Janet Privett's The Power of Love

"People say our island’s haunted." Seven-year-old Travis Nightingale believed in magic as he stared at the moonlit lake surrounding the canoe.

"Let sleeping ghosts lie, son." Grandpa lifted his fishing pole to check the bait and was satisfied with a lively wiggle that sparkled in the faint light.

A silver path shimmered toward Moon Island where their Indian ancestors once lived. Rough grunts and deep rumbling bellows came from the reeds on the shore. Travis thought gators were cool, but there was some kind of spooky curse on the island. The boy’s recurring dreams were fueled by legends of a powerful shaman and the Starcrossed lovers who had walked Moon Island for a thousand years.

"They say ghosts got my Mama and Daddy on the island." Travis hesitated then asked quietly, "Why weren’t they ever found? You think they’ll come back?"

"I’d like to think so." Grandpa looked down and rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. "Sheriff said they went away. Doesn’t make sense with the boat there and you just a baby at the time. I warned them not to spend the night there."

"I don’t remember them. . . ." Travis shifted on the hard canoe seat and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Grandpa, I wish you’d kept our Indian name."

Time-weakened eyes focused on something out there the boy couldn’t see. "Your Grandmother’s family didn’t want her name to be Lila Night Eagle. That was a long time ago. . . . "

"But you own Moon Island," Travis said, pointing with his cane pole, "and your family’s been here a thousand years."

"More like three thousand. Our people came from two great nations."

"Where’d they all go?"

"Intermarried, moved away, or died of the white man’s diseases. No one has lived on the island for many years, but there was once a beautiful city there."

"Grandpa . . . tell me about our old name."

Weathered wrinkles curled into a smile. "Night Eagle, his talons reach through the sky to grab what he wants, yet the eagle takes only what he needs. There is honor in that. Your great-grandfather was the last shaman of our people. He used to say you had the look of eagles in your silver eyes. People of the legend had pale eyes like yours."