On the northeast coast of the State of Maine lies Machias. Home to lobstermen, fishermen, lumberjacks, and blueberry farmers, the town—in 1918—is host to the usual summer tourists, two with an unusual quest.

Gladys Bernice “Bernie” Jennings teaches at Cony High School in Augusta. Born of oppressive Boston Brahmin parents, she flees to Maine to teach. On vacation with a co-worker, she arrives in Machias, where she falls in love with Cross Island.

Vernon Townsley is the son of a Kansas abolitionist who goes to Baltimore, intent on becoming a doctor at Johns Hopkins University. Unable to do so, he works on the waterfront. Penniless when his bank fails, he joins the Army at the start of World War I. Wounded in France, he recuperates at the Army hospital at Togus, Maine.

The two meet when Bernie, accompanied by teacher friends, visits the wounded soldiers. The sparks fly, and the two quickly become interested in each other. An argument separates them, and they are both miserable. At the end of the school year, Bernie leaves, and Vernon, now discharged from the hospital and the Army, doesn't know where to find her.

They come together again on Cross Island, in Machias Bay, where they occupy a lighthouse that everybody says was never there, and deal with One-eyed Bennie, who seems able to foretell their future. Tragedy looms; Benny has long forseen it and warns Bernie. What is it about that poem?

Come with us as Vernon and Bernie meet, marry, have a family, and live happily. Until tragedy strikes. That's the inside story.

The outside story takes place thirty years later. The adult children of Vernon and Bernie Townsley appear at a wharf in Machiasport and approach lobsterman Frank Trask, seeking to go to Cross Island.

Alan Townsley and Marjorie French have returned in search of their parents’ homestead and bear an important treasure they wish to leave. Frank is headed into the bay to set his traps, and the siblings have interrupted preparations for what he considers a worthless request.

According to Frank, the home they describe never existed on the island, now occupied by camps and fisheries. They insist on going to the island, and have the one inducement he desperately needs—money. They will spend it with somebody; it might as well be with him.

Then there is One-eyed Benny. During the week the siblings are on the island, he and Frank begin to investigate. And what about that pesky poem?

The light at Cross Island is something to see;

The place where the love of your life just may be.

The love of the ages may rest with the land.

Amid the birch trees, the invisible hand

Of time that heals ire and joy that heals pain;

And love in the fire that ends with the rain.

Awash with their passion; Beset by their grief;
                In the love of each other, they find sweet relief.

RETURN TO CROSS ISLAND

Historical Fiction by Ken Lord

323 pages, $19.95

Available at: http://lulu.com/content/207111