The Bungalow (24 page)

I shone the lantern farther down the path.
It has to be close. Just a few more steps, perhaps.
A snake slithered by, too near for my liking, and I gasped, taking an exaggerated step back, before continuing on.
Keep going, Anne.
I looked back toward the beach and tried to mentally calculate the distance the knife may have traveled. I eyed a large palm to my left, moving my search there. It had to be near.

But after several more minutes I wondered if the jungle may have swallowed up the knife, a coconspirator in the gruesome crime. I leaned against the palm and set my lantern down, and when I did, it made a little clinking sound.

I knelt down and immediately noticed a familiar shimmer of metal. My hands trembled as I pulled the bloodied knife from its hideaway in the soil. I inched the lantern closer to read the inscription on the army green handle:
Unit #432; Issue #098
.

“Anne? Anne, where are you?”

Westry’s voice filtered through the thicket.
How long have I been gone? What would he think of me searching for the knife like this, especially after I promised to trust him?

“Anne?” His voice was nearer now. I reached down to the edge of my dress and ripped off a piece of the light blue linen fabric. Quickly, I wrapped the knife inside, then dug a little crevice with my bare hands, deep enough for adequate protection, tucking the blade inside. I covered it with dirt and a pile of leaves before standing up, just as Westry approached.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “What are you doing out here? I was worried.”

“Just thinking,” I said, brushing off my dirt-stained hands on the back of my dress.

“Come on,” he said. “I know this has been a hard night, but we need to”—he paused to find the right words—“see this through.”

I nodded and followed him back toward the makeshift grave, where I waited while Westry went to get Atea. He returned with her in his arms, and tears streamed down my face again at the sight.

He set her body inside the hole, and we both stared in silence. After a few minutes, Westry reached for the shovel, but I pulled his arm back. “Not yet,” I said.

I picked three pink plumeria blossoms from the nearby tree, then knelt at Atea’s grave. “She deserves flowers,” I said, without looking away from her face.

I scattered the blooms across her body, then looked away as Westry began shoveling the earth over her. I couldn’t watch, but I forced myself to stay until he finished. We walked back to camp in silence, for our world had changed—forever, perhaps.

It was close to three when I snuck into the room that morning. Kitty didn’t stir, and with a ripped, blood-and-dirt-stained dress, I was glad of that. I slipped off my clothes, tucking them into the wastebasket, then pulled a nightgown over my head and crawled into bed. Sleep didn’t come, though. I knew we hadn’t committed a crime, but I was plagued with the horrible and yet very real fear that we were guilty.

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of a fist pounding on my door. I sat up in bed, disoriented, and glanced over at Kitty’s bed, which was neatly made. I covered my face when the bright light from the window hit my eyes.
What time is it?

The pounding at the door persisted. “Yes, I’ll be there in a minute,” I muttered, stepping one foot out of bed and then the other, stumbling to the door. Stella stood outside, with a disapproving frown.

“Anne, look at you,” she said. “Asleep at half past eleven? Nurse Hildebrand is fuming. She sent me up to find you. Your shift started at eight.”

I peered at the little alarm clock on my bedside table. “Oh my,” I said. “I can’t believe I slept this late.”

Stella smirked. “Must have been some night.” She gave me the once-over, and her eyes paused at my hands. “What were you doing—making mud pies?”

I looked down at my dirt-caked nails and hid them self-consciously in the folds of my nightgown. As I did, the memories of the night before came swirling back. The murder. The knife. The cover-up. Westry’s words of caution. I hoped Stella couldn’t see the goose bumps that had broken out on my arms.

“Please tell Nurse Hildebrand that I’ll be over just as soon as I can dress,” I said.

“And wash,” added Stella, grinning accusatorily before walking away.

I nodded. “Stell!” I called out to the hallway after her.

“Yes?” she said, turning back to the door.

“Why didn’t Kitty come wake me?”

“I wondered that too,” she said, her voice free from sarcasm, rare for Stella. “Something’s not quite right about her. It’s like she’s—”

“Like she’s not my friend anymore?” I said. The words felt like grenades hitting my tired heart.

Stella put her hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, hon,” she said. “I’m sure whatever it is will blow over soon.”

I hoped she was right.

Ever since Kitty had given birth, she and Nurse Hildebrand had struck up an unlikely friendship. Kitty would often stay late in the infirmary to help our superior with special projects, and her name was always first on the list when a special assignment or patient needed tending to.

It was good to see Kitty excelling in her work. It was what she’d wanted for her life, after all. And here, she could do something of meaning. Yet the more she poured herself into nursing, the more distant she became.

Such a division would have felt more pronounced at home, in Seattle, but in a war zone, we could push it aside and let the fighting, the news, the misery muffle our personal problems.

“Liz heard from a corporal down at the docks that things are heating up again out in the Pacific,” I said to Kitty that night at dinner. We talked about little else besides the war.

“Oh?” she replied, without looking up from the book in her hands.

“Do you think we’ll have a few busy shifts ahead?” I asked, hating the formality of our exchange.

“I suppose,” Kitty said, yawning. “Well, I better be off. I’m working on a project for Nurse Hildebrand. I’ll be in the infirmary.”

I spotted Westry on the other side of the mess hall, laughing with Ted and a few other men.
How can he be so calm, so jovial, after what we went through just hours before?

I carried my tray to the kitchen, and waited for him outside on the path.

“Hi,” he said when his eyes met mine. We walked a few paces together, toward the marina. “How are you doing?” he whispered when the other men were out of earshot.

“Not good,” I said. “I keep having memories from last night and praying that it was only a nightmare. Westry, tell me it was all a nightmare.”

He pulled my head close to his. “I wish I could.”

“Have you seen Lance?” I whispered.

“No,” he said, looking around uncomfortably. “Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“He shipped out this morning, on a special mission with a dozen others.”

“Sounds to me like he’s running away,” I huffed.

Westry looked uncomfortable. “We can’t talk about this anymore,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

I nodded, remembering Liz’s paranoia. Convinced that the base could be littered with hidden recording devices, she chose to share secrets only in the barracks, and usually only in the bathrooms. “Will I see you tonight at the bungalow?”

Westry rubbed his forehead. “I wish I could, but I’m working later tonight, and after last night . . . I guess I could use the solitude.”

Solitude?
The word pierced me like an arrow.

“Oh,” I said, visibly hurt.

Westry tried to lighten the moment with a smile. “I only mean that we’re both operating on such little sleep, it would make sense to turn in early.”

“You’re right,” I said, still smarting.

“Besides,” he said, “are you really ready to go back there, after—after all that’s happened?”

Yes, horror had infiltrated our private world, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Westry was giving up on the bungalow, on us.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I know that what we had there was beautiful, and I don’t want to lose it.”

“Neither do I,” he said.

It was a week before I stepped foot in the bungalow, and I did so alone. Westry had joined some of the men on a construction project on the other side of the island. He’d been vague about when he’d return. But as the days ebbed on, I felt the bungalow calling me, drawing me back, and after a particularly long shift in the infirmary, where the women spent most of it huddled over a tiny radio listening to the latest on the fight in the Pacific, I succumbed to its call.

It was dusk when I set out for the beach, and I clutched my locket as I made my way up the shore. I pushed past the brush, but took a step back when my eyes detected a figure sitting on the steps of the bungalow.

“Who’s there?” I called out.

Someone stood and began to walk toward me. With each step forward, I took a step back.

“Who is it?” I cried, wishing I’d brought a lantern. But as the figure moved out into the open, the moonlight shone down. It was Tita.

“Anne,” she said.

What is she doing here? Looking for Atea, no doubt.
My heart pounded.
What will I tell her?

The old woman’s face looked tired and anguished.

“Would you like to come in?” I said, gesturing to the bungalow.

She looked at the hut with eyes that told me she’d been inside, perhaps a long time ago. She shook her head. “Maybe you don’t remember what I told you about this place,” she muttered. “It’s cursed.” She pointed to the beach ahead and began walking out of the thicket. I followed, unsure of what was in store.

“Sit,” she said, gesturing at a spot not far from where Atea had clung to life. I was grateful that the waves had washed away the bloodstained sand.

We sat in silence for a few minutes until Tita finally spoke. “I know she is gone,” she said.

Unsure of how to respond, I kept looking out at the surf, letting the soothing ebb and flow of the waves numb my heartache.

“I warned you,” she said, scowling. “This place is evil. It’s no good. And now it took my Atea, our Atea. She was special, you know.”

I tried in vain to stop the tears from coming, but they seeped from my lids of their own accord. “Oh, Tita,” I cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hush,” the old woman said, standing. “What’s done is done. Now it is your duty to make justice.”

I watched, bewildered, as she made her way toward the jungle.

“Tita,” I said. “Please, Tita, wait. You’re wrong. If you think that I, that we—”

“Justice,” she said, turning toward me a final time, “is the only way you will ever break the curse.”

I watched her walk into the thicket until the jungle seemed to swallow her whole. I sighed and collapsed onto the sand, wrapping my arms around my knees the way I’d done as a girl after a scolding from Mother. Lance wasn’t on the island, at least for now, and there hadn’t been any Japanese flyovers in months. So why did I sense evil lurking? I thought about the knife, stained with Atea’s blood, buried a few hundred feet away, safely wrapped in the swatch of fabric from my dress. No one knew it was there but me. I could retrieve it as evidence. I could seek justice, just as Tita had urged me to. But how could I ignore Westry’s convictions?