It’s a dangerous business going out your front door.
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Slumped on the subway to Logan Airport, I squinted at the blue-cold day outside and felt frozen to my graffitied plastic seat. There were a few other people in the car, newspapers and paperbacks pressed to their faces. They looked like headless bodies to me, holding their books and papers up not to read but to cover the holes at the tops of their necks. I shouldn’t have been surprised. No one with a head on their shoulders would be going where I was.
To distract myself, I dug through my duffel until I found the book I was halfway through reading, The Adonis Murders. I love murder mysteries, the more harrowing the better. In fact, I spend so much time at The Poison Pen, a used mystery and suspense bookstore in Central Square, I’m on a first name basis with the owner, Bea, and her resident Yorkie, Laptop. This novel, recommended by Bea herself, was about a string of barbaric murders where all the victims were handsome young men, and it described the corpses in such excruciating detail, I had to skip some passages. Now I was at the part where the detective was receiving death threats at his girlfriend’s house, and it felt like the perfect accompaniment to my already dark mood. I opened to the turned down page and plunged in.
At the Airport Station stop, I got off and caught the shuttle the rest of the way to Logan, walking into the terminal—waddling, really, under the weight of my duffel bag—early enough to swing by the coffee bar. Not to buy a five dollar half decaf extra soymilk single shot of almond cappuccino like a normal sixteen-year-old. On my budget, all I could do was inhale and hope some secondhand caffeine was floating through the air. I just stood there, visualizing wakefulness, wishing I were somewhere else, and that’s when it happened. It, as in the one thing that could make this day even worse. It, as in Chad Laramy.
Chad is the choicest guy in school: sparkling eyes straight from Tiffany’s, black hair hanging irreverently past his ears, a swimmer’s body. He’s a year ahead of me in school, but we’re in the same creative writing class. Not that being in the same room together five days a week means he knows who I am or would ever dream of saying hi to me. Still, in my current natural state (no makeup, no blow dry—hell, I couldn’t even remember if I’d put deodorant on this morning), the thought that he might vaguely recognize me was nothing short of terrifying. I tried to move out of the way before he got in line for coffee, but I ended up bumping shoulders with him.
“Whoops,” he said. “Sorry.”
“No, my fault,” I said, hoping there was still time to duck away.
His eyes narrowed. “You look familiar. Do I, do we –”
“Mr. Doyle’s writing class.”
He flashed his orthodontically perfect smile. “Yeah, that’s it. Patty, right?”
“Penny, actually.”
“Right. Penny.”
“You, um, start your short story yet?”
“Naw,” he yawned with out-partying-all-night contentment. “I’ll probably whip it out on the plane ride home.”
“Me too,” I said, even though I’d been working on it for two weeks now. “Well, I liked your last piece, the one about finding your old finger paintings in the attic.”
“Thanks,” he said, but at this point he was looking past me, not at me, like he was hoping to spot someone more interesting in the terminal to talk to. I wished he’d put me out of my misery and leave, but he just stood there, and I didn’t like the silence.
“So…” I fumbled, “you going somewhere for the holidays?”
“Yeah,” he said brightly. And why wouldn’t he be cheerful? He was surely going on a real vacation. “I’m on my way to Aruba,” he said. “You?” Now he was looking straight at me.
Damn, he had to ask. It was bad enough that I had to go to Islemorow. Did I have to confess it to Chad Laramy? “I, I’m going to the islands too,” I said.
“Really, which one?” But he was already looking away again. “Oh wait, there’s my girlfriend and her mom. Finally, ready to board.”
“See you back at Mr. Doyle’s then,” I said.
“See ya, Patty.”
As he walked away, all I could do was wonder: why was it that the only boys who liked me had tails and a litter box? Apparently, that was not for me to know.
I boarded the plane only to discover that it wasn’t really a plane. It was a glorified kite. I’d never flown before, and I’ll admit I was feeling a little jittery. Well, jittery isn’t quite the right word—scared sick is more like it.
…Okay, I told myself once my teeth stopped chattering. Okay, we’ve taken off, and I’m not in the fetal position. I can get through this, I can. After all, what choice do I have, right?
Somehow, we made it safely to Augusta, Maine, even though I swear the propeller outside my window wasn’t rotating. I caught lunch at a vending machine in the airport lobby—M&Ms, the peanut ones (for protein)—and then headed for the puddle jumper that stopped in Waterville, Bangor and Bar Harbor before finally dropping me in Jonesport, where I had to catch a ferry to the island.
The sun was setting on Islemorow by the time the ferry docked, and it was beyond cold. The wind whipped little ice swords at me, and my nostrils froze together in a futile attempt to keep the arctic air out. Thank God the inn’s driver was waiting for me at the wharf. He was easy to spot since he was the only one there.
Unfortunately, the driver was in as rotten a mood as me. “Black Butterfly?” he grumbled, winding down the window of his snug minivan, not making eye contact.
I nodded. He didn’t look much older than me—eighteen maybe. Wearing no jacket over his thermal shirt, he had longish dark hair, eyes far apart, and a small growth of stubble. His jaw kept flexing, sending little muscular ripples across his cheeks. I found myself wondering what he looked like when he smiled, but no, he wasn’t going to be doing that any time soon. Instead, he crammed a fistful of Cheetos into his mouth. “Put your things in the trunk.”
Wait a minute, wasn’t that his job? I took a step forward to give him a piece of my mind, but what came out of my mouth was, “Could you open the trunk then?” So much for assertiveness.
He heaved an irritated sigh, brushed a Twinkie wrapper off his lap, and rolled out of the car. He was tall and lean in his black jeans.
“Get in,” he said after watching me stow my bag. “Don’t try to open your window—it’s stuck.”
“No problem,” I said, climbing into the backseat. Like I was going to want more 20-below air slapping me in the face.
“And the seat belts are broken.”
“I’m in hell frozen over,” I whispered to myself.
“Huh?” he asked as we took off.
“Nothing.”
I wiped the frost off my window and looked out at the ragged heaps of snow and bent trees passing by. The road curved sharply at one point, and a few houses appeared. Now, in case you’re picturing some quaint New England scene here—shingled cottages with shutters and brick chimneys and tire swings hanging from trees—let me set you straight. These houses looked like trailers minus the wheels, and the yards were piled with rusted cars, broken refrigerators and other junk. I spotted a couple of dogs snooping around an upside down table, and then we were driving through woods.
“How many people on the island?” I asked.
My driver rolled his tongue around his mouth like he was trying to get a piece of Twinkie out from between his teeth. “Depends,” he said, peering at me through his rearview mirror. “This time of year, a couple hundred, give or take. Summertime, you can double that easy.”
Did he hold my