The brass plaque on the monument read: BELOVED SONS OF TRESPASS. MAY THEIR SACRIFICE ALWAYS BE HONORED. Names carved into the stone ran in three columns next to dates, beginning in the 1700s. Many of the last names repeated again and again: Tremblay, Briggs, Vincent. And Sean’s name. Gunn. The name Gunn was listed four times. The last one, Jacob Gunn, was dated two years ago. That must have been Sean’s father.
“Were these all fishermen?” I asked Gran.
She nodded. “Most. The monument honors those lost at sea.”
“They all drowned?” I couldn’t help but think of those terrifying moments I’d experienced beneath the water. That suffocating press of darkness all around me.
Gran gave a shake of her head. “A fisherman never says that. Nope. Not drowned.” She pressed a freckled hand to the granite monument where Charles McGovern was engraved. “They’re lost at sea,” she said quietly.
The ticket agent’s grave was marked by freshly mounded dirt and a cross made of two pieces of driftwood nailed together. We took our places and watched as people filed in for the service. Some were the same faces I had seen down at the dock, and some were new. But everyone still gave me the same curious looks.
Zuzu arrived, dressed in a long wisp of a black dress with pieces of gauzy material trailing on the ground. Her hands were clasped demurely before her. She came and stood next to me. Ben Deare arrived wearing a faded blue suit. His baseball cap was gone, and in its place was an old-fashioned-looking blue seaman’s cap tucked beneath his uninjured arm.
Sean was there, on the other side of the fresh grave, looking uncomfortable in a button-down shirt with the collar too tight. He kept shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking at me as if he wanted to tell me something, but each time I caught his eye he looked away.
Well, come over and talk to me already. But he didn’t.
When everyone had gathered, Ed Barney, the mayor, cleared his throat and began to speak in his rapid-fire voice. The solemnity of the occasion didn’t seem to slow him down any. “We’re gathered here to mourn the loss of … this fella, Richard. Even though none of us knew him. And he had no business here. But we don’t hold anything against him.” Barney took out a small, worn Bible from his pocket, licked a thumb and leafed through the pages.
“ ‘There is a time for everything,’ ” he read. “ ‘And a season for every activity under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die …’ ” As the mayor’s voice ran on, I looked at the faces around me.
No one seemed upset. Granted, nobody knew the man, so I didn’t expect anyone to be crying or anything, but still. The way he died was pretty extraordinary. It made me sick to think that it could have been my fault. But why wasn’t anyone talking about it? Wasn’t anyone the least bit freaked out? I was; I’d hardly slept last night, and even though the air was warm I’d closed and locked my window, trying to silence the endless whispering of the waves outside.
Ed Barney closed his Bible. “Right. Amen.”
“Amen,” responded the assembled islanders.
“Lots of unexpected things happening,” Ed announced, looking around. “But no need to be afraid. We got to stick to our ways. Be vigilant.” His gaze swiveled to me.
“What about Revel?” a woman from the crowd called out. “Will we still have Revel?”
“Course we will,” answered Mayor Ed with a brisk smile. “It’s more important than ever to keep up our traditions. We’ll celebrate Revel together, just like always.”
“And what about her?” a quiet voice asked.
I turned to see who’d spoken. It was Sophia Clark, the woman from the beach. Her sad, deep-set eyes were fixed on me.
“Delia’s one of us now,” Gran said, putting her arm around my shoulders. Her voice was loud against the eerie quiet of the graveyard. No one seemed ready to argue the point. But they didn’t seem too happy about it either.
One of us.
It would take more than Gran and a few of the younger people welcoming me to become part of Trespass. Over the next few days, whenever I walked to the center of the village, laughter stopped, voices quieted to murmurs, and people who’d been sitting in rockers on front porches suddenly needed to step inside. I was still a stranger and got only aloof courtesy from most of the islanders. Gran insisted that I shouldn’t worry about it.
“Folks on this island are just private, that’s all,” she said. Her big hands worked on a piece of counted cross-stitch of ducks and geese carrying a banner: Welcome to Our Home. It was so sweet.
“Besides that,” she went on, “they’re a superstitious bunch. You came and trouble followed with that mainland fella. It’ll take time for them to forget.” Gran squinted and poked the needle through. “Give ’em a few years. They’ll warm right up to you.”
I sighed, waiting for her to smile at her own joke. But she didn’t. Great.
“According to Zuzu, people haven’t forgotten about Mom’s leaving Trespass. She said they consider her a traitor.”
“That’s just talk, Delia. Pay it no mind. Your mother had her reasons for leaving.”
From what I’d seen she must have had a million. But I was curious to know what finally convinced my mother to leave this place.
Sean Gunn and his mom, Sally, were the closest neighbors to us. Sean stopped by sometimes, especially in the evenings after he’d finished work, but his mother never did. Gran said she was in poor health from rheumatoid arthritis. Gran often sent a special herbal tea over for her.
“We have to make do with what we have here,” she said. “I make cough syrups, poultices, sleeping medicines from the herbs we grow.” She shook her head. “But Sean insists on paying for some fancy medicine from the mainland. Doesn’t do any better than willow bark tea, if you ask me.”
One Saturday morning when it was raining hard, I put on a slicker and brought the tea over for Sean’s mother.
When Sean opened the door, he looked surprised and almost uncomfortable to see me standing there on the porch.
“Um. Come on in,” he said, leading me into a sparely furnished living room.
Sally Gunn was a thin woman who looked to be in her forties. She had Sean’s blond hair and brown eyes but a small, pinched mouth. She was dressed in a thin cotton housecoat and sat on a rocking chair in their living room next to a large bay window that looked down to the sea.
“What’s happened? Who are you?” she asked me nervously. She made no move to stand and I noticed that she wore large black shoes with thick soles and had a metal brace on one ankle.
Sean picked up the plaid blanket and arranged it over her lap. “This is Delia, Ma. She’s Maisie’s granddaughter. She brought your tea.”
“Oh.” She looked from me back up at Sean. “Thanks, honey,” she murmured.
“Have you taken your pills today?”
“Pills?” she repeated, furrowing her brow. “Oh, Sean. I don’t think I need those pills every day.” She took her hands from beneath the blanket and laid them on her lap before her. Sally Gunn’s hands hardly looked human. The joints of her fingers were red, swollen knobs, and her wrists were twisted sideways so badly they looked like broken claws. “Grammy never took a pill in her life except aspirin,” she said. “And she did all right.”
She gave Sean a worried look. “And I don’t want you to get into any trouble, getting things like that. From away.”
“Hey. Stop worrying. Didn’t I tell you that you’re going to have everything you need?” said Sean. “Everything is going great.” He motioned for me to follow him.
“She hasn’t been the same since my dad died,” said Sean in a low voice as he put a kettle of water on the stove. “Just sits by that window, watching like she thinks he’s going to come back or something.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “How did your father …?”
“His boat wrecked in a storm November before last. I’ve been trying to keep things going.” Sean blew out a frustrated breath and took a mug from the shelf. “Man. Looking back now, I don’t know how he
did what he did.” He spooned some of the loose tea into a small strainer and set it on top of the mug.
“You have an awful lot to handle,” I said.
Sean looked at me and smiled. His deep-set brown eyes were warm and friendly. “Don’t worry. Things are gonna get better.”
It was a good attitude. I only wished I could be half as confident about my future here on the island.
In some ways life was very quiet. Just as Zuzu and Reilly said, everyone on Trespass Island was expected to work to support the community. A lot of people worked on the fishing boats or at Gunn’s, shelling and packing lobster meat. Repairing nets and lobster traps was a full-time occupation for many of the islanders, as was raising animals for milk and meat. Many of the women went out at low tide to dig for clams, and a few worked at the island’s little school or in one of the small stores in the village. Gran’s job was gardening. One day she took me with her to the fields, located on the southern side of the island.
“I take care of the herbs, mostly, and a few vegetables,” she told me. “You can help me with that for now.” Gran strode ahead through a neatly organized garden plot. Tall fronds of savory-smelling plants brushed my legs as I followed along behind. A flash of bright color caught my eye, and I spotted a hummingbird hovering over the trumpet petals of a purple flower.
“You probably noticed it’s warmer here,” said Gran. “Our winters are mild, and we have a real nice long growing season.”
“Yeah, why is it so warm?” I asked, brushing away a mosquito. Even for summer, the air seemed unusually heavy, almost tropical. There were plants here that I’d never seen before, and the sweet, spicy scent of flowers was everywhere.
“Why?” Gran stopped short and looked surprised. “Heavens, I don’t know, child. Must be something to do with the currents or the airstream or some such. That’s just the way it is.”
As I was learning, that phrase pretty much summed up my grandmother’s outlook on life as a whole. That’s just the way it is. Deal with it. Keep going.
But I’d bet Reilly had a scientific explanation for the strange climate. I’d have to remember to ask him.
“That’s dill,” Gran said, moving on. “And here’s sage, parsley, some basil.” She knelt down. “And here’s rosemary. That’s for remembrance.” She chuckled. “Only wished it worked better; my memory’s not what it used to be.”
Gran moved on and began to cut leaves from a bushy plant. It was strange-looking, with glossy green leaves and tiny flowers of a lighter shade of bright, nearly fluorescent green. Soon our basket brimmed with the cuttings. A sweet, slightly resinous smell wafted up.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Trapweed. No. Don’t touch it, dear. It’ll give you a rash.” Gran snipped another clump with her gloved hands and dropped it in the basket. “There. That should do it. Gosh, look at the time. It’s nearly high tide; they’ll be waiting.”
“Who?” I asked, but Gran didn’t answer me as she tossed her gear and baskets into the back of the golf cart, and soon we were rattling over the dusty road to a part of the island I’d never been to before. We stopped and I followed as she crossed a grassy meadow that ended in a bluff overhanging the sea. I came close to the edge, cautious of the soft, loose ground. Far below, waves crashed against the rocks with cracks and booms and jets of water. The water churned with black eddies. At first I thought some heavy current or a rising wind was whipping it. But it wasn’t that.
The water swarmed with Glaukos monsters. There must have been hundreds of them. Scaly arms, dark misshapen heads and tails thrashed together in a tangled, boiling mass.
Gran reached into her basket and threw out a handful of the leaves. They fluttered down to the water’s surface and disappeared. Below, the thrashing increased, accompanied by a chorus of high-pitched, chirping cries as the Glaukos gnashed at the floating leaves.
“You feed them?”
“Oh yes.” Gran had a contented expression as she tossed out the clumps of greenery. She looked like one of those people at the park, feeding pigeons. Really big, nasty, poisonous pigeons. Obviously the creatures had immunity to the spikes on each other’s tails, because it was pretty wild down there.
“I’m kind of surprised that they’re … vegetarian,” I said, watching the scene below.
“Oh, they’re not,” said Gran. “A Glauk will eat meat. But they love this trapweed. It’s part of what ties them to this island. They can’t come out of the water for too long, so they need us to provide it for them.” She upended the basket and shook out the last few leaves. “We help each other.”
“This is where you came, that first night I was here.”
Gran nodded. “We aren’t too far from the house here if you follow that path.” She pointed to a break between some arching bushes. “They were overdue for a feeding that night, so I took a bundle of the dried trapweed I keep on hand at the house. Glauks can’t go too long without trapweed. They start to get real agitated. This keeps them calm.”
I stared as one of the Glaukos swam closer to the rocks at the cliff’s base to reach a clump of trapweed caught there. It raised its leathery head and stared up at me with yellow, unblinking eyes. Suddenly it bared curved rows of teeth at me and let out a series of high-pitched trills. I shuddered at the noise. It was like a weird, angry birdcall that drilled right into my ears.
“Step away now, Delia,” Gran said. She turned to go. “They don’t like to be watched.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I was only too happy to leave the bizarre creatures to their meal.
CHAPTER 10
I’d been on Trespass Island for a little over two weeks and had begun to venture out on my own whenever I had spare time. There was a shed behind Gran’s house stuffed with yard tools, clay pots, fishing poles and other odds and ends, as well as an old bicycle. Calling it a bicycle might have been generous: it was basically two wheels and a wire basket, held together by chipped black paint. But it got me everywhere I wanted to go.
Invitations to explore were everywhere. And what I liked best about exploring the island on the bike was there was no one to say “That’s not allowed.” I never got tired of discovering new places, from winding paths that twisted along the grassy bluffs to hillsides covered with wild blueberries.
There were even sea caves on the opposite side of the island from Gran’s house; from a jagged curve of the coastline, I could see their dark openings at the base of the rocky cliffs below. Seeing them made me think once again of the legends of treasure on the island. The caves would make a likely hiding spot. But they appeared to be inaccessible, except from the water. Even at low tide water churned at the mouths of the caves. Exploring the caves would have meant swimming out to them. So. Definitely not an option.
But I decided that I did need to try new stuff. So one day I took a pole and a box of equipment from the shed and decided to go fishing from the beach.
Yeah. Fishing wasn’t as easy as it looked. Not that I’d never watched anyone fish, but the principle of it seemed simple. You threw the line with the hook into the water, right? Voilà. Fishing.
Unfortunately, when I tried to do this, the fishing line didn’t fly out over the water and plop in like it was supposed to. Instead, the line and the hook snapped back with a zing! sound in an angry little ricochet. I reached up instinctively, trying to catch it.
“Ow! Crap!”
The hook, I realized when I got brave enough to look at my hand, was buried in the meaty part of my palm, at the base of my thumb. The pain was actually not as bad as my irritation at myself.
I heard barking. Perfect. Sean Gunn was striding toward me. His dog raced around him in crazy circles, chasing gulls. I held on to the pole but stuck my left hand behind my back. I smiled, nodded at Sean and mentally begged him to pass by.
Pain throbbed in my palm, but all I could focus on was how much Sean had seen of my performance. And how handsome he looked in a simple white T-shirt and cargo shorts.
T
he giant black dog waggled his way over.
“Two words for you, Buddy,” I told him, glaring. “Personal space.”
“Hey,” Sean called with a wave. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh.” I tried to look relaxed. And not impaled. I couldn’t show him my hand, now that I’d stuck it behind me. This was so stupid. “A little fishing.”
Sean nodded, surveying the opened tackle box and its disgorged, tangled contents. “For what?”
“Tuna,” I answered, training my eyes on the water. “Preferably solid white albacore. I don’t like the other kind, it smells like cat food.”
Sean threw a piece of driftwood for Buddy. He seemed to be enjoying this way too much. He must’ve seen.
“Oh yeah?” he asked pleasantly. “What’re you using for bait?”
“Can opener.” I swiveled to face him. “You know, I think I just want to concentrate on my fishing. Alone. You know, relax, get Zen with it?” I looked around pointedly. “It’s a big beach.”
Sean shrugged. “Small island.”
“Really? Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”
He didn’t seem fazed by my sarcasm and took hold of the line. “What’s the matter, is there a knot in it? That happens all the time. Let me help you.”
Sensing that he might pull on the line, the other end of which was stuck in me, I let out a shrill “No!” and showed him my hand. “Don’t laugh.”
But Sean didn’t laugh. “Jeez. Why didn’t you show me right away? You can get a nasty infection from something like this,” he said, gently probing the skin around the hook. His hands were big. Reddened calluses and small cuts marked his knuckles. “I’ll get it out. Buddy, sit,” Sean ordered the dog, who’d circled back, dragging his driftwood. Sean took a Swiss Army knife from his pocket.
“Whoa. Wait a minute!” I said, and swallowed. “What’re you going to do with that?”
Sean looped the fishing line next to the hook and cut it with a quick tug. “You’ve got half an inch of stainless steel buried in your hand, Delia. You can’t pull it back. The barb’s got to be pushed through.”
Revel Page 10