Upstairs, I stand in the doorway of Pfeff’s room. His clothes are still on the floor. The bed is unmade.
He is gone.
I haven’t let myself feel sad or sorry. I can’t afford to.
I can’t think about how his parents loved him and how broken and lost they are. I can’t think about how he was my first kiss, my first everything. I can’t think about his beloved sci-fi novels and his ridiculous socks, the way he kneeled before my mother at the Lemon Hunt, the way he swam to my boat in his hoodie, the way he kissed me at the tire swing. I mustn’t think of how he worked to make me laugh, and how he made up silly song lyrics, and how he didn’t want to waste the moonlight. One day, he might have left Amherst and traveled far away, to Italy or Mexico, in search of beautiful food and adventure. Maybe he’d have found a job at a restaurant, worked his way up to manning the kitchen, made friends everywhere he went. Cooked the hell out of the dinner shift every night. Made small things exciting and beautiful, the way he knew how.
No. I have to stop these thoughts.
He was hurting Penny. He wouldn’t have stopped. He was a terrible person. And then he was dead.
There was nothing else to do once he died but drown the body like we did. It was the only way. And now we have to live with it.
My job is to make myself believe the story we told, to let that story erase what really happened, like ocean waves erasing marks in the sand. He wasn’t a ridiculous, beautiful moonlight boy, and he wasn’t a terrible person, either. He was a cute guy I fooled around with a bit. A fling. A summer acquaintance. He drank too much, went swimming, and got eaten by a shark. What a sad tale. I feel shocked that he died, and shaken, but I didn’t know him that well. That’s my story.
It strikes me, suddenly, that Pfeff might come back. He might crawl out of the sea, shirtless and dripping. His ghost might return to this haunted island to—what?
Apologize?
Take revenge on me and my sisters?
Hurt Penny again?
A shudder runs through me.
I slam the door to Pfeff’s room and run downstairs to the safety and bustle of the cleaning project. Without Tipper asking, I get on my knees and scrub the sticky spots off the kitchen floor.
* * *
—
LATER, WHEN GOOSE is fit for company again, my mother and Luda take themselves over to Pevensie to look for quilts. I head toward Clairmont alone. I am passing the stairway to the Tiny Beach, when I hear a sound, carried on the wind. Almost like a voice, whispering.
A tune from Mary Poppins.
Take no prisoners, do some crimes
Know your math facts! Step in time.
68.
SHAKING, I WALK slowly down the steps.
The phrase repeats, so quiet I can barely hear it. Maybe I am imagining it.
Take no prisoners, do some crimes
Know your math facts! Step in time.
When I reach the beach, I see Pfeff at the far end of the cove. He’s standing in the shallow water, looking out to sea. He wears his blue striped board shorts and his Live-Aid T-shirt. His hands are clasped behind him.
He turns when I am near. “I was hoping it was you.”
“Don’t come back here, Pfeff,” I say loudly. “We do not want you.”
“I’m sorry, Carrie,” he says. “Can we talk?”
“You have to go. You can’t haunt this island.” Rosemary never visited our mother after Tipper sent her away. Not once. If I banish Pfeff, I think he will go.
“I came to say sorry,” he says.
“It’s too late for that.”
“I saw my mom last night, up in Pevensie.” Pfeff walks forward, through the water. He looks alive and solid, squinting in the sunshine. “I had to say goodbye to her,” he continues. “Make sure she’s all right.”
“Okay.”
“And—she made me see I have a lot to apologize for. She cooked me some eggs and toast in the kitchen up there.”
“Did you tell her how you died?”
“No.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I was trying to—you know. Make her feel better. Tell her I’m okay.”
“What do you remember?” I ask. “I mean, about—about how you died?” I don’t want him to tell his mother the truth.
“Not much, actually,” he says. “I was drunk. Everything’s kind of fuzzy because of that.”
“And?”
“I was on the dock with Penny. And I felt a sharp pain in my head. I might have screamed. There was blood in my eyes. Then everything went dark and very quiet. Like a long sleep. It was comfortable after that, actually. Like a rest.”