The 45th Parallel Page 26

Kat sat up in bed and let her eyes adjust to the soft morning light. She took a few deep breaths to let her heart rate come back down to normal.

  High Island was part of the Beaver Island archipelago. It was an uninhabited island close to Beaver. But we aren’t going to High Island, we are going to Beaver Island. Maybe there isn’t a message in my dreams. Maybe my subconscious filed away the name of the islands I looked up online and was inserting them into my dreams.

  Kat looked over at the clock. It was six a.m. She swung her feet over the side of the bed and pushed herself to a standing position. After a brief stretch, she grabbed her robe and started to walk to the shower. As Kat reached the foot of the bed, she slipped on something wet on the wood floor and went down on her butt. That’s a nice way to start the day. She examined the floor to see what she had slipped on.

  In the early morning light, Kat could see wet spots on the floor in the shape of footprints. She slowly stood holding on to the edge of her bed. The footsteps lead from an open window to the foot of her bed where they stopped. Kat felt a chill creep through her body. She walked to the open window and pushed it closed. The window had been shut when she went to bed. Kat drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She wondered if Dora, Jerry, Rose and Denise were still alive.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  After showering, Kat finished packing her bag. Aunt Mary must be up. She could hear someone moving around in the kitchen downstairs.

  “How about some oatmeal?” Mary asked as Kat came into the kitchen.

  “That was nice of you to make breakfast,” Kat said. Mary handed her a steaming bowl, and Kat sat down at the kitchen table.

  “You are up early,” Kat said.

  “I just wanted to see you before you left. I just have a funny feeling about this trip.”

  “It will be fun. It’s the last hurrah before Patrick, Anna, and Helene go back to Chicago,” Kat said, hoping she sounded convincing.

  “I just feel something is not right. Have you checked the weather?”

  “We should be there by four or five. The weather is supposed to be fine. I don’t want you to worry.”

  “You are all very special to me,” Mary said.

  “And you are very special to us,” Kat said. They ate for a few moments in silence.

  “What time are you leaving?” Mary asked.

  Kat glanced at her watch. “Oh my gosh, I have to get down to the dock. Thanks for making breakfast.” Kat gave her aunt a quick peck on the cheek. “I love you Aunt Mary.” Kat felt herself begin to choke up. She needed to get out of there before Mary sensed her distress. Kat grabbed her bag, and headed out the front door. Mary watched with a furrowed brow.

  “Call me when you get there,” Mary yelled after her.

  Kat jogged down to the docks with her bag slung over her back. The morning air was chilly and the sky was overcast and gray. A thick mist hovered over the surface of the water. The town was eerily quiet and the docks deserted. As she approached the boat, she could see it was locked up tight. Apparently she was the first to arrive. She glanced at her watch, it was ten after seven. Kat tossed her bag into the cockpit. The lake was very still. The only sounds were the creaking of the boats and the occasional clang of the halyards hitting the masts. Kat heard the thud of a footstep on the dock behind her that made her jump. She turned and saw John coming down the dock with a large cooler.

  “Good morning Kat. Sorry to keep you waiting out here,”

  “No problem,” Kat said. “I just got here.”

  John tossed his bag into the cockpit and parked the cooler on the dock next to the boat.

  “I’ll have Patrick help me with the cooler, it’s a little heavy for you,” John said as he climbed on the boat and held his hand out to Kat. She put her hand in his and hopped up on the deck then down into the cockpit. As always, his touch sent a warm electric sensation through her hand.

  Once Kat was on board, John dropped her hand and took their bags down into the cabin below. Kat followed John down into the cabin.

  “Are we going to stay on the boat tonight?” she asked.

  “We are going to stay at the Mystic Beaver Inn.”

  Kat and John heard more footsteps coming down the dock. They turned to see Patrick, Anna, and Helene boarding the boat.

  “Any luck contacting the Conservation Group members who went with West?” Patrick asked.

  “No luck. I left a message for Jerry with the harbor master at Beaver Island,” John said. They all carried their bags and groceries down into the cabin and began to stow things away.

  When they were ready to go, Kat untied the stern line and Patrick untied the bow line. As Kat tossed the line into the boat and jumped on board, she felt she were casting aside her life as she knew it, and drifting out into the vast unknown. Kat knew this trip would alter the course of her life forever.

  A light breeze began to blow as John motored east, out of the harbor and into Grand Traverse Bay. The bell buoy clanged a warning as it rocked back and forth in the water. Once clear of it, they turned north to the open waters of Lake Michigan. Kat watched as the shore slowly disappeared. The breeze began to pick up, and the mist started to clear. John raised the sails and shut the motor down.

  “The true wind is coming from the southwest,” John said. “If it remains steady, we should be able to hold a broad reach all the way to Beaver.”

  “What was the weather forecast for the weekend?” Kat asked.

  “Cloudy with light rain,” John said.

  “Do you guys want some coffee?” Anna called up from the cabin.

  “Absolutely,” Kat said. Anna handed two mugs up to Kat and John.

  Kat inhaled the aroma of the hot coffee. “I love the quiet of early morning. It feels like we are the only ones on the entire lake,” Kat said.

  “Have you always been such a morning person?” John asked.

  “Yes…I like the morning because I dread the night. I dread waking up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding. When the morning comes, I know it’s over. I have a fresh start. How about you?”

  “I look forward to the morning for a different reason than you do.” John paused and took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t dream.”

  “You mean you don’t remember your dreams,” Kat said.

  “No, I mean I don’t dream. When I go to sleep, it’s just empty blackness. It is how I imagine death without an afterlife. When I wake up, I feel like I have been thrown back into my body.”

  “You look like you have been thrown back into your body,” Kat said.

  Kat sat in silence absorbing this new information. “I’m not sure what’s worse, nightmares every night or dying every night.”

  John smiled but there was no humor in his eyes.

  “Maybe this trip will fix our sleep problems,” Kat said as she looked back out into the lake.

  Patrick came up out of the cabin and sat next to Kat. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Ahhh the smell of open water. Out here there are no property lines, no roads, no boundaries, just endless possibilities.” Patrick said as he looked over at John.

  John couldn’t help but smile at Patrick’s contagious enthusiasm. “Do either of you want to take the helm?” John asked them. “I want to turn on the radio and see if I can pick up a weather forecast.”

  “Ladies first,” Patrick said. Kat hesitated a moment and then decided she might not get another chance to sail on Lake Michigan. She put her coffee in a cup holder and took the wheel from John. He went down into the cabin and Kat and Patrick sailed in silence for a few minutes.

  “Since we are now out in the big water, are you getting any images from John’s parents’ last trip?” Patrick asked Kat quietly.

  “I had a strange dream last night of the woman in the gray dress. She told me not to go to High Island,” Kat said.

  “High Island is a smaller island east of Beaver. If Lake Michigan froze solid, it would probably only be a three mile walk from the west shore of Beaver to the east shore of
High,” Patrick said.

  “I don’t remember anything about High Island from Jerry Nelson’s file. Do you think his parents could have stopped there after they left Beaver?”

  “I guess that’s what we are going to find out,” Patrick said.

  The day remained cloudy but the wind held steady. They all took turns at the helm throughout the day and had sandwiches for lunch. John continued to try to contact Jerry Nelson with no luck. After eight hours of sailing, they arrived at St. James Harbor on the northeastern side of Beaver Island. Whiskey Point Lighthouse marked the entrance to the harbor. The tranquil harbor was dotted with white clapboard buildings, old fishing docks, and long stretches of beach. John turned the motor on and dropped the sails as they turned west into St. James.

  “Patrick, why don’t you take the helm and bring us into the marina,” John said. “Just make sure you stay in the channel, there is shoaling to the south and southwest and shallow water to the north.” John hailed the marina on the marine band and was told which slip they would be in.

  “How many people live on this island?” Kat asked when John came back out into the cockpit.

  “I think there are about four or five hundred people living on the island. It is the most remote, inhabited island on Lake Michigan. You have to be a hardy sort to live out here.”

  “I feel like we have been transported back to the 1950s,” Kat said as she looked around.

  “It does seem to be frozen in time. A large percentage of the population here is of Irish descent. In fact, so many Irish settled here that Beaver Island is also known as The Emerald Isle.”

  They motored into harbor and docked the boat. While John was checking in with the harbor master, Patrick secured the dock lines.

  “This harbor looks empty. I don’t see Jerry’s boat,” Anna said.

  “They should be here by now. They left before we did,” Kat said.

  “Why don’t you guys grab your bags? We are going to be staying at the Mystic Beaver Inn tonight,” Patrick said as he finished tying the boat to the dock.

  “No rest for the wicked,” Helene said as she tossed up the bags from the cabin. “It’s almost five, I’m getting hungry. I think we should check in to the inn and grab an early dinner.”

  “Jerry has not checked into the harbor yet. I left a handwritten note for Jerry should he arrive,” John said as he came back to the boat.

  “Can we walk to the inn from here?” Helene asked as she eyed the quiet streets skeptically.

  “We’ll walk to the tour office and see if we can get someone to take us to the inn,” John said.

  They finished locking up the boat and began the walk into town. The tour office was on Main Street directly across from the harbor. There was no one to be seen anywhere along Main Street. Even the harbor master was gone.

  “Where is everyone?” Patrick asked. They saw an older couple emerge from the hardware store. The couple quickly crossed the street when they noticed them and were careful not to make eye contact.

  “I thought people were supposed to be friendly in small towns,” Helene said. “This place is like a ghost town.”

  They made their way to the tour office and found a short balding man with wispy white hair asleep behind the counter.

  “Ahem,” Patrick said trying to wake the man who jerked in his chair and stared at them wide eyed. “Sorry to startle you, but we wanted to see if we could get a taxi to the Mystic Beaver Inn.”

  The man looked a little embarrassed as he stood and smoothed out his shirt. “I can take you there. Let me grab my keys. It’s the blue van out there.”

  They all went outside and tossed the bags in the back of the van while the man found his keys.

  “My name is Dan,” the man said as he eyed them wearily. “I’m not doing tours this late, but I can give you one if you come back early tomorrow.”

  “Where is everyone?” Helene asked Dan.

  “We don’t get a lot of visitors past Labor Day,” he answered. “What brings you folks here?”

  “We just thought we would get one last sailing adventure before the weather turns for the season,” Patrick said.

  “Make sure you make it back to the inn before dark tonight. The whole town closes up early.”

  “Why is that?” Patrick asked.

  The driver glanced up in his rearview mirror to look at Patrick. “Tomorrow night is the Reaping Moon. Call it island superstition, but we don’t like to be out after dark on that night.”

  “I would think everyone would be out to watch the full moon,” Patrick said.

  “Not on this island,” Dan said somberly.

  They turned down a gravel drive past a wooden sign that said Welcome to the Mystic Beaver Inn. The sign had green shamrocks painted along the edges. The inn was a two-story white clapboard building with dark green shutters. John paid Dan and they unloaded the bags and carried them into the front door of the inn.

  “Are you sure they are open? This seems pretty deserted,” Anna said.

  “The inn is officially open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. My parents had a good relationship with the owner, so I told her who I was, and she said they could accommodate us.”

  A sturdy woman of about fifty came out to the front desk. She was wearing a Mystic Beaver Inn sweatshirt and jeans. Her hair was brown with a few strands of gray and cut into a short bob. She stuck out her hand, “You must be John Warren,” she said. “I’m Sarah Stevens. I am so sorry about your parents. They were such nice people.”

  “Thank you,” John said. “Sarah, this is Kat Collins, and Patrick, Anna, and Helene Cauley.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I have four rooms for you. One room has two double beds and the other three have one queen. They all have views of Lake Michigan. The restaurant isn’t open for dinner but you still have time to grab a bite to eat in town. You’ll have to get going soon since everything in town closes by seven tonight. We do still serve breakfast. There is a patio off the lounge where you can watch the sunset over the lake if you like. Follow me and I will show you your rooms.” They followed Sarah up a set of stairs then down the hall. “This is the one with two doubles,” she said as she opened the door and handed John the key. She moved down the hall to the next door. “This room has a queen, as do the next two adjacent rooms. I’ll let you get settled. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thank you, Sarah,” John said. “Who wants to bunk together?”

  “Helene and I will take the room with the two doubles,” Anna said.

  “Why don’t you guys get settled and we can meet out in front of the inn and go back down into town,” John said. “If we can actually find any people, maybe we will be able to get some information.”

  Kat headed down to the last room and John took the one next to her. Kat opened the door to her room and looked around. It was small but comfortable. She looked out the window to Lake Michigan. The inn was situated on a bluff overlooking the beach below. The rooms were probably full in the summer, but now it was ominously quiet. Kat brushed her teeth and combed her hair. She didn’t bother unpacking anything since they would only be there for two nights. She heard Anna and Helene in the hall talking and went out to join them.

  “Are you hungry?” Helene said when she saw Kat.

  “Not really, but I could use a good walk after being on a boat all day,” Kat said. Patrick and John’s doors opened and they came out into the hall.

  “Are you ladies ready?” John asked.

  “Yes, we better hurry. Apparently everyone turns into a pumpkin when the sun goes down,” Helene said.

  “The islanders seem to be aware there is something evil tied to the Reaping Moon. We need to find out how much they know,” John said as he motioned to the stairs. They left the inn and walked down the gravel drive and out onto the road to hike back down into town. They did not pass a single person or vehicle on their way.

  “Are you sure there is anyone on this island besides our driver, the innkeeper, the harbor master
, and us?” Helene asked John.

  “I have only been here once before, but it was in the middle of summer. The harbor and beach were full of people,” John said.

  “I’ve got their new tourism slogan,” Patrick said as he looked down the deserted streets. “Beaver …it’s not what you think.”

  “Oh God Patrick, how can you be thinking of girls now?” Helene asked.

  “It’s better than thinking of evil witches who can change form and suck the life out of people.”

  “Did your parents leave anything to explain all those weapons in the secret room,” Anna asked. “Do you think those were all for the Reaping Moon Witches?”

  “The only thing they left me was an envelope with a strange note. The attorney handling the estate gave me the envelope and said it was to be opened upon the event of their death.”

  “What did the note say?” Anna asked.

  “It said, ‘Your dreams will reveal your destiny.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Patrick asked.

  “I don’t know, but I have not dreamed since the day they died.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?” Anna asked.

  “I didn’t tell you before because I don’t understand what it all means and I wasn’t sure they were sane after I found the secret room.”

  They walked without speaking, lost in thought, until Helene said, “I think we are almost to town, and it is just as deserted as it was when we arrived.”

  Patrick pointed to a building down the street. “The Island Pub” a sign read. “Now that place sounds interesting. I think I could use a little refreshment,” he said.

  They went into the pub and found a table in the back next to the bar. There were only about ten people in the bar, including the bartender, and the five of them. Three men were seated at a table by the window drinking beer, and one old salt was sitting quietly at the end of the bar, close to their table. The other patrons and the bartender eyed them suspiciously.

  “What can I get you folks?” the bartender asked.

  “How about five waters and some menus?” John said.

  The bartender filled five glasses of water then brought them over on a tray with some menus.