The Journeys of Isle

By Bowdoin

Isle, shipwrecked and alone, finds himself waking up in the most confusing of places. With only vague and frightening images of a terrible storm and a sinking ship for memory, he is quickly confronted by a place where safety is substituted for choice. Where every footstep lands on someones last nerve, and what you think is just as dangerous as what you do. The type of American town where a mouth and mind like Isles can get you into an awful lot of trouble. But beyond the danger of an angry sheriff, who would like nothing more than to blame him for the sudden string of unexplained fires that have begun plaguing his quiet town, Isle is being followed by something infinitely more deadly. A dark shadow that lashes out from the things he cant remember. With nothing but choice standing between the terrible dark that is chasing him and the lives of everyone he knew or would come to know, Isle will be forced to fight alone against something he doesnt even understand. A struggle that leads to only one place, and only asks only a single question,
What do you believe, now that Ive told you how it ends?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462840243

Book preview

Copyright © 2009 by Bowdoin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

54804

Contents

Hey! You with the book!!!

CHAPTER 1

The Wreck

CHAPTER 2

In the Hands of the Captor

CHAPTER 3

The Puppet Fire

CHAPTER 4

Breakfast

CHAPTER 5

Dark Shadows and Empty Hallways

CHAPTER 6

The Wrath of Sheriff Braden Hutchinson

CHAPTER 7

Bent Bars and Burnt Metal

CHAPTER 8

The Ride Along

CHAPTER 9

The Ride Alone

CHAPTER 10

Boy of the Wood

CHAPTER 11

Real

For Amanda

—Surprise

Hey! You with the book!!!

STOP!!!!

Don’t go to chapter one yet until you read this. I mean it! Don’t pretend this is just another prologue and ignore it! I don’t have a lot of time so I gotta hurry. I know you’re thinking ‘oh that’s cute the book person is pretending to talk to me’, but stop that! I’m talking to you… the person holding the book, the person reading these words, the person thinking ‘is he talking to me?’. Yes YOU. I don’t know how to be any clearer than that.

What I need you to do is super super important. I mean saving Isle’s life super important. I need you to go and get a piece of paper and a pen. I’ll wait . . . well I guess you’re gonna do it later since I can still hear you reading, but this is really really really important, and you have to do it before you get too far into the book. Don’t count on somebody else to do it for you, cause if everyone does that then it wont ever get done. On the paper I need you to write this note,

Isle,

I don’t know if writing this letter makes any sense, but Aaron says that you’ll get it. I don’t see how tossing a letter into the water is going to get this to you, but maybe he has a little of that magic you like to joke about so much. It couldn’t hurt to believe it right? I’m so worried that I don’t know what to do with myself. Why can’t we find you? You’re not dead, and don’t even pretend that you are, and if this is what you meant by making me sorry for bringing you aboard I’m going to wring the life out of you. I don’t know where you are or even where to look, but Aaron might. He’s got that half smile that he can hide the world behind. You . . . be ok. It’s an order. We’re coming for you. Don’t ever doubt it.

From the quarter deck of the Second Star in search of you,

—Alexa

* She’s holding on to the empty and no-one seems to care/

Listening to a whisper that was never really there

PS It just wouldn’t be one of our letters without it.

Your handwriting doesn’t have to be good or nothing. Once you’re done writing you need to take the paper, or whatever, and run water over it. Like put it in the sink and turn the water on. It’s not hard, you can even throw it away when you’re done. Make sure it gets wet all over though, don’t miss any of the words. I’ll do the rest. It’s not very hard just put the book down right now and go do it, I promise the book wont run away while you’re gone . . . I don’t think… I really can’t be sure. If you really can’t find anything to write on you can tear out the page with the note on it, but my mom always says you shouldn’t hurt books, but if it isn’t yours maybe no one will notice. And it is that important.

Anyway I have to go. Please, please, please, don’t forget. Even if you think it’s silly. I know I can’t make you believe all I can do is tell you. Ok I’m gonna be in trouble, bye.

PS (I don’t know what PS is, but she did it at the end of hers) IMPORTANT VERY VERY IMPORTANT

CHAPTER 1

The Wreck

I heard. It was the first sense that returned to me as I climbed out of the depths of unconsciousness. I listened to a symphony of chirping insects against the soft lapping of water as if it were being playfully splashed about in measured time just behind me. For a brief moment I just listened. Every sound was far away and near at hand giving each undefined noise an imagination enhanced malice that I assured myself daylight, or the retrieval of my other senses, would defeat back into the simple songs of life that were natural to wherever it was I happened to be.

Slowly, as if in reaction to my uncertainty and a body’s natural instinct to defend itself, I began to feel. I felt the cool rush of a tide roll up over the back of my legs in time with its silvery voice that sang out over me. The harsh grain of the moist sand grated against my cheek and fingers. The air was warm around me but for the chill of the wind as it brushed across the wet shirt that clung to my back. I clutched my hands into the sand as I tried to find any handle to brace myself as I pushed wearily away from the world below me. My muscles strained as if being jolted awake from a long sleep. An ache seeped down my shoulders and through to my feet following the water as it fell away from me.

When at last my vision blurred into a mild clarity I found myself kneeling at the edge of a water staring into the black shadows of an ominously close wood line the tops of which appeared to be a row of jagged teeth biting upwards at the moon and starlight that sat cradled above in the deep blue of the midnight sky. The only light penetrating the wall of shadows was the flicker of a dozen or so little lights that floated strangely here and there.

Since I grudgingly admit that my ability to think was not only the first thing to leave me but the last thing to return, I suddenly almost remembered something very important. I quickly turned and cast my eyes out into the water. For the briefest of instants I saw a far reaching sea without crest or wave. The shimmering light of the moon and stars reflecting as if it were a mirror flawless enough to make me unsure of which was sea and which was sky. At the farthest point my fast returning vision could reach was a shadow. A ship I thought, sails parallel to the shoreline, but I could not be certain because in that same instant, the span of a blink divided a million times over, the picture changed and I was peering out at a rather small lake surrounded on all sides by that same wall of shadows that had greeted me before.

Gradually I tested the strength of my legs and upon finally gaining my feet I wearily trudged away from the water and cast myself onto a grassy patch of hill between the water and the wood line. Wringing out my clothes and setting them beside me had taken the bite out of the wind and I collapsed onto my back breathing heavily with effort amidst what seemed to be a rather warm summer night.

I didn’t sleep, though in regaining my eyesight and other faculties I had defeated the terror of so many imaginings with discovery. I still had no will to sleep, just an overall soreness that causes one to sit as still as possible in order not to upset the screaming muscles any further than they already were.

A few hours later, and coming to a general agreement with my limbs, I dressed and crawled over to the trunk of a large tree where I propped myself up and tried to understand my rather confusing situation.

As I sat there, and in the hours since my waking, the air had cooled and a light mist was rolling across the lake water while the soon to be morning horizon chased the dark fringes away from the distant toothsome tree line opposite me.

Suddenly I realized the drastic stillness around me. I put my hands on the ground on either side of me as if I was feeling for a motion that wasn’t there. Almost like the ticking of a clock that had been consistent and dependable for so long a time and had abruptly ceased leaving only the faint echo of its sound reverberating within the listeners’ memory. Where I looked for the reassuring inconsistency of the water beneath me I found nothing but the incorruptible and unrelenting steadiness of the land. It was altogether disconcerting.

Eventually I heard a light tapping growing from behind me on my left adding the distinctive sound of footsteps over wood to the symphony of sounds that I had deftly identified as bird and insect song along with the rustling of several small and medium sized animals as they moved back and forth along the water all the while either unobserved or ignored from my perch beside the tree. Warily I turned to follow the sounds and saw, just ahead of the advancing line of sunlight as the morning star crept out over the tree tops and pulled the shadows down towards the water where they would soon be extinguished for the day, a young boy marching down a wooden walkway that, followed back to its’ source, revealed a pleasant looking house a short ways up the hill.

The boy carried a long fishing pole and a small box, even though he looked poorly dressed for a day by the lake. He was wearing a very proper looking suit save that he wore no jacket and had loosened his tie enough for him to unbutton the collar. His polished shoes caught flecks of the morning light, but he never hesitated as he came to the conclusion of the walkway and uncaringly traded the tap of wood for the gentle swish of the dew laden grass.

He passed within only a few yards of me on his way towards the water, but, either because of the cover of the tree, the shadows that still hung on the area nearest the lake, or my relative lack of movement, he passed me casually humming a tune of which I caught only a few notes; it was something plain and I didn’t recognize it.

At the foot of the hill he saddled up to the water and carelessly flung himself into the grass setting his tools down beside him so he could remove his shoes and socks and plop his bare feet into the sand and let the rippling water roll in over his toes. After a few quick seconds his hook was baited and cast and he sat perfectly still as if he was nothing more than an oddly shaped stump.

I stood hoping to make as discreet an exit as possible knowing there was no possibility of going undetected when he went back up the hill, but all I got for my effort was a sharp, SHHHHH!!! from the edge of the water. Now standing, I stared confusedly at the boy who hadn’t even turned his head to address me. I will confess that there may be no more useless attempt at secrecy than for me to try to sneak through a forest unheard, but that didn’t lessen the shock at being hushed by a boy I had thought was utterly unaware of my presence.

Quickly recovering from my surprise and swallowing the slight indignation that had arisen from being so ignominiously silenced I stuffed my hands into my pockets and sidled up to stand on his right and followed his gaze out into the water where his fishing line threaded through the surface.

Don’t worry you already spooked him. I was intrigued by his willingness to talk to me all the while doing his best to ignore me.

Him who? I asked before I realized what I was doing.

The cat fish I was gonna catch before I get dragged off to church, that’s who. Now I’ve gotta listen to Danny Hargrove tell me all about the giant catch he had this week when everyone knows good and well he couldn’t catch a slug in a salt bed.

He had an easy way about him that, above being a little odd, inclined me to listen to his ramblings about fish and church and the upcoming first of many consecutive school weeks that were apparently beginning the next morning. His dark hair looked like an organized mess and fit perfectly with his perpetual and crooked smile that persisted even when discussing the subjects that frustrated him most. Most of it I couldn’t understand if I wanted to, until he finally peeled his eyes away from the water and looked up at me, Are you homeless? he asked.

It was straight forward and inoffensive in a way only children seem to be able to manage when asking questions like that.

Not that I know of. I said with a laugh.

Oh, He continued without missing a beat, that’s good cause I’m supposed to be . . . he paused for a second as if looking for a word, charitable to you if you’re homeless. Danny Hargrove said he met a homeless guy once and gave him five dollars, but everybody knows that Danny never had five dollars. Why did you sleep outside? Are you a lumberjack? I hear lumberjacks sleep outside sometimes so that they can get up early enough to cut down lots of trees.

He had said it all in one giant breath as if the entire time he was sitting beside the water in silence he had been sucking in the wind it would require to pour out his speech. I just laughed and pulled one of my hands out from my pocket and extended it down to him,

Isle I said bluntly. He simply cocked his head to the side as if to run my response through his memory checking if it could possibly answer any of his questions, and finding that it couldn’t, prepared to fire again. It’s my name, Isle it was a preemptive strike. He took my hand and shook it firmly. As for one of your questions, I continued, no I’m not a lumberjack. I guess I am, or at least I most recently was, a sailor… of sorts… I think. He smiled a little as if somewhat impressed by the revelation of my occupation, at least it was my occupation as far as the fragmented evidence of my scrambled memory led me to believe.

Wow, we don’t have many sailors in Missouri. At least I don’t think so, unless they’re visiting. Everybody calls me Hal. He said finally releasing my hand. He continued to clamor on relentlessly with complaints and questions irregardless of whether or not I had understanding or interest in anything he said.

It was apparent to me that he didn’t really require any input on my part aside from the occasional head nod that I freely supplied him with at regular intervals, only my presence to allow him to spew out all of his ideas for which he appeared to have no other outlet. The arrangement was fine by me as it gave me chance to at last shuffle a bit through the jigsaw pieces of my memory and try to comprehend my own situation.

Bits of remembrance had to be pulled forcefully into the front of my mind. Images of lightning cascading across water, shouts from above with abject terror climbing into them, a shudder, all parts of my own story of which the preface chapters that led me to standing beside this simple lake had been blurred beyond recognition. I decided to start as far back as I could and work my way forward figuring that since large chunks of my identity were still intact there must be at least some semblance of a history swirling about in my shaken mind. Surely enough, just as I could still count, speak, and reason, there too was my small house that was apparently not near at hand. From there I flashed through faces and events, recognizing those I could and ignoring those I couldn’t, and like an abbreviated self history I hopped forward from memory to memory pausing only to find the next major stop on the road hoping to connect the chapters and seamlessly find myself standing where I was.

Over all I was very little successful and found that the broken memories far outnumbered the intact ones. I remembered boarding a ship… Annabelle, but from where I had come I had not even a clue. It seemed I could construct the image of my feet crossing the gangway and the sturdy dark cherry colored wood of the deck, but none of the people before or behind me. A bag. Over my shoulder I thought. This image alone was all I had to hold on to, and then nothing until I was awakened by the natural sounds of the forest surrounding the lake. I could not recall crew or course only a strange feeling that we were somehow in a place we should not be.

All the while, my young companion had been bounding from subject to subject while I was struggling to understand any of what had happened, until he finally settled firmly on the topic of his school. He had brought up complaints about what food they were given and what little freedom they had to choose their fields of study before, but now found himself stuck on that thought and even seemed to be working himself into an anger over the whole issue. I hadn’t spent much thought on it, having myself only stayed long enough to learn my letters. Reading had been the only ability that I had wanted from school and after reaching this goal, satisfied with the level of comprehension and interpretation I had gained, the school and I had parted ways amiably. It was a good sign that I recalled any of this. I really didn’t understand at all how the poor boy’s list of grievances could be so long.

If it bothers you so much Hal why do you keep going? I asked abandoning my nod and agree position.

That’s dumb. He said flatly, You HAVE to go. It was almost shouted.

Well if your parents are insistent on it I guess there isn’t anything you can do about it. Don’t worry you’ll be old enough to make your own bad decisions soon enough. I said with a smile that he only half returned. Parents? He asked, They don’t get a say. Everyone has to go. Danny Hargrove says that if you don’t go to school the police will come and throw your dad in jail. They make you.

Now until this point I had been, what I hoped, was uncharacteristically lax in my judgment as I realized I had given all of my efforts to trying to figure out where I had come from and had not even ventured a cautious inquiry into where I was. In my own defense, a small lake only visited by raccoons and small fisher boys, as far as I could tell, didn’t exactly raise any alarms.

I immediately tried to correct my rather haphazard mistake by temporarily abandoning my attempt to patch the holes in my memory in favor of the far greater task, for far bigger holes, of bracing myself for whatever lightning storms and shipwrecks the place in front of me had to offer,

They who? I asked letting the idea that I might not be in the friendliest of places, despite my present company, run across my thoughts. At first he looked genuinely confused to find that I had heard anything at all of his speech.

What? Oh! He said bringing his train of thought to a skidding halt, It’s the law. I laughed out loud which I quickly regretted after noticing the seriousness with which he had said it. I suddenly began to wonder what kind of place I had found myself stranded in. After a moment I dismissed the idea as childish misunderstanding; no king with any reason left in him would undertake the inherently futile and self defeating task of trying to force someone, children especially, to learn, no matter how important it may be. Therefore I just assumed it must have been a harmless stretching of the truth on the part of his parents to reinforce their will that he should attend school. At the time I thought such a tactic was perhaps potentially harmful. To allow the boy to believe that the custodians of his freedom had in any way relegated any portion of that responsibility, even to its most infinitesimal degree, to any power other than their own was to put his faith both in his parents, and the system of government under which he lived in jeopardy. However, my young friend may have had a willpower that rivaled the simple instructions of his parents and thus they may have needed to lend extra weight to their decisions regarding the best course for their son. I didn’t correct him so