In the lobby, the tearful blond lady was standing by the sofa, looking lost. As soon as she saw us, she slipped out of the room.
“Who’s La Llorona?” I asked Alex.
He stared at me blankly.
“That lady,” I said. “She looks like the weeping ghost in the legend…the one who drowned her kids.”
Alex looked like he was about to cry himself. “She drowned her kids? I got a guest who drowned her kids?”
“Never mind.”
We got to the front door and I made the mistake of opening it. That’s when I realized we were going to die before we ever reached the radio.
The lighthouse door was only fifty feet from the hotel entrance, but it might as well have been a mile. The air was a blender of sand and rain and swirling flotsam—oyster shells and chunks of wood that looked suspiciously like planks from the island’s boat dock.
I swung back to Alex and yelled “Forget it!” but he must’ve thought I said something else because he forged ahead into the storm. Like a fool, I decided I’d better follow.
We skittered around like a silent movie comedy, my feet slipping on the wet path. I should’ve fallen several times, but the wind kept pushing me upright and propelling me forward, like I was being shoved through a mob of linebackers. Sand needled my exposed skin, but by some miracle I didn’t get smashed by anything larger.
Alex shouldered open the lighthouse door. We collapsed inside, soaking wet, and Alex forced the door shut.
“Christ,” he gasped. “Feel like I just ran a marathon.”
He rummaged through his coat pockets, found a flashlight and clicked it on.
His face, already cut up and bruised, was now plastered with wet cordgrass. He had twigs sticking out of his curly hair. He looked like a scarecrow that had just gotten mugged. I doubted I looked much better.
Alex swept his flashlight around the room. We were at the bottom of a hexagonal well of unpainted limestone. Just as I remembered, metal stairs spiraled around the walls toward the lantern gallery far above. I’d only been inside the tower once before. My memories of the place were not good.
Here, the roar of the storm was muted, but there was another sound—a grinding in the walls, as if the limestone blocks were moving.
I reminded myself that the tower had stood for over a century. No way would it pick this moment to collapse. The chances were better of getting struck by lightning.
Thunder boomed outside.
Okay. Bad comparison.
“Where’s the radio?” I asked Alex.
He pointed to the platform seven stories above us.
Great.
I knew the beacon hadn’t worked in decades. I wasn’t sure why Alex would keep the radio up there, but I didn’t ask.
We began to climb.
The first time I’d ventured inside this lighthouse, I’d been trespassing.
I was twelve years old and running from my dad.
I thought I’d escape to the northern end of the island. That’s where I usually went to be alone. But as I passed the lighthouse, I remembered my dad’s stern warning that the place was much too dangerous. I should never go in there.
What angry twelve-year-old boy could resist a challenge like that?
I ran to the door and was surprised that it creaked open easily. Inside, the air was cool and damp. I shut the door and put my back against it.
I tried to steady my breathing. I wanted to forget the scene I’d just witnessed in our hotel room. I probably would’ve started sobbing, but a faint noise from above made me freeze.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape, like an animal clawing at wood—a large animal.
At the top of the stairs, in a crescent of daylight, a shadow rippled, as if someone or something was up there.
My instincts told me to leave, but then I heard my father’s voice outside.
“Tres!” he yelled. “Come on, now. I’m sorry, goddamn it! Where are you?”
He sounded as if he was coming toward the door. I decided to take my chances with the giant animal upstairs.
I took the metal steps as quietly as I could, but my own heartbeat sounded like a bass drum. The limestone blocks were carved with graffiti. One said, W. Dawes, 1898.
I smelled sweet, acrid smoke and the scent of fresh-cut wood. I didn’t realize the scratching sounds had stopped until I reached the top of the stairs and found a knife pointed at my nose.
A seventeen-year-old Alex Huff glared at me. “What the hell are you doing here, runt?”
I was too scared to speak. I was already terrified of Alex, a delinquent who hung out with Garrett every time we came to Rebel Island. I knew that Alex lived on the island. He made amazing fireworks displays every Fourth of July. I was vaguely aware that his dad worked for the owner, though I’d rarely seen his dad. I knew Alex hated me for some inexplicable reason, and Garrett treated me worse whenever Alex was around.
Behind him, the floor of the lantern gallery was covered in wood shavings. There was a two-foot-tall figurine standing on a stool, a half-carved woman. A hand-rolled cigarette was smoldering in an ashtray on the windowsill.
“You’re smoking pot,” I said stupidly.
Alex sneered. “Yeah, and if you tell anyone, I’ll gut you. Now what are you—” He tensed as if he’d heard something.
Somewhere below us, outside the tower, my father’s voice, heavy with anger and remorse, rang out: “Tres! Tres, goddamn it!”
Alex and I waited, still as death. My father called again, but this time he sounded farther away.