Chapter Four: September 10th, 2015

Lyn Kayani doesn't have many friends. Scratch that, he doesn't have any. Until he starts to spend time with the son of his father's oldest enemy.

Lyn Kayani stares up at the wall behind Greywatch Island School. His sister is up there smoking cigarettes with the native boy. Lyn doesn’t know the native boy’s name, but yesterday and the day before he’s found Lily sitting up on the top of the wall smoking cigarettes with him. It’s strange to see Lily spending time with the same person so much. She doesn’t normally play well with others.

                It’s been ten minutes since the bell rang, and still Fowler hasn’t shown up. Lyn told him to come to the wall after school so that they could walk home together. What could he be doing that has him running this late? Homework? Probably not, it’s Fowler, after all. Talking with a girl? Probably, it’s Fowler, after all. Both situations would be disappointing.

                Finally, Fowler arrives, lumbering across the schoolyard. He’s mumbling to himself and his brow is furrowed.

                Lily recognizes him from a mile away. “Fowler McCreary,” she says, making no effort to hide the snide tone in her voice. “What do you want?”

                Fowler looks up at her, and he seems to be stunned. “And who are you, exactly?”

                “No one you’ve heard of, clearly. But I’ve heard of you. And based on what I’ve heard, I don’t like you much.”

                “Oh. Well, that’s not very encouraging.” Fowler slows his speech down as he reaches the word encouraging, struggling with the syllables. When it comes to longer words, Lyn can tell that his accent is more pronounced.

                Lyn rolls his eyes and heads over to Fowler. “Don’t mind her. You’re ten minutes late, what was the hold-up? I told you to be here.”

                “I was getting some help with English. I have writing to do, and… I’m not too good at writing,” he says. He’s avoiding eye contact. According to the books and articles on body language that Lyn has read, when someone’s avoiding eye contact, it could mean they’re lying or hiding something. But what does Fowler have to hide?

                “Was that what you were actually doing?” Lyn asks.

                “Yeah. Of course. What else would I be doing?”

                Oh, that sort of offended him. Perhaps it’s best to drop the subject. “Never mind. Anyways, we should start heading home now. My dad will flip if he gets home and we’re not there.”

                She must have heard what Lyn said, because Lily has already jumped off the top of the wall, leaving her cigarette crushed into the concrete. The native boy that she was smoking with slowly climbs down after her, very methodic in his movements. Maybe he doesn’t like heights.

                “You coming?” Lily says to the boy.

                His eyes widen. “You’re inviting me?”

                “Well, yeah. Are you coming or not?”

                Lily doesn’t give the boy time to answer. He’s barely gotten the word yes out of his mouth before she’s walking away. His legs are awfully long, so it doesn’t take him too much time to catch up. Lyn makes a quick comparison and notices that this native boy is even taller than Fowler is, although much thinner. He’s more like a tree, and Fowler is more like a big rock.

                The four of them head to the front of the school, which is pretty much deserted by now. Both the buses leave just after the bell, and most kids take the bus. Even the teachers are starting to leave. Within the hour, the last of the janitors will have left, and the school will be locked up.

                Fowler takes his bike from the bike locks, and for a moment Lyn assumes that Fowler is leaving. Abandoning the plans they had, simply speeding away. That wouldn’t be very surprising. He probably only asked Lyn to hang out because he felt bad for him.

                Instead, Fowler walks his bike alongside Lyn, Lily, and the strange native boy, plodding along at a slow pace. He doesn’t seem as though he’s ever in a hurry to get anywhere.

                “Your dad arrested one of my brothers once,” Fowler says, “It was really funny.”

                A family member getting arrested isn’t usually funny, is it? Lyn doesn’t think it is. “How do you even know that it was my dad? What did he get arrested for?”

                Fowler laughs. “He said his name at the door, and then my brother threw up on his shoes.”

                “That makes sense. He came home one night without shoes. I didn’t really question it.”

                Again, Fowler laughs, the sound of it filling up the otherwise silent air. He sure does laugh a lot, Lyn notices. Is there some sort of joke that Lyn is missing? He misses jokes a lot of the time. Then again, Lily and her new friend didn’t laugh. Or maybe they just weren’t paying attention. It looks like they’re talking to each other and ignoring Lyn and Fowler, for the most part.

                “Wait a minute,” Fowler says. He stops walking, and looks at the native boy. “Who are you?”

                “Gabriel Stone. Who are you?”

                “Fowler McCreary. But I feel like you already know that.”

                Lily rolls her eyes. “Of course he knows who you are. Everybody knows the hockey kids. Mostly because they have egos bigger than the island.”

                 Fowler purses his lips and continues walking. He stares down at his feet and doesn’t say anything. Lyn knows that what Lily said is true. He can name all of the hockey boys, even though none of them ever talk to him. They play hockey on the Prince Rupert rep team and act like they’re the most important people in town, at least from what Lyn’s seen. Lily doesn’t like them much, because they’re too free with their words, eyes, and at times, their hands. Lyn isn’t sure why Fowler bothered to talk to him in the first place. It’s probably all just a big joke. Hockey boys are fond of big jokes.

                That’s why Lyn tried to make Fowler go away when he first came into the library. Lyn just wanted to be left alone like usual, he didn’t need some big hockey boy bothering him. But then Fowler got him talking about street names and math and numbers, the sort of things Lyn can really pay attention to. And now Lyn has someone who actually wants to talk to him, and he has no idea what to do.

                The first thing Lyn notices when the four of them arrive at his house is that his father isn’t home. The second thing he notices is the moving truck parked outside the house next door. The third thing he notices is that the movers are taking boxes inside the house, not putting them in the moving truck. Somebody must be moving in. It’s not very often that people move on Greywatch Island. They live in the same houses for years and years. Nobody really moves to the island either. They’re usually trying to leave. The housing market on Greywatch Island is so slow that the only moving company is actually just a few guys who happen to have a truck and a fair bit of free time. Their company doesn’t even have a name.

                “I wonder who they are,” Fowler says, looking at the moving truck. “Hey, there’s my brother. Hi, Brandon!” He waves, and one of the movers, a burly blond man who’s carrying a rather ugly lamp, waves back.

                “Is that the same brother who my dad arrested?” Lyn asks.

                “No, that was Mikkel. The one over there is Brandon.”

                “How many brothers do you have?” Lyn knows that there’s a lot of McCreary boys. He’s just not quite sure exactly how many.

                “Well, there’s Nikolai, Christopher and Henrik, they’re twins, Matthias, Brandon, Mikkel, and Thomas. I’m the youngest.”

                Oh. Eight brothers. That’s an unimaginable amount of brothers. Fowler’s house must be terribly loud. Lyn makes a mental note not to go to Fowler’s house anytime soon.

                “Holy crap,” Gabriel says. That about sums up Lyn’s feelings towards Fowler’s family at the moment.

                A girl comes out of the house. She’s followed by a woman who seems to be her mother, but at the same time, can’t be. The woman is white, and the girl is black. Maybe that’s her stepmother, or maybe she’s adopted? Lyn doesn’t have time to think about it more, because the woman heads inside just as quickly as she came out, leaving the girl behind.

                Fowler sees the girl too. “We should go say hello or something.” He grabs Lyn by the wrist and runs towards the house, and Lily and Gabriel begrudgingly follow.

                “Fowler, you’re going to dislocate my wrist.” So much for personal space, Lyn thinks.

                “Hi!” Fowler says. The girl just stares at him with wide eyes. It’s probably strange to have four people come up in front of you at once, wherever she’s from. On Greywatch Island pretty much everybody knows everybody, especially the kids. When you go to school with the same people for thirteen straight years, you get to know them pretty well.

                “Uh… Hi.” The girl can’t decide which one of them to look at. There’s Fowler, who’s big and burly and loud. There’s Lyn, who’s wearing four layers of clothing complete with a thick scarf. There’s Gabriel, who’s more than six feet tall and has hair that goes down past his chest. And there’s Lily, who’s the only girl out of the four.

                “I’m Fowler. What’s your name?”

                “Scarlet. Nice to meet you.”

                She doesn’t seem like she’s all too happy to see him. Lyn can’t tell for sure. It’s hard for him to tell just listening to the tone of her voice.

                “You’re new in town, right?” Fowler asks.

                Scarlet shuffles her feet. “Yeah. I’m starting school tomorrow. Two days late, for some reason. It’s stupid.”

                “Everyone’s going to notice you anyways,” Lily says, “Nobody new ever moves here. People notice a new kid.”

                Gabriel shakes his head. “It’s not that bad.”

                “Do you want to come hang out with us?” Fowler’s face lights up as he gets the idea. Wait, they’re going to hang out at Lyn’s house. Did he just invite somebody to come over to a house that’s not even his? Now that’s definitely not proper manners.

                Lyn looks up at Fowler. “Um, Fowler…”

                But Fowler doesn’t look to Lyn for approval, he looks to Lily, who’s already nodded her head yes. Lyn sometimes forgets that Lily doesn’t really have much regard for manners either. She already invited Gabriel over without asking their father. How much difference will one more person make?

                “Let’s head back to our house,” Lily says. She turns and starts to walk away, and the rest of them follow her.

                The house is quiet, like usual. It’s never very noisy, with just Lyn, Lily, and Amar living there. Lyn likes the silence, and Lily’s simply used to it, but to the others, it’s almost eerie. Something seems ever so slightly amiss.

                Fowler kicks off his shoes. “It’s real quiet in here,” he says, stating the obvious.

                Gabriel nods. “Nobody else is home?”

                “Nope. Just us. I don’t know when my dad is going to be home from work.” Lily takes off her shoes and tosses her coat and backpack aside.       

                “What about your mom?” Fowler asks.

                “You figure out where the hell she went, feel free to tell me.”

                Fowler looks at Lyn, his eyes wide, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s odd that he didn’t know. Everybody knows about Lenore Kayani. Not to mention the others. A lot of people have disappeared over the past several years. Lyn has memorized their names by now, because of how much Amar talks about the case. David Madison, who was a bartender at Henry’s, the local pub. Emily Hawkins, who had come back to town to visit her mother. Charles Santorini, a retired doctor. Helen Brown, who was a mother of four. Then there was another bartender, Hector Obando. And then an old lady who supposedly went senile instead of going wherever it was everybody else went. Lyn can’t actually remember her name.

                “Oh, I… I’m sorry,” Scarlet says, for lack of better words.

                “You don’t have to be,” Lily replies, “It’s been twelve years. I don’t even remember her. I suppose the brochure didn’t mention the disappearing problem we’ve got here.”

                “Disappearing problem? What do you mean?”

                “Greywatch Island has got seven unsolved missing persons cases. Well, one of them was just some old lady with dementia, so that one’s kind of explainable. The other ones are weird, though. They all just vanished in the woods somewhere.”

                Fowler nods sagely. “And that’s why we don’t go out in the woods alone. Especially at night.”

                “We don’t go out in the woods alone? I always do,” Gabriel says.

                “Well then, you’re just nuts,” Fowler says. “I’m hungry. Lyn, do you have snacks? I really hope you have snacks.”

                “There’s food in the kitchen.” Lyn walks into the kitchen, and a shiver runs down his spine as he gets that familiar feeling of being watched.

                He feels like he’s being watched quite a lot. Lily’s told him that she feels it too. He should be used to it by now, since it’s been happening to him for as long as he can remember, but for some reason it still makes him uneasy. The thought of unseen eyes flicking over him is not a pleasant one.

                Lily says that sometimes she’ll feel someone touching her face or her neck. Lyn isn’t sure if he believes her. If it was real, he’d feel it too, wouldn’t he?

                Fowler is frozen in place, staring at nothing but air. His face is white like snow. It only lasts for a second, and he snaps back to reality, but his pale complexion remains. The motion was so quick that it was almost unnoticeable. But for Lyn, things that are unnoticeable to others are very noticeable.

                It’s rather disconcerting, then, that the patch of air he was staring at was directly beside Lyn. 

Author's Note

Anything goes.