AllFreeNovel
Share Us
From what I can see, it’s a small fishing boat with a little motor that makes it undersized for Lake Superior, at least this far out. Does it belong to the people who staged this? They bought or rented this littleboat to sneak onto the island? Probably. All that matters now is that it’s ours. Our way back.
I’m almost to the bottom when I stop.
There’s something dark in the bottom of the boat. I squint down at a spot on the stern. A big dark patch.
I take two more steps along the ledge and then bend to peer down at the boat.
That’s not a black spot. It’s water. The boat is listing to one side, and the port side of the stern is filled with water. I climb down to the next ledge, and from that spot, there’s no mistaking what I’m seeing: a gaping hole in the metal. When I take yet another step, I can see it’s more than a hole. There’s a rip through the metal all along the port side, with a hole at the stern, as if someone tore along it with the giant can opener.
Rocks tumble down across from me, and I look up, expecting to see Kit having come down the opposite route. It’s just a squirrel, peering at me before racing back along the path.
I stand and look for Kit, but there’s no sign of him. Is he not down yet? Or did he already see what I did?
I turn around and trudge back up the bluff.
Another boat destroyed. Another way off the island gone.
I speculated that it belonged to the couple who staged this. But they wouldn’t trap themselves on this island.
Unless they didn’t mean to. What happened to my boats was catastrophic. This is a rip in the hull, the sort you get when you take a tiny metal boat too close to sharp rocks.
Any other time, I’d be chuckling at the irony of that. They trapped us… and got trapped with us. Right now, though, all I can think is that I’ve lost a chance to get to shore. What if it was damagedafterthey moored it? What if we’d found the boat sooner? What if I’d looked down when I’d been here in the wee hours of the morning?
I stop short at the top of the bluff. Something sways at the periphery of my vision, and it rockets me back to when I’d come up this hill and seen what looked like a wind chime on the gazebo. Tiny objects swirling on strings, clacking like bamboo wind chimes.
I catch the same motion, and I freeze, my heart hammering with the remembered horror of what I’d seen, that moment of revulsion and fear before my rational brain took over and said it was just feathers and animal bones.
Feathers and animal bones. That’s what I remind myself as I turn. If there is something there, that’s what it will be, and there mightnotbe anything. A trick of the light. Distant movement of branches behind the gazebo. There could be nothing—
There’s something there. In the exact same place where that macabre wind chime had hung. It’s another wind chime. Or it seems to be. The last had been constructed of perfectly sized branches, equally spaced and tied with red yarn. Now, knowing what we suspect, I picture Rachel Rossi—or her assistant, more likely—sitting at a desk with a pile of supplies from the nearest craft store, constructing the perfect “outdoorsy” wind chime frame, and then adding the bones to make it appropriately spooky.
This one is different. This one looks like it was made by a kid at summer camp, forced to participate in the daily craft, slapping together something that vaguely approximates a wind chime frame. Randomly sized sticks, still shaggy with tree bark, lashed haphazardly together.
John and Rachel, stranded on my damn island, frantically trying to use the time to scare us even more, forced to build with whatever they have at hand. The “string” hanging from each arm of the chime looks like… kelp? It’s thick and white.
As for what they used as chimes… Minnows? Or at least the ones I can see from this angle seem to be minnows. Long and thin and pale. On the far side, they’ve strung something heavier, making the whole thing tilt, weighed down.
I shake my head. Is that supposed to scare me? Fish tied to seaweed? It makes me wonder whether Sadie isn’t the only one who bumped her head.
I continue on, not bothering to get closer to the gazebo. I don’t need a closer look at that wind chime. I need to get Kit up here and tell him about the man I saw and decide what to do. If it’s John Sinclair and he’s actually hurt, I don’t give a shit. If it’s Dr. Abbas, that’s a whole different thing.
I jog to the main path down to my cove. There’s no sign of Kit. I frown and peer over the side, where I can see the entire route. He isn’t there.
I pause and look around. Where else would he have gone?
I haven’t seen him since he disappeared heading up toward the gazebo, when I presumed he headed down the other bluff path. I haven’t heard him either. The wind whips around me, but it’s not so loud that I shouldn’t have heard him make a sound—or that he wouldn’t have heard me.
“Kit?” I say. Then, louder, “Kit!”
The wind seems to slide across the back of my neck, ice cold. I hear Sadie’s voice earlier, saying she’d seen Kit outside her window last night, that he’d beckoned her down, motioned for her to leave with him. I remember Kit’s bewilderment. That wasn’t him. I know it wasn’t him.
So what didIjust see?
Kit leading me up here, onto this bluff, toward the gazebo.
Leading me away from the house.
I whirl and run. I get two steps before movement flickers to my right. It’s the wind chimes. The damned—
