Still Waters: The Island / Below the Surface

His voice was perfect for the tale, Beth thought. It was a rich, deep voice. She had to admit that she was as seduced as the others.

“Oh, right,” Amber murmured.

Beth looked at her niece with a certain amusement. Amber was—and always had been—capable of sitting through the scariest horror movie. Now, however, her eyes were very wide.

Keith Henson—whatever he was really up to—had a talent for storytelling. With the strange fire glow on his face and the deep, intense rasp of his voice, he held them all enthralled.

“Go on,” Ben said, his profound interest surprising Beth.

“Well, the young lovers never intended harm toward anyone. Marianne was a strong swimmer. She simply meant to get close enough to her lover’s ship to escape into the sea, then find refuge on the island until he could come to her. With any luck, the Sea Star would have been long gone before anyone noticed she wasn’t aboard.

“But while Marianne was conducting her daring escape into the sea, Captain Pierce was sending spies out in his small boats to get the lay of the land—well, the sea. Just as Marianne was reaching shore, news reached Pierce about the Spaniard hiding past the reefs. He manned his guns. Meanwhile, Alonzo had taken a boat to shore...this shore, right here, where our fire now burns. Just as he and Marianne met, the first cannons exploded. It was a fierce battle, and Alonzo was brokenhearted, watching his friends lead the fight...and die. His ship, La Doña, was sunk. Many of his men tried to swim to shore but were cut down by the English before they could reach landfall. Marianne was desperate that her lover not be caught, but Alonzo was brave to a fault. When Captain Pierce came ashore, following the Spanish crew, he prepared to fight. Their swords clashed so hotly that sparks flew. Then Captain Pierce was unarmed. He had lost the fight. Alonzo, however, refused to deliver the coup de grâce. He stepped back, and said that all he wanted was a small boat for himself and Marianne. Captain Pierce showed no gratitude for the fact that his life had been spared. His men came upon them, and he ordered that Alonzo should hang. Marianne was hysterical, heartbroken, and ashamed that her countryman could behave with so little honor. As Alonzo was dragged away, Pierce assured her that she would forget their enemy, and that he would be her new lover and her husband. Marianne wiped away her tears and approached him, and no doubt Captain Pierce assumed she was ready to accept his offer. But she reached into his belt and drew his pistol. She shot him dead, but too late to save her lover, for even as the shot rang out, Alonzo swung from the hangman’s rope, crying out her name and his love—right before his neck snapped. Marianne, desperate in her grief, turned the gun on herself.

“And as that shot went off, the Sea Star suddenly moved...drifting out to sea. The Englishmen on the island, stunned and frozen by what had occurred before their eyes, moved too slowly. They raced for their longboats and made to sea. But neither they nor the Sea Star were ever seen again. Sometimes, they say, at night, the ship can be seen, riding the wind and the waves, only to disappear into the clouds or over the horizon.”

“Oh...” Sandy breathed.

“And what about Marianne, Alonzo and Captain Pierce?” Amber asked.

“They haunt the island, of course,” Keith said. “At night, when you hear whispering in the breeze, when the palm fronds move, when the wind moans...what you hear is their voices as they roam the island for eternity.”

“Oh, jeez,” Kim groaned.

“Oh...” Amber breathed.

Keith looked at Ben apologetically, afraid that his story had been too effective.

“You’re not scared, are you?” Kim demanded.

“Of course not,” Amber protested. She laughed, but it was a brittle sound. “Don’t be silly. Sandy, you’re not scared, are you?”

“About staying on a haunted island?” Sandy asked. “No. I mean, the tents are all pretty close together on the beach when you think about it, right? Of course, I do wish Brad and I were one of the groups in the middle.”

“I’m sure we’re just fine,” Amanda said.

“I think it will be fun,” Brad teased. “Sandy’s going to be all cuddly tonight, I assure you.”

“Oh, my God!” Amber exclaimed.

“What?” Ben demanded.

“Dad...we might have found one of them today. One of the ghosts!”

“It’s just a story,” Keith said. “You asked for a ghost story and—”

“No, no, there was a skull. At least...we thought it was a skull,” Amber said.

Ben groaned loudly. “Girls, one of you stubbed a toe on a conch shell. There was no skull. Enough with the scary talk, okay?” he said firmly.

Beth kept her mouth shut, wincing. And not because Ben was annoyed, but because she was suddenly more frightened than ever herself. The girls had just let everyone know they had seen a skull.

And someone here, someone sharing the island with them, had taken that skull for reasons of their own. Reasons that couldn’t be ignored.

“It’s easy to imagine things out here,” Matt said easily. “I promise you, there are no ghosts here.”

“But lots of ghost stories supposedly have some truth to them. There were shipwrecks all around here. I’ll bet the story is true, and that the ghosts whispered it in your ear,” Amber said.

“Okay, that’s a scary thought!” Sandy said, shivering.

“It’s getting better and better for me, girls. Please, go on,” Brad said, laughing, but also trying to ease the fear the girls seemed to feel.

“We’re in the Bermuda Triangle, too, aren’t we?” Amanda asked, rising. “Luckily, I don’t have a superstitious bone in my body.” She stretched, and Keith’s shirt fell from her shoulders. She reached down languidly to pick it up and slowly walked—or sashayed—over to Keith to return it. “Besides,” she said softly, “there are a lot of handsome, well-muscled men around here to protect us if we need it. Well, good night, all.”

Her cousins and father rose to join her, saying their thank-yous as they rose.

The group began to break up, everyone laughing, promising to see each other in the morning.

As they returned to their tents, Beth was silent.

“Aunt Beth, are you afraid of ghosts?” Amber asked.

“No,” she assured her niece.

“Then what are you afraid of?” Amber persisted.

Beth glanced self-consciously over at Ben. “The living,” she said softly.

Her brother sighed, shaking his head. “Just like good old Captain Pierce, I carry a gun. And I won’t let anyone close enough to use it against me,” he assured her.

A few minutes later they had all retired, Ben and Beth to their “one-bedroom” tents and the girls to the large “two-bedroom” Ben had recently purchased for his daughter. None of them were more than ten feet apart, with the girls situated between the adults.

Amber and Kim kept a light on, and Beth found herself hoping their supply of batteries would be sufficient. She could hear the girls giggling, probably inventing ghost stories. She told herself that people were simply susceptible to the dark, to shadows, whispers on the breeze, and the dark intent of a tale told by firelight.

But she was uneasy herself. She reminded herself that she had been uneasy long before Keith’s ghost story.

It’s just a story, he’d said. A good story, told on the spur of the moment.

And it hadn’t scared her. Not a silly—even sad—ghost story.

Yet...she was scared.

Despite her unease, she eventually drifted off to sleep. Her dreams were disjointed, snatches of conversation, visions that seemed to dance before her, never really taking shape until she saw, in her mind’s eye, a beautiful young girl in eighteenth-century dress, a handsome Spaniard and a sea captain, sword in hand....

The sea captain—arresting, exciting, masculine—took on the appearance of someone familiar... Keith Henson.

Sadly, even in her dream, the beautiful young girl looked like Amanda.

She tossed and turned as the dream unfolded, more like a play with the director continually calling, “Cut!” than a real dream.