Blaze Island

by Catherine Bush

  Frank’s shame was a silent, high-pitched scream rising out of the top of his head. He, too, seemed to be trying to overcome rage and calm himself, drawing on the new, steady cord that stretched tight between them, which made Miranda feel supple and strong.

  And there was Caleb, silent for so long, his torn attention reaching Miranda alongside Roy’s belligerent flailing for control. Part of her reached out an invisible hand to Caleb through the mayhem, offering her own apology for all that was lost, for the fact that there would still be pain.

  “Frank crashed his car in the cove near where I live —” Miranda said.

  “Miranda, rescued me — She’s been showing me her life. Transforming me.”

  Roy turned to Frank, his mouth working, as if aiming for deprecating amusement and failing to hide utter perplexity.

  Caleb said, “I reckon you have a lot to say to each other, but I’m still waiting for a promise, isn’t that right? You need to make my deal. No more experiments. Because look what I’ve got.”

  When he held up the box of matches and shook them, a needle of disquiet sped down Miranda’s back. So that’s what Caleb had darted to grab, moments before, reaching across the counter in front of her. One of the boxes her father kept there to light the wood stove.

  “Can’t miss that smell of gasoline, can you,” said Caleb, and there was hardness in his face. “So I spread some all around this cabin. Then I encountered a small delay, but thankfully I was liberated. A lighter was removed from my person, but look what I found. Good thing is, fuel’s had a chance to soak into the wood. There’s a camping stove over there, behind Miranda, see, and if I turn the knob, we’ll have gas inside and outside. Almost everything’s flammable, I’d say. What I want, it’s very simple. No experiments, no spraying of any cloud haze, and then all of you, off my island.”

  All of them. Why was it a shock to hear Caleb include her with the others? She’d made a choice to turn away from all he’d offered. Her actions, too, had consequences. Yet, to Miranda, his rejection was a form of pain.

  “Caleb, give me the matches,” said Alan as if speaking to a child.

  “Now why would I do that?” Caleb gave an unchildlike laugh.

  Caught between counter and doorway, Miranda was the one closest to Caleb, cutting him off from the camping stove, but before she could make up her mind what to do, Caleb, with a glance at her and an eddy of wind, slipped out the door.

  All the unease in the room ratcheted upward, yet no one moved, as if everyone were listening to the sound of Caleb’s footsteps on the bridge, then the ensuing silence, the air thick with the possibility of what Caleb might do next, as if they were simply waiting for the smell of smoke to manifest and enact their doom. It was Frank who moved first, only once he was at the door, he did the most astonishing thing: he turned the lock.

  “Frank, what kind of game are you playing?” Frank’s father, now, seemed unable to laugh.

  “I’m not playing a game.” Some of his father’s mocking bravado had entered Frank. “I’m trying to enhance our focus, all the better to meditate on our predicament.”

  “Are you frightened, Roy?” Where did this voice come from and where had she found this audacity? Her voice, Miranda’s voice, daring to speak to Frank’s formidable father this way, even as she poured trust into Frank, whose motives she had to believe in, and into Caleb, who would not hurt them, he would not.

  As if breaking from a trance, Roy slung a white canvas knapsack over one shoulder and said, “Are you ready then, Len? Let’s get the hell out of here, because clearly there’s nothing for us in this mess. Someone wants us to leave? Can’t get out of here fast enough.” He seemed intent on ignoring Miranda’s question.

  “You’re on an island, Roy,” said Alan. “When you leave this cabin, you’ll still be on an island. Frank, would you mind unlocking the door?”

  Though Frank did so without dispute, he did not move from the doorway, so that anyone attempting an escape would run right into him.

  “Anna, are you ready?” Roy ignored Miranda’s father as well.

  “You are frightened,” said Miranda, and the look that Roy turned on her then was like nothing she’d ever experienced. There was no bluster or pretence in it: looking into him was like falling down a well, into the depths of someone’s self-annihilating terror and having to use all the strength she possessed to claw her way up again.

  The room itself was brightening. Pushing open the curtains on the far side of the door, Anna seemed to be searching outside for Caleb. Agnes zipped up her jacket and settled her wool hat back over her wide forehead with the air of someone mustering purpose.

  “Alan — Milan, I hardly know what to call you now,” said Agnes. “I came all the way here to Blaze Island intending to tell you something. Each time I tried to find you, there was an interruption, but before we go any further, I need to make clear, I want out of this project. That’s what I came here to say. Your project isn’t mine. I moved home. And now I’m going back home, to where the ice is truly melting, to concentrate on what needs to be done up there.”

  “You’re free to go, Agnes.”

  “Nakummek,” Agnes said quietly, her eyes on Miranda’s father. Then she said, “Mr. Hansen, I invite you to come on a journey with me.”

  “Alas, that may not be possible,” said Roy, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Yet here’s my invitation,” said Agnes. “To come with me out onto the sea ice this winter. You, too, Milan, if you wish. It will be a long trip to reach me if you don’t fly. The ice itself will be very thin and the trip will be very dangerous, but we’ll have sensors under the treads of our sled to show us where the strongest ice is.”

  “Anna,” Roy said once again. “I’m really done with this madness.”

  “Just so you know, I’ve filmed all this.” Alan gestured towards one of the dark screens in the dark corner. “There’ll be a record of what occurred here and everything you’ve said, Roy. I intend to show the world.”

  To this Roy said nothing. It was as if Miranda’s father had said nothing. Roy’s body contained violence, though, and her father had neither his height nor obvious force.

  Agnes pressed Anna’s arm. Something passed between them, emboldening, confirming, that made Anna’s dark eyebrows stand out even more sharply, emphatic marks in her pale face. “There’s a path, isn’t there, Roy. You’re more than capable of finding the way yourselves.”

  “Come on, Anna, you brought us here.”

  All three men were shrinking, Frank’s uncle Leonard growing more abject by the moment. Tony, who had finished wiping his glasses on his shirt tail, was scribbling what looked like frantic calculations on a sheet of paper. Could Miranda bring herself to pity them amid the chaos of this new world? Her chest tightened. Was that the smell of smoke?

  “But I’m not taking you back,” said Anna. “When you get to the guesthouse, what will you do then, Roy? How are you going to get the fuel you need to fly out? Communications systems are still down, aren’t they. The East Coast is underwater. Nothing’s moving. How do you intend to get a flight path?”

  “I’ll figure it out. One of my many, many talents. That’s fine, Anna, if you’re abandoning us. There’s a seat for you on board, Frank, isn’t this your lucky day?”

  His father laid a large hand on Frank’s shoulder and Miranda couldn’t bear to watch: Frank would leave. Before they’d had a chance to — he’d give in to his father because he couldn’t help himself. Until she heard his voice as he broke from his father’s clutches.

  “Sorry, Dad, I’m going wherever Miranda goes.”

  “Miranda?” said Roy, as if he were staring through a telescope at a far-off star. “And what might Miranda’s plans be?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Her father’s astonishment landed on her, too. It split him open. What had he imagined? That she would stay with him forever in the refuge he’d created for her, their now-fractured haven. That he would leave while pressing her to stay — with
Frank to keep her company? How many months ago had it been that, stepping through the damp spring twilight, Miranda had heard Anna’s voice eddying out of her father’s study along with tendrils of woodsmoke. You could go back, you know, Anna had said. You don’t need to be a ghost. Open another research institute. You’ve been completely vindicated.

  Standing stock-still in the yard while the roar of waves grew ever louder, Miranda had waited for her father’s response. Here was the thing she’d never allowed herself to imagine. Could this life, too, vanish into mist? No, Anna, her father had said at last with a long sigh. And even if I were to leave, I could never go back to that.

  When had she stopped feeling like his shadow or he like hers? Was there a moment upon which she could lay a finger and say, here? She, the child her father had not known he wanted until she arrived, whose being filled him with terror as well as love. Now it was up to her to step free of the conjoined life that had bound them together for so long.

  In the doorway, Frank held up a lighter. Where had it come from? Could it be the one Caleb had lost? Frank flicked it, and, when a small flame burst to life, he waved the lighter in the air. “See this, Dad? If you don’t do what you’ve been asked to do — do everything you can to cut carbon and get everyone else to do it too, as fast as possible — I’ll set myself on fire. You don’t believe me? There’s only one way to find out. You’d risk my life — but then you’re already doing that every day.” He held the flame to the tattered cuff of his sweater, the wool igniting, smoldering, the bright flame of the lighter ever closer to his wrist.

  Miranda’s breath snagged as Roy dove for Frank. Before his father reached him, Frank mashed his arm against the counter. In the stunned silence, the smell of burned animal hair filled the room. Frank’s father said nothing. Steadily Frank met Miranda’s gaze.

  Something pushed her past the cluster of frightened men, past Frank, through the door and into the open air. The wind met her on the bridge, surging out of the southeast, bearing the scent of rain and as yet no whiff of smoke. Waves were a warp and woof of sound. Ella took off at a gallop. Every inhale brought more wind into Miranda’s body. Breathe in, breathe out, and with each breath love swelled amid the turmoil. Fear. Need. Joy. Shock. The island was her world and the world was an island, full of people like these, and others. The lost ones and the dead. Trees. Birds. Broken things. The seams of her body expanded, alive to all possible feelings. Panic. Hope. What would happen next? No proof. In a moment, there would be men stumbling through the Burnt Hills, the tremulous pulse of Frank nearby, her father peering towards the north as if tugged in that direction, Anna Turi setting out with Agnes Watson across the granite flats that led into the scrubby woods. Would her father leave the island? Would she?

  Soon Caleb would reach his house beside the sea, his breath a ragged scrape across his chest. Stripping off his filthy coveralls like an old skin, he would make his way into the parlour where the wind poured through the glassless windows. Picking berries out in the hills, Sylvia would look up, sensing a shift in the weather. A fox would trot through the long grass. Out in the cove waves turned like schools of fish. Clouds swirled. Rocks crumbled. A trace of sand returned.

  EPILOGUE

  Some nights the storm door would pull free of its latch and bang. Some days the wind was so strong we couldn’t leave the house. Even in summer, the wood floors were cold first thing in the morning. Wind from the southeast brought rain, from the southwest fine air, from the south were our warm winds; northwest meant cool but fair, northeast bitter weather. The ocean water shifted with the air. The waves swung round like flocks of birds. A storm moves in a circle. If you know the wind you know the land. Wind decides everything.

  There were glassy days, too, yet on the island wind was the room we lived in. The grasses in the fields followed the wind, bent with its breath, pushed one way or another.

  The sea was full of mirages. Rocky islets no more than protuberances above the waves lengthened into cliffs. Icebergs doubled in size. Stretches of sea folded themselves upward and turned into sky. Things altered as we watched. Sometimes the islets in the distance loomed. Then it was as if they not only grew but floated close across the sea. You’d think you could walk to them. This was a sign of a low-pressure system approaching, which would bring a bit of weather.

  In winter, the wind blew horizontal. Tearing hard across the barrens, it caught up the snow, dug out hollows, covered them over. We stared hard, trying to figure out where we truly were.

  In March, the sea ice arrived. The wind called through the broken pack ice that undulated on the surface of the water in cove and harbour. The wind ground pieces of ice together, made them groan, rafted slabs into turquoise ridges at the shore. Some years there was so much ice, some years less. In May the icebergs returned, travelling south, a silent crush of them, then fewer and fewer.

  We remember all this.

  Change is clear after it happens.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My profoundest thanks to the Tilting Culture and Recreation Society for the gift of return visits to the Jennifer Keefe Studio and the Reardon House in Sandy Cove. Without your generosity and support, this novel would not exist. In the earliest days of my dreaming about the book, when I was still in search of an island, some good spirit pointed me in the direction of Tilting, at the far end of Fogo Island. The Canada Council supported my first research trip to Fogo Island through a travel grant. Particular thanks to Jim McGrath, who made sure my residencies ran smoothly, and to the Keefe family for making the beautiful gift of the Jenny Keefe Studio available to artists.

  Thank you to everyone in Tilting for making me feel so welcome over the past eight years — and to all those on Fogo Island who shared stories and answered my many questions about wind, weather, climate change, words, birds, and how many men it takes to pull a car out of a brook, including Al Dwyer, Roy Dwyer, Christine Dwyer, Mary Keefe, Frank Keefe, Cathy Keefe, Martin McGrath, Maureen and Phil Foley, Paddy Barry, Winston Osmond, and Bob Blake. There is a village of voices in this novel. Special thanks to Mona Brown for her foraging wisdom and Holly Hogan and Bonnie McCay Merritt for bird lore. To M’Liz Keefe for friendship and her artist’s descriptions of the Fogo Island landscape. To Jack Stanley and Vida Simon for their weather stories. To Cheryl Blake for her ongoing generosity and hospitality. To Dave Anthony for my first tour of the island and a place to stay in his family trailer in Burnt Point, Seldom, during my very first days on the island. Thanks to the land itself and the voices that arise from it.

  Heartfelt thanks to Dan Murphy, who not only extended invitations on behalf of TRACS but went above and beyond at every stage to help me bring the novel to fruition — answering questions right until the end, reading the manuscript, and offer­ing both scientific and practical know-how, even helping me land on the name of my fictional island. May sweet sou’westerlies blow on you, Dan!

  Thanks to those who offered their expertise in scientific matters, with particular thanks to Jason Blackstock and Holly Buck, not only for their climate-engineering knowledge but their astute thoughts about how climate engineering might find its way into a novel. To Sean Low for helping to bring me to CEC14, the 2014 Climate Engineering Conference in Berlin. To Dr. Chris Derksen for sharing his Arctic field experiences.

  This book owes a great debt to my sister, Elizabeth Bush, climate scientist and brilliant science communicator, whose conversations helped inspire the novel, who read the manuscript more than once, offered invaluable scientific consults and was a necessary sounding board in so many ways. All mistakes are my own.

  To Kelly and Emma O’Brien, for your own thoughtful responses to the climate crisis. Emma, one of Miranda’s school assignments may resemble one of yours.

  To Angus Andersen, for his glimpses of life in Nain and the Inuktitut language. To Caitlyn Baikie, inspirational young female Inuk scientist.

  To Ted Goossen, for linguistic advice on Frank’s tattoo.

  I am indebted more than I can
say to those who read the manuscript in progress, each offering their particular wisdoms: André Alexis, Amanda Lewis, Brian Brett (who made time during an intense residency committed to his own work; bless you, Brian), Shani Mootoo, Brad Kessler, Darren Hynes. Thanks to Reneltta Arluk, for bringing an Inuk eye to the novel. Mike Hoolboom read the manuscript multiple times and his unflagging faith (alongside his crucial editorial advice) saw me through from start to finish.

  To Susan M. Gaines, director of the Fiction Meets Science program at the University of Bremen and the FMS residency for writers at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, Germany — my fellowship could not have come at a more propitious time. The novel found its end here.

  This is a work of fiction inspired by a play full of magic, set in a world where science and magical thinking vie with each other and are sometimes on a terrifying collision course. The novel draws on the work of actual scientists and scientific research, including the climate-engineering research of Canadian scientist David Keith, now at Harvard. His slim book A Case for Climate Engineering (MIT Press, 2013) was a useful reference as was Jeff Tollefson’s article about Keith’s work, “The Sun Dimmers” (Nature 563 (November 29, 2018): 613-15). The climate-engineering listserv was an invaluable, constantly updating resource. When imagining Alan’s “conceptual experiment,” I drew loosely on the example of a group of retired Silicon Valley scientists attempting to build their own machine that sprays aerosolized particles, also the cloud-making art of Karolina Sobecka. I want to acknowledge the work of ice climatologist Dr. Jason Box and his Dark Snow Project on the Greenland ice sheet (darksnow.org), as well as his blunt speaking out about the dangers of the climate crisis. Among the many sources consulted as research for this novel I’d like to cite Clive Hamilton’s Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering (Yale, 2013) and William Marsden’s Fools Rule: Inside the Failed Politics of Climate Change (Vintage Canada, 2011, 2012).