It wasn’t a place he would have chosen to live. In fact, he didn’t know such places existed except in nature documentaries. He knew his aunt and uncle had trouble being around people, but this was something else.
Aunt Leslie and Uncle Tom lived on the greater of two islands, both of which were the dictionary reference for “rugged”. The smaller island, called only “the northeast island”, was eight to ten acres, treeless, and peaked maybe 150ft above the waterline. Only two hours into daylight and Brian had already decided that he could drain the Forester’s gas tank, splash whatever he got onto the island, and make a dandy fire to call for help. The only problem was there were steep cliffs all around the island so getting any gas cans up there might be a problem. The northeast island was either connected to the main island by a high-water jetty or separated from it by seventy-five to a hundred feet of water. The jetty came and went with the tides, and Brian could see Uncle Tom’s tidal power unit sitting like some prehistoric dragonfly in the center, its four wings spread to capture the whole motion of the sea and its tail tracing back over the separating water and ending in cables buried in the rock as if the dragonfly was laying eggs in the sand. The eyes of the dragonfly looked out towards the east and tracked the motions of the sun and moon. Uncle Tom said the unit had enough smarts to anticipate minor movements of the island shelf to better orient itself to capture the tides.
The main island was two and a half to three miles long and six hundred feet tall at its peak. Brian hoped that was high enough to stay above the water if it stormed. There was scrub brush all around and what trees there were were wind swept and stunted to the point that Brian could walk across their tops where they grew closer together. Before going outside, Brian looked at a an old map of the island on the wall in Uncle Tom’s study. The main island varied from one hundred yards to half a mile wide and would take seven miles to circumnavigate, which you could do along the coast because of the terrain. There were no safe landings except for where they docked earlier that morning at Trinity Cove.
The middle of the island had a few trails marked for horse and cart, one of which went up from Trinity Cove to a main trail. This trail cut the island in two and connected what use to be two lighthouses at either end, north and south, but what were now GPS auto-responders. Brian could understand that. They probably signaled “Go away, Go back, Not a fucking thing here.” Uncle Tom converted the actual lighthouse buildings themselves into wind turbines.
According to the legend on the map, two families manned the lighthouses at either end of the island. A small lobster cannery sat in what was either called Governor’s Cove or Atlantic Cove you could get to either from a trail or from the sea but not along the coast, but canning stopped almost a century ago in the 1920s. There use to be a small radar installation towards the south and Uncle Tom converted that into something but what it was he hadn’t marked. The smaller, southern lighthouse had been battery powered, the larger, northern one was conventionally powered, whatever that meant. The only other marks on the map were the buildings in Governor’s Cove and a telegraph array, something else Uncle Tom kept unmarked. The largest building was the house they were in, in Governor’s Cove. There was a smaller house, but the map marked it unused. The second largest trail on the island went from that house, which was marked to be in Atlantic Cove but could be seen from Uncle Tom’s study window, to the southern point on the island.
Wearing only swimtrunks and sandals, he crawled over dark, blood colored boulders to get to the only “beach” in Governor’s Cove, a barrier pool filled and emptied by the waves and tides. He stood on one tall boulder, the lichen crinkling beneath his feet, and watched the ocean spray and quake as the waves broke against the rocks. Winds blew the mists up into the stunted pines, birch, and elm which hid the pool from the house and returned with a thick, meady, almost meaty scent. The cannery plant had its own enclosed bay and was the only way boats could land safely here. He wondered if there was a way through the cannery into the sheltered water but discovered the doors were locked and forbid him entry. It was a clear day and he could see for miles, but the cannery’s enclosed bay jutted too far out into the water for him to see if there was a way in. The chilling spray and clashing waves convinced him not to swim. “Probably have doors locked there, too.”
As he turned to leave the lichen broke away and he slid, his fingers and hands clawing against the side of the boulder as he fell. He stopped when his ankle wedged in the freezing ocean water between two rocks. The pain was incredible but the cold water brought numbing relief. He tried to jag his foot free. After a few tries his sandle caught and he couldn’t turn his ankle to free it.
That’s when he felt something down by his toes. Dark and down in the water, at first he thought it was some sand or shells broken loose when his foot plunged in.
But now it was testing his flesh, pinching his skin up and down his feet. He knelt down to see and something long and insectlike broke the surface, stroked his leg with what looked like a twig then submerged again.
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