“I’m going for a walk again. You want to come along?” Bruce said, after finishing his eggs Benedict.
“Sure,” Abigail said. “Just so long as we get back here around ten-thirty.”
After leaving the bunk, they walked down a well-trodden path to the edge of Heart Pond, then out along a wooden dock. Up close, the pond seemed larger, almost like a lake. Abigail lay down on her stomach on the warmed wooden slats of the dock and peered into the clear water. A fish darted by and Abigail ran her fingers along the surface of the pond, the water surprisingly warm. “We could swim in here,” she said.
“Well, you could,” Bruce replied. “I’ll go sailing.”
Abigail turned over and sat up. She’d forgotten her sunglasses and shaded her eyes as she looked around the edges of the pond.
There was a boathouse, probably where the sailboats were kept, and next to the boathouse there was a stack of kayaks, plus a few canoes. It was all pretty rustic, and Abigail was surprised.
Considering the renovations made on the main camp, she’d imagined that there’d be top-of-the-line boating equipment down at the pond. She kept moving her eyes along the shoreline and spotted another boathouse on the other side of the pond. Above it loomed a lodge, shrouded by dark woods.
“Is that the other camp?” she said.
“That was the girls’ camp, yes. We’re going to start renovating that in the spring.”
“Then you can put all the women there and you won’t have to have any at your camp,” she said, raising her eyebrows at Bruce.
“That’s the idea,” he said.
“Can we go over there and look around?”
“We’re not supposed to, I think, because it’s unsafe.”
“You’re part-owner here. You should be able to check it out.”
“Whatever you say,” Bruce said. “But let’s walk to the cliff first so I can show you the views.”
They walked along the shoreline past the boathouse and picked up another path that took them up along a ridge through spruce trees and birches, then turned away from the pond and emerged from the woods onto an open bluff. They were high enough so that the Atlantic Ocean, sparkling in the morning sun, spread out all around them.
“Wow,” Abigail said.
“Yeah, not bad.”
They walked across the bluff along a barely visible path. On either side were low shrubs, several with red berries. A large bird hovered above them in the sky, and Bruce pointed it out, said it was an eagle that was nesting over near the pond. When they got to the edge of the bluff, they met up with a wider dirt path that skirted the cliff edge, dark gray outcroppings that sloped down to a rocky shoreline. “Can we get down there?” Abigail said.
“It’s about a half-mile walk but there’s a path.”
They walked along the cliff edge, the breeze off the ocean suddenly gusting. They reached a copse of twisted trees, then picked their way down a steep path that deposited them in a cove.
Large rocks, slick with seaweed, spread out into the ocean. The beach itself was covered with medium-sized rocks, black, gray, and green. Here and there were deposits of seaweed or the remains of a gull. Bruce picked up several small stones, then found a strategic location where he could skip them out along the water. “It’s slack tide,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s gone all the way out, and there’s this brief period before the tide starts to come in again. It’s called a slack tide.”
Despite growing up in New England, and then living in New York City, Abigail had spent hardly any time by the ocean. Her parents had always been too busy, especially in the summer season, and the few big trips they’d gone on as a family had always been to New York to see plays. And summers in western Massachusetts meant trips to swimming holes and nearby lakes.
She loved the water, but rarely got to the ocean’s shore. Despite that, there was something nostalgic about being here now. The tidal smell, and the distant sounds of gulls, made Abigail feel young again. As Bruce searched for perfect stones to skip, she began to pile stones on the shore, using the smoothest ones she could find, starting with a circular base and working upward. She was still thinking about her predicament, still thinking about telling Bruce that they needed to leave the island, but as she built her pile those thoughts began to disappear. She was wholly focused on her task, suddenly filled with purpose. Looking for good building blocks for her pile, she’d found a beautiful, perfectly round white stone with a single band of pinkish red around its middle and slid it into her front pocket to save it for the top.