Town in a Pumpkin Bash (28 page)

As she started toward the shore, she surveyed her surroundings. Ahead of her, a few
old sheds with weathered gray-shingled sides cluttered on the hard-packed earth just
beyond the end of the pier, but they all looked deserted and locked up. Lobster buoys
had been tacked up on the sides of some of the buildings, though Candy sensed they
were more for decoration than for an actual fishing operation. A dirt lane that started
where the pier ended twisted off into the dense woods at the center of the island,
and footpaths meandered away from the sheds to the left and right, along the coastline
in both directions. The elderly woman who had disembarked with Candy had disappeared
along the footpath to the left, following the rocky curve of the island until it cut
through a thick stand of trees and shrubbery that crept down to a rocky point. Anything
beyond that was lost in a hazy mist that hugged the north side of the island.

Candy turned back the other direction, scanning the tree- and rock-strewn shore that
angled southeastward. She could
see a few shingled cottages, aged by the elements, dotted around the edge of the island
in that direction, but other than the gulls, she saw no signs of life—no one else
out walking, no bikers, no one tending to boats, no one else like her visiting the
island for the day, hiking its narrow paths and exploring its nooks and crannies.

It was as if she were entirely alone here, and she felt strangely out of place, even
a little ill at ease. To make matters worse, the sky was lowering, the day growing
more gray as visibility lessened with the encroaching mists.

Better check what you came here to check and get back on the mainland,
she encouraged herself as she reached the end of the pier. She stopped for a few
moments, surveying the path to her left, wondering what had become of the elderly
woman she’d seen headed off in that direction. Next she turned to the right, running
her gaze along the southward path again, until she let out a breath and continued
straight ahead, following the dirt lane toward the center of the island.

She recalled the layout of the island in her head, and knew the first place she wanted
to look for a cemetery was at the opposite end of the island, where a fairly large
house stood—or, at least, that’s the way it had looked to her on Google maps the night
before.

After a few hundred feet, the foliage began to close in around her, and as she continued
on, toward the island’s center, the wind died out and the day grew eerily hushed.
She was walking through woods made up of both deciduous and pine trees, and they seemed
to insulate her from outside sounds. She could hear birds calling high in the branches
above her, and occasionally a distant slosh as a strong wave pushed against a rocky
shore somewhere nearby. But other than that, she could hear very little of the world
beyond this forested patch on this small island—no human voices, no music, not even
the sounds of motorboats out on the water.

The forest floor, she saw, was rich and dark, peppered with
swaths of decaying pine and spruce needles under a covering of fallen leaves, creating
a carpet of dark browns and rusts, grays and yellows. Leaves lay scattered across
the path as well, so thick in some places they reached her calves as she waded through
them.

Farther in, the quietness intensified and became its own sound, a soft, underlying
murmur, disturbed only by the crunch of her sneakers on the pebble- and leaf-strewn
lane. And then another sound—gentle plops falling from the tops of the trees, down
through the remaining leaves and denuded branches. One or two struck her face as she
looked up.

Raindrops.

Up ahead, a rocky formation rose up from the ground, monolith-like, blocking her way,
but the lane simply curved around it, and she followed. Once on the other side, she
could see patches of blue through the trees, and the sound of the ocean became more
constant.

The woods opened up again, and after another few dozen steps, she emerged from the
forest to find herself at the edge of a grassy meadow, which sloped down to a rocky
shoreline, providing her with a panoramic view across a wide expanse of the water,
from the mainland on the left, with its whale-humped hills arcing away to the northeast,
out to open water straight ahead, and off to the south, where she saw another island
a short distance away.

She had reached the end of the lane and the far side of the island—in a less than
ten-minute walk.

Unfortunately, it looked as if she couldn’t go much farther in this direction, since
between her and the shoreline, neatly bisecting the meadow, stood a seven-foot-tall
wrought-iron fence, with an arched double gate directly in front of her, closed and
blocking her path. The fence extended all the way to the left and right, deep into
the trees and shrubbery, until it disappeared from view. Candy assumed it went all
the way to the shoreline in either direction, cordoning off the island’s eastern tip.

Beyond the fence, framed by a sparse grove of tall-trunked pines that dotted a flat
piece of ground stretching right to land’s end, stood a majestic house, a stone and
chocolate-shingled affair with a steep, weathered roof, multiple stories, two gables,
overhangs, and at one end, a three-story tower with windows all around at the very
top—a sort of widow’s walk, Candy imagined.
The views must be spectacular from up there,
she thought as she gazed at it. She also saw two stone chimneys, one at either end
of the house, and part of a porch on the building’s seaward side. And beyond the porch,
a pier that led out to a platform twenty feet from the shore.

The house was fancifully designed, in a summer-cottage style that resembled something
built in the late eighteen hundreds by a wealthy businessman as a retreat from the
city. Or perhaps it was only a dozen years old. These days, it was hard to tell.

As she approached the iron gate, she looked to the left and saw several outbuildings
inside the fence, tucked among the trees—one that looked like a garage or a large
storage shed, and another possibly a guest cottage.

But there was another building farther back in the trees. After focusing in on it
for a few moments, Candy decided it looked like a steep-roofed stone chapel.

And behind it, shadowed by the dense branches of the surrounding pines, she could
see what looked like a stone wall.

Just like in the black-and-white photo.

Her heart quickened as she studied it, wondering. She’d reached the gate now, but
she saw no lock, only an iron latch, which she tested with a finger. It seemed to
move easily in its bracket. She lifted it all the way up, and much to her surprise,
the gate swung open.

She hesitated. No doubt this was private property. She wondered if she should first
announce herself at the house, just in case someone was in residence.

But like the rest of the island, the building looked deserted, its windows dark, with
no lights on inside. No sign of even the slightest whiff of smoke from either of the
two chimneys. No sounds or movements to indicate someone might be about.

Making up her mind quickly, she passed through the gate, deciding it would take her
only a few moments to determine if this was the cemetery she sought. She’d be gone
before anyone knew she was here.

Walking back along the property inside the fence, she started toward the chapel. It
was small—probably with no more than a few benches inside, able to hold maybe a dozen
or so parishioners. As she got closer, she saw that it had no steeple—only a simple
cross above the white wooden door frame. The chapel’s tall, narrow windows were dark
as well, just like the main house’s. The door was closed and presumably locked.

Candy didn’t stop to check it. She walked around the side of the building, toward
the stone wall she’d seen behind it, as if drawn by a magnet.

The wall stood about four feet high and enclosed a plot of land perhaps twenty-five
feet square. Thick vegetation hugged the wall in places, while low branches of nearby
pines shielded other parts of it from view.

When Candy reached the wall, she walked around one side, then another, until she found
an opening with another iron gate. This one, too, was unlocked, and she went through.

It was indeed a cemetery—probably a family plot, she thought. She walked to the nearest
gravestone, which was black and nearly waist high, and read the name. It was a Wren—Chester
P., born 1815, died 1881. She checked another, and found another Wren buried there,
this one a Martha, born in 1819 and died in 1849. She checked the others. They were
mostly Wrens, with a few Butlers, Steeles, Sturlings, and Gilfords mixed in.

But there was one gravestone in particular that drew her attention. It sat in a
grassy area in a rear corner of the cemetery, nearly hidden behind larger, darker
gravestones.

Candy recognized it the moment she saw it. She walked toward it almost in reverence,
and stopped a few feet away.

“Hello, Emma,” she said softly into the silence.

It looked exactly as it had in the photo she’d found in the files Sapphire Vine had
kept. The name
EMMA
in capital letters across the top. No last name. No dates.

Candy’s gaze dropped to the lower portion of the tombstone, where she’d seen other
inscriptions that were too blurred to read in the photos. And now she knew why. Dirt
had been throw up against the stone, and tendrils of ground-cover ivy clung to the
lower area, obscuring some of the inscriptions and making them hazy in the images.
Candy approached the tombstone, knelt before it, and brushed away some of the dirt
while pushing aside the ivy. Finally she could make out what was written here.

There were actually three inscriptions—well, two inscriptions and an image.

In the lower-center portion of the tombstone, made up of several simple flowing lines,
was the stylized outline of a bird—a wren, Candy imagined. She’d seen a similar image
on some of the other tombstones in the cemetery. It must be a family symbol or icon.

Below that and off to the side, in the lower-right portion of the stone, a phrase
in Latin was engraved, in capital letters using an archaic font:
SAPIENS QUI ASSIDUOS
.

Candy stared at it for several moments, wondering what it meant. Then her gaze shifted
to the opposite side of the stone, where in the lower-left portion, another phrase
in Latin was engraved, its letters dark and shadowed on this overcast day:
DEUS PASCIT CORVOS
.

There was nothing else carved into the stone—still no dates to tell her when the tombstone
had been erected, when Emma had lived, died, or been buried.

But she could guess at least one of the dates.

More than likely, she thought, the woman who was buried here was the same one who
had died in a pumpkin patch in Cape Willington twenty years ago, and been interred
here shortly after.

The Jane Doe had been an island person, Mr. Gumm had told her, so that piece fit.
Here was Emma buried on an island. It also meant the woman she’d previously thought
of as Emma Smith, according to legal documents from the nineties, was more likely
Emma Wren—or at least had some connection to the family after whom the island had
been named. That much at least seemed apparent. Again, Emma was buried here, on Wren
Island, in a private cemetery occupied primarily by deceased members of the Wren family,
with a stylized bird engraved on the stone.

Candy mulled over what she’d just discovered, and linked it to other clues she’d found
over the past few days—and the one she’d learned just this morning from Finn.

The institution in Portland. She surmised that Emma had met Sapphire Vine there sometime
in the early nineties. At some point after that, perhaps only months later, Emma
must have left the institution and shown up in Cape Willington, and had later died
in the pumpkin patch. And then, Candy thought, turning and gazing out toward the sea,
her death had been hushed up for some reason, and she’d been buried here, in a back
corner of this largely forgotten family cemetery on a deserted island off the coast
of Maine.

That much, at least, seemed to fit together.

That was part of the puzzle, but what was the rest?

Candy reached into her daypack, took out her phone, swiped her finger across the screen
to unlock it, and checked the readout at the top of the display. As she’d suspected,
there was no signal out here on the island.

She couldn’t jump online to check the meanings of the Latin phrases, so instead she
used her phone to take a few quick photos of the tombstone and the grave before she
slipped it into her back pocket, switching it out for her regular camera. She snapped
a dozen more images, including some close-ups of the inscriptions at the bottom of
the stone. She also took out a notebook and pen and carefully wrote down the inscriptions,
making sure she had the exact spellings, just in case. As soon as she was back on
the mainland and could get a signal on her phone, she’d search for the phrases on
the Internet and see if she could find out what they meant.