Knowles before. And I've been asked to return.”
“Huh!”
“They're lonely, Lem, as you might suppose. An occasional visit could make their lives easier. Would you like to go back with me?” The new look on his face caused her to suspect he kept something interesting from her. “What?” she asked.
“You already know, I guess, that it's dangerous to go up there.”
“Is it?”
“There are the boars, for one thing. And then…”
“Then you believe the other stories, too?”
“About supernatural beings? I'm open to the possibility,” he replied.
“You might bring that up in conversation with Mr. Longfellow one day. I'm sure we'd all find such a discussion extremely stimulating,” she said, in a way that made Lem wonder if she was serious.
“It's got a reputation, and it's had one for years,” he maintained stubbornly. “My grandfather told me men in his time were aware of lights floating around, and fires that would come and go, the sound of the huntsmen, strange music…”
“Have you seen or heard such things?”
“Well, no. But I do think it's a dangerous place, one way or another.” Her face told him she still required convincing, or at least something for her curiosity. “I can tell you a little about the rest of it,” he offered.
“You've been there, too?” Charlotte asked in surprise.
“My brothers and I were warned to stay away. I did go once, though, when I was twelve.”
“You never told me.”
“I took an oath to keep mum.”
“But how did you get there?”
“That summer, Ethan made a kind of bark canoe. Not a very good one, but it could float for an hour or two. Then we had to stop the new leaks with more pitch. My mother was forever asking why she found it on our breeches, and each time, she'd tell my father.” Recalling the outcome, Lem shifted in his seat.
“What were you planning to do?” Charlotte asked, feeling a forgotten thrill herself. Once she, too, had hoped to reach the island and explore it, no matter what others told her. She'd even supposed she might find plants and animals related to those in Spanish America, or India, or other places she'd read of.
“We had no real plan,” Lem continued, “but we crossed the water and a few patches of reeds, and landed at a place we were sure couldn't be seen from the house. Walking along the shore, we found a crack in a face of rock, covered by a lot of vines. That took us into something like a little meadow, with cliffs all around. There was a sort of hut there, no more of it left than stone walls and a chimney. It made us imagine we might meet a castaway, like Robinson Crusoe—but all we did was eat our bread and cheese, climb the cliffs a while, and then paddle home.”
“I would like to see it for myself—though perhaps in summer, as you did.”
“I've heard the island's boars killed a man once, who went walking alone. I wouldn't advise it, Mrs. Willett. Nor, I think, would Mr. Longfellow. After all, he's warned me his own pigs can be dangerous.”
“That's true…”
“But just visiting the house might be safe enough. If they really are lonely. How did it look? How were the ladies? ‘Old Cat and Mad Maud,’ my father used to call them, though I'd never call them that to anyone else.”
“I'd say Mrs. Knowles is not without thorns. But she was kind to me. Maud's given name is Magdalene. It seems she was born with an affliction which causes her to lack judgment; Catherine also hinted she's not always been in her right mind. I suppose that's one reason they've kept to themselves for so long. But today, when we took tea together, everything went well enough.”
“Is the house full of relics, from the Crusades?”
“I don't think they're quite that old,” she said with a gentle smile.
“Alex Godwin swears they are. But he often says things he knows aren't true, and then mocks anyone who believes him.”
“An annoying habit,” said Charlotte, in sympathy with one she assumed had been such a victim. “I would say the furnishings are something like those of an English gentleman's country manor. Or one from Hanover, which is where John Fisher came from.”
Here she stopped, unwilling to put into words further ideas she'd had about Mrs. Knowles's father, remembering the tapestries she'd seen, and the tales she'd heard.
“Perhaps one day,” Lem said, “when the old woman dies, the village can see what it's like before it's sold.”
“I hope that