“Ah, that’s my old Harry! And again we’re very much alike. Look at me; I’ve never even gotten out of school. But I’m not running away from it, either.”
Harrison looked up, startled by the sudden turn of the conversation, his drunken nonchalance penetrated by the sting of Mark’s verbal rapier. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Running away?”
“I don’t know, Harry. Are you?”
It was a fair question. Harrison thought a moment. “I don’t know either. I mean, I’m not sure. It just seems as if things have suddenly started to fall apart for me. Nothing seems solid. Nothing seems in place with my life. Maybe it’s always been that way, but I guess I’ve finally reached an age when it’s starting to bother me. It’s as if I’m in the center of something confining, watching the various pieces of my life floating away like balloons out of reach. I have this nagging feeling that I’d better get things squared away quick, before time runs out, before something goes irreparably wrong. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”
Mark nodded sullenly. Neither man spoke for a long while. They were out of cigarettes, and there was no more beer. It was time to sleep.
2
Morning
Mark unfolded a large, awkward road map of Vermont. It covered the dirty breakfast dishes on the table.
“Judy may be right about the island — it really is no place to be unless you’re really comfortable with yourself. There’s not much of anything to do there. Not even a bar or restaurant. Maybe it’s a good place for couples—”
“Or hermits,” added Judy, trying to extract the empty coffee mugs from under the map.
Mark ignored his wife and continued to speak as if lecturing a class. All he lacked was a pointer in his hand.
“The house is here,” he said, tapping a spot near the southernmost part of the island. “It’s the only house south of this marsh” — he tapped again — “which, as you can see, completely bisects the island. Childe’s Bog, it’s called. The town, the bridge to North Hero, and all the other houses and camps are north of the bog. So your only neighbor is an abandoned granite quarry a little bit southwest of the house.”
“I think you’ll prefer it to your other neighbors,” said Judy.
Harrison smiled. “I keep getting the feeling you’re not too fond of the island, Judy.”
“As always, Harrison,” said Mark, “you have a firm grasp of the obvious.”
“It was like living in a Bela Lugosi film,” said Judy, frowning.
“Judy was never much of a rosy-cheeked country-girl type.”
“That’s right, none of this back-to-nature shit for me. I like my eggs from the supermarket and my bathroom indoors. I also like neighbors who speak the same language. That is, if they talk at all.”
“She’s right about that,” said Mark, chuckling. “The islanders could never be described as talkative.”
“Did they ever tell you why it’s called Friar’s Island?”
“Good question. Apparently no one is quite sure, but I’ve heard several possible explanations. For a while —well, more than a hundred years ago — there was a group of monks living there. There’s a creepy old monastery on the northern part of the island. It’s deserted now, of course, and it’s kind of ignored by the islanders.”
“Shunned,” said Judy, her voice falsely tremulous.
“Also,” Mark continued, “you’ll notice the island is shaped a little like a monk’s head. You can imagine this top part as his cowl and this” — Mark pointed to the southeastern promontory — “as his chin. The islanders call it ‘The Jaw.’”
“So my new home is between Childe’s Bog and The Jaw. Quite an address!”
“Well, it’s easy to find, anyway. Just point your car south and drive till the road ends. The road stops just beyond your dooryard.”
“How long has it been since you folks were up there?”
“Judy and I took a ride up in the spring. Checked it out for damage and stuff like that. We don’t get up there too often anymore.”
“Once a year is too often for me.”
“Why don’t you rent it out?”
“We probably could, but we’d have to fix it up a lot first. We used to rent it two or three months during the summer to a couple of families from Quebec. But they stopped coming and, frankly, renting it got to be too much of a hassle. It was easier just to decide I wasn’t cut out to be a landlord.”
“But didn’t you live there yourselves?”
“Oh, sure. We moved in right after we were married. It was the cheapest thing to do at the time. But commuting to Burlington every day got to be a real pain in the ass. You can’t imagine what those roads are like in winter! So there it sits, empty, collecting dust and taxes. I can’t even sell it, the way the market is today. Besides, I’d have to install plumbing, electricity, and central heat even to make it viable as a rental property. And then there’s the problem of finding someone who’d rent it. Some inheritance, eh? So, honest to God, Harry, you’re welcome to it for as long as you want. It would probably be a good idea having somebody up there to look after it.”
“But who’s going to look after Harry?”
“Will you get off it, Jude!” snapped Mark. “You’ve made your point, okay!”
There was a frozen moment of uncomfortable silence. Mark blushed, Harrison felt embarrassed.
“Sorry,” said Judy, clearing her throat as if to disguise the tremor in her voice. “I just can’t imagine Harry holing up there all alone. You’ve got to admit it’s creepy, and the natives are … unpleasant, to say the least.”
She looked Harrison full in the face. “So if you change your mind, Harry, you’re always welcome here. I mean it.”
“I appreciate that. Thanks. Maybe I need to sleep on it a couple nights up there.”
“Well,” said Mark, tapping his Rolex, “I gotta go. I’ll be late for school.”
Chapter 3 - Islanders
1
Two children crouched behind the stone wall, their backs to the marsh, watching the ’86 Saab move slowly along the dirt road toward the house.
“Stay down,” commanded Bobby Capra. “Don’t let ’em see ya.”
Bobby was the leader. He was a gaunt, earnest-looking boy of twelve, with defiant, cold gray eyes in an otherwise expressionless face. Bobby was used to giving orders to his friends, and equally accustomed to having his orders obeyed. One long-standing command was that everyone call him “Cappy” or, less formally, “Cap.” He wouldn’t answer to Bobby.
Every summer Cappy came to the island for two tedious weeks and altogether too many weekends. His father, who owned a building-supply business in Plattsburgh, New York, referred to the cottage as their island hideaway. Cappy referred to it as the pits. He hated it. Nothing to do. No video arcades, no pizza shop, no television. Nothing. And if he wanted to blow some weed, he had to bring it with him. The island kids probably didn’t even know what it was. Bunch of stupid woodchucks.
But what the hell, there wasn’t anybody on the island worth hanging out with anyway. That’s why he put up with that wimpy Brigitte Pelletier, whose parents owned the place down the road.
“Bree-sheet,” her mother called her in that stupid-sounding French-Canadian accent.
Younger by two years, Brigitte was fat and didn’t know anything about music or drags. She tagged along after Cappy as if she were some lost mutt that nobody wanted — and Cappy could see why. She looked like an ugly little boy. In her loose-fitting shorts, her chubby legs resembled boiled hot dogs about to burst, and her floppy T-shirt hung on her like elephant skin. She could easily pass for a boy, too, if her mams hadn’t started to grow. They poked at the front of her jersey like she was hiding a couple of Hershey’s Kisses underneath.
The only dependable break he got from her boring presence was when her parents carted her off to church. Christ, they drove all the way over to Isle La Motte because there was some big-deal Catholic church — a shrine or something — over th
ere. Probably they did it to pray for a miracle, hoping their daughter would come back looking like Kim Basinger instead of Freddy Krueger.
“Dat man, who you t’ink he is?” asked Brigitte, her face a pudgy study in perplexity.
“Dunno. Never seen the car before,” replied Cappy, without moving his steel-cold stare from the Saab with the Massachusetts plates.
The kids watched the car come to a stop in front of the old building, and saw a man get out. The stranger stood by the driver’s door, just looking at the house.
Brigitte and Cappy looked at the house, too. For Cappy, it was a grand and mysterious place. Though somewhat sinister-looking, it nonetheless held all the enchantment of a Christmas gift begging to be opened. Its wooden walls had weathered to a dark gray; the slate shingled roof was like a steep cobbled roadway leading to the sky. And it was old, astoundingly old. Cappy and Brigitte couldn’t guess exactly how many years — though they’d tried often enough. Still, it was easy to see that it had stood solid and still through many fierce Vermont winters, withstanding countless killer storms off the lake, enduring every bit as well as the many stone buildings that dotted the island.
The strange man approached the front door, fumbling a key ring from his coat pocket, never taking his eyes off the building. His apparent fascination with the house was shared by Cappy, who had done a little research on the place. It had been built by a ship’s captain not long after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. That meant it was constructed sometime in the late 1700s.
According to local legend, there was a treasure buried somewhere on the island. Probably French gold and silver. Maybe a million dollars’ worth. And, so the story went, the map was hidden someplace in the old house — the captain’s house, as the islanders called it.
Cap’s house.
Cappy eyed the man, the intruder, as he wrestled with the ancient lock. In a moment he pushed the door open and stepped slowly into the interior darkness. But he didn’t close the door behind him.
“Umm … ummm, maybe we should just leave now,” suggested Brigitte, a flickering of fear in her soft voice.
“Sssssssh,” snapped Cappy. “He can’t see you if you stay still and stay quiet.”
“But he is da guy who own dis place?”
“How the fuck should I know. Shut up, will you.”
2
Harrison Allen filled his lungs with the scents of the old house. There was a mustiness in the air, the kind that comes when old buildings stand closed and empty for too long. A dampness and a raw chill filled the place, and only a fire would dispel them. Mixed among the profusion of odors, almost hiding, there was a faint suggestion of smoke, a remnant of the many wood fires that once had warmed the ancient rooms.
He stepped to his right, crossing a threshold into the living room (was that what they had called it in the old days, he wondered? Maybe a parlor?). The windows were shuttered, closed to a view of the road and lake beyond. He noted a fireplace, shallow and tall, with an old shotgun mounted on the wall above it. There was a table made from two wide oak timbers (he’d move that to a place in front of the window; it would be his desk), a sofa, and an easy chair, both covered with yellowing linen sheets.
His first thought was to find a bed and move it in here, to live in this one big room as if it were a cabin. Such an arrangement would make the place easier to heat in the cold months ahead.
Harrison walked out and across the little foyer from which he had entered. He stuck his head through the doorway opposite the living room.
This room was empty but for a pair of broken wooden chairs that looked as if they had once been part of a set. No doubt this had been the dining room. The walls were a dull, faded brown. Occasional rectangles of brighter, more colorful fleur-de-lis patterns disclosed where pictures must have hung. In the corners of the room, near the plaster ceiling, the faded wallpaper peeled and curled like scrolls of antique parchment.
After crossing the dining room, Harrison passed through a door that opened into the kitchen. Here he discovered the dining room table with two unbroken chairs. There was an old cast-iron wood stove, once no doubt used for cooking. Fastened to its side was a complex but ingenious contraption for heating water. Beside the stove, and looking very much out of place, was an apartment-sized four-burner gas range. Probably easier than firing up the wood stove every time you want to heat a can of soup, he reasoned.
The kitchen sink was a real museum piece. It was of a pre-porcelain vintage, made of metal (iron, maybe?) that was corroded and flaking. Next to the sink was a hand pump — the water supply.
As he observed all this in the strange half-light from the open front door and shuttered windows, he felt a small, tight smile curling his lips. He folded his arms across his chest, looking around with a discriminating eye.
“Home,” he said to the cold, plaster walls.
“Well,” he chuckled, “at least the price is right.”
3
From where Cappy and Brigitte crouched, they could see the man come out of the open door and begin to turn back the shutters from the windows on the front of the building.
“Shit,” said Cappy.
“Eh? What da matter?”
“He’s opening up the place, dummy. That means he’s stayin’.”
Stung sharply by the unkind word, Brigitte’s eyes darted from side to side as if searching for something to say. “M-My fa’der say dere’s no map in dere.”
“And what makes him such a goddamn authority?”
Brigitte looked down at the ground, hoping Cappy would not see the film of tears in her eyes.
Both of them watched, waiting in silence.
4
Cliff Ransom’s family had lived on Friar’s Island since long before it was chartered as a town. In fact, Ransoms had lived on the island when Vermont was still part of the New Hampshire Grants.
Now Cliff was the last of a long line of Ransoms. He had distinguished himself by becoming the most highly educated person in the history of the family. Cliff had completed eight years in the Island’s school system. Then he had been bused to Swanton for his two unsuccessful attempts at high school. He quit school when he was sixteen to go to work in the quarry, which was within walking distance of his house.
The quarry, a rare source of black marble that shipped its product all over the world, was still owned by an island family, but now they leased it to a company from Proctor. During the summer months, it still provided jobs for several of the islanders. Cliff had been with the company since 1968.
Cliff didn’t get off the island much, and really didn’t want to. He liked the island and the islanders, and he resented the influx of new residents and summer folk. He especially disliked out-of-staters — “flatlanders,” he called them — and Canadians. He had a name for them, too.
Saturday afternoon found Cliff in the center of town, sitting on the stone steps of the town hall. Beside him was his friend Bill Blood. There was a six-pack of Bud on the steps between them.
Cliff was contemplating a minor change of routine. “Ya know, Bill, I been thinkin’. I might jest hafta take me a little trip down to Burl’ton one of these days.”
“Gettin’ to be that time of year again, is it?” inquired Bill.
“Yep. It pains me, though. It’s a hell of a long way to drive for a little bit a ginch, don’t ya think?”
“I guess prob’ly.” Bill sniffed mightily and spat beside the stone steps. “Tell ya somethin’, son: I think it’s high time you done some serious thinkin’ ’bout gettin’ married. Cuts down on travel, ya know.”
“Like you done, huh?”
“Well, no. If I’d thought about it, I prob’ly wouldn’t a done it.”
“Mebbe so, mebbe not,” said Cliff, and he took a long, contemplative swig of beer. “Least you don’t need to drive downcountry to get a piece of ass.”
“Sometimes I like to make the trip anyway, jest to avoid it.”
Both men laughed conspiratorially.
> “Whatever happened to that little piece a tenderloin you was tappin’ over to Hero?”
Cliff smiled slyly, “She got herself knocked up. Had to git married.”
“Who knocked her up?”
Cliff smiled again.
“Too bad you can’t locate yerself a little somethin’ a tad closer to home, like right here on the island.”
“Mebbe a little too close for comfort,” Cliff answered sagely as he rolled down the sleeves of his flannel shirt, finally admitting the air had become a bit too cold for him. He adjusted the yellow knitted toque that he had worn every day — except when he wore his John Deere cap in the summer — since he had discovered the thinning hair at the top of his head.
Looking up at the line of dark trees to the west, Cliff stared at the red sky where the sun was beginning to disappear. After taking another pull from the bottle, he swished the beer around in his mouth as if it were mouthwash.
“But you know,” he said, half to himself, “that new schoolteacher looks pretty damn good to me.”
“Jesus Christ, Cliff,” taunted Bill, “she’s way the fuck out of your league. Why, she ain’t even from around here! I bet she’s even from outta state!”
Cliff snapped out of his reverie, slapping his friend on the back. “That don’t mean she ain’t good enough for target practice, now do it?”
They bellowed rowdy laughter until their attention was caught by a car approaching from Bridge Road. A blue Honda passed the town hall and pulled up to the general store.
“Speakin’ a the Devil,” said Cliff.
“There you go, boy, signed, sealed, and delivered,” said Bill, watching Nancy Wells getting out of the car. “Let’s see ya do yer stuff.”
“Shit,” said Cliff, and he took another swig of Bud.
5
Nancy Wells slammed the door of her Honda and locked it, a deeply ingrained habit, but needless on Friar’s Island. When she realized what she had done, she reversed the key in the lock and remedied the situation.
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