case or the doctors who examine him, but I don’t have the time—or heart—to read them right now.
Beneath the journals is a flat tin that once held colored pencils. When I open it now I can still smell graphite. Inside are three sheets of paper and two photographs. One is Rudy’s birth certificate—his original one from the hospital in Skowhegan, not the one I had forged five years later in Portland. On the forged one the name of the father is entered as “unknown” instead of Luther Gunn. The birth date is also three months later than the date on the original. I’ve always known that eventually I might have to use the original again if my forgery were ever detected, but I never thought it would be to convince a court that Rudy suffers from post-traumatic stress from living in an abusive household.
The next sheet of paper is an incident report from the Moose River Police Department describing a domestic violence call made by a kayaker who heard screaming and loud crashes coming from a cabin on a remote island on Moosehead Lake. When the police investigated, the woman at the cabin, one Teresa Levine, refused to press charges against her domestic partner even though she clearly had burn marks on her arm. “I was clumsy,” the report quoted her as saying.
The last piece of paper is a copy of a patient’s record from the Skowhegan hospital for one Rudy Gunn, who visited the emergency room at age four for a broken arm. A picture accompanies the report of four-year-old Rudy proudly displaying his cast. The eyes that look out of the faded Polaroid are trusting. He still believed that I would protect him. When your father’s mad, run to the safe place. I’ll come find you. And then on the last day, Wait in the safe place and then we’ll leave.
The second photograph is of Luther holding Rudy when he was a baby. I don’t look at it now. I leave it in the trunk.
Will these be enough to make a case that Rudy’s behavior is a result of past trauma? Will I have to tell them what happened on the last day? I’ve kept it a secret so long that to reveal it now feels like the ultimate betrayal, but it might be just what saves Rudy. Never mind what it will mean for me.
I take the papers and the photographs downstairs and slip them into my school book bag. I look around the house for a moment—at the pretty antique furniture, the muted rugs, the tasteful framed prints. All the peace and order of Harmon’s world that’s about to be shattered. Then I turn my back on it all and walk out. Part of me never believed I would be allowed to stay here anyway. But then, part of me never thought I’d make it off that island.
Chapter Nine
As I drive to the police station I think about the island. I’ve spent twelve years trying to banish the memory from my mind but I have to let it play in my head now, seeing it as a policeman would (I picture Kevin Bantree watching with me) so I’ll know how much of the story I can tell. It’s been so long since I’ve allowed myself to think about that time, at first I’m not sure I can think about it, but once I open the trunk I’ve stored it in (something much rustier and less quaint than the tuck box my mother bought for me) the memories surge up as relentless as the tide, as indelible as the smell of woodsmoke.
The cabin Luther took me to was only a three-hour drive from the school but it might as well have been in another world and time. As we drove, the towns and buildings grew sparser, the trees taller and closer together. Perhaps this is what happened when those girls Luther told us about touched the Maiden Stone. They didn’t vanish; the woods swallowed them up.
It certainly seemed as if Luther was trying to bury us. He drove down a long winding dirt road that opened up at the end to a general store, a trailer home, a dock, and a wide expanse of water. While I sat on the dock drinking a warm Coke to settle my stomach, Luther traded his car for a rowboat and a year’s worth of grocery credit. That’s when I realized he meant for us to stay. We rowed—or Luther rowed;