Though Jim had invited me to spend the entire summer with him, my parents only agreed to let me visit for five days. To get them to agree to even that took State Department levels of persuasion. Those five days passed in the blink of an eye, each tinged with a blinding, far-fetched sheen, which made me feel at once uncomfortable and bewitched. Jim’s world was so vivid, so improbable. As suddenly as I was thrown into it, I was tossed out, marooned back in sleepy Watch Hill, distracted and gloomy as I worked alongside my parents at the Crow, leaving milk shakes too long in the mixer, preparing egg salad sandwiches for customers who’d ordered turkey and Swiss. I was haunted, like Wendy by memories of Neverland and Peter Pan. I spent the rest of the summer tabulating in my head the seven-hour time difference so I could picture what Jim was doing, and roared through the house like a caged lion tossed a fresh carcass to seize the phone in time whenever he called.
Per Martha’s instructions, I described as best I could a single room in the house: the main living room, with its dreamy gauze curtains, whitewashed furniture, and scalding view of the Aegean. This was so they could feel as if they’d been there too, could have it be the very last thought in their heads before the moment on the verge of death—whatever that turned out to be.
When the five of us weren’t holed up in the library hashing over The Bend, I’d grab an umbrella and head into the storm, hiking the property alone.
As I walked I could hear Martha’s voice in my head, her unnerving whisper: Your contribution is here. Somewhere.
It was during one of these solitary walks when, heading down the narrow stairs to the dock, I noticed the trees writhing with an intensity that wasn’t normal. The ocean was rough, whitecaps licking the inky water. The sailboats moored far out in the cove clattered and bobbed. Ropes had come loose from the masts, thrashing like snakes. A buoy clanged somewhere out on the ocean, the sound mournful, deathly.
Suddenly I heard a woman’s sharp scream.
The moan of the wind made me think I’d imagined it.
Then I heard another cry. This time it was a man.
Two people were arguing. Sensing that the voices were coming from behind me, I closed my umbrella and hurried off the dock and out of sight, darting into the foot-wide space between the bank and wooden steps.
Moments later, I heard them again. I realized they weren’t coming from Wincroft at all, but from one of the sailboats out in the harbor. Dark figures were moving along the deck of one anchored close to the dock of the property next door.
Andiamo, it was called.
I remembered hearing Whitley mention it belonged to E.S.S. Burt. A tiny gold light was shining from the bow.
Then it came: another scream.
I waited. Minutes later, I heard a motor. A skiff was approaching. Peering through the steps, I saw Whitley. She was alone. She docked the boat, hastily knotting the ropes before climbing onto the pier, running up the steps. Her face caught the light as she barreled right past my head. She looked angry.
I waited. When there were no further voices, I headed back to the house. I knocked once on the library doors, and opening them, I saw Whitley, soaking wet, sitting with Martha on the couch. They jolted upright as soon as I entered, startled looks on their faces. My first thought was of two teenagers surreptitiously smoking pot in a living room, suddenly interrupted by a parent.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said Whitley.
Martha smiled. “Could you give us a minute, Bee?”
I stared at Whitley. Never had she preferred to confide in Martha over me. Never. Hadn’t our friendship come back to life after all this time in the Neverworld? Weren’t we friends again? But she only stared back at me, sullen.
I left with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, closing the door.
Almost immediately I could hear Whitley, her voice low and muffled, her words indistinguishable.
What the hell is going on?
I headed upstairs. Searching the bedrooms, I found no sign of Cannon, or Kipling either, which seemed to suggest they’d been aboard the boat too. Had they held some kind of secret meeting purposely behind my back? Why? What were they doing? I grabbed the umbrella, headed back outside, and hiked down to the dock.
There was no obvious movement on the sailboat and there were no more voices.
I stayed there for another hour, watching. When nothing happened, I decided to hike back to Wincroft, and as I hurried up the path I noticed the Keeper.
Immediately my throat constricted. The last time I’d seen him had been in the woods at Darrow. He seemed to have vanished for a time. Now he was back, a dark figure in a black raincoat, hunched over, drenched. He was digging with great exertion, his whole body contorting with each fling of dirt.
I veered off the stone path to avoid him and sprinted through the trees. When I reached the house, I couldn’t help turning back to look at him.
He hadn’t noticed me. He was still digging what I now realized were four muddy holes in the earth. Four graves.
But that wasn’t the strangest thing.
He was wearing the black glasses of a blind man.
I didn’t have time to ruminate on what the Keeper had been doing, or what it meant, because the very next wake the answer to the mystery of the sailboat argument and Whitley’s private conversation with Martha came to light.
“Kipling has something to tell us,” announced Martha as we all assembled in the library. “Whitley brought this to my attention late last wake, and I think it could help us.”
“You didn’t,” Cannon said angrily to Whitley.
“I had to,” she answered.
He glared at her, livid.
“Oh, please. Stop the policeman act. You want to get out of here, don’t you? I mean, don’t you want to find out what really happened to Jim?”
“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” he hissed.
“If it affects our ability to change the wake, it is.”
“It’s all right,” said Martha, placing a hand on Cannon’s shoulder. “You can tell us.”
That was when I noticed Kipling. He was crying. Truly crying, in a way I’d never seen him before—the kind of crying that was more of a wringing out than normal tears. He was seated on the couch, head in his hands, tears streaming down his chin.
“I call it the Black-Footed Sioux Carpet,” he blurted suddenly, staring at the floor. “It’s a form of self-harm. ‘An unsuitable attempt to solve interpersonal difficulties.’ That’s what the shrinks all call it. Momma Greer invented it. She coined the term from some crazy-lookin’ rug she’d filched from an antiques store. We did it together. Mother-son bondin’. Sometimes we did it multiple times a week. She’d drive me out to a country road on a Friday night when she decided there was nothing good on TV. The first time I was five. We’d lie down in the road side by side, holdin’ hands, waiting for a car. ‘Roll out of the way when I say bingo,’ she told me. ‘We’ll see how much God likes us. If he wants us to live. Cuz I’ll only say bingo if God tells me to. That’s the deal.’?” Kipling shuddered. “I pissed myself I was so scared. I hadn’t said my prayers. Good God. I mean, did God even know I existed? Did He like me? He couldn’t like me that much if He’d given me this face to go through life with. This body. I’d squeeze Momma Greer’s hand. She was my lifeline. Then the car. You always felt it first in the pavement underneath you. It’d take Momma Greer a year to yell bingo. But it always came. I’d squeeze my eyes shut and roll out of the way. The tires would miss me by centimeters. By the time I opened my eyes Momma Greer would be up dancin’ on the side of the road, whooping and hollerin’, yankin’ off all her clothes. ‘See that? God loves us. He loves us after all.’ She was always in a good mood after that. If I was lucky, it lasted a whole week.”
He fell silent a moment, rubbing his eyes. I could only stare. While I had known Momma Greer was dangerous, this was by far the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard she’d done.