Orphan Island

by Laurel Snyder

  “I’m doing the opposite!” cried Jinny, stopping and turning back to face Ben again. “And anyway, we’re all lost here, stranded. Like a shipwreck or something. At least I did something when I had a chance. I made a choice.”

  “Yes,” said Ben grimly. “You did, didn’t you? You made a choice, for all of us. Whether we liked it or not. You got your way, Jinny. What else is new?”

  That made Jinny halt for a moment. She blinked. “But . . . ,” she said, “I didn’t want my way. And I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I just didn’t want to leave, and abandon Ess. . . .”

  Ben continued. “You weren’t thinking about anyone but yourself, Jinny. You say you’re staying for Ess, but are you really? You’re staying because you want to, because you’re scared. You can’t just do whatever you feel like whenever you want. It’s not fair.”

  Jinny looked up, startled. Ben’s words were an echo in her head. She remembered Deen saying the very same thing. It felt like so long ago now.

  “I don’t do whatever I like!” she shouted, the words louder than she intended them. She lowered her voice. “I’m not selfish. And you don’t always know everything.”

  “You may not be a selfish person,” said Ben, “but you’re being selfish now. I don’t think you thought much of me, or Loo, did you? I’ve been looking forward to taking care of him, Jinny. I’ve been waiting years for this. There are different ways to let someone down.”

  “You don’t even know what it’s like,” she argued. “It’s not that much fun, having a Care. Teaching them everything—swimming and reading. It’s hard. And some part of them is always dirty or dripping. They break things. They smell.”

  Ben sighed. “I like taking care of people. And anyway, fun isn’t the point. Would you give up having cared for Ess? To have more fun?”

  Jinny didn’t answer. Of course she wouldn’t give up her time with Ess. And Ben was right—he would be a wonderful Elder. She knew that. And she knew it was her fault he wasn’t ready. “You can take the next one,” she offered.

  Ben groaned. “But this was supposed to be my year. Next year I’ll be gone. Or am I supposed to stay because you stayed? Are you just going to keep the boat forever, up on the sand, until it falls apart? And then we all get old and die on this island?”

  “I . . . don’t know,” said Jinny. She hadn’t thought it out like that. She hadn’t really thought it out at all. “Is there a better place to die?”

  “So then, is Joon supposed to stay too?” asked Ben. “And Oz after her? All of us? Together forever? Until Loo and Ess are alone here? And our world is over?”

  Jinny cringed at that thought. She didn’t have an answer for Ben, so she stared up at the stars she knew so well, and her voice was a whisper when she said, “This is my home, Ben, and nobody can make me leave it. Nobody can make me go. I’m not going out there, away, and I’m not leaving Ess. I’m sorry if it makes things hard on you. You can leave if you want to. Right now. You can take the boat.”

  “You know what?” said Ben thoughtfully. “I think you feel bad now. I think you’re just embarrassed to admit you were wrong.”

  Jinny stared at him as she adjusted her grip on the cushions and began walking. “I’m sorry you’re upset,” she called over her shoulder. “I really am. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I’m done talking about this.”

  “I’m sorry too,” said Ben, his voice fading into the night.

  Back in her cabin, Jinny found that someone else had settled the two small kids into her bed together, tucked them neatly in. They were both snoring lightly when she arrived, and Jinny couldn’t imagine who had done it. It was the sort of thing Ben might have done to help, under other circumstances, but Ben had been with her. Oh well, she thought. It didn’t really matter who had helped. She was grateful, in any case.

  Jinny settled her cushions on the floor, a makeshift bed. She was ready to collapse. But when she went to change into her sleeping shift, something rustled in her tunic pocket, and she remembered the packet. She pulled it loose and held it up to examine it in the weak moonlight from the window.

  There were no words on the front or back of the envelope, nothing to identify it. Jinny ran a finger along the sealed flap. For a moment she sat, looking at the creased paper, listening to the two children breathing in the bed. It felt wrong to open something that had been closed for so many years. But she knew she was going to do it. She took a deep breath, tore the edge carefully with a fingernail, and slid out a folded sheet of paper.

  The sheet felt crisp and smooth, and there were tiny flowers in each corner. Jinny had never seen paper like that before. She ran a finger over it softly and found the flowers were raised. The gently looping script was pale gray on the creamy paper, too faded to make out in the dim room.

  Jinny stood up and held the sheet of paper in the moonlight that shone through the window, but even then, she couldn’t read the words. They were too faint. For a moment, she thought to take it out by the firelight, but then she might run into someone, and they’d be sure to ask what she was holding. No, this was her secret, for now. She’d wait for sunrise.

  Jinny put the letter back in the envelope and slipped it under her makeshift bed before she settled down with a faint groan. The cushions felt lumpier on the ground than they’d been on the couch, and they kept sliding apart beneath her. But she was so drained it didn’t matter. As she drifted off into the oblivion of sleep, she thought to herself that she’d have to find a way to lash the cushions together with rags or dune grasses in the morning if she was going to keep sleeping on them. She’d find a way to make it better. Somehow.

  16

  Lemons?

  Jinny woke up with one arm limp and wobbly, full of prickles. Her back was sore too, from where her cushions had slid apart in the night and she’d fallen through to the rough plank floor of the cabin. It had not been a good sleep.

  She shifted herself, tried to shake the feeling back into her arm. When she could put her weight on it again, she rearranged her cushions and rose so that she could crane her neck to peer into the high bed. Jinny smiled at what she saw. Both kids were curled in a messy heap together, snoring soundly, black hair mingling with brown, arms in a tangle, mouths open. They looked happy in their dreams. Maybe everything would be fine. Maybe this would turn out well after all.

  But however glad Jinny was to see them sleeping, she couldn’t help feeling a little jealous of them, up there in the soft bed. With a useless sigh, she rubbed her face and settled back again on her lumpy cushions, letting her exhaustion wash over her and her eyes flutter shut. As tired as she was, Jinny couldn’t force herself back to sleep, couldn’t turn off her busy brain. She wondered what would happen now. Eevie would probably be spiteful. And Joon would glare in silence as she had the night before, chin tilted up, nose in the air. Jinny sighed just thinking about it.

  At the very least, with the benefit of sleep and sunlight, Jinny knew what she needed to do next. She owed Ben an apology. She didn’t always need to get her way, and she’d prove it. She’d fix her mess and make things right. Just because she’d stayed didn’t mean Ben shouldn’t have his Care. He could take care of Loo, and she could give him his Elder lessons, and then maybe life could continue as usual, just with ten on the island instead of nine. Jinny would stay, and Ess would be happy, and then, if she felt like it, maybe she would go off in the boat. Someday, when Ess was older. When they were both ready.

  Things always feel better in the daylight, Jinny thought, and turned over to try and sleep a little more. But when she did, she heard a rustle from beneath her shifting cushions and remembered. The letter. How could she have forgotten? Jinny wriggled her hand under the makeshift bed for the envelope, slid the single sheet of paper free, unfolded it, and held it up.

  In the morning light, she could see that the paper was not white exactly but a faded yellow, and so thin as to be nearly translucent, like the wings of a dragonfly. The flowers in the corners of the page were pink, with green te
ndrils and leaves. At the top of the page, in pale curly letters, were the words Abigail Ellis.

  Jinny gasped and sat up sharply. Abigail. She glanced briefly at the kids in the bed to be sure they were sound asleep, and then she allowed herself to read the whispery words, faded letters in a neat hand.

  In all her life, until this day, Jinny had never seen a letter, but she knew about them from books. People in books were always getting letters, but this was much more exciting than the usual letter. It was a letter from a ghost, from the past. Almost as though Abigail were speaking to her, only her, from long ago and far away. The envelope had been sealed. Nobody else had ever seen this before.

  Jinny read:

  Dear Mom,

  Geoffrey has promised to bring you this note. I hope you won’t be too mad at me. I know we aren’t supposed to do that—write home. That we’re supposed to be really GONE while we’re here. That we’re supposed to try and forget you. But when I made the promise, when I agreed to come to the island, I didn’t know how it would really be. I didn’t know how much I’d miss you.

  I miss so many things, Mommaloo! Movies. And school. And playing soccer. I miss spaghetti! It didn’t occur to me there wouldn’t be spaghetti here. I’m so so tired of fish. It’s good fish the way Geoff makes it, with lemons from our tree, but still, when I get back I’m going to eat and eat spaghetti. Buckets of it. I almost can’t remember what it feels like to be full the way spaghetti makes you full. Nuts and berries (we call them swinks, the green berries) don’t fill me up like that.

  I don’t understand why we’re here. I don’t understand what this is all for. Nobody explained anything, really. Did they? Or was I not paying attention? I know sometimes I don’t pay attention. It sounded like this would be summer camp when you all told us about it. But it isn’t. It’s days and months and years, and the adventure is gone now, and it feels like forever. Can you remind me why we’re doing this? It’s hard not to feel lonely sometimes, and sad.

  When you get this letter, will you please send the boat back for me? I’m going a little bit crazy. I’ve read all the books on my shelf. I’ve climbed the cliffs a jillion times. I’ve seen all there is to see, and I’m bored, Mom. I’m ready to come home. I don’t know if I can make it another whole year, until it’s my turn. Maybe someone else could take my place? Maybe someone else wants to come?

  I miss you so much. This will be my only letter, I promise. We’ve used up all our paper playing hangman, and my pencil is down to a nub. But I write you letters all the time in my head. I love you like crazy.

  Sincerely, forever, your daughter (remember me?),

  Abbie

  Jinny read the letter. She read it again, trying to process all she’d just learned. She read it a third time.

  So Abigail was really Abbie. “Abbie?” whispered Jinny. And she had a mama, a mother. A mommaloo? Unlike anyone else Jinny had ever known, Abigail clearly knew her mother. She remembered her mother. Enough to write to her this way and ask to come home. Which meant that Abigail . . . wasn’t an orphan.

  Jinny felt like she couldn’t quite process that. Like her brain was still half asleep. She scanned the letter one more time and then clutched it to her chest as she closed her eyes. She suddenly had so many more questions. Why hadn’t the letter gone home with Geoffrey, whoever he was? And why had Abigail—Abbie—if she had a mother alive, been sent to the island in the first place? Based on all the books Jinny had read, it wasn’t what mothers were supposed to do—send their kids away, abandon them to live on an island. What had Abigail done to deserve that?

  Jinny looked around the room, wishing there was someone she could talk to right now. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. There was nothing to say, and the littles were sleeping, but, oh, how she wanted to say something to someone. She felt like she would explode if she didn’t. This was a new kind of feeling. A question bigger than a question. A mystery. A hunger, burning slowly. There was something Jinny didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. There was so much she didn’t know.

  “Lemons,” she whispered to herself. “What happened to the lemons?”

  Jinny looked down at the letter, trembling in her tired hand. It looked sweet, with its flowers, but it wasn’t. This letter was powerful, dangerous. Jinny could just imagine Eevie’s quick fury, if she thought she had a mother who’d sent her away. Joon would pretend not to care, but her eyes would grow stormy. Nat and Ben would just be sad. They didn’t get angry, only disappointed. So who could Jinny share this with? If Deen were still here, she’d show him the letter—just him—and it would be their secret. They’d fight about it, talk about it. But Deen was gone. So for now, the letter would be Jinny’s. Alone.

  Maybe, in his new life, Deen already had the answers to all Jinny’s questions. Maybe Deen had a mother of his own and had met her. A mother like the mothers in the books. Who baked cakes, wore a bonnet, and sang him songs at night. Had she explained everything to him? Had he forgiven her?

  Jinny folded the letter and looked around for a place to put it. She’d never had a thing to hide before, so she didn’t have a hiding place. At last she slid it inside one of the rips in a couch cushion for safekeeping. “You’ll be safe here, Abbie,” she whispered to the letter, and it was oddly comforting.

  After that, Jinny stacked her cushions beneath the bed and, checking to be sure that Ess and Loo were still sleeping, tiptoed outside to stretch and see what was going on. She needed to move, to run or jump. The secret inside her didn’t want to sit still.

  But as she was turning to walk down the path, she heard a creaking sound from the cabin next door. It was Sam. “Jinny?” he called out after her.

  “Oh, hey,” said Jinny, glancing over her shoulder at him quickly. He had a funny look on his face, and that made her nervous. She had the oddest sense that people might be able to see her secret. “What’s up?”

  “I just, I wanted to tell you, last night, that I think it’s nice. That you stayed, for Ess.”

  “Oh!” said Jinny. “Wow, thank you, Sam.”

  “And I wish . . . Deen had done that too—stayed. I remember how you asked him, that day. And I remember how much fun we used to have, the three of us, together. It was nice, wasn’t it, when we were a team, you, me, and Deen? I miss it. I still wish he hadn’t left.”

  Jinny stared at Sam’s wrinkled brow and smiled. “Sure,” she said. It was funny to think that he remembered their trio that way. “Sure, it was great,” Jinny lied kindly. “But, you know, I thought Deen seemed funny, at the end. Unhappy. Did you notice that too? Maybe he needed to go away.”

  Sam nodded. “He was sad. He was having scary dreams, I think. He cried in his sleep. He shouted, sometimes. It woke me up.”

  “Really?” It occurred to Jinny for the first time that Sam might knew things about Deen that she didn’t. The thought made her sad, but not as sad as she might have expected. Mostly sad for Sam. He seemed so alone with himself, so often.

  “Yes,” said Sam. “And also, before he left, he did this.” He pointed at the ground near the cabin door.

  “Did what?” asked Jinny, walking over and crouching down to inspect a line of smooth round pebbles at Sam’s feet. They were fitted together perfectly, side by side, a long row of pebbles at the base of the cabin. How had she missed this? How had Deen done this without her noticing? “Huh,” she said.

  “Isn’t it neat?” asked Sam. “Each day he found a stone, I guess, and then each night, after he tucked me in, he’d come out here and put it in the line, alone. I asked him why, and he said he couldn’t explain it. He only knew that he wanted to add a stone each day.”

  “Hmm,” said Jinny.

  “I wish he hadn’t gone.”

  “Me too.” Jinny continued to stare at the stones. “But he said he had to.”

  “But you didn’t leave Ess. So then maybe he didn’t really have to leave either.”

  Jinny shrugged. “I’m me and Deen is Deen. But it’s nice, Sa
m. That you remember Deen so well. That you care.”

  “How could I not remember him?” asked Sam. “I’ll always remember him.”

  Jinny didn’t know how to answer that, so she forced a smile, waved, turned, and started off down the path to the kitchen.

  Ben didn’t notice her until she was standing right behind him. She tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped. “Oh! Jinny! I didn’t see you there.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jinny right away.

  “It’s okay,” Ben said. “You just gave me a startle.”

  “No, I mean, I’m sorry sorry,” said Jinny. “Really sorry. Sorry for what happened last night.”

  “Oh,” said Ben. “That.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Ben looked at her without speaking. It made Jinny squirm a little. She wondered what he was thinking.

  At last he said, “Well, thank you. For the apology.”

  Nobody said anything for another minute after that, and the silence felt stifling, so Jinny opened her mouth to fill it up, and as usual, too many words tumbled out. “Look, Ben, I won’t lie,” she said. “I’d do it again, the not-leaving part. I wasn’t ready to go, and I’m still not. Ess wasn’t ready either. She needs me, and I—well, I’m just not ready.”

  “O-okay,” said Ben, looking unsure.

  “But about Loo . . . ,” Jinny continued, “I feel terrible. I don’t even know why I did that, took charge of him like I did. You’re right, of course. I didn’t think of you, or anyone else, and I’m sorry I upset you and made things hard. I didn’t want to upset you. I just wanted to stay. Here.”

  Ben stared at her evenly. There was a spoon in his hand, and he glanced down at the spoon, then back at Jinny, before he said, “I won’t lie either, Jinny. I think you’re wrong to do this. All of it. I think you should get into that boat today and go. Right now. Because these are the only rules we have, and it’s good here, when we follow them. Or it always has been, so far. But for your sake, I hope it will all be fine. And I do understand. At least, I mostly understand. Does that make sense?”