The boat rose to the crest of a wave and slammed down into its trough, nearly jarring us from the padded seat. Charlie looked back at me and shook his head.
“Worse than I thought!” he yelled above the roar of the motor. “We got no business being out here in this! I don’t know if I can dock her!”
I glanced down at Violet. Her poncho was drenched, her hands cold and red. She stared out to sea as she’d been told. Her lips moved. I wondered if she were praying.
When I gave her a gentle squeeze she looked up at me. So delicate.
“Cold?” I asked. She nodded. I pulled the arms of her poncho down over her hands and almost told her that she was safe.
We struggled on through the chop.
Waves swelled.
Violet trembled and I stared ahead into the deluge and the cold chaotic nothingness of the storm and the sea, as scared and alive as I’d felt in a good long while. But I didn’t savor the adrenaline. I’d have taken the boredom and solitude of the Yukon wilderness any day.
We’d been on the water for twenty minutes when Portsmouth appeared suddenly in the gray distance. Several wooden structures stood near the bank and they looked long deserted. Glimpsing the ghost village through the pouring rain and the scrub pines flailing about in the wind like an army of lunatics, I filled with foreboding. This north end of the island looked utterly haunted. Had I not known the history of Portsmouth, one glance at those abandoned dwellings would have told it all.
My dread was palpable.
I didn’t want to set foot on that island.
It was forsaken.
42
I tossed my backpack to Charlie, stepped up on the gunwale, and climbed onto the dock.
The wind gusted, then died down as I heaved the pack onto my shoulders.
“I think ya’ll are nuts for doing this,” the old sailor said, rainwater spilling over his hood, running down his face into his bushy white beard.
The sea was rowdy.
It banged the boat into the beams.
“We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon,” I said.
“Hope so. Let me give your wife a hand up. I got to get back to the harbor ’fore this gets any worse.”
“Mr. Tatum, just a moment. These buildings from the old village are publicly owned. Correct?”
“Yes. The village proper is on the National Register of Historic Places.”
“Are you familiar with the entire island?”
“Most of it.”
I glanced back at Violet. She hadn’t moved.
“I’m looking for a lodge of some sort. Something someone still owns. I don’t think it would be a part of the village.”
“Well there’s some old hunting lodges down past the middle village ruins.”
“Where’s that?”
Charlie pointed shoreward.
“The ruins are about a half mile south of Haulover Point.”
“Where’s Haulover Point?”
“You’re standing on it. You’ll see the trail when you reach the end of the dock. I can’t believe you’re gonna camp in this shit.”
“Look, I have to be back at work in three days. I’ve planned this trip all year, so I don’t have the luxury of waiting out the storm.”
He grinned, shook his head, wiped rainwater from his eyes.
“Well, she don’t seem too happy about it.”
“No, Angie would rather be back at the inn. You get home safe.”
Charlie patted my shoulder and stepped past me to the edge of the dock.
The detective rose to her feet, rattled, shivering.
“Give you a hand there, sweetie-pie?” the old sailor asked.
Violet stood at the end of the dock, watching the Island Hopper dwindle away into the savage sea. The groan of its motor carried poorly in the wind and before long the only sound derived from the storm—waves sloshing about and raindrops pelting the rotten boards beneath our feet.
“We need to go,” I said.
The young woman turned and glared at me, crying again. Then she started walking and I followed her down the long dock.
We stepped ashore onto a sandy path and hiked alongside a creek. In the distance, rundown buildings of varying dilapidation teetered amid the scrub pines.
Wet marsh grass bent and rustled as it moved in slow vegetative waves all around us.
Violet walked fast.
Her boots splashed through puddles.
She sobbed.
The path branched. We could push south into the interior of the island or veer left, across the creek, into the ghost village.
Violet stopped and faced me. She couldn’t stop shaking.
“I’m s-s-s-so c-c-cold.”
We needed to continue south toward the middle village ruins but I doubted if Violet had the strength. She looked hypothermic.
In the village I noticed the spire of a small church poking above the pines.
“We’re going to get you warm,” I said.
We proceeded across a bridge toward the church. It rained so hard now I could hear nothing above the relentless pattering on my hood. I glanced at my watch. Four o’clock. We’d have a premature dusk with this ominous cloud deck.
One of the brochures had used the adjectives “quaint” and “enchanting” to describe Portsmouth Village but I found nothing remotely enchanting about this place. It was a dismal graveyard in the throes of decay. Had I visited the island as a carefree tourist on a pleasant summer afternoon, perhaps my impression would’ve been more cheery. But now it seemed we’d entered a village of corpses, some dolled up and embalmed with fresh paint and new foundations, the majority left to rot and collapse in the marsh grass.
I wondered why people came here, what they hoped to see. There was no mystery, no explanation to be found in these ruins. Towns degenerate. People leave. They die. Their dwellings crumble. That’s the storyline, the only plot there will ever be. Here is the house of Samuel Johnson. He was a cobbler. In 1867 he died. So will you. So what. It isn’t news. It’s just the way of things.
We arrived at the steps of an old Methodist church, a small gothic chapel in pristine condition compared to the ruined homestead just across the muddy path.
I tried the door and it opened.
I ushered the detective inside and closed the door behind us.
The silence in the nave was awesome. I could smell ancient dust on the pews. Rain ticked the windowpanes. Floorboards creaked under our weight. Walls creaked as the wind pushed through them.
I led Violet to the front pew and helped her out of the dripping poncho. I told her to sit down. She was in shock, no question, her black skirt and blouse soaking wet.