by Susan Hughes
“We’ll think about doing that,” Ellie’s father said agreeably. He patted Ellie’s arm.
“You know, my Sarah looks to be about the same age as your Ellie — maybe a year or so older,” Mrs. Chimes said, considering.
Ellie thought, Mrs. Chimes must be the girl’s mother. Hadn’t the girl brought the tray last night? Sarah. Her name is Sarah, then.
Ellie glanced toward the doorway. Nothing.
“Sarah knows every inch of this island. She was born here. She’s been roaming about it ever since she could walk, ever since she could ride! It would be nice if she could show Ellie around. Perhaps show her some of her favorite secret places.” Mrs. Chimes laughed lightly.
Ellie glanced toward the doorway again.
And, yes, now there was a sideways face poking out, neck and head only. A silly face: crossed eyes, twisted mouth, tongue dangling.
Ellie almost giggled, clamping her hand over her mouth. But was Sarah making fun of her? Ellie frowned, and then the girl slipped away again behind the stairs in the hallway.
Mrs. Chimes gave the soup another stir. She smiled at Ellie and her father. “Our Sarah doesn’t spend much time with the other children here. None of them are her age. She lives atop that horse of hers. Like a fairy mite, she whisks here and there, easily as you please. Never been lost or not come home, but she wanders too far.” She shook her head, but spoke lovingly. “That girl of mine, she’s almost like a wild thing herself sometimes.”
A young man, Henry, came into the mess room, and it was time to go. “Ready, sir?” he asked Ellie’s father.
They stepped out into the yard, Mrs. Chimes wiping her hands on her apron. Now she shaded her eyes, looked about and called, “Sarah! Come here, Sarah!” But Sarah did not appear, so Mrs. Chimes went back into the house, and Henry and Ellie’s father headed to the barn to get the cart. Ellie waited, seated on the back doorstep. She listened to the wind and watched the cows snatch mouthfuls of sea grass, the sun beating down on her shoulders. She heard hammering, men shouting, a dog barking.
Ellie refused to wonder about Sarah, or what living here with a mother would be like. She ran her finger across the sand at the foot of the step as if she were floating in a boat and trailing her finger in the water.
Then, oh! Sarah was in front of her.
Ellie caught her breath and drew back, startled.
“Hullo again,” Sarah said, green eyes dancing. Freckles spread across her cheeks and speckled her nose. Brown braids reached almost down to her waist. She wore a floppy straw hat. Flower heads, yellow and white, were tucked into the belt of her blue dress, circling her waist.
“You look like a garden,” Ellie wanted to tell her. But Sarah said, “Are you Ellie?” studying her.
Ellie stared back, uncomfortable. Surely she must know my name by now. “Yes. And you’re Sarah.”
The girl nodded. Her boots were dusty and scuffed. Her socks had fallen to her ankles. She flicked the ends of one braid. “You know, I’ve never had my hair cut,” Sarah said. “Never.”
Ellie said nothing.
“I guess I could show you where to look for crabs and lobsters. Show you the berry patches. We could hunt for gull eggs on the shore even.”
Still, Ellie said nothing. Because maybe Sarah was just wanting to show off. Proud because she knew everything about this place, and Ellie knew nothing.
“I could even take you up the flagstaff, up to the crow’s nest,” Sarah offered. “You can see almost the whole island from there, on a clear day.” She swept out her arm, as if willing to share the island with her.
But Ellie shook her head, though she didn’t quite know why and hadn’t really made up her mind. “No,” she replied softly.
Just then Henry appeared from around the corner, driving a two-wheeled cart loaded with supplies and hitched to a small bay horse. Ellie was surprised by the sight of her father riding a sturdy little black horse with a brown mane. Her father! He had a happy grin on his face, looking slightly amazed himself.
“This is our new horse, Ellie,” he cried. “Her name is Cora, and she doesn’t seem to mind that I’m riding her. Maybe she’ll be a good teacher!”
Henry pulled up and said, “Hop in, Ellie,” and she climbed into the cart.
Then, suddenly remembering Sarah, Ellie turned.
Sarah had lifted her hand and was waving. “Good-bye, Ellie,” she called in a friendly voice. Ellie raised her hand and gave a polite wave in return, and suddenly imagined looking for berry patches, for crabs and lobsters, for gull eggs. Maybe climbing to the top of the Main Station flagstaff. Should she agree, after all?
But Sarah sang out cheerfully again, “’Bye, Ellie,” and off she ran, her braids flying, her dress billowing out, her arms wide like a seabird’s.
Chapter Seven
“Gee-up!” clucked Henry. The little horse stepped forward with a shake of its head.
They left the yard and buildings, moving past a woman washing clothes in the sunlight, bending and scrubbing. Ellie watched as she dried her hands on her apron, reached down into a basket and lifted out a baby. The woman jiggled him, kissed him, plopped him back down into his nest and then returned to her work, singing.
Past the cattle. Past the flagstaff with its crow’s nest, high on the hill. “We signal to ships from up there,” Henry explained.
Past men, Islanders and sailors, continuing to unload provisions from the supply ship and carting them up to the Main Station.
“Food, clothing. Other things for the shipwrecked,” Henry noted. “Also, building materials, new shingles — the wind is so hard on the wood! — tools, medicine, more garden seed.” Ellie counted three sheep, four teakettles, two lanterns.
On they went, past the one-railed fence that tamed some of the grassy pasture beyond the station. Past the small boy swinging from the rail, his feet dangling.
And the sea was there, blue, blue. It pounded on the shore, like a drum, steady and constant. And the sky was there, blue, blue. And the wind, a painter brushing white foaming lines on the waves.
They journeyed slowly alongside the sea, along the hard-packed sand on the beach. The wind blew in from the water. It blew down from the high dunes that lined the shore. The sand lifted and swirled around Ellie, blowing into her hair, her mouth, her eyes.
Henry reached into his pocket. He passed her a handkerchief. “You might use this. For the sand. ’Til you’re used to it.”
Ellie held it to her mouth. She wanted to close her eyes, but her gaze was caught by the stretch of beach ribboning out in both directions, the sandy hills with their sprinkling of grass. She watched the gulls soaring, the sparrows flitting in the grasses atop the dunes. The bones of a whale, long beached. The driftwood. The timbers of a wrecked ship. “Cast ashore last night,” Henry told her. “You never know what you’re going to find here!”
They rode on, the wheels turning slowly in the sand. Henry and Ellie in the cart, Ellie’s father staying close on his horse.
They stopped to share a jar of water, and then Henry waved Ellie’s father to lead, following the dip in the trail. They traveled inland some. And as the sun continued to climb, Ellie realized she was being watched. Someone, something, was there behind her — is it Sarah? She turned quickly, and that’s when she saw the wild horses.
A herd of six horses, moving across the far dune, knee-deep in tall grass.
Two mares, each with a long-legged, knobby-kneed newborn at her side, whisking its mop-top tail. One yearling, prancing behind, ears tipped forward, nickering. The stallion coming last, pausing.
Ellie did not want to be here on Sable Island. But her heart filled with wonder, and she stared at him, the stallion. He, lifting his head, smelling the air, curious, watched her.
The stallion stood, his mane lifting in the wind, his nostrils blowing out,
tossing his head. The cart, with Ellie in it, continued on. And still the wild horse watched her. And she watched him, until he was small, smaller, and she could not see him anymore.
Time stood still. Maybe it will be all right here after all, Ellie thought.
But then Henry called out, “There it is! The station. Your new home, Ellie.”
They drew near, and Ellie saw that it was not anything like a home. It was nothing to do with her. It was a clapboard house with sand piled up the side. It had one chimney, a rain barrel near the back steps and an outhouse some ways distant. There was a barn, a pump and a flagstaff. A surfboat with oars, for rescuing, was overturned near the beach.
This station was not on a hill. It was not between the village and the headstone of her mother. It was nowhere near Lizzie, her best friend. They might live here, she and her father, but it would only be Station Two. It would never be her home.
Henry helped them unload by the steps of the house. “Here are some stores of food. A selection from Mrs. Chimes, just to tide you over. There’s a milk cow in the barn. There are some chickens already here, five or six, I think. When you’re settled, you’ll have to come to Main Station and get more provisions,” he suggested.
Then he said farewell and was gone.
Ellie carried Cora’s saddle and bridle into the barn and milked the cow, while her father watered the horse and then put her in her stall. There was a fenced yard alongside the barn with a coop, and chickens inside. Ellie and her father released their fluttery, rattled chickens from the wooden crate into this yard. Ellie scattered grain from a sack into the enclosure for them. Nearby was a grassy area marked off by a driftwood fence.
“For the cow,” her father guessed.
The sun was high now, midday. Ellie’s father pointed seaward. A wall of black clouds moved across the water toward them. The wind was picking up. “We’d better hurry and get our things inside,” he said.
When they stepped through the door, they were directly in the kitchen.
Ellie’s father grunted, setting down their trunk with a thud. Sand sifted out of its joints. Ellie set down two baskets. And then she stared. Not because the room was bare and clean, with one side table under the window, several basins and buckets and a tall wooden hutch. Not because there was a large wooden kitchen table, scrubbed and glistening, with four ladder-back chairs. But because on the table was a milk pitcher, blue like the sea and the sky. And in it were three green bowing stems with flowers atop.
One boasted quiet pink petals, lined lightly in white. The other two waved vivid splashes of more-than-purple.
Ellie’s father straightened up when he saw them. “Orchids!” He stared. “They’re beautiful, your mother’s favorite flower. And these two — they’re her favorite color!”
“Magenta,” said Ellie.
She and her mother. Looking at more-than-purple cloth in the village store. Her mother stroking it, smitten. “It has its own name: magenta.”
She and her mother returning to look at it. Just to look. It is too expensive, and her mother doesn’t need it. And yet, they come to look at it twice before it’s sold to someone else. “Perhaps to be made into a fancy dress,” her mother says, imagining it, pleased. “For a party, or a ball!”
Now Ellie’s father stood in the doorway and looked at the orchids. And Ellie, remembering, looked, too.
Chapter Eight
Ellie and her father unpacked. They made up the beds in each bedroom. They put rough towels on the pegs, and bars of soap on their washstands. Ellie brought in water from the rain barrel beside the house. Some for the kitchen, some for the bedroom basins. As they worked, her father kept glancing out the window, looking at the sky. For a long time, the clouds simply hung over the ocean, angry and dark.
They unloaded the flour, raisins, butter and tea. They found canisters for salt, soda, dried berries and sugar. They put by the fresh cod and mackerel, the tough vegetables and tiny potatoes of last autumn’s harvest. Just before evening the rain came hard. Ellie and her father hurried to shutter the windows. The raindrops drove against the walls of the house. The wind rattled the shutters noisily.
Ellie’s father made a fire and then cooked a simple meal. After they ate, they went to sleep early, again exhausted.
Next morning the sun rose, and the day was clear. Ellie padded into the drafty kitchen. Her father was finishing a stand-up breakfast. “Morning, sweetpea. Did you sleep all right?”
Ellie sat down at the table, rubbing her eyes. “Morning,” she yawned.
“So, I need to tell you. I’ll be away the whole day,” her father said. He had cut her some slices of bread. There was jam on the table, and a pot of tea. A jar of cranberries. “I’m riding the north beach with another patroller for the first few days. We’ll keep an eye out for wrecks.”
Ellie watched her father’s pale blue eyes sparkle in a dawn sunbeam.
“Some days I’ll practice with the surfboats, practice launching them off the shore and rowing them. Other days I’ll be on wrecking duty. We go aboard the wrecked ships and try to salvage any goods — barrels of salt meat, tobacco, dried cod, lemons. We have to strip the ship of its anchors and chains. Split the timbers and bring the wood ashore. We try to salvage as much as we can and store it, and then ship it to the mainland when the schooner comes. The government pays for that. It helps keep the lifesaving work here going.”
He took his last bite of toast. He washed his cup and plate and set them on the towel to dry. “Sorry. I know I’m running on a bit. I know I don’t quite know what I’m doing yet, or how it will really be here for us. It’s just … Ellie, I think this is a good start for us. A new beginning.” She looked away.
“You’ll get used to it, sweetpea,” her father promised. “You’ll get used to it here.”
He kissed the top of her head. He told her to eat. He reminded her to do her chores. Sweep the floors, tidy the rooms. Pump water, feed the chickens, check for eggs. Milk the cow and take it out to pasture.
“And don’t wander far. You don’t know this place yet. I’ll draw you a map, in time.”
Ellie hugged her knees and couldn’t answer.
Long after her father left, she stared out the window. Her thoughts were a storm inside her head.
She went to her room, got dressed and made her bed. She drank a few sips of cold tea. She looked at the bread her father had cut for her, the wooden table, the milk jug. The orchids.
She went outside. She might almost be interested in exploring, except that she didn’t want to be here. There was nothing but grass and sand.
Remembering her chores, she pumped water and carried the buckets indoors. She scattered some feed for the chickens and checked for eggs. None. She milked the cow and left the bucket in the cool of the barn, putting a towel over it to keep the flies off. She led the cow outside to its patch of grass.
The wind blew. It swept through the yard, swirling sand into Ellie’s eyes.
Grass and sand. No trees. Not one. It’s obviously not an island made for people, Ellie grumbled to herself, rubbing her eyes. Look at this house! She thought it must have been made on the mainland, nailed together into sections, then loaded up and brought over, piece by piece.
And the barn. She stared at it, folding her arms. It looks as if it’s been made with timbers from wrecked ships.
A few gulls wheeled, making dipping shadows in the yard. Ellie’s shadow angled out in front of her. Tall. Alone.
She stretched out her arms. Turned them this way and that, making dipping shadows, too. And then, without deciding to, she began walking. She walked so she wouldn’t have to stay in any one place. So she would not have to be here.
She turned her back on the house and the sea and walked inland, scrambling through grasses and wild hay. She lifted her feet up and away from this thin slice of accidental land
. The seagulls floated overhead. The sparrows darted here and there. The wind was always behind her, around her.
Ellie walked into nothingness. She didn’t recall her father’s warning about wandering. There was emptiness all around her and inside her.
Nothing matters, she thought. It doesn’t matter if the sand shifts. It doesn’t matter if the whole island dissolves away into the sea. This was not her home. She was not here.
Tiring, she headed back to the beach, her shadow on one side, the sun on the other.
Ellie walked beside the sea until her legs grew weary. She had reached a stretch of dunes that rose abruptly right near the edge of the beach, high beyond the water’s reach. She sat down in the long marram grass at the foot of the dunes. And then, exhausted, she lay back and fell asleep.
Waking, she had sand in her eyes, and the straps of her bonnet were twisted under her chin. She pulled at them, cranky, loosening the knot. Her skirt had ridden up from her boots. Her shins were hot in the spring sunshine.
Ellie lay, looking at the sky, and suddenly, she saw the horse.
She gasped and almost cried out in surprise.
He was there. It was the same stallion she had seen yesterday. She was certain of it. The horse was only several arm-lengths away, grazing. He was above her, near the top of the dune, silhouetted against the blue sky, and she gazed up at him from where she lay.
The horse was stocky with a shaggy coat. Ellie felt him close, his body real and sudden. Would he hurt her? Was he dangerous?
He’s wild! A wild horse! she told herself, unbelieving.
Chewing, the horse swung his head round. He looked down at Ellie. His brown coat was the color of milk chocolate. His mane was black and very long. It lay along his neck in waves. His forelock fell between two watchful brown-black eyes. A sweep of the wind lifted the forelock to one side of his face, revealing a patch of white on his forehead. A thin white stripe ran down his nose.
