Part 1: Arrival

Frank looked out the window, remembering how he and Dick used to sled down the hills. Rocky, treacherous woods only just made ‘safe’ by a thick covering of snow and fallen leaves. An exercise in youthful invincibility. They dodged trees and random ditches; craggy gaps that seemed to materialize under what should be sturdy ground, but they made it through.

All but the once.

The woods swallowed the tram less than a minute after it left the station in Carlisle’s town square, its pine trees stalwart like soldiers in formation waiting to don their snow whites.

When did I even…? Frank thought.

Losing time again. But of course he was. He was back home; and here, dreams and sleep only came easy if there was someone who needed that midnight privacy to sow their ambitions. The day came at him like a nightmare he’d almost forgotten: meeting his parents on the mainland, taking the ferry over for the view, his mother slamming a fresh pack of cigarettes against her palm. 

“That’s new,” he’d said. 

“That’s old,” said his dad. “Though your recognition always was…convenient.” 

The recollection slipped away as quiet as strung-up Christmas lights in the square. The trolley lurched up the deadly hills of Carlisle Island and Frank sucked in the tram’s clotted air: a cinnamon-scented vapor that churned out from the space heater next to the conductor’s feet. It tasted like the steam from a radiator he and his parents had all clutched onto, unwilling to lose the contest by letting go first. 

“What memories are we missing today, hon?” he heard in a degraded voice. A family voice. His Aunt Toni. It had been so long, but he could still imagine her asking him the question.

What was imagination, but with certainty? Faith. He had faith in this image of his aunt. But no.

He hadn’t seen her today. Too many old names trying to crowd into his new life. 

They’d taken the ferry. The only way to get to Carlisle Island; or just ‘Carlisle’ to anyone who didn’t enjoy wasting time for no good reason.

A slippery rock’s skip away from the shores of eastern Maryland, Carlisle jutted like a pine-covered doorstop from the brackish waters. Okay, good. Run it back. What’s next? The three of them stood together on the boat, clutching their coats and with his mother’s arm around Frank’s waist, her head barely reaching his shoulder. He had a thin face reminiscent of a confused giraffe. Or so an ex had said. Frank’s lithe (read: lanky, another ex) form culminated in a high-and-tight with a few curls let loose. A slightly receding hairstyle that said “I have opinions! But only soft, small, quiet… Anyway, you were saying?”

His mother’s rigid body felt familiar but antiquated against his—a new telephone running on wire from the sixties. She hugged him tight and stared at the coastline, satisfied, as the sun had descended early in the afternoon. The ferry glided on the low waves, skimming over a roiling universe beneath the surface. 

Had they gone to Lillian’s? No, Mom got tired as he brought over a round. Had to go up home.

Frank had seethed. Binged. He could smell the beer and smoke on his jacket. He bounced his knee, tip-tapping his shoes against the slippery floor of the train car to see if they would stick.

The bar had been packed with tourists. Frank couldn’t remember ever seeing it that busy. 

He peered into the darkness beyond the soft lighting on the trolley’s side, pushing his gaze as deep into the night as he could. He was back. After twelve years, he was back, but there was no way. Absolutely impossible. And still, he swore he saw it. The hidden spot where his brother Dick had fallen through. A snowy grove, highlighted by the moon that only moments ago was pressed back by the marshaling snow clouds. A mourning sigh whispered in his ear. Such a terrible, wretched day. A wretched place. There should be a signpost, a warning: Do Ye Not Enter Here, Only Regret and Woe Remain.

Frank closed his eyes and banished the spot away. He felt himself falling, not into a frigid lake like his late brother, but to somewhere safe. A cold, still place. A hard surface under him.

He snapped back and hissed in a cinnamon-red breath as the conductor rang her bell. 

“Last stop til we head back down-island.”

Frank was the only passenger left. Over the speakers, Judy Garland wished him a merry, if petite, Christmas as he got off. The conductor most certainly did not. 

The covered bench marking the trolley’s last up-island stop was empty. A slim sidewalk led off from it, through the closely-packed woods to an overlook of the bay that joined up with a cliffside path: the old emergency fire route from Hughes House Hospital. Nowadays, it was mostly used for teenagers to prove their mettle. Frank scoffed at the idea, but only so much as someone who had absolutely done it at sixteen. He thought of the thin ice Dick had fallen through, and then of the rain-slickened staircase, built right into the side of the cliffs with nothing but a rusting pipe masquerading as a railing.

How had they maneuvered past one and not the other? Both required balance on the thick black thread of life. What had made Dick’s snap? 

You know… Frank heard, whispered in the trees. And so do they.