Gray Wolf Island Page 18

  Another bag. Another.

  I twist my hands in my shirt as Gabe pushes a fourth backpack through. In here, the ground is wet, but not puddling—we’re at an incline, so the water’s flowing downhill to the rest of the tunnel—but it has to be at least chest-high out there. Anne grips my hand.

  Elliot fists his hands in his hair. When the edge of the final backpack appears in the opening, he yanks it through with a growl.

  A hand. A shoulder.

  Elliot wrenches Gabe through the doorway. With barely a pause, we push the stone back in place. When it’s done, the magic that gave me strength disappears in a wave of exhaustion. I bend forward, hands on knees, gulping the briny air.

  “You have got to be an entirely new breed of idiot,” Elliot says, and though his voice is low and contained, it sounds like a roar. “Between you and Charlie…God, it’s like you’re determined to die.”

  “I got the bags. I got out. What’s your problem?”

  Elliot gives Gabe a look that would be truly menacing if he weren’t still wearing a headlamp. He spins on his heel and hurries farther into the tunnel.

  There’s no fire tonight.

  “You strike me as a top-notch Boy Scout, Elliot.” I gobble my second protein bar. By the time we reached this cavern—at least an hour east of the flooded tunnel and, Elliot guesses, somewhere deep below the mountains—we were too hungry to wait for a hot meal. That, and while Elliot saved our lighter from the flood, the kindling we collected on our way to the waterfall is still wet from it.

  Still, I could really go for one of Gabe’s pizzas. “How is it that you don’t know how to start a fire with something other than wood?”

  With shadows slashing it to pieces, Elliot’s grin looks downright feral. “They kicked me out before I got to that lesson.”

  “They kicked you out because you kept correcting the troop leader,” Charlie says. “No one likes a know-it-all.”

  “Well, obviously I didn’t know it all or else I’d know how to light a fire without sticks.” Elliot nudges Charlie’s thigh. “What’s your excuse?”

  Charlie grins. “I sucked at it.”

  I glance at Gabe. “I don’t see you as an upstanding Eagle Scout, either.”

  He hangs his head. “Yeah,” he says so softly it’s more breath than word. “I’m not so upstanding.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I really didn’t, even though it’s true. But that doesn’t matter because I’ve already soured the mood of the group.

  “It’ll take time for everyone to forgive you for your secret, Gabriel,” Anne says. “Are you planning to wallow in self-pity until then? I can hardly take another minute.”

  “You wouldn’t understand, Anne. You’re too good.” His lips rise into a half smile, not smirky and flirty but a sad little thing. “You’re the best of all of us.”

  “Everyone’s a little bit bad, even the good.” Her gaze flicks to the ground. “I told Ronnie about the treasure.”

  My spine stiffens.

  “I’m sorry.” She’s talking to the ground still. “I never get invited anywhere, and I was…I was over the moon and into outer space.”

  “The ranger was right,” I whisper. “You are too dreamy.”

  Her shoulders tremble, and it’s worse than tears because it means she’s crying and wants to do it alone. That drains all the fight from me. I slump forward. “I don’t really mean that.”

  “It’s true.” Dark hair swings against her chin as she shakes her head. “I thought…It’s just that Ronnie’s always telling me how people look at me and see hours and minutes and seconds. The way my old friends look at me. The way my aunt and uncle do. I wanted to show him, you know? And he didn’t say it that time. Didn’t say you were all after my extra time. He listened and asked questions, and I never thought— Not even when they showed up on the island that night.”

  “Wait, you knew Ronnie and Ash were on the island?” Elliot tugs at his hair. “And you didn’t tell us?”

  “They came at night. The captain of the fishing boat they took would only come so close to the island, so they rowed the rest of the way. They said they hid the boat, which should have raised suspicion. But it didn’t because Ronnie is my brother.” She pauses, shudders. Charlie wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her close. “They said they were getting an early start on a camping trip, which should have raised suspicion. But it didn’t because Ronnie is my brother. We sat on the dock so we wouldn’t wake you. At one point, Ronnie walked far down the beach, down by our tent, to go to the bathroom, which should have raised suspicion. But it didn’t because he’s my brother. And I’m a fool.”

  Charlie wipes the tears from Anne’s face, leaving behind finger-sized smears of dirt. “Don’t cry, Anna Banana.”

  “It’s just— You know what he once told me? He said, ‘The world you see and the world out there aren’t the same, Anne. Someone’s going to walk all over you, and you won’t even know it.’ But I didn’t think it’d be him.”

  “I like that you see the good in people,” Gabe says, coaxing a grin out of Anne.

  “Ronnie Lansing is a jackass,” Elliot says. “Besides, he didn’t find our treasure.”

  Anne casts a nervous glance my way. “Can you forgive me?”

  I’m still a little annoyed that her blind trust threatened my promise to Sadie. But if we’re comparing crimes, hopeless optimism has nothing on murder.

  “Already done,” I say, edging closer to her. She rests her head on my shoulder.

  I’ve only ever belonged to Sadie, but for the moment—as my cheek meets Anne’s head and she tells a tall tale about a kleptomaniac named Hortense who once stole all the magic from Wildewell—I’m part of these people. I think Sadie would have liked that a lot.

  “I think ‘narrow’ opened ‘up to wide’ when we left the flooding tunnel and entered this cave,” Elliot says, because his mind is always partly on the treasure. “Tomorrow we’ll ‘look for the place where stone stabs at sky.’ I say we travel northeast first.”

  He’s talking about the four entrances to this cave. We flooded the tunnel to the west, which leaves us caverns to the northwest, northeast, and south. We’re betting one of those leads to another slashed square.

  “Who knows?” he says, turning to Charlie. “Maybe we’ll end up at the pit after all. Then you can climb up the hole instead of down it.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “I’m done climbing.”

  “What do you mean you’re done climbing?”

  “You’re supposed to be the smart one. It means I’m not climbing anymore.” Charlie’s face dares Elliot to argue.

  “Charlie?” My voice is unsure even though I’m not. “Is this where you die?”

  He drops his head into his hands. “I think so.”

  “Let’s go!” Anne zips up her pack. “You can wait for us by the waterfall. You’re not dying, Charles Kim.”

  He tugs her to his side. “ ’S’okay, Anna Banana. I can’t be certain this is the exact spot.”

  “You need to tell us how you die,” Gabe says. “How can we stop it if we don’t know anything?”

  Charlie hesitates, but only for a second. “That’s how I felt when I was little. I’d get flashes—close-up of my head, a huge gash, lots of blood. I didn’t know if someone was going to bash my skull with a brick or the basement was going to cave in on me. Nothing.

  “I got a little more in middle school: I’m facedown on a rocky ground. My fingers are swollen. Nails dirty.” He glances at his nails, releases the kind of soft laugh that’s not actually a laugh. “Freshman year, the vision started coming with the knowledge that this was Gray Wolf Island. I don’t know everything—not where it happens or what hits me. But I know I’m on the island.”

  “That’s horrible,” Anne says.

  “That’s not the worst of it. A year ago, I got the emotions. There’s, like, this overwhelming relief, then joy, then worry. Then I’m going out of my mind with fear. It’s—” He r
uns a shaky hand down his face. “It’s probably the worst I’ve ever felt.”

  “And then?”

  Charlie swallows hard and says, “And then I’m dead.”

  Bishop died on a Wednesday afternoon. It had been sunny all morning. The kind of clear blue that makes sailors weep.

  I was in the study, finishing my poem. Lit by the piercing sunlight.

  In an instant, it went dark.

  The rain came hard. Not a shower. A torrential downpour.

  I peered out the window. The sky was clouded over and charcoal gray for a five-mile radius. Just enough to drench the hill and the cliff and Bishop’s house.

  Beyond that was blue and light.

  I ran to Bishop’s room. Pounded on the door.

  Walked in.

  Sat on the floor.

  I haven’t moved since.

  It’s been raining nonstop since Bishop died yesterday. After the first day, visitors coming to pay their respects wised up and started wearing raincoats and toting umbrellas. Not Miller Gravis, though.

  “Salty as tears,” he says, wiping rain from his face. “How you holding up?”

  “Fine.”

  That word never means what it means.

  “Good, good. Listen, this burial thing’s not going to work.”

  Bishop’s will said he wanted to be buried in his backyard at the edge of the cliff. Wanted to watch the island into eternity.

  “It’ll work.”

  “You telling me you were a gravedigger in your mysterious past? Because if you were, have at it.” His clothes drip water onto the floor. I should have talked to him in the garage. “My guys have been digging all day. Six different holes and it’s always the same.”

  “Mud.”

  “Mud, yeah. But the blasted roots keep clutching their legs. Trying to tug them under.” He shakes his head. “No, we can’t bury him, Coop.”

  The next day, I’m standing on the beach. A rowboat bobs in the water.

  Bishop is inside.

  “Of all the days for the rain to stop,” I mutter.

  “Not a dry eye in town.” Doris squeezes my elbow. “It’s okay if you cry.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She hums under her breath.

  “It’s not!” I wipe at my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Okay, maybe it was. But I’m only crying because I’m mad. It’s not fair he’s gone.”

  “Nobody said anything about fair.”

  “Whatever, Doris.” I grab a stick from the pile on the beach. Light it in the bonfire.

  They let me go first. I didn’t know him as long as everyone else, but it doesn’t matter. They all know I belonged to Bishop and Bishop belonged to me.

  I toss my torch into the boat. Move farther down the beach.

  Smoke from the bonfire makes my lungs ache.

  Doris throws her lit branch into the boat, joins me by the water. “He would have thought this was so fancy.”

  It was her idea to give him a traditional Viking send-off.

  Bishop had African, not Viking, ancestors, but he had Viking artifacts. Plus, he’d think this was cool.

  Jud Erlich was sure it was illegal or something. Might be.

  Everyone decided that if there is a law, we’re bending it for Bishop.

  One by one, they pay their respects in fire. Little kids hold thin twigs. Mrs. Gupta lights a spray of eucalyptus, and it scents the whole beach.

  The sky’s dark when four men push the boat from the shore. Pants rolled to the knees and soggy with seawater.

  I watch the boat for a long, long time. It’s a speck on the horizon when a hand slips into mine.

  “It doesn’t seem so bad,” says Ruby Caine. Firelight dances in her eyes.

  “It seems the worst of all.”

  “No,” she says softly. “Being left behind would be worse.”

  I get Bishop’s letter two hours after his funeral. His lawyer, Mr. Caine, says Bishop wanted it that way.

  It’s no longer raining a circle around the house, but the ground is soggy. I squelch my way to the garden. Sit in Bishop’s chair, the one overlooking the cliff and ocean below.

  Rip open the envelope.

  The letter’s on heavy paper. It’s handwritten. Bishop was an infuriatingly slow typer.

  I won’t beat around the bush, Bart. I’m dead.

  This isn’t very shocking to me since I’ve been working my way up to dead for the past eighty-six years. You’re probably shocked, though. I did my best to hide all of that from you, and I hope I did the right thing.

  I never had kids, Bart.

  (You’re rolling your eyes and telling me you’ve heard this before, but let me talk. It’s the least you can do considering I’m dead.)

  I never had kids, Bart, so I never know if I’m helping you or doing the exact opposite. Would it be better if you knew I was sick? Would it make my death a little less hard? I don’t know. It’s nine at night and I’m tired and I just don’t know.

  The first page ends there. A splotch of ink and nothing else. I flip to the second page.

  Good morning, Bart. I’m all rested up and won’t fall asleep while writing your letter this time. I was just getting to the good part, too.

  I have had three great possessions in my life. I have hundreds of possessions—you know that. But only three have been truly great.

  I found the first in 1942. I was just a kid at the time but got it in my head I’d found a real treasure. This wasn’t a real treasure, Bart. It was a metal sailboat from a Cracker Jack box. (Do you remember what those are?) This is one of my greatest possessions because it was my first.

  The second has to do with the discovery I mentioned the other day. I know you’re still sore I kept it a secret. I think it’s time I explained myself.

  I went to Gray Wolf Island to say goodbye. I spent thirty years of my life there, supervising digs and searching the land. Wildewell is my home, but Gray Wolf Island is my soul.

  It called to me, Bart. The week before my last trip to the island, it called my name on the wind. I’d given up on the treasure by then. I figured I was too close to death to hope I’d find it in my lifetime. But I set foot on that beach and I felt it out there.

  I dragged this old sack of bones across the island. Call it magic or intuition, but when I finally came to a stop, I knew I had discovered where the treasure was hidden.

  It wasn’t there, Bart. I know you’re skimming ahead for this, so there you go. I found the spot, and it was empty.

  The island hasn’t had its murder. For all my hunting, I’ll never see the treasure. I don’t know if you will, Bart. Can’t say I wish it one way or another, not when someone’s life’s on the line.

  Which brings me back to my second-greatest possession.

  Contentment, Bart. That’s what I found on that island.

  Thirty years digging up that island and I finally solved the riddle. That might not sound like much of a gift, but it is. Trust me, it is.

  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier. I’m sorry I’m not there to tell it to you now.

  There on the island I realized four things:

  You’re meant to leave Wildewell.

  You’re meant to know the truth.

  You’re going to be okay.

  And this is probably the most important of all: You’re my greatest possession.

  Your friend,

  Bishop

  P.S. I had left you my home. This hill, this estate, it was all yours. I think you would have liked it like that. I had left you my belongings, all the items I’ve collected over the years. You would have liked that, too. That was before I returned to the island. I can’t leave you that stuff, Bart. You’re not meant to be the young Mr. Rollins high on the hill (though I had left you my name, too). So I leave you three things: the red backpack in my closet, directions to the treasure on the back of this letter, and symbols to guide your way. And my eternal friendship, Bart. I leave you that, too.

  Again Elliot
comes for me. Again Anne stays behind, curled up with a flashlight and a book.

  He leads me across the cave, into a smaller tunnel that reeks of mustiness and brushes both shoulders as we walk. “This doesn’t seem safe. Where are we going?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Elliot says. He doesn’t sound too certain, though. “And I don’t know where we’re going—I’ve never been here.”

  That doesn’t make me feel better. We walk for a few more minutes until we hit what appears to be a large cavern, though it’s impossible to determine its size with a single flashlight. Elliot finds an alcove, and we sit with our backs to the cold stone.

  He presses the base of the flashlight, and we’re in the dark. “Do you think we can change our destiny, Ruby?” he asks, sliding his fingers between mine. He turns the flashlight on me.

  “I want to believe.”

  “Yeah.”

  He clicks the flashlight off again. My imagination conjures images of a thousand creepy-crawlies. I force myself to focus on Elliot’s fingers, the way his thumb runs back and forth over my thumb.

  “When Sadie…” He squeezes my hand. “Knowing it was coming, did you prepare yourself?”

  “I tried. You can’t really— I mean, you still fall apart.”

  “It’s just, with Toby it was so sudden and horrible. I thought maybe with Charlie…” He releases a sad laugh. “I thought maybe it’d be easier after because I spent so much time saying goodbye before.”

  “No matter how many times you say goodbye, it’s not nearly enough.” I’ve never talked about Sadie’s death this way, and a part of me wants to stop. But the darkness wraps around me like a security blanket. “It didn’t get easier until I found my poem,” I say, though I really mean it didn’t get easier until I found these friends.

  “If Charlie goes, help me find my poem.” Elliot turns on the flashlight. He stands, extends a hand.

  I make a show of brushing off my shorts because I’m not quite ready to go. It’s just that Elliot’s smile is so sweet and his hair’s doing that swoopy thing it does when he’s tired and he’s so scared for Charlie.