As she stared across the water, Hayley wondered, Was it possible for such an imprint to last for decades? Could the trigger be a building? A house? A laptop?
A prison?
BEFORE IT WAS SHUTTERED by the Department of Corrections in 1989, the Washington State Prison at McNeil Island was accessible by a small but exceptionally noisy ferry that spewed diesel fumes over the water—the kind that would make today’s eco-friendly society cringe. The Sinking Ship, as patrons called it because it seemed to take on an inch of water by the end of the mile-long crossing, carried family members for scheduled visits with inmates. It also transported family members of the staff and guards who didn’t live on McNeil, as well as the children of those who did and attended school off-island.
More than once or twice, the twins’ mother had talked about how “getting off the island was the best part of living on it.” And when Hayley and Taylor complained about how hard their lives where, Valerie would pull out the Sinking Ship card and trump any argument they had.
“Try living on an island with no TV, no stores, and, oh, yeah, convicted felons. Trust me. You don’t know how good you’ve got it.”
Neither girl dared challenge her on that.
In order to get to the island, the twins knew they needed a boat, or someone with a boat. From the creosote-smelly landing, they saw a man tinkering on his boat.
“You talk to him,” Taylor said.
“Why me? He could be a freak,” Hayley argued, watching him work on the motor of his small cabin cruiser.
“You’re older.”
“I hate it when you pull rank.”
“Well, you are. Ask him.”
“What do I say?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “Make up something. Tell him that we’re geocaching or something.”
Hayley shook her head. “That’ll be great. Then he’ll want to hang out with us and see what we’re trying to find.”
“You’ve been in Port Gamble too long. People aren’t as nerdy out here. Trust me.”
A few minutes and twenty bucks later, they were on their way across the choppy waters of Puget Sound to the place their mother had grown up.
And where she had kept her secrets.
IT WAS EARLY IN THE AFTERNOON and the island was quiet with the exception of some barking seals along the shore and a flock of seagulls circling overhead. The local paper had dubbed the place “Shuttered Island” when it did a feature story on its closing years ago, and the twins couldn’t think of a more fitting name. The place was deserted.
As Hayley and Taylor surveyed the bleak, rocky landscape, their eyes landed on the largest house in the little village planted outside the brick-and-steel walls of the prison.
“Is it just this awful place or do you feel an overwhelming sense of sadness?” Hayley asked.
“More like fear,” Taylor said.
The girls walked from the landing toward the house, a big, white two-story that in its prime might have been an amazing residence. It had a river-rock chimney and black shutters. The upper windows were intact, but the lower ones had been broken. Splinters of glass littered the entryway. Some graffiti artist had tagged the door with a spray-paint image of the twist of a noose.
The twins had seen pictures of the house when visiting their grandparents. No doubt about it, it was the place where their mother grew up.
And the place from where she vanished for two days when she was nine.
The door was ajar. Taylor, leading the way, pushed it open.
“Let’s find Mom’s room,” she said. “It’s where we’ll get the strongest impression.”
“Upstairs, to the right,” Hayley said.
Taylor looked a little surprised. “She told you that?”
“No,” Hayley said. “I don’t think so. I just know it.”
It had been years since the Fitzpatricks lived there. Decades. There were a slew of other superintendents that followed the tenure of Valerie’s father when he stepped down from his post.
The wallpaper from various vintages, none particularly charming, still clung to the walls, although in some places along the seams it was coming undone. The sisters went into the kitchen first. It was a shell. All of the appliances were missing and most of the cabinets. A doorway leading to the basement commanded the inside wall.
“Mom always said a kitchen window should have a view. Makes doing the dishes easier, supposedly,” Taylor said, looking out the cracked window over a big, white, cracked porcelain sink. “But not this view.”
Hayley peered over her sister’s shoulder. Late in the day, the prison guard tower cast a shadow over the blackberry and Scotch broom-infested backyard. The remnants of a swing set poked from a spiny thicket.
“Can you imagine Mom playing hopscotch or whatever out there with four guys with machine guns ready to fire?” Hayley asked.
Taylor stepped away from the window. “I don’t think they used machine guns, but yeah, I get what you’re saying. It is weird. It’s almost like I can think of Mom in a different way, just by being here.”
“How?” Hayley asked.
“I guess I feel sorry for her. She didn’t have anyone,” Taylor said. She didn’t say the words “like I have you” but she might as well have, so implicit was the statement. She and her sister had never really been alone. They’d always had each other.
The living room was an empty space. The walls there were yellow and cream, a patchwork of shadows where paintings or photographs once hung.
“Upstairs?” Taylor asked, though Hayley was already headed in the direction of the darkened staircase.
“First door on the right, you say?” Taylor said. She turned on the flashlight app of her phone to see better in the shadowy space.
Hayley switched hers on too. “Don’t ask. I just know it.”
The boards creaked with each step, and the girls followed the thin beams of light from their respective phones, worried that a riser might be missing.
“Be careful. We don’t want to fall into the basement,” Hayley said.
“We won’t,” Taylor assured her. “Just pay attention to where your feet are landing.”
The squeaking sound of an animal and the scratching noise of tiny nails against the floorboards sent a chill down Taylor’s spine. She thought of how much she despised rats and mice. Her sister hated them too.
“What do you mean ‘time is running out’?” Hayley asked.
Taylor shook her head. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
The verbal stalemate ended as Taylor skirted past her sister into what both were now certain had been their mother’s bedroom. It was on the same side of the house as the kitchen and it had its own view of the guard tower and razor wire fence and a partial glimpse into the overgrown prison yard. Still, both girls could easily make out where the inmates had played basketball. The court was still there. Out further, past the prison yard, the girls could see the leaden expanse of Puget Sound.
It was all as grim as grim could be.
“I’d hate living here more than Port Gamble on its worst day,” Taylor said.
Hayley looked away from the window and around the small room. It was not much bigger than a walk-in closet.
“Country Christmas Festival worst?” she asked.
Taylor smiled faintly. “Yeah, worse than that.”
“We need to focus, Taylor,” Hayley said, standing in the middle of her mother’s lilac room. It was Valerie’s favorite color.
Together, the twins thought of Savannah Osteen, of Moira Windsor, of Text Creeper, of their mother’s disappearance when she was a child, and of the gibberish twin-talk phrase they’d repeated over and over when they were learning to speak: levee split poop. As they did so, the pair kept their blue eyes fixed on each other, trying to feel something, hoping to receive a message from their mother’s old bedroom.
Yet nothing came. After a few minutes, both became restless.