Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret,” as if secrets were shady criminals and curiosity the one thing needed to root them out of their dark hiding places. My unrelenting curiosity spawned terrible nightmares. That night, I had four dreams about the crazy woman (not me, but the redhead). First, that she was a vampire who tried to bite me when I helped her. Second, that she was Raggedy Ann and wanted to play. Third, that she was Annie and started singing, “The Sun’ll Come Out, Tomorrow.” Finally, that she was a woman in acute medical distress and as I was helping her, determined not to leave her alone this time, a tidal wave swept in and got us both. I woke up screaming.
Over coffee, I decided. My curiosity was leading me to uncover secrets.
“Where are you going?” Henry questioned. I’d arrived at the store, helped take down the air mattress and cleaned up for opening. Then, I packed Henry’s Dora the Explorer backpack. Flashlight. Plastic baggies (for evidence collection, duh). A few granola bars and bottles of water. My winter Isotoners so if I needed to touch something, I wouldn’t leave fingerprints. My phone, fully charged. And aerial printouts of the grounds surrounding the Peacock.
I shrugged. “It’s a nice, sunny day. Thought Willie and I could use some exercise.”
“So, you’re going back to the Peacock?”
“When you have to know, you gotta go,” I returned. “That woman needed my help, and I let her down. Least I can do is try to prove she existed. Besides, it’d be nice to not be crazy.”
I parked in a small alcove on the outskirts of the property, a location I scouted out thanks to Google Maps, and it was just as secluded as promised. West of the Peacock, beyond the trees, was the Breakers, the poorest community on the island and nearest to the marshlands. The showdown with Mavis Chambers took place in the middle of the Breakers, and I probably wouldn’t visit the area at all if not for my stripper friend Sadie who lived on the last street. Behind her house, the legendary Delores Kenning lived in a ramshackle cottage surrounded by patchwork fencing and a fleet of garden gnomes. “That’s woman’s nuttier than Jiff!” Sadie had lamented after watching the old woman hanging milk jugs from her magnolia tree, but of course, I knew that firsthand.
But, I wouldn’t be heading in that direction, thank goodness. I took a deep breath as we exited the Jeep and stared into the eastern island forest. Already, I’d made a mistake. Wearing my kick-ass new Nikes was a stylish, but dumb move. Much of the grounds were uncared for, full of woods, thickets, and mud. My Nikes wouldn’t be nice for long.
According to my printouts, a maintained path circled the entire property along the most scenic views of the ocean, cape, and marshes. This well-travelled path consisted of piers, bridges, and benches, and was featured in the hotel’s literature. The trail was a hotspot for bikers, joggers, and birdwatchers.
But, the inner forest was unkempt and left to its wild tendencies. The only exception was the lighthouse, but it was closed to the public and had been for over a dozen years. I crossed over the path within minutes, and ventured deep into the woods.
Three hours later, I was mounting mistakes and mosquito bites. I’d successfully scraped my knee upon tripping over a branch (adding to my collection of bruises already there from the last time I was at the Peacock), nearly ruined my new shoes (which were not as comfortable as I would’ve guessed), and gotten lost. I’d been walking in circles.
“This is why you are dismally unqualified to do stuff like this, Dumb Delilah,” I muttered. Willie groaned. He’d been tramping through the woods with me, leashed, and he was desperate for freedom, yanking and pulling at his tether, completely grumpy. I couldn’t blame him. I was getting rather grumpy, too. I leaned against a great spindly oak tree, one I’d passed three times already, ready to burst into tears. I lifted my head back, looking straight up through the tree branches to the sky behind it, and had a desperate idea.
“Wait here, Willie.” I tossed my bag to the ground, grabbed the lowest branch, and heaved myself up. Getting myself trapped in a tree was just as embarrassing as getting lost in the woods, so if I had to call in the cavalry, it didn’t matter for which emergency. And, if I climbed this tree, I’d at least have a chance of finding my way again, and very possibly not have to call anyone. So, I climbed.
Three branches up, I’d used up all my strength, scraped my elbows (to match my knees) and gotten dizzy. Willie spotted a couple of playful squirrels and took off into the woods after them, and out of sight. I huffed and called after him, but it was no use. Willie was done with my adventure, and keen to go off on his own. I leaned against the tree trunk, catching my breath, and spied my savior. The lighthouse.
But, my descent would have to wait. Noises erupted in the woods. Was it Willie returning? No, there were voices. I hugged the tree tightly, and peered around the side.
Pop, pop, pop. Shots rang out. They were too soft to be gunshots, but similar nonetheless. I hid behind the tree. My Dora bag lay at the bottom, and I hoped it wouldn’t give me away.
“Dude, enough already,” a voice chided. “I’m gonna have bruises all over my-”
“When the money starts rollin’ in,” the other one said, “I’m goin’ buy a dozen of these.” I peeked around the corner to see two young men toting handguns, and aiming them at anything and everything, including themselves. I recognized shaggy Ricky Wakefield from the party. He’d given up his oversized suit coat for a Bob Marley t-shirt, which revealed a slathering of tattoos. The words “sweet cheeks” echoed in my mind, as he was the boy who had exposed Rachel’s bum down the high school hallway, and ultimately got kicked out for setting the science lab on fire. His taller friend had the letters JJ inked darkly on his arm, and his black eyes and hair reminded me of licorice. He had an acne problem on his cheeks and forehead, and several piercings across his cheek, eyebrows, and ears.
“Have some freakin’ air-soft wars with all our friends,” Ricky went on.
“That’d be awesome,” the other grinned. “Once Hyde delivers, we’ll be set up for life.”
“Yeah, but if you go ‘round talkin’ ‘bout it all the time,” Ricky argued, growing angry, “that’s what we’ll get. Life. Shut your stupid face.”
“Who’s goin’ tell? The freakin’ birds?” But, Ricky was already distracted. He pointed the gun at a squirrel and shot. He missed, but I prayed Willie didn’t make a sudden return. For that matter, spotting me wouldn’t be a good thing either. I pressed myself against the tree. The guns weren’t dangerous, but I’m sure they hurt and dealing with Ricky Wakefield, who Rachel described as a juvenile delinquent, wasn’t on my to-do list.
The two stopped just shy of my tree and I held my breath. My heart was chugging like a super train.
“We should get back,” the tall one said. “Got those appointments.”
Ricky laughed. “Yeah, appointments.” Ricky followed his laugh by shooting his friend in the stomach. More laughter. His partner coughed and cursed. But, thankfully, they turned around and started heading back into the woods.
I eased my way back down after a few minutes, and went toward the lighthouse, tears abated, for now.
The Tipee Island Lighthouse loomed above me. Its surroundings were thickly overgrown, but there were narrow paths around the structure and stretching out in two directions. Littering the ground were several colors of neon pellets, evidence that Ricky and his friend had been here before. I gathered up a representative sample (yay, something for the baggies).
The structure was enormous, much larger up close. I half-expected for the building to be decrepit and littered with graffiti, just like the mermaid statue at the entrance to the inn. But, the lighthouse looked solid from the outside, and its red bricks were blank. There were only two openings I could see – the heavy wood door and the glass windows up top.
The door looked to be something out of the Middle Ages, thick dark wood with cast iron hinges and a pull for a knob. Higher up, it was affixed with a sparkling silver hinge and padlock. I pulled on it with no luck, which was a shame. Touring an abandoned lighthouse might just be cool enough to make this whole adventure worthwhile.
By the door, rusty chains and heavy lead weights had been tossed, many of them crumbled, from age or force, I couldn’t tell, but knew it hadn’t been done terribly long ago because the weeds hadn’t started climbing through the crevices yet, as they were surrounding the pile. I made a note to myself to research lighthouses.
I leaned down, eyeing the weights a little closer. Indentations from a flat object crossed the surface of the broken one on top, as if someone had tried to crack open the lead ball like a coconut. Parts of it were missing. I ran my hand along the insides, leaving my fingers dusted with lead. Shavings littered the ground. Someone had gone to quite a bit of trouble to bust up this lead weight, I decided, but why? I considered the gun pellets, and figured it was all just a part of some children’s experimentation. I remembered how my childhood friend Lisa and I chopped up a Polly Pocket doll so we could see if we could fit her inside a Pepsi bottle. We succeeded in getting her in, but not out. That bottle still sits atop my dresser at home in Wilmington. We didn’t have a good reason to destroy a perfectly good Polly Pocket. We just wanted to. Perhaps the same thing had happened here.
I huffed, disappointedly. Still crouched, I looked up at the heavy door. An object caught my eye. It was nestled in the thick wood trim surrounding the door. I stood and got closer. A camera, no bigger than my pinky finger.
“Why would anyone need a camera here?”
I rounded the lighthouse for a closer inspection, first staring at the ground. More pellets. A few cigarette butts. A rusty Coke can. The second time around, I kept my eyes level, examining the building, the trees and shrubbery. I stopped when I came to the place where the narrow path around the lighthouse veered off toward the Peacock. Someone had been through there recently. The ground was marred with impressions though none were clear enough to pick out tread patterns or shoe sizes like in TV shows or Bigfoot expeditions. Still, I eyed them more closely. Embedded in the dirt, I thought I spied the tiny corner of a shell, certainly common anywhere in Tipee. I grabbed its exposed edge and picked it up, shaking off the excess dirt. I blew on it, and saw that part of it was hot pink. It wasn’t a shell, but the tip of a fingernail.
Suddenly, I was yanked up by my arm. I lost the fingernail and almost my balance, but the man lifted me to my feet. Pain shot through my elbow, still healing from its break a few weeks ago. Those abated tears resurfaced in a hurry.
“Let me go!” I yelled, and he did. He wore a dirty t-shirt with the Peacock’s logo on the front, and a stern expression that almost dared me to make a run for it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I insisted. He said nothing, but raised a crooked eyebrow.
“I was just out for a walk,” I argued, “What’s so bad about that? You’ve got hoodlums with air-soft guns having a field day all over your property and you bust me? Come on, mister.”
He was shaggy and formidable, like the Abominable Snowman. Then it hit me that I’d seen him before. He was the Incredible Hulk from the Peacock party, the man who had worn a suit two sizes too small and who seemed to be just as unsociable as I was. Now, I could surely see why. He didn’t talk.
He pointed up the path, and motioned for me to head in that direction. Several feet away where the narrow path grew into a clearing, I spied the hood of a golf cart and realized he was angling me toward it. With an irritated huff, I stepped down the path. As I climbed into the passenger side of the cart, the words, “Curiosity killed the cat” came to mind. In this case, curiosity got Delilah busted. This is why you’re dismally unqualified for this kind of thing, I reminded myself.
The Incredible Hulk was incredibly lacking in the IQ department, evident by the slowness and thoughtfulness he gave each movement, from the driving of the cart to the opening of doors. He expressed constant confusion. Still, he wasn’t as dumb as me.