FROM AWAY ~ BOOK TWO Page 4

  His explanation: “They don’t pay me enough to chase these bitches around a mud-circle full of dogshit.” If he realizes any of the dogs are male, he doesn’t care. He knows none of them by name. It’s just a job. He has no pets of his own. Truth be told, Anton isn’t big on animals.

  Melanie loathes the man. And now - because of his unavoidable presence - she’s going to need to find Mighty Joe some other dogpark to run in. Undoubtedly less-convenient. Well worth it to escape Anton’s clutches.

  The fact that they are here - now, at this time of day - unhappily confirms Melanie’s suspicion: Anton has finally fully decrypted her semi-irregular dogpark schedule. It’s been a full two weeks since she last brought Mighty Joe here without Anton making an appearance.

  What was, at first: An occasional run-in.

  Had slowly increased to: Multiple weekly meet-ups.

  And would now become: A daily date.

  That. Cannot. Happen.

  Mighty Joe runs back and forth along the fence. Ecstatic to see his friends approaching. Hoping this might be the day they can finally play together. Usually, his antics stir them up. Riling them into tugging towards the fence until Anton is forced to give their leashes a sharp yelp-inducing yank. Today, however, something else has attracted their attention.

  Something off the beaten path. Hidden behind the shrubbery.

  Anton doesn’t care. Whatever it is, he tows them past it. Continues on. Smiling at Melanie. Cocky. He’s cracked her schedule. He can now mack on her at his own pace. Once a day if he so desires - which, apparently, he does. Slowly, he will wear her down until she just naturally falls into his lap.

  She steels herself against the smarmy, self-aggrandizing small-talk she knows he must be brewing up.

  But the dogs’ fascination in the bushes hasn’t flagged simply because he’s moved them along. All necks crane backwards, until finally Bimbo makes a stand. Halts in place.

  Angry, Anton tugs at him, unaware his other handful of dogs are taking advantage of the opportunity. Heading back towards the bushes. Their unexpected yank pulls him off balance. Bimbo makes things worse by following along. Pulling Anton’s arms awkwardly behind him. The dog walker stumbles backwards to avoid falling over.

  At the bushes, the dogs split. Head around either side. Pulling Anton directly through the middle. Now, he is definitely tipping. Going over. He releases the leashes. Claws at the air as he falls. Disappears into the foliage completely.

  Freed, the dogs bolt. Run directly for the dogpark, where they leap happily along the fence until Melanie opens the gate to let them in. Thrilled, they cavort in the mud with Mighty Joe - once valid ID has been presented and verified, naturally.

  And still, no sign of Anton.

  Melanie makes certain the gate is locked tight. Worried about the douchebag in spite of herself. She jogs over to where he’d disappeared. Even up-close, it’s unclear what held the dogs so captivated. Until she wades into the foliage. Steps carefully behind the bushes.

  There, she finds Anton. Unconscious. At the bottom of a big, square hole.

  Eight feet long. Eight feet wide. Eight feet deep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The cabbie flatly refuses to wait unless Wanda pays for the trip from the hospital before going inside. He restarts his meter as she gets out. Warns her he’s not hanging around more than five minutes. No offense to her, personally. He’s just learned not to trust the residents of this particular trailer park. Been stiffed here one time too many.

  She tells him she understands. The people living here are assholes. Criminals. As she heads for her trailer she thanks the gods the man didn’t recognize her.

  Five minutes. To get changed. One-handed. The clock is ticking.

  ~

  Wanda’s already pulling the smiley-face t-shirt over her head as she enters. A lot more trouble coming off than it had been going on. The whole point of the trip is to get herself into a more appropriate black dress. But she’s discounted the amount of effort it had taken her to get dressed at all.

  Badly entangled in the shirt, Wanda curses herself for not just going directly from the hospital to Aaron’s funeral. As if anyone would give a shit whether she wore blue jeans and rainbow tie-dye. Aaron certainly wouldn’t have cared. And nobody else in attendance could possibly be convinced to think any less of her.

  T-shirt stuck over her head, Wanda loses her balance. Stumbles backwards. She bumps into a chair, entirely misremembering where she’d left it. Trips over the unseen coffee table. Falls to the floor. Just barely managing to turn her body in time to protect her stump from the impact.

  Laying in a pile on the threadbare carpet she realizes: There’s no way she’s going to be changed quickly enough to keep the cabbie from abandoning her. She must stop underestimating the impact of having half as many hands. Her only hope of making the funeral at all is to stop rushing.

  Slowly, she extricates herself from the shirt. Tosses it away. Unfazed, it smiles back at her.

  She rolls over. Scratching at her itchy bandages. Starting to rise when it registers: The trailer is a mess. Not her usual mess - which would be quite bad enough - but a ransacked, gone-over mess. Someone’s been here. Someone’s turned the place upside-down to see what might fall out.

  She looks her home over with new eyes. Spots something unusual under the coffee table.

  It looks like a knee-high stocking, with the toe torn out. Flesh-tone.

  Wanda reaches for it. Not soft to the touch. Dry. Cracking. Fragile. As though shaped from brittle parchment paper. She lifts it into the light. Takes a closer look. At its veins. Its hairs.

  It’s a foot.

  Not a complete human foot, amputated like her own lower arm. This is just an outer layer of skin. Shed in one ragged piece. Peeled off like a sock. Hardening as it dried.

  Disgusted, she instinctively drops the thing. It falls lightly. Some pieces crack off, but it remains mostly intact.

  It’s not alone. On the floor - leading down the hallway, towards the bedroom - are more sheets of discarded skin. Smaller shreds. None so recognizable as the foot. Left to lie where they’d been shed.

  Wanda knows what this means. She’s seen it before. Even suffered from it herself, briefly and to a much lesser degree.

  What she doesn’t know is who the skin had once belonged to. And what they were doing in her single-wide. Between the hospital stay and the nights before that spent sleeping-over at Netty’s, she’s been away most of a week. Apparently, someone has taken advantage of her protracted absence. Very possibly, they were still there. Very soon, they would come to regret it.

  “Hello? Goldilocks?” She gets to her feet. Crosses through the kitchenette. “Papa Bear’s done come home...” She slides open a drawer. Grabs a carving knife. “Best not find you’ve eaten all my porridge.”

  She starts down the short hallway, carefully stepping around the scattered scraps of somebody. Following the trail. Focused on her own bedroom door. Unprepared when the somebody in question jumps out of the bathroom. Clonks her over the head with her own hair dryer.

  The only thing she registers about her attacker?

  It’s someone very, very pink.

  ~

  The cabbie groans. Already, he’s given her an extra two minutes. He considers going up to knock at her door. Decides against it. Not willing to get rolled for his trouble. Or worse. He’s heard of it happening in this neighborhood.

  He stops the meter. Peels away.

  At least he’d gotten paid for the trip there. Not a complete loss.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Loners. Cranks. Hermits. A solitary breed are we lighthouse keepers. Spend near all our time alone. Or - dependin’ what partners we’re blessed with - as close to it as ya can get. But that’s how we want things, and make no mistake.”

  Dawn’s grandfather stands at the head of her cousin’s grave. Martin Lesguettes. Grampy. He’s old. Older than she’d expected. Or maybe that’s the gravity of the day. Bending eve
ryone over. Pulling them towards the dirt. Stealing energy. Focusing minds on ends and sorrows.

  The sombre group in attendance is much larger than Dawn had expected. With hardly any fall-off from the funeral home. Covering the cemetery hillside. Filling in between the gravestones to quite a distance. Listening to her grandfather speak.

  “On the Watch, we tends the lamps. We lights the dark. We watches the shore. All for the good of our fella man, but best without dealin’ with him reckly, unless it can’t be helped.”

  His eyes twinkle. Dawn sees Aaron in him. Her own father. Doesn’t know if she’s ever seen that spark reflected in her own eyes. Hopes it’s there.

  She scans the mourners. Wondering who she might be related to. And how. In spite of the occasion bringing them together, Dawn’s excited to be surrounded by potentially-possibly-might-be-family members. She does her best to tamp down her enthusiasm. Maintain a visage appropriate to the situation.

  “My own dear, departed Merryweather said it once of us, and said it right. She said our flames burn bright, but they burn right cold, and I know that’s so.” He pauses. Challenging anyone to contradict his dead wife. But those gathered at the graveside simply nod along with him. With Merryweather’s great wisdom. “Well, Aaron was warmer than the rest of us. The Watch was no life for this b’y. He knew it. We all of us knew it. Had too much heart, he did. More’n any man here. He cared. He worried. It got him et up, wantin’ to do right by us all... Wantin’ to do us proud.”

  Aaron’s parents stand closest to Martin. Together, but apart. Not holding onto one another. Not even touching hands. His father stands tall. Tears roll down his cheeks all the same. Have been since Dawn first spotted him. Aaron’s mother - Dawn’s Aunt Sylvie - just looks angry. Clenched. Absorbed in planning to kill some invisible antagonist. Dawn’s not really looking forward to meeting her.

  “But whether or not he was meant for this life, Aaron was one of us, and let no man think elsewise. He died in the doing of it. How many of late can say the same? To his last, he was working to ward off the darkness. A keeper of the light. And in the end it took ‘im, as it will us all in due time.”

  Martin looks over the crowd. His eyes pause a moment on Dawn. First he’s seen her. Does he recognize her somehow? Know her as his own? See in her some shade of her grandmother she couldn’t possibly know to look for in herself? His gaze moves past. Alights finally on his grandson’s casket.

  “And so, Aaron... We give you your proper send-off. As befits any good and true lighthouse keeper.” His hands quake. He takes a tallow candle from the inside pocket of his jacket. An old matchbox from his pants. From the rattle, it’s clear: There aren’t many left.

  “We say g’bye to this island’s son, as he leaves this island’s shore.”

  Martin slides out the cardboard drawer. Takes a match. Strikes it against the side. He holds it to the wick until the flame catches.

  “One who kept the watch, one who kept us safe, one we’ll see ‘round here no more.”

  He pockets the matchbox. Holds the candle over the coffin.

  “An’ off he’ll go, to the edge of the sea, where the night o’ertakes the day.”

  He tips the candle. Hot wax drips. Pools.

  “And we know in time, when we follow him there, he’ll be waiting to light our way.”

  He presses the base of the candle into the wax. It sticks. Stands on its own. He lets it go. With a quaver in his voice, he says, “To light yer way, b’y.”

  As he steps back, a very large man steps forward. The largest in attendance. Bandages criss-cross his broken nose. His eyes are puffy. Light purple. Recently black. Damage healing. He holds a candle of his own. Lights it from Martin’s. Drips its wax. Affixes it to the coffin.

  “To light your... To light your way, Aaron,” he croaks. “And no hard feelings or nothing.”

  The man behind him is nearly as big. He adds another candle. “To light your way.” Then a woman steps forward. And an older man behind her. A line forms. Slowly moves past the casket.

  One by one, Aaron’s fellow lighthouse keepers add their candles to those already standing. Crowding the box with flame. Thirty candles. Maybe forty. When the procession has almost finished, Aaron’s mother steps away from her husband. She carries the final candle. Lights it. Adds it to the rest. “To light your way, Aaron.” She places her hand on the casket. Seems as though she might want to say more. Doesn’t.

  As she returns to her husband’s side, six pallbearers step forward. Lift the casket. Slide out a pair of boards. Lower Aaron into his grave.

  The candles gutter. But stay lit the whole way down.

  ~

  A teal-painted fingernail wedges into the edge of the metal ring. Forcing it open. Allowing a link of thin chain to slide into the gap. The ring rotates. Working the chain along until it is free.

  Dawn removes the thumb-sized LED flashlight from her father’s keychain. Drops the keys back into her jacket pocket.

  Despite their large number, it hadn’t taken long for the mourners to leave Aaron’s graveside. Once he was in the ground, they flowed down the hill to the winding tarmac path where their cars were parked. Family. Friends. All people Dawn couldn’t help but feel she should already know. Separated from her by place of birth. Upbringing. Tradition.

  The candle ceremony, for example. It was beautiful. But she was totally unprepared for it. She’d never heard of anything like it. Didn’t know who was meant to take part. Or why. Had she somehow set herself up to offend by not knowing to bring a candle of her own? Only when she saw there were others - like her dad’s friend, the Sheriff - who didn’t take part was she able to relax.

  During the mass exodus, Dawn had wandered off in the opposite direction. Moved through the gravestones of ancestors whose names she’d never before heard. Lesguettes chiseled into marble everywhere she looked. She’d forced herself to ignore the impulse to document everything with photographs. Knowing there’d be time enough. Later.

  Now that everyone is gone - and the only car remaining is her own - she returns to Aaron’s plot. Deep in the earth, the candles still burn. Awaiting the arrival of gravediggers who will undo their own hard work. Extinguish the flames under six feet of red earth.

  She thinks on the boy in the box. He’d been so sweet to her. So welcoming. A perfect entry-point to the family. The island. He was about to introduce her to their grandfather when he was called away. She’d tried not to show her disappointment. Just let him go. Maybe if she’d been less easygoing... If she’d insisted he finish what he started and walk her the rest of the way to meet Grampy... Maybe then, he wouldn’t have been at the lighthouse when the generator exploded. Then, he wouldn’t have...

  Tissues. Wipes. Blows.

  Dawn’s been down this mental path before over the days since Aaron’s death. Standing over his final resting place just makes things feel so... Final.

  She clicks her little flashlight. Its beam shining bright on the grey and gloomy day. She thanks Aaron for his kindness. For being her cousin. Wishes they could’ve known one another and become great friends. Knows that’s how it would’ve been. Then, she drops the flashlight into his grave. Away from the candles, so as not to disturb them. In spite of the flickering blaze, it still adds to the light within.

  “To light your way.”

  She turns. Heads down the hill. Towards her car. Comes face-to-face with her grandfather.

  “Oh! I, uh...” Was she in trouble? Had she committed an act of desecration? She fumbles for an explanation. “I was just--”

  “Shut it!” The old man hefts himself off of the monument he’d been leaning against. Limps towards her. Heavily favoring one leg. He grabs her by the wrist. Hard. Links his arm around hers. Pats her hand. That same twinkle in his eye once more.

  “Come along now, ducky. Yer to be my ride, and it’s best we don’t keep them sons-a-whores a-waiting.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Folks on the mainland think they know better tha
n Islanders what is right for the island. Seems they think Islanders are too ignorant to make decisions for ourselves. They want to tell us how to do things their way. Well, I say: The island way... Is the only way... For the island!”

  Ren recognizes the man leading the demonstration. Vaguely. Lanky. Unruly mop of curly hair. Thick glasses. Ren’s pretty sure they went to school at the same time, if not in the same class. His name’s Danny... Possibly Dennis.

  Standing atop the median separating the bridge’s four lanes into incoming and outgoing pairs. Central on the chain connecting him to his fellow travelers. At each pregnant pause they applaud. Cheer him on with great fervor. More than a few workers in the crowd of onlookers clap their support as well.

  “These people from away... They see what we have - what we’ve built here, with our own blood, sweat and tears - and they want it for themselves. They pretend to have as much right to it as we do. Because they want to take it from us. Make no mistake, that’s why they want this bridge: For unfettered access. So we can’t keep them off. So we can’t monitor their comings and goings. So they don’t have to ask permission. So they can freely pillage and plunder our vibrant culture and natural resources, and they will not stop until they’ve sucked every last bit of meat from the shell and left our island as hollow and empty as the place they’re coming from.”

  More applause. Whistles and shouts. Ren shakes his head. The man clearly knows his audience. Xenophobic sovereigntists, all.