Ghost Maven

by Tony Lee Moral

  “You have been avoiding me,” said Henry, staring straight into my eyes, a smile never crossing his lips.

  I tried to avert his gaze, but could find nowhere to hide. I was embarrassed for him to see me like this—in those ill-fitting overalls, covered with dirt and algae, and my hair all disheveled.

  “It’s this business about Heather,” I confessed. “It’s freaking me out, and I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything else. I haven’t been sleeping well. I keep seeing these visions of Heather in the water, crying out to me.”

  Henry looked at me steadily; he didn’t seem convinced. “There’s something else. Something you’re not telling me.”

  The image of lilac paper floated into my mind but I held my tongue. I didn’t have any real proof, and as far as I really knew, it could be a coincidence. I didn’t want Henry to pick up on my paranoia. Besides, seeing him again softened me a little. He looked so handsome in his crumpled brown jacket, standing among the tanks of kelp and glass walls of the aquarium. He was dead all right, but in a strange way, there was still something corporeal about him.

  I looked at the tanks I had cleaned and felt satisfied I’d done a good job. Dad would be pleased. He and Sophie wouldn’t be back from Santa Cruz until the evening. Glancing at my watch, I saw there would still be time to go out on the bay.

  “Do you have any plans this afternoon?” I asked tentatively.

  Henry shook his head slowly. “No. Why?”

  Not sure why I asked, but it was too late to take it back. “Can we sail out to the buoys in Monterey Bay? I’m looking for something.”

  Henry’s forehead wrinkled. “Looking for what?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure myself, but something tells me I need to go to the buoys and investigate something. It’s for my own peace of mind. Will you take me out there this afternoon?”

  “I am not certain that is a good idea, Alice. The sea looks rather rough and unfriendly today. There’s a storm brewing, and it looks to be an ugly one.”

  I peered out the window that overlooked the bay. “What are you talking about? It’s as calm as a pond,” I said.

  “Now, perhaps, but look at those storm petrels,” Henry said, pointing up at a couple of seabirds that were wheeling in the sky. “When they fly inland, it is a sure sign that a storm is on its way.”

  “We won’t be very long, a couple hours at the most,” I persisted.

  “Alice, we cannot afford to be caught in a wicked storm.”

  “Fine. If you won’t help me, I’ll go on my own,” I said, determined to reach the buoys, with or without his help.

  Henry sighed. “All right, but if we are going, we must go now.”

  Elated, I threw off my slimy overalls, tossed aside the thick gloves, smoothed down my hair, and left the aquarium and followed Henry down to his waiting boat.

  I felt a tremendous sense of adventure when out on the water. The wind had picked up, and with Henry at the helm, Evening Tide skimmed over the choppy waves, the bow making a determined line toward the horizon.

  “Any idea what we’ll find out there?” I asked Henry.

  He was strangely silent, one hand gripping the rudder and his eyes fixed firmly ahead. “I have no idea,” he finally said with a shrug, the wind whipping his shiny hair. “Are you sure Emily saw a buoy? Maybe it was something else, like a lighthouse.”

  “No, she saw it pretty clearly floating in the sea.”

  I contemplated his question for a moment. I got the sense Henry doubted Emily’s truth. Not knowing much about her, myself, I couldn’t counter. She was eccentric, and everyone in the school thought her odd, but she always appeared sweet and sincere in my eyes. She predicted Heather’s claiming of the homecoming queen tiara, and she’d had visions of a girl floating in a gold dress. Crazy or not, she’d been right about a number of things.

  Most intriguing, though, was the séance. If it was some cruel practical joke, she would have had to find out my mother’s name, and I’m pretty sure it would have been difficult on the spur of the moment. I suppose she could have gone to the web some time before and easily looked up Mom’s funeral details in Chicago on that endless mine of information. Why she would do that? This conclusion led me to believe Mom was trying to contact me. All things considered, I had to believe in Emily and that she told the truth about what she’d seen, sensed, and heard.

  I glanced back over at Henry. Is he just trying to create a rift between Emily and me? Did he write those letters to Heather? My thoughts troubled, my brow started to furrow as the boat sailed out to sea. I hoped the buoy would hold the answers. Everything will become clear in an hour, I told myself. The buoy was only about a mile away, and I could see it bobbing in the murky water.

  “Another ten minutes,” Henry said. “We’re almost there.”

  My heart raced with anticipation. The buoy loomed nearer and nearer, its steeple bobbing in the water, the beacon light luring us with its flash. I listened to its mournful clang as we floated closer and closer. The bell continued to clang sorrowfully, like the wail of an unhappy maiden.

  Henry expertly maneuvered his boat alongside it.

  I gazed down at the midnight blue of the water, wondering what I would see beneath the glass-like surface.

  Henry scanned the side of the buoy. “There’s something down there,” he said, peering into the murky depths.

  “Look!” I pointed. “There!”

  A long length of rope was tied to the buoy, its knotted coil draped with dark green seaweed that floated in the water like a troupe of dainty ballerinas.

  Henry reached over the side of the boat and began to tug at the rope.

  I squinted, straining to peer into the dark water. Eventually, I saw an object rising out of the water. “What is it?”

  Henry frowned. “Something is attached to the rope. It looks like a polymer bag.” Henry then tugged hard and heaved the bag up onto the deck off the boat. “It’s knotted at both ends,” he said, “to keep the insides dry. Shall we open it?” he asked, looking at my ecstatic face.

  “Of course!” I replied, trembling in anticipation.

  Henry reached inside the plastic and pulled out a small box, about the size of my palm, fashioned of a pale wood. He handed it to me.

  “What is it?” I asked, puzzled. I turned the box over in my hand, wondering where it had come from. On the top, markings were engraved in the yellow wood. Studying them, I could make-out the depiction of a rose with its stem wound around to almost a complete circle, it’s delicate leaves spread from the coiled stem. “What do you think this emblem means?” I asked Henry.

  He shook his head slowly. “I cannot say,” he said. “It appears to be a symbol of some kind.”

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I said with a smile. I examined the side of the box, but it was securely locked with no visible means to unlock it.

  Immediately, I got a terrible chill and the wind picked up. I gazed fearfully at the sky, which suddenly darkened from sunny blue to a menacing gray.

  “We have to return to shore now!” Henry shouted and ran back to the rudder, starting to steer the bow of the boat back toward the coastline.

  I tucked the box inside one of the upper compartments, away from the main deck, just as a huge wave came over the bow, drenching me in salt spray.

  “Come back to the wheel!” shouted Henry.

  I obeyed his command. The deck was already slippery as I made my way to join him at the helm, the boat beginning to dip and sway fiercely from the wind’s force. The waves danced like angry demons on both sides of the boat, slapping against us, and the sail flapped so violently that I was afraid they’d be ripped to shreds. The wind howled, mocking our measly efforts and began to push us back out to sea, away from the coastline.

  Henry tried his best to maintain a grip on the steering, but still the boat edged toward the fathomless horizon. “We must take the sail down!” he wailed. “Otherwise, the wind will carry us miles off course.” He then set to wo
rk to bring down the billowing main sail.

  I ran to the sail and tried to help, all the while trying not to slip and fall overboard. Another wave came over the side and drenched me in cold, salty water. I screamed, fearing I would drown—again.

  “I never should have brought you out here!” Henry shouted through the white salt spray.

  “We can still make it back to the shore,” I said, my hair drenched through.

  “No, it’s too far,” Henry replied. “We’ll never make it.” He then ran back to the stern and tried to turn the boat around.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in amazement, since he seemed to be heading directly into the eye of the storm.

  “It’s our only chance,” said Henry, jutting his jaw out in a determined fashion and continuing his course.

  Violent waves surrounded our small boat as Henry maneuvered it directly into the storm. Suddenly we heard a cracking sound, followed by a groan, and the boat sounded like it might split in two. The sea gushed into the boat from a small hole below.

  “There’s water coming in!” I shouted. “We’re gonna sink!”

  Henry ran to the side and peered over to have a look at the crack.

  Soaked, I watched helplessly as the lower compartment of the boat flooded. The water was icy cold and with the boat already tilting, I knew we would sink within a matter of minutes.

  Henry remained strangely calm while my hysteria grew. We were surrounded by dense fog, and for a moment, I experienced the same panic as when I’d been lost at sea during my fateful kayaking trip.

  The boat skimmed through the bank of mist and thick cloud cover. For a few seconds that seemed to stretch into an eternity, we couldn’t see anything. Finally, the boat broke through the curtain and there, before my very eyes, the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

  “The island!” I screeched in awe. I didn’t imagine it! It is really there, silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky. I marveled at the twin peaks rising high into the air.

  “This is our only chance of safety,” said Henry, steering the damaged boat toward the shore.

  The island grew nearer and I glimpsed faint clouds above the mountain peaks. When I looked high above, I thought I saw an albatross.

  Suddenly, the boat rammed the shoreline jarring me out of my fascination—then nothing at all as a sudden blackness came over me and I passed out.

  Chapter Fifteen: Island of Lost Souls

  When I woke up, I thought I was in heaven. All I could see above me were white, dense clouds. Slowly, the fogginess in my head lifted, and I became aware of my surroundings. My head felt stiff, and my mouth full of salty sand. I heard a rhythmic pounding sound, like the crash of waves, but—another sound, too—tap-tap-tap, the sound of hammering.

  “Hey,” I said meekly.

  The tapping stopped, and I heard footsteps in the sand trudging toward me. A shadow loomed over me, and a dark, silhouetted face appeared, looking down at my drenched body.

  I looked up into the eyes of Henry.

  “Welcome back,” he said in a warm, soft voice. “You’ve been unconscious for a while. Are you all right?”

  “What happened?” I asked, sitting up in the sand. My clothes were wet, and the sand stuck to them like glue. My tongue felt as thick as sandpaper.

  “You bumped your head when we landed,” Henry said, squinting at the back of my head, “but I think you will be all right.”

  Gingerly, I touched the swollen egg forming at the back of my skull. There was a slight throbbing pain as I turned to glance across the sand at Henry’s boat, on the shoreline, tilted on its side. The hole in her portside was small, but Henry patched it up with boards.

  “What’s the damage?” I asked him, rubbing the back of my head.

  “It’s okay. Luckily I have a tool box in the boat,” Henry said. “And there’s plenty of driftwood for me to patch her up.”

  I turned my gaze from the sea to the towering mountains behind me. The sandy beach led to a forest, which, in turn, climbed up to the pointed peaks. “Where are we?” I asked, gazing up the side of the mountains, wondering what lay beyond them. They seemed to reach for the clouds, but an eerie mist obscured the peaks.

  “This is the island,” Henry said.

  The island! Memories came flooding back, and I knew it was the island I had seen before—the island I had been searching for—real after all, and here I stood on the same sandy beach I saw from afar all those weeks ago. I felt a mixture of elation, apprehension, and fear. What is on the island, I wondered, and what secrets does it hold? Why can I see it when no one else believes it exists?

  “Are you strong enough to help me gather wood?” asked Henry, cautiously scanning the beach.

  I nodded, eager for a little exploration. I stood up in the sand, wiped off my backside, brushed the knotted seaweed and sand off my trousers, and followed Henry down the beach.

  Along the tideline, I spotted several shells in unusual shapes, and there was plenty of driftwood to choose from. I gathered some of the gnarled pieces and followed Henry in his pursuit of more suitable timber. Some of the dry, old pieces would make a nice bandage for the boat.

  I picked up a large pink conch and placed the lip to my ear. The sound of the sea came flooding in. It reminded me of my childhood beach-combing excursions with my mom, when we spent our holidays on Cape Cod.

  “I think we have enough,” said Henry, his arms full of wood.

  We trudged along the tideline, back to the boat. As we walked, he seemed uneasy and kept glancing back to the edge of the forest. I wondered what he could be looking for, but I didn’t bother to ask.

  When we reached the boat, we immediately began patching up the hole. Henry took some nails from his tool box and started to hammer the longer pieces of driftwood into place. In a matter of ten minutes, the hole had been boarded over.

  “Will it hold?” I asked, wondering if the pounding waves would knock the boards loose. I didn’t relish the idea of sinking in the middle of the Pacific. “How far are we from Monterey?”

  “We are but a few miles out to sea,” said Henry. He squinted at the patched boat, but he didn’t seem completely satisfied it would be sea worthy.

  “We need something to plug the gaps between the timber. I know a plant that sticks like glue when wet. It grows by the island’s waterfall.”

  I had never heard of a plant that got sticky when wet, but the mention of a waterfall sounded good.

  “Are you thirsty?” Henry asked, looking at me as though doing a medical exam with his eyes.

  I swallowed, realizing for the first time that I indeed was thirsty. My mouth feeling dry as parchment, and the beach rubbing against my skin like sandpaper, I nodded.

  “The waterfall is a few hundred feet from here. We can get a drink before we set off and collect the plant at the same time. Come. But we must be quick about it,” he said, again darting his eyes around the deserted beach. “’Tis not safe to be on the island for too long.”

  Why is he scoping the beach so much—not safe? I asked in my mind, What is that supposed to mean?

  Before I could ask aloud, Henry strode up the beach toward the tree line, and I had to quicken my pace to catch up with him.

  We clambered up the beach, and for a while I forgot about my troubles at home. Being here was like being lost in paradise. Sounds of the birds high in the sky, and some of the most brightly colored flowers I have ever seen painted my vision in every direction.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said as we reached the forest line where the ground immediately started to ascend from the beach.

  Henry nodded slowly. “Indeed. I thought that very thing when I first came here.”

  “When was that?”

  “A long time ago, after the shipwreck.”

  I thought for a moment, realizing it had to have been a century ago. I gazed up at the craggy cliffs, which seemed a long way up.

  “The trek is a bit slippery from here,” said Henry, “You must watch your step
.”

  My sandals were not exactly suitable for hill climbing, so I stepped carefully, watching my footing and reaching out for the sticky vines and low hanging branches to haul myself up.

  “How far away is the waterfall?” I asked, straining my ear to catch a sound of rushing water. All I could hear was the hush of the forest and the faint chirp of birdsong.

  “Just a few hundred feet,” Henry said as he nimbly traversed the slope.

  His footsteps were steady as he easily navigated the uneven terrain of the forest. I, on the other hand, had to focus all my concentration to prevent myself from slipping, falling in a hole, or twisting my ankle.

  Suddenly, we heard a crack in the distance, like the sound of a snapping twig.

  Like a startled deer, Henry instantly paused to listen.

  “What?” I asked, excitedly, trying to whisper.

  “Shh!” he answered fiercely.

  I strained to listen for any sounds in the forest—nothing but silence. Henry continued to hold his hand up, motionless. After what seemed an eternity, he motioned his hand forward, and I silently followed him up the path.

  We soon glimpsed the ocean through a break in the trees. I marveled at the sight of the radiant blue water stretching from the beach and ending in a thick cloud that seemed to circle the island.

  I turned to Henry, who still looked pensive after the climb. “Breathtaking!” I said as I motioned to the crystal-blue waters that formed the shallows surrounding the island.

  Henry nodded slowly, but he didn’t allow us to linger for too long. “The waterfall is around the bend. We must continue.”

  Our last scramble came through a thick patch of bushes, speckled with sweet purple flowers that gave off the most divine aroma. Some white and blue butterflies danced along the hedgerow as we scrambled along the rocky path. The Island felt eerie but mesmerizing at the same time. I felt strangely at peace.

  When we turned the corner, I saw the cascade, a spectacle of nature at about twenty feet high with the waterfall pouring over a rocky lip into a turquoise pool below. It was one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen.