her wide, wrap-around front porch and watched the fog roll in. Thick and heavy, it had already obscured the mainland. In another hour, she wouldn’t be able to see either the ferry landing or the bridge that connected their island to the Massachusetts coastline three miles away. She steadied one hand on the porch railing and breathed deeply. She loved the salty air, the taste of the sea, the humidity that most other islanders hated, even the clouds above her that would likely turn to rain before afternoon.
Tilly had spent forty-three years of her life on Drake Isle. She’d raised two sons and buried a baby girl. Three years ago, she’d buried her husband as well. At various times she’d helped run the bridal boutique, worked as a teacher’s aide, waited tables at Doc’s Luncheonette, and last year, at age sixty-two, turned her too-big, too-empty home into a bed and breakfast.
Terrence Taylor rode by on a bicycle and waved. “Hi, Miss Tilly!”
She waved back. Mrs., she silently corrected him. I’m still married. I always will be.
Terrence dragged one toe along the ground to stop himself. “Storm’s comin’ in.”
She glanced up. “Looks like it. Your mama got the shutters on?”
“Yeah. I helped her this morning.” The boy flexed one arm as if to prove his worth. “You need any help?”
“I’m all set, hon. But thank you.”
He nodded and rode away, and she watched him weave across the road, standing up on the pedals the way her own boys had so many years ago.
A gust of wind slammed the door behind her. She pulled her sweater around her shoulders and eyed Harbor Street, the two-lane road that passed her front porch and wound all the way around the island. A line of commuters made their way down to the water, but they didn’t bother to pull into the ferry parking lot. They’ll have to take the bridge this morning, Tilly thought. Ferry won’t run ‘cause of fog.
Less than a quarter-mile to the north of the ferry landing, Marion Bridge stretched across the Atlantic Ocean, joining them to the rest of civilization. Drake Isle was similar to the other islands scattered between the Long Island Sound and Cape Cod. It was bigger than Block Island but smaller than Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. Most notably, it boasted two access points, a ferry and a bridge, which meant its year-round population of fifteen hundred swelled to three times that during the summer.
Tilly didn’t mind the crowds. Nor did she mind the quiet that descended when they left at the end of August. She loved the bustle of the landing, the little souvenir shops, the restaurants lit up at night, the lighthouse, the salt-worn homes, the white sand beaches and the ever-constant sounds of the ocean. She’d moved to Drake Isle with Jonathan the day after he proposed, and she’d never wanted to live anywhere else.
Even after he passed.
Even in a house that still echoed with his laughter and footsteps.
“I was lucky,” she said aloud, the way she often did when she thought of him, as if he were still there and could hear her.
Maybe he could.
She didn’t know anyone else who’d had a love as steady as her and Jonathan’s, a marriage as strong on the day he died as the day he kissed her barefoot on the beach after they said their vows. She’d opened Drake’s Heart Inn partly to hold onto that feeling, in the hopes that other young couples would come to the island and fall in love the way she had.
She sank into the deep cushions of a porch chair and rocked slowly. The fog continued to creep in, curling her salt-and-pepper hair at the ends. Sassy Girl, the unofficial calico mascot of Drake’s Heart Inn, jumped onto her lap.
Trouble was, tourism on the island had taken a nosedive in the last few years. Restaurants had closed, inns had shut their doors, and more people than she could count had left for the mainland. She’d been either brave or reckless to open a bed and breakfast in the midst of the recession.
Ever since that girl died, things haven’t been the same.
Long before the American Revolution, the Drake and Carter families had settled this island. Around the turn of the nineteenth century, their descendants opened a small liberal arts college on twenty acres of the island’s southernmost bluffs. Misterion College was originally intended as a private school for the Drake and Carter children, but it grew from sixteen students in its early years to nearly eight hundred in its heyday. It drew top professors from Boston and the descendants of aristocrats and movie stars. It graduated poets and lawyers, musicians and philosophers, and more than a few shrewd businessmen who went on to success on the mainland.
Then one night almost ten years ago, a girl died on campus. Something to do with a fraternity party, Tilly recalled, though the details were kept hidden. Detectives from the mainland descended, along with reporters and lawyers and the very rich, very nervous parents of the fraternity brothers. Darn media circus for a good two months. She shook her head as Sassy Girl settled in for a nap and began to purr.
That was the end of Misterion College on Drake Island. The fraternity was shut down. The following fall, the college moved its professors and classes to the mainland. The stone buildings remained empty, although every few months the rumor mill whispered that a developer had bought them. Tilly didn’t put much stock in rumors. Bigwigs from Boston were always buzzing around Drake Isle, sending reps in fancy suits and rented cars to sniff around and then disappear again without a word.
She opened the Island Courier, taking care not to disturb Sassy Girl. The local paper never had much groundbreaking news, usually just a recap of whatever she’d seen on television the night before. But she did love the snippets of who had gotten engaged to whom, or whose grandchild had earned Dean’s List, or which neighbors were fighting over shared driveway access. A toy drive the volunteer firefighters were organizing, or the annual church bazaar. The upcoming Memorial Day Parade. A new litter of puppies over at Miracles Happen Animal Shelter. Things like that. Comforting things that didn’t change much over time.
But today’s front page was different. Misterion College was splashed across it in a collage of full-colored photos. Tilly’s eyes widened. This was something new. Some of the photos were obviously old, with throngs of students lounging on the sunny front quadrangle. Some looked more recent, with the doors and windows shuttered up and piles of leaves collecting along the sidewalks.
Misterion College Exploring Satellite Campus
Delta House to Hold Dedication Ceremony
Tilly peered closer. What on earth? She hadn’t heard a thing about the college reopening on the island. Wouldn’t people have been talking? At the grocery store, the gas station, Lillian’s Lovelies where she got her nails done every other week?
As if on cue, her cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Did you see the paper?” Masie Suarez, Tilly’s around-the-corner neighbor, asked. “About the college reopening?”
“Just reading it.” Sassy Girl opened an eye and curled her lip, as if irritated at the interruption to her nap.
“Did you know?”
“Of course not. Did you?”
“Not a thing. Why would they, do you think?”
“Maybe they ran out of space on the mainland?”
Masie gave that about five seconds’ worth of consideration. “Humph. Maybe. You know, the Delta house is where that girl died.”
Tilly hadn’t remembered that detail. Her oldest son had gone to Misterion. Had he joined the Delta fraternity? She wasn’t sure. He’d already been out of college when the tragedy occurred. One of the fraternities had been exclusive to the founders of the college and their descendants, but she didn’t know which one.
“Why are they dedicating it?” The suspicion was evident in Masie’s voice. “Why would you dedicate a place where someone died? Shouldn’t that be called a grave, and shouldn’t that be somewhere else, like in a cemetery?”
Tilly smiled at Masie’s typical overemphasis of select words. “I’m not sure. Maybe they’re dedicating it as a memorial?”
“Humph,” Masie said again. “I don’t think I like it.”
Tilly scanned the article below the pictures. “It looks like they’re only going to have a few classes here, to start with.” She thought back to something Jonathan had said years ago, when they first married. “The college is a pretty important piece of island history. Maybe that’s why they want to reopen it.”
“So it’s been here a couple hundred years. Big deal.”
But Tilly thought maybe it was a big deal, and maybe that was why the powers-that-be wanted to resurrect its presence on Drake Isle. “It might not be a bad thing. It would bring people here.” College students would need inexpensive food, bottomless mugs of coffee, places for their parents to stay when they visited. Tilly’s pulse kicked up. Maybe she’d finally be able to fill the rooms of Drake’s Heart Inn on a regular basis.
“We don’t need any more people here. The island’s already too crowded.”
Tilly scanned Harbor Street, now empty at nine-fifteen in the morning. Two lone fishing boats sat in the harbor. The island’s public school graduated an average of thirty students each year. Still, she knew better than to argue with Masie. The island did get busier during the summer. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens.” Her business line began to ring inside the house. “Can I call you later?”
“Of course. I have two clients this afternoon, but I’m around after that. Let’s do coffee.”
“Sounds good.” Tilly hung up and hurried inside, insulting Sassy Girl once and for all by rousing her and dumping her onto a vacant porch chair. Business had been slow this spring, and summer reservations at the inn had barely kept pace with last year. If the college wanted to open its doors again, and if that brought students and their families, Tilly didn’t mind one bit.
She loved welcoming new people to the island, and to her inn. New people meant excitement and adventure, and she was always up for a little bit of both.