Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
A little shiver tried to work its way up Oscar’s spine.
Devil’s Den wasn’t the most reassuring name—but then, the Outer Banks were full of perfectly normal places whose monikers dated back to the times when pirates sailed these waters.
Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills, Whalebone, Salvo—though that last one came from the Civil War. History ran deep out here.
Maybe this was what Ms. Montague had always been aiming for when she secured their services via a grant for Nigel and generous financing for OutFoxing the Paranormal. For someone to follow her back here, complete the work they’d left unfinished so many years before.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Ruthie,” Montague chided her…
girlfriend? Ex? Both? “The island is only called that because pirates used to anchor here. There is—was—a fresh spring, plus timber for repairs.” She paused, then added, “Of course there are legends of buried treasure, but that’s nonsense.
Pirates spent their ill-gotten gains in the seaports along the coast. It was one of the reasons they were so hard to catch.
The locals had no interest in killing their golden geese, and so were less than cooperative with authorities. ”
“If all the stories about Blackbeard burying treasure were true, he wouldn’t have had time to do any actual piracy,” Nigel agreed wryly. “So the island is uninhabited now?”
“Yes. It’s quite small, and as you can see, the only way in and out is by boat.
” Montague folded her hands on top of her silver-handled cane.
“The only house on the island was built in 1908 by a tobacco magnate named Seth Ullman.
The Cottage, as he called it, was meant as a summer retreat and constructed according to his own specifications.
Every May, he would adjourn to Devil's Den with six of his closest friends and business partners.”
Dr. Lawson cleared her throat. “We don’t want to give too much information away before our medium has a chance to get his impressions.” She glanced at Oscar. “No offense, Fox.”
“None taken.” Human brains loved nothing more than to fit data into preconceived patterns, and he wasn’t about to fool himself into thinking that didn’t apply to him.
“Then let me just say another family owned it in the 1980s, when we were here before. After…” Montague trailed off, then rallied. “Well, my family ended up buying the island. It’s been abandoned ever since.”
A gull swooped closer, then perched on the rail, eyeing them up to see if they had any food.
Disappointed, it let out a shriek and took off, joining its fellows trailing behind the boat.
The coast receded into a green-gray haze behind them, and the waters of Pamlico Sound glittered in the summer sun.
Between the shade and the stiff wind from the boat’s movement, he’d stopped sweating; when he licked his lips, he tasted the salt evaporation left behind.
Nigel finished off the rest of his water. “Didn’t Robin already collect impressions, though? Surely your previous investigation established the facts of the haunting.”
“That’s what I said.” Montague sniffed. “But Ruthie will have things her way.”
“Me?” Dr. Lawson arched a brow. “Pot, meet kettle.”
Tina looked down at her phone. “I’m guessing there’s no cell service on the island?”
“No,” Montague answered her. “But I have a satellite phone in case of emergency. And to monitor the weather, of course; one can never be too careful in storm season.”
The idea of being stuck on a tiny island in the middle of a storm made him shudder. It seemed Montague had thought of everything.
“The island is coming into view,” Ethan called back.
“I want to see!” Tina jumped up and went to stand near his chair. Curious, Oscar joined her.
At first, Devil’s Den was nothing more than a hazy smear amidst the waves. As they drew closer, it gradually resolved into a sandy strip of beach giving way to marsh grass, then to a skeletal forest that matched the one they’d left behind on the mainland.
In fact, as their view sharpened, it became obvious the only green left on the small island belonged to the marsh grass. “Why are all the trees dead?” Tina asked.
“Because it’s a ghost forest.” Ethan glanced at them, then returned his attention to the fore. “Not in the sense of the ghosts you hunt, of course. As climate change causes the sea level to rise, the saltwater kills trees that were once beyond its reach. Ecologists call them ghost forests.”
“Damn.” Tina lifted her phone to snap a picture.
Something Montague had said came back to Oscar. “Is that why there isn’t a fresh spring on the island anymore?”
“Very good, Fox,” Dr. Lawson said from his elbow.
He managed not to jump; the sound of the engine had covered her approach.
“The well is contaminated. We had to bring in water tanks for our visit. Along with other supplies. Good thing Patricia has more money than she knows what to do with, because it probably wasn’t cheap having everything hauled in. ”
Like the man in her story—Ullman, that was the name—Montague came from tobacco money.
Though the market had waned, at least in the US, her family had diversified over the years.
Clearly they were still wealthy enough to own an entire island in a tourist area, then leave it to return to nature rather than make money off of it.
Since he was an accountant in his day job, Oscar sometimes wondered what the Montague books looked like, and how many sets of them were maintained.
“Where’s the house?” Tina asked, shading her eyes against the glare off the water.
Lawson nodded in the direction of the island. “You’re already looking at it.”
Oscar shaded his eyes as well, peering in confusion.
There was a new dock at the water’s edge, matching the one they’d used to board on the mainland.
A sandy road that looked newly cut through the ghost forest stretched from it, disappearing quickly amidst the gray trunks.
Most of the branches had fallen off, or been stripped away by storms, so they rose up and up like the fangs of some giant creature…
Then he saw the steep roofs—and wait, not all of the gray wall was trees. Sun and storms had chipped away most of the paint that had coated The Cottage’s wooden siding, leaving behind only splotches of white that mimicked lichen on the weathered boards.
The house was there, had been there as Dr. Lawson said. Camouflaged in the trees like a lurking predator.
As the boat drew nearer, the outlines of the house became more and more clear.
It was immediately apparent that The Cottage was wildly misnamed—The Mansion would have been more accurate.
The building clawed at the sky, three stories high with sharp-peaked gables.
Above the roofs rose a square four-story tower, the top of which mimicked the pinnacle of a lighthouse, complete with steel balcony surrounding the lantern room where the light would be.
“Surely there isn’t a lantern,” he said. “At the top of the tower, I mean.”
“There is, though even a tobacco magnate couldn’t get away with confusing the ships that sail these waters.
” Lawson gripped the end of her long braid in both hands, and it suddenly occurred to Oscar that this might be the first time she’d seen the island since Robin had died on it.
Going into lecture-mode might be her way of maintaining some calm.
“The glass of the lantern is red, instead of white like a real lighthouse. That way it could also double as a warning light for the island, in case someone got way off course. Though it hasn’t been lit for a very long time now. ”
Nigel came up beside him, and Oscar automatically took his hand.
The wind blew Nigel’s messy locks back from his face, and his gray eyes squinted against the brilliant sparkle of the sun off the water.
Oscar made a mental note to remind his boyfriend to be liberal with the sunscreen; since he spent most of his time in an office or lecture hall, Nigel was pale even into the summer.
The catamaran glided up to the dock, and Ethan cut the motor. Within a few minutes, the boat was secured, and they went down to unload their equipment. Fortunately, a golf cart with overlarge wheels and a small bed waited on the dock to help with transport.
“It will take a few trips,” Ethan observed.
“We can carry our backpacks and the laptops, at least,” Oscar said. “It doesn’t look that far to the house.”
“It’s not that far anywhere on this island,” Lawson confirmed. “I’ll walk with you, so Patricia can ride with Ethan.”
They loaded as much as would fit onto the golf cart, then grabbed everything they could easily carry, while Ethan and Montague drove away along the sandy road.
The sun beat down unmercifully, though at least there was a strong enough wind to make it bearable despite the humidity.
Shouldering their burdens, they started into the ghost forest.