FROM AWAY ~ BOOK ONE Page 11

“Woah! I don’t want out of the Circle, Mom. Just the Watch. If I leave the Circle, I can’t very well be its new historian.”

  Sylvie turns this over in her mind. Reaches for the chair she pushed away when she attacked her son. Sits. “Give me a few days. A week. I’ll...” She sighs deeply. “I’ll talk to the Old Men about you assuming the position.”

  Aaron smiles. “Really?”

  “You’re still on Watch until it’s okayed.”

  “Of course. Yeah.” He stands. Gathers his grandmother’s books into a couple piles. Picks up as many as he can. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

  Sylvie grunts. Noncommittal. Grabs the last book. “Probably makes more sense, anyway...” She sets it atop those already in Aaron’s arms. “The old historian hasn’t really been cutting it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Her parents have always called her fair-skinned, but Dawn knows better. She is pale. Freckled and fish-belly white. Her flesh in perpetual need of protection. The briefest exposure to the sun leaves her with flaming red blotches at minimum. She has spent more than her share of summer afternoons covered in calamine, peeling away her own epidermis in crisp sheets.

  Thus the embarrassingly oversized hat. Thus the T-shirt, rather than her preferred tank-top. Thus the sunscreen.

  It comes out in a thick splat. Too much, too quick, of course. She grimaces. Grudgingly, rubs it into any exposed flesh as she walks down the wooded path. Not enjoying the feeling. Knowing: The intermittent sunlight dappling in through the leaves overhead will be enough to leave her char-broiled if she doesn’t slather it on.

  Around a bend, the path forks. To the left, the trees close-in: Dark-and-creepy. To the right, they spread apart: Bright-and-cheery. Dawn knows her preference. Before choosing, she consults her phone.

  Onscreen, she’s a pulsing white arrow on a detail-free field of green - the GPS app has sadly not been updated to include trails through wooded areas. Zooming out shows her position relative to the shoreline and her target: The iconographic lighthouse stationed there.

  As Dawn turns to face each possible path, the arrow re-orients itself. While there’s no accounting for unseen twists and turns, the bright-and-cheery option seems to point her directly to her goal.

  Technology having spoken, she sighs. Adjusts the wide brim of her sunhat. Walks towards the light.

  Barely four steps onto the new path, a massive impact shakes the ground. Terror-stricken birds take to the skies. Loose leaves shake free from the branches overhead. Drift toward the ground.

  Dawn turns. The sound came from behind her. She’s sure of it. From somewhere down the darker path.

  In the distance, an engine growls. She hadn’t noticed it before. Could it be connected? Curiosity trumps the mission. Dawn temporarily abandons her lighthouse quest. Leaves the bright-and-cheery path behind. Instead, heads into darkness.

  ~

  Dawn follows the sound of the engine. First, down the path. Then, off the trail entirely. Through the brush. Into the woods. She slaps at her arms as insects cloud around her, wishing her now pointless sunscreen was also a bug repellent.

  Still, she pushes forward, until the tree trunks spread apart to form a dark bower. Here, the green Jeep idles. Parked well away from any road. Its running motor, the sound she’s been tracking.

  Dawn crouches. Stays out of sight. Watches.

  Nearby, the tattooed couple hunch over a beat-up laptop set up on a small, folding card table. Wires lead from it to a complicated yellow box covered in gauges and dials.

  Clearly displeased with whatever the laptop is showing them, Mrs. Hunter pushes her man away. Moves past him toward their vehicle. She grabs a control panel from the hood. Presses a button.

  With a whirring screech, the Jeep’s winch turns. Takes up the slack of its towline, leading upwards to a block-and-tackle hung from the thickest tree limb available, then down again to a long, iron cylinder laying on its side on the forest floor.

  The line tightens. Lifts the cylinder. First, to standing on its end. Then, into the air. One foot. Two. The winch grinds unhappily. The branch bows deeply. Quivers. The cylinder is heavy.

  Reaching into the Jeep, Mrs. Hunter honks the horn.

  When her husband looks over, she jabs an angry finger at the cylinder.

  He scowls. Dutifully walks over to it. Takes his place. Bracing his feet in a wide stance. Gripping the metal handles welded to either side of the cylinder. Steadies it in the air.

  When he nods, she kicks the winch release. It spins wildly. The cylinder drops. Pounds the ground with an earthshaking thomp. Leaves rattle above. Rain down on all sides.

  It takes all the man’s strength to keep the iron tube upright. He strains mightily. Muscles bulging. Then: Slowly lowers it to the ground.

  The little woman is already at the computer. Studying the results of the pile-driving. More and more pissed. Before the man can join her and see the report for himself she smashes the screen shut. Yanks the laptop free from its cords. Carries it back to the Jeep. Climbs into the driver’s seat. Slams the door behind her.

  With a deep sigh, Mr. Hunter sets to work picking up their remaining belongings. Packing them into the back of the Jeep.

  In the brush nearby, Dawn frowns. Curiosity only partly sated.

  Keeping low to avoid detection, she retreats. Returning to the bright-and-cheery path.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The red earth is soft.

  On her knees, Wanda digs out handfuls. Scatters them. Covering the metal plate. The tripwires. Disguising all her hard work.

  Besides Wanda, the Cumberland Channel Bridge site remains deserted. Heavy machinery stands motionless. Equipment dropped in the place it was being operated when the call came to stop work. Building materials abandoned. Unattended. Left to be stolen by scavengers.

  She stands. Filthy. Doesn’t bother brushing herself off - It wouldn’t help. Her leg aches. Throbs where the bandages are tight over her fresh burns. She can’t think about that now. In broad daylight with her task incomplete. She grabs a beaten-up straw broom she’d found earlier. Drags it across her own trail. Backs away. Hiding her tracks.

  Reaching a safe distance, Wanda looks over the worksite. Nods. Satisfied. Her efforts will remain invisible until the moment is right. Preferably longer. She dumps the broom. Walks away. Bow-legged to avoid any unnecessary brushing of denim against dressings. Hand in pocket. Gripping tightly the small nailpolish bottle. Her parting-gift from the Old Men.

  She crosses between portable metal buildings. Former offices of site management. Clean hands and white collars making demands of blue collars with dirt beneath their fingernails. Wanda can relate.

  Once again, she had done as the Old Men demanded. Served them. Her path decided on her behalf by their exploitation of her addiction. Recently, the few decisions she’s made for herself seem to have little impact. Far less than those made for her. Maybe she should accept her own powerlessness. Let go entirely of any illusion of self-determination.

  Wanda’s only ever made a mess of things. Surely others couldn’t do much worse.

  At the far edge of the construction zone, she climbs into the transparent cab of an immobile crane. Picks up the monocular from where she left it. Focuses on her far-off handiwork. Even knowing what she’s done, it’s hard to spot evidence of her own actions: A single stray guywire leading off to something it shouldn’t. A few materials discarded in inappropriate places. Left precariously imbalanced. Improperly secured in the rush to leave after the job was called off.

  Nothing purposefully dangerous. No perceptible intention motivating whatever terrible events may yet unfold. An unpredictable tragedy. An accident literally waiting to happen.

  Certainly, no clues that might point back to Wanda. Her deeds convincingly concealed. Permanently unknown. And really, how could she be held accountable? She was acting under duress. At the threat of further bodily harm. Merely the hand of the Old Men. A tool in their service. Not personally responsi
ble at all.

  She takes the bottle from her pocket. Places it on the window ledge. Moves it so the sun catches in its dark heart. Shines through. Sparkling. Her well-earned reward. Beckoning to her.

  Before she can give in to temptation: Movement. A car arriving. As promised. Carrying, surely, the fed whose mind she was sent there to change. But even without the monocular, she knows the situation is not entirely as advertised. The car is not a rental. It’s a police car. The Sheriff’s car.

  Netty’s car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The lighthouse is shorter than Dawn had imagined. Small and lonely on its rocky promontory. Paint faded. The white: Thin and greyed. The red: Now closer to pink. Surface pocked and eroded in places. Beat up by constant exposure to salt air and ocean winds.

  Dawn is disappointed. Underwhelmed. Expecting a surge of recognition as she emerges from the woods and gets her first glimpse of it. Instead, barely realizing what she’s looking at is a lighthouse. Even knowing the place has something to do with her family she feels none of the immediate kinship she’d anticipated.

  Nevertheless, she dutifully takes out her tablet in order to document the sight: Barber-pole stripes against a cloudless blue sky. Not what she’d expected, but pretty in its own way. She snaps five unobscured photos and three selfies. All are steady. In focus. Unusual for her.

  Proud of the accomplishment until she realizes: Her final selfie features that most unforgivable of sins... Duckface. She groans at herself. An old habit. Hard to break. Grounds for an instant trip to the trashcan.

  On the verge of deleting, she stops. Looks more closely. Past her own puckered lips. Up on the lighthouse balcony: A dark figure. Not in any of the previous shots. Blurred. In motion as she snapped the pic. It leans on the railing. Seems to be looking down at Dawn. One arm pointed away. To the north.

  Dawn glances up at the real thing. The balcony is empty.

  On the tablet, she unpinches fingers. Zooms in. Features dissolve into pixels until she ends up with abstracted jaggedy squares. The balcony is just too far away to provide any answers.

  Dawn shrugs. Trashes the photo. Whoever it is, she’ll meet them soon enough.

  ~

  Max is late. Even for Max.

  Aaron checks his watch again. Twenty-past. By twenty-past, even Max should have arrived.

  Aaron, naturally, had shown up at the lighthouse on time. He’d ka-chunked both timecards. Accepted the keys from Marsden and Heinz. Neither member of the day-shift team blinked at Max’s absence. Simply passed Aaron the reins and split as quickly as possible.

  Technically, the handover is not supposed to occur without all team-members present and accounted for. But with Max in the picture, all involved have learned to make allowances. Four days out of every five, Aaron accepts the keys on his own, taking sole responsibility for the lighthouse and the slice of shoreline over which it keeps watch. Ten to fifteen minutes later, his partner usually joins him. Occasionally with excuses. Only rarely with anything resembling an apology.

  But twenty minutes?

  The lighthouse seems particularly empty without him. Cavernous and creaky with cold drafts entering through every pinhole in the worn exterior. Moreso even than during the storm the night before.

  Aaron considers texting for an ETA - or at least to find out if he’s on his way - but knows from experience Max’s powers of prediction and estimation are even less reliable than his punctuality. Besides which, Max sometimes went for days with his phone on mute. Never checking texts, email or social media of any kind. A rarity among his demographic. Frustrating anyone trying to get in contact with him almost as much as actually being in contact with him.

  Aaron sits back in his seat. Allows his eyes to slide over the monitors.

  “Clear. Clear. Clear-clear-clear. Clear.”

  Everything’s clear. As it always is. What had Tower Four said? All’s always all-well? Well, maybe that’s true now, but apparently, it hasn’t always been.

  Aaron turns on his phone. Pokes and slides his way through menus to his email. Opens an attachment he sent himself an hour earlier: Volume One. Fully digitized. Some of the pages off-kilter, but he’d had to rush to finish the photography and compile something readable before he left home for the lighthouse.

  Because tonight - assuming he ever arrives - Aaron intends to start in on Max. Beginning with the third interview: A man named Pfeiffer. The first two stories in Volume One are more exciting, maybe... But the third talks more about how everything seemed to begin. Starting before anything really crazy had happened. A good entry-point.

  Aaron’s role as Circle historian is not official. Not yet. But with Gram’s books in hand, there’s nothing to keep him from practicing. If he can convince Max that the stories might amount to evidence, maybe he can start to break through his skepticism.

  But first, Max has to actually show up.

  From the corner of his eye, Aaron notices movement on a monitor: The lighthouse entrance. Someone approaching. Finally, Max has arrived. Or has he?

  Looking up from his phone Aaron sees it is not, in fact, his partner arriving twenty-five minutes late for work. Not unless Max has taken to wearing oversized sunhats.

  Instead? It’s a girl.

  ~

  The intercom mounted next to the entrance is an artifact of an earlier civilization. If there had ever been words labeling the three identical buttons beneath the grooves of its speaker, they’ve long-since been erased. By the elements. By the pressings of thousands of grubby fingers over the many years since its installation.

  Dawn eeny-meenies. Presses moe. An obnoxious buzzing blares from the box. She jerks away. “Sorry! Sorry!”

  A voice crackles out at her. “This is a working lighthouse. Closed to the public.”

  A whirring draws Dawn’s attention upwards: A security camera. Watching her. She removes her hat. Smiles sweetly. All but bats her eyes. It’ll take a lot more than being closed to turn her away.

  “Can you hear me?” She points at the intercom. “Is there a button I’m supposed to press?” The camera aperture dilates slightly. The only response.

  She leans in closer. Tries another button. Receives a promising click. She speaks into the grooves. “I just want to ask a few questions. Are you the... Lighthouse... Guy?”

  “I don’t answer questions. I’m not a tour guide. You’ll have to... Just go away now.”

  Rude! Dawn can’t help but remember her father’s warnings. About Island friendliness to outsiders. She forces his voice from her head. Presses the button again. “I’m not going away. I was told to come to Lesguettes Lighthouse, and I’m going to--”

  “You’re in the wrong place. This is McLennon. Lesguettes is the next one. Follow the road north. You can’t miss it. It’s a lighthouse.”

  Flummoxed, Dawn scrounges in her backpack for her tablet. Intending to consult her map app. When she’d checked at the cabin, this lighthouse had popped up nearby. Never had she considered there might be more than one.

  “Hey.” From behind her. She turns to see a shaggy teenage boy stepping off a girl’s pink ten-speed. He leans it against the lighthouse wall. “What’s going on?”

  “He said this isn’t Lesguettes Lightouse. Is that right?”

  Max squints at her a moment. As though translating Dawn’s words into his own language. “You’re from away!” Max is awed by the realization. He looks Dawn over. An exotic and previously-undiscovered species.

  “No, I’m... Well, yes, technically. But originally, really, I’m from here. My family is. So, I’m not so much from away. It’s more like I’ve been kept away, but now I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.”

  Max nods. This makes perfect sense to him. “That. Is a really positive outlook.” He ponders on the sentiment. “Maybe, finally, we all end up exactly where we’re supposed to be.”

  “Uh, yeah... Maybe.” Dawn frowns. Less certain of her statement, now that this guy is agreeing with it. “Look... I’m here, becau
se I’m trying to find out about my family. I thought this was Lesguette Lighthouse, but if it isn’t--“

  “You’re a Lesguettes?” Max’s eyebrow cocks.

  “That’s right.” She taps her tablet. Turns it towards him. Displaying the mostly-empty branches of her Island DNA. His eyes dart between the few names she’s managed to enter.

  “You might’ve come to the wrong lighthouse, but damn if you haven’t ended up in the right place anyway.” Max skirts along the wall. Ducks beneath the range of the security camera. He whispers unnecessarily. “Buzz him again, and tell him the Old Men sent you.”

  “The old men?”

  “Yeah, but like, capitalized. Like it’s a name. Not a description. Say it’s a surprise inspection. But be real... You know: Bossy about it.”

  Dawn nods. Bossy she can do. She turns to the intercom. Firmly presses the middle button. With authority. Like a boss.

  “You’re going to need to open up. This is a surprise inspection. I’ve been sent by the Old Men.”

  She gives the camera her serious face. This time she means business.

  Aaron’s reply is softer. “No one told me about any inspection.”

  “Nobody told you about the surprise inspection? Imagine that.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “You don’t need to know me. You need to do what I’m telling you. Open sez-me.”

  Dawn releases the button. Does her best to speak without moving her lips. “Name?”

  “I’m Max.” He smiles. Pleased to meet her.

  She frowns. “HIS name.”

  “Oh! Sorry. Aaron. That’s Aaron.”

  Press. “Aaron... Do you really think it’s wise to waste any more of my time than you already have?”

  A moment passes.

  Then, a buzz and a click as the door unlocks itself.