August Isle

by Ali Standish

  By the time we trudged up from the beach, everyone looked red and sweaty and bored. Aunt Clare was already waiting to pick us up. I said hello without looking at her. I hadn’t been able to look her or Uncle Amar in the eye since last night.

  She wasn’t the only one in the parking lot. A few men trudged back and forth, carrying big wooden crates from one of the boats in the harbor to a truck parked outside the bait shop.

  “Wonder what that’s about,” Sammy mused as she climbed into the minivan, her head turning to follow one of the men.

  “Maybe we should ask,” I offered. “It could be a lead. Something you could use for your story.”

  But Aunt Clare was already driving out of the parking lot. “Honestly, it’s probably just old boating equipment someone’s getting rid of,” she said gently. “Besides, I thought you were doing a story on sea turtles. Why don’t you take Miranda to the beach to see that nest today?”

  Sammy gave a long sigh. “Oh-kay,” she said, her voice flat. “I wish something actually interesting would happen in this town.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” Aunt Clare muttered, her eyes flickering back to us in the mirror, then quickly flitting away again.

  Later that morning, Sammy and I walked out to the beach. She took off her shoes and turned cartwheels across the sand while I watched. Sammy might have changed her name, but apparently she still loved gymnastics.

  I followed her over to where Jai was working a lifeguarding shift. He sat at the top of a small white tower. A few girls in bikinis stood in the shade of his umbrella, looking up and laughing.

  “Hey, Romeo! You’re supposed to be keeping people safe,” Sammy called as we walked past. “Not flirting with the tourists.”

  “Ignore her,” he said, not bothering to look up from the girls. “She’s just my kid sister.”

  Sammy stuck out her tongue. “You’re so lucky you don’t have a brother,” she grumbled.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, thinking of Batty. “Being an only child is lonely sometimes.”

  “Well, you’re lucky you don’t have my brother,” she said, glaring at the girls as she unclipped a life jacket from Jai’s lifeguard tower—one of those embarrassing bright orange ones—and handed it to me. Then her face brightened. “Come on. This is going to be fun!”

  I followed her toward the water, my heartbeat growing louder with every step. When I looked back at Jai, he was still flirting.

  “So he’s not going to watch?” I asked.

  “He’ll keep an eye out,” Sammy said. “He’s just pretending not to, to make me mad.”

  We stopped when we reached a ribbon of shattered shells in the sand. Beyond it was the surf, roaring and foaming like a crazed animal. And I was about to walk into its jaws.

  “Are you okay?” Sammy asked. “You look kind of pale.”

  “I’m kind of always pale,” I said.

  “True,” Sammy replied, laughing. “Okay, let’s take it one step at a time.”

  She took my hand and squeezed. We hopped over the shells. I gasped as a wave surged in and my ankles disappeared beneath it.

  Swimming lessons in the pool were one thing. I could see straight to the bottom there. But this water was different. Darker.

  “Do you ever worry?” I asked before I could stop myself. I flinched as another wave rushed past us, making my feet sink deeper into the sand. “About what’s in here, I mean?”

  “I’ve gotten bitten by crabs before,” she said, “and stung by jellyfish. But it’s not a big deal. And it doesn’t happen very often.”

  The water was warm, but I felt a shiver go through me. “What about, um, sharks?”

  Sammy hesitated. “We won’t go very deep today, okay?”

  So there were sharks.

  You know you want to run, said the voice in my head. Just do it. Run NOW!

  But I made myself stay put.

  I am Miranda, I told the voice, brave and bold. I do not run from danger.

  Sammy took another step forward, and, gripping her hand tight, I did too. The water was halfway to my knees.

  “Maybe you should think about all the good things in the water,” Sammy said. “All the friendly animals. Starfish, seahorses, turtles, dolphins.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking of Bluey, safely tucked under my sheets back in Sammy’s bedroom. “I’ll try.”

  Closing my eyes this time, I forced myself forward once more. The water rushed past my knees. When I opened my eyes, Sammy was beaming at me. “You’re doing so great!”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling back. “I guess it’s not so—”

  Just then a dark blob darted past my left foot. I screamed and, before I could stop myself, started sprinting for shore.

  When I reached dry sand, my heart pounding, Jai and the girls were all staring at me. Feeling my cheeks go pink, I turned away and squinted at Sammy, who was trotting back through the surf, holding something in her hand.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “What scared you,” she said, lifting it up. It was a brownish green thing with lots of slimy tentacles.

  “Is it an animal?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “Is it dangerous?”

  “It’s seaweed!”

  I peered closer. Even I knew that seaweed was about as dangerous as a cotton ball. Was this really what I had run from? Seaweed?

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I panicked.”

  “Don’t be sorry!” Sammy protested. “You were awesome.”

  I was caught between shame and pride when Sammy launched the clump of seaweed at me. She giggled as I jumped to the left to avoid getting hit and the girls behind me shrieked. It took me a second to realize that Sammy wasn’t laughing at me. She was just laughing because we were having fun. Together. I began to giggle, too, as I picked up the clump of seaweed and jiggled it in front of her face.

  “Ew,” I heard one of the girls mutter. “They are so weird.”

  Usually, hearing something like that would have made me feel sticky with embarassment.

  But if Sammy was weird, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anything else.

  12

  After Sammy and I went into the water one more time (this time, I waded in almost to my waist), we ventured up the beach to see the sea turtle’s nest. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at—just four poles connected by a square of plastic ribbon that said Do Not Enter.

  “There’s, like, a hundred eggs down there,” she said. “And when they hatch, the baby turtles will all go running across the beach into the ocean. Most of them die pretty soon, though. They’re just too small. A lot of them get eaten. I guess that’s why sea turtles have so many babies. So at least some of them will survive.”

  It made me sad, thinking of all those little turtles swimming around on their own with no one to protect them. It didn’t seem fair. We turned away from the nest after just a couple of minutes, but all day I kept thinking about those eggs under the sand, waiting to hatch, and hoping that somehow all the babies inside would be okay.

  After dinner that night, Aunt Clare dropped us off at the amusement park. We rode the bumper cars, then the carousel. After that, we stopped for cotton candy before getting into line for the Ferris wheel.

  Just as the ride operator was closing our carriage door and I felt nervous butterfly wings beginning to tickle my stomach, someone slipped in. Caleb sat down across from us and smirked. My shoulders stiffened. The butterflies flapped faster.

  “Caleb?” Sammy blurted. “What are you doing here? Did you, like, follow us or something?”

  “No,” he said. “I was already here, and then I saw you in line.”

  “But why?” Sammy asked. “And why are you here by yourself?”

  I was just wondering if he had come over to pull some kind of prank on us when I saw an uncertainty flickering through his eyes that made me soften toward him, just a little. “All my friends are gone for the summer,” he said, glancing at me and then quickly down again. “And home is just, uh, bori
ng.”

  Sammy stared at him, eyes narrowed, as the Ferris wheel lurched forward. I gripped the side of our carriage tight. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Mine, too. That’s why it’s so awesome that Miranda is here.”

  She shot me a grateful look as we rocked higher.

  “Where are you from, anyway?” Caleb asked, squinting into the setting sun. “Obviously not from around here.” He nodded at my sunburned shoulders.

  “Illinois,” I said.

  “This is her first time ever seeing the ocean,” Sammy confided.

  Caleb’s brows shot up. “Really?”

  “Look on a map,” I grumbled. It wasn’t my fault I’d never been to the beach before. “Illinois is landlocked.”

  “Well, that explains . . . some things,” he said.

  We were almost at the top of the wheel. You could see the whole Isle from here. Under the setting sun, everything was all peach bright and shimmery.

  I looked beyond the Isle to the sea.

  “Hey, what’s that?” I asked, eyes landing on the little island with the lighthouse I had seen from Sammy’s roof.

  “That place?” Caleb said. “You sure you want to know about Keeper’s Island?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t believe I haven’t told you yet!” Sammy said.

  I sat up straighter. “Told me what?”

  Caleb and Sammy glanced at each other.

  “Nobody goes to Keeper’s Island,” he said. “Ever.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because it’s haunted.”

  I felt my eyes widen.

  “A long time ago, some pirates came to bury their treasure there,” Sammy said. “But the treasure was cursed, so the lighthouse keeper didn’t want it on his island. He tried to fight, but it was just him against all of them.”

  “So they killed him!” Caleb cried, plunging an invisible sword through the air. “And now his ghost haunts the island. Every ten years, he rises up from the grave and waits for an unsuspecting visitor. He still thinks he’s protecting the island from pirates, see. The last victim got taken almost exactly ten years ago. Hasn’t been seen since. He lived here on the Isle. Sailed out to Keeper’s Island one summer day and never came back.”

  I turned to Sammy, suddenly remembering. “The man who lived in that old creepy house?” I asked. “We drove past it the first day, and you said he disappeared, but then your mom wouldn’t let you finish the story.”

  “Yes! That’s him. That’s the one who got taken.”

  I was still kind of worried that Caleb was trying play some kind of prank on me, but Sammy wouldn’t go along with it, would she? “Are you guys joking?”

  They shook their heads. Sammy looked at me solemnly. “It’s true,” she said. “I swear.”

  I stared out at the island again, remembering how the darkened lighthouse had given me a strange feeling of dread the first time I saw it. Then, for just a second, over the tinkle of the carousel music, I could have sworn I heard a sharp cry carrying across the water. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  “Did you guys hear that?” I asked. “That crying noise? It sounded like it was coming from Keeper’s Island.”

  Caleb arched his eyebrows. “Well, like I said, it has been almost exactly ten years,” he said. “The keeper’s ghost is probably there, waiting for his next victim.” He shrugged. “I didn’t hear anything, though.”

  “Me either,” said Sammy.

  “I could have sworn—” I started, then stopped when I saw how Caleb was looking at me.

  “It was probably just your imagination,” he said. He glanced down at my knuckles, which were white from holding on to the side of the carriage so tight. “You’re kind of scared of a lot of stuff, huh?”

  “Shut up, Caleb,” Sammy said.

  “I’m not scared of anything,” I huffed, forcing myself to loosen my fingers and fold my hands in my lap.

  “Oh yeah?” Caleb said. “Then prove it.”

  My heart clattered in my chest. I knew I wasn’t going to like what came next, but how could I back down now? That’s what old Miranda would have done. New Miranda would never shy away from a challenge.

  “Fine,” I said. “How?”

  The last embers of sunlight glowed in his eyes. He licked his lips and leaned back on the bench, lacing his hands behind his head, like he was already really satisfied with himself. “Well, we can’t get to Keeper’s Island,” he said. “But there is that abandoned house. The one where the old man lived before he was murdered.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “What about it?”

  A slow grin spread across Caleb’s face.

  13

  “You don’t have to do this, Miranda.”

  Sammy clutched my arm as we followed Caleb past the rows of beach cottages toward the abandoned house.

  There was a buzzing in my ears like static on the radio, and I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the nearby tide coming in or of the blood pumping from my heart to my head.

  “It’s fine,” I said lightly. “It’s just a stupid dare.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Sammy bite down on her lower lip. She glanced back, in the direction of home.

  I felt the tiniest flicker of satisfaction. For once, she was the uncertain one, the one who would rather be safe at home. I was the one ready for a little adventure.

  Or at least I was pretending to be. I flipped my hair back behind my shoulder to complete the illusion.

  “Seriously,” Sammy whispered, “let’s just go home and watch a movie or something. Who cares what Caleb thinks?”

  Me, I thought. I care.

  But there’s this rule when you’re twelve that you’re not allowed to admit that you care what other people think about you. Like somehow caring makes you a fake.

  So I couldn’t just say that it would be nice if someone could look at me and see what they did when they looked at Sammy. Someone carefree and fearless.

  “Nobody cares,” I said instead. “It’s just for fun.”

  And I sped up, shaking my arm free from her grip.

  Soon the abandoned house loomed before us, guarded by a low iron fence and a set of gates in front of the walkway.

  “How am I supposed to get in there?” I asked Caleb.

  “Try the windows,” he said. “I guess you could always break one.”

  “Miranda isn’t breaking any windows,” Sammy snapped.

  “It’s a big house. She’ll find a way in somehow. Won’t you, Miranda? And remember, you have to bring something back with you. That’s the dare.”

  I stared up at the house. It glared back.

  “This is so stupid,” Sammy said. “Let’s just—”

  But I was already high-stepping over the little gates, and then I was marching down the cracked path and up the porch steps. The floorboards grunted under my feet. I wrapped my hand around the banister, but it was damp and wobbly.

  Sammy and Caleb were having a hushed argument behind me, but I didn’t turn around to see. Instead I moved toward the closest window. It was hidden behind a pair of shutters, which I pried apart. I tried to push the glass upward, but it didn’t move.

  There were three other first-floor windows that looked out toward the street, and I tried each one. The longer I stayed on the porch, the harder my knees began to buckle.

  But none of the windows would budge.

  Now what? I would have to walk around the house to the other first-floor windows. Or maybe there would be a back door. Or maybe Sammy was right, and we should just—

  I stopped short. The door! I hadn’t even thought about the front door. Probably because the chances of it being open all this time were zero, but still, it was worth a try, wasn’t it?

  I shuffled back to the center of the porch and pressed my thumb down against the door handle. I pushed.

  And watched, wide-eyed, as the door slowly creaked open.

  14

  I stood there for a minute, staring into th
e inky house. I heard Caleb give a low whoop from the sidewalk.

  All I had to do now was duck inside and find something to bring back, and then I would be done.

  I darted through the door, hands fumbling ahead of me in the darkness. For a few seconds, I couldn’t see anything and I fought to keep panic from rising up in my chest. Then a staircase came into view, straight in front of me. To either side, there was a doorway. I pitched myself through the one on the right and the next second had to swallow a cry as my shin collided with something hard.

  “Ow,” I whispered. “Ow, ow, ow.”

  Suddenly remembering my phone in my pocket, I pulled it out and turned on the flashlight app. A narrow cone of silver light illuminated the ground in front of me, and I saw that I had run into some kind of wooden box.

  Shining the light farther into the room, I realized that it was filled with boxes like the one I had just crashed into. Some of them were stacked three high. They took up almost every bit of space that wasn’t already claimed by what I figured must have been furniture, but I couldn’t tell because it was all covered with sheets. I sniffed the air, and my nose was instantly filled with dust.

  Just find something and get out.

  The problem was, I couldn’t see anything but boxes and furniture. I tried to lift the lid of the box closest to my feet, but it was sealed shut.

  My shin and my heart both throbbed. It was too dark. Too quiet.

  I whirled around, then scuttled through the other doorway I had seen. And found myself in a library.

  Bingo.

  But as I pulled a book from the nearest shelf, goose bumps sprouted up my arms. I froze.

  I was sure I had seen a flicker of movement from the corner of the room.

  Just a mouse.

  I turned, slowly, shining the light across the library. There was a tall shape there—taller than me—with a sheet draped over it.

  The ends of the sheet were rustling against the floorboards.

  For a moment, I was too terrified to do or say anything.