Island of Bones (Haunted Florida Book 1) Read online

  Helplessly, they watched while Syndia finally got me over to the machine and threw my legs down in exhaustion. “Damn, you’re heavy.” She grunted then came the sound of two knives sharpening against each other.

  Even if I could sit up now, I couldn’t move. The sharp pain in my back made it difficult to breathe. Must’ve nicked my lung. My foot was lifted, and Syndia’s thumb ran across the bones of my ankle. “Pretty feet, Whitaker.” She laughed and fished around her pocket for something. “Ready to become cement?”

  When she pulled the brass key out of her pocket, I almost shook my head. She’d taken it back herself? I moaned low and tried to push the radiating pain out of my body by imagining it not there.

  You’re healed. You’re made of light.

  The body is only a vessel.

  Rise out of it, Ellie.

  I’d heard my grandmother talk this way a few times over the years, but because I always waved it away as nonsense, she never pursued it. She simply assumed I was another skeptic and stopped banging me over the head with her spiritualism. Now I felt guilty that I hadn’t listened or learned from the master.

  You’re the master, she said.

  You’re stronger than I ever was.

  The wind knocked the key out of Syndia’s hand and she squatted to pick it back up. “I keep copies of this key everywhere. This one was in your bag. You must’ve found it in the same place as that hole in the wall.”

  I couldn’t reply, but my eyes were completely open now, my gaze on the monstrous dinosaur of metal where I’d had that horrible vision of legs being snapped off like wishbones. She followed my gaze. “Oh, this machine? You’re right. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Fact, they don’t make them at all.”

  She pushed the key into a slot, pulled on a lever, and a deep motor turned on, its rumblings resonating over us. It was the kind of machine they made in old days, when levers cranked, other parts whirred, and engines were loud enough to blow your eardrums out. A thing so sturdy not even hurricane-force winds could move it across the yard. An old, dependable beast, functional even in this weather.

  “Usually, we clean you guys out first,” she yelled over the noise. “Grinding is messy. But I think I’d like pink coquina this time. When I see it in the wall, I’ll know it was you. You know, special.” She laughed and held onto the machine while a particularly strong gust of wind blew in from the inlet.

  Pink coquina. Did she mean…?

  Yeah, she did. She meant that my blood and flesh would mix in with the bones and shells and create a unique blend of concrete. That would look pretty, but I had bad news for Syndia—she wouldn’t be getting her faux pink coquina today.

  Mayai’s voice echoed through my soul—fight.

  She’d be getting stubborn-ass Ellie.

  “Alright, let’s get this going,” she said, reaching for a bag of sand. Or were they shells? Yes, crushed shells.

  When the wind died down again, I kicked up suddenly, wedging my foot deep into her crotch. She cried out in pain, hands gripping my foot, but I managed to wrestle it free and kicked her again. This time in the chin, knocking her backwards. Her shoulder hit against the beastly machine, but the wind was making accuracy difficult, and I didn’t get the result I’d hoped for. I tried sitting up, blinding white pain radiating throughout my back.

  For the life of me, I couldn’t take in a full breath of air. Syndia came at me then to try and finished what she’d started, but I held her at arms’ length.

  Life slowly seeped from my soul.

  Her body pressed down on my trembling arms so hard, I thought my elbows would snap. “Why…won’t…you…die?” she screamed.

  My lower body, at this point, was stronger than my top, so I hoisted both my feet under her and leg-pressed her skinny ass off of me. Her body went flying and again, she smashed into the machine, but this time I got up and grabbed a hold of her neck. Pushing her head down toward the whirring blades, I made her sweat. Behind her, she kicked out like a five-year-old learning to swim.

  “Stop…” she demanded. “Please.”

  Yeah, that was sweet, watching those beads of sweat pool up on her hairline like that. But the bad thing about having both my hands on her neck was that the rest of her body was free, and in one of her wild swings, she grabbed a hold of my loose hair and yanked on it.

  “Ah!” I cried out, as she pulled harder until my long hair was feeding into the blades. I smelled the motor, the burnt parts that hadn’t been turned on in a while, the gasoline, and her sweaty armpits covered in dark stubble, as she held me firmly against her hip and pushed me into the machine. “Fuck you. I won’t…” I pushed backwards against her. “Die…like this!”

  Syndia was strong, but she was over fifty, and the nice thing about being twenty-six years old was that it didn’t matter how often you worked out, your body was still newer and ready to work harder than it had all these years. I didn’t know where the energy came from, but a boost of adrenaline shot through me, and I managed to push that skinny bag of bones back about five feet.

  Grunting, I grabbed the boning knife on the floor and ran with it. No clue where I was headed but right now, I just needed to get away from her. I got about halfway across the property when Syndia appeared out of the outer hallway through a tangle of trees.

  “Don’t go near that fountain,” she said, pointing her hammer at me. “Don’t you dare.”

  I faced her, legs apart, blade in hand, ready for whatever came next. Gesturing to the fountain behind me, I shrugged. “What fountain? This fountain? Why not, Syndia?”

  She fumed, blood covering her teeth.

  “Because the treasure’s buried there? Of course the treasure’s buried there. You know why?” I challenged her. “Because your murderer grandfather didn’t care for anyone else to have it. Because my grandmother made sure of that through her curse.”

  “Shut up, Whitaker.”

  “That’s the thing about murderers, they’re only in it for themselves. I mean, who does that? Who hides the family money from the rest of the family? Oh, wait, your grandfather did. See? No love between him and your grandma. No trust either.”

  She stepped over a fallen bush to reach me, but I backed into the garden and stood in front of the fountain. “Shut up. Shut up right now,” she growled.

  “Whereas my grandfather made things way too easy to find. He loved his wife so much, he left her a goddamn mosaic mural as big as a fucking room proclaiming where she could find the gold in the event of his death. See, their gold.”

  “Leanne was a village whore and everybody knew it,” she spat. “Don’t try to kid yourself. She didn’t love your grandfather—she loved everybody.” She laughed, but I knew that wasn’t true.

  “That’s the lie they told themselves to make it okay. To absolve themselves for their sins. Murdering the neighbor, covering the evidence up with that shed over there and with homemade cement, accepting cash once the mob found out about the family business.” I stood behind the fountain and held onto it.

  The winds picked up again. There was no end to this nightmare.

  Behind me, the canopy of the massive banyan tree swayed. Palm trees were perfect for storms with their wispy tops and thin bodies, but banyans? I worried about its roots so close to the surface, about its top-heavy crown. It was a sail-laden galleon catching too much wind, waiting to be tipped over.

  Another gust bore down on the island, as I held fast to the fountain while Syndia held onto a lamp post. There was no point in speaking now. She wouldn’t hear me anyway. The wind screamed all around, and I closed my eyes. This was a good time to feel its power, the raw energy of Mother Nature herself. It fed me, healed me, and became one with me.

  I accepted what I’d always known to be true—all my life, pills had been used to suppress me. That might’ve been my mother’s fault but she hadn’t known better. It wasn’t meant to be then. Now was different. Now I had control. I knew I couldn’t kill th
is woman the same way she was looking to kill me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t turn it around.

  Send her own energy back her way.

  “I’ll tell you why everybody hated Nana,” I whispered, envisioning beautiful young Leanne in my mind. “Because she was the real deal. Didn’t give a fuck. Didn’t care if she was different. Didn’t care if the whole town saw her as weird. If being independent and in actual love with your husband, if loving sex was a sin, unlike half those bitches back then, meant she was a witch, then yeah—guilty. They got rid of her because they envied her.”

  The tree behind me began to groan.

  I listened to its lament and told it the same thing Nana had told me—you can let go now. It’s time to die. But don’t let it happen in vain. Exchange death for truth and life will go on. I’d never talked to a tree before, but this wasn’t any ordinary tree. This tree knew things. It had watched me from the moment I’d arrived. For seventy years, it had flourished on the life force of the souls who lay here. This tree had seen it all and kept quiet when it had desperately wanted to speak.

  This tree would speak now.

  One last gust of wind rocked the island, and the whole banyan lunged, groaning as it slowly toppled. Massive tangles of vines and twisted, ropy roots ripped out of the ground, lifting into the air like the stern end of a sinking ship, and I watched the stone wall made of bone mortar, Grandpa’s moon sculpture, concrete foundation, the fountain and everything that had been built over its massive network of roots rise into the air with it.

  I threw myself at the ground to keep from being in its way and crawled to the side, collapsing against a palm tree. Syndia’s gaze was fixated, horrified on the destruction of her beloved homestead.

  For a moment, the roots and its stone ornaments all hung suspended against the deepening evening sky like a fucked-up Christmas tree. Then, growing heavier under its own weight, the stone particles collapsed, breaking apart and tumbling to the ground in massive, rocky chunks. Broken dreams. Broken souls. The fallen tree’s giant roots exposed dark fertile soil, and something else—bags.

  Canvas bags.

  Dozens of them. Many had split open, their sparkling contents raining down into the yawning pit of earth. Gold. Spanish gold. The stolen, bloody gold of Bill Drudge, the best boat captain who ever lived.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I’d said it several times.

  I could still hear my voice inside my head—I didn’t come for the treasure. I came for the truth. And that still held true. But there was no way I could let this woman take what my grandfather had worked so hard to achieve, his life’s goal and dream, his gift to his family.

  Not again.

  I looked at Syndia’s face and could see that she felt the same, that she hadn’t worked so hard taking care of this rundown place only to let some newcomer take what was hers. But I wasn’t a newcomer. Inside my soul inhabited every single one of my spirit guides—Mayai, my grandfather, Nana, even my mother lived a little bit inside of me—just like I would live a little bit inside my future children.

  I’d hoped that Syndia would rush the gold, start picking up the pieces like candy on the ground after bashing a piñata. That way, I could use her distraction as a moment to my advantage. But instead she let out a scream to rival the freight train winds of Mara and came running at me. It was me or her for the gold, and only one of us would get it.

  The survivor of the fight, I knew.

  I ran with the boning knife, jumping over knocked down trees, heading for the edge of the property. The coquina seawall was there, disappearing into the mangroves. On the dock below, a neighbor’s fishing boat had been displaced by the storm and lied sideways capsized against the shore. Next to it were two more boats knocked over like dominoes.

  I jumped down onto the dock and sloshed through high water covering it to reach the boat. If I could push off just enough, I’d wade out into the inlet and Syndia wouldn’t be able to reach me. Of course, it would be the old man and the sea at that point, but I would take my chances.

  The hurricane winds had died down anyway having knocked down the banyan tree as its finale, and now only the rain remained. I could deal with rain. Rain wouldn’t suck me into the sky.

  I tried pushing the boat out, but it was heavier than I could’ve ever imagined. I jumped in anyway, hoping to find a gun or something I could use to stop Syndia, but she had already climbed in after me, limping as she dragged her dirty feet through the slick white fiberglass of the vessel.

  “Go get your treasure,” I called, sidestepping the cabin. “It’s waiting for you.”

  “I will,” she replied. “As soon as I don’t have to worry about you anymore.”

  “That’ll never happen. As long as you and I are both on this earth, you’ll have to worry about me.” Behind her, on the inside wall where I’d stepped aboard, was a fishing spear.

  “That’s why I’m going to fix that right now.” She lunged at me over front glass of the wheelhouse and dug her claws into my upper arm.

  With my blade, I jabbed against her hand, leaving her deep cut marks and a lot of pain, but she yanked back her hand, digging her nails into my skin as she pulled. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. I didn’t want her thinking she had the upper hand in any way, shape, or form. Never in my life had I ever been in a physical fight, and now I’d been in a few all in one day.

  She lunged at me again and knocked me off my feet onto my back. While she climbed on top of me and tried to smash my head in with her hammer, I held her wrists up in the air, keeping her hands at bay. Dropping her hammer on purpose, she let it fall, and I tried so hard to move in time, but it bashed my face.

  I heard a distinctive crack. My field of vision turned deep purple with scattered yellow stars. I’d never felt pain like this in my life.

  “I’m sorry.” Her tone was sugary fake. “Did I break your nose?”

  Once I’d regained my ability to see, I pushed her torso up high enough to let go of one hand and throw a punch into the middle of her face with the other. All in the same day, she’d tried lighting me on fire, stabbed me in the back, and pushed my head into a cutting/grinding machine.

  My fist connected with her cheek.

  Her hands flew to her face, and in that second, I rolled out from under her, running to the stern of the boat. My hands grasped the fishing spear, and while I tugged at it, trying to remove it from its bracket, Syndia yanked me down by my shirt. Between the unsteady rocking of the boat, the abating winds, and the rolling of the ocean waves, my feet slipped.

  I rolled onto my stomach and reached for a loose life preserver floating around a foot of salt water. As I reached for it, she tugged at my kicking legs, and I swiveled to slap her along the side of her head with the preserver. It wasn’t strong enough to do any damage, but it gave me a moment to run to the bow while she figured out what the hell hit her.

  When she’d shaken it off and walked toward me again, I was ready. I stood, feet apart, blade in one hand. “Come at me, bitch.”

  Pausing in front of me, she said, “I’ve de-fleshed men twice your size, Whitaker. I’ve ground them up and laid bricks with their bones. You think you’re going to do much with that thing? A lifetime, Whitaker. A lifetime of using that same blade in your hand.”

  “That’s sick as fuck.”

  “You call it sick. I call it efficient. Those men were dead anyway. We just repurposed their bodies. It’s no different than what we do with animals.”

  “Except it’s murder and nothing to do with animals.”

  “Tomato, to-mah-to.” She shrugged.

  “Do me a favor and get rid of yourself, Syndia. The moment investigators see what you’ve done here, you’ll be dead anyway.”

  “You first, sweetie pie. In fact, that blade works best if you cut your neck here…” She showed me the slanted angle at the base of the neck on the left side. “Blood drains right out. Less work for me. I’d appreciate it.”

&nbs
p; I stared at her, waiting for her next move. Slowly backing up. Slowly making my way to the spear again.

  “You had the chance to leave. Your mommy told you to come home, but you Drudge women, you don’t listen. We always have to take matters into our own hands.”

  “Fuck you.”

  She was quick when she lunged at me, catching me by the edge of my shirt again and pulling me toward her. Though I gripped at the fiberglass, it was slippery and she was able to heave a blow of her hammer. I ducked out of the way, just as the hammerhead smashed a window in the wheelhouse.

  We wrestled, each trying to dislodge the tools from each other’s hands, slipping and sliding all the way to the stern again, pushing and pulling, when she swiped her foot under me and knocked me onto my back. Damn it, I couldn’t get a break, and worse, she’d swiped the boning knife from my hand and now straddled me, one knee on either side.

  “You did it wrong,” she said, pressing the point of the blade to my jugular. “It’s here. Right here…”

  This was it.

  I’d done my best, but my best hadn’t been good enough.

  The spear went rolling against the inside wall of the boat and I imagined my mother at home, worried about me here in the epicenter of Hell. I imagined the little Big Wheel she’d given me when I was a kid, how I played with that thing for months, years. I remembered Nana when she could still walk, still cook and come over to make dinners for me while my mother finished up at her second job.

  These women had worked their asses off for me, and all I could do in return was fail.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry…

  A bead of sweat dropped from Syndia’s forehead into my eye, burning my vision, and at that moment, something swift and instant froze my enemy’s body right where she was. Her eyes widened, her body trembled, and thick blood poured from her mouth, dripping off her chin and into my mouth.