But Skull Rock stopped him cold.
At eleven-thirty, the sea was just coming off high tide, so only the black crown cut the surface like some cryptozoic sea demon arising from slumber. Jack looked away and continued to the bottom, feeling the rock tug at him as he crossed the sand to the shelf of grass that aproned the cottage. The place looked the same as it had for decades—a four-room Cape Cod cottage in weathered shingles, echoing the manse above. The roofing had been patched in places, and the window boxes had been recently painted, but the same wicker rocking chair sat on the patio as on Jellyfish Night.
The interior was dark. As he took in the house, he could feel suction at his back—the kind of sensation you get when you know you’re being watched. Skull Rock. He turned, and keeping his eyes low, he walked to the edge of the water, where a dead skate had washed up, its white underbelly torn open by seabirds. Jack took a breath and raised his eyes.
The rock was black against the horizon, maybe a ten-foot arc crowning the surface. As if in tunnel vision, everything else in the cove fuzzed to a blur, but that rock cap—and it came back to him with stereoscopic clarity: the heavy black clouds, the leaden water, the squawking gulls, the deep-bellied rumble of thunder, the flicker of lightning across the horizon. He could feel the cold grip of the barnacles under his feet, wavelets lapping at his ankles, and the apprehension as he estimated the stretch between him and the beach in his standoff before the mad fifty-yard dash into a coma.
He remembered from mythology class that the ancient Greeks had believed that two rivers led to Hades. One was called Lethe; and on the way to the Elysian fields, departed souls would take a drink of it and wash away all memories and sorrows as a condition of reincarnation and return to the upper world. The ancients also believed in recycling, since the other was the River Mnemosyne—one drink and you remember everything. As Jack stood at the edge of the water, he wondered which was the worse curse.
He headed back toward the cottage, wondering if anything had been changed, if the same honey-colored pine walls, stone fireplace, and red furniture still warmed the room. What it would be like to be at that window looking out—if things would click into place and if some little bone of recollection would float up from the gloom.
Of course, the proper thing would be to go back up to the house, introduce himself as someone whose family used to rent the cottage—might even remember him—then ask if he could please take a peek for old time’s sake. It had been a while. But that would mean reclimbing the fifty steps, and if anyone was home try to explain that he came all the way out here with cane in hand—a two-hour car ride from Carleton followed by another hour by ferryboat—on a cold, bleak Tuesday morning for a casual nostalgic hit. Sure, pal, and pigs have wings.
The other option was the truth—You see, I think when I was not even two years old, my mother … and I just want to run a test, see if anything comes back—so don’t mind me while I cuddle up under the window. Got an old crib lying around?
No problem, Mr. Koryan. First, just one little call.
And a police chopper would be out here like that to drop him into the nearest foam room.
He climbed the stairs, feeling his legs throb, stopping every so often to catch his breath and let his heart catch up. By the time he reached the top, his whole body pulsed. And to think that last year at this time he could have gone up and down these stairs ten times. “In time, in time.” Marcy Falco’s words chimed in his head.
Jack pressed the bell and could hear a muffled ring from inside. He waited a minute and tried again, but still nobody came to the door or peeked out. Nor could he hear footsteps. The momentary flash of relief was quickly crossed with anxiety—there was no excuse not to break in.
He headed back down to the cottage again. His head ached from the blood booming through his veins. He tried the door, but it was locked, and cool relief flushed through him.
Good, head home. Nothing here for you. Dumb idea from the start.
But just as those thoughts passed through his brain, his head snapped to the right—to the window box with the bright ragged geraniums, because under it a plastic key box used to be nailed to the shingles out of view—house rules to lock up when leaving the place, since the cove drew boaters who sometimes came ashore to explore.
Jack walked over to it and stuck his hand below, and like a small electric shock his fingers felt the plastic box. He snapped open the lid and a tarnished brass key tumbled out—the same slightly bent number from twenty years ago, maybe even more. It sat in the palm of his hand, humming like a talisman. With ease it slipped into the tumbler and, with a sticky crack, the door pushed open.
But he did not enter immediately. The blood swelling his head had produced a ten-megaton ache that threatened to split the lobes of his brain.
Don’t do this, man. You’re gonna step in there and get nothing, or it’s gonna set off another Wes Craven gore-fest you may not escape from.
Fuck it! Came this far.
He stepped inside … and nothing.
But instantly the old cottagey seabreath filled his head like a dream. From a cursory glance, the Sherman fortune had not been squandered on makeover. The interior was just as he remembered it from twenty-five years ago—golden knotty-pine paneling, red plaid upholstery on matching sofa and chairs, rectangular coffee table with a glass top under which sat an arrangement of seashells, sand dollars, and starfish, fireplace with the dried wreath, logs in a wrought-iron pot. Familiar pine furniture in the bedrooms, and the same kitchen—an old four-jet gas stove, double white stainless steel sinks, but what looked like a new refrigerator. It was like stepping into an old movie set.
As he walked through the place his mind ticked off the kinds of things he’d do to restore it, were it his, wondering why the Shermans with all their money hadn’t upgraded the place. Maybe it had something to do with not separating old Boston Brahmins from their millions.
He also half-expected goblins to jump out at him. But nothing like that. The dark kinescope of his brain had blown a fuse. Not even a flicker of recollection. Nothing came back. He looked at the room, and the room looked at him, and that was it. So maybe it was a blessing in disguise, he thought. Maybe this was the point in the story where the beleaguered hero finally shakes the gargoyle off his back—in this case to be replaced by his new best friend, Zyprexa, ten milligrams daily. So say adios, take the next boat home, and get on with the rest of your gray-mush life.
“Who are you?”
Jack froze. A woman’s voice. From behind him. For an instant, he thought he was having another spell—that shortly he’d lapse into Armenian lullabies.
But behind him stood a real woman in real-woman flesh and a lavender sweater. “This is private property.”
Before he could respond, a volley of angry barks cut the air like gunshots. And from behind the woman emerged a large German shepherd with about fifty flashing incisors.
“Brandy, stop!” And the woman yanked the dog back on its leash. The dog instantly heeled and ceased barking. “What are you doing here?”