughout the journey.
As the trees grew sparse and the house appeared at the top of the hill, Cynthia spoke up. “Are you all right, Mrs. Lintel? What’s on your mind?”
Margo sniffed, as if she were uncomfortable with the question. She glanced down as she walked, careful to avoid fallen branches and low-growing brush that might snag her damp pants. “I’m not sure I can put what’s on my mind into words,” she said. “Especially not around the children.” Nervous laughter followed. “One thing I’m unclear about is the girl Josie and Eli said they saw upstairs. I saw her myself this morning, though I didn’t get a good look at her face. I’d mostly been thinking about the cannibal folklore. Those stories seem almost quaint now.
“What I mean when I say I’m unclear about our vision of this girl — how she led Josie to discover the ladder and the attic and the journal — is that the girl cannot be a ghost like the men who drowned in that pit in the fort. She cannot be a spirit trapped on this island. Reason number one is that, well, we know she survived that night because she gave birth to me. And reason number two is that she is still alive, if not quite well, residing in a nursing home outside of Bangor.”
“WAIT A SECOND,” said Josie, stopping short beneath the dripping branches. Water splashed against her scalp, but she smoothed it away. “Dory Sauvage is alive?” Everyone else paused along with her, willing, for a moment, to catch their breath.
“Her married name is Dorothea Petit,” Margo answered. “And she’s gone by Thea for years and years. But yes. My mother is no ghost.”
“Maybe the figure we saw in the house wasn’t your mother,” Eli said. “Maybe it was some other girl.”
“But Dory’s journal didn’t mention another girl,” said Josie. “I mean, other than the girlfriends, Esther and Betty. But they were older. It had to have been her.”
Beatrice spoke up. “Not necessarily.”
“How’s that?” Vivian asked.
Beatrice shrugged. “All I’m suggesting is that, in this life, there are more things that remain mysterious to us than not.”
“When it was happening,” Josie added, “when we saw her, I kept feeling like the island, or something, was trying to communicate with us. Share its memories. It felt like I was watching a movie.”
“How much longer ’til we reach the boathouse?” Aimee interrupted, as though she were pretending that the last ten seconds of talk hadn’t happened.
“That depends on how important everyone else feels it is to answer all of our questions right now,” Beatrice said. “I say we keep walking. If we circle the edge of the yard, we’ll be there in no time.”
Once they’d stepped out onto the lawn, there was nothing but the darkness to cover them from the house. To their right, a thicket of trees clung to the rocks that leaned out over the ocean. A sporadic breeze continued to spray what was left of the rain. They walked in silence, ducking their heads, trying to be as small as possible.
Eli kept part of his vision on Beatrice, who was right ahead of him; he focused the other part at the top of the hill. The dark house looked as ominous as the fort. He knew now that bad things could happen in places as glorious as a white marble mansion or as decrepit as an abandoned jail cell. His bones were like liquid, conducting the buzzing electricity that flowed from his brain. An ambush might come at any moment, from any direction. He felt ready to pop. Josie strolled up beside him, and his nerves dialed down a notch.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the girl who’d appeared in Josie’s room that day. The vision. If evil can sleep in a certain place, waiting for the right moment to strike, then maybe it stood to reason that the place would have a desire to vanquish that evil. And if Margo’s presence on Stone’s Throw triggered the old dormant malevolence to awaken, to seek revenge, maybe it also triggered something good as well.
The wharf and the boathouse appeared ahead, the silhouette of its two-story roof sloping sharply toward the water that crashed up from below, splashing little explosions of foam high into the air.
“HOLD ON,” WHISP
ERED JOSIE, throwing out her arms, stopping everyone behind her. Ahead, Beatrice paused and turned around. They were only fifty or so steps from the darkened building. “What if this is a trap?”
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Eli wondered, had no one considered this?
“A trap?” Vivian echoed. “You mean, like, they expected us to come here?”
“As far as we know, they all think that we’re back in the cave,” said Aimee. “Drowned.”
“Josie’s right,” said Eli. “We can’t rule out that they know we’ve escaped. They might have planned for this.”
Beatrice sighed. “Well, we can’t stay in the open. When the sun starts to rise, we’ll be sitting seagulls.”
“You mean ducks?” Aimee asked.
“I’m just worried that if we hide in the boathouse,” Cynthia added, “we’ll be cornered if they come after us again.”
“But we’ll only be in there until Sonny arrives.”
“That could be hours!” said Aimee.
“If the storm calms down,” Beatrice went on, “and if it’s an emergency, we can always pile into the dinghy.”
“The tiny boat tied to the wharf?” Cynthia asked. “That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“None of this is safe,” said Beatrice. “That little boat may be our only hope.”
“Why are you so determined to get us in the boathouse, Beatrice?” Aimee asked.
“I believe I just answered that question. Several times.”
“But why should we trust you? You might be working for them. Your husband tried to kill Margo.”
Beatrice scoffed. “And your fiancé attacked you! And then he helped lock us all in a flooded fort! You’re really going to start pointing fingers?”
“Enough,” Vivian whispered harshly. “Arguing won’t help.” She exhaled sharply. “You all stay here. I’ll go check it out.”
“Mom! No!” Josie cried out.
Vivian clasped her daughter’s shoulders and squeezed. “It’s not a big building. I’ll search every corner. When you see me waving from the front door, you’ll know it’s clear.”
“I won’t let you go alone.”
“I’ll only be a few minutes, honey. Stay with Eli. Protect each other.”
Josie glanced at Eli and then sighed loudly. Even now, Eli’s skin tingled with embarrassment.
“There is another option,” Margo said quietly from the rear of the group. Her voice was like a silver bell, ringing out for everyone’s attention, reminding them that she was still with them. Everyone turned to listen. “I could go up to the main house. Alone.”
“No way,” said Beatrice. “We’re almost out of this.”
“Almost out leaves a lot of room for error,” said Margo. “For unnecessary trouble. They want me. They want to hurt my family. They’ve no real interest in any of you. If we give them what they want, maybe they’ll leave the rest of you alone.”
“You’re willing to sacrifice yourself for a maybe?” said Beatrice.
“Yes,” said Margo simply. Her silence on the walk from the fort suddenly made sense to everyone. “I am.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Aimee, pushing through the crowd, taking Margo’s hand, as though she could physically restrain her if she tried to break for the hill top. “You’re not going anywhere without us.”
Margo’s lip trembled, and she choked out a strangled sigh. “This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Josie spoke up. “This is nobody’s fault.”
Eli added, “I guess if you want to blame someone, you can blame Hitler.” Margo sniffed. “He started that war. He sent the submarines. He did the most horrible things anyone has ever done on this planet.”
“I agree,” said Cynthia, squinting her eyes in anger. “Screw Hitler!” This made the entire group snicker reluctantly. Eli had never heard his mother use such language. He felt a sudden surge of pride for her. “What is it? What did I say?”
“Forget it, Mom,” Aimee said. “You’re just funny sometimes.”
“I’m so sorry,” Margo went on. “I had no idea about any of this. My mother never said —”
“Enough,” Vivian said softly, waving her hands to cut her off. “Would it have made a difference if she had?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We will survive this, all of us, but only if we’re smart about it.” She stepped toward the boathouse. “Watch for me from the doorway.”
SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, Vivian was standing in the entry with her hands over her head.
All clear.
The group rushed the short distance to the boathouse. Vivian stepped aside, and everyone pushed past her.
As the lightning continued to flash, the first floor was revealed. The large room was filled with all kinds of equipment: fishing nets, stacks of folded canvas, coolers, small buoys. A statue of a mermaid leaned in one corner, her chest out, her arms at her sides. Josie recognized it as a prow figurehead. Maybe she had once guided a large ship across the water. On the opposite side of the room, a large green rubber raft was upended against the wall; dusty with age, it didn’t appear to be the least bit seaworthy. Along the base of the same wall, several owls glared. Josie nearly screamed at the sight of their reflective yellow eyes staring hungrily at her before realizing they were plastic dummies to keep the seagulls away.
“There are guest rooms upstairs,” said Beatrice. “A bathroom. Towels. Water. Beds. Clean sheets. We can relax.”
“I’d be happy to sit down,” said Aimee, “but there is no way that I can relax. Who will be the lookout?”
“We’ll take shifts,” said Vivian. “Or we can all do it together.”
After they piled some of the junk from the storage area in front of the main doorway — a couple of chairs, a heavy toolbox, an upended table — the group climbed the stairs and settled into a single room that was situated at the southwest corner. Two windows had perfect views up the hill. If anyone were to approach the boathouse, he’d have to cross the great lawn. It was still dark out, but they’d surely notice any movement in the clearing.
Everyone gathered before the windows, watching intently for a few moments, before they started to feel crowded. Eventually, they took turns in the bathroom, washing up, drying off. Eli even managed to locate a pair of rubber boots that fit him.
“We made it,” said Aimee after a few minutes. “I can’t believe we made it.”
“Back in that cave, I really thought we were done for,” said Vivian.
“God bless you, Josie,” said Cynthia. “Thank goodness you kept your wits about you.”
Josie smiled and blushed. Soon, she felt wet streaks on her cheeks. “I didn’t think about it,” she said through her tears. “There wasn’t any time. I just knew I had to act fast.” She rubbed at the pocket of her jacket, feeling the edges of the book she’d discovered in the attic. She reached inside and pulled it out. “Margo, this belongs to you. To your mother. She was the real hero.”
Margo sat away from the others on one of the beds and held the journal in her lap, staring at it in disbelief. She opened the cover and pawed at the wet pages, making out some of the words. The water hadn’t completely destroyed the ink after all. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe she kept it all from us, my brother and me, our entire lives.” She flipped through the book. “I suppose the story explains her phobia of thunderstorms.” She shook her head and then read a line aloud. “ ‘If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead’?” She looked up at the group. “When she left this book in the attic, she probably did believe that the Nazi U-boat was going to come for them. She hid, but she thought there was a chance she’d be found, and not by the good guys. And if that had happened … Well …” She placed the journal on the mattress.
“I guess Dory never had a chance to retrieve her diary,” said Eli. “I wonder why.”
“It’s like history loops around,” said Josie, eyeing the book. “Seems like people up here love telling stories. Wouldn’t Dory’s experience have been th
e ultimate tale to share? How come her story never left the island?”
Silence filled the small space for a few moments. Then, Beatrice spoke up. “I have a confession.” Everyone turned toward her, and she held up her hands in defense. “That came out wrong. It’s got nothing to do with what’s happened here tonight. Well, not directly. It’s just … Charlie and I have been keeping a secret for decades. A secret about Stone’s Throw Island that may answer Josie’s question. I think now is the time to tell it. And I don’t give a good-gosh-darn about the repercussions.”
“YOU SEE,” BEATRICE went on, “Charlie and I knew that the Germans had attempted to take over this island. We didn’t know the particulars, and we certainly didn’t know the history or name of the family who lived here at that time. According to the information we received, the navy fleet in Portland responded to a distress call. Shortly after they arrived, they sunk the enemy submarine that was just offshore.
“Of course, there was a cover-up. The government thought that if the public ever got wind that the Germans had come so close to a land invasion of North America, there would be panic in the streets. They shut down the story — paid off or threatened the family who’d lived here. Margo’s family. The government took the island from them by eminent domain and used it as a lookout point until the end of World War II.
“Later, during the Cold War, the big house became a military communications post. The government used it secretly in this manner all the way through the late eighties, when Charlie and I came on board as the caretakers. By that point, the building had become quite run-down. Only a few officers worked here, and they had little to do. Our jobs were to phase them out and then watch over the place until the military figured out what it wanted to use the island for next. As you know, they eventually sold it to the financial people on the mainland. The rest is public knowledge.”
