The Keeper of Dawn (23 page)

Derek, Roland and myself entered the school a few moments
later. We were to proceed to Gabe Fuhrman’s room and throw a rope of
strung-together bed sheets out the window so Chris could climb up. I got to
carry Kate’s backpack, which I was rather proud of, though it carried the faint
aroma of tequila.

It took an amazingly short amount of time for things to go
wrong. We were passing through the lobby when we saw the girls in the
administrative office along with a few reporters who had arrived on the bus. Why
hadn’t they gone immediately to the auditorium? We huddled around a striated
marble bust of a pensive man with a severe expression—perhaps one of the
school’s previous headmasters—and discussed, as discretely as possible, the
best course of action. We decided that Roland would continue to Gabe’s room,
while Derek and I waited in the lobby.

After Roland had left, the two of us settled into one of the
sofas and maintained a vigilant watch on the administrative offices. My blood
went cold when Mr. Lawson stepped out of his office and approached the girls.

“Shit!”

“Relax,” Derek said. “We’re still good.”

I stared in disbelief as Mr. Lawson, with one hand curled
around his chin, the fingers stroking his dark mustache, spoke as if recalling
a candid anecdote, and when Holly interrupted with a comment of her own, he tilted
his head back and laughed. He then led the girls back into his office, closing
the door behind them.

“That’s not good,” Derek said.

“No shit. What do we do now?”

“What
can
we do? Did you see him laugh? I’ve never
even seen him crack a smile.”

“What questions are they going to ask?”

Derek looked at me blankly. “We never really got past the
tape recorder.”

“Great.”

Resigned that our fate now lay in the girls’ ability to lie
to the dean of Wellington, we passed the time by flipping through some
yearbooks, though our eyes rarely left the hallway behind the secretary’s desk.
Except for the reporters, the lobby was uncharacteristically empty. The
entryway had been left open, allowing sounds of the approaching storm to enter
the room. Flashes of lightning lit up the windows, followed by the heavy rumble
of thunder.

As the storm rolled across the island, my thoughts kept
returning to the girls. Though we had just met, I had already acquired a
responsibility for them. They didn’t belong here, and if nothing else, I had to
make sure that they made it off the island.

“What’s taking them so long?” Derek asked after what felt
like an eternity. He tossed his yearbook aside. “Something’s wrong.”

“Be patient,” I said, though I shared his anxiety.

When the secretary—Mrs. Lawrence—emerged from her office and
looked in our direction, my stomach shriveled into a knot. Derek picked the
yearbook back up and held it in front of his face, but it was too late—she had
already seen us. Only then did I remember that Kate’s tequila-soaked backpack
lay beside me on the sofa. We were in the process of breaking so many rules
that the thought of getting caught possessing alcohol hadn’t crossed my mind.

“Jacob, why there you are,” Mrs. Lawrence said. “I’ve been
looking all over for you.”

“You have?”

“You’re quite popular today. Someone’s been trying to get a
hold of you all afternoon. I swear, they must’ve called every half-hour.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“But I can’t get him to leave a message. Not even a name. It
sure must be important though. Why don’t you go wait by the phones and when he
calls back, I’ll patch him through to booth six.” She paused, sniffing the air.
“Say, do you boys smell something? There’s a peculiar odor over here.”

“Uh, I think it’s the leather in the sofa,” Derek said.

“Yeah, English leather always smells like that,” I said,
backing away with the backpack slung over my shoulder. “Booth six did you say?”

I waited by the phones. Dinner was being served in the
cafeteria, the smell of food reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since lunch. Though
curious as to who had been trying to reach me, my thoughts rarely strayed from
Mr. Lawson’s office. The first person who came to mind was Father, but I
couldn’t imagine him calling more than once, even in an emergency.

I was contemplating on whether to return to the lobby when
the phone rang, which was followed by a crash of thunder.

“Hello?”

“Jake! Finally.”

It was David.

“David! Hey. How’s it going?”

“You’re a tough guy to get a hold of.”

“I know. Today’s been kind of hectic.”

“I’m not breaking up your Saturday night date or anything,
am I?”

“I wish. Where are you?”

“Tanzania, at the moment.” There was a short pause. “Hey,
have you talked to Mother?”

“No,” I said, thinking David didn’t sound much like himself.
We must have had a bad connection. “Wait, actually, yeah. A few days ago. I
think on Tuesday,” I said, recalling our conversation in the infirmary. “Why? What’s
going on?”

There was a long pause.

“Well, I’ve got some … I’ve got something to tell you.”

Had David said this at any other time, I would have assumed
he was going to say what I had so often hoped to hear:
I’m coming home
. But
now, either from his distant tone, or knowing how persistently he had tried to
reach me, no such prediction came to mind.

What followed was a cough, like someone’s voice breaking, or
maybe static, I couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, he cleared his throat, and
when he spoke again, he sounded far away, farther away than home—which was
where I always imagined him to be—farther away even than Tanzania itself.

“God, I hate to be the one to tell you this.” There was
another pause. “Jake, it’s Grandpa … He died Wednesday morning.”

It was as if all the life had gone out of me. My eyes
shifted about the room, searching for something to latch onto, an anchor to
hold me down. The plastic ficus sprouting from the corner; the cafeteria menu
mounted in its locked display case like someone might steal it. Finding
nothing, I came to stare at my hand clutching the metal coils of the phone
cord.

“I’m sorry, Jake. God, I’m sorry.”

David’s voice came to me through a haze. My hand squeezed
the phone cord as if I could strangle his words. I wished he would stop
talking. I wished he had never called. My eyes began to sting and I remembered
to blink them.

“Jake? Hey, you still there?”

“How …”

“It was a heart attack. He …” David cleared his throat. “He
died on the way to the hospital. I would have called sooner, but I just found
out yesterday. The visitation was tonight, or I guess
is
tonight. God, I
barely even know what day it is.”

“The funeral. When is the funeral?”

“Tomorrow, at eleven.”

Why didn’t she tell me?
I didn’t realize I had asked
the question aloud until David replied.

“She said you’d been through so much that she was going to wait.
You know how she gets. But I figured you’d want to know. I’ve been trying to
get a hold of you all day. I … I can’t make it back. I want to. Believe me, I
want to. But it’s impossible to get out of here on such short notice.”

“I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

“Good. That’s good. I figured you’d want to. I’m sure
Grandpa would want that. It’s at Pine Crest.” He paused. “You remember how to
get there?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Okay, good. I never expected this. Not in a million years. I
just talked to him Tuesday. He told me about your visit. In fact, that was
practically all he talked about. He went—”

Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of lightning streaked
to the ground. It held there for an instant, etched into my retina, flickering
over the dark sky like a serpent’s tongue. There was a dead pause before a
thunderclap detonated the silence. The lights flickered and went out. The
clamor coming through the cafeteria doors was snuffed out like a candle. When
someone knocked over a chair, a chorus of scattered laughter punctuated the
air.

“Hello? David? David! Are you there?”

The phone was dead. I clicked the receiver. No dial tone.

“Ahhh!” I cried, slamming the phone down.

The first discharge of thunder set off a series of what
sounded like small explosions. The school and everyone in it had vanished. Someone
nearby was crying. The darkness made the noise sound far away, tricking me into
believing it was coming from someone else. I cried harder, not caring if anyone
overheard. I prayed for the power to come back on.
David will know what to do
,
I kept repeating, like a child whispering a bedside prayer. But the darkness
remained. Whether by fate or circumstance, a force beyond my control had stolen
something from me, and the more time that passed, the more I became convinced
it was gone forever.

I tried to remember what I had been doing when the heart
attack had occurred, but I kept getting pulled back to all of those Monday
afternoons at Brickmore Lane. But then those too were gone, disappearing one by
one as if my memories of Grandpa were being locked away. The house at Brickmore
Lane was boarded up; I was no longer allowed inside. I had to concentrate. I
had to decide what to do. But my mind kept lashing out, assigning blame for his
death: my parents for sending me away; David for leaving the country; myself for
waiting so long to visit.

Why hadn’t someone told me sooner?

That question was all that remained. I clung to it, turned
it over in my hands, tried to find a use for it, a way to leverage it to my
advantage. And suddenly, everything became clear. Father didn’t want me at the
funeral. He had convinced Mother it would be better for my sake if I wasn’t
told what had happened until after the fact. They had only told David because
they knew he wouldn’t be able to come back in time. No, Father didn’t want me
there. Tomorrow he would bury the rift that divided the family when his
sons—whom he was convinced his father had driven away from him—didn’t show up.

I no longer thought of Brickmore Lane. My only concern was
leaving Raker Island and arriving at Pine Crest Cemetery by eleven o’clock
tomorrow morning.

I was still holding the phone when the lights came back on. There
was no dial tone. I checked the other phones, but they were dead. I was on my
own. When the next round of thunder commenced, the lights flickered, and I
hurried out of the room.

It was ten after seven, which meant that the bus had already
left. My only hope of leaving tonight was to delay the ferry’s departure. Derek
wasn’t in the lobby, which meant that Mr. Lawson’s interview had ended, one way
or the other. Pushing the girls from my mind, I proceeded to the administrative
office. As I was about to enter, I caught a whiff of liquor from my backpack,
and hid it behind one of the sofas.

Mrs. Lawrence took one look at me and knew right away
something was wrong. When I told her what had happened and that I needed to
leave the island, she gave me a brief hug, then radioed the pier. While
waiting, Mr. Lawson’s voice carried down the hall from his open doorway.

“All we need is a short clip of the lighthouse, and I
guarantee that by this time next week, every parent in the northeast will want
to send their son here. And we’ve got more than enough room for them. There’s
no end to this hotel. Remind me to give you a tour first thing in the morning. We
only have a third of the rooms renovated. Only
a third
. Trust me on
this, Peter. This is exactly the boost we’ve been waiting for.”

“Hi, Darryl,” Mrs. Lawrence said into the walkie-talkie. “Just
wanted to see if the ferry had left yet. Oh it has. All right. Wasn’t sure if
it would go out in this storm or not. I know, me too. Hope we don’t have to go
by candlelight. Same to you.”

Despite Mrs. Lawrence’s sympathetic words, it was difficult
not to feel that any chance of going home that night had been eliminated. When
a thinly-bearded, gaunt man with dime-store glasses, whom I took to be Peter,
passed me on his way out, Mrs. Lawrence led me back to Mr. Lawson’s office. When
Mrs. Lawrence explained that my grandfather had passed away, he expressed his
condolences.

“Please, have a seat,” he said as Mrs. Lawrence shut the
door behind her. “How can I be of assistance?”

“I have to get back to New York. The funeral’s tomorrow, at
eleven.”

“Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,” he mused. “That’s not
much time. The Sunday ferry doesn’t depart until eight-thirty. That won’t get
you into Miskapaug until just after nine. Eleven o’clock,” he repeated, his
fingers rapping the desktop. “Even if you were to drive to Providence and catch
the first available flight, which wouldn’t save you much time, you still
wouldn’t make it. Why such short notice, if you don’t mind my asking?”

I refrained from mentioning that I
did
mind him
asking. “It’s … a long story. My family was trying to reach me all day. Look, I
really need to be there. I have to leave tonight.”

“Tonight?” His eyebrows rose. “No. No, I’m afraid not. Not
tonight. Not with this storm. The phones are down, so even if the ferry could
make an extra trip back, I can’t get a hold of them. I’m sorry. The best I can
do is have you out first thing in the morning. That way you can at least be
with your family after the funeral.”

“Well, can I talk with Mr. Hearst?”

“I’m sorry, but the headmaster is away for the weekend.”

“There has to be a way,” I said, sinking into the chair.

“I can assure you, young man, short of an act of God, there
is no way to get off this island tonight.”

Returning to my room, my thoughts kept circling back to Mr.
Lawson. Beneath his sympathies, his expression conveyed that this sort of thing
was to be expected—however unfortunate, grandparents die.
Grow up, kid,
I heard him say.
It’s not like it’s your mother or father.
I suddenly
had the urge to reach across the desk and hit him. I told myself that if I were
still in his office, that’s exactly what I would do.

How many times had I wanted to go home? Now that I actually
needed to leave, there was no way off the island. Everything—my father,
Wellington, even the weather—seemed to be against me. Instead of being just off
the coast, I felt shipwrecked at some uncharted latitude. There had to be a
way. I considered going to Mr. O’Leary, but if there was any possibility of
leaving tonight, it would involve breaking the rules.

I pushed the curtains aside and looked across the courtyard.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I left the room and made my way toward
Kirkland Hall. No one answered when I knocked on the prefect’s door. I knocked
a second time, and then a third.

“Go away,” I heard Chris say.

“It’s me—Jake.”

“Not a good time,” he said, which was followed by the
incriminating sound of a girl giggling.

“It’s an emergency.”

What followed was the creaking of a bed, some muttered
cursing, and then Chris threw open the door. He was in his underwear, his hair
a tousled mess. “Jake, I love ya like a brother, but somebody better be dead.”

“Somebody is,” I said, stepping into the room.

* * * * *

It felt good to talk about it. Allison sat on the upper bunk
with the sheets wrapped around her bare shoulders, not at all upset over the intrusion.
Kate was in the lower bunk and had been reading a magazine with headphones on
to help her ignore whatever might be going on overhead. Though the girls hardly
knew me, I couldn’t have asked for better listeners.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kate kept telling me in a way that
trivialized my obsession with leaving the island, reminding me, however
briefly, that a loved one had died.

While the girls lent a sympathetic ear, Chris brooded in the
corner, not over the interruption, but about the logistics of getting me home. I
had seen him like this before. It was how he looked when something was just out
of reach. Whatever mechanism that had devised our previous expeditions was
operating at full steam. He didn’t offer a single condolence; only a stressed,
intense glare from the corner of the room.

“Just sit tight,” he told me. “If you want to be at your
grandpa’s funeral, then you’ll be at his funeral. That sort of thing is
important. We’ll get you out of here. I’m just not sure how. I’m going over to
rally the troops,” he said, throwing on some clothes.

I stepped out of the room to let Allison get dressed. Chris
returned a moment later with Derek and Roland. Their grins told me that Chris
hadn’t clued them in to what had happened.

“Jake!” Roland said, his breath smelling of alcohol. “Where’ve
you been?” He leaned toward me and whispered, “Kate’s been asking about you. She’s
got a thing for the tall, dark and handsome type, if you know what I mean.”

“Roland—” Chris warned.

“I admit I was a little nervous at first, but once the power
went off—”

“Roland!” Chris shouted. “I never thought I’d say this, but
control your hormones, man! Jake’s grandpa just died, and we have to figure a
way to get him out of here so he can go to the funeral.”

Roland stared at Chris with glassy eyes.

“God, I’m … I’m sorry, Jake.”

“Don’t sweat it. You didn’t know.” I let out a weak laugh. “Talk
about bad timing, huh?”

“You sure you can’t make it if you leave first thing in the
morning?” Chris asked.

“I’d miss it even if I flew back from Providence.”

“Is this the same grandpa you saw in Brooklyn?” Roland
asked.

When I told him that it was, the room went quiet. In the
corner, a brown hamster spun in its wheel.

“I know this doesn’t make it any easier, but at least you
got to see him one last time,” Allison said after a moment.

Perched on the top bunk, I could only see her face and her
bare feet dangling over the side. Derek was seated beside Kate in the lower
bunk with his chin in one hand. Chris was chewing the knuckles of his fist as
if biting into an apple. He looked on the verge of saying something, and this
uncharacteristic silence focused everyone’s attention on him.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Derek stood up, nearly hitting his
head on the top bunk. “Why don’t we give Sandy a call?” He turned to Kate. “She
can come out in the boat and pick Jake up.”

“The phones are down,” I said.

“They
were
down,” Derek said. “Maybe they’re back
up.”

“Even if they are, there’s no way she’d come out in this
storm,” Kate said. “The Coast Guard would probably have to rescue her.”

Chris turned to her. “Wait, wait, wait. That’s perfect.”

Kate gave him a strange look. “What’s perfect?”

“The Coast Guard …” Chris whispered, staring at the empty
space in front of him.

“Absolutely not, Chris Forsythe!” Roland said, standing up. “It’s
completely and totally out of the question.”

The corner of Chris’ mouth curved into a devious grin.

“I won’t allow you to do it.”

“I don’t remember asking for your permission.”

“You’re crazy, you know that? Absolutely loony nutso crazy! You
can’t get away with it.”

“Roland, dearest of friends, you should know me better than
that.”

“It’s too dangerous. At night, and in this storm? You’d get
yourself killed!”

“It’s the only way.”

“It’s
not
the only way! Waiting till morning is the
only way!”

“What are you two talking about?” Allison asked.

“Well, what fun is that?” Chris asked.

“It’s safe, that’s what it is,” Roland said. “Haven’t you
learned anything from going out to the Anvil? You’re going to get everyone in a
lot of trouble, if not killed with another of your scatterbrained ideas.”