The Turning

by Emily Whitman

  Maggie stumbled in and shut the door. The cough quieted, crawling back inside her like a beast settling into its lair. Finally she looked at me and croaked, “Come on.”

  She led me deeper into the hot, stale room. We wove past puffy, cloth-covered lumps with legs and wooden planks with legs. The floor wore patches of mangy brown fur, as if it needed clothes, too. Every surface was cluttered with clusters of objects, small and strange, neither wood nor shell nor stone.

  “You must be frozen,” she said. “Come sit by the fire.”

  I only knew fire from lightning, and the charred smell of logs left behind by humans on beaches. Now I sat where she nodded, beside a black box perched on four legs. It was the source of the terrible heat. She opened a door in its side, threw in a log, and nodded as it burst into flame.

  I jerked back, biting down a cry. Humans get cold, I told myself. Humans like fire.

  “Here, take this blanket.”

  She covered me with it, trapping the wet in my clothes. I started to steam.

  She fell back into the perch across from me, her face drained and gray. I didn’t know whether to look at her or the fire or the floor. The silence lasted a lifetime.

  Finally she spoke. “Did your mom leave you here on purpose?”

  “You . . . you knew,” I said. “You told her I could stay.”

  “I thought it was a dream.” Maggie shook her head. “A knock on my door in the middle of the night. There she stood, too beautiful to be real. Like a fairy-tale princess. She asked me to watch her son, and all I could do was nod, like I was under some kind of spell. I blinked and she was gone.”

  “You said you’d keep me.”

  “That’s how I knew it was a dream. I woke up, and the idea was so wild, I had to laugh. I’d never say yes to a boy staying here. How could I, with Jack?”

  Mam hadn’t said anything about a Jack. The word bristled.

  “You can stay here tonight,” she said. “No one can get here in this storm. But in the morning, you call your mom and tell her to come back and fetch you.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “She’s gone.”

  Her mouth narrowed. “Then I’ll call Social Services. They’ll come to the island and take you to foster care. They’re the ones can keep you safe from your dad, not me.”

  Take me . . . Was that the cages, the zoo? She was going to send me away and Mam would never find me again. I had to stay here! The room was spinning and the heat was smothering me and I clenched my fists—

  Hard metal dug into my palm.

  The doubloons!

  I leaped up and thrust my hand toward Maggie. The discs glowed softly on my palm.

  Her brow wrinkled in confusion.

  “It’s gold!” I said. “For you, to help with the costs.”

  She picked one up with a pitying look. “Gold. Did your mom tell you that?”

  I nodded, clinking the rest of them into her hand so she could feel their weight.

  She sighed. “Toys, that’s what these are. Stuff they sell in little plastic chests at the tourist stores. Fake pirate gold.”

  “It’s not fake! It’s real!”

  “And I’m the queen of England.”

  I didn’t understand, but I didn’t dare ask.

  Maggie dropped the doubloons on a plank beside her and leaned closer, her hands on her knees. “Listen, son. I’m not going to sugarcoat this. A mom who dumps you with a stranger and doesn’t even come to see you’re all right—well, you’ll be better off with the state.”

  “But I have to stay here,” I said. “Mam’s gone to get my—get help for us. She trusts you.”

  Maggie pressed herself to her feet. “Let’s get you into a bath and then find you some dry clothes.”

  “The gold will pay for me,” I said, following her across the room toward another door. “And I can help you. I’m strong. I can catch you fish. And it’s only until the second full Moon.”

  Behind the door was a smaller room. This one wasn’t cluttered; it was hard and white and shiny. She bent to a handhold and water gushed into a long hollow.

  “I’m sure you’d be helpful,” she said, swishing her hand in the water. “But my health’s not good. You can’t count on me. And you sure can’t count on Jack.”

  “What’s Jack?”

  “Not what. Who. My husband.”

  “Is that like a mate?”

  Her eyes told me I’d said something wrong, but she only said, “That’s right.”

  “Mam said no one else lives here.”

  “Well, she got that wrong. He’s up in Alaska, working on a fishing boat. You can’t be here when he gets home. Jack . . .” Her lips narrowed and she shook her head, hard and quick. “You never know what Jack’s going to do. Go on, take off those wet clothes and hop in the bath.”

  Steam was rising from the pool. I stared at it in horror. Did people really boil themselves in hot water? I took a step back, and a movement across the room caught my eye.

  A human boy was looking at me through a gap in the wall. He was slim and wiry, with a thicket of hair like grass growing in all directions. His clothes were wet, too, and clung to his arms and chest like seaweed once the tide has gone out. I gasped, and his mouth fell open. I took a step back and he stepped back, his eyes blazing.

  One brown eye, one blue.

  “Are you going to take off those wet things or not?” asked Maggie.

  But I couldn’t take my eyes off the boy in the gap. I stepped closer, and closer; I reached out and he did, too. We touched fingers on a shiny surface.

  The human boy was me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acting Human

  Maggie turned off the running water. The room grew still and steamy. The other me was starting to fade behind a cloud.

  “No bath?” said Maggie.

  “No bath.”

  She sighed. “All right, then. But we’re getting you into dry clothes, and no back talk. You’re so skinny, Tommy’s things might work. Come on.”

  I followed her back through the cluttered room and down a dim passage. She stopped in the shadows and took a deep breath, as if to prepare herself, then opened a door. I couldn’t see through the darkness.

  “Who’s Tommy?” I asked.

  “He was my son,” she said, and the darkness was in her voice, too.

  The air smelled old and musty. Maggie coughed again, her shoulders shaking. I held my breath until she stopped. She touched the wall and a light shone down.

  A broad ledge filled most of the room. It wore a cloth with a picture of a big blue whale. The walls had smaller blue whales swimming all over them.

  “They’ll be in the closet,” said Maggie, opening another door to the smallest room of all. Why did humans need so many doors? They built walls to shut out the wind and waves, and then more walls inside, to keep everything separate and alone.

  Maggie backed out of the closet. “Here you go. Dry shorts and a T-shirt. You hungry?” I nodded. “Okay. Get dressed and I’ll get you something to eat.”

  She closed the door behind her. My heart started pounding again. I was trapped, like a fish you stash in a rock pool to keep fresh for later. She’d said she was going to call the child-taking people. Was she doing that now? I strained my ears, trying to hear if she was going outside to shout for them. I pulled on the handhold for the door—the wood rattled in its shell, but it didn’t open. I stared at my hand, breathing short and fast. Then I remembered how Maggie’s wrist had turned. I twisted and pulled again, hard. The door flew open.

  “Everything all right in there?” called Maggie.

  “Yes,” I called back. “Everything is fine.”

  I peeled off the wet things and picked up the dry ones. At least the shorts left my calves bare, so I could grab my knife if I needed it. I pulled the T-shirt over my head. For a moment I was suffocating, and then I was through. I wiggled my arms into the holes.

  I followed a sizzling sound and found Maggie leaning over a big, white box,
poking at something with a stick.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She turned and gasped. The stick clattered to the floor. When she bent to pick it up, her eyes lingered on my knife, but all she said was, “Funny, seeing you in his clothes. You with your two-color eyes. Sit down and I’ll get your eggs.”

  I almost sat on the floor. Then I remembered the seats in the other room, and sat on a plank with four wooden legs. Humans put legs on everything. Maybe it made them feel better about being stuck with their own.

  I was expecting eggs like I’d stolen from birds’ nests, fresh and runny. But when Maggie set food before me, my stomach turned. Steam rose from a pale yellow mound. There were three black strips that might have been meat, but the life was all charred away, like a stump burned by lightning.

  “Guess you need a fork,” said Maggie, setting a silvery twig on the table.

  What was it for?

  “Want hot sauce?” There was a pause. “You know, this would be easier if you talked. How about some ketchup?” Red glop oozed onto the eggs, thick and dark, like a puddle of blood.

  Fork, I said to myself, feeling sick. Ketchup.

  Maggie sighed. “Well, if you don’t like bacon and eggs, why didn’t you say so? What do you eat?” She opened a shiny door and cold air wafted out. “Come see what you want.”

  Inside was a jumble that didn’t look anything like food. There was a platter covered with translucent leaves. Maybe it was a new kind of sea lettuce. At least it didn’t smell as bad as the meat. I pulled some off and opened my mouth—

  She snatched it from my fingers. “Are you crazy? That’s plastic wrap!”

  It turned out there was something I could eat. It was called cornflakes. I picked it up by the handful. It crunched like little bones, and it was almost as sweet as salmon.

  Outside the rain kept pounding. The sky lightened to a paler gray.

  Finally, “Nine o’clock,” said Maggie. “Time to call Social Services.”

  “No!” I followed her from the room. “I’m easy to keep, really I am. And my mam will be back soon, maybe even before the second full Moon!”

  I waited for her to open the door and yell, though I didn’t think that was so smart with all her coughing. But she only picked up a black bar and held it to her ear, then shook it in frustration.

  “Phone’s out,” she said, setting it back down. She stared at the window, masked with mist. Rain pounded on the roof and streamed off its edges.

  “Does . . . does that mean you can’t call?” I asked. “Does it mean I can stay?”

  “You can stay until the phone works, or until the storm lifts and we can get to the harbor,” she said. “Whichever comes first.”

  All day long, the storm called to me to come outside; all day long I sat in a chair, because apparently that’s what people did. Maggie kept shoving logs into the fire. She kept holding the phone to her ear with a frown. She kept staring out the window like that would make the storm pass.

  By midday I was starving. I longed for fish, still pulsing with life, but I settled for more cornflakes.

  “Here’s a spoon,” said Maggie.

  In the closed house, the air hung heavy with the smell of charred flesh. I didn’t know what to call things. I didn’t know what they were for. I watched how Maggie touched each object, her expression as she held it in her hand, the use she set it to. I strained my ears to make out every word. Cup. Sink. Stove. The worst was bathroom.

  As daylight slipped away, Maggie set the phone down one last time.

  “I guess you’re here for the night,” she said. “And the way this storm is going, maybe tomorrow, too. Let’s clean that room and make up your bed. Here, take the broom.”

  I stared in confusion. She showed me how to push dirt around and then put it in a place called the trash, where humans hoard their waste behind its own small door.

  When we were done, mounds of covers buried the bed. Pillow. I had to put on new clothes for sleeping, thinner and closer to my skin.

  Maggie stared at the knife. “You’re not going to sleep with that thing on your leg, are you?” She reached out a hand, and a low growl escaped from my throat. “All right,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “It looks like you’re sleeping with it.”

  She told me to lie on the bed. I had to. That’s what people do.

  “When will Jack be here?” I asked.

  “When the season’s over.” She pulled the covers up until only my head stuck out. “About three months or so.”

  “But that’s after Mam is coming to get me. I’ll be gone before he’s back.”

  Maggie crossed her arms tightly, blocking off her heart. “Jack drinks. If he gets himself kicked off the boat, he’ll be back early. It’s happened before.”

  I was starting to sweat under the covers.

  “Don’t you worry. You’ll be safe in foster care.” Maggie gave me a crooked smile. “Look at you, all wired up, and no wonder. I know what’ll help.”

  She rummaged in the closet and came out holding a furry blue creature with four stubby legs. She thrust it toward me. “I bet you think you’re too old for a teddy bear, but go on, take it. It was Tommy’s.”

  I reached out reluctantly. It smelled like sadness. The grizzled fur was half worn away, and there were dead black circles where the eyes should be.

  “It used to have button eyes,” said Maggie, running a finger around one of the circles. “Then one got lost, so I cut these out of felt. Stitched them on so tight, they’ll never fall off.”

  It wasn’t me she was seeing but another boy, a human boy. She leaned over like she was going to kiss me, then caught herself and stood up straight. “Sleep well, Aran.”

  The room went dark, and she closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Cliff

  The covers clutched at me like an anemone’s tentacles, pulling me down. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to stay in the bed, because that’s what humans do. But the walls were creeping closer, and I couldn’t stop thinking about cages and zoos, and people pointing, and my heart was pounding louder and louder, and my eyes flew open—

  Black eyes were staring right into mine.

  A predator! My hand shot out instinctively and grabbed it around the throat. I hurled it across the room and leaped out of bed, my teeth bared for battle, my knife already in my hand.

  It didn’t move. I crept closer, straining to see in the dark. It lay on its back, belly bared in surrender, four stubby legs jutting out.

  I sighed at myself in disgust. It was the dead boy’s teddy bear.

  I picked it up gingerly by one paw and tossed it on the bed. I buried it under a pile of covers. Now it couldn’t stare at me with those hollow eyes.

  I slumped down against the wall. I was an idiot. How could I have thought that bit of mangy fur was alive? In this house, in this world, I didn’t even know what was real. I could feel myself slipping away.

  My hand tightened around the handle of the knife. The one Mam brought me so I’d have my own sharp claw. It was all I had left to remember who I was. This, and my magic green stone.

  I dug the stone out of the sheath and rolled it in my other palm.

  Outside, wind wailed across the sea. Trees thrashed; a branch cracked and tumbled down. A gust slammed into the house like a fist.

  The storm was calling to me.

  I stood and eased the door open, listening. I snuck down the hall, through the room with the smoldering fire, to the other door. I turned the handhold. A blast of wind struck my face, and then I was running through pelting rain, gulping down lungfuls of crisp, raw air.

  The gale shoved me across gravel and grass and rocks, the waves thundering louder and louder, until I stood at the very edge of the cliff. Combers crashed against it so hard, their spray flew all the way up to my face—salt and rain, rain and salt. I took a breath and raised my arms, ready to dive and swim through the whitecaps and find my clan.

  Find them?

  My
arms dropped. I’d never find them. Without me to slow her down, Mam would be back with the others by now. Maybe they were already swimming to the far north. Wherever that was.

  No. If I ever wanted to see them again, I had to stay on Spindle Island until Mam returned. Two moons of fork and cornflakes and trash.

  I lay on the rocks and the rain lashed my face until I was too numb to feel.

  Maggie stood over me, making clucking noises in the gray morning light. She wrapped me in a blanket and steered me inside. She wanted to put me in hot water again, but she settled for giving me a dry set of clothes, saying, “Change in the bathroom while I straighten up.”

  I tugged on a T-shirt and slipped on the shorts. Then I reached to the sheath, pulled out my knife, and rummaged for my green stone. Before I joined Maggie, I needed to make the world look like the ocean, where I belonged. But the sheath was empty.

  I ran back into the dead boy’s room. The bed was neat again, the teddy bear perched firmly on top. The floor was too clean. Where was it?

  I ran outside and searched along the top of the cliff.

  Maggie stood at the door. “What’s the matter?” she called.

  “I lost it!” I ran past her back inside and started ripping the covers off the bed.

  “Lost what?”

  “My stone! My magic green stone!”

  “Magic?”

  “You can look right through it. It turns everything underwater green—”

  “Oh, the beach glass.” She headed toward the kitchen. “Come on, I put it with the rest.”

  What did she mean, the rest?

  She picked up a container and tipped it over the table. A torrent of stones tumbled out, blue and green and gold. Each worn smooth by endless waves. Each so clear, the light shone through.

  I sucked in my breath. I’d thought mine was the only one.

  I picked up a green stone. But no, the color was too dark. I threw it down and grabbed another. The shape was wrong. The stones made cool, tinkling noises, laughing at me.