Return to Maxwell’s Island
RETURN TO MAXWELL’S ISLAND
“Resist what?” said Tess.
“Suppose we concentrate on the first question,” said Vivian. “How are we going to get the radio back?”
“Aunt Vivian,” said Tess after a moment, “can I ask you a question?”
“I can’t promise an answer,” said Vivian, “but you can certainly ask.”
“When we were in the car with those men, I asked you to tell a story and you said you couldn’t unless one came to you.”
“That’s right.”
“But when we were in the hotel room, you told me the story about being a blind boxer. Did that one come to you? Because it felt like you didn’t believe that one the way you believed the others.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Your other stories, when you tell them you seem so convinced. I can see it your eyes and hear it in your voice. It’s like you believe those things actually happened to you. But the blind boxer story felt like you were telling a story, nothing more.”
“You’re very observant, Tess,” said Vivian.
“She knows you too well,” said Richard.
“Since you asked,” said Vivian, “no, the blind boxer story didn’t come to me the way the others do. I created that story all by myself.”
“As a way of telling me what to do?”
“Exactly. And you understood, as I knew you would.”
“But the other stories…”
“Suppose we get some sleep,” said Vivian. “It’ll be late when we get to the island, and we want to be rested.”
Tess jolted awake as the car bumped over the dirt road that led the last few miles to the lake.
“How long did I sleep?” she said.
“About five hours,” said Richard. “We made a couple of stops for food and gas and some camping supplies, but Vivian let you sleep. There’s a gas station sandwich in the bag on the seat.”
Tess glanced over to see Vivian sleeping.
After her own slumber she felt rejuvenated, as full of energy and hope as she had felt in years.
And then a voice in her head told her something interesting.
It didn’t threaten her or force her to perform some silly task.
It simply said, It’s not the sleep, it’s the island.
“Aunt Vivian, wake up.” Tess gave Vivian a gentle shake. “We’re almost there. Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” asked Richard.
“The island,” said Tess. “I always felt my happiest there and now that we’re getting close, I can feel it pulling me. It’s lovely.”
“We’re fleeing from people who are trying to kidnap you, arriving in the middle of the night to an island with no shelter and it’s forty-five degrees outside, and you feel lovely?” said Richard.
“Yes!” Tess was unable to hide her excitement.
“Interesting,” said Richard.
They reached the boat launch a little after 11:30, parking the car next to the small building, abandoned now that the summer season had ended and the two remaining homes on the lake had been shut tight. They saw no signs of either life or available boats.
“Just as well,” said Richard. “If there aren’t any boats, then no one else can get to the island.”
“But doesn’t that also mean we can’t get to the island?” said Tess. “Even if I could swim that far, the water will be too cold this time of year.”
In the light of the full moon, Tess could see the low bulk of Maxwell’s Island rising from the lake a mile away.
The joy she had felt in the car only increased when she spotted the island.
She could imagine Harry sitting on the dock waiting for them, ready to welcome her home after all these years.
Yet, without a boat, the island would remain nothing more than a vision, a mirage just out of reach.
She turned her gaze upward, and even with the moonlight she could see Arcturus, Harry’s star, watching over her.
“Don’t worry,” said Vivian. “Harry will look after us.”
“I hate to be the one to remind you,” said Richard, “but Harry is dead.”
“That didn’t stop him from sending a message to Tess,” said Vivian, “and it won’t stop him from giving us a boat. Put those coats on, grab the flashlights, and follow me.”
It took Vivian only a few minutes to find the narrow path that led west from the road a few yards back from the edge of the lake.
The path was covered with fallen leaves in hues of red and orange and yellow that flickered in the combined lights of the moon and the flashlights.
Tess felt as if she were kicking fire as her feet moved through the heaps that had been swept up by the wind.
But she had no trouble following Vivian and keeping to the path.
The undergrowth had all died back so, though she occasionally ducked to avoid a low-hanging tree limb, she found the going fairly easy.
After rounding a small inlet in which an island of rock about fifty feet across stood just off the shore, Vivian began to look for three trees.
“I hope none of them have fallen in the past decade,” she said.
The trees stood in a perfect isosceles triangle—two mighty oaks sixteen paces apart and a slender beech tree twenty-five paces from each of the oaks.
Harry had chosen that triangle not only because of its geometric perfection but because in the light of both sun and moon, the white bark of the birch tree made it easy to spot.
If they stood on the far side of the inlet, with the rocky island directly behind them, Vivian explained, they should be looking right between the two oaks and directly at the birch.
Sure enough, all three trees were still there, and in the center of their triangle Vivian found the canoe that Harry kept stashed there for emergencies, still hidden under a rotting tarpaulin and ten years’ worth of leaf litter.
A paddle was secured under the seat and once they had flipped it on its keel, the aluminum boat slid across the loose leaves on the forest floor nearly as easily as if they had been pulling it on a dolly.
In a few minutes, they were kneeling in the canoe, Vivian paddling carefully around what Harry had always called Rock Island, and heading back to the boat landing.
There, they secured the rest of the supplies Richard had purchased at the outfitters—three sleeping bags, extra blankets, camping chairs, and a small portable generator.
“What do we need this thing for?” asked Tess. “We don’t have anything to plug in.”
“A precaution,” said Richard. “Vivian insisted.”
Landing at the island was trickier than usual because the dock had deteriorated to the point that most of it had fallen into the water.
Tess held back tears as she thought of the happy evenings she had spent there with Harry.
Now they couldn’t even dock a canoe there.
Eventually, Vivian found a spot where loose gravel came down to the water’s edge and managed to beach the canoe.
“Welcome to Maxwell’s Island,” she said as they stepped ashore.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see this place,” said Richard.
The moment Tess set foot on solid ground she felt a jolt through her body like the sweetest electric shock in the world. Even the decrepit state of her beloved dock couldn’t quell her joy.
“This is what I’ve needed,” she said. “This is where I’ve needed. I had a therapist back at school who asked me where I felt most safe in the world, and I told her right here on this island. But she made me go to Aunt Vivian’s.”
“I’m glad you came to me,” said Vivian.
“Oh, I am, too,” said Tess. “I’m glad we’re both here.”
“Is someone going to show me around?” said Richard.
“Come on,” said Tess. “Let’s get these things up to the house.”
But of course, there was no house. After a decade of rain and wind and snow, the charred remains had disappeared, and the house was nothing more than a slight lump beneath the dead leaves.
Even that stark reminder of her final tragic night on the island was not enough to dampen Tess’s mood.
She walked the perimeter of the house and memories she thought had been lost came flooding back.
She could hear her own childhood laughter and the sound of Harry and Vivian deep in conversation as the fire crackled before them.
She could smell ginger cookies baking in the oven and feel the softness of Marie’s lap and the soothing sound of her voice as she read Tess another chapter about Narnia.
She also saw the rows of Legos in her closet and the carefully sharpened pencils, but here on the island the voices that once seemed so threatening now felt like old friends.
When she completed her circumnavigation of the house, Tess looked across the moonlit open space outside what had once been her bedroom window at the circle of trees.
Harry’s circle of trees. A few blackened trunks still stood to mark the spot.
She had never stepped inside that circle, forbidden by Harry to enter his sanctuary.
Now she walked slowly toward the shadows cast by those dark monoliths in the moonlight.
“Are you all right?” said Vivian.
“Can I go in?” said Tess. “Would Harry want me to?”
“Yes,” said Vivian softly, “Harry would want you to.”
Tess glanced up at Harry’s star and stepped into the circle.