Island of the Forbidden (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

The moment Jessica's alarm chimed on the pillow just inches from her face, she felt the difference in the house. A palpable press of bodies surrounded her bed. She may not have been able to see them…yet, but she knew they were there as surely as she knew there was a bed beneath her.

Walking to the window, she became aware of the absence of something that should have filled any silence this time in the morning.

The air was devoid of birdsong.

“Even Tweety is steering clear now,” she said as she muscled the window open. The fire in her room had died while she slept. The air outside was refreshingly warmer.

We have to find out who these kids are, get their names. I have to get them away from here before Nina and Paul make an international spectacle of the place.

She could picture it easily, as the same process had happened with so many other reportedly haunted places around the world over the years, though she suspected very few had the type of EB manifestation that lingered on Ormsby Island. Eddie said Nina had some abilities, which meant she would be poking a hornet's nest. Paul and his little film crew would capture enough compelling footage to catch a producer's attention. Before they knew it, Ormsby Island would become a paranormal attraction like Waverly Hills or Houghton Mansion or the Whaley House. The place would be crawling with people anxious to catch a ghost on camera or audio. The children of Ormsby Island would never find peace. And through it all, Tobe, Paul and Daphne would ring in the profits.

Unless Daphne meant what she said yesterday.

Gathering her clothes and toiletry kit, she padded down the hall to the shared bathroom. The hot water was room temperature at best. She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a bath instead of a shower.

She toweled off, brushed her teeth, tied her hair back, put on a plain, long-sleeved shirt and slipped into a Cinderella
Long Cold Winter
tour T-shirt. It seemed apropos. There was a group that may have looked like a hair band but had the heart and boozy soul of hardcore bluesmen. On the way back to her room, she knocked on Eddie's door.

He surprised her by yanking it open, ready to go.

“You're up early,” she said.

He ran his fingers along the stubble of his scalp. “I don't sleep much anymore, so being up is a constant state of being. What's the first order of the day?”

She motioned for him to keep his voice down. “Shh. I think the kids are still asleep.”

Confusion creased his brows.

“The
living
kids,” she said.

He slapped his forehead. “Holy cow, how could that slip my mind?”

“It might be because your mind is overflowing with image of the EBs that are everywhere. I won't hold it against you.” She closed her door softly. “First, I'm starving. Let's go downstairs and forage. Later, we need to keep a close eye on Alice and Jason. I also need to find a way to get some alone time with Daphne. And we have to be real careful about staying out of Mitch and Rusty's line of fire. They can't show our faces because we won't sign releases, but I don't even want my elbow to be part of their bullshit.”

“All sounds simple enough.” As she walked to the stairway, he pulled her back with a light tug on her shoulder. “They're responding to you now.”

Turning to face him, she said, “Responding to me? What did I say?”

“The hallway was full of them. When you said we were going downstairs to eat, they started filing down the stairs.”

“They all took the stairs?”

Eddie nodded, his shining, gifted eyes watching the ghostly procession.

He said, “They don't want to be far from you, Jess. And I'm not entirely sure it's well intentioned.”

“Come to us,”
the voices whispered.

Every spare molecule of the children's room was taken by the trapped souls of the island. They watched Alice and Jason sleep, bundled under layers of blankets, mouths partly open, breathing evenly.

“Come to us and see.”

Alice stirred, turning to her side, a tiny groan escaping her lips.

“We can show you the bad man. Beware of the bad man
.
You have to come and see.”

The spirit children, the ones Alice and Jason called the Last Kids, waited patiently. They and the others had been very skilled at waiting. The waiting was fine when it was empty, timeless. Things were changing.

The bad man was back.

The bad man made them afraid. Because they knew that even in death, the bad man could do things to them. Sometimes, they could feel the things he'd done in the past—terrible things. The beating, how it hurt to be thrown in the pit, the awful smell that made their lungs close off, the whiff of sulfur, the burning.

Maybe this time, they could stop the bad man. Leaning closer to Alice, they said,
“Come and see. See the bad man. See the bad man.”

“Tobe, I want you to see if the boat is working this morning,” Daphe said as she and her husband sat on the back patio drinking tea.

He was dressed in a black suit with an overly starched white shirt and ebony tie. She thought he looked like a pallbearer and when she told him so, he'd only smiled. Then she remembered they were supposed to be on camera today and was disgusted by the persona he wanted to portray.

“Are we running out of supplies?” he asked.

She slammed the teacup onto the saucer. “I want to take our children away from here until everything is over. Don't you have the slightest bit of care?”

He calmly took a sip, regarding her for a chilling moment. “Dear, what do you think can happen to them? Ghosts can't harm you.”

“Tell that to Paul.”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, he replied, “Your brother has always been prone to hysterics. It's why he's perfect for this project of ours. That's right, I said
ours
. I don't remember you hesitating in the slightest as we put everything together.”

The truth of his words twisted in her, turned the hot tea to a surge of acid in her throat. “It's not the ghosts I'm concerned about. Jason and Alice will catch pneumonia if they're here much longer. Whatever is happening is getting beyond our expectations or control. For all I know, we should be calling in every university with a research division to study the island. This is more than just supernatural.”

Tobe collected their empty teacups. “Please, don't fall apart on me now. It's only for a few more days.” Walking back to the house, he stopped and looked back at her. “And I already tried starting the boat today. It still won't work.”

Daphne jumped from her chair so fast, it skittered across the flagstone, nearly tipping over. “What if it won't start days from now? We have no phone, no way to call for help. When Paul disconnected the landline, he must have pulled the cord too rough. Even that phone is useless to us now.”

He continued to the back door. “If worse comes to worst, I have a flare gun. The harbor is full of people this time of year. I hardly think we'll be stranded forever.”

Daphne's mind was beset with anger and worry. Sure, he could fire off as many flares as he wanted. When people saw they were coming from Ormsby Island, the very place the people of Charleston had spent decades wishing away, would anyone dare answer their call for help?

Jason and Alice ran by everyone as they exited the house, grabbing a couple of granola bars along the way.

“Where are you guys going?” Ms. Backman asked.

Forcing his legs to keep moving, Jason said, “Outside to play. We'll be back later.”

It was impossible to deny he had a crush on her. She wasn't just pretty. She was cool and smart and so different than any other adult he'd ever met. All he wanted to do was exist in her orbit, circling her like a loyal moon.

But Alice said they had to go and no matter how hard he tried to deny her, he'd caved.

“The Last Kids want to talk to us,” she'd said when they were getting ready.

“How do you know that?”

“They told me last night.”

“It was just a dream.”

“They came
into
my dream, but they were real.”

One look in her eyes told him there was no way of his convincing her it was all made up in her mind. From the moment they had moved here, she was the one who had bonded with the Last Kids. There were times he thought he could hear them, far away whispers on a rolling wind, but it could have just been people talking on their boats as they sailed past the island.

He might have dismissed it entirely if it wasn't for Alice, who was able to make sense of their murmuring. It was Alice who had led him to the small clearing off the path, under guidance from the Last Kids. She had even been the one to find the gravestones within the trees.

They came to the clearing, chests heaving from their sprint. The sun shined on the barren area like a spotlight. Whenever he came here, he expected to see coils of mist rising from the ground like a graveyard in the old horror movies he sometimes watched with Uncle Paul.

There was no mist, no writhing ghosts—just the warmth from the sun and the salty smell of the harbor.

“Are they here?” he asked, his voice low like the way he talked in the library. It was an involuntary reflex whenever he came here, an unspoken request for reverence from the land itself.

Alice looked around, her eyes wide and unblinking. “Yes.”

“Can you see them?” A part of him would be very jealous if she could hear and see them when he was left to fumble around, relying on her interpretations of their words.

“No. But I can hear them. I think they're all here.” Her head cocked to one side. “What?”

Jason said, “I didn't say anything.”

She shushed him with a finger pressed hard into her lips. “Not you.”

Alice knelt into the dead grass, listening intently. At times she would nod her head, smile, then look very, very serious.

For the first time since coming to Ormsby Island, Jason felt anxious about Alice's interaction with the Last Kids. He wondered what was being discussed. Judging by his sister's face, it wasn't good. Were they angry with them for bringing Ms. Backman and Mr. Home to this spot?

They'd once lived in a four hundred-year-old house in Edinburgh that was said to be haunted by the ghost of the original owner, a mean spirited man who had dedicated centuries to retaining his privacy. Their mother and father scoffed at the old stories and nothing had ever happened there to make anyone believe that a mean old phantom was prowling the house, chasing away all who dared lived within its confines.

It was Alice who'd told Jason that the old man was in fact a young boy. He didn't want to frighten people. He only wanted to play. So, at Alice's urging, they had included him when they played tag, daring him to catch them, set aside a piece for him at board games, and even read stories to him. They'd kept it secret from their parents. Jason had learned at a very young age that ghosts were not to be feared, but rather understood. And if you were lucky, as they were, befriended.

Ormsby Island was just like that house in Edinburgh, only on a grander scale.

But something had changed. Ever since Jessica and Eddie and Uncle Paul's friends and that weird woman Nina came onto the island, things were different. Jason was just beginning to sense a new
intent
,
though he had no way of confirming exactly what it could be.

“What are they saying?” he asked his sister.

Alice pushed her hair behind her ears. “They're all talking at once. It's hard to make out. But their voices are stronger. It's not just the Last Kids. There are other ones too. A lot of them. They keep saying
the bad man
.”

“Who's the bad man?” Jason's heartbeat quickened.

“I don't know. They want us to see the bad man. Come and see the bad man.” Alice grabbed her head. “It hurts.
They
hurt. I can feel their hurt.”

Jason shouted, “Stop hurting my sister! You're being mean.”

Alice held out her hands, “Wait, I can't hear you when you talk at the same time. We want to help you. Do you still want to be our friends?”

Jason got down on one knee beside Alice. He placed his hand in hers. She was trembling.

“Please, do what Alice says. Talk one at a time.”

She scrunched her eyes shut. “They won't listen.”

Her hand tightened around his own.

“If you don't stop, we'll leave,” Jason said. It was strange, talking to the air and trees, knowing the place was filled with the specters of the Last Kids.

What if Alice was imagining all of it? What if she had made up the boy in Edinburgh?
The thought of his sister being a liar, or worse, crazy, scared him.

Alice suddenly screamed, a high-pitched screech that startled him so much, he let go of her hand and fell onto his side.

A cyclone of wind stirred in the center of the clearing, picking up tufts of browned grass, twigs and pebbles of blackened dirt. Alice clasped her hands over her ears, shrieking until her voice began to falter.

The cyclone approached them. Jason jammed his hands under Alice's armpits and dragged her away, the back of her heels carving two irregular trails in the dirt. He tried to back into the small opening in the brush. It would be hard navigating through the narrow tunnel, but he had to get clear of the eddying mass of air and earth.

Alice was ripped from his grip.

One moment he could feel the heat from under her arms, hear her screams. The next, she was gone, pulled into the cyclone as if she weighed no more than a blade of grass.

“Alice!”

He couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, but he knew she was there, hidden in the eye of the swirling storm. This was no act of nature. The Last Kids were doing this to her, to them.