The Tale of Halcyon Crane (4 page)

“
SOUL CAPTURER
”
DIES OF HEART ATTACK

Photographer Madlyn Crane died in her home on Grand Manitou Island on Thursday of an apparent heart attack, said William Archer, Ms. Crane’s attorney.

In four decades as one of this nation’s preeminent photographers, Ms. Crane shot travel pieces, newsmakers and landscapes, but she was best known for her haunting portraits. Whether she was shooting celebrities for a magazine layout, people she met on her travels, or animals, Ms. Crane had a reputation for illuminating a subject’s inner being, thus earning her the nickname of “Soul Capturer,” which, as it happens, was also the title of one of her books. As her
wendy webb fame grew, many celebrities refused to allow Ms. Crane to photograph them during times of personal strife or distress, for fear of showing too much to Ms. Crane’s eerily penetrating eye.

Ms. Crane leaves no survivors.

“Apparently, she did,” I said to myself. I retrieved William Archer’s letter from the drawer in the kitchen where I had stuffed it and dialed the number on the letterhead. I’d only reach his voice mail at this late hour, but I wanted to call immediately, while I still had the nerve to set something in motion that I might think better of in the light of day.

“This is Hallie James,” I said, to Mr. Archer’s machine. “I got your package, and I’m calling to let you know I plan to travel to Grand Manitou Island on Monday. Please get in touch with me tomorrow to confirm the date.”

I put the phone down and sighed in the darkness of my kitchen. And then I crept up to my empty bed, where I tossed and turned all night long. The next morning, early, the phone rang.

“Is this Miss James?”

“I can’t remember the last time anyone called me that, but yes.” I smiled into the receiver. “I’m Hallie.”

“Hallie, I’m William Archer,” he said. “I’m calling about your visit to this island next week. I was very well acquainted with Madlyn, and I want to assure you that everything you say to me will be kept in the strictest confidence.”

“Thank you, but I’m not sure—” He interrupted me.

“If I may? A couple of factors are in play here that I suggest would best be discussed in person, when you arrive. Suffice it
to say that one of them is Miss Crane’s sizable estate and the other is the rather delicate nature of—well, if I may be blunt here—your actual existence.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” I began to get a knot in my stomach. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Hallie, I’m aware of the fact that you’re Madlyn’s daughter. But nobody else on the island knows, not to my knowledge anyway. That’s because certain events surrounded your . . . departure so many years ago. I was just a child myself when it happened, but the circumstances are well known here.”

Well known? “Can you tell me more? I feel like I’m totally in the dark.”

“It’s better spoken of in person,” he said quickly. “I’m only bringing it up now because of the fact that you and your father are alive—”

I interrupted, choking on the words. “My father passed away. His funeral was yesterday.”

“Oh.” Silence for a moment. “I’m so sorry for your loss, and for . . . well, the timing couldn’t be worse. I thought it was difficult when Madlyn died before she contacted you. But your dad dying, too? This puts a whole new level of awful into the mix.”

His kindness touched me. “I’m getting through it,” I said, fighting back the tears. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger; isn’t that what they say?”

“I’ve always thought that was a load of crap,” he said softly. It made me smile. “Are you sure you want to come here now? The island isn’t going anywhere. We can wait.”

“I think it’ll do me good,” I told him, understanding fully for the first time myself. “Getting away, seeing a new place.
It’ll take my mind off the emptiness that has settled around me here.”

“Okay, then,” he said. “But I need to ask one thing. Please wait until you speak with me before divulging the true nature of your visit to anyone here on the island. Believe me, it’ll be easier that way. You don’t want to be answering questions before you have all the facts.” He went on to give me a list of practical things I should pack for my visit—sweaters, jeans, hiking boots, a warm waterproof coat—and even offered to make reservations for me on the ferry and at a local inn. “I’ll have you picked up at the ferry dock as well.”

And it was done. I was really going. “Thank you, Mr. Archer. I appreciate everything you’re doing on my behalf.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing you on Monday,” he said, and I hung up the phone.

I stood there holding the receiver for a few moments, wondering what I had just talked myself into. I hadn’t noticed Richard standing behind me.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and pouring some steaming coffee into a mug.

I opened the refrigerator and handed him the skim milk. “Sugar’s in the tin on the counter.”

“Nice deflection, but I asked you a question.” He smiled as he stirred his coffee. “You’re going to Grand Manitou Island, aren’t you?”

I poured myself a cup and sank into a chair at the table. “I’m flying out on Monday,” I admitted.

“Are you sure that’s wise right now? After all you’ve been through? She’s not there anymore, Hallie.”

“I know that. But she lived there all these years.
I
lived
there, Richard; so did my dad. Maybe . . .” I didn’t know what else to say. The truth was, I wasn’t quite sure why I was going.

He reached across the table and took my hand. “If you’re determined to do this, I’ll go with you. I can change my plans.”

“It’s tempting.” I smiled at him, wanting what I knew I couldn’t have. “But I think I need to do this alone. I have no idea who I really am, Rich. Everything I was told about my childhood has been a lie. Maybe this trip will help me find out the truth. I won’t ever meet my mother, but by going to the place where she lived, I’ll get to know her a little. I’ll see her house and her town and where she bought her groceries. I’ll walk the streets she walked and meet her friends. I know it’s not much, but it’s something.”

He took a long sip of coffee, looking at me over the rim with concern in his eyes.

“There’s another reason for me to go,” I went on. “What was so terrible about our life with Madlyn Crane on Grand Manitou Island that pushed Dad to take me away and move all the way out here? There may still be some people on the island who know. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Richard warned, wagging a finger at me. “You might not like what you unearth. Whatever the reason was, it’s not going to be pleasant.”

I sighed. “It might not be pleasant, but at least it will be the truth.”

It sounded convincing enough, but the tightness in my stomach told me I wasn’t so sure this was the right thing to do. And as I stirred my coffee, I thought I saw storm clouds forming in the cup.

A
fter an exhausting day of travel—two hours of driving with Richard to the airport in Seattle, the long flight to Minneapolis, the white-knuckle ride on a puddle jumper to Saint Barnabas, a small mainland town across the lake from Grand Manitou, and finally the taxi to the ferry dock—I arrived with just moments to spare. As soon as the ferry shoved off, I stumbled out onto the deck to get a whiff of Great Lakes air, but the icy burst of spray hitting my cheeks made me wish that I hadn’t. I held on tight to the railing as the boat dipped and tossed from side to side. As I was inching my way back toward the cabin, something in the distance caught my eye.

A wide expanse of open water lay ahead, but as the ferry turned, the island appeared, seeming to rise from beneath the surface of the lake. It looked like a great turtle’s nose poking into the air above the waterline, followed by the hump of its shell. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, cells that hadn’t been called upon in decades sputtered and choked at the sight. Yes, I had seen this before, been here before. I couldn’t quite capture the full memory, though. It hung just
out of reach, like a carrot in front of a horse, drawing me forward.

“Miss?” I turned and saw a man in uniform, his gray hair blowing in the stiff wind. His weathered face spoke of years of exposure to the elements, but kindness radiated from his eyes. “Why don’t you come up into the pilothouse? Your bags are safe here. The view from there is just as clear and you won’t be so cold.”

A very good idea. I followed him upstairs.

“We don’t get many tourists this time of year,” he began, as he ushered me into the cramped cabin, looking at me too hard, too long. I pulled my purse into my lap and encircled it with my arms as I settled into one of the high chairs.

“I’m not a tourist. Not exactly.” He waited for me to continue. “I’m seeing William Archer on a legal matter.” It was, in fact, the truth.

“Ah. Good lawyer, that one.”

He stroked his beard and looked at me deeply. There was that uncomfortable feeling again. One thing I didn’t want, as the only woman on this ferry in the middle of an angry lake, was to be the object of intense interest. This captain seemed nice enough, but I had no idea who he was.

“You know I won’t be making a return run to the island until Friday?”

I nodded. “I’ve planned to stay until then.”

“First time on the island?” He turned his gaze out toward the water.

“No,” I replied, fidgeting in my chair. “I was there as a child, but I don’t remember much about it. I’m anxious to look around. Again.”

He smiled, finally. “It’s a beautiful place. Pity you couldn’t have seen it in summer, with everything in bloom. Tourists flock to Grand Manitou in the spring and summer, but after Halloween things die down considerably. Do you know why they call it Grand Manitou?”

“It’s got to be a Native American word, right?”

He nodded. “Means
great spirit
. They believed that the Great Spirit himself, the creator, lived here. This was the gateway into his world.”

“Sort of like the Mount Olympus of the Great Lakes?”

“Something like that, yes.” He chuckled. Then he pointed out the window. “Look, you can see the town coming into view now.”

We chugged slowly past the shoreline. Even though I had seen photographs of this place and read about it in a guidebook, I was not prepared for what I saw: Enormous Victorian-era houses with grand front porches and turreted roofs lined a high cliff that gave way to a rocky shore. Each house was more magnificent than the next, each porch larger, each yard more meticulously manicured.

“Before the turn of the last century, wealthy people from Chicago and Detroit and Minneapolis built these ‘shacks’ as vacation homes,” my de facto tour guide told me. I had the feeling he had given this speech many times before. “They came for the clean air and the cool summers.”

I couldn’t imagine having the kind of money it would take to build one of those grand homes at all, let alone as a summer place. “Are these houses mostly inns now?” William Archer had made arrangements for me to stay in one of the island inns. Perhaps it was one of the houses I was seeing.

“Some of them are,” he told me, nodding, “but some are still in private hands.”

The captain took the helm then, guiding the ferry into the dock. I prepared to gather up my bags, wondering what I would find when I set foot in my mother’s world.

“Is Will meeting you at the dock, then, miss, or are you needing a ride?” the captain wanted to know. “I can arrange a cab for you before shoving offfor the mainland.”

“Thank you so much for the offer, but Mr. Archer is sending a car for me,” I called over my shoulder, dragging my heavy bags down the ramp and onto the dock as the ferry workers scrambled to unload the rest of the cargo. I noticed that several people, along with horses pulling flat wagons, had arrived to pick up food deliveries, mail, and other supplies brought by this twice-weekly ferry. It struck me as odd: horses? Then I remembered. I had read in the guidebook that—like its counterpart, Mackinac Island—Grand Manitou did not allow motorized vehicles, with the exception of an ambulance and a fire truck or two for emergencies. Tourists parked their cars at the mainland ferry dock and got around the island either on bikes, on foot, or in horse-drawn carriages that served as taxis. Residents did the same. Even the police were on horseback.

The gray November sky hung low and the wind swirled around me, so I buttoned my jacket all the way up to the neck to ward off the chill. An unsettling emptiness permeated the air. Apart from the bustle of the ferry dock, I didn’t see another soul. I looked up and down the main street but heard no sound—no cars backfiring, no radios blaring, no people talking—only the wind whispering in my ears. Used to city noises as I was, it seemed deathly quiet.

This was the town where I was born, where I lived until I was five years old, and yet nothing seemed familiar. Both sides of the street were lined with buildings, some wooden and painted in bright colors, others red brick, none more than two stories high. A slightly raised wooden sidewalk ran in front of all the buildings as far as I could see. Colorful shingles swayed in the wind, advertising the businesses, many of them no doubt closed for the season: a fudge shop, an ice-cream parlor, a bakery. Like a movie set, nothing was amiss; there was no garbage on the street, no paint peeling from the walls of any of the buildings, nothing faded or bleak, only the perfection that might result from careful stagehands touching up the entire town between scenes. It was like Main Street at Disney World come to life—old-fashioned, idyllic, quaint.