Chapter Two #2
With that taken care of, Brad grabs my suitcase.
I follow him across the dock, taking stock of the island before me.
From the ground, it looks less threatening than it did on the water.
Remote, yes, and clearly wild, but also pleasing in that way nature can be when experienced in the full embrace of afternoon sun.
The long, slow slope to the top is a tangle of green dotted with bursts of wildflowers in shades of purple, yellow, and gold.
Trees take over where the land flattens out.
A thick wall of evergreens, shimmering birches, maples with trunks as thick as tractor tires.
But amid all that unruly nature are signs of habitation.
The same buildings I spotted from the boat can be seen from the base of the incline, their pitched roofs peeking over the foliage.
A clear path leads from the dock to the top of the island, zigzagging up the hill before ending in a set of stone steps at the tree line.
The three of us begin our ascent, Loretta taking the lead, me in the rear. Now that I’ve reasoned away my trepidation about the island itself, first-day jitters have returned in full force.
I’m going to be in a movie.
One directed by Ronan Peters.
Starring an honest-to-God legend.
Whom I will be meeting in a matter of minutes.
The idea that Violet Wright might be waiting for me at the top of the hill makes my legs tremble as I continue to climb. To distract myself, I pepper Brad with questions.
“Did you just get here today?”
“I’ve been here since Friday,” he says. “Spent the weekend prepping the place for your arrival.”
“All by yourself?”
Brad rounds the sharp corner of the last leg of the path.
“Yup. And no, nothing scary or supernatural happened. Personally, I think all of that is overblown. New Avalon is just a regular old island. Pretty comfortable, too, all things considered. It may lack certain creature comforts, but there are worse places to spend a week.”
“Who owns the island now?”
“The state. They bought it from Ruth Hume Semple’s brother, who inherited it when she…
” Brad’s voice trails off, almost as if he’s afraid to say aloud what really happened.
That Ruth Hume Semple vanished along with four other women.
Even though he claims the stories about the island are overblown, I get the sense that Brad believes at least a little of it.
“Ever since, New Avalon has been a base camp for various scientists,” he says. “They take water samples and monitor migratory waterfowl. Stuff like that. Usually they get here in April and stay until September.”
“They left early this year to accommodate us,” Loretta adds, clearly proud that even science isn’t immune to bending to the whims of Hollywood.
We start up the stone steps, which cut through the strip of forest at the top of the hill.
A moment of darkness that’s as thick—and as brief—as a solar eclipse.
Before my eyes can adjust, we’re out of the woods and back in the bright light of the afternoon.
Blinking against the sun, I see a wrought iron arch swooping over the stone walkway.
There’s writing inside the arch, the bent-metal letters spelling out the island’s name.
New Avalon.
Standing directly beneath it is Ronan, dressed, as usual, in khakis, white shirt, blue neckerchief. It makes him look like someone stranded here. A shipwreck survivor who refuses to acclimate.
“There she is!” Ronan says, springing toward me like a puppy. I begin my string of apologies about the lateness, the car, the traffic, but he stops me with a raised hand. “Marin, it’s fine. Shit happens. What matters is you’re here now.”
He leans in, and I prepare myself for another round of air-kisses.
Instead, Ronan pulls me into a full embrace that catches me off guard.
Until now, the most contact we’ve had is a handshake.
It makes me wonder if this is common. If it’s normal for male movie directors to hug their actresses, either on set or off.
Not having been part of a film before, I have no idea.
The director of the commercial I did barely looked at me, let alone touched me.
But with Ronan, it’s welcome, even if it goes on a beat too long. Unlike Loretta, he actually seems happy I’m here.
“Let me show you around,” he says.
We pass through the arch, beyond which is a cluster of buildings surrounding a rectangular green. There are five of them—four tiny, tidy cottages and one large house—all so quaint that they look more like a backlot set than a real location on an island.
The cottages sit in pairs on opposite sides of the rectangle. Each one looks exactly alike, with a little front porch, white walls, and a door painted robin’s-egg blue. Tiny windows are located on both sides of the door, friendly and inviting. Above each door is a number: 1 through 4.
The house sits at the far end of the rectangle, directly across from the archway. Unlike the single-story cottages, it’s a three-story Victorian that looms over the green, all ornate gables and gingerbread trim.
It would look even bigger if not for the oak tree sitting directly in the center of the green.
A massive, gnarled thing, the oak appears to have been split almost in two.
There’s a vertical gash in the center of its trunk, about two feet wide at the top and narrowing as it gets closer to the ground, making it look like someone had taken a giant axe to it.
Because of this, the tree forms a large V, a deformity that hasn’t kept both sides from growing until it’s as wide as it is tall.
Its limbs, heavy and thick, seem to reach for the nearby cottages, straining to grab them.
An unsettling thought that’s made worse when I realize the significance of the tree in New Avalon lore.
“Is this—”
“Where the dresses were found,” Ronan says with a solemn nod. “Amazing that it’s still here after all these years.”
I continue to stare at the oak, disturbed and fascinated in equal measure.
Yes, I suppose it is amazing that it still stands after a hundred years.
But it’s creepy, too. Because the last traces of five women were found in its branches, the oak also serves as a kind of final resting place. A grave for those without one.
“Let’s get you settled in,” Brad tells me. “Each of you will be living in the same place your real-life counterpart stayed.”
“An incredible opportunity,” Loretta chimes in. “I think it’ll really help give you a sense of who your character was. Not every actor gets a chance like that. Especially on their first film. You should consider yourself very lucky, Marin.”
Maybe so, yet right now I feel more overwhelmed than anything else.
There are a hundred questions I’d like to ask, starting with why the actress Ronan previously hired is sending me warning texts.
Or maybe a more pressing one is why he’s decided to have us eat, sleep, and live in the same place where five women vanished.
Yet overriding even that is a desperate urge for basic information.
Can I see a script? What is my part in all of this? Why am I here?
Every single one of these questions must flicker across my face, because Ronan says, “This is a whirlwind for you.”
“A little bit,” I say, in what might be the understatement of the year.
“Well, Brad will take you to your cottage, and you can regroup for a few minutes before the table read.”
My heart hopscotches in my chest. “That’s happening now?”
“Yeah,” Ronan says. “The sun sets at—”
He looks to Brad, who doesn’t even need to think about it. “Six fifty-seven.”
“There’s a lot of script to get through, you see,” Ronan continues. “And we can’t do it after dinner.”
I want to ask why not, but the answer becomes obvious after another quick look around the cluster of buildings. There are no streetlights here, no porch lights, no lamps visible behind the lace curtains at the windows.
“There’s no electricity here, is there?”
Brad shrugs in apology. “Afraid not.”
“How do the bird people or whoever they are stay here?”
“Generators,” Brad says. “Lots and lots of generators. Which they took with them when they left.”
Under normal circumstances, say, on a camping trip or during a weekend power outage, my heart would sink at the thought of being forced to live without electricity.
And I’m sure that will happen here, too.
Later. But for now, any dread I might have at living in blackout conditions is overridden by a sense of anxious curiosity.
I’m finally going to see the script.
Which means I will at last know who my character is; what she’s like; what Ronan, Loretta, and, yes, Violet Wright expect from me. But first I must drop my belongings in the place where this person once lived.
Whoever she is.
Well, was.
Brad leads me to the first cottage on the right. No. 1. “You’re lucky. You get this place all to yourself. I have to stay in the main house with Ronan and Loretta. Not much privacy there.”
I look to the other cottages. No. 2 sits next to mine, with 3 and 4 across the green. Even though I know the rest of the cast is here and presumably also staying in the cottages, there’s no sign of them. Including the woman I’m most excited—and nervous—to meet.
“Where’s Violet staying?” I ask Brad as we step onto the porch of my cottage.
“Oh, she’s also in the main house.”