Adrift on St. John

by Rebecca Hale

  The Princess’s tennis shoes wobbled on the shaky steps as she climbed to the top floor. Brushing aside the spiderwebs that crisscrossed the doorless entry, she peered inside.

  There on the leaf-strewn floor, nestled in a corner, lay a small wooden box.

  With her spear, the Princess cleared a path through the leaves, testing the floor with its pronged end before trusting it with her weight. Her heart beat heavily within her chest as she drew close enough to the box to unhook the rusting metal clasp that held the lid shut.

  Carefully, she lifted the cover, generating a loud creak that echoed through the stone-filled room.

  Inching nearer, she peeked over the rim to look inside. In the bottom of the box lay a blue nylon satchel.

  The Princess stretched her hand out to touch the fabric. The material was slick and shiny, yet seemingly durable. She unsnapped the satchel and looked inside.

  A large sheaf of papers filled up much of the space, but there at the bottom of the pouch was an item that immediately caught her attention.

  The Princess blinked in disbelief.

  She couldn’t imagine how it had followed her all these many miles across the ocean, but she knew this was the reason she had set out on the easterly path that morning.

  There, inside the blue nylon satchel, lay her precious medallion.

  42

  The Blue Nylon Satchel

  Slowly, the Princess extended her hand into the satchel. Her trembling fingers hovered over the amulet, afraid it might disappear if she tried to touch it. Every ridge and contour of the medallion was just as she remembered—a blazing circle of the sun, a halo of rays streaming out from its burning center.

  Sucking in her breath, she willed herself to capture the last inch of space separating her from the trinket. As the familiar cool metal surface pressed against her skin, she felt the transfer of its power course into her fingers and up through her arm.

  Just then, the Princess heard a commotion at the beach. Pulling the medallion toward her chest, she scurried back to the top of the rickety steps. Crouching behind the corner of the second-story wall, she spied two figures stumbling through the underbrush toward the ruins.

  The first to emerge from the thicket was a small bony man with thinning brown hair tied in a limp ponytail at the back of his neck.

  “It’s in here, Eddie,” he called back to his companion, a tall skinny fellow with a bald head and a full beard who was still struggling through the overgrowth of shrubs and low-hanging branches.

  “Conrad, you crazy hippie,” Alden Edwards muttered under his breath as a curtain of ropelike vines smacked him across the face.

  His eyes widened as he noticed a bustling wasp nest attached to a dangling vine about a foot to his right. Nervously, he ran a hand over his bald—and exposed—crown as he counted close to a hundred stingers in the pulsating mass of insects.

  “What have you dragged me into?”

  Gripping the handle of her spear, the Princess watched as the two men approached her hiding spot. The shorter of the pair paused at the bottom of the steps leading to the second floor of her building, and she backed farther into the stone recess to avoid being seen.

  “Come on, Fast Eddie,” Conrad encouraged. “Hurry up, or I’ll have to find you another nickname.”

  Eyes rolling, Alden staggered forward, his back bent almost horizontal to duck beneath the hanging vines. His feet slipped on the wet ground, narrowly missing the edge of the well. He paused to poke his head into the deep hole, trying to determine its depth, but he could see nothing but a dark seeping pit.

  “I’ll be lucky if I make it out of here alive,” he groaned as Conrad began climbing up the side of a crumbling brick wall, using the exposed rocks as footholds.

  The nimble New Yorker quickly reached a landing on the second floor of the ruin. He turned and waived enthusiastically down at the eco-resort manager.

  “Tell me again,” Alden groused, “why we couldn’t have done this back at the campground?” With a wide yawn, he added, “And a couple of hours later?”

  Conrad propped his hands on his slim hips. He stood mere inches away from the Princess, who had crouched behind the nearest wall to stay out of Alden’s line of sight.

  “I have to keep it hidden—to protect it. You’ll see.” Conrad jerked his head toward his left shoulder. “Get on up here, and I’ll show you.”

  The Princess wrapped both hands tightly around her spear’s wooden handle. Her eyes focused in on the skinny ponytail tied at the back of the man’s neck as she prepared to strike.

  Grumbling uneasily, Alden placed a first foot on the bottom rock.

  Conrad smoothed a hand over the top of his head and straightened his ponytail. “When I read about the Maho Bay sale in the papers, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t let anything happen to my teepee tent,” he said as Alden took a second tentative step onto the shaky stones.

  “I began searching through the Rockefeller archives at one of the New York libraries. They had stuff going all the way back to before the island’s transfer—from the Danes to the Americans. It took some digging, but I finally got to what I was looking for. This little sheet of paper is going to make a big difference around here.”

  He poked his narrow chest out boastfully. “You can start unpacking your boxes, Eddie, and book my reservation for next year, and the year after that, and the year after…”

  Conrad’s elflike body suddenly jerked sideways as he disappeared behind the wall into the second floor of the ruins.

  Alden heard a strange rustling sound.

  “Conrad, are you okay?” he called out with concern.

  He took another wobbly step up the rock wall of stairs.

  “Conrad?”

  Alden bent to his knees, trying to gain enough balance to climb the rest of the way up the wall. But before he could scramble the remaining five feet in height, a wild figure exploded from the second floor landing.

  Brandishing the spear above her head, a blood-curdling scream trilling from her throat, the Amina Princess leapt from the top of the steps to the forest below.

  As Alden dove for cover, he caught only a glimpse of a curly-haired woman in a beaded vest and sarong flying through the air.

  A silver medallion hung from her neck on a leather cord. The handle of a blue nylon satchel was wrapped around one wrist; in the opposite hand she held a rake that looked as if it been stolen from one of the resorts.

  43

  Coral Bay

  Throughout the entire drive over Centerline Road to Coral Bay, Vivian continued to mutter about both the decrepit state of the Jeep and my abysmal driving skills—each instance of which Hamilton found enormously amusing. By the time we turned into the parking lot outside the Moravian church, he had nearly worn himself out from giggling.

  Despite being at the epicenter of St. John’s original colonization, nowadays Coral Bay was associated with the less-populated side of the island. To modern eyes, this was an “up and coming” area, ripe for future development.

  Coral Bay’s loosely defined boundaries included a small handful of restaurants, a gas station (which had changed hands countless times and was only sporadically open for service), several less-expensive villa rentals, and numerous lots touting their suitability as building sites. It was home to a roaming herd of stubborn goats, many of whom had no intention of yielding to vehicular traffic. A flock of Richard’s feathered cousins also frequented the area, monitoring the leftovers at the tables outside one of the harbor-front restaurants.

  If—or when, depending on your point of view—a large resort was built out on this sleepier quadrant, the island’s dynamics would change dramatically. Many speculated that Coral Bay might one day overshadow its sister city to the west as the focal point of the island’s population and tourist activities. Until then, what little there was of the tiny town lined an inlet offshoot of Hurricane Hole, a harbor named for its long-serving role as a boat sanctuary during major storms.

 
The remains of the original Danish fort, Fortsberg, sat on a low hill overlooking this quiet rural scene. The ruins were located on private land and generally off-limits to visitors. But on the yearly anniversary of the 1733 Slave Revolt, the property owner relented and allowed the commemorative march to make its pilgrimage to the site.

  The parking lot in front of the Moravian church was already filling with marchers when Vivian stopped the Jeep and secured its hand brake.

  Still sitting in the driver’s seat, she opened her purse and removed a pad of red arrow-shaped sticky notes. She peeled off one after the other and began pressing them onto the dashboard, the sunshade—any flat surface that would accept their adhesive.

  With the placement of each sticky note, she turned her head toward me and barked sternly, “Left. Keep to the left.”

  Finally, she climbed out and flipped her seat forward to help her son exit.

  Hamilton grinned cheekily. “Left,” he mimicked with a cute grin, pointing his finger across his chest.

  “All right, already,” I deflected. “I’ve got it under control.”

  Vivian shot me a dubious look.

  When I pulled out of the parking lot a few minutes later, I could hear Ham’s squeaky voice hollering, “Left! Penelope, keep left!”

  * * *

  This second attempt at driving Charlie’s Jeep, I did manage to stay on the left side of the road—at least most of the time.

  I backtracked about a quarter of the way across Centerline before turning right on a connector to the north shore. In the backseat, next to where Ham had been sitting, rode my flippers, snorkel gear, and a beach towel. I’d been wearing my swimsuit beneath my T-shirt and shorts since Charlie’s predawn pickup. It was finally time to hit the beach.

  The Jeep bounced along the asphalt, its spongy tires dipping in and out of the potholes that pitted the surface. A pleasant breeze floated through the driver’s-side opening, whispering against my bare legs.

  I leaned my head back, soaking in the sense of freedom and escape—until a blaring horn drew my attention back to the road, and I swerved left to return to my lane.

  The Trunk Bay parking lot was almost empty when I pulled in. Despite the island’s crush of Thanksgiving-week tourists, the beach would be deserted for at least another hour.

  I parked near the truck-taxi stand and slid the keys under the seat. With the door missing, there was no point in locking it. And besides, I shrugged, who would steal a Jeep on an island?

  I hopped over the loose chain draped across the entrance, bypassing the four-dollar entrance fee since there was no one at the kiosk to collect it. My flip-flops crunched down a sandy trail, past the locked showering and changing facilities. About a hundred yards later, I stepped out onto a white beach and a wide swath of perfect blue water.

  There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being the first to set foot on a clean stretch of sand, taking claim to a virgin plot of unmarked beach. The morning sun spread across the sky as I sat at the water’s edge and let the gentle waves lap at my legs.

  Tiny swells ebbed in and out, taunting and teasing my toes. Every so often, a rush of water would rise up in a triumphant oomph to splash across my shins—only to collapse into an apologetic retreat of sweeping curls on the sand’s wet pancake.

  After pulling on my snorkel mask and fins, I began swimming out toward the underwater trail of placards identifying fish and coral formations along the ocean floor, gradually making my way to a clump of boulders that formed a cay at the center right of the bay.

  Head turned toward the ocean floor’s wondrous landscape, I slowly drifted from the clear aqua blue of the shallow water near the beach into the murkier indigo of the deeper depths. The water pressed against my ears, a blanketing vacuum that obliterated all sound but the occasional gurgle of a bubble escaping from my mask.

  Floating passively with the current, I drifted into a school of sardines, whose millions of members swam right up to my treading fingertips, expertly maneuvering away at the last second to avoid touching my skin. A rolling tide caused a ripple in the crowds of needle-shaped fish, and the school parted to reveal the elephant hump of a tarpon tracking below.

  When I could no longer stand the suctioning pressure of the mask against my forehead, I paddled back to shore. After the inevitable awkwardness of the de-snorkeling procedure, I collapsed into exhaustion on the beach.

  Flipping over onto my back, I turned my gaze skyward. White cotton-ball clouds streamed across the blue canvas, their rounded shapes slanted from their hurried pace, leaving a trail of discarded tufts in their wake.

  A gray-headed pelican swooped into view, hunting for its breakfast. White-tipped wings spanned by dark brown feathers swooped over the water, the bird’s sharp eyes searching for the cylindrical shadow of a fish.

  Once the target was cited, the pelican’s wings angled toward the sun, feinting an arching, roller-coaster maneuver. Up, up, up it went—before its body suddenly rotated to dive, straight down, into the shallows.

  The tip of the bird’s beak hit the smooth, mirrored surface with a loud smack, as its pointed head jackhammered against the ocean.

  The feathered body popped up immediately, a fish-shaped bulge poking out of the spongy skin of its long stringy neck.

  I lay there on the beach, thinking about the fish’s perspective, as it found itself transferred, in a flashing instant, from one liquid medium to another—and wondering how long it took before the fish realized it had been trapped.

  44

  Centerline Road

  Gripping the spear near its rakelike attachment, the Amina Princess sloshed through the marshy salt pond and sped up the narrow dirt path, each step increasing her distance from the Brown Bay ruins. The amulet swung from her neck as she ran, the shiny metal disc pumping its strength through her veins.

  Her feet skimmed effortlessly past the sharp ledges of rock that cut across the trail. She leapt over a fallen tree, her body lifting into the air like a gazelle. Her lungs filled with the island’s moist air; she could go on like this for days—now that she had been reunited with her beloved medallion.

  She reached the clearing at the crest of the hill, and the sun’s bending rays blessed her curly wigged head. The wilderness of this once fearsome place was now her ally. Her bleary world had suddenly become clear and distinct.

  She knew what she must do next. Nothing could stop her from completing her next task.

  The Princess paused to change out of her costume, exchanging the wig, beaded bodice, and sarong for her blue jeans and T-shirt. She tucked the garments into the blue nylon satchel and set off along the shoreline, reversing her previous route.

  Despite the early hour, she occasionally heard voices floating through the trees. Every so often, she came across a pair of snorkelers paddling in the shallow water. She gave them a casual wave, confident she wouldn’t be recognized in her modern-day attire.

  Eventually, the Princess picked up the North Shore Road. As she walked along its shoulder, a truck taxi motored by, carrying the day’s first load of tourists to the national park beaches. A second vehicle turned into the parking lot for Trunk Bay, and she fell back into the trees to follow it.

  The rusted red Jeep stopped at the far end of the lot, closest to the beach entrance. Since the driver’s-side door was missing, the Princess had a clear view of the woman behind the wheel.

  After parking the Jeep, the woman yanked the key from the ignition and slid it under the front seat. Then she grabbed her snorkeling gear and headed off toward the beach.

  The Princess kept a safe distance as she tracked the woman through the gates of the empty ticket booth, around the edge of an outside shower center, and past a locked food and beverage hut. The woman’s path soon opened up to a wide sweeping bay, with shimmering blue water dotted by a large cay about a hundred yards out from the shore.

  The woman stripped to her swimsuit and sat for a short while on the sand before wading into the ocean—all the while oblivio
us to the figure creeping stealthily along the forest floor, monitoring her every move. A few steps from the beach, the woman sank into the waves, letting the water sweep her under. Then, her head broke the surface about twenty feet from the shoreline.

  Once it became clear the woman was intent on a lengthy swim, the Princess raced back to the parking lot. A quick surveillance confirmed no one else had arrived during her detour to the beach.

  Scanning the trees for potential onlookers, the Princess fed the pole of her spear through the Jeep’s passenger window. Running around the dented front bumper, she climbed into the driver’s seat—and immediately clamped her hand over her nose.

  The Jeep’s interior smelled like moldy fish.

  Holding her breath, the Princess puzzled for a moment over the assortment of red sticky notes plastered across the dashboard and sun visor. With a shrug, she reached beneath the seat and found the key.

  Seconds later, she was speeding along the North Shore Road, the breeze whipping through the open door a welcome respite from the stench of the seat cushions.

  The Princess steered the Jeep down the road’s winding asphalt trail, passing the entrance to another beach and, later, the stone gates leading into the Caneel Bay plantation.

  After a short drive, the roadway climbed a steep hill, peaking at an overlook that provided a sweeping view of island’s main town.

  The Princess slowed the Jeep as she looked out over the busy harbor. Brightly colored buildings spanned the cusp of the bay, and several sailboats bobbed in the water as the eight a.m. ferryboat from St. Thomas chugged into the dock.