August Isle

by Ali Standish

  It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if Mom was keeping secrets from Dad, too, or just me. I hadn’t thought about it before. I waited for him to speak.

  “Your mom said you had a talk that didn’t go very well last night,” he said.

  “Is she mad?”

  “She’s upset. I know you are, too. We’re all going to have to sit down and have a talk when you’re both home. I think there’s a lot we need to discuss. Actually, I was wondering if—”

  A pause.

  “If what?”

  “If maybe you should come home early,” Dad said. “It’s not ideal—you’d have to come stay in the hotel here until Mom gets back, but we could make it work for a few days.”

  “NO!” I cried, toes cringing in the sand. “No, Dad, please. I want to stay. It’s the August Festival the day after tomorrow and I’m supposed to enter the pie contest, and Sammy needs my help with her article and—and—”

  “Okay, kiddo,” Dad said. “Okay. You can stay. It was just a suggestion. But if you really want to . . .”

  “I do,” I said. “I really do.”

  “Then like I said, we’ll talk when you get home. But until then?” There was another pause. “Just—leave things be. Just concentrate on having fun. All right? Can you do that for me?”

  I felt cold then, even though the air was oven hot. So Mom wasn’t keeping secrets from Dad. Mom and Dad were both keeping secrets from me.

  “Kiddo?”

  “Okay,” I said numbly.

  “Good. And Miranda? I want you to know that—that I love you. And so does your mom. Very much.”

  There was something strange about the way he said it. Like maybe he was speaking in a language he didn’t know very well and he wasn’t sure he’d used the right words.

  After he hung up, I stared out at the ocean for a moment—the threads of blue and white and green weaving together and blowing apart again. When I looked down, the line of seashells had disappeared, drawn out by the tide.

  I suddenly wished that I had thought to lean down and scoop one up before they had been pulled away. By now, they would probably be deep on the ocean floor where no one would see them again for a long time. Years, maybe. Or perhaps they would stay hidden forever.

  Next to me, a sandpiper scurried around on its straw-thin legs. First it ran toward the water. Then, when the next wave came rushing in, it whirled away again. Back and forth it scuttled, making its mind up and then changing it again just as quickly.

  It reminded me of Mom. Always coming home, just to fly off again. Always running away.

  I realized something then. Something that surprised me so much, it sent a jolt through me, like when you walk around a corner and you don’t realize someone is coming from the other direction until you nearly run into them.

  I loved Mom, and I wanted her to love me as fiercely as I loved her.

  But I didn’t want to be like her.

  I didn’t want to be the sandpiper, zigzagging back and forth, always on the move, unable to make up its mind.

  I liked hearing Mr. Taylor’s stories about all the places he had traveled and the people he had met. But if his stories were the closest I ever got to traveling the world, I would be okay with that.

  I wanted to be like the August Oak, silently stretching its roots deeper and farther into the ground and gripping the earth, listening and watching, feeling my branches blowing in the wind but never floating away on it.

  And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing to want. Trees were strong and steady, even in the face of storms. Without trees to come home to, there probably wouldn’t be any birds.

  Then I realized something else.

  I had started out the summer thinking that, if I could change myself enough, Mom might love me how she used to.

  But somewhere along the way, I had started changing for me, too. Because I liked feeling proud after every sailing lesson. I liked watching people eat the pies I had made. I liked the way it felt not to be afraid and worried all the time.

  And I didn’t want to be afraid of Mom’s secret anymore. I couldn’t just let it float away on the tide. Not while I had the chance to find out what it was. Not if it might explain why Mom always chose to run instead of stay.

  Whatever the secret was, I wasn’t going to be like Mom. I wasn’t going to run from it.

  I was Miranda, brave and bold, and I was going to stay right here and face it head-on.

  35

  Caleb met us back at Sammy’s house later that afternoon. When she opened the door, he was holding an old picture book.

  Sammy looked at it and giggled. “I don’t think that’s what Mrs. Kleinfield had in mind when she said we needed to do independent reading over the summer.”

  Caleb rolled his eyes and handed it to her. “The library wouldn’t take this one,” he said in a low voice, so Aunt Clare wouldn’t overhear. “I guess it’s too worn out. We can give it back to him when we go for the party thing.”

  Once we were excused from dinner that night, Sammy led us into the garage, where we rummaged around until she found a pair of binoculars in Jai’s old Boy Scout stuff. Then we went up to the roof.

  She held the binoculars to her eyes, gazing out toward Keeper’s Island as darkness began to fall.

  “You guys,” I said, “I think I want to know who Ben is.”

  Sammy and Caleb turned to look at me.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I am.”

  “I think you’re making the right decision, Miranda,” Sammy said, the wind whipping her hair back from her neck. “Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll go back to where you saw the names, and we’ll knock on the doors of the houses around there. We keep going until we find someone who knows him.”

  “Hey!” Caleb called. “What’s that light?”

  Sammy jammed the binoculars to her face.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said. “Oh, wait. Yes I do. But it’s not coming from the island. It’s a ship passing behind it.”

  “Oh,” said Caleb. “Oh, well.”

  “I still don’t get why someone would be going out to a haunted island at night,” Sammy mused, passing the binoculars to Caleb to let him have a turn.

  I thought back to the night on the Ferris wheel, when Sammy and Caleb first told me the story of the lighthouse keeper, and how they swore that it was true.

  “Hey,” I said, “you guys told me you believed the legend. What if you aren’t the only ones?”

  “We’re not,” Caleb replied. “Lots of people do. But like Sammy said . . . if you believed it, why would you go there?”

  “Think about it. Why did the lighthouse keeper get killed in the first place?”

  Caleb was the first to understand. “The treasure!” he exclaimed. “He got killed by pirates coming to bury their treasure.”

  “So if someone believed the legend was real,” Sammy reasoned, “they might think there was treasure on the island.”

  “And they might sail out there at night,” I said, “when they thought no one was watching, to try and find it for themselves.”

  “It’s possible,” Sammy said. “So what makes that awful sound?”

  “Maybe some kind of machinery?” I suggested. “Like for digging?”

  “Do you guys think there is treasure out there?” Caleb asked. The brightening moon glittered in his eyes.

  Sammy shrugged. “Maybe. At least there could have been at one time. But someone could definitely think there was treasure out there. And then”—Sammy’s face broke into a grin—“this could be a major story. Forget about the school newspaper! I could publish it in the Isle Tides.”

  “Yeah, but how do we find out if we’re right?” I asked.

  “We start with the library,” she said. “We’ll go tomorrow and see if we can find some proof that there’s any truth to the legend. And we need to find out who owns that island.”

  “I can do that,” Caleb said.

  “Really?” Sammy and I asked in uni
son.

  “Easy. My dad knows all about that stuff for his job. He can help me.”

  Just then, we heard a glass door opening and Aunt Clare calling from the porch below. “Girls? I think it’s time for Caleb to go home now.”

  “Okay,” Sammy called. Caleb gave us a salute.

  “See you tomorrow,” I said.

  Sammy and I stayed on the roof for a while longer, keeping our eyes trained on the island. But it was dark and quiet as a grave. Finally, when my eyes were tired from looking and we started passing yawns back and forth, we decided to give up for the night.

  A few minutes later, when we were tucked into our beds and Sammy had turned the lights out, I heard her roll over to face me. “Miranda?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re going to get some answers tomorrow,” she said. “I can feel it.”

  36

  After sailing the next day, Aunt Clare dropped the three of us off at the library. Sammy had told her that we needed to do more research there for Sammy’s story, which was true. We split up, each of us combing the shelves for books about local history or pirates or ghosts.

  But after an hour, none of the answers Sammy had been so sure we would find had actually turned up. None of the local history books mentioned pirates or ghosts, and none of the pirate or ghost books mentioned August Isle or Keeper’s Island. At lunchtime, we gave up.

  “I’m seeing my dad this afternoon,” Caleb said. “At least then we’ll find out who owns the place.”

  After Caleb left, Sammy and I repeated our plan from the day before, telling Aunt Clare we were going to the beach and laying towels down next to Jai’s lifeguard tower just in case she came to look for us. Then we started off toward the names in the sidewalk.

  Halfway up the beach, there was a little group of people standing around the roped-off sea turtle’s nest. They wore khaki shirts and shorts, and one of them was pulling some kind of instrument out of the sand.

  “What’s happening there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sammy said. “Let’s find out.”

  And then she was off, leaving me to wonder how it was so easy for her to talk to random adults when I already had butterflies at the thought of knocking on a stranger’s door.

  “Scuse me,” she said, tapping the shoulder of an older woman with a single long braid hanging down over her khaki shirt. “What’s going on with the nest?”

  “They’re hatching,” the woman said, smiling kindly.

  “Really?” I asked, encouraged by her friendly face. I peered down at the nest, but it just looked like sand to me. “Where are they?”

  “Well, once they hatch, it takes them a while to climb up to the surface. Usually a few days. That’s good, because the moon should be nice and big for them then. We think that’s how baby turtles find the ocean, you know. They see the light reflecting on the water and follow it.”

  “Can we come see?” Sammy asked. “When they climb up?”

  “Actually,” the woman said, “we need volunteers to come and form a kind of human wall. So the hatchlings don’t get off course.” She handed Sammy a card. “Text that number, and when they’re almost ready, I’ll send out a message and you’ll know to come.”

  Sammy glanced at the card. “Charlie?”

  “Yeah,” the woman said. “Kind of unusual, huh? My real name’s Charlotte.”

  “Why’d you shorten it?” Sammy asked.

  “Well, when I was starting out, there were hardly any female biologists. I thought it would be easier to get a job if people saw my résumé and assumed by the name that I was a man. So, Charlie.”

  Sammy considered this for a moment. “Do you ever wish you could go back to being Charlotte?” she asked.

  Charlie looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s an interesting question,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that. I’m pretty used to Charlie by now. But I guess, if I were doing it over today, I would stick with Charlotte. I was never ashamed of being a woman. I just knew it would be really hard to get a job as one. But times are different now, and most sensible people know women make just as good scientists as men. Sometimes better.”

  She winked at us.

  “Well, thanks, Charlie,” said Sammy. “For the card. I’ll text you.”

  “Sounds good, ah—”

  She hesitated for a second before answering. Then, “Sammy,” she said. “And this is Miranda.”

  “Nice to meet you, girls,” she replied. “See you soon, I hope.”

  I wanted to ask Sammy how she felt about what Charlie had said about her name, but she already looked lost in thought. Anyway, my mouth had suddenly gone dry, and with every step we took, my heart seemed to beat harder. Before I knew it, we were standing there on the sidewalk, looking down at the letters carved into the concrete.

  Clare

  Beth

  Ben

  “Ready?” Sammy asked. “Let’s start with that house.”

  She pointed to the one directly in front of us, a white house with a blue door and rosebushes out front. We linked arms, and walked up the path.

  I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

  We waited for what felt like an hour before Sammy glanced over at the driveway. “No cars,” she said. “They must not be home.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Let’s go next door.”

  Next door, a girl wearing a bikini top and jean shorts answered. She looked familiar. “Yeah?”

  Sammy nudged me. “Um,” I mumbled, “Do you know Ben?”

  She cocked an eyebrow, looking back and forth from me to Sammy. “Hey,” she said, “aren’t you Jai’s little sister?”

  I had been so nervous when she opened the door that I hadn’t seen it at first, but now I recognized her as the girl in the floppy sun hat we’d seen talking to Jai the day before.

  “Yeah,” Sammy said. “Do you live here?”

  “No,” said the girl, crossing her arms. “I’m just babysitting. What was it you wanted?”

  “Never mind,” Sammy said, before I could embarrass myself more.

  “Whatever,” the girl muttered, flicking the door shut.

  Sammy turned to look at me. “Do you know Ben?” she asked.

  “What was I supposed to say?”

  “A few more details might be helpful at the next house.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Details.”

  But no one was home at the next two houses. As we headed to the other side of the street, I was starting to think that our plan hadn’t been much of a plan at all. What were the odds that anyone would remember a few kids who had written their names in the sidewalk twenty-something years ago?

  The next house we came to was red brick with an inflatable pool in the yard. A few seconds after I rang the bell, a lady opened the door.

  “Can I help you?” she asked. “Are you lost?”

  She glanced back behind her as a little kid began to cry somewhere in the house.

  “No,” I said. “Um, I was wondering about something I saw written in the sidewalk on your street. A name? Ben?”

  She stared blankly at me.

  “I was wondering if maybe you knew who had written it there,” I said. “It was probably done a long time ago.”

  She shook her head, wincing as the child let out a loud wail. “Sorry,” she replied. “We just rent this place in the summers. Most of the houses on this street are rentals, too, I think.”

  “Oh,” I sighed. “Well, thanks.”

  We turned to go.

  “Wait,” the woman said. “Try the pink house two doors down. The lady who lives there has been here forever. She might be able to help.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said. “We will.”

  “Good luck,” she replied, shooting us a hurried smile as she closed the door.

  We started toward the pink house. “Sammy, what if nobody remembers him?” I asked. “Then what?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sammy said, �
�but we’ll figure something out.”

  The pink house was a shocking flamingo color. Wild vines bloomed around the porch, which was crowded with rocking chairs and wicker sofas so stuffed with pillows, I wasn’t sure anyone could actually fit on them.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, ringing the doorbell.

  We waited for a few seconds before hearing someone shuffle to the door.

  An ancient husk of a woman opened it, her whole body nodding from side to side like she was a passenger on a boat none of us could see. “Yes, dears?” she wheezed.

  “Hi,” I said. “Um, I was wondering if you could tell us about some kids who wrote their names in the sidewalk a long time ago? Clare, and Beth, and Ben?”

  The woman blinked. “Beth,” she said, looking at me as she sounded out the word. “Clare,” she said, turning to Sammy. Then her face pulled back into a gaping smile. “Well, I never!”

  Sammy and I exchanged a sidelong glance.

  “Um, I’m Sammy,” Sammy said. “And this is Miranda.”

  “Bah,” said the old woman, waving Sammy’s words away. “I would recognize the two of you anywhere, even if you have changed your hair. I’m glad to see you back together. Completely inseparable you were, all three of you. Where is Ben, anyhow?”

  I felt my whole body go stiff as driftwood. Whoever this ancient woman was, she was trapped in a different era. An era when my mom and Aunt Clare were still joined at the hip, along with whoever Ben was.

  “Um, I think you might be confused,” Sammy said gently. “We’re not—”

  I interrupted her. “What else do you remember? About the three of us, I mean?”

  “Oh, I remember more than people give me credit for,” she said, lips cracking into a gummy grin. “I know it was you three who stole old Mr. Lemmon’s hound dog, the one who kept half the town up every night. Found it a home on the mainland, did you? Good—that Lemmon was a wretched man. I won’t soon forget the trouble you caused with the August Festival fireworks, either. I’m not sure Mrs. Freeman’s left ear ever recovered.”

  I waited until she was done cackling. “And then, um, what happened?” I asked.

  The smile on the old woman’s face froze, then fell away.

  “What happened,” she repeated dully. “Yes . . . what happened on that island was a terrible thing.”