He leaned against the stone fence around the schoolyard, watching the enthusiastic game of cricket underway. He’d played many a game there himself, a decade or two ago. Always with Enyon at his side. Always with Casek on the opposing team. Always keenly aware of the fact that Morgan wasn’t there at the local school with him but was home with a tutor. His mother, ever conscious of the “tarnish” she’d brought to the Tremayne name, had wanted to keep Oliver at home for his schooling too, saying the island’s state-run school would do him no favors.
How glad he was that his father had prevailed. He’d claimed it far more important that Oliver have a place among his neighbors—and he’d been right.
“I said stop it.” The voice cut through the ongoing game from somewhere nearby, though Oliver couldn’t see the owner. It sounded like one of the Grimsby boys, though he couldn’t be sure which one without seeing them. There were three, only a year between each, and when they ran in a line, one had the strangest feeling one was seeing the same person progressing through time.
“Aw, come on, Joseph. You’re not scared, are you?” That answered the question of who the first speaker had been—Joseph was the middle step of the Grimsby stairs. And the mocking voice was his best friend, Perry Hill, if Oliver wasn’t mistaken.
“Lay off him, Perry. No one wants to go down there. Not now. Not after Johnnie.”
Not after Johnnie. He’d heard that phrase more times in the last weeks than he’d bothered to count, and each time it made something tighten in his chest. But where was “down there”? The caves? Piper’s Hole in particular?
He took a few more steps along the wall until he could glimpse the tops of a few dark heads hunkered between the Cornish hedge and the stone wall, in what children had been using as a “secret” lair for decades. “Afternoon, lads.”
Though they jumped at his voice, when they looked up, the three smiled at him. Two Grimsbys—only the youngest was missing—and the Hill. “Afternoon, Mr. Tremayne,” the eldest Grimsby said. Nick.
He’d tossed enough balls for all of them that he didn’t think they’d really mind his inviting himself into their conversation now. “How have you all been? After Johnnie, I mean.” He met one gaze after another, and in each he saw the same emotions, though in unique combinations: pain, anger, uncertainty.
Perry clenched his fist. “I say it wasn’t just a slippery rock, sir. No one was more sure-footed than Johnnie.”
Johnnie was Perry’s older cousin, and the lad had idolized him. Oliver tilted his head and held young Perry’s gaze. “What else could it have been?”
At the direct question, the lad sighed and shrugged. “His head was busted. It could have been someone sneaking up on him, not just him falling and hitting a rock.”
“Who would do that?” Joseph Grimbsy shook his head. “Everyone loved Johnnie. Everyone. Forget it, Perry. Please.”
“Everyone from here loved him, but it could have been someone not from here.”
Nick snorted, dismissive in that way lads always were when they had an extra year and so thought it came with extra wisdom. “Right. A pirate, like old man Gibson was telling us about. Or a smuggler. Because that’s really likely.”
Tas-gwyn again. Oliver didn’t know whether to sigh or laugh. “Has my grandfather been telling tales to you lads too?”
Perry shrugged. “I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to go down to the caves.”
“No.” Joseph punctuated the word with a fold of his arms over his chest. “I’m never stepping foot in those caves again.”
“Me neither.” And his older brother didn’t seem the least bit ashamed of his decision. “No one is, as we’ve been telling you all month. If you want to go, you’ll have to go alone. No one else has since they brought Johnnie out, and no one will.”
“No one has? Or none of you?” Oliver feared for a moment that he’d sounded far too interested and would scare them back to the cricket game.
But these lads were closer to being men than that. Nick shook his head. “No one. Johnnie’s mam said it must be cursed, and no one’s dared go down there since. Especially after Enyon said he heard strange goings-on last week.”
“Whole island’s a bunch of cowards.” Perry jammed the stick he’d been fiddling with into the dirt. “So what if it is his ghost down there? He’d only be haunting the place if he’d been murdered or something. Right, vicar?”
Was that what others thought too? All these ghost stories Tas-gwyn was telling—were they mixing up in the minds of his neighbors with the recent tragedy?
Oliver shook his head. Kept his face and his gaze soft. “No, Perry. I knew Johnnie. He was a good, God-fearing young man. However he died, he’s not haunting the caves—he’s at peace with the Lord.”
Joseph’s foot flashed out, connected with Perry’s shin, and retreated again. “I told you.”
Perry lunged, and a moment later the leaves of the Cornish hedge were shaking as the boys tumbled in a blur back into the yard, Nick somehow joining the melee too. Oliver sighed and considered vaulting over the stone wall to intervene.
Though before he had the chance, Casek Wearne came charging outside. “Grimsby! Grimsby! Hill! On your feet now!”
The tussle continued for half a second more, until the approaching footfalls of the headmaster must have convinced them that he meant business. Then they scrambled to their feet.
Casek stalked along the line of them but did nothing more than give them a scathing look.
Oliver realized a moment too late that the headmaster had set his path toward him. He ought to have walked away the moment the lads tumbled out of the bush, but his hesitation now meant that Casek Wearne was a foot away, sneering at him over the wall. “Stop harassing my students, Tremayne.”
How could the man make him bristle so fully with five little words? His fingers curled into his palm. “Harassing them? Really?”
“This is school property.” Though Wearne drilled a finger into Oliver’s shoulder, which put said finger outside school property. “You’re not welcome here.”
Oliver backed up a step to keep himself from poking back. “Isn’t it tiring, being such a blighter all the time?”
Casek looked as though he would vault the wall at any moment. But awareness of his audience prevailed. He too stepped back. Though he lifted his finger again, pointing it instead of poking. “Be ready to lose tomorrow, Tremayne.”
And this was the example he was setting for his students? Oliver lifted his chin. “Good luck to you too.”
“I don’t need luck. Not as long as your teammates are so scared of a few ghost stories that they don’t sleep anymore.” He pivoted then and shouted something at the children—a warning of only ten minutes left of recess.
Oliver scarcely heard those words, so fully had his mind caught on the ones he’d spat before. Would Casek Wearne stoop so low as to play tricks on Enyon?
Undoubtedly.
But would he really leverage the tragedy of one of his former students’ deaths to do it?
Oliver spun away from the wall, not sure even he could believe that. Casek Wearne was a blighter, without question, but he genuinely cared about his students. This stupid rivalry wasn’t stronger than that, was it?