When I awoke, the sun was shining through the unzipped tent door and both Mom and Dad were off investigating. There aren’t many strange places where they would leave me on my own, but here on Ireland’s Eye, other than some small animals and a few friendly caribou (whose ancestors had somehow walked over here on the ice one legendary winter), we were the only living beings within many treacherous kilometres. You could shout at the top of your lungs and no one would hear you. You could take off your clothes and run around naked and no one would say a word. It was a wonderful feeling. The silence was amazing. We were absolutely alone.
Or so it seemed.
I walked out to the end of the dock again with Dad’s binoculars. Looking through them I was shocked to see the storm still raging beyond the harbour’s entrance. Here on the island it was a beautiful day, almost hot, and the sky was cloudless. In the distance I could see another island, not nearly as big as the Eye, but green and friendly looking. Residents had called Anthony Island “the Garden,” because they had planted their vegetables there, unable to grow anything here on these rocks. Every summer day the women would row out there, a couple of kilometres of effort, work in their gardens and come home.
What would the people of Ireland’s Eye do on a day like today? And what would they do on a winter day if for some reason they had a desperate need to get to the mainland?
The rest of the world seemed so far away that I imagined there were sea dragons in the ocean, swirling about in those two-metre waves and snapping their tails. I panned away from the entrance, swinging the binoculars around Ireland’s Eye, past the houses, the school, up to the church and—for an instant—I thought I saw a face! It passed through the lens quickly. I darted the binoculars back to the window in the church steeple. I could have sworn that just a split second ago a man’s face had been staring out at me…but if indeed he had ever been there, he was gone now.
I had to be imagining things.
“Dylan! Dylan! Up here!” I turned in the direction of the voice. It was Mom. She and Dad were almost directly above me, stepping carefully along some tricky rock paths, holding hands to keep each other from falling. (They’re hand-holders, the parental units.) They were way up at the top of a rugged hill and had come to a spot that used to be someone’s backyard. “You can see everything from here! Come on!” yelled Mom. She sounded excited.
Five minutes later, huffing and puffing, I was beside them. I had followed one of those steep village pathways myself, probably used as a road in the old days. It was bedded with huge rocks the men had somehow carried up or down the mountainous hills. And here I was at the top of their cliff, out of breath just from climbing.
But what a reward you got from putting the effort into getting here. Looking out you could see the whole sweep of the little bay, the ocean in the distance, all the homes, the school, and the church.
A big house, probably the biggest in the village, sat silently next to us. Mom and Dad had been into a few homes, but had waited for me to climb up before venturing into this one. We walked around to the front door. Mom knocked.
When we pushed on the door it creaked open like something from a horror show. Inside everything was strangely in place.
“Groovy,” said Dad, and then looked a little apologetically at me.
“All the other ones were empty, but look at this!” said Mom, moving towards the kitchen. “Watch your step, Dylan, some of the boards are rotten.”
The rugs were still on the living room floor, dressers remained in place, couches sat as they had been left and a calendar, turned to December 1959, was pinned to a wall. Up in the ceiling corners, along the window edges and even stretched between furniture and the walls were massive spider webs, traps waiting to entangle their prey. Dust sat on things like snow. There was an overpowering smell of mould and something stale, like the still-lingering smoke from an ancient wood stove.
“This is a defiant house,” said Dad with admiration. “Whoever lived here must have vowed to leave it the way it was.”
It was the pick of the homes in the town. When we rubbed away some dirt from the big picture windows downstairs and the smaller ones in the upstairs bedrooms, the view was magnificent. I started thinking the mayor must have lived here, or at least the town leader. In fact, “the mayor’s house” struck me as a good name for this home, so from then on that’s what I called it.
There were four rooms upstairs. One was obviously the master bedroom, so it didn’t interest me. I picked out another that had certainly belonged to a kid. The door was slightly ajar and as I put my hand up to it the strangest thing happened: it slowly swung open on its own. I could have sworn I hadn’t touched it, but I must have. I stood back for a second, collected myself, and entered. I think my eyeballs went in first, then my nose, then the rest of me. Looking down to check for bad wood, I saw a small clump of dirt about the size of a dime on the floor near the entrance. It looked dark and wet. That’s odd, I thought, and then pushed it from my mind.
The bed was made. Just above a night table, pinned to the wall with a rusty thumbtack, was a cardboard colour photograph of the bruising Gordie Howe taken from the back of a cereal box. “Mr. Hockey” stood smiling out at the camera, looking innocent of all charges.
Something made me want to sit on the kid’s bed. Slowly I lowered myself, easing down, afraid the frame might suddenly collapse. But it didn’t move an inch. It felt good just to rest here for a minute. I relaxed, swung my legs up and stretched out. Soon I was lying there imagining what it must have been like to grow up on Ireland’s Eye.
Where did they play hockey? Were they able to get NHL games even without electricity? Maybe they had transistor radios.
I closed my eyes and heard the hockey game coming faintly through a little battery-operated radio on a winter’s day in the 1950s, static clouding the reception. Perhaps the boy had it tucked under his pillow so his parents wouldn’t know he was still awake. I thought of Grandpa’s descriptions of those great long-gone players, and of the voice of Foster Hewitt calling the play as he sat in the gondola at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. I thought of the boy lying here, the lights out and the game crackling through the pillow. Outside the wind howls and the waves break against the shore.
Perhaps he’s listening to the Leafs and the Canadiens, hearing Hewitt describe the moves of Rocket Richard and Grandpa’s favourite, Teeder Kennedy, tall and strong, playing for the love of the game, a captain of captains. Perhaps it is April 21, 1951, overtime at the Gardens, fifth game of the Stanley Cup final. Every match in the series has gone into extra periods, the Rocket potting the winner in game two, Teeder burying the Habs the next night at the Forum. But now, the Leafs can win it all. The whole nation is listening and so am I, a boy living on Ireland’s Eye. Bill Barilko, “Billy the Kid,” a young defenceman who was supposed to stay in position at the blueline, decides to take a chance. Out here on this island in the ocean, I’m listening to the shouts of the crowd. My mind is full of images of things I have never seen. What would it look like? Is Teeder out there now? How heroic does he look? Is he tending to his defensive duties? Is he looking up to find the Rocket as he sees young Barilko leave his position? Does he even bother to look behind him? Does Barilko hear the roar of the crowd like I do? He’s spotted a loose puck. He grabs it, swoops past the left faceoff dot and fires a dart, falling as he does. The Montreal goalie, Gerry McNeil, taken by surprise, stumbles as he scrambles to recover and…it’s in! IT’S IN! THE LEAFS HAVE WON THE STANLEY CUP! THEY’VE BEATEN THE CANADIENS AT MAPLE LEAF GARDENS! THE WHOLE NATION IS LISTENING! THE CROWD IS GOING WILD!
“Dylan? What are you shouting about? Are you all right?”
“Fine. It’s nothing.”
I fixed my eyes on the picture of Gordie Howe. When I was little I actually saw him a few times on TV looking old and friendly, very unlike the big bruiser Grandpa always talked about. But in this picture he looks the part, young and ready, arms bulging through his sweater, legs as thick as pillars. It occurred to me that the boy who lived here and pinned that picture to the wall had aged too; it’s possible that he’s not even alive anymore.
Looking out through his bedroom window I could see the whole harbour and it seemed like a painting. What a place to live!
Mom and Dad were calling again. They wanted to get moving and explore more of the island, but I was reluctant to leave. For some reason it felt like the boy had never left here, as though he were just out trading hockey cards with someone, or down in the schoolyard. But he had gone on in life to adventures and ups and downs I couldn’t even imagine.
That bedroom was a wonderful place.
At least it was until I stood up and began moving towards the hallway. That was when I saw something that chilled me to the bone.
There on the dresser was a cigarette—a burning cigarette! For a minute I just stood there staring at it. A burning cigarette, in here! I walked over to it, picked it up, and put it out. Then, with my heart pounding, I set it down again and descended the stairs. I didn’t say a word to Mom and Dad.
They were still in a happy mood and noticed right away that I wasn’t. I saw worried looks on their faces that I hadn’t seen since before we entered the harbour of Ireland’s Eye. Mom was kind of looking at Dad and he was trying to look away; they both kept glancing at me. But I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t bring myself to be happy. We walked out into the backyard and worked our way into the low-lying marshy area behind the town that led to the schoolhouse.
Why was a lighted cigarette sitting in that room?
Were there ghosts on Ireland’s Eye? Was someone watching us, some creature, or some half-crazed person who had stayed behind, alone for fifty years on this island in the ocean? Was there any reasonable explanation?
How could a cigarette light itself? I thought for a few minutes, my mind racing, fear making me confused. How can a cigarette light itself?
Then it dawned on me that there actually were ways. What if the boy had had a magnifying glass sitting somewhere between the window and the cigarette? A day with an intense sun could light it, couldn’t it? Then I realized why I had thought of the magnifying glass in the first place—because I had seen one! And it had been sitting near the window too, curiously left propped up on its side. That must be it! I started feeling better.
But I was clutching at straws and I knew it. Imagine how long it would have to have been there. Thirty years or more! A cigarette had been sitting there for fifty years and it was only now that it had caught fire! That couldn’t be the answer. A wave of terror came over me again.
I kept trudging beside my parents, almost ready to cry, my face burning with fear. I remembered what I had heard Grandpa saying to me when I was in trouble at the entrance to Ireland’s Eye. Stay calm. Think. Was there any other explanation?
The fact that we planned a trip to Ireland’s Eye must mean that others come here too. Maybe someone was here recently and left a cigarette on the dresser, and the magnifying glass or some other natural process caused it to light itself. There are so many cloudy days in Newfoundland that there might only be one sunny day for months on end. Surely someone has been here sometime this whole summer! I kept thinking about that magnifying glass sitting on its side. Sure it would be a fluke, and a big one, but it’s a possibility isn’t it?
I wasn’t convinced. But I vowed to stop thinking about it. Mom says there are too many “negative vibes” in the world anyway and that if people thought positively, life would be more positive. For once I decided to take her advice.
“I’ll race you!” I cried out and tore off across the swamp towards the schoolhouse. Mom and Dad hesitated, looking at each other, surprised. Then they ran after me, laughing. I think Mom laughed the loudest.
The swamp was the only large flat piece of land in the town. It sat behind the buildings and was surrounded by trees that went up the far slope of the hill and blocked any view of the other side of the island. It was about the size of two football fields, but no one could have played any kind of ball on this swampy land. People must have invented their own games on the steep rocky hills in town. Maybe in the winter the marsh froze. Now there’s a thought—what a hockey rink! But what if they played on the bay and the whole town watched from their windows?
At the other end of the swamp land we climbed a steep embankment up to the schoolhouse. There wasn’t much room here so we walked around to the other side. The big front door, with a rusty old bell above it, was boarded shut. We moved to the broken windows, but they were too high to look through.
“Here, Dylan,” said Dad, “I’ll give you a boost.”
I put a foot, soaking wet from our swamp march, into his clasped hands and then felt myself going up along the wooden wall. Slowly the classroom, single and huge, came into view. There were toppled desks, a blackboard at the front, a broken globe lying on the floor, and a little cloakroom at the back. But what really got me was what I saw through the long windows on the other side of the room. They seemed to go nearly from the ceiling to the floor and out through them you could see the swamp land and then the trees on the hills in the distance. They filled the whole space. In my school at home all you saw through the small windows of most classes was a wall, though through one or two you could see a McDonald’s and some other stores. I looked out at the trees and the blue sky and imagined sitting here in class seeing that outside!
“Dad! Boost me all the way up.”
Another shove and I was in, landing on top of a desk. I slipped and fell into it and found myself sitting there as if I were in class.
“Be careful!” I could hear Mom shouting.
But I wasn’t listening, for I was suddenly back in time, long before Mom was even born. At the front of the class the teacher seemed to be wearing a costume, her dress flowing down to the floor, and the children all leaned forward working at something on their desks. There were small boys and girls and teenagers who looked almost like adults. They were flesh and blood just like me, some looking neat and tidy and others dirty, with their hair messed. I could have given them clothes like mine and taken them back to Toronto with me and no one would ever have known that they were really people who had lived long ago, people perhaps my grandfather’s age or even older.
I sat at the back and raised my head, looking out through those windows. The sun was gleaming in, leaving squares of sunlight on our backs, and we could hear the birds singing and the water lapping against the shore. Men were shouting as they put their boats into the harbour and mothers were calling out to each other as they worked in their back yards. I wondered what we would all do for fun when the bell rang. Then I remembered that I was the only one not paying attention to my work.
“DYLAN!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you going deaf in your advanced years?” asked Dad.
“What did you call me?” asked Mom.
“Nothing.”
“Good answer. Not a truthful one, mind you.”
“Mrs. Nothing and I would like to know what you see in there? Would that be possible?”
“It’s really neat,” I said, walking carefully towards the front of the class, for some reason picking up desks as I went.
“And…”
“Well, it’s like a real classroom. It’s like they were using it just a few weeks ago or something.”
“Are there any maps or papers around?”
“There’s a globe, but it’s busted. Oh…” I had looked up and noticed for the first time a large roll-down map nailed to a wall and hanging over an old blackboard near the front of the class. It was so dusty that it looked almost the colour of the wall.
“There’s a bigger one too.”
“Look at Newfoundland. Is it the same colour as the rest of Canada?”
I walked over and rubbed off some of the dust.
“Uh…no.”
“It was made before 1949, then.”
Before 1949, I thought, as I walked back into the centre of the room and started running my hands along the initials carved into the desks. Before Barilko scored, before Mom and Dad existed, when Grandpa was young, before Newfoundland was even a part of Canada.
I remembered the story that Grandpa always told about Bill Barilko. After he scored that goal, Billy the Kid went on a fishing trip to northern Ontario, all the way up to Hudson Bay, and the plane crashed and he was killed. The last thing he ever did on the ice was score the winning goal in the Stanley Cup final against the Montreal Canadiens in overtime at Maple Leaf Gardens! But that wasn’t the whole story. They were unable to find the plane for many years and a legend grew that the Leafs would never again win the Cup until the dashing young defenceman’s body was found. From 1951 to 1961 they didn’t even come close. It was said that the ghost of Barilko haunted the Gardens. Then, in the spring of 1962, the Leafs became champions again.… Two months later his bones were found deep in the northern bush.
“Dylan, what else do you see?”
“Uh…uh…not much.” I moved slowly into the cloakroom and peered carefully around the corner. Perhaps there would be a boy’s coat or an old pair of boots inside. But it was empty. I decided to walk back to the window where Mom and Dad were waiting. As I came down an aisle I noticed that one desk, the only one that had been sitting perfectly upright when I came in, had what appeared to be a series of letters carved into it. As I approached I noticed that it was more than just initials; when I came right up to it I realized that my own name was staring back at me, carved deeply into the desktop!
It looked fresh, as though someone had cut it in that very day. I ran my fingers along it and as I did a loud noise came from the front of the room. I whirled around in time to see the big map snapping up. Dust flew off it, creating a thick fog. I stood there, shaking, waiting to see if anyone or anything appeared once the dust settled. But there was nothing except the blackboard and specks glowing like gold in the rays of sun as the dust moved towards me.
“What was that?” asked Mom.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
As I climbed down from the school window into Dad’s arms my mind was full of questions. How could that map suddenly roll up on its own? Was someone watching me all the time I was in the school? Who? What? Why was my name carved on the one desk that was standing? Why did it look like it had been done recently?
As we started walking away, Mom was a few strides ahead. I hung back with my father.
“Dad?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Was Dylan a common name around here a long time ago?” ‘
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
“The name Dylan? I doubt it. It’s been popular since the sixties.”
I didn’t ask why. I didn’t care, frankly. I just wished he had said that it was popular all over Newfoundland for as long as anyone can remember, that just about every kid who had sat in that school would have been named Dylan…and that there was a good reason why my name was freshly carved in a desk.
I must have just imagined it.
“Let’s go up to the church!” cried Mom, far ahead of us by now and unaware that my mood had changed again.
Dad knew differently. He turned his head sideways and looked into my eyes, which were directed at the ground….
“Something you want to talk about?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I know it can be a little spooky here, but it’s a ghost town, remember? I thought that’s why you wanted to come. There’s often a little danger in any good adventure.”
He was probably right. What drew me to the island was what was scaring me now. It was mysterious and dangerous out here, but I’d wanted that, hadn’t I? And there were probably good explanations for all of these scary things. I just hadn’t figured them out yet.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Dad. “Let’s get some grub first, kick back a little. Then we’ll go up and explore the church. How’s that sound, buddy?”
He must really be worried about me. He hasn’t called me “buddy” in years. But I didn’t say anything. He shouted for Mom and she stopped and came back from the spot she had gotten to, about halfway up the rocks towards the church. She looked a little surprised at the change of plans, suspicious in fact, her eyes searching Dad’s face. But he was a great poker player. He didn’t betray any of my fears. He just made another crack about grub and kicking back and got her to laugh. He put his arm around her and we descended to our tent and made our meal.
I did my best not to seem freaked out. But I found myself pacing around, looking over at the mayor’s house and the school, sometimes actually believing that I saw more faces in the windows. I even started walking while I was eating, until Dad very smoothly drew me down to a spot near the fire and started talking about a nice pass I had made to Rhett Norton the last game we’d played. “Relax,” he whispered to me as he stood to go down to the water to clean his plate. He had turned his head so Mom couldn’t see his mouth move.
I tried to. I took my plate, followed him, and squatted down beside him. Dad and I were in the same boat, so to speak. We both wanted to stay here and we both knew that in order to do that we had to hide my fears from Mom. But if I told him what I’d seen in the kid’s room and the schoolhouse, he might get me out of here as fast as Mom. So I had to keep it from him too. It looked like I was going to have to gut this one out and solve these weird problems for myself.
Dad leaned over and whispered to me again, “Uh, you don’t have to wash your serviette, Dylan. They’re, uh, made of paper.” I looked down and saw that mine, held firmly between my two tight fists in the water, was torn to bits and floating away in soggy little pieces. “Smile at your mom when you stand,” he said. I did. She smiled back.
“Look,” he continued, still under his breath and facing the ocean, “we’re going to the church next. How scary can that be? There’s nothing here to be frightened about, believe me. You’ve just let yourself get worked up. You’ll be okay.”
Nothing to be frightened of? I sure hoped he was right. I looked up and saw the church looming on the hill.
We didn’t go to church back home. Mom and Dad gave up religion in university and brought me up to take a scientific approach to things. They encouraged me to have what they called spirituality in my life, but I’d never really figured out what that was. Every religion but Christianity was discussed in our house.
But Dad was probably right again. How scary can a church be? Even if you don’t believe, there’s something comforting in being in a place where people go to pray. So up the hill we went towards it, Mom starting out fast and scampering way ahead of us, Dad second, turning around to see me from time to time as I brought up the rear.
All of the town, other than the landing area and the swamp land, was steep. But the steepness varied. In places it flattened out a little, while in others you felt like you were scaling Mount Everest. The church sat on the rocks at the highest point in the town and getting to it required the skill of a mountain goat. My fear soon lessened as I concentrated on finding the right ridges in the rocks to set my feet on. How in the world did they ever get to church in the old days? Perhaps they flew up here.
The view at the entrance to the church was at least as good as at the mayor’s house. Tired from our climb, we sat on the front steps and looked out over Ireland’s Eye. I imagined the minister or the priest or whatever he was, standing here watching people make their way up the hill towards him, with the bell tolling above. The whole town would look like an anthill, with ants swarming towards him. And anyone who wasn’t coming to church could easily be spotted.
Suddenly the bell sounded.
“Wind,” said Mom, looking my way.
“Wind,” repeated Dad, nodding at me as if I was supposed to nod back.
But the church wasn’t scary at all, just as Dad had predicted. Inside its walls my fear faded even more. It almost seemed to float away. I think Mom and Dad were comforted by the church, too, though they didn’t let on. We walked through the entrance and closed the door and everything was silent. Had it not been for the peeling walls, the broken stained glass and the absence of pews, we might have been in a church back home. Straight in front of us at the other end of the building was a large cross, looking like a plus sign standing tall in the wreckage. On my way towards it I stumbled over something metallic. It was a plaque honouring church members who had died in wars going back a hundred years.
If I had lived here, I would have just let those wars be. Let people in the rest of the world hurt each other if they had to, over disagreements that would come and go. They fought because of things like money or oil or prejudice, over who they thought God was or where a border should be marked, killing each other to make everything right. But here in Ireland’s Eye that all seemed so far away.
To the left of the cross was the place where the minister preached and it looked like it had hardly changed. You walked up a set of stairs and stood inside a circular cubicle that came up to your waist. Your notes rested in front of you. Climbing the stairs, I imagined the minister doing the same, looking down at his people and out through the window at the beautiful harbour. I imagined him praying for men who had gone away to fight in wars on battlefields the townspeople would never see, in the world that lay beyond the entrance to Ireland’s Eye.
Standing where the minister stood gave me a feeling of power. I looked down at my parents and smiled. As I did I stepped forward a little and my knee brushed against something. Leaning down, I was surprised to find a huge black bible. I lifted it up, set it on the rest in front of me and blew off the dust. “Ireland’s Eye Church, 1901,” read the inscription on the front page. I opened it, searching for a sentence I might boom out in the church to startle my parents and make me feel like a real preacher. I noticed some passages were underlined. I rejected a few and then found one.
“Blessed are those who mourn,” I read, my voice echoing in the church as I tried to sound ominous, “for they shall be comforted.”
“Dylan, I don’t think you should be doing that,” said Mom. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face. I closed the Bible with a thud and dust went flying up. Then I very gingerly returned it to its spot, as if the lesson for the day was over. I have to admit, I was feeling a little smart-alecky. I suppose you get that way when you go from petrified to normal to petrified and back again every few minutes or so.
“Let’s climb the bell tower,” Mom said, giving me a bit of a look, as if she wondered what the heck was going on between my ears. Exercise was one of her ways of solving problems. At home, she’d run when she was feeling stressed out, as she put it. And here in the church she had spotted an entrance with a busted-in door, off to my right down below the pulpit. She could see that it led upward and the only thing above us was the bell tower. We entered and edged slowly up the winding stairs, each step creaking. By the time we reached the top we were all puffing a little but the view was magnificent, unquestionably the best in Ireland’s Eye. Luckily, Dad had brought his binoculars. He scanned the whole harbour and the gap out into the Atlantic.
“Still stormy out there,” he said. “I can’t understand it. Kind of gives you the willies.”
Mom took a turn with the binoculars for a while and then they were handed to me. I looked at the gap, the mayor’s place, peered into the schoolhouse, the swamp, and then down at our boats. I kept seeing things. In the mayor’s house I thought I saw shadows moving, and near the kayaks in the long grass someone seemed to be lying flat on the ground as if hiding, looking up towards us in the church. But the weirdest thing was something I couldn’t confirm—on my second scan of the schoolhouse, I leaned out of the tower to see as much of the front of the classroom as I could and thought I saw the edge of the big map, the one that had rolled up so loudly when I was near it. It looked to me like it was rolled down again!
“Hey!” Mom yelled, pulling me back into the tower. “What’s so fascinating that it’s worth falling to your death?”
“Nothing.”
I couldn’t be sure about the map. I hadn’t seen it clearly enough. So as I walked down the steep creaky stairs of the church tower I tried not to jump to any more conclusions.
“Where to next?” Dad asked.
“How about the graveyard?” said Mom.