Authors: Bonnie Hearn Hill
Ghost Island (20 page)
EPILOGUE
That was three months ago. After I had seen Johnny off that day, I did find Aberdeen, a circular drive in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach. A sweeping cul-de-sac of Spanish-style homes, it was across from Ocean Drive, and the sea air that filled the cab blew in too many memories with it. Even as the taxi driver opened the door and I stepped out, I asked myself if Aaron would want me to do this.
Too late to worry about that now.
I had to find out everything I could.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the driver. “Please wait.”
He glanced at his ticking meter and nodded. If he wondered why I didn’t give him the address of where I was going or why I wanted to walk instead of ride, he didn’t say.
The knot in my stomach was so tight that I could barely breathe. I needed to keep my feet moving toward the first of those houses. Its lush front lawn, a deep golf-course green, glistened with raindrops.
I walked up to the
iron gate
and rang the bell. No answer. Then I noticed a tiny brass plate engraved with the words, “No solicitors.” All right, then. I would try the next house and the next, until someone could tell me where Aaron lived.
They were going to think I was crazy, I reminded myself. But I couldn’t let that bother me. Maybe the Aaron I loved hadn’t lived on Aberdeen at all. Maybe I had made him up, just conjured him in my brain to help me deal with what was happening. My rationalizations grew wilder with every step.
Or maybe somehow
—no, I couldn’t think about that.
At the next house, the double front gate was open. A girl about my age in a deep indigo suit, a handbag over her arm, stood there as if waiting for someone. Her long hair had the same gold streaks as Aaron’s, and I knew her eyes would be hazel. Once I got to the door, I saw that she had been crying.
“I’m here about Aaron,” I managed to say.
“He’s dead.” The words fell with a thud. She looked away from me out to the street. A black limousine pulled to the curb, another behind it.
I felt sick. My skin burned in the cold air. Here were the words I had been waiting for, the answer to the questions I could finally stop asking myself.
“When?”
“Do I know you?” she asked.
I shook my head,
then
forced myself to speak. “I know Aaron.”
“
Knew
Aaron.”
The tears softened her expression. “I just told you he’s dead. His memorial service was today. Who are you, anyway?”
“Please,” I choked. “My name is
Livia
. I met him on the island.”
I had hoped my name would mean something to her, but she only wiped her eyes and fought to regain her composure. “I’m Jess, his sister.”
“When did it happen?”
“Two days ago. He was on life support, and we thought maybe he would make it. He fought so hard.”
“I was there with him,” I said.
“In the storm.”
“That was after. You couldn’t have seen him then. He was already back here when the storm hit.”
“But I did.” I had to make her understand if only so she would tell me more. “We were together in the casino building.”
“Impossible. And if you don’t mind, the last thing I need right now is listening to some stranger go on about my brother.”
“I’m not a stranger. Please, I just have to find out what happened to him.”
She backed away from me. “You’re welcome to go in with the other guests if you like. I need to help my mom now.”
“His hair was spiked,” I said, “the same color as yours.
And his sweater.
It was green, like his eyes.”
She gasped, and when she recovered enough to speak, her voice was hard. “What do you want from us?” she said. “And how did you find out that Aaron was wearing a green sweater when he drowned?”
For a moment, I stood there, letting that word sink in.
Drowned.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I finally told her. “Not anymore.”
I walked away, past the converging mourners, back to the taxi.
“Wait.”
I turned and saw her coming after me, stumbling through the wet grass in her high heels.
When she caught up to me, she grabbed my arm. “Don’t go,” she said. Teardrops and rain streaked her face. “Please don’t go.”
***
So that was it. Aaron was dead, and in that moment of mutual confusion, he had drifted from a comatose state, his family gathered around him, to the last place he remembered, the island. He wasn’t one of the spirits who
had come in with the storm and tried to possess us. He had just been lost, trying to hold onto his life—and onto me.
I did not share more with
Jess
than I had to, only that I had been caught in the storm and had dreamed about her brother. She wanted to believe me, I could tell, but I could also tell that she would never believe what had really happened. There was no reason to try to convince her. Once she decided that I wasn’t crazy, she told me that Aaron had been airlifted to Long Beach immediately following his accident. His body may have been, but I knew that Aaron had not. He had been with me, and when he realized what was happening, he had pushed me away. That last act had freed him from his connection to this world.
We stood there in the rain until Jess had finished sharing her story and her grief. I thanked her, and she said talking to me had given her hope.
“Maybe he’s still out there,” she said. “Maybe I will see him too.”
Although I knew better, I agreed with her, and then I said goodbye and hurried to the taxi.
***
Sometimes I wonder if I would leave that island again, or if I would force Aaron to let me stay with him. I wouldn’t be with him, though. No doubt one of those spirits in the casino would have claimed me. Our love ended the only way it could.
After I got home, I tortured myself with the obituaries, the online tributes from kids he never got around to mentioning to me. When I clicked on one of the links, and his photo popped up, I was finally able to cry. Still, I did everything I could to try to connect with him again in these past months. Nothing worked. No scent. No trinket on my pillow. No whispers in my sleep. Our connection in that tangle of dreams and spirits on the island was not as permanent as it felt. Aaron was gone.
The other kids and I kept in touch. Charles and Grace were still seeing each other, and Johnny was planning a visit there. Emily never made it back to the place that was supposed to be her home. Unlike Aaron, I doubt that she found peace. She was listed as a missing person, one I know will never be found.
It was a sunny day in Emeryville, yet I put on a sweater so that I didn’t have to pack it. Outside, the clouds were so uniformly white they could have been
Photoshopped
on the sky.
When I left here, I would miss this tiny city between Oakland and Berkeley. I’d miss San Francisco, just a bridge away, and I would miss Ms. Gates. I wouldn’t miss the memories, though.
Ms. Gates—I called her Glenna now—pulled my suitcase into the living room.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
I reached up to push a long strand of hair from my face and remembered it was no longer there.
She walked over and put her arm around my shoulder. “Thinking about your mom, honey?”
The thought of her hurt my heart. “I know she’s okay, but I can’t stay here hoping she’ll come back.”
And I couldn’t keep searching for her either. I didn’t say that, but Glenna knew.
“That boy,” she said. “Honey, I know we can’t always rationally explain everything we experience. What happened on the island is proof of that. But sometimes, our minds resort to the inexplicable in order to protect us.”
“I’m okay with all of that,” I told her. “I am.”
She hugged me so hard that I knew there were tears in her eyes. “Well,” she said, and looked away out the window into the sunlit morning. “Then I guess it’s time.”
We walked outside and waited only a few minutes before the car pulled into the drive. Grace jumped out so fast that I was almost blinded by the sight of her—tangled red hair flying, arms outstretched. Then we were hugging and screeching.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” I said.
“But I
can
believe you’re really coming to live with me.” She stopped our wild dance and looked into my eyes. “Seattle will never be the same.”
We said goodbye to Glenna, stuffed my luggage in the trunk, and left town, still talking nonstop.
“Seriously,” she said when we stopped behind a line of cars at the freeway entrance. “It’s like I told you,
Livia
. My family’s a little dysfunctional, but we look out for each other.”
I had no words, so I told to her what Glenna said to me. “Well, then I guess it’s time.”
And with that, Grace and I drove into the day.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my agent Laura
Dail
, the one person on the planet whose opinion this Gemini never doubts; to Lauri Wellington for her keen editorial eye; and to Faith Caminski,
for her excellent input.
To Christopher Poe, for his cover design and his kindness; and to Brandi
Hitt
, for everything.
Many thanks to these talented authors for their support: Larry Hill, Jen
Badasci
, Nick
Belardes
, Sylvia
Bodmer
, John
Brantingham
and the Mt. SAC writers, Lisa and Sean-Ron Coleman, Richard
Datuin
,
Elbie
Groves, Dot Hearn,
Karene
Lee
Conlin
and
Roxene
Lee, Nora McFarland, Bob and Carol
O’Hanneson
,
Rorby
, Savannah
Saldivar
, Susan
Stuermer
, and Anne Marie Whitehurst
Manzanedo
.
Love to the Fridays, my writing family: Hazel Dixon-Cooper, Dennis C. Lewis, and Christopher Allan Poe. And to the Mondays, my stars: Meredith Booey, Natalie Chavez, Bob Hamilton,
A.J
. Lucas, Kara Lucas, Stacy Lucas, Brenda
Najimian
Magarity
, Patti Ogden,
Jonni
Pettit, Kristi
Rohlfing
, Gloria Salas, and Chris Villalobos. Thanks also to my wonderful readers and friends, inc
Jeani
Tokumoto
. And to Jean Ray
Laury
, an original and gifted artist, who brightened every life she touched, inc
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bonnie Hearn Hill is the author of ARIES RISING and two other titles in the young adult Star Crossed series as well as six international thrillers for MIRA Books. A former newspaper editor, she is a national writing conference speaker and contest judge and has mentored many writers. She loves hearing from readers and can be reached at
www.bonniehhill.com
.
GENRE: YA/PARANORMAL
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. The publisher does not have any control over or assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.
GHOST ISLAND
Copyright © 2011 by Bonnie Hearn Hill
All Rights Reserved
Cover Design by Christopher Allan Poe
Copyright © 2013 All Rights Reserved
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-937329-98-3
FIRST PUBLICATION: March 9, 2013
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