The Summer of Lost Wishes (4 page)

“Alright,” Rooks says when he walks into the
room. He hands me one of the hammers. “Do you want to take the
first swing or shall I show you how it’s done?”

I draw the hammer back and ready myself to
slam it into the wall, along with my frustration and anger and
sadness and fears. Rooks steps back to let me draw first blood. I
position myself in front of where Mr. Carter told us to begin and
bring the hammer down like a massive ax. The hammer slices into the
wall, leaving a gaping hole.

“No way,” Rooks says. “You didn’t just do
that on your first try. It takes a few hits.”

“Maybe I’m just good like that,” I say.

He shakes his head, takes a few steps back,
and puts his shoe through the wall, just below my battle wound.

“Maybe the wall is hollow,” he says. “That
would explain your luck. It looks like someone already did some
damage and tried to hide it.”

Rooks takes his hammer and pounds it around
the prior damage. I grab mine and help as best as I can. The wall
crumbles before us, little by little, like it’s opening a gateway
to another time. I wonder what happened in here. The Calloways
don’t seem like the types who would’ve had a cheap plaster job done
in their home. I imagine they would’ve had this house near
perfection for Seth and Hanna.

Rooks tears away at some pieces of wall while
I step closer for further inspection. That’s when I see the brick
on the floor.

“Wait. Stop,” I say, forcing the plastic
goggles up into my hair. They don’t glide nearly as easily as
sunglasses.

I drop to my knees and reach into the wall,
between the framework. I retrieve a giant white bundle.

“There’s a painted brick in the wall?” Rooks
asks, pulling his safety goggles off.

I clasp my hand around it, but it’s not heavy
like a brick or rock. It’s wrapped in a dusty newspaper.

“What is it?” Rooks asks, leaning over my
shoulder.

“You have no patience,” I tell him.

Carefully, I unwrap the newspaper, doing my
best not to tear it even though it’s worn. Rooks drops to the
floor, right next to me, and watches as I unravel the newspaper
from the stack of papers inside.

“I bet it’s old mail,” he says. “Or bills.
Someone probably hid them so they wouldn’t have to pay them.”

I shoot him a glare, and I feel like my mom
when I do it. I know that look she gets, the ‘what you’re saying is
total BS’ look. I’ve never seen myself actually make that face in
the mirror, but I’m certain that I’m a spitting image of her right
now.

“Why would someone put their bills in the
wall of the Calloway Cottage? Why break down the wall and
re-plaster it? You can’t avoid collection calls,” I say.

Rooks laughs and shrugs, like he’s out of
ideas and gave it his best shot. I shake my head at him and look
back at the paper.

“That can’t be,” I say, gently dusting off
the headline to make sure I’m reading this properly.

Five Teenagers Gone After Shark Island
Storm.
The date is May 17
^th
, 1965. And under the
headline, in big blue-inked letters are the handwritten words
I’m Sorry.

“What the hell?” Rooks asks, taking the words
straight from my thoughts.

Why would someone wrap a stack of papers in
the newspaper that broadcasted these deaths? Who would even have a
newspaper from 1965?

“This thing is fifty years old,” I say. I
lean over and lightly blow the dust away. I don’t want to damage it
any further.

“What are the papers? Junk mail?” he
asks.

Given the lack of envelopes, I doubt they’re
any form of mail, but I decide against arguing that point. I unfold
the top paper, but clicks echo down the hallway. I push the letters
behind the closest box and quickly stand to block the
newspaper.

“I’m impressed,” Mom says, looking into the
room. “Blake was right. That will definitely be a sufficient
closet.”

I nod. “Yeah, I think it’ll be just perfect,”
I say, instantly realizing that I sound like some after-school
special. That’s not suspicious at all.

“You’ll have plenty of room to hide those
god-awful deer heads,” Mom says before turning and disappearing
back downstairs.

I take a deep breath. “That was close,” I
tell Rooks. “Okay, can we just not tell them about the papers in
the wall? That top one looked handwritten, so I don’t think it’s
mail.”

He walks across the room and looks down the
hallway before walking back over to me.

“Okay. I won’t tell them, but as soon as you
read through it and see what it is, you have to tell me,” he says.
“We were both here, so we’re equally involved, okay?”

I’m not really sure what we’re involved in,
but I’m totally down for being involved with this guy in any way I
can be.

“Deal,” I tell him. “But why do you even
care? You’re a guy.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he
asks. He folds his arms over his chest and stares at me like I’ve
completely insulted him – which I’m pretty sure I have.

I don’t even know why I said it, really.
Finding old papers in the wall of an old house just doesn’t seem
like something a dude would care about. It’s all secretive and
mysterious and sounds like some chick movie.

“I just didn’t think you’d be interested,” I
say, trying to shrug it off. “I mean, it’s just old papers in the
wall of an old house. I figured you’d think it was lame or
something.”

Rooks shakes his head, but luckily, his
stance relaxes and he seems less angry. “That’s where you’re
wrong,” he says. “This is the freaking Calloway Cottage. I’ve been
visiting my dad every summer since I was a kid. I’ve sat right next
door and listened to stories about this tragedy my entire life. And
now I’m actually standing in this house and you’re digging secrets
out of the wall? Hell yeah, I’m interested.”

He’s right. This place is historic. My new
home is a local landmark, and it symbolizes a future that never
happened. This is a pretty big deal.

“Who do you think is sorry?” Rooks asks,
nodding to the newspaper still sprawled across the floor. “Do you
think someone knew something? Like what
really
happened that
night?”

The speculation in his voice is a little
creepy. But he has a point. Why
would
five local teenagers
get in a boat, take off in stormy weather, and head toward the one
place they knew for a fact wasn’t safe?

Mr. Carter calls up the stairs. Rooks and I
exchange glances, but he tells me he’ll cover. He races down the
hallway to meet his dad halfway. I hurry across the room and grab
my cell phone. I’m not sure if this newspaper can weather another
storm, so I snap pictures of the article – along with the
handwritten apology – and wrap the newspaper back around the stack
of folded papers. I search for the best place to hide the paper
brick, somewhere that my mom would never look – with Delilah. I
wedge the lump underneath her just as Rooks’ voice grows louder
down the hallway, signaling me that he’s almost here with his dad
in tow.

“Ahhh, this is perfect,” Mr. Carter says,
stepping into my room and examining the wall. “There’s plenty of
room. You’ll be able to hide dead bodies in this closet.”

He laughs at his own joke, and I force myself
to smile, but he has no idea how right he is. I feel like they’re
already hiding in there.

Spending the afternoon ripping down walls
suddenly becomes much less fun when there’s a package of secret
documents waiting for you. My soon-to-be bedroom is a disaster now,
and I refuse to sleep upstairs by myself, especially after our big
discovery today. Of course, I can’t explain that to my mom.

I force the air mattress into her office
downstairs, where I’ll be sleeping until my bedroom is done.
Thankfully she hasn’t bought office furniture yet, so the room is
empty, aside from the lingering scent of new paint. Mom settled on
a neutral tan-ish color called Sand Dollar. I’m not sure if she was
truly sold on the actual color or the beach name of said paint.

Once Mom settles into her bedroom, I sneak
back upstairs for the package. I grab my beach bag, wrap the paper
package in a towel, and stuff the evidence inside. Then I grab a
few small things like nail polish and extra toothpaste so it’ll
look like I came up here for a legit reason.

Mom should be asleep soon. As exhausted as I
am from today’s home improvement work out, I’m more anxious to see
what’s written on these papers. This is worse than Christmas
Eve.

My phone buzzes.
Dad is
asleep. I’m watching some stupid CGI documentary on Big Foot.
Please entertain me.

I stifle a giggle as I imagine Rooks lounging
on his couch in his living room focusing intently on the
computerized hairy giant running through the woods. I wonder what
he’s wearing – Rooks, not Big Foot. In my imagination, I see him
shirtless in flannel pajama pants, but then I remember he’s not a
Tennessee boy, and he’s probably in boxers with possibly a
T-shirt.

When he asked for my phone number today, my
heart jumped with all kinds of excitement, but now that he’s
actually in my phone’s inbox, I overthink every single word I text
because I don’t want to sound dumb.

I reply:
Waiting for Mom to
crash before I start rustling through these papers.

Rustling? I internally cringe at my word
choice and put my phone aside so I won’t have to see that I
actually just sent that.

There is one thing, though, that I can
research, and it won’t require any noise. I pull up the images of
the article and hope they’re legible. I wasn’t exactly checking
behind myself this afternoon to make sure the photos were clear. I
thumb through them, pleasantly surprised at how well they turned
out in my shaky hurry. I backtrack through the images and start at
the beginning.

Monday, May 17
^th
, 1965.
Five
Teenagers Gone After ‘Shark Island’ Storm.

A black and white photo sits below the
headline. A lighthouse stands at the end of a long stretch of rocks
while a few boats float nearby. Men stand on the banks, above the
rocks, with fishing equipment. I zoom in on the caption below:
Local fishermen and seafood restaurants have filed multiple
complaints in recent months regarding shark sightings near
Lighthouse Rock, nicknamed ‘Shark Island’ by Coral Sands
locals.

I wonder when they officially changed the
name to Shark Island. Maybe they never did. Maybe it’s been
Lighthouse Rock this entire time. As much as I hate the reason for
the change (official or not), Shark Island just has a much creepier
sound. Maybe if they’d named it that a long time ago, those kids
wouldn’t have gone out there that night. No one is scared of
Lighthouse Rock.

Mounting concern has been voiced as of late
regarding the shark sightings at Lighthouse Rock. A popular spot
among fishermen, many of whom sell their catches to local seafood
restaurants, Lighthouse Rock has been coined Shark Island. Though
after numerous complaints about the sharks coming in to feed, local
officials haven’t stepped in to take measures against the shark
frenzy. With a terrible turn of events, officials are finally
speaking out.

Lighthouse Rock has been shut down by local
authorities after a Saturday night boating accident resulted in the
loss of five local teens. Warren Lancaster, Raymond Hartley, Eileen
Baker, all eighteen, along with Hanna Calloway and Seth McIntosh,
both seventeen, were involved in the fatal accident.

The article goes on to tell about five
futures that wouldn’t pan out. Warren Lancaster’s family owned a
local seafood restaurant, and he was going to work with his uncle
after graduation on his uncle’s fishing boat. He was destined to
inherit the family business. Eileen Baker was set to go to beauty
school in Georgia, the first in her family to have a chance to go
to college.

Raymond Hartley’s story was similar to Seth’s
with a position lined up for him at the local factory just outside
of Coral Sands. The only difference was that Seth McIntosh had
wedding plans as well. Hanna Calloway was meant to be the perfect
picture of life for a woman in the 1960s – married, staying home
with the children, and letting her husband be the breadwinner. How
typical of that time.

I forward the photos to Rooks with a caption.
Who do you think they really were?

I’m not sure if he’ll even make sense of it,
but I wonder if they even wanted the lives that had been put in
place for them. Was working at the town factory and following in
your parents’ footsteps really the dream back then?

My phone buzzes.
I think
they were shark bait. LOL. Sorry. Bad joke. I’m
exhausted.

I tell him to get some sleep. I’ll catch him
up tomorrow. After plugging my phone into the charger, I retrieve
the paper brick. My hands tremble with nervous excitement. I unwrap
the newspaper, grab the top paper, and open it.

I probably shouldn’t be writing this.
Actually, I know I shouldn’t be, but I don’t know of any other way
to tell you what I need to say. Saturday night was amazing. It’s
crazy when I think about how I was on my way out of there when I
saw you. It felt like one of those ‘in the right place at the right
time’ kind of moments.

Maybe I’m just crazy, but I think it was
meant to happen. Like maybe it’s all part of some bigger plan? Luck
or fate or something of that sense? Things have always been the
same for me. I’ve never stepped out of my comfort zone until you
happened. I never thought that there could be so much more than
what I knew.

Now I just want to know it all. Everything.
All the things I probably shouldn’t know. I’ve been going over it
again and again in my head, ever since that night, and I
desperately need to see you again. If we could just talk, for only
a few minutes, maybe I could make sense of this. Maybe then I could
understand this world and my own place a little better.