She brightened. “Really? What tribe?”
“The Wailaki. My father is a full-blood Wailaki and my mother is white.”
Her smile grew wider. “How did your parents meet?”
I finished my drink, then poured myself another. “As kids. Every year my grandmother took my mom to the annual Weaving Connections near King Range National Conservation Area. My grandparents took my dad. My parents later kept in touch through letters.” I took another sip. “They fell in love when they were teenagers. When my grandmother took Mom to the Weaving Connection that year, Mom and Dad…well, they decided to…um…hook up.”
She gave me a perplexed look. I didn’t want to elaborate.
“He means they fucked,” Travis translated, his mouth full of food.
“Young man,” Carlton snapped, “your choice of words is as ugly as your face.”
“Don’t you be talkin’ about mi face, ghost man,” Travis shot back.
“That’s so romantic,” Eleanor said, ignoring their argument.
“I guess, but what happened next really wasn’t romantic at all. My mother got pregnant and my father’s family wasn’t happy about it. My dad’s father wouldn’t accept an interracial relationship. He wanted his son to marry a Wailaki. He threatened to disown him. My father wanted to marry my mom and they made plans to elope.”
“Did they?” Travis asked.
“No, my mom’s mother talked them out of it. She told them that if they ran off, it would cause a rift between the two families. She told my paternal grandfather that she and my mom would raise me and we’d continue to attend the basket weaving so my dad could see me.”
“What was she like?” Eleanor asked. “Your grandmother.”
I took another drink. “She was a realist, but also a free spirit straight out of the sixties. She marched with Martin Luther King in Birmingham and burned her bra on her college campus as a statement for equal rights. She even lost an eye during a riot.”
“Oh my,” Eleanor said. “How awful.”
“She found it amusing. Sometimes she’d rub her glass eye until it fell into her hand, then say, ‘Oh dear, Heath, I lost my eye.’”
Travis laughed while Khenan shook his head. “Jeez, mon.”
“The first time she did it, it scared me shitless. But from then on, I thought it was funny.”
After talking about myself, it was time to learn more about these people and the island. “What about the rules around here? How do things work?”
“It’s really quite simple, darling,” Eleanor replied. “Everyone pitches in. Each of us has a talent that proves useful. Some of us do repair work and others sew clothing. There are people who garden, while others fish. We trade with South Village for things we need. To live here, you must contribute, not be some hunk of useless meat for everyone to provide for.”
“Sounds like a hippie commune.”
“We’re just trying to survive. One important rule is to never disturb the—”
“Dead,” I finished. “I know.”
“So you’ve heard,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” I said, looking at Travis. “It’s been explained to me. If you kill someone, their soul follows you as their body decomposes. If someone dies all on their own, their soul sticks with their body and sleeps.” I said it out loud for my own benefit, just to make sure I remembered it.
“Correct,” Eleanor confirmed.
“What about suicides? What happens to them?”
“The rules are simple—and complicated. In the case of a suicide, the soul stays attached to the body because there’s no living person to attach itself to.”
“They linger around the place where they died?” I asked. “How far can they go?”
“Not very far, we’ve been told.”
“Told by who?”
“From the others that are bound to the living.”
My courage teetered on the edge. I suddenly understood about Tomas and the skeletons. Tomas had killed himself so his body stayed where it was, unlike his murdered crew mates, whose corpses decayed because of the way they’d died.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“It gets even weirder,” Khenan replied. “Da same applies to animals. If you kill an animal, its soul attaches itself to you. Pets are more tolerable than people. Dere’s a lady who lost ‘er German Spitz and she brought it back. Dere’re been cooks from old ships with livestock with ‘em. And, believe it or not, an old sea captain from the 80s has a ghost parrot.”
I was confused. “What about all this food? Isn’t someone going to be haunted by all these creatures?”
“It doesn’t apply to the island’s animals,” Inglewood joined. “They’re perfectly safe to kill and eat. Anything native to the island is exempt from the rules.”
“What are the theories for why that is?”
“Maybe it’s magic from the city of Atlantis,” Carlton joked.
“There are plenty of theories,” Inglewood said, giving Carlton a disapproving look.
“What kind of theories?” I asked.
“There’s a theory that the island is some kind of base for extraterrestrials.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But have you ever seen spaceships?”
Inglewood shook his head. “No, there’s nothing we’ve seen or heard of that would support that theory. But dozens of people on the island assume aliens are keeping us here—and immortal.”
“Why wouldn’t aliens want us to age?”
“For shits and giggles, most likely,” Travis said. “Maybe these are the kind of aliens that go bloomin’ mad for entertainment.”
“Some have suggested that ancient tribes built a pyramid on the island to connect the ley lines,” Inglewood said. “That’s what we’ve named the island, the Atlantic Pyramid.”
“The ley lines?” I inquired. “Aren’t they supposed to be some kind of energy pathway for aliens to travel?”
“In theory, yes,” the professor replied. “Perhaps this very spot is a broken section of their juncture.”
“What do you mean broken?”
“Not structurally sound enough to hold a ley line, or perhaps too primitive.”
“Like a forgotten highway exit?”
“Exactly. Although it may not be in use, the electrical impulse is still here, holding us to it.”
“But other pyramids don’t suck people in and trap them there.”
“Those pyramids were built for other reasons,” Inglewood went on. “In my personal opinion, we’re in the middle of a doorway to another dimension, caught between two worlds. That could be the reason why we’re not seen by anyone from the outside.”
If I hadn’t experienced what I had in the past forty-eight hours, I would’ve thought the professor was off his rocker. “Why hasn’t anyone from the outside seen the island? It’s pretty big and obviously been around a while.”
“We don’t know the answer to that,” Inglewood said with a shrug. “We’ve heard planes flying overhead, especially when the cruise ship arrived, but they never seem to see us.”
“Have you tried getting their attention?”
“Of course,” Inglewood said. “We’ve fired flares, lit bonfires, but it seems as if we’re invisible to the outside world. In my personal opinion, we’re in the middle of a doorway to another dimension, caught between two worlds. That could be the reason why we’re not seen by anyone from the outside.”
“I heard about the Vikings,” I said, changing the subject.
“That’s just one of the many black marks of our past,” Eleanor said grimly.
“What do you mean?”
She brushed her long dirty-blonde hair away from her face. “This isn’t a perfect life, Mr. Sharp. When I said we’re trying to survive, I mean just that. People have gone mad or gone into deep depressions, which results in numerous suicides. We’ve lost so many, especially children, to sharks and stingrays. We’ve also had our share of rapes and murders.”
“We have
a prison for those offenders,” Carlton added, his droopy earlobes wobbling.
“A prison?”
“Aye,” Carlton said.
It was odd that he used the word aye instead of a hardy Texan response like yup or right you are. When I’d passed through Texas during a cross-country drive to Miami, I’d heard a lot of that sort of talk.
“The prison is on the Southern Districts. It’s the ship farthest from the island. If someone gets out of line—”
“Or goes dangerously insane,” Inglewood supplied.
“That too. We put them on a boat and take them to the ship. The area is surrounded by sharks, which keeps anyone from escaping.”
“A floating prison, huh? How do they survive?”
“We give them plenty of supplies,” Eleanor said. “Livestock, seeds, and soil. Even fishing equipment. The rest is up to them.”
“How many people are out there?”
Eleanor looked at Carlton, who supplied the answer. “I lost count years ago. Luckily, we haven’t had to go out there in a while.”
Eleanor set her sights on me then. “Carlton was a chief of police before he came to this place, so it made sense to appoint him judge.”
I turned my head to Carlton, who said in mock seriousness, “That’s right, boy, don’t mess up or I’ll put your ass in a sling!”
“Oh, Carlton, stop it,” Eleanor said with a laugh. “No need to scare him out of his wits. Don’t fret, Mr. Sharp, only the worst offenders go to the Southern Districts. Minor crimes like stealing are dealt with differently. We have a jail on the island.”
“Most of the time, people go there overnight to cool off after getting drunk at Miller’s Tavern. It’s laid-back here, but not without its flaws.”
“Why hasn’t anyone escaped the island?” I asked. “Why not just row away?”
“You mean out trough da boundaries?” Khenan posed. “I tried a couple of times and almost died.”
“What happened?”
“I went out to da edge of da shallows in a life raft, where da water drops off. Da cold nearly killed me. Den a storm came up. It was fierce, mon, an’ nearly took me under. Da wind blew me right outta da boat an’ I swam fer my life back to da shallows. I’d figured da storm was a fluke, so I tried again a few days later.”
“Aye, only this time, the bloody bloke got me to go with him,” Travis threw in. “I’d done it meself with some crew mates and almost died when the same kind of storm came up. I figured I’d give it another go, but before I knew it, I was back in the shallows, licking me wounds.”
“Yah, mon, da storm happened again exactly like before, except dis time, it took away me raft.”
“What happened to it?”
Khenan shrugged. “Dunno. I remember hearing stories on da outside about ships an’ life rafts being found adrift wit’out passengers. Maybe dey were da vessels of dose who tried to escape dis place.”
“Just ask the crew on the Ellen Austin,” Inglewood said. “She’s the only ship that went out and brought in a second lot.”
A wave of cold washed over me. I turned my attention on the glowing firelight. “I’ve been told there’s no electricity.”
“Yeah, and it sucks!” exclaimed a woman sitting farther down the table. “Radios are useless and every goddamn battery might as well be a paperweight!”
“She’s right,” Eleanor said. “Every piece of electrical equipment here is immediately drained of its power. We’ve been using gas from planes and ships, along with propane and any lighter fluid that comes our way for lanterns and cooking grills.”
I thought on that. For years, pilots had reported their equipment going haywire while flying over the Bermuda Triangle—compasses spinning crazily, radars going blank. Some pilots became so disorientated they couldn’t distinguish the sea from the sky.
I took a drink and returned my attention to Eleanor. “What about you? When did you get here?”
“I arrived in 1864. I was on a steamboat that belonged to my fiancé. He loved boating, and even though the water made me ill, he insisted I go with him. We went on a family cruise to the reefs off the coast of Jupiter. Within an hour of sailing, a storm came up. He and I were the only ones who survived the storm. Many of the crewmen, God rest their souls, drowned, including my future mother-in-law.” She smiled coyly. “I must confess, I wasn’t too stricken by her loss.”
There was a moment of silence before she continued. “My fiancé and I were able to stay in our longboat until we made it ashore, where we met many young sailors.”
“Including yours truly,” Travis said, taking a bite of crab.
Eleanor grinned at him.
“What happened to your fiancé?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“He lives with the Obsoletes. Before we met, Darwin had struck it rich in California after years of panning gold. He moved himself and his widowed mother east to Mississippi. He always had to have everything he wanted—until we got stuck in the Bermuda Triangle. He lost his mother, whom he dearly loved, and his ship, which he’d paid handsomely for.”
I should have left it alone but I asked, “What’s he like?”
“He’s an asshole, mate,” Travis replied, as if the question had been directed at him.
I thought Eleanor might stand up for her fiancé, but she didn’t. “He is indeed.”
I thought she wouldn’t go any further into the matter, but she did. “The villagers on the other side of the island refuse to believe anything outside their own era and won’t accept that the world has moved on. They live a structured lifestyle, set in the old ways, and can’t relate to the other two villages. To them, living so freely is distasteful, if not sacrilegious, and they want none of it. They initially wanted to thrive and continue building up the village, but as the years went by and new people arrived, the ones who no longer wanted to live such a disciplined lifestyle moved away.”
“And you were one of them?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, tell him about Mrs. Chancier,” Travis said excitedly.
Eleanor shook her head. “I rather not go into it.”
My curiosity piqued, and when she noticed my expression, she set her glass down. “All right. When I lived there, Doctor Chancier’s wife hung herself from a tree in their backyard. She was a dreadfully sad soul. I was surprised she lasted as long as she did. Doctor Chancier now has to see her every day, unless he moves out of that house, which he’ll never do. He’s a stubborn old fool, like the rest of them.”
Eleanor didn’t look like she wanted to continue, so I said, “Travis told me there’s going to be a dock built for people who want to live on their boats.”
“Yes,” she beamed. “In fact, we plan to get started tomorrow. And the docks are just the beginning, although we have to figure out a way to haul the ships through such shallow water. It’ll be like when I designed the layout of the village.”
“I didn’t know women in your era did things like that.”
She gave me a surprised look. “Why, darling, you sound shocked. Surely, if a woman can create life in her womb, she can create buildings.”
“Way to put yer foot in yer mouth, mon,” Khenan scolded.
“I guess I’m good at that. Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Don’t fret about it, darling. You’re right, of course. Until forty years ago, being a woman was like being a pet, obligated to obey her master.”
“Aye, those were the good ole’ days,” Travis said facetiously. When Eleanor shot him a look, he added, “I’m joking, love. Only joking!”
She turned back to me with a sigh. “I’ve always had a fascination with designing things. I wanted to be an architect since I was a child. Unfortunately, in my time, it was considered a man’s trade. It wasn’t until I was stranded here for some time that I was able to express my lifelong desire.” She reached out and gently patted my hand. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you around the safe areas. And you can meet the professor’s Viking.”
&
nbsp; Chapter Nine
The wine made me drunk faster than I expected. Before I said anything stupid, I excused myself and stumbled back to my hut. I felt uneasy sleeping so close to the late Mr. Pine, but I made myself as comfortable as possible on an outside patio chair.
“Why haven’t you done anything about me yet?”
The question rang so clear in my sleep it sounded as if it had been spoken directly into my ear. “What?” I mumbled, unaware if I was awake or asleep.
“I said, why haven’t you done anything about me yet?”
I snapped awake and whipped my head in the direction of the voice, which came from the darkness. Then a face appeared, startling me so badly I fell out of the chair. I shot to my feet the instant I hit the ground.
Gavin stood at the railing, looking out over the sea. “Nice view you got here. You should really look at it.”
I tried to regain my composure. “What are you doing here?”
He turned toward me, his head still bleeding, but not as profusely as before. “I’ve come to remind you that I’m still out there. So, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” I said bluntly.
“Nothing? You mean you’re going to just leave me out there forever?”
“I don’t know much about this place, but I’ve been warned about one thing—never disturb the dead.”
“You’re damn right you don’t know much about this place,” he snapped. “Most of those shitheads don’t know the half of it.”
“How the hell would you know? You just got here yourself.”
“But I have an advantage,” he said with an ironic smile. “I’m dead. That means I can see things the living can’t.”
“What kind of things?”
He grinned at me slyly. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine. First, say you’ll get me outta that foul-smelling plane.”
I was new to it all but I sensed something wasn’t right about what he said. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t easily duped. “They say the dead come back to haunt you.”
Gavin snorted. “What the hell d’ya think I’m doing right now?”
He had a point, but I had no intention of ignoring warnings from people who’d lived on the island for centuries. “No. Until I know the lay of the land, I’m not going to move your body.”
Atlantic Pyramid Page 8
