by Jan Fields
“Look—we have a plan for the moment,” Ian said. “We should hear back about the blood in the morning, and we’ll be going back out to the island with Nora.”
Charles looked up in sharp surprise. “You found a boat?”
“Yes, Nora found it,” Annie said.
“How unexpected,” Charles said.
“Maybe you should call Nora,” Mary Beth said worriedly. “To make sure no unfortunate car accident happened to her too.”
Annie felt a pang of alarm, and she stepped away from the group to make the call. The newspaperwoman answered on the first ring and listened with concern to Annie’s description of the near accident. “Nothing like that has happened to me,” Nora said. “But I’ll be careful. Look, I heard back from Jen. The blood is human, but that doesn’t mean it belongs to either of your friends. From your description, I could easily believe your friend Jim walloped someone while defending himself.”
“I can easily picture that too,” Annie said, grateful for Nora’s effort to make her feel better. “Thanks for everything you’re doing to help. I just wanted to check on you, so I’ll let you have the rest of the evening in peace. We’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Nora said.
Shortly after Annie hung up the phone, she told her friends she was desperate for a hot bath and a quiet evening in her room. “I think my brain needs to think about something besides mystery.”
“You should call LeeAnn,” Mary Beth said. “Stories about the twins should take your mind off worry for a while.”
It turned out Mary Beth was right. Annie’s phone call to Texas was timed perfectly to catch the twins right after their bath time, and they were full of stories for their grandmother. They’d decided on their talent-show acts. John was going to do magic along with his singing assistant. Annie laughed as Joanna demonstrated her magical songs.
By the time Annie got off the phone, she felt much lighter—the cheerful children had lifted some of the weight that had settled on her shoulders. Annie scooped up a paperback book and carried it into the bathroom. She soaked in a hot bath and read, occasionally adding a little more hot water as the tub cooled. Finally, she felt almost limp from relaxation, so she finished her nighttime preparations, slipped into bed and quickly fell asleep.
Her dreams, however, pulled her back into the mystery, and she found herself running down the streets of Preacher’s Reach. Some of the time she was chased by a small dark car, and sometimes her pursuer was a pack of dogs. Finally she turned a corner in the town and found her way blocked by a brick wall. She turned, her back against the wall, as the first dog leapt at her.
Annie woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright. Faint morning light shone through the windows, telling Annie that dawn was near. She’d forgotten to set her alarm for an early start, but the nightmare had worked better than any alarm at snapping her awake.
She swung her legs out of bed and waited a moment for her heart to stop pounding. Then she dressed for another visit to the swampy island. As she debated which pair of shoes to ruin, she wondered if there was a discount shoe store in Preacher’s Reach. She certainly didn’t like the idea of driving back to Stony Point in shoes that stunk of swamp.
Just as she finished, she heard a light tap at the door and opened it to find Ian. He smiled warmly at her. “Did you sleep?” he asked.
She nodded. “Though my dreams featured cars and dogs a little too much.”
Ian rested his hands on Annie’s shoulders. “I won’t let anything hurt you,” he said.
Annie smiled and answered softly, “I know.”
Ian leaned closer to Annie, and she had a startled moment of wondering if he was going to whisper to her or kiss her. Then a voice spoke from the hallway. “Good,” Stella said. “You’re both ready. The rest of us are as well.”
Ian sighed and took his hands away from Annie’s shoulders. He turned to Stella slowly. “Is Mary Beth downstairs?”
“Yes,” Stella said. “And Charles as well. I offered to come up and check on your progress.”
“Well, we’re ready,” Annie said as she eased out of the room around Ian. “Let’s go.”
They walked together down the lovely maple staircase. Stella lead the way into the dining room where Charles and Mary Beth sat sipping coffee.
“I suppose you two should eat something,” Stella said reluctantly.
“Are you planning to go to the island?” Annie asked in surprise. “I thought you preferred to be our mainland backup.
“I talked her into it,” Charles said. “I want to come with you, and I thought perhaps having some extra eyes for the search would be good.”
“The terrain is very uneven,” Ian said hesitantly.
“I can handle it,” Charles said. “And if Stella grows tired, I’ll watch over her while we sit and rest.”
Annie smiled slightly at the cool look Stella offered him. Annie and Ian ate a quick breakfast as their friends chatted. Now and then Mrs. Ayers passed through the room and scowled at them. Charles always made a point to beam back at her with his wide smile.
“You shouldn’t tease your sister,” Stella scolded.
“That’s what sisters are for,” Charles said, giving Mrs. Ayers a cheery little finger wave that made her scowl so deep her eyes nearly disappeared.
“I’m not certain how big the boat we’re borrowing is,” Ian said. “It may not hold all of us.”
“In that case, I’ll wait on the shore with Stella,” Charles said, casting calf eyes at Stella and receiving a frown in return.
“I’d like to go,” Mary Beth said. “But if there’s no room, I’ll stay on shore and keep Stella from throwing Charles into the water.”
“I would hardly resort to violence,” Stella said.
Annie actually suspected that Stella rather enjoyed the attention from the handsome Southerner, though she doubted her friend would ever admit it. Charles was so over the top and theatrical—all the things Stella wasn’t.
As Annie sipped her coffee, her cellphone began to buzz in her purse. After a moment of rooting around, she fished it out and found that Nora was calling.
“I’m ready to go,” Nora said. “Are you guys set? I can give you directions to my house, and you can meet me there.”
“Sounds good,” Annie said. She pulled a pen from her purse and wrote the directions on a receipt she found in her wallet. Finally, she told Nora they’d be leaving right away from the inn. After the call, they all headed for the car, eager to begin the hunt.
As they pulled out of the inn parking lot, Annie saw Mrs. Ayers standing on the porch watching them, her arms crossed over her chest.
Annie read the directions to Ian as he drove, and they found Nora sitting on the front steps of a small house trailer sipping coffee. The trailer sat on the wide side yard of a weathered cottage.
As they piled out of the SUV, Nora walked toward them with a smile. “Looks like we’ve got quite a search party,” she said.
Annie introduced her around, ending with, “And I think you know Charles Bonneau.”
“Since I was in diapers,” Nora said with a grin. “Does Mom know you’re in town?”
“No!” Charles cast an alarmed glance toward the small cottage. “I would prefer it remained so.”
Nora laughed. “I’m sure she’s not still mad at you.”
Charles looked less sure, and Stella’s face lit up with curiosity. “Mad about what?”
“Charles made some unfortunate remarks about people who believe in the paranormal at a lecture Mom dragged him to,” Nora said.
Charles rolled his eyes. “That ridiculous speaker showed off a pile of blurry, splotchy photos and played scratchy sound recordings. It was the silliest thing I’ve ever been subjected to.”
“You know Mom is crazy for that stuff,” Nora said.
“I didn’t know she was past all reason,” Charles grumbled.
“Guess you know now!” Nora laughed and turned to Ian. “I�
��m ready. I was going to offer my car, but we wouldn’t all fit, so I guess you’re driving.”
“I actually prefer it,” Ian said.
Nora took the “shotgun” seat since she needed to help navigate to where they would pick up the boat. Annie took the rear seat beside Mary Beth. As they drove, Annie enjoyed watching Charles trying to charm Stella. From Mary Beth’s almost constant grin, Annie suspected the charming Southerner would be the topic of a lengthy story to the Hook and Needle Club when they got home.
The drive lasted nearly an hour. Finally, they pulled up in front of a lovely A-frame house with a boat launch in the backyard. A big man in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves torn out sat on a low deck attached to the house.
“Andrew!” Nora shouted. “Where did you get that shirt, and how did you keep Jen from throwing it out?”
“I hide it when she’s around,” he said, grinning. White teeth shone from behind the thick beard the man wore. “You’re right on time. Wow, you do have a crew!”
Nora introduced everyone, and Andrew nodded pleasantly. “I hate to rain on your parade, Nora, but I think you’ve got too many people.”
“Oh please,” Nora said. “That boat of yours is a beast. I know we’d all fit.”
“It’s not fitting that’s going to be the problem,” Andrew said. “It’s weight. My boat has a pretty shallow draft. You have to around here because the depth is all over the place offshore. But if you put enough weight in the boat, you run the risk of bottoming out, especially around Fuller’s Island. I don’t think you’d get close enough to get out of the boat. Not unless you’re going to tow a rowboat and anchor offshore.”
Nora seemed to think about that. “Do you have a rowboat?”
“Sure,” he said. “But you better keep my boat off the rocks.”
“Scout’s honor,” Nora said.
Andrew led them to the boat and helped hitch a long rowboat to the back of the bigger craft. Annie didn’t have a lot of experience with boats, but the difference between the gleaming white boat in front of her and Ellie’s ragged craft were astonishing. The front of the boat curved up almost like a slipper from an Arabian Nights tale.
Everyone climbed aboard and found a place to sit. Ian joined Nora in casting off, and then followed her to the pilot’s seat. Though Nora drove, she smiled and promised Ian that he could pilot on the way back.
They cruised lightly over the water, and Annie found the ride amazingly smooth. She glanced over at Stella, who sat with Charles’s arm around her. Stella looked tense and a little pale, but Annie couldn’t tell if the speed of the boat made her nervous or the arm of the man beside her.
For most of the ride, nothing looked familiar to Annie. The coastal shore was mostly narrow beach with a few small docks that appeared to be private for the most part.
“Is that the island?” Mary Beth asked, touching Annie’s arm. Annie turned in the direction Mary Beth pointed and spotted an overgrown island.
“I think it might be. It’s overgrown enough,” Annie said. “I don’t know how many islands are out here.”
She knew it must be the place when Nora slowed the boat to a stop. “OK, the rest of the way is going to be a little harder work,” Nora called. “I think someone should stay with Andrew’s boat. I hate to be paranoid, but I like the idea of it being here when we get back.”
“I’ll stay,” Stella said. “I don’t think I could scramble into and out of a rowboat very easily.”
“And I’ll keep Stella company,” Charles offered with a smile.
Ian helped Nora haul the rowboat closer. Nora hopped in and helped Annie over and then Mary Beth. Finally, Ian climbed in, and they were ready to go.
“We should have an expected time for your return,” Stella called to them. “So we know when to go find help if we need it.”
“Well, you said you searched the main buildings,” Nora said. “But there are some smaller outbuildings on the other side of the island. With hiking over to check on them and searching, we probably need five hours.”
“Why didn’t we simply take the boat to that side?” Stella asked.
“No place to land safely,” Nora said. “Or none that I know of. We’ll see you both in about five hours.”
“I’m sure we’ll find some way to pass the time,” Charles said as he helped cast off the rowboat.
Ian took up the oars at his seat and began rowing briskly toward the island. Nora settled into the second set of oars and quickly matched Ian’s rhythm. Annie and Mary Beth sat at either end of the boat and kept their eyes on the approaching coastline.
“When we came over the first time, we left the boat in a hidden cove,” Annie said.
“I know where that is,” Nora said, her voice slightly breathy from the rowing. “But we’re not near there. We can beach instead. This is about the only really clear easy beach on the island.”
Soon enough, they drew close to the beach and the small boat bottomed out. “OK, everyone out, and we tow the boat to shore.”
The shallow water was shockingly cold as it soaked Annie’s sneakers instantly and wicked up the legs of her dark cotton pants. Annie grabbed the side of the boat and pulled it toward shore. With all four of them pulling, they beached the boat easily, dragging it well past the tide line.
“The closest path to the buildings I mentioned is this way,” Nora said, wading through the soft, dry sand until she reached the firmer ground that signaled the edge of the undergrowth.
Everyone followed her, and they walked in silence through the thickening woods. This time the path was a bit clearer, and Annie wondered if this was the way visiting teens normally went. Certainly the path had seen more use than the one Ellie had taken them on.
They reached a spot where the path divided, and Nora took the left way. “This one hugs the coast,” she said. “So it’ll take us to the buildings I mentioned. The other path is a more direct way to cross the island, but we’d have to do some bushwhacking as it doesn’t go all the way to the coast on the other side.”
“I think I’d prefer no bushwhacking,” Ian said. “We’re not equipped for it.”
The thick humidity of the island soon had Annie feeling like a damp rag. The cuffs of Annie’s pants were soaked with salt, and they rubbed her shins like sandpaper. Finally, Annie paused to roll up her pant legs to give her skin a break.
Time passed with no sound except the buzz of insects everywhere and the occasional rustling burst when they disturbed a bird or other creature in the brush around them. Annie constantly waved away gnats that seemed determined to fly into her eyes.
Annie began to walk more quickly, hoping to outrun the pesky gnats, and she soon passed Mary Beth and Ian. She fell in step behind Nora but definitely found that she had not outrun the annoying insects.
Suddenly, Nora stopped in front of her so quickly that Annie nearly ran into her. “Do you hear that?” Nora asked.
Annie shook her head, but they all stopped and listened. Annie heard something far in the distance. The sound was mournful and long. “That sounded like a howl,” Mary Beth said.
“It’s so far away,” Ian said. “Could have been mechanical. A foghorn maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Nora said. “It sounded like a dog to me.”
“We should be able to tell more as we get closer,” Ian said.
The group picked up their pace. The unusual sound had lightened everyone’s sagging spirits. If they could find the mysterious dogs of the island, maybe they could find out what happened to Jim and Alice.
17
The sound of the dogs awoke us. First, the lone baying of a distant hound could be heard. The sound frightened me and I shrieked. Father told me the sound had come from the mainland, carried on the wind. I might have believed him except for the further howls and snarls that came ever closer. Father had brought a pistol, and he held it in an iron grip as he towed me through the dark woods toward the main house. I knew if we reached the house and the light before the dogs
, we would live. If we did not … we would die.
—Steven Fuller, 1925
The intermittent sound of the dogs stayed faint for what seemed to be another hour of walking, but finally it became clear enough to be certain. Nora had picked up her pace until Annie was huffing to keep up.
They raced along the trail for a while, and then slowed down, finally coming to a stop. “I don’t hear them anymore,” Nora said, panting.
“Nor do I,” Ian said. “Do you know of anything close to here where someone might keep dogs?”
Nora looked around. “We’re close to a small outbuilding,” she answered tentatively. “I’ve never been in it, though I’ve seen it. I don’t know how many dogs someone could cram in it.”
“Let’s check and see,” Ian said.
“We need to go that way,” Nora said, pointing into the underbrush. “We should meet another trail eventually, but it’ll be rough going for a while. I remember the outbuilding being on high ground and more inland.”
Nora waded off into the brush and Ian followed, stomping down as much brush as he could to make the way easier for Annie and Mary Beth. Even so, Annie had to concentrate to avoid stumbling, and once she barely caught Mary Beth when she tripped and nearly hit the ground. They definitely weren’t moving very fast.
“I wonder why we don’t hear the dogs anymore,” Mary Beth said.
“Maybe we’re heading away from them?” Annie asked, though the sounds she’d heard earlier certainly seemed to come from this direction.
“Acoustics can be funny on an island with so much undergrowth and different levels of terrain,” Ian said as he stomped through the brush. “I think we need to keep going and see this building. If nothing comes of it, we can always retrace our steps.”
Annie looked around at the broken brush, it certainly wouldn’t be hard to see where they’d come from.
Finally, the heavy brush ended and they were back on a trail. As they walked along the smoother ground, they each picked sticks and burrs out of their clothes and hair. Annie felt some bit of stick down the front of her shirt and reached in to pull it out. It came out wiggling with legs and antenna. She shrieked and tossed the bug into the brush.