Two Brothers

Most towns used promontory points for prime make-out locations, but we had an island a short distance away, easily accessible by dinghy and, with our proximity to the ocean, most kids grew up knowing how to captain one anyway. Personally, I've always thought that other towns were missing out. You can't get more secluded than an island with an old lookout tower that's more wooden reinforcements than the original stonework.

Sounds perfect, right?

Well, not exactly. See, our little town is older than most states in the country, which I’m sure you know. It’s a particular point of pride for us. It survived the Revolution and the War of 1812. In fact, until the Civil War, Islwood's location was pretty much prime hidden real estate, providing the best of both the north and the south and our island to boot, which by that point had already had the tower built and it may or may not have been in need of some repairs.

The town may be in the Slower Lower, but the island is the town's.

When the Civil War broke out, Islewood was immediately divided as many towns were in the border states. Families argued in the streets. Men went off to war on both sides though the ones who went against what the state had voted for usually lied and said they were from Virginia or Maryland. I don't know if other towns did that but that was the practice here. Shops stopped catering to "those people" though who those people are kinda depended on your perspective. I guess it's not that unique of a town history but at least no one shot anyone else over the war here.

This was when the island became significantly important instead of useful. It was the neutral ground for conflicts and disagreements. You had a problem with someone, you'd go out to the island after you were checked for weapons or anything that could be a weapon which included belts and shoes after the William DuBelle Beating of 1854 in the streets, and you'd hash it out. Sometimes that meant a full blown screaming match, sometimes a punching was in order but the island kept you there until you'd resolved your issues.

During the Civil War, people met in secret on the island to resolve what they couldn't or wouldn't do publicly.

Understanding was the name of the game, which makes it kind of easy to see how the island went from being a secret keeper to being a make-out locale. There's more than one type of understanding, if you catch my drift. You’re a teenager. Of course, you catch my drift.

Anyway, these two boys, James and David Geiger, went off to war in their respective blue and gray uniforms and both were injured. Both were sent home and the Geiger home became a battlefield of its own. So one night in 1863, they snuck out of the house and went to the island. We don't know what happened out there but neither came home that night or any other.

They were found dead on the island the next morning.

Their causes of death were both labeled suicide and the town eventually moved on, only talking about that night in whispers and solidifying against any outside hatred that might come in and break more families apart.

You might be wondering why I told you about make-out spots and then told a tragic story about brothers who died somehow.

The island is haunted. Ask anybody in Islewood that's been on the island if they believe in ghosts and your answer will be a resounding yes. Everybody has seen the boys in blue and gray. Best time to see them is at night in April, when they died, but they're there all year round. Seeing ghosts puts an end to any amorous activity for most people and the ones that don't seem to care are different when they return to the mainland, quieter, and they never go back to the island.

My encounter with the boys happened in August of 1967. The Vietnam War was raging and, as had been happening since the brothers died came home and died, our young men would be drafted and then immediately sent home because of undiscovered asthma in healthy farm boys that had never had a problem before or after their drafting, or sudden onset hysteria that cleared up once they were back in Islewood. The only time our young men would actually go to war was when they joined up willingly. But they always came home.

My boyfriend at the time, Ronald Kahler, who was going to be turning eighteen in a couple of weeks and had to go register for the draft, decided it was time that we have sex so decided to woo me just in case he didn't come home. He'd always had an inflated sense of himself.

He brought me out to the island during the day where we had a nice picnic atop the tower. I braided wildflowers into my hair.

I don't remember it so clearly now but I'd made the mini pantsuit I was wearing. Miniskirts were in fashion but I'd never been able to stand dresses or skirts.

Ronald was smart. He didn't try anything that day, instead he wanted me to think he cared. I loved him, which is the biggest error in judgement of my life.

Your grandfather is wonderful and is not anywhere near to being a mistake, even if he is from Maryland.

We were just finishing up the picnic when I looked over and saw a blond man watching us from the ladder leading up. His clothing was old and his hair was short, shorter than Ronald’s anyway. He didn’t move. He just...watched. That of course was when I realized that I could see through the man and then he vanished like mist in the sun.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

Ronald followed to where I was looking. “See what?”

“I- Nothing.” I shook my head.

He slid his hand up my shorts and kissed my cheek.

Nothing happened for the next couple of days until Ronald decided that it was time to ball. He was sweet to try to make my first time almost nice but that ship had sailed a couple of years earlier with Laymon Page so I knew exactly what he meant when he asked me to come to the island at sunset.

I wore a mini tent dress for this because jumpsuits were just too much of a hassle to get out of.

He helped me into the boat, his hand almost clammy in mine, and hopped in.

“I think you should let me help row,” I said with a smile I don’t think he could see. It was getting pretty dark.

“Can you get the lantern?”

I picked up the little red lantern and turned the knob. “And then there was light,” I said, smiling again.

It was all quiet except for the quiet swishing and splashing of the oars moving through the water.

“Is it just me or is the fog rolling in?” Ronald asked.

“I think so,” I said. “Just tune it out. There aren’t any rocks to worry about.”

“Other than the island?”

“Other than the island.”

The wood scraped against the rocks of the beach when we landed. The tower loomed stark overhead in the darkness. Foreboding skittered up my spine and I remembered what I thought I had seen.

But I wasn’t a chicken or a candyass so I didn’t say anything. It was just a tower.

Inside, lit only by the lantern, Ronald and I looked at each other, realizing at the same time that we could both see our breath, not unusual for October but not for August.

The hairs on the back of my neck raised.

Forget being a chicken; there was something wrong.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that we should probably bug out. Like, now.”

Ronald opened his mouth to protest but then he shivered. “Yeah, let’s jet.”

The door slammed shut when we got to it. Ronald pulled on the handle but the door didn’t even budge or rattle, like something was holding onto it from the outside.

“I don’t think this is the best time to mention it but I saw someone that disappeared during the picnic. That’s what I asked you about.”

“Was he in blue or gray?” Ronald asked.

“Gray. Wait. You don’t think he was one of the brothers, do you?”

“I haven’t seen them before but this is their tower.”

The wind began to whistle further up in the tower and fog began to drift down from an open window somewhere.

A deep moan rattled through the tower, too loud and bassy to be human, then came the sound of rock shifting against rock. A shower of dust fell on us.

“There’s a second story window,” Ronald said. “We can probably book it from up there.”

“Think we’ll break something?”

“Nah, we should be fine.”

“Cool. Your tone fills me with so much confidence.”

“Gimme a break, okay? Come on.”

The stairs to the second floor were still usable but after about the third time I slipped because the step moved on me, I was starting to seriously doubt my sanity.

The window that Ronald was talking about was one of the ones that had fog flooding through it and I did not want to go out into it but I couldn’t see another option.Until out of the fog formed a young man with blond hair, a blue Civil War uniform, and what looked like a very large bite taken out of his side, forever bleeding. Drops hit the stone floor and then vanished like they never were.

He shook his head and raised a blood-stained hand, pointing back at the door. The tower shuddered and groaned.

Ronald and I looked at each other and booked it, further up the tower. The stairway between the second and third floors was stable, though about three-quarters up, it started to feel like the stones were actively trying to buck us off on top of the increasing wind the further up we went. The one between the third and fourth was just a ladder.

That section of the stairway hadn’t been repaired or renovated yet. I’m not sure which is the right term but it didn’t matter at the time because I took one look at that wooden ladder, my hand braced against the wall and trying to convince myself that it wasn’t breathing, and had a sudden vision of both Ronald and I being shoved off the ladder and falling to our deaths.

“No!” I said. “We can’t!” My hair whipped into my face and in my mouth. I had to spit it out to be able to talk.

“Do you have a better idea?” Ronald shouted over the screaming of the wind.

“Go back downstairs! If the tower caves in, I think we want to be down lower!”

“The brother told us not to!”

“He’s dead! Why should we listen to him!?”

The one I had seen before formed out of the fog only this time I realized that his head was twisted in a definitely fatal sort of way. He made as if to grab the ladder and then both brothers were there.

There was some gesturing I couldn’t quite follow, not with the way they were both partially fading in and out of visibility. The blue one began to climb the ladder, his blood vanishing into smoke. The gray one, with obvious effort, held onto the side rail and pointed up.

“Should we?” Ronald asked.

The tower ground rocks against each other again, audible even over the wind, and that was the moment that I think I gave up on survival. So I started climbing because doing anything, no matter how futile, was better than sitting and waiting to die. Ronald followed me.

Just before I reached the top, the ladder jerked. My heart stopped and I clung to the ladder.

When I thought it settled, I clambered all the way up and out, feeling like I had a chance to breathe again.

The air pricked my bare skin with hypodermic needles and the fog filled my lungs. It was like I was in a cloud, a cloud that smelled like the sea, and then the fog began to move and I saw something that shimmered like some sort of a massive, silvery snake as it wound through the fog. I took a step back and the tower rocked beneath my feet. The brother in blue pointed again, gesturing wildly at the edge of the tower.

“The height will kill us!” I screamed at him. I didn’t know if he could hear us or if he could understand but he continued to point.

“We can’t go down! The stairs collapsed!” Ronald took a step towards the brother up there with us. He gripped onto my hand. “Together?”

I didn’t want to nod my head. I just wanted to make it back to the mainland. But I nodded anyway because that was the only way. We took a running leap off the top of the tower, into the fog.

For several long moments where I am not ashamed to admit we both screamed, we flew.

And then we landed on the shoreline, staggering and shivering, but alive and unbroken. We looked at each other. “We’re off the island,” Ronald said, still a little too loud but there was almost no breeze here. We turned back to the island, shocked to see it utterly normal and average, like it did every night. Our boat was near us, the water lapping serenely at the beach.

“No one will believe us,” I said, suddenly too warm.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he said. “I’d rather just forget whatever that was.”

We parted ways soon after that. He was drafted and then immediately sent home. I went to college, where I met your grandfather eventually. The first time he saw the tower, he asked about it. I just told him that it was a relic and no one went there.

But I did. When I found out I was pregnant with your mother, I went back to the tower and I climbed the stairs and the new ladders. I stood at the top and looked out over where Ronald and I had jumped. I turned and saw both brothers standing there with me, one in gray and one in blue but so alike in features that I wouldn’t have been able to tell which was which. They saluted me and then faded like mist in the summer sun.

I never told your grandfather or your mother. Your mother was too much like her father anyway, but she still returned like we all do.

You have the island in your blood, and one day, you may see the two brothers, one in blue and one in gray. If you do, I hope you come to me because I will believe you.