Gray Wolf Island Page 22

  Charlie and Anne huddle against one of the Star Stones. She’s crying without sound, the kind of heart-crushing grief that makes you think you’ll never not be leaking a bit of your soul from your eyes. Elliot drops down beside them, raw knuckles sprinkling the ground with red.

  I squeeze my hands around my knees. My fingernails dig into my skin. I press harder.

  “I…” My throat closes. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get it out. There’s nothing to the truth but four little words. “I murdered my sister.”

  “What does that mean?” Elliot asks, as if the word murdered is fluid. As if today it might mean “lost” or “injured” or maybe even “loved.”

  “It means she was dying,” I say with a little too much bite. “It means she was so close to the edge of dead she could have seen Death himself.”

  Elliot reaches for me, but I flinch and his hand ends up in his lap. “That’s not your fault.”

  “No, that was the cancer. But there was this day—God, it was the perfect day. The sky looked like it had been painted on, and the air was salty-crisp like it gets after a storm. Leave it to Sadie to go on a day so absolutely beautiful.” They stare at me—I can feel it, like a million ants crawling over my skin—but I focus on my hands clenched around my knees. “Sadie’s coughs were red, which was maybe the only colorful thing about her at that point. She asked—”

  My mouth puckers around the truth. Lemons to Sadie’s lemonade. She once told me that a little bit of sour makes sugar taste extra sweet, and that’s why Sadie was everyone’s favorite twin, even mine. I stare at my knees, at the half-moon indents climbing my skin. “Well, you have to know that I never said no to Sadie. Not ever.”

  “Oh, Ruby.” Anne’s voice is muffled by the hand over her mouth.

  “She begged me. It was the most awful thing in the world, the way her eyes looked at me when she asked.” My words are wet. They splash around in my brain before I pour them out. “I said no. At first I said no, and I meant it. I swear I meant it. But then she looked at me and she said, ‘It hurts.’ I couldn’t—”

  I wipe at my cheeks, though there’s really no point. It doesn’t stop the tears. “I couldn’t let her suffer. We all knew she was going soon. She had a few days, maybe a week. But she was never not in pain.”

  “So you—”

  “I did,” I say, interrupting Elliot before he can say the word. It sounds like screaming vultures when I say it, and it would sound even worse coming from his mouth. I still remember what he said that night in the clearing when his fingers clasped mine. “Does it really matter why someone murders someone else?”

  I should feel worse with my secret exposed, but I’m numb. That’s the thing: The truth isn’t sharp or cutting. It’s not the opposite of comfort. It’s the absence of it.

  Charlie nudges me with an elbow. “It doesn’t change the way I see you. You’re still my best girl friend.”

  “Charles Kim…”

  “Nah, Anna Banana, you’re my platonic soul mate. So Ruby can be my best girl friend.”

  I smile at him, then glance at Anne. She’s staring at me with watery eyes and an expression I can’t decipher. “Come on,” she says, snatching a flashlight and dragging me to the back of the cave. It’s far enough and black enough that I can’t see Gabe’s body, and for that I’m thankful. We press against the far wall, where thin rocks fuse together so tightly it’s impossible to tell whether time’s in the process of joining or separating the stones.

  “Remember when you asked me which sister I was?” I look Anne in the eyes as I say, “I’m the one with evil inside.”

  Continents shift and stars wink out as Anne holds my gaze. “Ruby,” she finally says, moving toward me as if I’m a spooked horse. She wraps her arms around me. I’m stiff and still, a straight line of shock and hope as Anne tightens her hold. “I think you’re the sister who cared too much,” she says, and I break. Back bends. Forehead crashes to her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry your sister got sick. I’m sorry you had to watch her die. I’m sorry she asked you to do that. I’m sorry you had to make that tough choice, and I’m sorry you hate yourself for it.” Anne pulls away, but she doesn’t release me. “Don’t hate yourself, Ruby. I don’t hate you.”

  “Even after all that?”

  “You’re my friend,” Anne says as if that’s enough. I don’t know how to say what I want to say, so I hug her extra tight.

  After, I run my fingers over the fused stone wall, tracing its dents and ridges. It looks like a mosaic. “How’d you know about this?” I ask.

  Anne blinks at the wall as if she’s just now noticing the collage of stones. “I didn’t. But all the best things are discovered when you’re not trying to discover them at all.”

  She smiles, and I sense she’s talking about more than this secluded spot in this magical cave. She’s talking about her arms holding me up as I break into pieces. She’s talking about Charlie’s sense of adventure and Gabe’s culinary skills. She’s talking about Elliot’s endless knowledge, his trust with his secrets, his mouth on mine.

  She’s talking about searching for buried treasure and stumbling upon friendship. And even if we do find the treasure, I know it won’t be this—buckets of guilt and despair lifted out. Hope and happiness hurled at me.

  So maybe I’m not empty, not even a little.

  Anne and I sit on the ground, backs to cold stone. I’m telling her a story about twelve-year-old Sadie, who sucked venom from my veins when I was bitten by a snake. “She could be brash and arrogant, and some people thought she was wild, but she would have yanked down the moon to light my way at night.”

  “You think she’s watching over you?”

  I used to imagine death swapped our roles. She was the invisible shadow to my flesh and blood. I’d whisper to her at night, pretending we were separated by a curtain of dark that would disappear and show her face as the sky exploded with sunlight.

  “I used to imagine she couldn’t move on from me, and not the other way around,” I say. “But I bet she’s off having her own adventure.”

  “No,” Anne whispers, resting her head on my shoulder. “I think she’s here. I think this is her adventure.”

  Footsteps shuffle a few feet away. That’s when I notice him. Hair dark as night in this dim cave. Lips pinched to hold tight to his thoughts. I think about what will happen when he opens his mouth.

  Does it really matter why someone murders someone else?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I say.

  Elliot’s eyebrows jump. He glances at Anne, who leaps to her feet. “I need to check on Charlie,” she says, leaving me with Elliot and the words he said that night in the woods.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I repeat.

  He steps closer. “I honestly hope not.”

  “You’re thinking it doesn’t matter why someone kills.”

  “No,” he says, continuing toward me. “I’m thinking about the other night and how I want you to kiss me again.”

  I stand. Dust off my shorts to give my hands something to do. “Well, I’m thinking I’m just like your mother. And I’m thinking about how much you hate her.”

  “Stop that. I’m trying not to think about my mother right now.” His eyes skim across my face. “Are you okay?”

  “I killed my sister.”

  “I know,” Elliot says. I don’t remember the steps that brought him so close. Did I walk to him or did he come to me? “It was the murder out of love, just like the legend says. It was mercy.”

  “You said murder’s unforgivable.”

  His fingers whisper against mine. “That’s where I was wrong, Ruby. Nothing’s unforgivable as long as there’s someone there to forgive.”

  I feel his words the way I feel music, with every last bit of me.

  “Is that what you want?” I ask. “To forgive me?”

  “I’ve already done that.” He steps closer. “I want you to be okay. I want you to realize you’re not a mon
ster.”

  Elliot quirks an eyebrow. I didn’t even know he could do that, but it’s so perfectly, smugly Elliot that I can’t imagine his face in any other arrangement. “Kiss me, Ruby.”

  “If you want a kiss, then why don’t you just—”

  He crashes his lips to mine. My skin sings as his fingers cup my face, as his hand traces my spine. He walks me backward until my back hits stone. When we kiss like this, I think maybe it’s possible to feel too much. To be too alive.

  This is the year you live, Rubes.

  Elliot stops to catch a runaway tear. “Ruby?”

  “I can almost hear her laughing.”

  Maybe Anne’s right and Sadie stuck around. Maybe she saw heaven and said, “Not so fast. My sister’s not done learning and growing just yet, and I’d like to be there along the way.”

  Maybe her ghostly fingers put Treasure Island in Elliot’s hand that day at the museum. “Here you go, Rubes,” she’d have said. “You can’t have me, but you can have all of this.”

  My nightmares go like this: two shots, two bodies. White fog, red sand.

  A boy. A boat. And a woman with wild hair.

  Two go, one returns. She’s crusted in salt and silent as death.

  It can’t be real.

  It can’t be real because my memory is broken. Has been for half a year.

  It can’t be real because he was a man and that was a boy.

  But it’s only a nightmare. And it was only a deer.

  I hitch the bag of treasure over my shoulders. Time to go back to what I know is true: the island that brought me here.

  Time to bury a treasure.

  I wander through town. Drink my fill of Wildewell. One day I might forget all this, turn blank as the day Bishop found me. I hope not.

  Diamonds of fabric soaring through the sky.

  Flowers growing where cement has split.

  The scent of baking bread. Taste of salt in the air.

  I’m doing my best not to let it go.

  Doris spots me on my way to the docks.

  She’s sitting on her front porch, wearing a dress that looks like a nightgown. It makes me want to wash my eyeballs.

  “Want company?” she asks as I approach her house.

  “Go back to bed, Doris. I’m doing a thing.”

  She gestures to the backpack. “You’re burying a treasure on Gray Wolf Island.”

  I pretend it doesn’t bother me. That Bishop told her about the backpack full of treasure. “Why are you even awake?”

  It’s so early in the morning it’s practically night.

  “Morning moves backward as we move forward, Coop.” She cuts across the lawn to my side. “And besides, it’s never too early for adventure.”

  “I might not come back.”

  She shakes her head. “You’ll come back.”

  It’s a half mile to the docks. Doris hums the whole way. It’s not the kind of thing I want to hear before sunrise. Or ever.

  “Check that out, Coop.” She stops in front of a lobster boat.

  I guess it’s nice. Kind of old and worn, though. “Bishop’s sailboat is better.”

  “Not the boat.” She’s staring at the lobstermen. She’s really focused, too. Like she’s counting them.

  “You thinking about bumming a ride?”

  Doris laughs. I have no idea why. “Sure, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  Thirty minutes later, we’re on the water. The air washes me with salt and mist. When the sun finally rises, it feels like the first I’ve ever seen.

  The crew’s a mix of sailors from northern Maine and Canada. They teach me how to watch for their buoys. How to thread bait needles with herring and pogies. The captain hauls a wire trap into the boat, and the men teach me how to sort through the catch.

  It’s all a little too much productivity for before noon.

  “Won’t be going with you,” says the big one, Rich. He sold Bishop the first lobster I ever cooked. Right from the back of the boat. Jud Erlich was sure that was illegal, but Bishop ignored him. “That place gives me the willies.”

  I shrug. “It’s really green.”

  “That’s not so weird. But that damn hole is.”

  “Don’t curse,” I say.

  The crew laughs. Doris grins.

  Fifteen minutes later, the island pokes through the mist. Rich does the sign of the cross.

  “Can’t get any closer,” the captain says. “It’s bad luck for a ship to touch the island.”

  “There’s a dock,” I say.

  “No, no. That’s the same thing. The luck will just slither from the island, over the dock, and onto the boat. Can’t have that.” He peers over the edge of the boat. “How’s your swimming?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Guess today’s the day you learn.” The captain checks the underside of a lobster. The egg-carrying female gets tossed overboard. “Go on, jump out. I’d like to get away from this place as quickly as possible, if you don’t mind.”

  I know how to sail with a raw egg in a spoon. I don’t know whether I’m about to sink or swim.

  Clearly common sense wasn’t a big part of my mysterious past.

  “I think I’m going to drown.”

  The captain nods. “You’ll get a sailor’s farewell.”

  “Okay then.” I beg a plastic bag off Rich. Secure Bishop’s letter inside. It goes in the red backpack.

  I stop in front of Doris. “You’ll have to stay here.”

  “Alone with a boatful of rugged sailors? I will do my best to endure it.”

  “Yes, fine,” the captain says. “We’ll come back for you tomorrow. Now hurry off the boat before we’re sunk by bad luck.”

  I drag Doris away from the men. We can’t go too far without knocking into stacks of lobster traps. Makes me wish we’d gotten a lift from someone with a yacht.

  “I might not come back,” I say.

  “You’ll come back.”

  “Maybe. But if I don’t, there’s something you should know.”

  I tell her about the poem. About the book.

  I tell her that when the time is right she should make sure the twin, the true believer, finds it.

  And then I tell her goodbye.

  Bishop said I’m going to be okay, so I heave the bag over my shoulders. And I jump overboard.

  I learn two things when I hit the water: I can swim. And the Atlantic in fall is fecking frigid.

  The waves lick my face. Make my eyes burn.

  As I near the island, I let the ocean do the work. It catches me on a cresting wave. Carries me closer and closer to shore, like it knows I’m home.

  HIDDEN STAYS HIDDEN

  until the ray

  that guides your gaze

  does a secret betray.

  Static sings against my body. I jolt awake.

  Anne stands above me, water bottle poised over my head. She snaps it up, letting only a drop fall to my forehead. “Oh, good. I didn’t want to waste this.”

  “What’s going on?” The hair on my arms stands on end. Even the wispy pieces around my face strain for the ceiling.

  “C’mon.” She drags me to the center of the Star Stones, stopping beneath a skinny ray of moonlight. It’s the first time I realize we slept from night through morning full into the next night. “I must have crossed this cave a hundred times while you all slept. Maybe a thousand—it did go on forever.”

  As my mind clears of sleep, a memory hits me like a stone. Falling rocks, red blood, white flowers. After a tragedy, waking is particularly cruel. “Not nearly long enough.”

  “Yes, well, while you were unconscious and not thinking about him, I haven’t been able to do much of anything else.” She blinks and blinks. Blinks again. “Anyway,” she says with a teary laugh, “the point is, I stood right here, gathering up the sunshine, and I never noticed it at all.”

  I follow her gaze. Pale moonlight laps at the base of one of the Star Stones, highlighting a dulled engravi
ng. The symbol is unmistakable. In this light, the slashed square practically glows.

  I press my fingers to the grooved stone.

  Almost everything is cold. Cold ground. Cold stone. Cold air wrapping itself around my body. But the symbol is warm.

  “ ‘Hidden stays hidden until the ray that guides your gaze does a secret betray.’ ”

  My heart’s not quite sure what to do with this. It’s still breaking apart for the boy buried beneath flowers. Does it stitch back up for Sadie and the promise I made?

  I rub at the engraving. “I’ve only ever imagined this moment with the five of us.”

  “That was always a dream,” Anne says. “But it was a very, very good one.”

  For two heartbeats, neither of us speaks. And then she says, “I’m glad we’re discovering this together.”

  “Me too,” I whisper.

  She studies the ground, lips blooming into a small smile.

  A tall shadow devours the moonlight. The silver symbol winks out with it.

  We turn to find Charlie. His hair’s a mass of tangles on the right side and a flattened lump on the left. “What’s going on?”

  “Move out of the moonlight, and we’ll show you,” Anne says.

  He shakes his head. “He’s only been gone a day and you’re already thinking about the treasure. Like his death doesn’t even matter.”

  “What a strange thought,” Anne murmurs, “that anyone could ever forget a death like that.”

  She could be talking about his fall to the earth or the way his blood winged out from his back. Maybe the delicate stems pushing through stone, maybe the petals hugging his body. But I think she’s talking about him saving Charlie’s life. About him dying so I can keep a promise to my sister.

  And with that last bit, I’m certain. We must find the treasure. “If we stop now, what will have been the point? He’ll have died for nothing.”

  Charlie nods, steps to the side. Releases a long, low breath when the slashed square glows with life. “He’s missing the best part.”

  “Elliot!” I yell, though I know Charlie is referring to a different boy.

  The cave echoes the name, again and again as Charlie wrestles Elliot awake. The boys rejoin us beside the monolith, a bittersweet expression on Charlie’s face and a spectacularly sour one on Elliot’s. “I realize a 2012 study in Neuropsychopharmacology advised against sleeping too soon after a traumatic event because it could lead to more symptoms of PTSD, but this is ridiculous. It’s still dark out.”