Island of the Forbidden (5 page)

Chapter Eight

Alice followed her older brother everywhere, and unlike other boys his age, he never seemed to mind. That made her very happy. Jason often said he wished they were twins.

“Why?” she once asked.

He bounded around the room in the clumsy way that always made her laugh. “If we were twins, we'd share the same thoughts and even have a language all our own. I read about it in a magazine in Dr. Lent's office.”

“We could always make up our own language,” Alice said.

“We could, but it would be hard. With twins, it just comes to them, I think.”

They didn't need a secret language to tell each other that from morning until night, they wanted to explore their new home, especially the woods outside. It wasn't much, but it was new and alien and in need of proper scouting.

Today was trench digging day by the water's edge. The idea was to carve a downward sloping canal from the water to a big rock embedded in the earth. Once they got the water to the rock, they would build waterways around it and beyond. When it was long enough, they could race leaves or paper boats or, in a pinch, even-sized twigs.

The dirt was damp and soft and easy to dig through. At one point, Alice came across an old canvas sneaker. Brushing the filth away, she read the logo aloud. “Jason, what are Pro Keds?”

He looked at the sneaker. “I don't know. I guess it's a kind of shoe old people used to wear.” He tossed it into the water. Treasure found, treasure lost.

After an hour, they'd made very good progress. They would have been further along if Jason hadn't insisted on making the canal so deep. Alice's arms were getting tired.

“Time out,” she called, dropping the rusted trowel she'd found behind the house and resting against the rock that came up to her hip. “I need to rest my arm.”

Jason remained on his knees, digging furiously. “You're such a girl.”

“
You're
such a girl,” she said, too tired to get into a proper row. Water from the harbor ran over Jason's hands as he reached in deep for another scoop of earth. He pulled up a struggling worm.

“Look Alice, breakfast.” He hung it over his open mouth. She knew he'd never eat it. She just hoped he was too engrossed in canal building to chase her around with it.

“I wish we had bigger shovels,” she said.

“I looked everywhere. We're lucky we have these.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I'm sure. If you don't believe me, go look for yourself.”

Jason had never been very good at finding things. He was too quick to give up the search, even for things he really wanted. There was always another place to go, another thing to see. She bet he barely looked in the dilapidated shed beyond the patio. It smelled like gasoline and old oil and something rotten. She didn't like the shed, but if it had a decent shovel, it would be worth a look.

“I will,” she said.

“Bring back two if you find any,” he said, eyes fixed to the task at hand.

Alice pushed off from the rock, turned and stopped.

Were those fireflies?

But it was late in the morning. Fireflies didn't come out until night. Dozens of tiny floating lights danced in the air.

“Jason,” Alice said.

“What?”

“Look.”

“Look at what?”

“Just come over here.”

With a heavy sigh, he dropped his trowel in the water.

One of his muddy hands gripped her shoulder.

“Alice, what are they?”

“I…I thought they were fireflies.”

They studied the pinpricks of light as they winked on and off.

Jason said, “They look like eyes.”

The lights made tight, agitated swirls. He was right. If she stared real hard, she thought she could see pupils. It was hard to be sure because they kept disappearing and reappearing.

“They can't be eyes. Eyes don't float around without heads and bodies,” Alice said.

“I know that. I'm just saying what I think they look like.”

She held out a hand, wondering if they would come closer.

The soundless lights crept closer, keeping a short distance from her hand. Pretty soon, the lights were all around them.

“It's so pretty,” Alice said.

“Shh,” Jason said.

“Why?”

“Do you hear voices?”

As the lights drew nearer, Alice thought she did hear voices—faraway voices, like a conversation heard from the deck of a departing ship.

What are they saying?

They listened as hard as they could, still marveling at the cocoon of light being spun around them.

Chapter Nine

Eddie stayed in the guestroom that night. Sitting on the bed, trying to immerse himself in Craig Johnson's latest
Longmire
mystery novel, he spotted a pale figure flit past the open doorway. It was late and he could hear Jessica snoring across the hall. Liam was in his room listening to music on his headphones, a dull, static buzz bleeding into the hallway.

He put the book down, leaning forward to see who it was. He watched the wispy woman pad down the hall silently, the curls at the end of her hair bobbing with each step. She wore a nightgown that ended just above her knee.

The woman walked down the hall,
through
the door leading to Eve's room, the master bedroom. Although she'd never revealed her face and he had no way of knowing what she looked like, he knew who the mysterious woman had to be.

Jessica's mother.

He waited, ready for her to come to him like metal filings to a magnet. Once souls detected his presence, knowing he could see and hear them, they always came. Whether it was to ask him to pass on a message, scream at him for interrupting them, ask him questions or just talk, they came.

She didn't.

It was like watching a video playback, a well-worn recording of something she did time and time again when she was alive; the simple act of changing and going to bed. Did he just witness the motions of her last night of life, the final moments before she lay down to sleep, never to wake up?

I have to tell Jessica.

His bare feet touched the carpet, and he paused.

What if I'm wrong? And what good will it do? She was mad at me before when I lost contact with her father. Where did you go, John Backman? Are you here too? Can you see your wife, or are you on separate planes?

Eddie considered using the meditative method he'd been taught at The Rhine Research Center to locate Jessica's father in the endless transom that was the afterlife. It had worked remarkably well years earlier, bonding them to the point where John Backman was able to guide Eddie to find his daughter and help her when she needed it most. Maybe being in the place where he planted the seeds of his family would strengthen his signal.

Don't interfere.

I'll only upset her. The last thing she needs before this trip is to be upset.

He pulled his legs back onto the bed, waiting for the woman to reemerge from Eve's bedroom.

He wondered how Eve would react if she knew she was sharing the room with Jessica's mother. Would it bring her comfort, or fear?

Best to keep it to yourself.

There were no other phantom visitors. In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any all day, ever since Jessica had picked him up.

He used to be so certain of his abilities; the head of the class who had the world on a string. Now, nothing made much sense.

Maybe, just maybe, he needed Jessica more than she needed him.

“Nah,” he said, picking up the
Longmire
book. He gave the door a slight nudge with his mind, shutting out the hallway.

“Let me pay you for the ticket,” Eddie said as they pulled into JFK Airport's long-term parking lot.

“They cost like nothing,” Jessica said. “It's no big deal, even if it was first class to Australia.”

“I just don't want people to think I'm a kept man,” he said with a wide grin.

“You can pay me back by carrying my bag.”

The skies were overcast and the air smelled damp with oncoming rain. She hoped it wouldn't delay the flight to Charlotte.

Taking the Air Train to the terminal, Eddie said, “It feels kind of weird, us heading out to help a family with their ghost—I mean EB problem.”

She stared out the window, watching cars come and go, walkways teeming with people dragging suitcases around.

I can't believe I'm doing this. Right back into the fire. But Eddie said there were kids. Kids who may have the same strange ability as me, only they're too young to understand.

The entire process from parking the car to getting on the plane was a stark reminder why she preferred to drive everywhere. Flying was for the criminally insane.

“You having separation anxiety from your Jeep yet?” Eddie asked as he clicked his seat belt.

“Are you in my frigging head?” she snapped, keeping her voice low. Her mind was her only sanctuary. Eddie, if he wanted to, could easily invade that private place. She'd warned him early on to steer clear under punishment of a fate worse than death.

He held up his hands. “No. I'm not that stupid. It's just weird going anywhere with you that doesn't involve that Jeep and blasting hair metal.”

She grabbed a copy of
People
from her carry on bag, snapping the pages open. “Sorry. I can never be sure with you.”

He leaned close enough for their shoulder to touch. “Actually, you can. I promised I would never go there, and I never will. Although it was nice to get the old piss-and-vinegar Jessica back, at least for a few seconds. I've been worried about how nice you've been to me.”

Eddie chuckled, tapping the on-screen menu mounted in the headrest in front of him, searching the available movies to watch on-demand.

“Don't push your luck,” she said, brushing past a worthless article on Brangelina.

“Must be getting soft in your old age,” he said under his breath. She saw his body tense in anticipation of the elbow jab she'd usually throw in his midsection. It was more fun to watch him flinch than to actually hit him.

“Keep it up,” she said. “Just because I decided to give you amnesty until this thing is over doesn't mean you're safe.”

The pilot made the announcement for the cabin crew to take their seats. Jessica tensed as the plane accelerated down the runway, offering up prayers to Jesus, Mary, her father and mother. She hadn't told Eddie this was her third flight since the one coming back from Alaska without her father when she was six-years old. As a child, flying meant losing someone you love.

She may have been older and wiser, but that didn't stop the fear and creeping sorrow from plaguing her thoughts as the plane banked over the Atlantic Ocean.

Chapter Ten

“All right, I've officially sweat through my underpants,” Eddie announced as they waited on the dock.

After landing, they had checked into a Marriott, dropped off their bags and took a taxi to the docks on the Charleston Harbor. The heat and humidity took their breath away.

“TMI,” Jessica said, crinkling her nose.

The waters of the harbor lapped against the pilings. It took an incredible amount of self-restraint not to jump in and cool off. Jessica had spent some time in Arizona in mid-May, and it was nothing like this. There wasn't a breeze to be felt for miles. The harbor was filled with small pleasure boats, the white-sailed boats having to resort to using their motors. A few small islands dotted the waters in the distance. A battered fishing boat—it had to be a fishing boat because it sure as hell smelled like one—gently rocked next to them.

They'd been told someone would come by to take them to Ormsby Island at three o'clock. It was now almost four and the sun felt like it was doing its damnedest to fry them like ants. It was not an auspicious start. Jessica was beginning to regret making the trip. Patience was never one of her strong points, especially when she was melting.

“If you want, I can go to the store over there and get us some cold bottles of water. Or better yet, a couple of forties,” Eddie said.

“That would make a great impression,” she laughed. “A couple of EB hunting, malt liquor swilling Yanks come to make the bad spirits go away.”

“Water it is.”

“Wait,” she said. A small speedboat cut through the harbor, throwing up plumes of white as it sliced toward the dock. “Maybe that's our ride.”

As the boat got closer, the man piloting it saw them and waved. He had long, wiry black hair on top
and
hanging from his chin. His beard wavered over his shoulder, buffeted by the wind. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans that had been cut off at the knees. He looked like he'd be more comfortable at a ZZ Top concert than at the helm of a speedboat.

He tossed Eddie a rope as the boat slid up to the dock.

“You must be Jessica and Eddie,” he said with a light southern accent.

“That's us,” she said.

“Sorry I'm so late. This old thing was giving me a hell of a time getting started. I was about to jump in the rowboat and fetch you.”

A big smile broke through the tangle of beard and heavy mustache.

“My name's Paul, Paul Dail. I'm Daphne Harper's brother.”

Paul held out a hand to help Jessica and Eddie into the boat.

“Nice to meet you Paul,” Jessica said, taking the cushioned seat he offered. Eddie shook his hand and nodded, nonchalant cool-guy style. She had to stifle a blossoming burst of laughter.

“Damn it's hot when you stop,” Paul said, wiping his face with a red bandana. “You want a cold one for the trip to the island?” He opened up a cooler. Several cans of beer sat atop a mound of inviting ice.

Eddie looked to her before making a commitment. It was good to see he remembered her rule about letting her take the lead when they were on an investigation. But if memory served her, he'd break those rules all to hell before the day was done. She reached into the cooler, savoring the kiss of ice against her skin, and pulled out a can of Budweiser. Eddie and Paul did the same.

“I was never big on lemonade or iced tea,” Paul said, popping the top. A trickle of foam ran down his hand. “Hang on to your beers and rears. We're going to catch more wind than wave.”

The engine thundered as Paul made a tight turn, headed to the center of the harbor.

He was right. He hit the throttle so hard, Jessica nearly flipped off her seat. Beer sloshed out of the can and onto her shirt.

Wonderful. Now I'll reek like a just rolled out of a bar.

She jammed the can in a cup holder, aggravated that Eddie had managed to keep his seat and his beer in the can or his mouth. Men and their beer.

“How far is it to Ormsby Island?” she asked, her voice raised to just below a shout.

“Oh, not far,” Paul replied. The speedboat skipped over the waves like a flat rock thrown by a major league pitcher. “It's a lot cooler there too. Lots of trees.”

“What's it like living on your own private island?” Eddie said. The sun had turned his newly exposed scalp a newborn hamster pink.

“I'm just visiting, helping my sister get the place in order. I'm more like the nanny.”

His comment took Jessica by surprise. Paul did not look the part of the nanny. Although, if his sister was Daphne Harper, the kids had to be his niece and nephew. Daphne had told her over the phone that they were nine and eleven years old, though which was the oldest she never did say.
He's probably a pretty fun uncle.

“Where do you live when you're not on the island?” she asked.

“I got an apartment in Greensboro. Been there a couple of years. I'm fixing to head down to Savannah next year. Just hoping my little windfall comes through so I can afford to make the move.”

The boat slammed through the wake of a passing pontoon boat. Jessica bit her tongue, hard.

“Sorry about that,” Paul said.

She looked over at Eddie. He had his head tilted back, enjoying the cool breeze and spray from the water. She had to admit, it felt a hundred times more tolerable out here zooming through the harbor.

“There she is,” Paul announced, pointing dead ahead.

Ormsby Island was a floating mass of tall trees, their broad trunks keeping prying eyes from penetrating the close-knit gloom. If there was a house—no, a mansion, she'd been told—the dense foliage kept it well hidden. From this distance, there was little evidence of habitation. Jessica had watched a show that dramatized what the developed world would look like if mankind were wiped off the face of the planet, allowing nature to reclaim her land. The island looked an awful lot like the depictions of suburban towns just a couple of decades after man had bitten the dust.

A row of empty docks, one of them little more than shattered timber, jutted out from the rocky shoreline. Paul slowed down, guzzled his beer and pitched it overboard.

Okay, so he's not eco-friendly.

“What happened to that dock?” Jessica asked.

Paul pointed at the wreck of water-rotted wood. “Hurricane. Somehow it only tore the heck out of that one, which I assume is the oldest, and the weakest. Over the years, I'm sure this whole island has taken a hell of a beating. You mind helping tie this bad boy to the dock?” he asked Eddie.

“Sure.”

Eddie grabbed the rope, nimbly clambering onto the wet boards. He looped it around a pylon and Paul cut the engine. He helped Jessica out of the boat.

“We'll just follow the path up to the house,” Paul said, striding past them.

“That looks crazy,” Jessica said softly to Eddie.

The path was a perfectly circular opening in the trees. It looked like the entrance to a dark, uninviting cave. It appeared natural and unnatural at the same time.

Eddie groaned. He reached out for her hand, coming to a sudden stop.

“What is it?” she asked. Paul was almost at the path's entrance. A frigid breeze washed over them, bringing goose bumps to her arms. It felt as if the island itself had blown an icy breath from the path's shadowy mouth.

She looked at Eddie. His eyes had narrowed to sharp slits. His jaw muscles flexed. The palm of his hand was suddenly cold and clammy.

His body's reaction could mean only one thing.

Leaning close, shaking off the chill that danced up her spine, she said, “Eddie, what do you see?”

They were waiting for them.

Eddie tried to count the shimmering wraiths, but they were packed as closely as the trees behind them.

Holy Christ, what's wrong with them?

Nothing looked right. Limbs were twisted, stunted and gnarled. Faces were morphing pools of mist. He couldn't get a clear vision of a single EB.

They gathered before the tree-lined path to the house, a gateway made of energetic essence. He reached out to them in an attempt to catch a stray thought or intention. Even though his own psychic barriers were thrown wide, nothing came inside. Their silence, as much as their bizarre appearance, was unsettling.

Twin daggers of pain lanced his temples.

He heard Jessica whisper something to him. “What do you see?”

Forcing his eyes open, he watched Paul walk through the ghostly throng, insensible to their presence.

“They're everywhere,” he said, sucking air through his teeth.

“What do you mean?”

He looked to the left of the docks, then the right. EBs of every size and shape dotted the shore.

“Jess, I've never seen so many spirits gathered in one place before other than an old battleground.” His mind drifted closer to the gathering in an attempt to latch onto brief snatches of information as one would skim the surface of a pool with a net. “They're all tied to the island. No visitors here.”

Jessica tugged his arm, urging him forward. “We better keep moving.” Then louder, she said, “We're coming, Paul.”

Eddie couldn't see the bearded man through the fog of EBs.

Each step was like pounding a nail into his skull, one tiny tap at a time. “There's so many kids,” he said low enough so only Jessica could hear. “We're going to walk right into them in two more steps.”

If it gave Jessica pause, he didn't sense it. Instead she seemed to pull him faster.

A frigid hand closed around his heart, freezing the ebb and flow of his blood.

Eddie gasped, overcome with the chill of a thousand deep, dark graves.

And just as suddenly as it came, his heart was set free. They were surrounded only by the pitch of the tight canopy above. The air inside the path was much cooler, bordering on cold.

He cast a quick glance behind them, but the rows of EBs were gone.

“It's just a little ways up this incline,” Paul said, oblivious not only to the spirits but Eddie's pained reaction.

“You all right?” Jessica asked as they walked along the uneven, overgrown earth.

He rubbed the right side of his head with his fingertips. “Yeah, the pain's going away. It was a bit overwhelming. We're going to have our work cut out for us.”

“I might just tell them to get their kids off the island and head back to New York.”

Leaves that had fallen years before crackled under their feet. It was going to take him some time to get used to the new Jessica. The girl he'd met three years earlier would have dived right in, ready to tackle any EB, no matter how terrifying. Now, it felt like she was taking this as a kind of consultancy, her mind already made up to offer the path of least resistance.

Flashes of light broke through the lush tree limbs.

“And here we are. Trust me, it's not as bad as it looks once you get inside,” Paul said, waving his hand across the view of the crumbling Colonial as if he were a model showcasing the prize on a game show.

The big old house looked as if it was dying of cancer. Whatever vibrancy it once contained had long ago turned to rot and…sickness. Yes, the house gave off an aura of malignancy.

“That's a big place,” Jessica said, stopping to take it all in from a slight distance. “Do you know how old it is?”

Paul scholarly tugged at the ends of his beard. “I think my brother-in-law told me the place was built around the mid-1800s. A small part of it burned down at the turn of the twentieth century and was rebuilt right away. I think it started from a spilled kerosene lamp. Happened a lot in places that didn't have electricity back in the day. It's that area to the right. Impossible to tell now. The outside looks equally bad no matter where you look. It has the same name as the island—the Ormsby House. The name alone makes it sound creepy. Probably what got people thinking it was haunted in the first place.”

“You don't think there are ghosts?” Jessica asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I've been here a couple weeks and haven't seen or heard a thing. I went to a couple of bars in Charleston and once I said where I was staying, I got enough ghost stories to fill a book. But none of the folks who told them have ever even been on the island. It's a bunch of ‘my grandmother told me about the time her mother was on Ormsby Island' stuff.”

Eddie's head finally felt clear. He said, “So you're the resident skeptic?”

Paul gave another one of his big smiles. “I guess you could say that. That's until you two can prove otherwise. Now my sister and brother-in-law, they believe it whole hog. It's why they bought this in the first place.”

Before Eddie could ask another question, Paul turned his back to them and resumed his trudge to the decaying mansion.

“It would make a lovely B&B,” Eddie joked.

Jessica didn't laugh. “Why bring their little kids to a creepy place like this if you think it's haunted?” Of course, her father had done the same thing to her when she was only six, so it wasn't as if she hadn't had experience with grown ups making poor decisions.

“Because they knew you were out there to make the ghosties go away. They get an island and a mansion on the cheap, and after a few days with you, it's all clear.”

“Yeah, but how the hell did they find out about me?”

He shook his head. “I don't know…yet, but I have my suspicions. Secrets that used to reside in my head have been…compromised. It's a long story. Better still, how the hell are you supposed to banish an entire island full of EBs?”

At the foot of the rotted steps, Jessica knelt down, fumbling in the high grass that had grown between the cracks of a narrow concrete strip along the foundation of the house. She picked up an old, glass hypodermic syringe, the inside crusted yellow with some long decayed substance.

“At least there's no needle,” she said. “Reminds me of the beaches back home.”