The Memento

by Christy Ann Conlin

  Harry mulls it over. “Listening for the island … does the island speak back?”

  Norman tells him the island never stops speaking. He lets the quiet take over. Jenny’s holding out her arms like she’s doing a spell and we just ignore her. I know Norman and his son think she’s just another crazy Parker.

  I stand with sea legs as the boat sways. We hear seagulls crying and waves breaking on the shore. Norman goes back to the wheelhouse and the diesel engine roars to life. We begin to move forward and then to the west. After a short voyage, there she looms, the island, the mists swirling away, birds soaring as we circle around past massive, ancient cliffs, crevasses cleft deep into the stone running from the top of the island and dropping into the pounding waves. The island rises up in front of the boat, the northeast end the only part not surrounded by cliffs, where there is beach. To the left of the remains of the old fishing sheds is a saltwater pond that rises and falls with the tide. At the end of the pond there’s a long rocky spit slithering out into the water, riptides raging where the massive currents of the bay collide.

  It’s a hard landing. A wind has come up the bay on the incoming tide and the waves are heaving mountain peaks. Norman struggles to keep the boat steady as his son lowers the dory in the churning water. He and Harry load in our gear. Norman says we might want to consider coming back to shore with him as the weather seems moody. Harry scoffs at the suggestion. The son and Harry row to shore and are almost dumped out there on the rocky barrier beach.

  Harry is now waiting on shore, his arms wrapped tightly around his body, concerned as the dory lurches back. The rest of us pile in, and we are almost thrown from the boat, feet soaking wet, except for Jenny in her rubber boots, who is tossed off the boat and into Harry’s arms. He sets her on the beach and she scampers away. Jenny stands at the top of the steep beach watching us as we haul the gear up. She don’t help. Even Pomeline, with her sore fingers, reaches for a bag. Art bats her hand away gently and she staggers up beside Jenny. Neither of them move, staring off over our heads, the island looming behind them as though they’re waiting for a photographer to snap a picture.

  The engine revs and the boat heads off into the fog, and we are alone. The four of us are gathering up gear, me and Art and Harry and Sakura. Jenny starts singing. I look over and notice something else behind her and Pomeline. Small, disfigured, all in white, and I know it’s that thing I saw in the labyrinth, what I had been glimpsing all summer. It’s hard to see through the gusting mists. It disappears and there’s nothing but two sisters.

  Jenny comes scuttling back down, and finally she grabs a bag, Harry’s knapsack he’d set down on the rocks. She loses her balance and drops the pack. She falls on the beach as it splashes in the water. Harry is angry, the first time I seen him this way, his face white, biting his lip. He’s sick as a ghoul with Jenny. He’s fed up with children. He grabs the pack out of the water. When we get up top of the beach to the campsite Harry spreads the gear out and the walkie-talkie radio doesn’t work. The batteries are soaked, and so are the extras he brought, and his camera. Harry starts swearing at himself for putting all his gear in one bag. He had no idea it would be such a difficult beach, such a hard landing. To the south, away from the water, it’s a whole other world, sheltered, the trees a living fortification. To the north, the water spews violently onto rocks. And off to the east, the beach covered in a mass of driftwood, overlooking the lagoon.

  We never talked about how hard it was walking up that beach, how the rocks would roll and shift as though the island was trying to keep us off. We didn’t talk neither about the ghost stories of the island, and how just setting foot there was a bad, bad idea. You get your warnings and you heed them or you don’t. We did not. All this is the same as before, I swear it is, except for what I saw behind the Parker girls. Art does ask me what’s troubling me while we are sitting on a log as Harry continues to curse.

  Harry has his hands on his hips and he’s looking around at where we’re going to set up the tents. Then he looks at me. “Fancy,” he says, “you look like you’ve seen the dead.” I jump up and say I’m going up to the top of the island. I’m bored, I tell Harry. But that’s a lie … I want to find that white thing, and there’s no use pretending otherwise.

  Harry says we’ll just make do without the camera, and the radio. Norman will be back to get us tomorrow at lunchtime anyway. Jenny apologizes, saying she was just trying to help. Then she can’t resist adding that Harry didn’t pack well for a seasoned camper, and he yells at her. That much happened. Pomeline lifts her finger to her lips at Jenny, which clearly infuriates her. Sakura tells Harry he’s taking out his feelings on the kids—he has to get control. She waves us away and says to come back for supper and to be safe, to stay away from the cliffs. Then Sakura trips and sprains her ankle. She sits on a stump and elevates her leg while Harry does deep breathing and hisses in the same way Jenny’s swans did. This is true, that the grown-ups on our trip lost control.

  Art and I are the guides. We are the ones who have been here before with Grampie. Jenny was never allowed. The air is pungent, almost tropical, thick with wild mint and dewberry. We move into the thick turquoise light. Up we go, up to the tippity-top, the path coming out into what had been a hayfield. It has gone wild, with grasses up to our chests. We push ahead, through a cluster of whispering aspens. We can see it then, off to the west, the tall metal skeleton of the automated lighthouse. The outbuildings have fallen down. Nothing’s left but the stone foundations. Jenny crawls up a disintegrating stone wall and over into what was the cellar, now just a jumble of rusted metal and blackened wood. If you pawed around you could find pieces of melted glass, warped and deformed from the raging fire. There is an array of chirps coming from the green. The late-summer raspberries are growing up through the wreckage. Jenny picks a handful.

  I hold up my hand to her, like Loretta. “Don’t eat them, Jenny. Ground’s covered in mercury from the Fresnel lens in the lighthouse that melted in the fire.” Pomeline looks over but she says nothing.

  Jenny sticks out her tongue.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Pomeline says. She says the word fool slow, turning it into a waterfall of sound. She walks over and reaches out, those stiff long fingers opening slowly.

  Jenny gives them berries to Pomeline, dropping them in her white hand. Pomeline eats them, one by one. Jenny’s mouth drops open, like someone pulled a plug out of her jaw.

  Art’s arm reaches out to stop her. “What are you doing, Pomeline?”

  “There can’t be that much mercury.”

  “Do you think that’s wise?” he asks hopelessly.

  Jenny screams out of nowhere, “You’re just being weird like you’ve been all summer, upsetting everyone except poor Dr. Baker, him fawning all over you. Why did you have to turn bad like the rest of them? Why did you betray me? I trusted you but you were not trustworthy. You’re just like our mother but you were supposed to be different. You ruined everyone’s summer. We saw you in the Annex!”

  Pomeline rubs her hands together, careful with her injured one. “There’s nothing I can do now. I can’t change the past. Grown-ups should know better, shouldn’t they? Well, I am not as grown up as I thought, Jenny. They never let me be a child. It was always you getting all the attention, and no matter how well I did, no one cared, not after Daddy died.”

  Jenny opens her mouth. “That’s—”

  Pomeline growls at her sister. “Don’t you dare interrupt me. You listen. Even he changed before he died, as though he couldn’t stand to look at me. And it took a long time to understand why. So don’t you dare tell me I ruined everyone’s summer. Do you think I wanted this, for things to turn out this way?” Pomeline sniggers. She’s never done that before.

  A seagull circles overhead and squawks. She storms off through another thicket, heading to the wooden helicopter landing pad. The wind is gentle then, sweet with Queen Anne’s lace and evening primrose. I look around at all the alders growing, how the island is
taking it all back except for that metal skeleton lighthouse. Jenny runs after Pomeline, her white frock flipping up. It would have made a nice painting, her hair swinging, the wildflowers, big periwinkle sky, running apparently carefree. She disappears in the alders. Jenny is yelling at first, and then almost hissing. Pomeline answers in a calm voice, but from where we are Art and I can’t make out the words.

  A shadow falls over Art and me down in the stone-walled cellar of the lighthouse and we both whip around. There’s Jenny, her hands at her chest, with a rose in her fingers. She takes a deep breath and lets it out, saying my name—Fancy Mosher, Fancy Mosher—like I’m a fairy tale she’s remembering where wolves eat the girl in red and damsels get locked up in towers and smash on the rocks when they let down their long hair. Jenny lifts her hands to the sky, then waves them around as she mutters. “Let’s play tag,” Jenny says.

  Art crosses his arms. “So all’s resolved and better between you and your sister?”

  “Pomeline is being unpleasant like she says I am. She apologized. But sometimes you can say sorry five times and backwards but it’s too late.”

  We should have known it wasn’t right. But they were both off, as Art had been saying, just a few steps over from normal, so it all seemed almost right but not quite.

  We walk over to the landing pad where Pomeline is sitting, her eyes closed, soaking up the sun. “Isn’t it peaceful?” she says. “You can forget all your cares, as Granny would say, and let them blow away.”

  I run back over to the lighthouse then and climb up. The metal is fiery from the sun, and halfway up the breeze blows strong and nippy. At the very top there are metal bars over the ladder making a cage to keep you safe. I peer out. The island swirls in mist, as though we’re on a mountain. The three of them are minuscule down there, Jenny waving, Pomeline gazing up with her hand shading her eyes, Art putting his hands to his mouth and singing up, just a trace of the song weaving on the currents of the air. It’s early evening but we still have time before the sun will start to sink.

  “Come down,” Jenny screams, hopping about.

  Down I go, back into the heady air. Art’s at the bottom, and he climbs up as soon as I come down. I sit with Pomeline.

  We don’t have to wait long for Art to come down. He doesn’t linger. “Jeeze, I got vertigo up there.”

  Then Pomeline is climbing the lighthouse, her dress flying out behind her as the wind picks up. She’s sluggish, taking her time with her hands, her stiff fingers.

  “Pomeline, we need to be getting down to the campsite.” I cup my hands around my mouth and yell it again but she don’t look down. I run over with Jenny and Art behind me. Jenny starts screaming that she should stop acting foolish and get off the lighthouse and come down and she is the worst sister ever and she needs to grow up. I’m scared, for Pomeline is ignoring us.

  “I know,” Jenny yells up at her.

  Pomeline looks down.

  “I know,” Jenny yells again. Then she whispers it, and looks at me. “I know.”

  Pomeline continues climbing. Jenny has a stomping fit.

  “I said come down here. Please, come down. I said please. What more do you want?”

  Jenny reaches in her bag. She is furious. No one will ignore her. She takes out a rock she grabbed down at the campsite and she pulls back her arm and hurls it up. Somehow she manages to hit Pomeline in the leg just as she’s lifting her foot to the next rung. Pomeline slips and both her feet dangle. She catches herself with her one strong hand and the other stiff one and then she rests on the steel rungs. She turns around, ever so slow, jerky, and faces us, her hands on the sides of the ladder. We can see she is in pain. For a moment I think she’s going to jump. Art and Jenny both gasp at the same time. Pomeline shakes her leg a bit before she puts it back down.

  It’s hard remembering. It seemed we stood forever on the stone edge of the foundation as we looked up. Jenny had that same expression again, angry with herself for not doing what she thought she was supposed to.

  Pomeline came down step by step.

  Jenny was wheezing. “My turn.”

  “You aren’t strong enough, Jenny.” Pomeline was rubbing her leg but she didn’t say anything about the rock to Jenny. Neither did Art or me. We was all afraid of Jenny by then. Art and I waited for her to throw a fit. I suppose Pomeline was waiting too. But Jenny just clasped her hands together. The evening sun was falling on her then, and on Pomeline, pink and gold, gilding their faces.

  “Harry will be wondering where we are. He said to be back down before supper.” I sounded like Loretta. “We gotta head down. It will be getting dark in the woods.”

  Pomeline reached her hand over to Jenny, stroking her hair, her hand lingering overtop of Jenny’s face.

  Jenny pushed Pomeline aside and stood up. “I know you’re just looking out for me, Pommie. That’s what sisters do. Let’s play hide-and-seek. You’re it,” she said. “You were always it.”

  Pomeline put her fingers, bent and swollen, over her eyes. “One, two, three …” She sang the numbers.

  We ran through the field to the trees. I suppose we should have fought Jenny on the idea of playing games since we were due back at camp. Pomeline came strolling. We could hear her dress brushing through the grass, and a cardinal sang out. I should have called to mind the drop-off. Pomeline kept going. It was sunny in the meadow surrounded by trees, with an opening in front and beyond that mist on the high grasses.

  “Drop-off,” I finally did scream. We ran out of our hiding spot. By then Pomeline was over the edge and I stopped dead in my tracks, throwing my arms out. Art smashed into me and Jenny fell forward. I grabbed her just in time and all three of us fell to the last bit of ground near the cliff’s edge.

  Pomeline did not simply plummet down, hitting her head on the rocks as she fell, the wild waves smashing her against the cliff and carrying her body away. That was the lie we told.

  Jenny was on the ground in front of me, Art behind me. Pomeline was dangling from the root of a gnarly fir tree. I got down flat and crawled forward an inch. I saw Pomeline’s eyes then, and her long, slender arms trying to hold her body up, the good hand clenched and that damaged hand trembling. Pomeline’s teeth bit right through her lip as she forced her fingers to tighten around the root.

  “Hang on,” I yelled. “Hang on, Pomeline.” She stared straight ahead, every bit of her concentrated on that root. We were up so unnaturally high. Waves were crashing on the rocks below and the surging water roared.

  Art’s hands closed tight over my ankles. “I got you, Fancy. Hold Jenny. She can reach Pomeline.”

  I clutched hard on Jenny’s legs. She took hold of Pomeline’s arm with both of her strong little hands and she squeezed. “I’ve got you, Pomeline,” she said. “I’ve got you. Let go of the root and then we can pull you up.”

  Pomeline looked at me, not Jenny. She was terrified. “Grab hold,” I yelled at her. “Grab hold of Jenny with both hands, Pomeline. Holy Mother Mercy, would you just let go of the root and hang on to your sister?” My heart hammered as Pomeline gasped in and out, watching Jenny.

  Art was trying to soothe her, his voice calm but his hands shaking terribly as he held my ankles. “Please, Pomeline, let go and hold onto Jenny and we will pull you up.”

  Jenny squeezed Pomeline’s arm tighter.

  “I got you, Fancy,” Art said again. “Haul Jenny back. Right now.”

  The waves were smashing and thudding below as though the sea was banging a giant drum. But Pomeline wouldn’t let go, no sir, she kept holding on to that root. Her eyes were bulging with fear. Finally her hand came free, one held by Jenny and the other waving in the air now.

  Art gave another huge pull and Pomeline shifted. She started pleading. “No, no, please, Jenny,” she begged, as Art strained to hold me and I clutched Jenny’s bony ankles. Art and I were shrieking at Jenny to pull her sister up but it was as though she was frozen. And then this dreadful feeling came over me that Jenny was laughing, not tre
mbling.

  “You don’t know,” Pomeline said.

  Jenny straightened out her fingers and her hand was wide open and empty.

  Pomeline plummeted through the air and disappeared into the fog, her screams ripped to shreds by the wind.

  The dull light of the sun softened our haggard faces as we turned to lie on our backs, and the breeze smelled of smashed flowers and grass. Jenny closed her eyes and a few tears slid down over her temples. Her kerchief was gone now, her wispy hair tangled in the grass. Art put his arm around me. There were scratches on his wrists and I saw the crushed pasture rose bushes behind him.

  Jenny was the first one to crawl away from the cliff. We followed suit, though my legs felt like jelly. I started howling at her. Art was crying.

  “You told her to let go,” Jenny whispered. “You shouldn’t have done that.” She pointed at me. “You should have warned her about the drop-off.”

  Art stepped forward. “Okay, okay, it was an accident. It must have been an accident. It wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t hold her.”

  Jenny brushed off her dress as if she’d been doing some work in the garden. It was stained with dirt and grass, ripped in a few spots. “You didn’t do anything to help, Art. It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have told her to let go, Fancy.”

  We kept arguing in circles, interrupted only by our sobs. Jenny said that if we told on her she’d say I had squeezed her ankles, that Art had shaken me and her, that it was our fault entirely for she was too weak and helpless. We’d be locked up in an institution for juvenile delinquents and never see the outside again, for they’d experiment on our brains. It was true—we was implicated. It would be our downfall, for it would make no sense if we tried to explain. We had both begged Pomeline to let go. But we could have never imagined that Jenny would do what she did. I had seen the truth in Pomeline’s despairing eyes, that Jenny did indeed let go of Pomeline’s arm and let her tumble down a cliff. Jenny insisted she didn’t mean to do it, and we wanted so badly to believe her. Maybe that’s why we took that vow—we were children, and children could not be that wicked. If we said nothing, if we protected Jenny, she might be able to come back from whatever dark place she was caught in, a place she had swept us to as well.