The speed made me even colder. My fingers on the boat hook were almost numb. I slid on wet rocks and struggled to keep my balance as the sky darkened. It was difficult to believe there had ever been sunlight at all. My lower abdomen burned as though I’d been branded. I slipped my hand beneath my T-shirt and felt the familiar ridge of scarred skin.
I thought of Kenzie Libby. Studs in her chin and ear, a necklace of weathered glass and aluminum. That childish face and the bad dye job on her cropped hair.
People make themselves spiky for a reason. Maybe being stuck in Burnout Harbor was enough, watching the trickle of rich strangers grow to a torrent and wash away your world, with no hope of anything for yourself but a job at Wal-Mart or—maybe, if you were lucky—someone from away who’d take you with them when they left, spikes and all.
But those spikes don’t do anything to protect you. I remembered what Toby had said about the fishers—how they’d flip a porcupine over then rip its belly out.
They think nothing can kill them.
Fishers never came to the islands, but I’d seen one.
Denny never leaves the island.
I kept climbing. It felt strange to walk along a road without houses or telephone poles or utility lines. Ragged thickets covered the thin soil, along with dead ferns, scattered birch and maples. Bushes thrust from cracks in moss-covered granite. A crow flapped up from a tree, screaming, and disappeared into the shadows.
But after a while I began to see signs of former human habitation in the underbrush. Crumbled stone foundations; fallen chimneys; cellar holes filled with rubble. A few minutes later I reached the first quarry.
It was set off from the old road, a miniature lake cut into the hillside. The water looked solid and cold as obsidian. Wiry, leafless trees clustered at the water’s edge.
I used the boat hook to keep from sliding on loose scree, grabbed one of the trees and bent it toward me. It had smooth, silvery brown bark covered with tiny bumps that looked like insects. Dozens of blood red shoots sprouted from its trunk, like a hydra. It looked malevolent, and more alive than anything in that frigid landscape.
I clambered back up the slope and kept walking. I passed two more small quarries, and more cellar holes, but nothing that even a hermit could have lived in.
Eventually the road curved. I found myself looking down across crowns of cat spruce to an expanse of rose-colored rock that gave way to a muddy beach. Blocks of granite were scattered across it, like giant dice. In the center of the beach stood a ramshackle wooden pier. Tied up at the end was a motorboat: Lucien Ryel’s Boston Whaler.
I saw no other signs of people. My forehead grew clammy with sweat. I swallowed a mouthful of Jack Daniel’s and kept walking. A few more minutes, and I reached the big quarry.
It was about the size of a baseball diamond. Sheer rock walls rose thirty or forty feet above the waterline. I didn’t want to think how deep it was. A crow swooped down, flew croaking above the black surface, and landed in a dead tree on the opposite shore. I stared at it and frowned.
There was something in the tree, a ragged mass like a squirrel’s nest, but with something snarled in it, something blue and white. A plastic bag, maybe, or a balloon. It was impossible to tell from where I stood. But if I wanted a better look, I’d have to walk all the way around the quarry then fight my way through the underbrush. I didn’t want to do that.
I continued on up the road. It was nearly full dark, but I was afraid to use my flashlight and draw attention to myself. Beyond the quarry, I could just make out the remains of several buildings, worksheds or barns. Still nothing that looked like where someone might live now. An icy mist blew up from the shore. The air grew hazy, the ruins insubstantial as paper cutouts. I couldn’t stop shivering. A few minutes later, I stood on the crest of the hill.
Around me the island dropped down to the sea. Fog rolled across the water and up the hillside. I could just make out the Boston Whaler. I turned to where the road began its descent.
Through the dusk, lights gleamed. A group of small buildings stood behind the quarry, tucked between spruce and more remnants of Tolba’s abandoned industry—broken statues and granite columns, piles of rubble that gleamed in the yellow glow from a small house with smoke coiling from its chimney.
The sight of those glowing windows made me sick. I clutched the boat hook, leaned over and spat up a thin string of bile, waited for the feeling to pass.
It didn’t. I swallowed another mouthful of Jack Daniel’s.
Fear and whiskey, I thought. Run, Cass, run. Light guttered from a broken streetlamp. So you’re really from New York, huh? That must be really, really nice.
I saw her stumbling through the cold dark toward Burnt Harbor, then down toward the beach, hands shoved in the pockets of her hoodie. Trying to get up the courage to go into the Good Tern and talk to a stranger from the city.
I would love to go to New York.
Yeah, well maybe I could fit you in the trunk on my way back.
Whose voice did she think she’d heard as she walked on the beach by the Good Tern?
My fingers tightened on the boat hook. I took a few steps toward the lights when I heard the crow again. I looked up.
Several yards from the road, a single pine reared from a black thicket of underbrush. The crow sat in the tree’s uppermost branches. It stared at me and gave another harsh croak, lifted its wings, and flew down toward the beach.
I watched it go then squinted at the tree’s lower branches, at a dark tangle like what I’d seen in that other tree overlooking the quarry: a shapeless mass like a squirrel’s nest.
Only this was way too big for a squirrel’s nest. I tugged my jacket tighter and headed toward the tree. Between the failing light and the thicket, it was difficult to see clearly.
The tree was huge. In its shadow, a mossy area had been meticulously cleared of everything save a few sticks and dead leaves. Here a number of small, flattish objects had been set in a circle about eight feet across.
I crouched and turned on my flashlight.
At first I thought they were rocks, maybe as big as my hand. But they weren’t rocks.
They were shells. Not seashells—turtle shells.
I picked one up and grimaced.
It was a baby snapping turtle. I used to find them as a kid in Kamensic; they’d fall into swimming pools and you’d have to retrieve them with a skimmer. The most vicious little things I’d ever seen—after you rescued them, they’d run at you hissing, tiny jaws wide.
It had been a while since this one had attacked anyone. I tipped it back and forth. It seemed empty. But I caught a whiff of something, a musky reek like rotting fish and skunk.
I set the shell back down and stared at the others: a dozen baby turtle shells in a circle. In the center of the circle, four small indentations formed a square.
That circle had a definite ritual appearance. The indentations looked more like holes left by tent pegs. But the area was too small for a tent, only the size of a Porta-Potty. I straightened, saw a small white object beside one of the turtle shells.
A candle nub. I rolled it between my fingers, thinking, and put it in my pocket.
The sky was nearly black. Icy rain spattered my face as I slowly traced the flashlight’s beam across the circle. A few tiny objects shone white against the ground, like bits of broken crockery. I picked one up.
An eggshell. Not a turtle egg or something exotic, just the broken shell of an ordinary egg. I chucked it away, continued searching the ground until I saw a faint gleam, as though my light struck glass.