Revel (14 page)
“No way,” Sean said, and folded his arms. “That’s cheating.”
“Well, that’s me all over.” I grinned up at him. “A hardened criminal in the fraudulent-wishing department. Sometimes I even make two when I blow out the candles.”
He smiled at me, and suddenly he looked like a cute guy again. Not like someone carrying a world of worry on his shoulders. “Maybe you shouldn’t have come here,” he said quietly. “But I’m glad you did.”
T
he next day was the funeral service for the dead man. As if to be ironic about it, the weather turned beautiful. Blue skies twinkled overhead and the air smelled wonderful, like the whole island had been washed and tumble-dried with wildflower dryer sheets. Gran and I walked to the island’s small cemetery, located on a grassy windswept hilltop and enclosed by a black iron gate.
In the center of the graveyard, one monument stood above the others, a solid pillar of silvery granite about eight feet high. The top was carved with strange symbols. Some were the same as those I’d seen on the dock and in the village.
Now I realized it wasn’t a pitchfork at all, but a trident.
Poseidon’s symbol
.
The brass plaque on the monument read:
BELOVED SONS OF TRESPASS. MAY THEIR SACRIFICE ALWAYS BE HONORED
. Names
carved into the stone ran in three columns next to dates, beginning in the 1700s. Many of the last names repeated again and again: Tremblay, Briggs, Vincent. And Sean’s name. Gunn. The name Gunn was listed four times. The last one, Jacob Gunn, was dated two years ago. That must have been Sean’s father.
“Were these all fishermen?” I asked Gran.
She nodded. “Most. The monument honors those lost at sea.”
“They all drowned?” I couldn’t help but think of those terrifying moments I’d experienced beneath the water. That suffocating press of darkness all around me.
Gran gave a shake of her head. “A fisherman never says that. Nope. Not drowned.” She pressed a freckled hand to the granite monument where
Charles McGovern
was engraved. “They’re lost at sea,” she said quietly.
The ticket agent’s grave was marked by freshly mounded dirt and a cross made of two pieces of driftwood nailed together. We took our places and watched as people filed in for the service. Some were the same faces I had seen down at the dock, and some were new. But everyone still gave me the same curious looks.
Zuzu arrived, dressed in a long wisp of a black dress with pieces of gauzy material trailing on the ground. Her hands were clasped demurely before her. She came and stood next to me. Ben Deare arrived wearing a faded blue suit. His baseball cap was gone, and in its place was an old-fashioned-looking blue seaman’s cap tucked beneath his uninjured arm.
Sean was there, on the other side of the fresh grave, looking uncomfortable in a button-down shirt with the collar too tight. He kept shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking at me as if he wanted to tell me something, but each time I caught his eye he looked away.
Well, come over and talk to me already
. But he didn’t.
When everyone had gathered, Ed Barney, the mayor, cleared his throat and began to speak in his rapid-fire voice. The solemnity of the occasion didn’t seem to slow him down any. “We’re gathered here to mourn the loss of … this fella, Richard. Even though none of us knew him. And he had no business here. But we don’t hold anything against him.” Barney took out a small, worn Bible from his pocket, licked a thumb and leafed through the pages.
“ ‘There is a time for everything,’ ” he read. “ ‘And a season for every activity under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die …’ ” As the mayor’s voice ran on, I looked at the faces around me.
No one seemed upset. Granted, nobody knew the man, so I didn’t expect anyone to be crying or anything, but still. The way he died was pretty extraordinary. It made me sick to think that it could have been my fault. But why wasn’t anyone talking about it? Wasn’t anyone the least bit freaked out? I was; I’d hardly slept last night, and even though the air was warm I’d closed and locked my window, trying to silence the endless whispering of the waves outside.
Ed Barney closed his Bible. “Right. Amen.”
“Amen,” responded the assembled islanders.
“Lots of unexpected things happening,” Ed announced, looking around. “But no need to be afraid. We got to stick to our ways. Be vigilant.” His gaze swiveled to me.
“What about Revel?” a woman from the crowd called out. “Will we still have Revel?”
“Course we will,” answered Mayor Ed with a brisk smile. “It’s more important than ever to keep up our traditions. We’ll celebrate Revel together, just like always.”
“And what about her?” a quiet voice asked.
I turned to see who’d spoken. It was Sophia Clark, the woman from the beach. Her sad, deep-set eyes were fixed on me.
“Delia’s one of us now,” Gran said, putting her arm around my shoulders. Her voice was loud against the eerie quiet of the graveyard. No one seemed ready to argue the point. But they didn’t seem too happy about it either.
One of us
.
It would take more than Gran and a few of the younger people welcoming me to become part of Trespass. Over the next few days, whenever I walked to the center of the village, laughter stopped, voices quieted to murmurs, and people who’d been sitting in rockers on front porches suddenly needed to step inside. I was still a stranger and got only aloof courtesy from most of the islanders. Gran insisted that I shouldn’t worry about it.
“Folks on this island are just private, that’s all,” she said. Her big hands worked on a piece of counted cross-stitch of ducks and geese carrying a banner:
Welcome to Our Home
. It was so sweet.
“Besides that,” she went on, “they’re a superstitious bunch. You came and trouble followed with that mainland fella. It’ll take time for them to forget.” Gran squinted and poked the needle through. “Give ’em a few years. They’ll warm right up to you.”
I sighed, waiting for her to smile at her own joke. But she didn’t. Great.
“According to Zuzu, people haven’t forgotten about Mom’s leaving Trespass. She said they consider her a traitor.”
“That’s just talk, Delia. Pay it no mind. Your mother had her reasons for leaving.”
From what I’d seen she must have had a million. But I was curious to know what finally convinced my mother to leave this place.
Sean Gunn and his mom, Sally, were the closest neighbors to us. Sean stopped by sometimes, especially in the evenings after he’d finished work, but his mother never did. Gran said she was in poor health from rheumatoid arthritis. Gran often sent a special herbal tea over for her.
“We have to make do with what we have here,” she said. “I make cough syrups, poultices, sleeping medicines from the
herbs we grow.” She shook her head. “But Sean insists on paying for some fancy medicine from the mainland. Doesn’t do any better than willow bark tea, if you ask me.”
One Saturday morning when it was raining hard, I put on a slicker and brought the tea over for Sean’s mother.
When Sean opened the door, he looked surprised and almost uncomfortable to see me standing there on the porch.
“Um. Come on in,” he said, leading me into a sparely furnished living room.
Sally Gunn was a thin woman who looked to be in her forties. She had Sean’s blond hair and brown eyes but a small, pinched mouth. She was dressed in a thin cotton housecoat and sat on a rocking chair in their living room next to a large bay window that looked down to the sea.
“What’s happened? Who are you?” she asked me nervously. She made no move to stand and I noticed that she wore large black shoes with thick soles and had a metal brace on one ankle.
Sean picked up the plaid blanket and arranged it over her lap. “This is Delia, Ma. She’s Maisie’s granddaughter. She brought your tea.”
“Oh.” She looked from me back up at Sean. “Thanks, honey,” she murmured.
“Have you taken your pills today?”
“Pills?” she repeated, furrowing her brow. “Oh, Sean. I don’t think I need those pills every day.” She took her hands from beneath the blanket and laid them on her lap before her.
Sally Gunn’s hands hardly looked human. The joints of her fingers were red, swollen knobs, and her wrists were twisted sideways so badly they looked like broken claws. “Grammy never took a pill in her life except aspirin,” she said. “And she did all right.”
She gave Sean a worried look. “And I don’t want you to get into any trouble, getting things like that. From away.”
“Hey. Stop worrying. Didn’t I tell you that you’re going to have everything you need?” said Sean. “Everything is going great.” He motioned for me to follow him.
“She hasn’t been the same since my dad died,” said Sean in a low voice as he put a kettle of water on the stove. “Just sits by that window, watching like she thinks he’s going to come back or something.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “How did your father …?”
“His boat wrecked in a storm November before last. I’ve been trying to keep things going.” Sean blew out a frustrated breath and took a mug from the shelf. “Man. Looking back now, I don’t know how he did what he did.” He spooned some of the loose tea into a small strainer and set it on top of the mug.
“You have an awful lot to handle,” I said.
Sean looked at me and smiled. His deep-set brown eyes were warm and friendly. “Don’t worry. Things are gonna get better.”
It was a good attitude. I only wished I could be half as confident about my future here on the island.
In some ways life was very quiet. Just as Zuzu and Reilly said, everyone on Trespass Island was expected to work to support the community. A lot of people worked on the fishing boats or at Gunn’s, shelling and packing lobster meat. Repairing nets and lobster traps was a full-time occupation for many of the islanders, as was raising animals for milk and meat. Many of the women went out at low tide to dig for clams, and a few worked at the island’s little school or in one of the small stores in the village. Gran’s job was gardening. One day she took me with her to the fields, located on the southern side of the island.
“I take care of the herbs, mostly, and a few vegetables,” she told me. “You can help me with that for now.” Gran strode ahead through a neatly organized garden plot. Tall fronds of savory-smelling plants brushed my legs as I followed along behind. A flash of bright color caught my eye, and I spotted a hummingbird hovering over the trumpet petals of a purple flower.
