The dead are gone. Everyone knows that. We’re raised on this knowledge from the first time our pet goldfish goes belly up before going on that final swim down the plumbing. We’re taught that the dead are gone, and that you can no longer talk to them, at least not talk to them and get an answer back. 

Everyone knows that, except the rules changed about a year ago, following the discovery of an island. When my brother-in-law called me and asked to meet for lunch, I suspected that that was what he wanted to talk about. He and I had never been very close, and we’d had no reason to continue trying for a friendship following my sister’s funeral a few years ago. Shortly after we were served coffee by the diner’s waitress, he slid a catalog across the sticky tabletop. 

I read the text at the top of the catalog, “Charon’s Cruise Line. Is that what I think it is?” 

My brother-in-law, Steve, scratched at the stubble on his chin, while his watery eyes darted around the room. I didn’t think that his eyes were wet with emotion, as they were usually like that. But who am I to think that; the man had lost his wife. My sister, Lynn, had been just 25 years old when she fell down the stairs in a tragic accident. Steve had found her an hour later. She was still warm, and yet she was gone. He finally met my eyes and nodded. Steve said, “I need to see her.” 

I flipped the catalog open and looked at the pictures of sandy beaches and smiling people. I said, “The first time I heard about this place, I thought it was a hoax. An island in the middle of the ocean, no one had ever mapped it before, and people can see the dead there? Then of course someone buys it and starts a cruise line, charging a fortune to those who want to visit. But it’s been years, and every expert who goes there to debunk it just comes back sobbing with a story about how their dead relative or friend or even dog greeted them on the shore… After all this time, even the skeptic in me doesn’t know what to say about it, other than that the current owner is a jerk for profiting off grief.” 

Steve squirmed in the seat, making the leather creak. He said, “Yeah, that’s why I asked to see you. You’re the only person I know with the money to fund this. Matt… I really need to see her. Please, if you have the cash… I’ll be able to pay you back after, I just need to talk to her first.” 

My eyebrow raised slightly when he said he’d pay me back after talking to my sister, which was oddly specific. But I really didn’t have any objection. I could afford it. Steve hadn’t been wrong that I was the one in the family with money to spare, thanks to my successful IT job. 

Apparently taking my silence as I thought as a bad sign, Steve leaned further across the table and begged in a whisper, “Please. Just, please.” 

I nodded. “I’ll buy you a ticket. Just name the date.” 

As I stood on the dock, watching the water lap against the side of the ship, I tried to shake whatever feeling was knotting my guts. This was no different than any other cruise I had boarded in the past, I told myself, like the one-hour cruise in Baltimore Harbor, which motored past historic sites with commentary about events that had taken place there. I reassured myself that today would be no different – my sister was in the past, and this would simply be another day of peeking behind the curtain to glimpse history… yet today it would be the history a person who’d been close to me. 

I shivered and ducked my chin below the collar of my coat, though I knew that it wasn’t the salty breeze of the sea bothering me. This wasn’t natural. When someone dies, they’re supposed to be gone. Not that that’d stopped humans from attempting contact with the dead, like when Houdini’s wife tried to reach him with a séance for 10 years. But if this island was as genuine as reported, then we were in store for more than knocking on the underside of a table with a crystal ball on it. 

“Matthew… Matt? Is that you?” 

I turned and saw my brother-in-law walking down the dock towards me. His eyes were especially watery in the bright light glinting off the sea. I waved in greeting, as I prepared to board the ship with him. “Hey, man. Good to see you.” 

“Oh, um. Good to see you too,” Steve said, as he extracted the ticket from his pocket that I’d mailed him and handed it to the woman at the ticket booth. He said to me, “I didn’t realize you’d be coming.” 

I shrugged. “I didn’t know I was coming either. This is an impulse thing.” 

Steve took his ticket stub from the lady, but he didn’t move to board the ship. His gaze flicked to me a couple times yet was having trouble settling on my face. He said, “If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to. I know this isn’t your thing. And if it’s just an impulse, you have no reason to be here.” 

“I know I don’t, but she’s my sister.” I shrugged. Sensing his discomfort, I assured him, “I know you’re going there to say personal things to her. I’m not going to cut in on your time with her, I’ll give you guys privacy to speak alone.” 

“And you’re going to speak to her alone as well?” he asked. 

I shrugged again and said, “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m not looking forward to any of this, so I’ll just see what happens.” 

While the woman at the ticket booth stared at us, Steve hesitated on the threshold to board the ship. I could tell there was something he desperately wanted to say. Finally, he sighed and stepped on the ramp without another word, shoulders so stiff I was sure his neck would ache tomorrow. 

The ticket booth lady smiled woodenly and said, “Enjoy your trip, sirs.” 

As I followed Steve onto the ship, I didn’t think that was likely. 

They were waiting with flowers. As Charon’s Cruise Ship neared the pier, I could see a line of women standing on the dock holding flower lei, waiting to encircle our necks with them. All I could think about was irony that we were about to be reunited with loved ones we’d once said goodbye to with flowers, while wearing lei. The irony wasn’t helping me with my feeling that this was all wrong. 

As Steve and I queued to disembark the cruise ship, I patted my pocket until I heard a reassuring jingle. The cruise line had said that the captain of the ship requested a special tip. I caught a glimpse of the captain smiling and nodding at the guests stepping off the ship – at least, I assumed he was the captain. He was wearing a bright white uniform and cap, decorated with black and gold embellishments. His hair was almost as white as his uniform, complete with beard, and his skin was a deep olive. The creases around his eyes were likely from a lifetime of squinting into the sun. 

There was a wooden box with a slot beside the ramp off the boat. As the ship’s captain smiled and nodded at me, I reached into my pocket for two silver dollars and dropped them into the slot, saying, “Thank you, Captain. It was smooth sailing.” 

“Enjoy your trip to the island, sir,” the captain said with a slight bow. There was a hint of accent in his voice, perhaps Mediterranean. 

“Oh shit…” 

I had just put one foot on the ramp to disembark when I turned to see Steve patting his pockets and grumbling under his breath. I asked, “Forget something?” 

“Nah, I’ve got it,” Steve said to me. But he continued to pat his pockets mumbling, “Shit, shit, shit…” Finally, he emerged with his wallet from his pocket and extracted two dollar bills. He folded the bills small enough to shove them in the slot that accepted coins and said, “There! I said I had it.” 

I glanced at the captain, who was staring at the tip box with his lips in a downward curve. The instructions my brother-in-law apparently hadn’t bothered to read had specified silver dollars, and I thought the captain might be a collector who preferred coins to cash. But the captain didn’t comment as Steve pushed past him to hurry down the ramp, so I followed him. We were here for a reason after all… as much as I wasn’t looking forward to this. 

“Welcome, sir! Welcome,” the women on the dock greeted us, as they placed the flower lei around our necks. I cringed under the gesture, not appreciating how this twisted event was being presented as a vacation, but Steve hardly seemed to notice. He was craning his neck and even standing on his toes, trying to get a glimpse as far ahead of the crowd as possible. I could tell how badly he wanted to see her. 

Since I was feeling the opposite, dreading the sight of my sister and picturing her still propped up in a casket with a mortician’s touch putting extra blush on her pallid cheeks, of course I was the one who spotted her on the beach. It was shocking to see her in an action so reminiscent of our childhood summers – my sister was kneeling by the tide, wearing a navy-blue one-piece bathing suit with a knitted wrap tied around her waist, and she was sculpting a small sandcastle with a plastic bucket. The breeze was battering her dark brown hair around her head, which was perhaps why Steve hadn’t noticed her yet, but I would have recognized that castle anywhere – as her younger brother, I would usually have been the one to scour the beach for the perfect seashell to perch atop the turret, as the castle’s flag. 

So, that’s just what I did. I searched the beach as I walked, and by the time I arrived at her side I’d found something to plant on her castle. She looked up from it with a bright smile and said, “Ah, so it’s Castle Puka then. Thank you, Matty.” 

There was a lump in my throat, that I’d known would be there when I tried to talk to my late sister. Part of me was hoping that this was a hoax, so I wouldn’t have to come up with something meaningful to say. But the sandcastle sold it for me. This was really Lynn. And I hoped the sentiment of the seashell could say the words I couldn’t find, as I nodded to accept her thanks.  

Lynn looked past me, and the smile froze on her face. She lowered her gaze to the ground and pushed herself to stand as she brushed the sand off her knees. My sister said, “Hello, Steve. It’s good to see you both. There’s a lot I want to say to you, but I understand we don’t have much time?” 

I nodded. “The package I purchased gives us about thirty minutes. And we spent some of that looking for you. When the ship blows its horn, we have to head back.”

She swallowed heavily and hadn’t looked up since Steve walked over. “I guess we better talk fast then.” 

“In private!” Steve said forcefully. He shifted awkwardly on the sand as we both stared at him in silence for a moment. “I mean, surely there’s a place that we can talk in private. I’m your husband. There are things I want to say to you, and just you.” 

Lynn looked around and then nodded at a shack a short pace away on the beach. It was small and likely used by people to change into swimsuits. She said, “We can talk in there.” 

Although I still hadn’t thought of what to say, I felt my chance slipping away as she walked past me. So, I reached out a hand to give her shoulder a squeeze before releasing it, hoping to communicate everything I couldn’t form into spoken words. Like the reason why I wanted to come here, which I hadn’t been able to articulate to Steve… I had to be here for Lynn. To let her know I missed her. I loved her. I always would. 

As she walked towards the shack with Steve, she looked over her shoulder at me with a smile and a small touch to the shoulder I’d squeezed. She knew. 

Steve held the shack’s door for her and then closed it behind them. And then I waited. It was difficult for me to be still and comfortable in my own skin without my hands busy with something. So, I found something to do. Dismissive of my clean khakis, I knelt on the beach to add another tower to my sister’s sandcastle, as I listened to the hush of the surf on the beach. I lost myself in the task for a long moment, adding fine details to the castle like windows and crenelated battlements. 

I had come here today to find the ghost of my sister, but instead I found the ghost of my childhood self as I sat on the beach for the longest time. It wasn’t until the surf rose high enough on the beach to kiss the castle and mist me with salty spray that I remembered where I was and what I should be doing. For all I knew, the horn could have sounded on the cruise ship without me noticing. I shot to my feet in fear, but luckily saw Charon’s Cruise Ship still docked in the harbor. 

It felt like some significant time had passed without Steve and Lynn returning, so I turned to see the shack. The door was still closed. I wasn’t trying to invade their privacy, but something drew me closer to the shack. There weren’t any windows to peek through, but I pressed my ear near the door and listened. Someone was pacing the length of the room, back and forth, back and forth.  

“I don’t think you understand the situation here, Lynn,” Steve said, and he must be the one pacing as he sounded a bit breathy. “You’re going to tell me. You have to tell me.” 

“Do I?” my sister asked. “What would I get from telling you anything?” 

“Don’t test me, Lynn. You’re going to tell me where you moved the safe, or else.” 

My sister scoffed. “Or else what? What else could you possibly do to me?” 

“I said don’t test me. How do you like seeing me? Because if you don’t answer I’m going to keep coming back here, week after week, until you give me some answers. So,” Steve demanded, raising his voice. “Where is my safe?”

My fists clenched at my sides, knowing he was bluffing to intimidate my sister. I sure as heck wasn’t buying him another ticket. I had just raised my hand to touch the doorknob, but it was too late. 

“I moved the safe to the shed in the garden. Now, get out of my face,” she snapped. The door opened a moment later, and my sister’s eyes widened slightly seeing me on the other side, but her face had been carefully composed to hide any further emotions. She took my hand and said, “Walk with me, Matty?”

As her small hand closed around mine, I didn’t care if Steve realized I’d eavesdropped on them. I just wanted to spend a moment with my sister. I started, “Lynn, I…” 

I was cut off as the horn blared on the cruise ship in the distance. Lynn turned her head to look at it and said, “You have to go now, right?” 

All I could do was nod. 

There was no one I less wanted to be standing by, and yet I stood at the stern of the ship, overlooking the water. As the gears started to turn in my head, so did the propellers of the ship. My brother-in-law hadn’t come here out of sentimentality or love for my lost sister. He just wanted whatever was in that safe. And she’d hidden them because she didn’t trust him, perhaps even feared him. There was one final leap of logic, but my brain wasn’t prepared to go there yet. 

“Well, that was nice, wasn’t it?” Steve said, his voice thick with fake cheer. And he wasn’t fake because he was trying to hide grief after seeing his late wife. No, I was beginning to think the emotion sounded false because he had been faking it his entire life. 

I looked up, seeing the smile that creased his watery eyes, and I wanted to punch him. Yet I didn’t need to. 

“Hi, Steve.” My sister appeared behind him and whispered into his ear. 

Steve flinched away from the unexpected feeling of her breath on his neck, and as he’d been leaning on the low railing of the cruise ship, that knocked him off balance. There was nowhere to go but over and down. 

My brother-in-law had been standing close to me. Could I have reached out and grabbed him? I didn’t know. But did I want to? No, absolutely not. I turned away, not wanting to see whatever happened on the propellers below. My sister was smiling and practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. The captain of the ship was standing behind her, and I figured he had let her come aboard – Steve should have brought those silver dollars. 

I asked, “Lynn… did he kill you? Did he push you down the stairs?”

She nodded solemnly and touched my cheek. “Please don’t think there were any signs you missed. I didn’t hide them so well, just for you to feel guilt later.” 

“What will happen to him now that he’s dead?” I asked, hoping it was something he deserved. 

Lynn looked at the island, which we hadn’t pulled away from since the anchor was still down. She gave me a wolfish grin and said, “Don’t worry about that. He’d told me that he’d come back to the island every week to terrorize me, never considering the possibility of getting trapped there with me. And what I’d do to him if given the chance.” 

I kissed her on the top of the head and said, “Give him hell.” 

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