I picked up a rock and threw it into the waves. “Which I don’t have.”
“Well, she’s gone off, for a while, anyway. Her and the dogs.”
“What does she do all day?”
“Beats me. Usually she makes a circuit of the island.” He swept his arm out, drawing an imaginary circle. “Along the shore. She picks up stuff that washes up. She’ll be gone for a while, unless the weather gets really bad.”
We walked toward the slope that led back to the house. A raven hopped across the dead grass and let out a gravelly cry at our approach.
“I’m going to the Island Store,” said Gryffin. “Want to come?”
“No. Not this minute, anyway.” I sighed. “You think I’ll be able to get a ride back over today?”
“Today? Well, you missed anyone who’d be going early this morning. But someone’ll probably head back later in the afternoon.”
“What about your friend Toby? Will he take me?”
“Probably. If I see him, I’ll mention it.”
“That’d be good.”
He started up the hillside. I jammed my hands in my pockets and watched him go. The steely light burned my eyes, and my feet ached from the cold. But I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Aphrodite again. When Gryffin was out of sight, I began climbing the hill myself.
Once I reached the pine trees, the path split. One trail bore off to the left and angled downhill again, toward the village; the other wound upward among more trees and jagged outcroppings of stone. I took the right-hand path, scuffing through a mat of pine needles and fine snow.
It was a steep climb. After a few minutes, I began to sweat. My fury diminished, bitten away by the cold. For the last few years I’d carried on conversations in my head. Well, not conversations, really: arguments. Now the voices fell silent. I found myself focusing on things I didn’t usually notice, like the vapor clouding my face with every breath, the way sounds seemed to carry from far away. Seagulls, a diesel engine, waves tugging at the shingle beach below.
As I neared the top, the hill’s crown emerged, a granite dome surrounded by oaks with a few dead leaves still clinging to them. A weathered sign dangled from a lopped-off bough.
oakwind est. 1973
Boards and buckled plywood poked up between rocks and burdock stalks, all that remained of the commune. I picked my way between scrap metal, broken bottles, old tires, a firepit. A man-sized standing stone reared from the wreckage of weeds and winter-killed saplings, flecks of white paint on its granite surface. I crouched in front of it and pushed away dead ferns to get a better look.
Someone had painted three concentric circles on the stone, like a target. The central circle—the bullseye—had been filled in with white paint. There was a smudge of metallic green pigment in the middle circle.
I touched it. The stone was rough and cold. When I withdrew my hand, specks of pigment and lichen stuck to it.
I felt a sudden wave of dizziness, stumbled to my feet and backed away.
From the far side of the hill a raven clacked. A late cricket clung to the standing rock, rubbed its legs then crawled toward the earth.
I kicked at the ground, then, for good measure, bent and dug at it with my fingernails. A scant half-inch of turf came up. I rubbed it between my fingers and stood again, relieved.
There was nothing buried under the stone, not unless the hippies had jackhammered their way into the hill’s granite dome. It was just a rock with a bullseye painted on it. The commune had probably used it for target practice. I started back down the hillside, but only got a few steps before I stopped again.
Tucked among the oaks was the mottled bulk of a large vehicle. An old International school bus, painted in a camo pattern with candy colors—pink, lime green, orange—that time had turned splotched and sickly. Branches burst through the broken windows. What looked like lime green paint was splattered against the glass, but as I got closer I saw this was some kind of mold, its edges curled and black.
I pushed through the underbrush until I reached the cab. Above a wooden platform that served as a step, the door hung in two pieces. I pushed it open.
It was like being in a fish tank where everything has died. Light streaked through windows hung with blackened plastic curtains that had once been green. All the seats had been removed, and wadded rugs had been chewed to fuzz by rodents. There were beer cans and condoms, signs of more recent occupation; splintered chairs, a plastic bucket crusted with brown. An exploded futon. A jagged face hung from the ceiling, lantern-jawed and with huge hollow eyes.
It was another mask, like the frog I’d seen on Toby’s boat. Green, with a beaked mouth and a stiff ridged collar like some kind of horned dinosaur, only this thing had no horns. The glossy paint had peeled, revealing swatches of newsprint. I touched it. It felt pulpy and soft, like an enormous mushroom.
I walked to the rear of the bus. Here a few windows were intact. A raised plywood platform held a foam mattress covered with the remains of an india-print spread, chewed to a paisley filigree. Above the bed, moisture-swollen paperbacks lined a small bookshelf.
What the Trees Said. The Forgotten Art of Building a Stone Wall. Walden Two.
The only hardcover was an old edition of Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane. Its frontispiece was stamped Harvard Divinity School Library above a name written in faded blue.
D. Ahearn.
I opened it. The spine was broken, its pages heavily annotated in the same blue ink.
Excitable boy, I thought.
There was also a New Directions paperback of Stephen Haselton’s poetry, with a picture of him on the back. A thin guy, fair haired, clean shaven, blandly handsome. Photo credit: Aphrodite Kamestos.
I flipped through this book but found nothing. No name on the frontispiece. No marginalia. I tossed it onto the shelf and wandered back to the front of the bus. The place looked and felt as though it had been stripped of everything that might have been of interest or value. Not even a torn Grateful Dead poster remained.
So much for the counterculture.
I went outside. Dun-colored clouds crowded the sky. The wind rattled stalks of burdock and dead goldenrod as I headed toward the path. As I entered the stand of trees, I hesitated, feeling that someone was watching me. I turned and looked back at the clearing.
A gray stone loomed among rubble and dead ferns. That was all.
14
No one was in the house when I got back. I paced between the kitchen and the living room, anxious for Gryffin to return and tell me I had a ride to the mainland. I killed time by cracking the second bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I considered calling Phil to ream him out but decided I’d rather do it in person.
Finally I decided to take another look at Aphrodite’s island photos. I’d spent my life dreaming of them. Maybe for just a little longer, I could pretend I was in my own private museum, with the pictures all to myself.