The Darkhouse Read online

  Before he turns to walk up the path to our house, he takes a moment to check the sea. I start back, wondering if he can see me. But his expression is as even as the tide.

  After he’s gone, I scan the cliffside. Everything is usual, like nothing at all has happened. My hands start to shake, and I drop the binoculars to my side.

  “Okay, kiddo,” Scotty says loudly behind me, making me jump. “All set over here.”

  I turn around and see the new buoy bobbing in the water like the old one.

  Something like an egg is in my throat. If I swallow I will crack it.

  “What’s wrong, Gemma?”

  Consequences flip though my mind — consequences to Jonah, to me. Jonah values his privacy. He demands it. He won’t want me blurting out what he’s clearly trying to hide.

  Still I say — and my voice is so far away it might be another’s — “Did you ever hear of any structures around the lighthouse?”

  “Other than your own house, no.”

  “Or in the rock under it?”

  “A structure under the lighthouse? In the rock? No, that’s impossible.” Scotty chuckles. “But there’s a plan. Coolest man-cave ever. Escape everything that wants to bleed you dry, and only come out when you’re ready to face the world.” He gives another chuckle. “Why?”

  My voice shakes as I speak. “Because I think I saw something.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Like a window in the rock.”

  “No way, man. Your imagination is playing tricks. Living on the island your whole life’ll do that to a person.” He grins like it’s a joke. When I don’t respond, he extends his hand. “Let me look.”

  I pass him the binoculars, and he puts them to his eyes and scans the cliffs.

  “Do you see the big clump of weed?” I say.

  “Yeah, sure. About twenty feet down from the lighthouse.”

  “The hole is behind that.”

  Scotty keeps the binoculars steady on the same spot for a long time. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says after a while. “Don’t see it at all.” He pulls the binoculars away and looks at me. “I’ve never heard anyone mention anything being in the rock. And our family’s lived here a few hundred years. Are you sure?”

  Because I can’t stop shaking, I sit down on the center bench and hold my hands together. Biscuit puts his drooling face on my knees.

  “I’m sure,” I say. “Jonah was coming out of it.”

  A betrayal. My first.

  “Like, coming out of a hole in the rock?” Scotty says.

  “Using the climbing gear and coming out of a hole cut like a window.”

  Scotty stares at the area again, swaying slightly with the boat. “Huh,” he says. “Maybe he found something.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “You should ask him.”

  I blink against a refraction of light. I always wanted a real friend. Someone I could tell my version of events. The islanders so often talk over you in a rush not to forget what they’re going to say. Or are too busy listening to the chatter in their own minds. But Scotty is different. Scotty has always been different.

  “I don’t think that’ll work,” I say. “I used to ask him all the time if we could find my mom.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He didn’t like it.”

  “Yeah … I guess I kinda figured that.” Scotty looks at me for almost as long as he searched the cliff for the window, then he looks away and says, “Remember when you were little and I’d come back to visit and we used to hang out at the Rock Pit?”

  I’ll never forget it. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I used to have this crazy idea and it wouldn’t let go.” He shakes his head as if the idea is still there, rattling around. “Those were the days when I was sure I could save the world. I just wanted to help you.”

  He wanted to help me. A terrifying amount of love swells my heart.

  “I got this idea that we should know where your mom was. She was supposed to be dangerous, right? I just wanted to know for sure that she wasn’t going to show up one day with, I don’t know, a shotgun or something. Or, it coulda gone the other way too, right? A lot of time had passed. Maybe she …” He stops and grips his hands together.

  “Maybe she got better?” I say. Scotty is the only one who thinks the way I do.

  “Exactly.”

  He doesn’t continue, but cracks his knuckles. I say, “Did you do something?”

  “I needed more information,” he says. “I asked around. You know, stuff like, ‘Did Jonah ever mention anything else about his wife?’”

  “And did he?”

  “Took a while, but Peg remembered something. When Jonah first came here with you — you remember those stories, right? We used to talk about it sometimes? How your mother kicked him out and he came here, but he got stuck on the island because of the ferry not running in the winter? How he started freaking out about you being alone with her — I’m sorry, Gemma, is this too much?”

  I shake my head, anxious to know how the story ends.

  “And he went back to check on things, and she flipped out and ran away? And he brought you here?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, so anyway, when he came back with you and everyone was asking him what happened, well, Peg told me that he was super-agitated about the whole thing, and there was this one time —” He stops and checks with me. I give a breathless nod. “— one time where it spilled out. He said her name.”

  “Her name?”

  “It slipped out, is the feeling Peg got. But he said it.” He looks at me. “You wanna know? Because I can stop. This whole thing might be way outta line.” He shrugs. “Or maybe, screw it, maybe you should know. Maybe it’s about frickin’ time.”

  “Yes, it’s time.”

  “Shannon,” he says. “Her name is Shannon.”

  The name draws a picture of a mother I used to imagine. The one whose arm I could lean against, whose hand would stroke my head, whose eyes would see me. “What happened then?”

  “So,” Scotty goes on, “now I had something to work with. I went to the mainland and searched online. Googled her, the whole bit. Shannon Hubb — it’s not the most usual name. But I couldn’t find her. There was nothing.”

  I look down. Scotty keeps going. “Then later — you know that national parks gig I got after I left the island?” I nod without looking at him. “Well, it takes our crew all over the Maritimes. Everywhere we went, I’d ask people if they knew Shannon Hubb. Those coastal towns are small, right? Not much bigger than here. But no one had ever heard of her. Not just that she had a family and had run off, but nothing about anyone named Hubb.”

  I want it to make sense, but it’s so mixed up I can’t understand it. Like seeing and not recognizing your own hand.

  “Gemma,” Scotty says carefully, “if she doesn’t want to be found — or,” he adds more carefully, “if no one wants you to find her — as harsh as this sounds — you might have to give her up.”

  I remember that Scotty also had to give up his mother.

  He puts his hand on my shoulder. My heart beats inches away.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma,” he says. “You okay?” I nod. “Anyway, point is, if you wanna ask Jonah about a hole in the cliffs, I think you should ask him. And if you don’t, I will.”

  He makes it sound easy. But already the idea of asking Jonah anything pulls me away from daydreams about my mother and into nauseating impossibility. Like Doris says, “Sometimes we don’t want to know what we want to know.”

  I busy myself with the binoculars, grabbing them from the bench, pushing them into the case, putting the case in Scotty’s pack. Scotty starts the motor, and I turn my back on him as he steers us out. Biscuit tries to give me his paw. When I don’t take it, he lays it on my boot.

  Jonah’s roast turns out well. We eat in the living room around the coffee table because there isn’t enough room for all three of us in the kitchen. With lit candles placed here and there and a f
ire blazing in the fireplace, the house almost looks romantic.

  Once or twice, in a surge of nerve, I start to ask Jonah the question about the hole in the cliff, but the necessary words won’t come out. More than that, I want to ask him about my mother, who is more real to me now that she has a name. Shannon. And that question doesn’t come either.

  Apprehension upends my stomach, and I can only pick at my food and pretend to enjoy it. Marlie, on the other hand, eats every-thing and gives profuse compliments and thanks. Jonah lights up whenever she speaks. He basks. “You’re welcome,” he says. “You’re very welcome.”

  Marlie tells us a bit of what it’s like to live in a city. Jonah asks her if she’s ever troubled by the “disassociation of society.” She says she’s never thought about it, but that it’s “ironic” he brought it up. When he asks why it’s ironic, she gives the faintest shrug and lowers her lashes.

  He tells her his ideas on Darwinism. “Darwin said — and I’m paraphrasing here — in the distant future, man will be a far more perfect creature than he is now.” Marlie listens with interest. “But we have to do our part. Because we’re at a dangerous precipice, you see. We don’t rely on each other to survive anymore.” He adds for emphasis, “The tribe is dead.”

  After dinner, Marlie pulls out her phone and takes pictures of us with it, then shows us the images on the screen. The oddness of how we look makes us laugh, even me, despite my uncertainties.

  It used to be that Jonah didn’t allow anyone to take pictures of me. Even so, Peg and Doris have a full album of them. The first photo is from not long after I arrived on the island, after Jonah went back to save me from my mother. I’m just over a year old with a chubby, smiling baby face, with red gums and tiny square teeth, with wisps of hair sticking up. Apparently Jonah fussed a lot about people taking photos, so everyone assured him they wouldn’t do it anymore. Peg’s photo taking became “our little secret.”

  There are pages and pages in the album of me growing up: Peg and Doris adoring me, sometimes Jake and Finey Roberts or Hesperos or Randy playing with me, sometimes even Scotty when he was home for a visit, and my birthday celebrations with the islanders surrounding me. The album stops when I’m five because Peg’s camera — which was very big and strange looking — broke and she never got it fixed.

  But today Jonah doesn’t seem to mind that Marlie is taking photos. Maybe he’s forgotten why it once seemed so important. When I examine the images in Marlie’s phone, I notice I’m not a child stuck in the past anymore — and I’m also not the face I see in the mirror every day combing knots from my hair and brushing my teeth. I’m a funny thing with a skinny face and bluer eyes than I thought. It reminds me of the old snapshots of Peg or Doris from their “heyday,” as they call it, and how they don’t look anything like they do today, as if it’s two different people.

  I study the photos of Jonah and search for hints of myself — in his eyes, the color of his hair, the angles that draw his chin and cheeks — but I don’t see any.

  “Who do I look like?” I want to ask him. “You or Shannon?” I want to see his reaction when I say her name. But I don’t have the nerve. Not yet.

  We all go to bed early, and I leave my curtains open so I can watch the stars. Aidie climbs under the blankets with me and takes hold of my hand. I’m relieved and thankful to have her. I dabble my fingers over hers, which are so light I hardly feel them.

  Shannon is a nice name.

  I smile despite myself.

  It sounds like a person who can get better.

  “You can’t tell that by a person’s name, Aidie.”

  Marlie will be your friend and she’ll help you leave the island so you can find her.

  Aidie never worries about what other people want. She’s like a fairy who turns everything she sees into candy, then keeps it all for herself.

  “Maybe I don’t want to leave.”

  That’s because of Scotty.

  “No.” I flick her thigh. “Shut your mouth.”

  She giggles, and that makes me giggle too.

  Marlie and Jonah will fall in love, and Jonah will feel safe, and we’ll get off the island. We’ll find your mother and she’ll be happy and you’ll have a normal life. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

  “You’re crazy,” I say, teasing.

  Why can’t we hope for something nice?

  “Oh, Aidie.” I snuggle against her. “I wish I could dream like you.”

  You just have to imagine it, she says, nuzzling back.

  I check through the window. The night sky is clear now. A long time ago, I used to wish upon stars. Then I found books on Jonah’s shelves that described the planets and solar systems and how the constellations were named for gods and goddesses. It felt good to study. Something I could explain to Jonah if he cared to listen.

  “Look over there,” I say to Aidie. I draw my finger over the points of light. “Those stars make up Virgo. Virgo is hard to see without lines connecting the lights, but she has an arm up over there and a fat bum sticking out over there.” Aidie claps her hand over her mouth and giggles again. “No, listen. Virgo is for women, the life-givers. But she’s also Persephone. Persephone was stolen by Hades and was taken to live with him in the underworld. Persephone’s mother never gave up looking for her. But when she finally found her daughter, she had to make a deal with Hades. That they would share her. So for half the year Persephone stays in the underworld, and in spring she comes back here. It sounds terrible, but it’s supposed to be the seasons. Or the cycle of life.”

  So Persephone agrees to live with Hades?

  “I guess so.”

  So she’s always sad, either living with him or waiting to go back?

  “I never thought about that. The books don’t say.” I put my cheek against hers. “Don’t think about it if it makes you feel bad. Look,” I point. “Virgo is watching over us right now. If you want, you can wish upon her star.”

  I will, Aidie says. And she closes her eyes and her lips move as she makes her wish.

  The next morning, the weather is clear enough for the ferry to run. Jonah surprises me by suggesting Marlie stay on for a few more days so she can rest and recover, and Marlie surprises me by saying she’d love to. She says she’ll use the extra time on the island to pay us back for our kindness.

  Marlie says she wants to cook dinner for us and prepare some casseroles for the freezer, so Jonah offers to drive into town and back before the morning ferry run so he can stock us up from the FoodMart. He says he’ll go alone so we’re not “subjected to the prying curiosity of the islanders.” I picture Peg and Doris with their hearts full of questions.

  After Jonah comes back with the groceries and then leaves again for work, Marlie and I organize ingredients. Slowly, I begin to feel more comfortable around her, more myself. It’s an odd feeling, and I try not to be too suspicious of it.

  She shows me how to make casseroles with fresh vegetables and beans and herbs, with fresh chicken and beef, so Jonah and I can take them out of the freezer anytime we want. I taste the cooked dishes before we freeze them and tell her how delicious they are. We put one pan in the oven to eat when Jonah comes home for lunch.

  When we finish cleaning up, Marlie looks around the kitchen. Her drifting gaze lands on me and I wait for her to speak, but she just lingers on me, on different parts of the kitchen, on our heating lunch. A tenderness comes into her eyes and her eyes begin to well. I want to say something of comfort, but I can’t think of anything. She turns abruptly and excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Confused and curious, I follow upstairs and wait for her in my bedroom. Aidie only peeks out of the closet once, and that’s to put her finger to her lips and encourage me to hush.

  After a long while of quiet, Jonah comes home. He calls hello and no one answers. I wait for Marlie to respond or come out, but it’s only quiet behind the bathroom door. Eventually, I go downstairs to see what Jonah has to say.

  I find him standing at the counter, his back to
me, working on something with intense concentration. Before I get all the way into the kitchen, something about his meticulous movements makes me stop and hide myself behind the wall.

  Peering carefully around the corner, I watch Jonah push a little pill from a blister pack into a bowl and then grind the pill with a pestle. He seems to be conscious of going fast. Or of not being caught. He checks the fineness of the powder and then carefully tips it into a glass. Then he pours water over the powder and stirs it, checking the bottom for residue. When he’s satisfied, he places the glass on the kitchen table.

  I press myself against the wall and wait to see his next move, but he just cleans up his utensils, sits down at the kitchen table, and protects the glass between his hands. Because his back is to me, I creep partway up and then run back down the stairs, pretending I was upstairs all along. I pretend to be surprised to see him, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. I sit at the kitchen table across from him and wait for him to drink the water, but he doesn’t do that either. He just sits like a rock in the chair, staring at the glass.

  When Marlie finally joins us, the hair around her face is damp as if she recently splashed water on it. She looks tired, and maybe a little as if she’s been crying.

  Jonah lights up when he sees her. He lifts the glass and passes it to her. “I thought you looked a little pale this morning,” he says. “So I got this for you from the health food store in Kingsmith.” Kingsmith is the closest town to the mainland ferry docks. But I never knew Jonah to be interested in health food stores. Or to notice people looking pale. He says to Marlie, “It’s supposed to be very beneficial.”

  “That’s so considerate,” Marlie says, smiling. “Thank you.” She tastes the water, and Jonah smiles as he watches her. She gulps some more and wipes her mouth. “Bitter.”

  “That’s health food for you,” he says.

  She circles the glass. “The whole thing?”