AFTER THE FIRST long day of searching, of tense silences, of Eddie’s outbursts, I should have fallen into an exhausted slumber. But that night, I could not sleep. I kept imagining Rosita in the north dock boat, after she cut the rope. Pulling the start line to the motor. Heading north, because we’d all be less likely to see her boat going in that direction.
I wondered what she’d packed, what she’d brought with her. I longed to sneak up to her suite, to assess what might be missing, but during the day, I was afraid of being caught by the ever-watchful Eddie or Cormac.
Maybe I could sneak upstairs at night? I got out of bed, pulled on my robe, tiptoed past Largo’s cage so as not to disturb her, and stepped out into the hallway. Joey and Douglas were whispering about something, just outside Douglas’s door. Joey was smirking, and Douglas looked alarmed. Neither man seemed to notice me, but I quickly went into the bathroom so that if they had seen me, they’d think I only needed to use the facilities.
A few minutes later, they were still in the hallway. I returned to my room and stared out through the glass of the veranda door. Pinpricks of moonlight sparkled on the lake’s surface. I wondered, had Rosita glanced back at the island that had once been her sanctuary and then her self-imposed internment? Did she intend to return someday? Or was she leaving forever?
Or would the rollicking, freezing lake overtake her boat—and then her?
For a moment an image popped into my mind: Rosita floating in the slushy cold water, her arms and legs spread out, her dark hair fanning in the water. And then her sinking, down, down, down, to the bottom of Lake Erie.
To join the bones of other lost wayfarers, of other sunken vessels.
The image was too overwhelming. My face burned and my heart raced, and I went out onto the veranda. The cold, bracing air slapped me, and I leaned into the wind as I stared down at dark Lake Erie.
I recollected the first time I dove into Lake Erie, just a few weeks after coming to Trouble Island. I went early down to the southwest dock, just at sunrise, before the first guests of the season would awake, before I would be needed to help Maxine. At that point, I was only cordial with the other staff, and I was so disappointed that Rosita had not come with the guests. I’d thought she would come as soon as possible to check on me.
I shed my dress and plunged in wearing only my underclothes. But in my shame and despair, I didn’t want to swim.
I wanted to drown. For what I had done.
Not just to Pony, but for all of my sins, even before I met him.
And so, I let myself sink, sink, sink. I willed myself to open my mouth, let it fill with water, let the water go into my lungs.
I wanted to swallow as much of the lake as I could, and for the lake in turn to swallow me whole.
I thought as I sank: I’m not Susan. Or Aurelia. I’m nobody. I deserve to be … nobody.
Then I saw them. Shimmering. Eyeless. Mouthless.
Logic admonished me: a trick of light and shadow. Or just water snakes, seen from an odd angle. But my heart knew otherwise: they were there, three silhouettes in a paper-doll chain, holding one another’s fingerless hands. I thought: This, at last, is the punishment I deserve. But even mouthless, the silhouettes yelled at me: It is not time. You have not earned us back.
And then a loon dove into the water, scooped up a whitefish.
I kicked hard, swam to the surface. That was the first time I saw the lighthouse flash at me, a beacon reassuring me, luring me back to land. Even though I knew it was a trick of my imagination, I followed that light and finally flopped onto a stretch of the island’s rocky shore, as if the lake had spat me back out. I sat there, weeping and shaking and cursing at the lake. At myself.
I tried again and again until one day I realized I no longer wanted to drown in that sea of saltless tears.
Instead, I’d come once again to love swimming. The sluicing of water over my limbs. The feeling of moving smoothly, elegantly, powerfully.
I did not see the silhouettes again. After a while, I stopped looking for them.
Swimming saved me; so did learning the island’s birds and plants and rhythms and natural order and seasons. I’d grown up on a farm, and so thought I knew nature. But that was nature bent to man’s will. Away from the mansion, the island was nature untamed.
The sound of an engine brought me back to the moment. I watched a speedboat pull up to the main dock on the other side from the Myra. A figure stood, carrying something, and crossed to the Myra.
Rosita?
But no, I could see that the figure was male. Spry movements eliminated Eddie, Henry, Marco, and Dr. Aldridge. I’d just seen Joey and Douglas in the hallway.
That left Cormac, Seamus, or Liam.
What was he carrying, and from where, and why was it going onto the Myra?
Not whisky. The items were too small, and the heavy crates of glass bottles required several men to carry them.
I withdrew into the shadows and quietly shut the veranda door. I pulled on my coat, hat, gloves, boots, and opened my bedroom door just a crack.
The hallway was empty.
As quietly as I could, I crept down the stairs to the foyer, then slipped out the front door. Every step I took down the slick walkway felt just on the precipice of a fall. Under the moonlight, the topiary animals seemed strange rather than charming, and I fancied they were real animals who had somehow been caught on the island and transformed into its vegetation, stuck forever on this lonely, frozen dot of earth.
At the bottom, the bear seemed to lunge toward me with its scratchy, twiggy paws, and I shrank back as if the actual bear had emerged from the woods. I skidded a little, and nearly cried out, but I caught myself just in time, remaining both upright and silent. Then I ducked down and stared at the dock, the Myra on one side, a speedboat on the other. The lake was choppy enough that both boats rocked to and fro. The Myra hummed quietly, a light on in its cockpit.
For a few moments, I didn’t see anyone. Then a figure emerged from the yacht, and I heard a barely perceptible whistle, caught and consumed by the wind.
Liam.
It struck me that Eddie had sent only Liam and Cormac to search the Myra or the north dock for Rosita.
I watched him leap from yacht to dock to speedboat, pick up two small items, then return to the yacht. He repeated the journey multiple times. My thigh muscles ached and cramped in my crouching position, and my body stiffened with the cold. I longed to stand and stretch, but I dared not. I didn’t want Liam to know I was spying on him. And so I remained still, leaning into the bristly topiary bear long enough that I could imagine myself freezing to it.
Finally, Liam started up the speedboat and pulled away, heading around the east bend of the island, which meant he was returning to the north dock. I waited until the sound of the boat faded and then I stood up, my joints aching and creaking.
I went as quickly as I dared on the slippery ground down to the dock, my heart pounding, fearful of being caught, but also wondering if Rosita was being held on the Myra. If so, then what was Liam carrying to the yacht from the speedboat?
On the dock, I paused just long enough to look back at the mansion to see if any figures stood on the veranda, staring at me. Had Liam noticed me up there earlier, watching him? No, I thought, not Liam. He was always too caught in his own world.
I stepped onto the Myra, only my second time on the yacht, the first being when it had borne me to the island. The feelings I’d had that morning—of self-loathing, despair, desperation—whirled around me, like ghosts of emotion. I shook off the feelings—no time for wallowing—and quickly assessed the deck of the yacht: engine at back, a closed bin that doubled as seat and storage for ropes and so on, additional bench seats under which were tucked life preservers.
In the wheelhouse itself, I took in the steering wheel, the instrumentation panel, the captain’s chairs. Nothing of interest, except a floor hatch was left open. I looked around quickly and found a flashlight, then carefully went down the steps into the small hold.
No one was down there, and I was both relieved and disappointed. What would I have done, had I found Rosita either dead or alive?
What I did find was stacks of lockboxes, just like the one I’d found on the shore.
I took in the sight, needing a moment to overcome the shock of realizing that my lockbox wasn’t a treasure left behind years ago in a romantic story of shipwrecks and rescue. It was just one piece of Eddie’s loot, fallen in transport to some hiding place. I thought of Liam’s reaction to the mention of a cave near the north dock; was that where these boxes had been kept? And now Liam was moving them?
This had to be at Eddie’s behest. My guess: the lockboxes held bullion, jewels, and money, and Eddie had been having it stashed on the island during the bootlegging runs—a clever way to hide his income from both his legal and illegal businesses. And he wanted the treasure off the island before Marco took it over.
I longed to grab one of the lockboxes, crack it open to confirm the contents, but what if Liam came back with another load and caught me in the act?
I hurried off the yacht, then scampered through the cold darkness toward the mansion and my room.
THE NEXT DAY, the snow finally abated. There was light in the sky. The air had slightly warmed; the lake, calmed. I stayed alert for a chance to go to the north dock, or question Liam, but I was kept too busy, either helping Maxine or searching the lighthouse and cottage again. I did find excuses to stay near Liam, though, and overheard him say to Eddie that the lake on the north side of the island was freezing along the shore, and the speedboat could not remain docked there.
Eddie had roughly jerked Liam into the library, away from everyone else, to continue the conversation.
Later that afternoon—again going to the lighthouse cottage in case Rosita might pop up there—I saw that the speedboat had been returned to the southwest dock.
I realized Rosita was not coming back. She was not going to set me free; she was never going to do that. I knew that now. And there was no reason for Eddie to keep me alive. Sooner or later, he’d remember what a nuisance I’d been—as Rosita had so cruelly put it—and get rid of me.
So after the second day of searching, I entered my bedroom limp with exhaustion. As my door clicked to, I wanted to fall into bed, stop my head spinning not from emotion, but from numbness. The searching and the tension of the past two days had drained me.
But I sat on the edge of my bed and reviewed the plan that had been percolating in the back of my mind all day.
I would pack a small bag.
At first light, I would go to the lighthouse cottage, put on my swimming suit. I’d dive below the southwest dock, retrieve my lockbox of treasure. Change back into dry clothes. And then I’d get in the speedboat, and I would leave.
It had been years since I last prayed, and more years the time before that—all the way back in my childhood. Prayer did not come easily or naturally to me.
But I knelt before my bed and prayed for courage, and for the weather to remain clear. Then I hunkered down to pull out my suitcase. But just as I grasped its handle, I jumped at a soft, light knock on my door. Ignoring whoever it was might cause a stir, so I quickly pushed my suitcase back under my bed and went to the door.
Seamus. Warmth rushed through me, followed quickly by sorrow.
I would not ever see him again.
And yet, I smiled when he held out a plate with a sandwich on it.
I stepped back and let him in.
“You didn’t eat much—really, at all, tonight,” he said.
I took the plate, put it on my desk. “Thank you,” I said.
Seamus stepped forward, put his arms around me, pulled me to him, gave me a long, lingering kiss. Even as I leaned into him, his touch so comforting after the last few cold, brutal days, I knew that if he stayed the night, I wouldn’t leave.
I put my hands on his chest and pushed lightly. “I’m exhausted. I just need to sleep—”
Seamus released me and stepped back.
“I understand. Just eat that sandwich before you go to sleep. You’re going to waste away. Promise?”
I choked up and could not speak. I nodded and shut the door, looked around my room. My suitcase was only partially under the bed. Had he seen it?
I shook my head at myself. I couldn’t do anything about that now. I wasn’t hungry, but my hands shook, and I wanted to be strong the next morning. I took a few bites of the sandwich, and then I ravenously tore into it. In minutes, the sandwich was gone.
Largo, asleep in her cage, stirred, then resettled.
I pulled out my suitcase and packed, leaving behind the fancy dress I’d brought, opting for practical clothes. I hesitated for a moment, but then I tucked in my Escalante cigar box and my bird-watching notebook. I didn’t want to forget Trouble Island entirely.
I put my suitcase, coat, hat, and gloves on top of my bed, then donned the clothes I’d wear. I went to Largo’s cage and whispered, “You’ll be fine, pretty girl. Maxine will take care of you.” I pulled open the draperies over the veranda door and turned off my bedside lamp. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring out into the flat darkness, unable to see the sky or the lake. All I saw was flat gray darkness. I was determined to stay awake, to watch for the darkness ceding to the paleness of dawn. But just in case, I set my bedside alarm clock.
Either way, I’d wake up just before sunrise. Then I would put my plan into action. And, at last, be free.
I FELL ASLEEP after all. I dreamed of the shadow people in the water—Pony. My father and my brother. And now a fourth one joined them, a tinier figure.
Oliver.
I jerked awake, gasping for air as if I had been held underwater. I pushed aside the disturbing dream, glanced at my bedside clock. 5:30 A.M. on Saturday, November 21. I looked out the window. Still dark, but the night was softening. I considered going to the kitchen to retrieve the flashlight kept in one of the drawers, but decided I didn’t want to risk disturbing anyone. I resolved that I could pick my way to the dock in the night if I stuck to the perimeter path. By the time I got to the dock, dawn would have commenced.
I put on my coat, hat, and gloves. Picked up my suitcase. I left my door unlocked so that Maxine could eventually come into my room and take over Largo’s care. Then quietly, carefully, I crept out of the mansion.
I left my suitcase in the cottage, changed into my homemade full-body bathing suit and swim cap, already shivering. I held a sheathed fishing knife, also retrieved from the cottage.
Out on the dock, I noted that the snow had stopped and mist roiled over the land and the lake. Loons dove, seeking whitefish that resurface in November’s cooler water. I took a minute to observe the birds I’d come to love. My heart panged. I’d miss them. But it was time to go.
I glanced at the speedboat. Yes, I reassured myself, I could navigate it to the north shore of Ohio. All I had to do first was get my lockbox.
I took a deep breath, held it. Dove into the lake.
The shock of slicing into the cold, churning waves was brutal. I knew I had about two minutes before I’d need to come up for air, about ten—maybe twelve—before cold would numb my limbs and hypothermia would start setting in. Yet I also knew that in Lake Erie, two minutes can be an eternity—and so can even one second. That’s one of the funny things I’ve learned, besides birds’ names and habits, from living on this island. Eternity can fit into any sliver of measured time.
I counted each heartbeat as a second’s worth of time and swam downward. I needed just another minute to get to the lockbox. I didn’t care that it was just like all the others in the hold on the Myra. It held enough value for me to start over.
But the lockbox was gone.
How could that be? It had been there the morning I swam here with Seamus. Had my nervousness at leaving, the chaos since Eddie’s arrival, the bitter cold, all addled my brain so that I was looking in the wrong place?
I turned in the water and saw her.
Bare feet. White nightgown.
Her face bloated and her arms floating out as if grasping for fish, for water snakes, for me. The dead woman’s mouth and eyes open but already partly nibbled away. One rope looped around her neck, another around her ankles, securing her to the dock beam.
I gasped, swallowed water.
Flailed, instinctively backstroking away from the dead woman.
Away from Rosita.
Swam back, back, back …