Island of the Forbidden (8 page)

He probably doesn't even know what YouTube is,
Eddie thought.
Looks more content to search for frogs in the swamp than surf the net for porn or videos of teens acting like dumb asses.

“Hello,” he said, his voice not much deeper than his little sister's.

“Alice, Jason, this is Ms. Backman and Mr. Home. They're the people your father and I told you about.”

“It's nice to meet you Ms. Backman and Mr. Home,” they said in unison. Eddie had to think fast and remember if they were twins. No, Jason was older by almost two years at age eleven. They sure could pass for twins.

“Hello Alice and Jason. You can call me Jessica.”

Before the children could speak, their mother interjected. “If you don't mind, we prefer they not. It's a matter of respect for one's elders.”

Eddie nodded. He'd lived in North Carolina long enough not to be surprised. Manners went a long way in the south. “We understand.” He wasn't sure Jessica did, but it was best to go along with them since they had to spend the week living with the family.

“Now that you're here,” Tobe Harper said, “consider our house, your house. You're free to go as you wish. If you need anything at any time, just call out for myself or Daphne. I'm curious to see what you'll discover on our island.”

Alice wrapped her little hand around Jessica's fingers. “Come with me, Ms. Backman.”

Jessica looked to her mother to make sure it was okay. Daphne smiled. “Don't keep her too long, dear. Ms. Backman has work to do.”

Eddie walked up to Tobe. “Do the kids know why we're here?” he said as low as he could.

“Oh, yes. You'll find they're not as tentative as other children their age when it comes to this subject. They've spent considerable time with us overseas, living in much older locations with, ah, rich histories.”

Interesting.

Eddie felt a tug on his pants. “We should go, too, Mr. Home,” Jason said.

“If you haven't returned by lunch, I'll send Paul to get you,” Daphne said.

He waved back at them as little Jason led him around the house to the path to the dock. The sun was at their backs, presumably, and the tunnel of trees and brambles was almost dark as night.

“Come on,” Jason insisted.

“Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

“Is it where your sister and Jessica—Ms. Backman—are going too?”

He nodded with unbound enthusiasm.

One thing about the Harper children, they weren't shy. How many other kids would traipse off with a couple of strangers a minute after meeting them?
Daphne and Tobe need to talk to them about stranger danger.
Growing up in a city like San Francisco, he was taught at a young age to avoid contact with any adult he didn't know. Maybe things were different for kids who traveled the world, though Eddie suspected that message would be hammered home even deeper, going from one new place to another.

They stumbled down the path. Midway down, Jason crouched and darted into a cut in the bushes. “This way,” he said.

Eddie had to get on his hands and knees to fit. He followed the boy as closely as he could. Sharp sticks and needles pricked his skin. It was even colder here than in the house. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he'd stepped into the middle of a late fall day.

The small passageway made several sharp twists and turns. At one point, Eddie used his telekinetic ability to lift the cover over his head enough for him to get by without scraping half the skin off his scalp and forehead. The boy didn't notice the soft, mental nudge he'd given the overgrowth.

Jason suddenly disappeared. Eddie quickened his pace, his knees aching.

He popped out of the path into a circle of bright, warm sun.

Jessica was standing with Alice. He got to his feet, swatting the knees of his jeans clean.

“Uncle Paul doesn't like us to come here, but we thought it would be okay as long as you were with us,” Alice said.

Eddie followed Jessica's downward gaze to a patch of scorched earth over twenty feet wide. Nothing grew within the irregular circle. The black earth was littered with the brown husks of desiccated ragweed fronds. Though there was no lingering scent of a blaze, it looked like one hell of a bonfire had taken place in the hidden patch of land.

“What the fuck?” Jessica whispered, though loud enough to get a giggle from Jason and Alice. Eddie rolled his eyes. She bent down to grasp a handful of dirt and ragweed. It crumbled to a fine dust that filtered through her fingers. “It feels weird,” she said.

He did the same. She was right. The texture was completely off, like something synthetic gone to waste.

“This is the place where the Last Kids live,” Jason said.

“Last Kids?” Eddie said.

“Yes. There were lots of them on the island. This is where the last ones went to sleep.”

Eddie's heartbeat quickened.

“Did your mother or father or Uncle Paul tell you that?” Jessica asked, kneeling so she was eye level with them.

They shook their heads. “Mommy and Daddy don't know about this place and Uncle Paul is too afraid to talk about it,” Alice said. “Sometimes we come here to talk to the Last Kids. But most times, they come to see us. A couple of times, they came as fireflies. It's really pretty. They're not scary at all.”

Eddie looked over at Jessica. She did a great job of keeping her cool, not showing her concern to the kids.

A feathery sensation, like walking under cobwebs, fingered across the back of his neck.

When he looked back to the strange clearing, he could no longer see the barren land.

The entire space was filled with the luminescent bodies of the dead. Dozens of young, tortured faces stared back at him, soundless, breathless. Many had high, sloping foreheads with small, crescent-shaped eyes. Some had stunted limbs, arms that ended where the elbow should be, useless digits flopping when they moved. He saw a boy with a severe cleft palate, a teenage girl with teeth in desperate need of braces, a baby—dear God, a baby!—crawling on the ground, missing its feet.

A flood of emotions washed over him, through him, almost bringing him to his knees.

In that instant, he knew.

Holy Christ. No! Please, stop!

He grabbed Jessica's hand. “Let's go back to the house.”

A flicker of understanding flashed in her eyes and she ushered the children ahead of her. “You know what kids? I'm starving. Can you take us back to the house?”

“Sure,” Jason said. “Follow me.”

Alice turned back to the clearing. “Goodbye. See you later.”

Jessica's mouth opened as if she was about to say something to the little girl, then closed. She cast a wary glance at the scorched ground before urging the kids back to the house.

Eddie concentrated on the winding pathway, pushing the foliage back with his mind so nothing would hinder their exit.

When they were back on the main path, his head pounded to the beat of his heart.

He could still feel the desperate gazes of the dead children to their right.

Something skittered amidst the leaves. Eddie knew it wasn't squirrels or chipmunks.

The spirits of the Last Kids and generations before them were everywhere.

And they were gaining strength.

Chapter Fourteen

The Harpers truly left Eddie and Jessica to themselves, allowing them to go anywhere they wished in the house or on the island. In fact, after lunch, Paul went upstairs with Jason and Alice to make sure they did their reading while Daphne and Tobe retired to the library. Fires had to be started in the downstairs rooms at two in the afternoon to make the house comfortable.

Jessica was in the kitchen, eyeing a door when Eddie came in through a side door leading outside.

“You think that's the basement door?” she asked. He'd been pretty quiet since the weirdness at the little plot of dead land. Swallowing her urge to push his buttons, she'd left him to himself, confident he'd tell her everything he saw when the time was right.

Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of working with a partner.
She'd been so stubborn when she decided to jump headfirst into the study and exploration of the supernatural. When Eddie initially came to her—at the request of her father, who had died thirteen years earlier—they butted heads constantly. She was beginning to realize she was the source of most of the friction.

The problem was, aside from her relationship with Angela, she'd been a loner most of her life. It was difficult sharing her passion with someone else, made even more so when he discovered that she had bizarre abilities that rivaled his own.

“With the water table on an island, I suspect there's no basement,” he said, turning the old key and opening the door, revealing a fully stocked pantry.

“Good call,” she said.

“I have my moments.”

She stepped into the pantry. A few new cans of vegetables, soup and boxes of cereal lined one of the shelves. The others were cluttered with dusty mason jars, bottles of cleaning supplies with labels and logos decades old, several terracotta planters and other odd knick-knacks. Behind the door, what looked like an old lab coat hung on a hook. The linen was spotted with amber splotches of age. Eddie said, “Looks like someone liked to experiment in the kitchen.”

Jessica didn't laugh.

“This may sound strange, but I can't shake feeling sad. The air is heavy here, and not just in the house. It reminds me of the funeral home when my grandfather passed away. Everywhere I go, I get this sense of grieving.”

Eddie squinted at the ceiling light. “Did you bring your digital recorder?”

When she first started exploring EBs, she'd had all of the equipment she'd seen on TV and read about in books, from EMF meters to EM pumps, FLIR cameras and radio frequency boxes that purportedly helped the dead communicate with the living.

Eddie had replaced all of that. Now all she had was a couple of digital recorders and a video cam that could also take stills. She used these more for compiling corroborating evidence than anything else. Now that her website was gone, that evidence would never see the light of day beyond what she showed the people who came to her for help. Privacy was paramount.

“I have one right here,” she said, fishing the slim, silver recorder from her front pocket.

“Turn it on.”

She flicked the power button and pressed Record.

“Put it right there,” Eddie said, pointing to the kitchen table.

“Are you hearing something?”

“Lately, I'm always hearing something. I can just get enough from the mess to discern a coherent sentence. We need to go up there.”

He pointed at the ceiling. “To the locked bedrooms?” Jessica asked.

“Higher. There's an attic above the rooms.”

Jessica recalled an image of the house as viewed from the outside. She'd walked around it several times, taking pictures at random. She didn't recall seeing any windows above the second floor.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Eddie shrugged his shoulders. “I'm not, but
they
are.”

“The Last Kids?”

She had to admit, when Jason and Alice mentioned talking to the Last Kids in the place where they
went to sleep
, a chill had danced up her back. She wasn't frightened for herself, but for the Harper children. She knew full well how exposure to things like this at an early age could screw your head right around.

“First, middle and last,” he said and left it at that. As much as she wanted to shake him and ask him what the hell he meant, she knew it was best to back off—for now.

“All right, let's go then. Should I just leave the recorder running here?”

“Yes. We can pick it up later.”

They went upstairs, their ascent on the old, bare steps making enough noise to wake the dead.

Except here, the dead never slept. She didn't have to have Eddie's ability to speak to them to know that.

Walking down the long hallway, they looked for a trap door in the ceiling. There was none. Paul's muted laughter sounded from the children's room, followed by a giggle from Jason or Alice. It was hard to tell.

“The access must be in one of the rooms,” Eddie said.

“Let's check ours first.”

The Yellow and Blue rooms were dead ends. When they met back in the hall, Jessica said, “Might as well see about the kids' room.”

She knocked on the thick door, the wood of the bottom half scarred as if numerous boots had kicked it open over the decades.

Paul opened the door. Jason and Alice sat on their beds, open books on their laps. A pile of magazines lay on an old rocking chair by the window.

“Hi Ms. Backman,” Alice said, smiling.

“Hello Mr. Home,” Jason chirped. They looked grateful for the break.

“How's everything going?” Paul asked.

“Just mentally mapping the house out so we don't kill ourselves when we knock around in the dark,” Jessica said, scanning the ceiling. No dice. Although, the attic entrance could just as well be in the closet beside Jason's bed. “Do you mind if we take a quick look around your room, kids?”

“That won't take long,” Jason said. The room was a bit on the small side, but it had a nice view over most of the treetops straight to Charleston Harbor. She went to the closet, finding a rack of clothes and a sealed cardboard box on the floor. No one was getting to the attic from here.

Eddie talked to the kids, asking about the books they were reading—
Lord of the Rings
for Jason and a Junie B. Jones chapter book for Alice.

“Paul, do you know if there's an attic?” Jessica asked.

He scratched at his beard. “I haven't seen it, but I've only been here a little over a week. I haven't done much exploring. These two keep me pretty busy.”

“I noticed the spare bedrooms are locked. Do you have a key? If there is an attic, it would be important to know. EBs tend to stay in places where the living spend little time.” It was a lie, but one she'd seen perpetuated on ghost shows. She knew Paul would buy it.

“That's true,” he said, as if he'd had a lifetime of experience chasing ghosts in dusty attics. He sucked on his teeth, twisting his lips in thought. “I don't have a key. I'm not even sure there is a key. I'd have to ask Daphne and Tobe.”

“That's okay, I'll head on downstairs and ask them myself.”

“They just left.”

“Where to?” Eddie asked.

“Tobe had to meet with someone in Charleston on some kind of business. He's always got his hands in different things. My sister went so they could go out to eat later. They're not used to all this home cooking.”

A short gasp hissed behind Jessica. She whirled to see Eddie on the end of Jason's bed, holding his head.

“Are you all right?” Paul asked.

“Just a headache. I get them a lot,” Eddie said. He scrunched his eyes, taking several slow breaths. “I'll be fine. They go as quickly as they come.”

Alice gingerly walked across the room, placing her pale hand on his forehead. “Would you like a cold washcloth, Mr. Home? Mommy always gets me one when I have a fever or my head hurts.”

He patted her hand. “Thank you, Alice. I'm already feeling better.”

Jessica caught his eye.

Time to make our exit.

“Well,” she said, “we have the whole week to explore. I'll talk to them when they get back. Sorry to interrupt your reading time.”

The kids looked at her, imploring with their big eyes to stay. It must have been pretty boring out there with no other children to talk to or play with. They probably craved distraction. She and Eddie fit that bill, all right.

“I'll have dinner ready at seven,” Paul said. “Nothing fancy. I'm firing up the grill out back and making hamburgers and corn on the cob.”

“Sounds delicious. See you in a little while, guys,” Jessica said.

Paul closed the door behind them.

Eddie clasped her arm, walking her downstairs and outside by the front of the house.

“He's lying,” he said.

“You think Daphne and Tobe are still on the island?”

“No, they're really gone. But when he was talking, the EBs started screaming. It was like being at a football game when the ref blows a call.”

“So what are they saying?”

“Paul knows about the attic. He just doesn't want us to know…yet.”

The gentle raps on the door startled Nina D'Arcangela from her catnap. Light afternoon naps were part of a routine she'd established many years ago. As a dyed-in-the-wool night owl, she'd learned the value of a quiet lie-down when the sun was high.

She patted her hair down, the static from the sheets tugging at the ends. “Coming, coming.”

She opened the door but found no one there.

Must have dreamt it
, she thought.

Just as she was about to retreat back to her suite, she spotted a sealed envelope on the floor. Nina flicked it open with the sharp edge of a nail. A sheet of cream-colored stationery had been folded in half. It simply read “
Tomorrow”
.

Letting the door close behind her, she dropped the note and envelope on a glass topped coffee table, returning to the bedroom.

Better get as much rest as I can. It's all heavy lifting from here.

Truth be told, Ormsby Island unnerved her. From the first moment she'd stepped onto the dock, she wondered if she'd gotten in over her head. Telling people what they wanted to hear by contacting their deceased loved ones (sometimes catching faded glimpses of the actual mothers, husbands, children, you name it, most times not) in the comfort of her living room was one thing. But she had wanted to branch out, to become something more than a housebound psychic. Even if ninety percent of her gift was knowing just the right thing to say to a person in need—because no one came to her unless they needed something, most times, closure—hadn't she always wanted a bigger, brighter stage? Now was not the time for fear.

What unsettled her most was the intense surge of clairvoyance that had filled her during the first séance she conducted with the Harpers on the island. It was as if the realm between the living and the dead had been opened wide for her. At times, she felt as if she was merely a tool being manipulated by something she couldn't quite grasp. There was no need for clever tricks and lines of questioning. Information came to her from the ether. For the most part, all she needed to do was ask and it was provided. After returning from the island she tried it again in her hotel room, but came up with nothing. If she was a radio, the island was the electrical outlet. It was intense and strange and invigorating all at once.

And what about the game of deception that had been played up to this point? That wasn't a worry she could take on. No sense losing beauty sleep over that one. Life was a con. The trick was to be on the right side of the Three-card Monte table.

She closed her eyes, conjuring up an image of her childhood home. Her mind's eye recreated every nook and cranny of the house on Highland Avenue in Lake George. She heard her mother humming to herself as she did the ironing in the laundry room, just off the kitchen. By the time she crept up the steps to her bedroom with its posters of the Sex Pistols and The Ramones, sleep had cradled her within its arms, whispering voices from the past, present and beyond.