“But they mustn’t have even read the whole paragraph,” I said, cutting him off. “Because it says just a few sentences later that in Ireland’s Eye your most valued possession was your soul. Jewels and that sort of thing were always passed down to the next generation.”
With that the captain started laughing. Then he turned towards the men in handcuffs and really let out a roar.
But I was walking back towards the old Newfoundlander. I had forgotten to ask him one last thing, the most important thing.
“Dylan?” asked Mom, but I paid no attention.
When I got close to the old man he wouldn’t look at me. He just started talking quietly. “We wouldna disturbed any corpses, my son. We just woulda looked around the coffins and set ’em back, nice and peaceful-like. These people here they lived hard lives, I know, believe me, I was born in a place like this. The same ting happened to me mudder and fadder as happened to them. We wouldna disturbed any corpses. We were only trying to scare you too.”
“I have another question.”
“I’ll tell yu anyting I know.”
“What about the boy?”
He looked up at me, a genuinely puzzled expression on his face.
“What boy?” he asked.
I smiled. “You know, the boy you planted in the woods to chase me around and act like a ghost. He was dressed in clothes from a hundred years ago, all torn up…you know.”
The old Newfoundlander shook his head.
“I don’t know nuttin’ about no boy,” he said.
A chill ran down my spine.
“You know,” I repeated, laughing nervously this time, “the boy…in the woods. What, did you have a little person here with you or something?”
He looked at me for a long time.
“There ain’t been no boy around here—no boy udder than you—in generations, my son.” His voice was deadly serious. “Anybody who’s ever been here who was a boy ain’t no boy no more. They’re all gone. Everyone and everyting is gone from here, yu understand? Everyting. Yu didn’t see no boy in the woods, not here.… Impossible.”
I could hear one of the coast guard crew teasing the other gang members not far away. “I hope you didn’t make a slip-up, boys,” he needled, “and let any of those dead people out of their graves.”
We stayed on the island that night. I insisted. At night I got up, wide awake, and walked up the path past the church and into the woods. I stood by the tombstone of William Snow and called out to him. But he never came.
* * *
When I lie in my bed at night these days listening to the traffic outside, I often think about Ireland’s Eye. It’s still out there, alone in the ocean, miles and whole lifetimes away from where me and Rhett and the Bomb are killing time on skateboards in Toronto. The houses sit defiantly upright, the church holds on proudly, and the graveyard, that unforgettable graveyard, despite the trees that try to bury it, still guards the memories of people who were once so alive.
Sometimes in class when I look out the tiny windows, I don’t see the McDonald’s signs and the busy street below—instead it’s miles of trees, rocky hills, and the sound of waves hitting the shore.
I’ve never been a particularly good student but I’m doing okay, almost as well as that report card showed the semester before we went on our trip. My best class is history now. I’m a whiz at it. I never forget a date, never misplace a face, and never sneer at the things that people did before my time. I figure I owe it to Grandpa, and to William Snow.
More Dylan Maples Adventure books coming soon from Nimbus Publishing:
July 2018:
The Secret of the Silver Mines
Dylan and his parents head to Cobalt, Ontario, to retrieve a silver fortune—trouble is, the last person who saw it has been missing for years.
October 2018:
Bone Beds of the Badlands
Dylan and his best friends, Terry, the Bomb, and Rhett, head to the Alberta badlands, where a seven-foot killer known only as “The Reptile” is on the loose.
April 2019:
Monster in the Mountains
Dylan and his parents take a leisurely trip to British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains—that is, until his Uncle Walter pulls him into the heart of a hunt for the deadly Sasquatch.
July 2019:
Phantom of Fire
Entering his sixteenth year, Dylan is troubled by the recent loss of a friend and starts to feel isolated. His parents take him on a relaxing trip to New Brunswick’s Bay de Chaleur—until he stumbles upon a strange girl on the beach and the ancient burning Phantom Ship of East Coast folklore.
Available for pre-order at Nimbus.ca, or your favourite bookstore.
About the Author
KEVIN KELLY PHOTOGRAPHY
Shane Peacock is a novelist, playwright, journalist, and television screenwriter for audiences of all ages. Among his novels are Last Message, a contribution to the groundbreaking Seven Series for young readers, and The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim, a trilogy for teens. His picture book, The Artist and Me, was shortlisted for the Marilyn Baillie Award. His bestselling series for young adults, The Boy Sherlock Holmes, has been published in twelve languages and has found its way onto more than sixty shortlists. It won the prestigious Violet Downey Award, two Arthur Ellis Awards for crime fiction, the Ruth & Sylvia Schwartz Award, The Libris Award, and has been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and three times nominated for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award; as well, each novel in the series was named a Junior Library Guild of America Premier Selection. Visit shanepeacock.ca.
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