The Turning (11 page)

So, okay. It’s your move. I’m waiting to hear from you. Good night till then.

Love you,

Jack

DEAR JACK,

I’m sorry if you were worried about me. And I’m sorry for not writing. Actually, I sort of thought I did write to you, and then I kind of remembered I didn’t. I don’t know how
that
happened.

Nothing much is going on here. But I’ve been kind of busy. I can’t remember if I told you that Josh is back in town and that he came around the house to say hi the other day. Of course, it’s completely over between us. He’s so self-centered and snobby and full of himself. The minute I talk to him, I remember why we broke up! But it’s nice to have an old friend around, someone I used to know so well. It helps distract me from missing you, which I really do.

Otherwise, I don’t know what to say.... My job is boring. But I already told you that. I can’t wait till you get back.

What’s happening with you and the kids sounds exciting but also a little disturbing. Maybe you should tell Linda, who I feel I know, almost like a friend, just from reading your letters. What if this person you’ve been seeing is not a ghost but someone who got on the island and is stalking the kids? How many movies like that have we seen? The creepy revenge murderer hiding in the woods outside the lonely country house. And everyone knows who the psycho killer attacks first. It’s always the babysitter!

Sorry, I don’t mean to scare you, but I don’t think you should keep all this to yourself. It sounds to me like secrets have done enough damage on that island without you keeping another one. A big secret, and maybe a dangerous one, if the so-called ghost you’ve seen twice now—is it just twice?—turns out to be an ax murderer.

Don’t keep it inside. That was always a problem of yours, keeping things bottled up. I remember how glad I was when you finally began to open up to me, because to tell the truth, you’d always scared me a little. Even though you talked a lot, you were so inward and intense, I was half afraid to find out who you really were. And then the person you turned out to be was so much kinder and sweeter than anyone I could have imagined. Tell someone, Jack. Please. Tell someone about the man you saw at the window and later on the tower.

I’d write more, but I’ve got to get ready. There’s a party tonight on the beach, and even though I know it’s going to be lonely without you, I’ve decided to go anyway, just to make myself get out of the house.

Write soon. Hugs,

Sophie

DEAR SOPHIE,

I was so glad to get your letter. I’m glad you’re okay, and to tell you the truth, I’m glad that you miss me. And since I’m being honest, I have to tell you that it made me feel a little uncomfortable, your seeing Josh again. And your going to the beach party without me. But I believe you when you say he’s just an old friend, and after all, you were the one who broke up with him, so there must have been a reason. Like you said.

I also decided to take your advice and tell Linda about this guy I’d been seeing hanging around the library and up on the tower. I’ve decided to tell her tonight, and all morning I’ve been thinking exactly how to put it so she won’t think I’m crazy. Maybe the island does have a ghost. I can live with that. Especially if it turns out that I’m not the only person who’s seen it. So what if I don’t believe in ghosts? So what if you don’t believe in ghosts? It happens that way all the time. Someone doesn’t believe in ghosts, and then that person sees a ghost and starts to believe in ghosts.

Or maybe there was some perfectly reasonable explanation for my … hallucination. Once when I was little my dad took me to this place called Mystery Hill. You drive up a hill, but the funny thing is, you feel like you’re driving down a hill. Maybe this was something like that. Or maybe you’re right, maybe it was an actual person, in which case Linda and I and the kids ought to leave the island on the next ferry and send the police back to find him.

Anyway, like I said, I was thinking how to tell Linda. I was going to tell her last night after dinner when she and I sat on the porch.

But in the meantime, yesterday, before I could say anything, another strange thing happened.

It was just after lunch. Miles was reading a book about the first organized expedition to the South Pole. He said he couldn’t put it down and he wanted to spend the afternoon in his room reading. Linda and I looked at each other. I could tell we were both thinking the same thing: What a good reader Miles was, a good kid, and probably a good student. So what had he done to get himself expelled?

Honestly, I can’t believe it’s taking Linda so long to deal with this. Because sooner or later she has to tell Miles and the children’s uncle, and something will have to be worked out about school. They’ll have to face what Miles did or what the school says he did. But I guess Linda has been through enough rough patches with the kids, so I can understand her wanting to keep things calm and peaceful—which they are, Sophie!—for as long as she can. Also it makes me even more reluctant to bother her with the crazy idea that I might have seen a ghost. Linda has enough problems. I told myself I should probably solve this mystery on my own.

Since Miles was busy reading, I asked Flora what she wanted to do, and she said she wanted to take a plant walk. I said that was fine with me.

I always like our plant walks. I know it sounds corny, but Flora is like a little butterfly, and it’s enjoyable to walk behind the butterfly skipping from flower to flower. Except that this little butterfly has a serious knowledge of botany. This butterfly knows the Latin names for everything that grows around here.

Every time we go out, Flora makes a bouquet of all the wildflowers she finds. They’re always straggly, scrawny collections of buds and blossoms, and to tell the truth, I sometimes wonder why a kid who supposedly loves plants so much would want to tear their heads off and bunch them together and bring them back to the house, where she leaves them around so we’re always finding them in the most unexpected places. On the toilet tank in the downstairs bathroom, on the windowsill in the library.

Once we came to breakfast and discovered one of her creations sprouting from the sugar bowl. She hadn’t thought to dump out the sugar before she added water for her flowers, so by the time Linda found them, they were wilting in several inches of syrupy sludge. Flora always gets upset when Linda throws her bouquets out, so Linda waits until they’re pretty far over the edge into smelly, limp vegetation, and then she discreetly tosses them away.

Anyhow, that’s what Flora was doing on this perfect day I was describing: making one of her flower collections to bring inside. She was wearing a bright orange T-shirt and orange shorts—with a butterfly print, believe it or not—and she looked like a monarch fluttering, running ahead, calling me to follow. She’s always so proud of herself when she knows a Latin name, and since I don’t, I can only smile encouragingly and say how amazing it is that a girl her age can rattle off eight-syllable, three-word names for every weed and every rush that grows by the side of the lake.

That’s what we were doing, walking around the lake. Flora was shouting the Latin names, and I was smiling and being impressed.

Then I looked across the lake.

A woman was standing near the boathouse, staring at us from the other shore. But she was really looking at Flora, just like the man on the tower had been looking at Miles.

Though the weather was warm, she was wearing a long black dress beneath a hooded cloak. She was hugging herself, and she looked cold. Beneath the hood, her face was pale, and even from a distance I could tell that she was unhappy. And she was beautiful.

The hood slipped down to her shoulders. I saw that her hair was red. And suddenly I knew where I’d seen her before. On the ferry to the island. She was the one who’d been weeping on deck, the one who came downstairs and played cards with the older guy.

And now I knew where I’d seen him. First on the ferry and then at the library window. Standing in the tower. Could the couple have gotten off behind me and sneaked onto the island? Or returned to the island on the next ferry for some mysterious purpose of their own?

The beautiful red-haired woman remained there, staring at Flora.

Flora didn’t notice. She kept running from plant to plant as if she were visiting old friends. She acted as if we were the only ones there. As if she was the only person there—just Flora and the plants.

I opened my mouth to yell at the woman, to ask her what she was doing on private property. Then I stopped. I needed to know if Flora saw what I saw.

I said, “Flora, what’s the pretty flower over there? Between the edge of the lake and the boathouse?” I pointed toward the woman. The woman saw me point. She looked at me, questioningly, but only for a moment. Then she looked back at Flora.

The woman didn’t care if I was pointing. She looked through me, just as she had on the deck of the ferry. How had she gotten here, and what did she want from me and the children? Of course I thought of Norris and Lucy. I had to find out what they looked like.

All this seemed to take forever. But I don’t think more than a minute passed before Flora said to me, “What flower? I don’t see any flowers between the shore and the boathouse.”

“What do you see?” I asked.

“The lawn,” she said. “Green grass.” She told me the Latin name for grass.

I watched her for some sign that she was lying. But it just didn’t seem possible that this little girl could be that good an actress, that excellent a liar. I couldn’t believe she could see the redheaded woman across the lake and convince me she’d seen nothing at all.

“Nothing else?” I said. “No one?”

“Nothing,” she said. “No one? Who would be there?”

When I looked again there was no one there. The woman had vanished. I felt as if I had lost something.

“What’s wrong?” said Flora. She was still slightly out of breath from running, and her little face was flushed and open and expectant.

“Nothing,” I said. “I think I’m seeing things.”

“Poor Jack,” said Flora. “It must be the sun. Let’s get you inside and get you something to drink.”

It felt wrong, being taken care of by the child I was supposed to be taking care of. We went back to the kitchen. I hoped Linda wasn’t there. I was afraid she’d see on my face everything that had happened. That is, if I knew what had happened. I worried she’d take one look at me and see a guy who’d hallucinated a woman staring at Flora from the far shore of the lake, the woman I’d seen playing cards on the ferry from the mainland, the woman who got killed after a card game.

Linda was in the garden, kneeling down among the tall plants and the golf clubs. Flora poured me some ice tea and gave me a sugar cookie, baked by Linda.

“Eat this,” she said. “It’ll help you get your strength back.” Flora nibbled on one herself. I told myself: No kid sees a ghost and starts nibbling a cookie like nothing happened.

I said, “Flora, I was just wondering … do you have any pictures of Lucy and Norris?”

Flora flinched, as if I’d struck her. It crossed my mind that the kids and I had never once spoken the names of the people who used to work here, the people who left and were killed.

“How do you know about them?” Flora said.

“Linda told me,” I said. “Of course.”

Flora didn’t ask any more. It seemed she didn’t want to know what I knew, and she didn’t want me to ask her anything else.

“Do you?” I said. “Do you have any pictures?”

This time I could see Flora trying to lie, but it just wasn’t in her. If she said there was no woman on the opposite shore, it meant she hadn’t seen her. It meant something was seriously wrong with me. But no. I felt okay. Sort of. I just had to find out the truth, and everything would make sense and be fine.

Flora said, “Promise you won’t tell Miles?” Did that mean she had a picture of Norris and Lucy?

It was the first time that either of them had suggested I keep something secret from the other. I promised not to say a word.

Well, Sophie, I’m stopping here. That’s all I’m going to say for now. If you want to know how the story comes out, you’ll have to write me another letter.

Love, I guess,

Jack

DEAR JACK,

I sat down and wrote you the minute I got your letter. I want to hear what happens; I want to know if Flora had a picture and if she showed it to you and what you saw. So I’m writing you right away, even though I don’t have much to say.

I went to that party I mentioned, and just like I expected, it was boring. Josh was there, so we talked about how we used to be together and obviously weren’t right for each other. I told him how close you and I are and how well we get along. Doesn’t that make you feel better?

Listen, I’ve got to go now. Some kids are outside waiting for me to go swim in the river. But I promised I would write if I wanted you to tell me more, so okay, now I’ve written. And you promised to go on with the story.

Miss you.

S

DEAR SOPHIE,

I can’t help wishing your letter had been a little longer. I can’t help feeling like you wrote it on your way out the door, maybe because you said you wrote it on your way out the door. Maybe next time you’ll write me a few more lines. Like maybe another paragraph. But okay, a deal’s a deal. I told you I’d go on with the story if you wrote back, so here it goes: