Island of Bones

by Gaby Triana

  She stared at the ancient computer screen.

  I swallowed and dropped the jokiness. “I’ve never been much of a cat person,” I said. Mrs. Friendly didn’t look like she cared one bit about anything I had to say. Just hand over my two hundred dollars. I didn’t know why I was being so chatty. I just felt like at least one of us should be filling the silence.

  After a minute of taking my information, she pulled a key on plastic ring from a drawer and handed it to me. I’d never stayed anywhere that didn’t use a key card. “You’ll be staying in Room 2. It’s through those doors, follow the garden path to your right, then the second door to your right. Double bed, bathroom, access to the garden, and TV.”

  “Is there a Wi-Fi password?” I asked.

  “You’ll get a decent signal with your regular phone service.”

  So, that was a no. “Okay, then.” I took the key and tapped the counter. “Thank you so much. What was your name again?” In case I wanted to write a terrible review on Trip Advisor later.

  “Syndia Duarte.”

  “Ms. Duarte, thank you,” I said, noting the dour looks from both her and the old woman sitting like a wax figure in the chair behind her. Shaking them off, I turned to go. I was halfway through the living room with Bacon at my heels when it occurred to me that both these women were locals. Either might’ve heard of the home I’d come here searching for. I turned back around just as she was shutting off the light to her office. “Oh, Ms. Duarte? Would you happen to know where I might find a residence on the island? It used to be called Casa de los Cayos?”

  She stopped and gazed at me with that glass eye, scrutinizing, analyzing. Did I really expect someone to know about a place that had existed seventy years prior? “It might not be around anymore,” I added with a shrug. “Never mind.”

  It was a long shot, but no harm in asking.

  Syndia held onto the counter with both hands, vacant eyes wide. Judging from the way she looked at me—finally looked at me—I knew I’d hit a nerve. Her eyelids narrowed over her good eye. “Where did you hear that name?”

  Don’t tell her, a voice warned. She hadn’t liked my question, and I almost wished I hadn’t asked. I would ask someone else in town tomorrow. “Uh…a history article about Key West or something. Thanks. Have a good night.”

  She studied me, everything from my face to my purse containing Nana’s ashes, all the way down to my feet. “This is Casa de los Cayos,” she said. “At least it used to be.”

  FOUR

  “How does it look?” Mom asked over the phone.

  I’d called her to tell her the incredible news that I’d happened to stumble into the right place by total accident. I called from the privacy of my room, of course. Didn’t think Syndia would take well to hearing that my family used to live in her hotel and what I presumed was also her house. She seemed annoyed enough as it was.

  “It looks…desolate, to be honest,” I told my mother.

  Sadness streaked Mom’s voice. “Is the moon sculpture still there?”

  “I don’t know. Where do I find that?”

  “I don’t know either. I’ll find the pic of Mom and me as a baby in front of it,” she said. “And text it to you later.”

  “Okay.” We talked a little more then I hurried to hang up.

  My room was adequate but old with its outdated furniture, and the lights in the bathroom didn’t work when I flicked on the switch. Tomorrow, I’d inform Syndia, maybe ask if she could change me to another room. She’d probably be in bed by now and I was so tired, it didn’t matter.

  Even though it was late, I wanted to get at least one cursory look around the resort before going to bed. From what I’d seen so far, La Concha Inn was a collection of three houses, a centered main two-story building with a living room, dining room, office, and an atrium leading outside. Two houses of one story each flanked the main home, subdivided into three guest rooms. In the center of the backyard was a walled-in scant garden about twenty feet wide with a drizzly half-busted fountain in the center and a giant, creepy tree near the inlet. Enormous vine-root-things dropped from the tree’s branches and sank into the ground, giving it the appearance of a massive animal chained by the neck and tethered to the ground.

  The rest was too dark to see at this time of night. The whole property must’ve spanned an acre or so, bordered by long stretch of seawall in the back reaching from one end to the other. The humid August night smelled of salt and rotting coastal plants.

  Which building used to be my grandmother’s, I wondered? They all looked weathered enough to be original structures. Would anybody working here be old enough to remember? Syndia seemed to be in her fifties, her assistant in the office was even older, and my mom wouldn’t remember. I couldn’t ask Nana anymore, which burned me.

  I headed out for a stroll.

  Though it was almost 11 pm, I heard voices coming from the garden. There were other guests here? Why that shocked me, I didn’t know, but it did. There they were, having beers in the lounge chairs. As I inched closer to them, I felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into some land of the lost. The garden was overgrown with wild plants and weeds strangling anything that dared to stand out or be beautiful. The fountain trickled sadly. The gravel walkway had become overrun with stray grasses. Running my hand along the circular rock wall surrounding the fountain and garden area, I paused.

  A chill ran through me. Granted, it was late at night and we were situated by the water, but a burst of cold air in the Florida summertime heat felt out of place. I pulled my hand away from the rock wall and moved closer to the people. An elderly couple in matching shorts and polo shirts sat in the extended lounge chairs along with a middle-aged couple about my mother’s age. I felt better just knowing other life forms were staying here with me.

  They quieted their conversation as I walked by. I waved to show I meant no harm and moved to the seawall overlooking the inlet. Here, I could appear like I was minding my own business while still overhearing their conversations, as they exchanged opinions about the establishment in muted whispers.

  “How about you guys?” one woman asked.

  “We’ll be leaving in the morning. Not happy. Not happy at all, and…” I couldn’t make out the entirety of what the wife was saying. “I don’t even want to say it.”

  “She thinks there’s ghosts in the rooms,” her husband chimed in like a hero for vocalizing what she’d been too scared to say out loud. He chuckled condescendingly.

  “Oh, really?” the other couple asked.

  Yes, she said. Something about feeling like somebody was watching them in this very garden and last night in the guest room, it felt like a presence had crawled into bed with her.

  “Well, at least someone did,” the husband cracked, and the other husband cackled like that was the funniest joke ever.

  I wanted to tell them that ghosts weren’t real. They were fabrications of our minds, that the brain was a powerful organ. That they might even be a symptom of a brain disorder. When I was a kid, I swore ghosts followed me around, until I was diagnosed with cover obsessive compulsive disorder. And then, just like that, with a little pill, the ghosts disappeared. The only ones haunting me now were my own regrets.

  I continued to listen with fascination.

  “Did you hear about the tropical storm coming this way?”

  In my shadowy corner of the garden, I faced them. Storm? I hadn’t seen anything about a storm on the news, and the part of my brain that went into worry overdrive perked up at the news. The woman mentioned it could become a Category 1 storm by tomorrow, but it was too early to tell and anyway, it was still out wandering the Atlantic.

  “It won’t come this way,” one husband said. “That’s still days away; anything can happen, and from my experience, those things always cut right through the Caribbean and head to Texas.”

  “Oh, true, true,” the other husband agreed. “We should be fine.”

  “When did yo
u become a meteorologist, Roger?” one wife asked. I could almost see her eye roll in my head.

  “It’s always the poor countries that need most help after these storms,” the other wife said. “I mean, look at Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. So devastating.”

  “Puerto Rico’s not a country, hon. It’s America.”

  “You know what I mean,” she replied.

  Was this true about the storm? Had I really come arrived to town on the worst week of the year? If worse came to worst, I could book a flight home, get out of the islands in time, couldn’t I? Oh, sure, along with thousands of other evacuees, Ellie. Great, because my OCD needed more negative thoughts to obsess over.

  No, everything would be fine, I told myself. One good thing about tropical storms over other natural disasters—you had days to prepare. You could see them coming miles away. Still, I wished I’d checked the weather sooner, or I wouldn’t have come until hurricane season was over.

  I felt stupid for being impulsive during that kitchen conversation with Mom when I’d agreed to bring Nana’s ashes like some family heroine. Normally, I thought things through carefully. This time, it was like a voice inside my brain had made the decision for me. Regardless, I would enjoy my time here as long as I could.

  After a few minutes of feeling the ocean breezes waft through the inlet, listening to the sounds of waves crashing below, I got hit with the tireds. It’d been a long-as-heck day, so I headed back to my room, making sure to take a full Zoloft and Ambien so I could get some sleep. I didn’t want the native man visiting my dreams again tonight.

  Harmless or not, he’d creeped me the hell out, and I was already creeped out enough as it was. Especially when I found Room 2’s door wide open, as if someone had just been there, even though there was no one inside and I was sure I’d closed it myself.

  “Hello?” I entered the room and scanned around.

  Nobody was there, not in the bathroom or closets either. Maybe I hadn’t closed the door all the way, or the latch was faulty and wouldn’t shut right. Either way, I was perfectly safe and needed to stop obsessing. If only that wasn’t so hardwired into my being.

  I woke to the sounds of birds chirping and shuffling outside my window. I caught a flash of green. Wild parakeets? The sun filtered through the blinds, lending much-needed light to my room. The bad news was now I could see every crack, water stain, and ancient piece of furniture clearly. I focused on my phone instead.

  My mother had texted while I’d slept. She’d sent the photo mentioned last night—a black-and-white faded image of a young and beautiful Nana holding my mother as a one-year-old. They stood in front of a rock sculpture in the shape of a quarter moon.

  This is what it looks like, she’d texted. Mom always mentioned this moon. Dad made it for her out of coquina.

  What the heck was coquina? Some type of rock, obviously. From the photo, it looked like the same rock used to make the garden wall, the seawall, and half the walls around this place. I had a lot to learn about Key West life. Maybe the innkeeper could answer a few questions for me. Would Nana’s neighbors still be the owners of the inn? The neighbors she’d mentioned a few times who she swore hated her guts? I doubted it. If my grandmother had been eighty-eight when she died, then they were either just as old, way older, or dead.

  If Syndia had recognized the name Casa de los Cayos, maybe she was part of the original family. I’d have to ask. I saved Mom’s photo in my camera roll, got dressed, and headed out to see if I could locate the sculpture. How cool would it be if the thing still existed seventy years later?

  By day, the garden didn’t look any better. At least nightfall helped disguise how bad it was, but in full sunlight, the measly water dripping from the fountain was as depressing as the rusted cracks down either side of it. Most plants grew so wild, they lacked organization and made me feel I was staying in a jungle rather than a resort. The lounge chairs where the couples had sat talking last night were sun-faded with cracked plastic straps stretching across rusted metal frames.

  The circular rock wall surrounding this center hub looked like it’d been built over many years by different amateurs. The layers of porous rock were different colors, reminding me of all those charts showing layers of earth in science textbooks. Uneven craftsmanship. Not attractive in any way and depressing as hell. The only good thing about the yard was the majestic tree chained to the earth by its own choking roots. Even though it looked like a prisoner in its own space, it was still beautiful in a Frankenstein sort of way.

  Banyan…

  I looked around.

  Had somebody said something?

  A cold chill wrapped around me before wafting off, carried by the warm breezes. I shook it off, unnerved that I’d heard what sounded like someone talking nearby. Today would’ve been a good day to find a better resort to stay at, but now that I knew this was Casa de los Cayos, I had to stay. I’d come to spread my grandmother’s ashes. I couldn’t leave until I’d done that.

  The closer I got to the inlet and ocean, the lighter I felt. Something about the salty air lifted the heaviness of the garden right off my shoulders. It made me sad to think that Nana’s childhood home had fallen into ruins like this. By the property’s edge, the water sparkled like diamonds underneath the sun. I thought about the best place to release her ashes, if to release them at all when I spotted it—the crescent moon sculpture.

  Tucked away behind wild glossy fronds (were those bananas growing underneath?), the sculpture peeked out pathetically from under the foliage. This might’ve sounded crazy, but it almost seemed relieved to see me, as if it’d been waiting all this time for anybody to notice it hidden underneath the overgrowth.

  I pulled up the photo Mom had texted me and held my phone up to the sculpture. Same shape, same porous rock, same base, same view of the water behind it. My heart did a little victory dance. How could they let it get covered like this? It was one of the only beautiful things in this garden. I stood beside the sculpture and fired off a series of smiling selfies, then I took a few of the thing without my face.

  Another chilly breeze whipped around me. It was a stifling ninety-five-degree heat out. It was strange, but then again, ocean air did bring cool breezes through. I just never realized how much. I texted the photo to my mother: Look what I found!

  I felt so excited with my discovery that I postponed my plan to run out to Duval Street for sightseeing and spent time with the sculpture instead. I ran my hands over it—bumpy, raw, organic. So this was coquina. A quick online search told me it was a type of porous limestone harvested from the shores of Florida, used for building forts, seawalls, and sometimes foundations of homes. Apparently, it could be carved into anything, including quarter moons.

  But all I cared about was that my grandfather had carved this particular piece. My own flesh and blood, the grandpa I never knew, had laid his hands all over this rock, toiled under the tropical sun to shape it. He’d fashioned this shape out of love for my grandma.

  The only gifts I’d ever received from Zachary had been bought. Easy, whip-out-the-credit-card type stuff, the kind of present anyone could’ve bought at the last minute. Nothing like this. Nothing special.

  “He must’ve really loved you, Nana,” I said aloud, hoping my message would streak across the universe and reach her, wherever she was.

  Studying the photos again, I noticed a few had captured beams of light streaking across the moon, blocking its beauty. I deleted those then noticed something else—in the background of a few, depending on the angle, was a woman.

  An old woman in a wheelchair.

  Hunched over. Ancient.

  I moved to the seawall for a better look.

  She sat by the water on a lower level of the dock. I shielded my eyes from the glare, watching her. Vacant stare, mouth agape, older than even my nana, motionless as the boats floated along the inlet.

  On a nearby bench, the woman from the office sat a while reading from a paperback.
After a few minutes, she stood and stretched, placing her hands on the ancient woman’s shoulders. “Come on, Miss Violet,” she said in a Caribbean accent. She wiped the old woman’s mouth and began wheeling her away. “Time for your nap, old girl.”

  FIVE

  Something about the old crone unsettled me. Poor thing, catatonic and unresponsive, just hunched over in the wheelchair. Nana had always said if we had to wipe her chin or change her diaper, then she’d no longer want to be alive. Luckily, she hadn’t been in that state for long. She’d left Earth on her own terms.

  Combined with the resort’s state of disrepair, it was no wonder business wasn’t booming. And though I’d come to Key West to spread my grandmother’s ashes, I’d also come to get away and relax. So I spent the day down on Duval Street, bar and store hopping, and it wasn’t long before I’d sank back three margaritas at Hog’s Breath Saloon with tourists who’d come off a cruise ship parked out in the ocean.

  I must’ve made ten new friends while out, though I couldn’t remember the names of any of them. One of them told me he was a ghost tour guide in town and showed me where the group departed every night, rain or shine. A woman about my age drank with her friends, celebrating her divorce, and upon finding out I’d recently broken up with my boyfriend, bought me my fourth margarita.

  I was so smashed, I couldn’t drive back to La Concha. Hell, I couldn’t even find my car. I’d have to rideshare back then return for the rental tomorrow morning.

  When I got back to the resort, I thanked my driver then entered through the front instead of the side guest entrance I’d seen this morning. Syndia happened to be at the front desk, so I stopped in to speak with her. “Hello, Ms. Duarte.”

  She stopped eating sunflower seeds long enough to grunt then look up at me through that freaky glass eye. “What.”