Entry 16
My parents watched me like hawks after the incident with Mr. Rudd. Mama was beside herself, worried that the Terry name was mud after my outburst.
Papa advised me to stay out of Mama’s way. I was happy to oblige. I had much to do to get ready to meet Charlotte again. If that even was her name.
Standing on the porch of our farmhouse, I looked out at the clouds, moving at a breakneck speed. The weather was changing. The island would be gone soon. Am I doing the right thing? I wondered as I fiddled with the rolled paper in my hands.
Meow.
Winks was suddenly sitting at the edge of the steps, blinking at me with her one good eye. I smiled. “I was hoping you’d come.”
Around the cat’s neck, I saw a silver coin hanging from red cord.
It looked like the treasure and yet also like the nickel Papa had given me.
I’d been practicing the sleight-of-hand trick Papa taught me repeatedly.
I slipped the note inside the cord, which held it securely against Winks’s neck.
Then I said a silent prayer I was right about Winks being a messenger.
“Tell her I miss her,” I whispered to the cat, who blinked and scattered when she heard the porch door. I stood up fast and froze. “Mama.”
My mother held her sewing basket. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” I said automatically.
She hoisted the basket higher. “We both know you have been up to mischief, despite what you and your father claim.” I opened my mouth to protest, and she cut me off.
“I don’t want to know more.” Her eyes held so much worry, I almost felt bad we were keeping her in the dark.
“Just promise me you understand—actions have consequences.”
“I know, Mama,” I agreed.
“You’re getting older, and I can’t protect you from all the ills of this world. How people view our name matters. Take care of ours. We want the Terry name to last for generations.”
“I will, Mama,” I promised. I was counting on that to be true.
A gust of wind blew as Mama stared at the clouds. “I think the rain will hold off this afternoon, so Papa is taking me to the Old Burying Ground to see Maeve.”
I stiffened at mention of my baby sister’s name.
She died when I was five. Maeve was only six months old.
My brothers say she was sick since birth, but I don’t remember.
I remember holding her tiny hand in mine, but that is my only memory of her.
Mama didn’t talk about Maeve often, but she and Papa brought flowers to her grave at the Old Burying Ground near the edge of town every few weeks.
They didn’t have money for a headstone, so there was a simple marker with her name and date on it.
I knew it was Mama’s hope to someday afford a proper slate headstone for my sister. I wanted that for her too.
With all the rain from the Blood Orange Moon, I realized my parents hadn’t visited Maeve in a while. They’d be gone a good long while, which meant I could slip away to see Charlotte without worry.
Mama gave me a stern look. “With the Cough and Axel Rudd missing, stay here.”
I nodded. I think we both knew I would not listen.
I did, however, wait till her and Papa’s wagon had rumbled down the road before I hurried to the beach.
I could feel the wind at my back, pushing me toward the seagrass.
Welcome, Evelyn Terry. Welcome! I heard the whispers begin.
The island was still here. I closed my eyes and listened to the beating of my heart.
I only hoped when the time came, I would have the strength to do what I had to do.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
Charlotte was sitting on one of the jagged rocks that poked out of the water. The sea was choppy, a low fog obscuring Greenport from view. The whispers grew louder, and I had to avert my eyes to keep from staring at Charlotte’s traveling cloak, where I suspected the coins were hidden.
For two people who claimed to be leaving Greenport, we traveled light. “Hello.”
She stood slowly, stretching like a cat. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
“No,” I kept my voice steady, one hand on my pocket. “I’ll get my friends to give me back their coins, help them off the island, and bring the treasure chest here.” My heart started to beat quicker at the thought of these things.
“We will do these things together,” she corrected me. Her eyes glowed, just like Kimble’s. “You didn’t think I’d trust a child to do all this on her own, did you?”
I had a habit of being rash, so I tried to think before I spoke. “If you’re going to the island, why do you need me?”
“Because I do!” she said, her voice raising slightly.
And that’s when I realized something. She can’t go without me. The island won’t let her. My fingers tingled with this realization. The island was taunting her.
“Stop dawdling, dear. Find the new entrance. This is where we found it last time.”
Who was we? Kimble? I let her pull me along, my feet slipping in the wet sand from the earlier rain.
I could hear the wind as we pushed against it along the shore.
My fingers were cold and numb, but after a few minutes I noticed the stretch of sand widening, the sun peeking through the clouds, the fog lifting, and the path along the water seemed to climb—sand on one side and a rocky hill on the other, like a mountain made of rocks I’d never seen before.
I stopped short. Welcome, Evelyn Terry. Welcome.
“What is it?” Charlotte pressed. “Do you see the entrance?”
I pulled my arm away. In the water directly in front of me was a rock, just a few yards out. It looked entirely out of place, and in a storm a ship that came too close to the shoreline could hit it. What was it doing here? I stepped to the water’s edge, the voices growing louder.
Sparrow? Where are you? I heard someone call, and I swallowed hard.
That sounded like Gil!
I waded into the water up to my ankles, and I heard his voice louder than before. “Here.” I said. “I think there is an entrance here. I don’t see one, but I feel the sun.”
“You are certain?” Charlotte asked breathlessly.
I nodded. “Yes. And the voices calling me back are louder. Can you hear them?”
“I can,” she said quietly. “They’re calling me too.”
“Then this is where the sandbar must be…if, as you say, we have what the island wants and it will let us across. Now we need your treasure.” My palms began to sweat.
Charlotte reached into her top and pulled out the two coins.
She held them in the palm of her hand. Seeing them made my breath hitch. The voices were so loud I felt as if the whole world could hear them.
“Do you see the sandbar now?”
“No,” I said, looking at the rock again. She sighed heavily. “But that could be because I need to be the one holding the coins.”
She grabbed my arm. “Don’t do anything funny. You can use this coin to get on the island, then it comes right back to me.” Her grip tightened. “Or your friends don’t make it off. Understood?”
“Understood,” I said. I held out my shaking palm, and Charlotte dropped one of the coins into it.
The change in the air was instant. The wind swirled around us like a vortex, the water sucking away from the shore as if the tide was going out at a great speed.
The ground started to shake, and the two of us held on to one another.
For a moment I thought we were about to be sucked into the earth.
And then suddenly, I saw the sandbar, stretching out in front of me, piece by piece.
The island flickered into view like a shadow.
“I see it! It’s there!” I cried both literal tears of joys and ones of deep tiredness. Aggy. Gil. Laurel. Thomas. Axel. They were there. In seconds, I would be too. I could bring them home!
Charlotte grabbed my hand. “Good! Lead the way!” I could hear her excitement too.
I stepped onto the sandbar and was yanked back.
Charlotte hadn’t moved.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing is the matter. Just pull me,” she said, irritation creeping into her voice.
I pulled as hard as I could, and Charlotte didn’t budge. I could see her face, concentrating hard, looking as if she was struggling against an immovable force.
Charlotte let out a scream of frustration. “You aren’t pulling hard enough!”
“I’m trying!” I said, pulling on her hand with both of my own now. Still, Charlotte didn’t move. She tightened her grasp.
“You are not going without me!” Charlotte shouted.
The whispers of the island grew louder, but with Charlotte anchoring me down, I was going nowhere. “The island doesn’t want you there.” I knew now for sure. “It doesn’t trust you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, child!” she practically growled.
“Then why is it I can step onto the sandbar and you cannot?” I asked, feeling lighter now.
Charlotte dug her feet into the sand. She screamed out in vain, cursing the very island she wanted so desperately to reach.
“What do you want from me?” she yelled at the sandbar.
“I have what you need! Don’t you want it back?
Why say, Welcome, Grace, if I can’t join you?
” She sunk down on the sand, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Grace,” I whispered. “Is that your real name?”
She looked at me hard. “Give me back the coin. We must find another way together.”
I could feel my heart beating fast. I knew this was my only chance.
I pulled out of Charlotte’s grasp and opened my palm to reveal the coin.
But before Charlotte could take it, I made a fist. Then I waved my other hand over the hand with the coin, tapping it before I dropped a nickel into Charlotte’s outstretched fingers.
Confusion flickered over her face as I took off at a run.
“Evelyn! Stop!” she shouted.
But at that point, I was already running across the sandbar, the real treasure in my fist, while Charlotte was left holding a shiny nickel.