No words, just an image. A picture of a big ship sinking into the sea. The Titanic. This post left by Kinder Garten.
“You share some information with your friend,” William said, pointing back at the Green Hair Harry post. “Then some stranger sees it, and he trolls you. I’m sure Mr. Green meant to show you support, but anyone on the page gets to see his post.” He tapped at Kinder Garten’s image of the sinking ship. “I’m out here with you, so I have a selfish reason for showing you this. We have to be careful. There are no secrets anymore. Vampires can’t come into your house unless you invite them. Posting online is like leaving your front door open and telling any creature of the night it can enter.”
—
Rikers Island is beautiful after the sun goes down. New York City’s 413-acre jail complex, home to an inmate population of about twelve thousand prisoners, goes almost entirely dark at night. Only one building remains open for late-night intake, and all the rest of the island seems to shut down. Apollo remembered the lights out at nine o’clock. The prisoners sent to bed, but nobody sleeping. He expected the place to see him, sense him somehow, a dog sniffing out its old prey. Apollo watched the silhouette of the island as they passed. He might’ve missed it if the one building weren’t lit up. It cast a weak, misty glow across the island. So strange to see it from here and know that only two weeks ago he’d been inside. As they moved closer, Apollo heard the shouts and cries of the inmates. The men were too far off for the words to be intelligible, so only a phantom howl carried across the water.
Now the surface of the water looked as supple as sculpted ice. Cold wind skipped across the river, and there was nothing in the boat to protect them. They were on the water for a while, but Apollo lost his sense of time. Apollo drew his hat low and hunched down in the stern of the boat where he could watch William, who stayed at the console.
Patrice Green was Green Hair Harry. He’d admitted to being a fan of the damn page but never mentioned he’d started it. No doubt he’d have some elaborate explanation as to why he’d kept this secret, but what did Apollo care? Everyone had a reason. Everyone had a disguise.
“There’s an island,” William shouted over the sound of the motor. He lowered the engine. “I did some research, but I don’t think I read about this one.”
Strange to call this an island, no more than one hundred feet by, maybe, two hundred. A pile of rocks with two or three bushes and what looked like a modest metal radio tower.
William leaned close to the iPad. “This must be U Thant Island. It’s an artificial island. Well, how do you like that, it’s named after a Burmese secretary general of the United Nations. Let me see what else it says here.”
Apollo didn’t want to listen to William reading some Wikipedia entry aloud. The only thing that mattered was that Emma wasn’t there. Even in the deep of night, it was easy to tell. There was literally nowhere to hide but those two scraggly bushes.
“Let’s move on,” Apollo said.
“What’s that?” William asked. “Oh, right. Right.”
He powered the engine up, slightly, and they puttered off.
“There’s not that many islands out here,” William said. “Rikers we passed. U Thant, too. Roosevelt Island is residential, Randalls and Wards Islands are state parks, people use them all the time. I don’t know if she’d hide out in any of them. Too risky.”
“There,” Apollo said. He spoke so softly William didn’t hear him.
“We could try Mill Rock,” William continued. “It’s unpopulated, but the Parks Department uses it for events sometimes so I don’t know. I think we must’ve been going up and down this river for longer than I realized. I’m pretty much lost, Apollo.”
“There!” Apollo said, louder this time, standing despite the cold wind.
An island, draped in a shroud. Not fog but a shadow darker than even the night sky cloaked the land. No lights anywhere on the rock, hard to see more than the suggestion of a tree line even while staring directly at it.
“Oh my,” William said, already lowering the engine. “I would’ve gone right past it. It’s like it was hiding. Or hidden. How did you catch it, Apollo?”
“I wasn’t staring at an iPad.”
“I’ll beach us,” William said, sounding hurt but trying to hide it.
He brought the boat within ten feet of the beachhead, then cut the engine completely. The bow slowed as it lodged in the sand below the waterline. Apollo and William both crouched so they wouldn’t fall overboard. With the boat beached, the engine off, Apollo heard the river dappling at the hull.
“I think I was supposed to stop farther out and pull the boat in the last few feet,” William said. He walked to the front of the boat and hopped out. The water came up to his thigh. He walked backward until he was out of the water and stood on the small beach.
Behind him Apollo could now see clearly that the island thrived with plant life, a chaos of shrubs and trees. Apollo climbed down from the boat and waded into the cold water.
“Ready?” William asked, but his voice hardly reached a whisper.
“You don’t have to come along,” Apollo told him. “You’ve already done more for me than…anyone.”
“Honestly,” William said with a soft laugh. “I’m more scared of waiting out here on the boat alone.”
“Okay,” Apollo said. “All right then.” He looked down at his left hand. The moonlight caught the red string. It seemed to throb against his skin, or maybe that was only his flushing blood. “Let’s roll.”
“I GREW UP WITH a guy who grew up to be a detective,” William said.
Nighttime, Apollo and William were hardly a dozen steps into the fringe of the bush. Apollo could still hear the East River slapping at the hull of the sloop, though the brush was so tall he couldn’t see the vessel anymore.
William moved as slowly as Apollo, no more sure of where to plant his feet, where to set his hands. The underbrush had grown so high, it looked as if they were wading. The trees huddled so close, William had to turn sideways and shuffle between them.
Then the trees cleared, as if they’d passed a fence line, and now William pointed at something growing about three feet out of the ground. In the starlight the thing looked like a giant mushroom covered in kudzu. If a caterpillar had been perched on it puffing a hookah, it wouldn’t have seemed impossible. William pulled out his phone, adjusted his glasses, and found a flashlight app. He crouched and tapped the phone against the mushroom. There was a faint metallic clunk.
Apollo knelt beside William. “That’s a fire hydrant,” he said.
“I know where we are,” William said. “This must be North Brother Island.”