My flesh began to creep. This was unequivocally abnormal.
Lightning crackled to the east and the sun began to plunge westward in a sudden hurry to leave the darkening sky. I looked at my watch. It was later than I had imagined.
“Come on, guys,” I said to Kelvin and Barney. “Let’s get some dinner and then we’ll have treats.”
I hoped the birds and animals would be alright out on the ledge during the storm but wasn’t sure what to do for them except leave the porch door open. They were welcome to shelter there among the deck chairs and creepers, which grew thick as curtains, if they were brave enough to attempt it. The living drapery would keep out much of the wind and rain.
And ghosts?
I stopped, shaken by the thought. I had been worrying about a nonspecific menace. Some aura of ill will that made it rain. But was this chest attached to a specific entity? And if so, whom? Was it Halfbeard? Or whoever—whatever—had sunk his ship?
Chapter 5
I saw nothing of distinctness there at the margyns, but the form seemed lythe and it glistened green and the eyes peered with malevolent intelligence of one whose rage had clotted and grown hard wyth scars. I saw only one, but unless they be chasing the Calmare then there must be more of them abyding in the deep.
—from the unbound journal of Halfbeard
Sunset was a gray-green malevolence and I shut the drapes upon it and made sure that flashlights were on hand. Just in case. Though not really cold enough to justify it, I also had a fire in the library while I sorted through more of the boxes of papers. Love letters, tax records, household hints. The papers and parchments and ink had outlasted their makers and I didn’t know if this was wonderful or a horrible comment on our mortality.
It wasn’t of the right period but I found a fascinating letter from the thirties about an outbreak of hoof and mouth diseases somewhere in Vermont. Apparently everyone leaving the infected area had to pass through a police checkpoint where they were made to get out of the cars and walk through a trough of disinfectant while their car was washed by a team of men who scrubbed down the tires with some kind of carbolic acid. The disinfectant made leather bleed and quite ruined the ladies’ delicate heels and bleached the hem of the indignant gentlemen’s woolen trousers.
Though protected by the house I heard the heavens when they parted and upended their flood upon the island. I did not peep through the drapery at the rage outside, but knew that the water would be lashed into a white frenzy by the wind and rain. I prayed that no one from the island was on the sea that night.
Kelvin and Barney stayed close, my poor dog cowering under the onslaught and shivering as I rubbed him with my spare hand.
Though I worked diligently at sorting papers, some limp with freckles of mildew and some so crisp they would break if folded, the loneliness of the island began to intrude on my reading and the awful feeling grew that it wasn’t just the storm that was unnatural but that something malignant and wishing to do harm was hiding in it. Enraged, single-minded, coming closer.
I stopped trying to sort papers and gave both hands to the task of rubbing the dog as I listened, sure that at some level I heard strange rustling and tapping just outside the house. The fire grew dull as I watched and waited, as though slowly deprived of oxygen and guttering like a candle. The electricity remained on but it, too, seemed more feeble and I began to feel a bit dizzy and started yawning, though I was too nervous to be sleepy. Perhaps this was some atmospheric anomaly that accompanied the storm.
Reaching a level of discomfort that bordered on fear and possibly hysteria, I decided to try my phone. Ben was the logical choice since he was nearest and my relief when he finally answered was profound. It wasn’t a good connection though and I didn’t try to prolong the conversation when he began to yawn between the pops and hisses.
Obviously Ben was not spooked—just unusually tired for a night owl. So, probably, I was imagining the feeling that I wasn’t alone. Maybe it was time to stop the foolishness and go to bed. Everything would be normal in the morning.
I couldn’t resist a last look through the drapes though before retiring. At first it was all just dark, the atmosphere so thick it was palpable, but eventually I could make out lights at Ben’s and Mary’s cottages. They were distant sparks, but comforting.
Of the sea I could see nothing except, maybe, a faint gray-green light that seemed to bubble up out of the water. The lighthouse was surely working in those dark hours, but the gloom was too thick for me to see or hear it.
Suddenly lines from Poe’s “The Raven” came into my head.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
I glanced at my door, feeling dread even as I yawned again. It was locked. And all the other doors were locked too. I had checked and double-checked. The storm could knock all night but it would be in vain. I was letting nothing in.
And then rationality came to my rescue. The reason that I was probably feeling like I wasn’t alone in the house was because I had company. But it wasn’t evil spirits or monsters or whatever I had been imagining coming toward the house out of the darkness.
It was probably the birds and other creatures, sheltering on the back porch. I had propped the door open with a deck chair. That’s all I was hearing and feeling—birds and mice and other refugees from the storm settling for the night.
Relieved, I crawled into bed.
* * *
The sunrise had been plagiarized from a Hollywood romantic movie script. The sky was a mix of golden flowers and the flush of a newly wedded bride as the groom pushed aside her wisps of veil. The blue of the sea as it fell under the rising sun was a color so pure and astonishing that sapphires would weep.
But lower the eyes a bit more and you would think you were looking at a disaster film.
Beside me Barney whined and wrinkled his nose.
The animals had indeed sheltered on the back porch and, perhaps frightened by the intensity of the storm, had decided to use it as an outhouse rather than risk the rain.
Beyond, the plants in the yard were laid low, flattened as surely as if an army had marched over them. I would go ahead and cut the sunflowers. They were too broken to save. I would also have to shovel more of that strange seaweed away. It was rank when it started disintegrating in the sun.
A few seagulls remained, the last of the crashers to leave the party. They were so nonchalant in their actions that I didn’t bother to worry that they were grounded by broken wings or other injuries. They had simply stayed to point and laugh at my dismay when I saw the yard.
“Ungrateful beasts,” I muttered and went to fill a bucket with hot water and to fetch the mop.
With the morning had come a return of the normal, and though I felt pressure to do something about the weirdness around the island, to discover some answers for the strange events overtaking me, the need to clean up the back porch was overwhelming. The smell frightened and maddened me. I also tend to get a lot of thinking done when I am doing housework. And I needed to think about my Founders Day speech.
Ben arrived, with donuts, while I was throwing a last bucket of bleach and water over the planks of the porch.
“Phew,” he said. “Isn’t it a little late for spring cleaning?”
“Last night a bunch of seagulls took shelter from the storm. On the porch. And had a poop festival. And that damned seaweed smells like the public dump.”
“That it does. Never seen the stuff before.” Ben grinned and knelt to pet Barney. He was in a really good mood and I hated to spoil it, but last night had forced me to make a decision. “I was so tired that I absolutely passed out last night. The storm didn’t bother me a bit.”
This was strange. I also had been very tired, but the storm had kept me awake most of the ni
ght, a cacophony of noise that intruded on my dreams.
“So, what news from the mainland?” I asked, changing the subject.
“The radiocarbon dating came back. The box is the right age and the gold is from the right place. Everything looks real.” Then his brows drew together. “Except the monkey bones—and they are monkey hand bones. Spider monkey from Mexico—Ateles geoffroyi vellerosus. Those are more recent. Only about ten years old.”
I blinked.
“But how…?”
“Damned if I know. But everything else is exactly what it should be. My friend would like to bring in someone from the Smithsonian to verify his tests.”
“No.” I said this before my brain could catch up with the impulsive refusal.
“What?” Ben looked blank.
“No, no one else touches the box. The more people who know about this, the more danger there is—of treasure hunters and other crazies coming to the island to look for artifacts.” This was only part of the reason. A very small part.
“But …” Ben stopped to think about this. “I’m sure that they would be discrete.”
“No. Someone would want to get famous, do a TV show or get in National Geographic. This is a big deal, as you say. We can’t risk it.”
“But it will need to be authenticated before it can be sold or even donated—”
“I’m not selling it.”
Those words stunned him into temporary silence.
“But.…”
“No. The box and its treasures are not for sale. I may loan them to a museum down the line, but they will not be sold.” I had a feeling that the part about loaning the treasure to a museum was a lie, but I had to give Ben something. I knew he was dreaming of a traveling museum show to coincide with the release of his book.
“Okay. Terry can probably handle everything for now. He’s going to be disappointed though.”
I sighed, hating what I was going to have to do.
“He can have it one more day but then it needs to come back.”
Ben began to look annoyed.
“This isn’t up for negotiation,” I said flatly, hating that I had to make him angry. “I will find the family records of Nicholas Wendover, if they exist. You will have the proof for your book. But the chest comes back to the island. Tomorrow.”
I could see the struggle, but he kept his temper and didn’t argue.
“Okay. I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”
“During the day, Ben. Don’t go out on the water at night. I’m dead serious about this.”
The anger left him and he stared at me. Ben isn’t a believer like Harris, but he has been around me and the islanders long enough to know that there is something strange going on in the islands and it mostly centers around Wendover House and its occupants.
“More storms?”
“Yes. Worse ones, I’m afraid. So be careful.”
He nodded but didn’t ask me how I knew about the weather. That was good because I didn’t like talking about premonitions and intuition and stuff like that. Bryson and Harris would be able to accept my gut feeling without feeling creeped out or skeptical about the prediction. Ben probably would not.
Chapter 6
We had then been a score of days in the storm with no discovering of the sun though we journyed ever northward. Then came the call from the bo’sun. There was an island and a break in the awful tempest.
—from the unbound journal of Halfbeard
Though Ben probably felt that his research took precedence, my speech for Founders Day was weighing heavily on me and I decided to review my notes and see if they were as thin as I thought they were. It was more important that the speech be tactful than truthful, though managing both would be nice since I hate lying.
Of course, they were thinner than I had feared. It was only the outline of a ghost of an idea without a single crescendo or highpoint even imagined.
I sat at the desk and tried to picture Goose Haven, to pick out its landmarks, hoping it would lend me inspiration. The islands are a little short on typical places of interest since it had never boomed into a tourist attraction. There is Wendover House, a lighthouse—which is Canadian—and a smugglers’ cave that everyone pretends doesn’t exist.
There is also the Emporium. I called it to mind and studied it from all angles, but it was about as inspiring as raisinless oatmeal until I came to that gallows-like beam at the top of the building. That wasn’t anything I wanted to talk about.
However, the street in front of the Emporium was another matter. It was cobbled and old enough to be worn flat in places. It had never been paved over on account of its historic value and it showed the wear and tear of the ages, a physical reminder of how many people have lived there and put it to use.
The stones have been dilapidated mainly by the passage of islanders’ feet since there are few vehicles on the island even today. And that dilapidated street was my way in, all those people who had worn the cobbles smooth as they went about their lives. It helped that I had been reading their letters and journals and felt that, at least to some degree, I knew them, or at least what they hoped for, desired, and feared.
I leaned toward the computer and began to type, scavenging images and words of the imagined past.
We have the pleasure today of standing on old ground, in the sunlight with the family and friends who are the children of those who were our parents’ family and friends. And as we look out at the sea that nurtures and protects us, we know who we are. The painful search for identity, for roots and belonging which most people face, is spared us. We know who we are and where we belong.
Today we honor those first brave souls who stepped into this wilderness and dared to imagine a civilization here. They defended their dream, rode out every storm, endured the disease and tyranny and war that afflicted those first courageous settlers who dared to put lasting footprints in the sand of our islands.
The phone rang and since I was ready for an interruption I answered.
“Tess,” Bryson replied to my hello. “Would you be free for dinner after the Founders Day celebration?”
This sounded social and not … business related.
My speech was at eleven. I couldn’t see celebrating on Goose Haven until dinnertime, even if I thought it would be safe to travel by water after dark.
“Unless you’re on duty, could we make it for lunch?”
“Another storm Friday night?” Like I said, Bryson gets it.
“Maybe. It’s at least possible. Ben is going to bring the box back tomorrow and I need to work out how to.…” I paused.
“To return it?”
“Yes. I don’t think UPS is the answer for this job.”
“Have you come up with a plan?”
“I’m working on it,” I said, looking at the stacks of papers that still needed sorting and reading.
Bryson didn’t make any suggestions about how to return the box and I didn’t ask for ideas. I had given up asking anyone, except Kelvin, what was going on, or why my great-grandfather had thought or done the things that he did. I still speculated to myself but had accepted the fact that I still didn’t know everything that had gone on at Wendover House and that my great-grandfather may not have known either. I would just take it on faith that he had good and sufficient reason for every seemingly crazy thing he did. Like giving back a fortune in possibly cursed pirate treasure.
“Okay. Will you take the ferry on Friday? Or ride over with Ben?”
I hadn’t thought about how to get to Goose Haven or that Ben might very well be attending.
“I’ll manage something. My speech is at eleven so the ferry would get me there in time.”
“Then I’ll see you after your speech.”
“Looking forward to it. Bye.” I hung up the phone and then looked over at my cat. “Okay, Kelvin, if you have some ideas about this mess, now would be a good time to share them with me.”
And, as so often happens, the cat answered by jumping into a half-empty
box.
“This box?” I asked as he stared at me. “Okay. Do you want to move so I can look?”
He gave me a look of sorrowful contempt. Circled once and lay down.
“So it’s in this other box?” I tried. This one was more like three-quarters full.
Kelvin didn’t answer. Sighing, I sat down on the carpet and lifted a pile of papers into my lap. And found what I was looking for almost immediately. The papers—the parchment actually—were a lot older and the handwriting was still bold enough to read though the ink was fading.
Not for the first time, I wished that my great-grandfather was available for questions. But he was either dead or else whooping it up in the Land of Midnight Fun and unlikely to reappear in the islands.
I had been looking for a ship’s log or perhaps a journal or even letters, not loose papers thrust to the back of an old box filled with household ledgers. But of course the official log had stayed with the ship and perhaps Nicholas Wendover’s need to set his adventures down on paper had not allowed for the time needed to send away for a bound book to write in.
As I had noticed before, none of my ancestors had mastered the art of legible writing and the parchment had seen some damage, but I did my best with the villainous cursive and disordered pages.
The islands are fyne and the wynds mostly fair. It’s the sea that affrights me now. Too many unnatural shadders (shadows?) movin in the deep around three bells especially in the First Watch. It’s hellish and some say tis ghostesses. Some say tis somping (something?) else. Haint or beast, I’ve seen it scuttling ovr the rocks. If it be the ghost of any man then God help hym. Tis well I sent the Calmare away. I’ll not be goin to sea agin.
My skin tightened. This was it. It had to be. I skimmed until a word caught my eye. I backed up and read more slowly.
Pieces of Hate (A Wendover House Mystery Book 4) Page 6
