“Absolutely,” he said. “We’ve got a whole local section right here.” He came out from behind the counter and led me over to a set of shelves labeled LOCAL.
“If you’re looking for something about the island, I’d recommend this,” he said, pointing to four copies of Chickering Island, Now and Then tucked between The Angler’s Guide to Vermont Waterways and Unexplained Vermont. “There’s a map in it. We’ve also got these.” He indicated the free colorful tourist maps next to the door, which listed all the businesses.
I grabbed a copy of the book on local history and Unexplained Vermont.
I couldn’t help but notice that there, on the second shelf, were three copies of The Helping Hand of God: The True Story of the Hillside Inn.
There had been several printings of the book—one with the movie poster on the cover—but this one had a line drawing of the Inn on the cover. The drawing was all wrong. The building looked like a huge Gothic insane asylum with black windows, shadowy figures behind them.
I turned away and went to the register to pay. I thanked the bookseller, said goodbye to Penny, and grabbed one of the free tourist maps from the rack on the way out. Then I made my way down the street to Rum Runners Bar and Grill, figuring I’d plan my next move over food and a beer.
In front of the bar and grill was a sculpture: a life-size woman with a wooden frame and chicken-wire body. She was draped in little pieces of debris—shells, bottle caps, sea glass, pebbles, triangles of cut-up beer cans that sparkled like fish scales—hung by pieces of thin, flexible wire.
The wind picked up, and the objects blew and rattled.
I sidestepped around the unsettling sculpture and through the open door, heading right for the bar. After a quick glance at the menu, I ordered the Vermonter Burger with award-winning local cheddar, island-grown greens, and maple bacon jam, and an IPA brewed in Burlington to wash it down.
“Interesting sculpture out front,” I said when the bartender brought me the hazy pale-amber beer.
The bartender smiled. She had short, bleached-blond hair and dramatic eye makeup. “That’s Rattling Jane. The most famous resident of the island.”
“Oh?” A trick I’d learned long ago—pretend you know nothing, that you’re walking in cold to every conversation.
“Yeah. She’s our local ghost.”
“Really?”
“Some folks say she was involved with rum-running back during Prohibition. She crossed the wrong guy and ended up at the bottom of the lake. The other story is that her sister killed her.”
That got my attention. I leaned closer. “Her sister?”
The bartender nodded. “She comes out of that water looking for her sister now and then. Grants wishes to anyone who can help her by giving them a special pebble.”
“Wow,” I said, reaching to rub at a little tingle at the back of my neck.
The bartender smiled. “That’s my favorite of the stories, I think.” She leaned forward. “But honestly, between you and me, I think the whole thing was invented as a marketing scheme years ago. You wouldn’t believe the number of visitors we get because of Rattling Jane. Who doesn’t love a ghost story, right?”
I nodded, took a sip of my beer.
“Your food should be out shortly,” the bartender said, heading into the kitchen with a tub of dirty glasses.
“Lizzy!” called a voice behind me. I spun on my stool to see Skink walking in. Great. Was the kid going to follow me everywhere I went?
“You off work already?” I asked as he came bounding over.
“I only work mornings. Clean up the sites before new campers come in. Clean the bathrooms. Cut the grass. All the glamorous jobs. The owner, Steve, he’s my uncle.”
“Nice,” I said. “There are worse summer jobs.”
“No doubt,” Skink said.
“So what do you do when you’re not working for your uncle? You in college somewhere?”
“Nah,” he said, settling on the stool beside me. “Not yet, anyway. I just graduated from high school in June. Gonna take some community college classes starting later this month. Do that for a year or so and think about what I might want to get a degree in, maybe apply to a college somewhere far away. Get outta this town for a while.”
I nodded. “That’s smart. You’ll save money doing community college for a year. And I think it’s good to take some time to think about what you really want to study.”
“That’s exactly what my dad says.” He smiled at me, then eyed my books. “Looking into local history, huh?”
He picked up Unexplained Vermont, flipped through it, then held it out to me. “Look, she’s got her own entry. ‘Rattling Jane, Chickering Island.’?” He showed me the drawing next to the short entry: a woman-shaped figure made of fish skeletons, bird skulls, feathers, rocks, even pieces of trash. In the drawing, she was holding open the palm of her hand to show a small round stone. He read out loud from the entry. “?‘Where did Rattling Jane come from? What, or who, is she looking for when she ventures out onto the land? Some legends say a lost love. Some say she’s searching for her sister. Whatever or whoever she’s looking for—watch out! She’s known to take those unlucky enough to meet her back down to the bottom of the lake.’?”
“Hey there, Skink,” said the bartender, who appeared so suddenly that I jumped. “You here for lunch?”
Skink shut the book. “Nah, just a Coke, please, Sam,” he said. When she brought his Coke, he added excitedly, “Do you know who this is?” I shook my head. No. Don’t do this. The last thing I wanted was for word to spread. “This is Lizzy Shelley. She’s got this sick podcast: The Book of Monsters. But she’s most famous for the TV show!”
“TV?” This got the bartender’s attention. “You an actress?”
I shook my head again. The bell in the kitchen dinged.
“Monsters Among Us!” Skink said. “You must have seen it—Lizzy and these two other researchers going all over the country. There was one episode where they went into this old silver mine in Texas looking for a chupacabra! Man, that one scared the crap out of me.” He smiled at me. “The way you belly-crawled through that tiny tunnel… and the scratch marks on the stones—all those animal bones you found. A monster lair for sure!”
I nodded. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the scratches and bones had been put there by the production team.
The waitress smiled. “Never seen it, but it sounds cool. Hey, I think your food’s ready.” She sneaked back to the kitchen.
“Skink,” I said as kindly as I could manage, “I appreciate your… support and enthusiasm, but I was really hoping to kind of lie low here. Not let people know who I am or what I do.”
He grinned. “I get it! Incognito! I totally get that.”
“In my experience,” I went on, “people can be a little more… forthcoming when they think I’m just a regular stranger asking questions. At least at first.”
“Forthcoming,” he repeated. “Totally. I get it. Listen, I was thinking, maybe you’d like to meet some of the kids Lauren was hanging out with, the ones who saw the stone and heard her stories about meeting Rattling Jane.”
“Absolutely,” I said, as Sam set my burger down.
“We’ll take a walk after you eat,” Skink said, stealing a fry off my plate. “I’ll show you the exciting sites of Chickering Island.”
I nodded and went to work on my food, both bothered and intrigued by the new information I’d gleaned, feeling like it held a secret message just for me:
Rattling Jane was looking for her sister.
Vi
June 17, 1978
IRIS WAS PERCHED on the back of the banana seat on Vi’s bike, her arms wrapped tightly around Vi’s waist.
Vi called her bike The Phantom. It was a red Schwinn Sting-Ray, one-speed, with chopper-style handlebars and a long white banana seat.