Orphan Island

by Laurel Snyder

  Later, banging the dishes around in the sink, Jinny tried not to think about Ess, back in the cabin, alone. It didn’t work. Jinny’s frustration from earlier had burned away, and now she just felt guilty, even if she didn’t know what else she could have done. She scrubbed extra hard, as if to rid her thoughts of Ess, walking away from the table.

  Setting aside the last plate, Jinny considered that she could probably never feel about Loo the way she did about Ess. She felt bad about that, but the boy was always moving. He never stopped shouting. He was rude and wild. At night he breathed through his mouth and it kept her awake. But still, he was her Care and he needed her. Ess would be okay. Jinny would do something special with her tomorrow to make up for it. They’d go for a walk all by themselves.

  When Jinny turned from the sink, she jumped. “Ben!” she said. He was sitting at the table, watching her in silence. How long had he been waiting like that, staring at her back? “You scared me. Did you want something?”

  “I just . . . thought maybe we could talk.”

  “About what?” asked Jinny. There was plenty to talk about, of course. But she didn’t really want to get into any of it. She had enough to worry about without Ben and his feelings.

  “I just wanted to see if you’re okay,” said Ben. “You seem upset tonight. Jumpy.”

  Jinny shook her head. She did feel jumpy. But where to begin, and what would be the point of talking? Anyway, how could she explain what she didn’t understand herself? “No,” she said. “No, I’m just busy. And tired. All this work with Ess and Loo . . . it’s a lot. But please don’t say I told you so. . . .”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said Ben. “I never would.”

  “Thanks,” said Jinny. She tried to smile. “Look, Ben, I know you didn’t agree with it, but as hard as it is, I’m glad I stayed. I truly am.”

  “That’s good, I guess,” said Ben. “I mean, I’m glad you’re glad. But I just, well . . . I want to help you, if I can.” He stared at her for another moment, like he was waiting for her to say something.

  It was kind of him. Jinny could tell he was trying, but he wasn’t really helping. “Good night, Ben,” she said finally, then turned and walked away.

  20

  Something Stirred

  Jinny woke up, stared at the wooden planks of the ceiling through half-glazed eyes, and then closed them again. “Mmm . . . ,” she said. She turned over into the pillow, tried to find her way back into sleep, into her dream. Away from the hard floor and the lumpy cushions into that other place. That soft place. There.

  But where was there? Jinny couldn’t find it, the dream. She’d been so warm. Close and happy. Like there was sunshine on her, slippering her skin. Or no—had it been water? Yes. Water on sun and her beneath it all, sliding and sleeping in between the lapping waves. Water holding her.

  Yes, and now she was drifting, falling back, floating, almost there. Swimming in the warm sunshine water. So all around her the water and the sun, like a bubble, and arms, like water but not water, more solid than water, enfolding her. Tight watery arms, and strong. Now Jinny wasn’t slipping. She was floating, held up by the arms and the water. She was in a bubble. She was a bubble. And the arms were all around her, and Jinny was safe. While the voice was saying . . . something? What was the voice saying?

  Jinny.

  Jinny, sang the voice, in humming underwater tones.

  But the voice was familiar. It was Deen’s voice. Jinny Jinny Jinny.

  And now the waves were Deen’s arms. Deen’s waves, his sunshine bubble, and Jinny couldn’t hear him singing anymore, but that was okay because the arms were there, all around her.

  Jinny held her breath easily. She waited. She floated. Happy.

  Until . . . a breath of air, cold.

  She gasped and sat up. Her bare shoulders were freezing. She glanced around the room quickly and noticed the door was open, letting in an early-morning chill. She climbed up, out of her cushions to close the door, and glanced over at the bed, where she saw only Loo, facedown in a pillow. Alone.

  Alone?

  Ess was gone.

  Hazily, Jinny remembered dinner the night before. Then the bubble burst. The ghost of the warm dream slipped away with the cold morning breeze, and Jinny found herself hopping up and yanking Loo along with her, out of the cabin. But when they stepped out into the day, Jinny froze. Because something was different. Something big. Gazing up and out into the morning, Jinny saw that the sunrise shapes—the whorls and swirls that usually filled the sky—looked different than they ever had before. The ring of mist that surrounded the island was looser somehow, so the sunrise blurred rather than creating its usual clear pictures. There were no flowers, no fish or stars. Only a blurry, hazy scrim over the gold-and-blue sky. She squinted and peered up intently.

  Dragging the sleepy boy behind her, she ran down the sandy path to the fire circle, still in her sleeping shift.

  “Has anyone seen Ess?” she called out in a voice that felt raw and unready. Not yet awake. She cleared her throat. “Essssss!”

  Joon, stoking the fire in the cookstove, looked over her shoulder and said, “What? No. Isn’t she in your cabin?”

  “Well, if she were in my cabin, I wouldn’t be looking for her, now would I?” replied Jinny. She had to shout over Loo’s howls. Now that he was back in the kitchen, he wanted more plomms, and of course there weren’t any. “Hush!” Jinny shouted at him, and his mouth snapped shut. A miracle.

  “Hey, did you guys see the sky?” asked Nat, appearing on the path. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s weird,” said Jinny. “But what’s weirder is I can’t find Ess. She wasn’t in the cabin when we woke up. Nobody’s seen her.”

  “Well, to be fair, you’ve only asked me,” said Joon. “Somebody may well have seen her.”

  “This isn’t like her.” Jinny could feel the worry building inside her. Loo began shouting again, hopping on one foot. Why didn’t he ever shut up?

  Nat smiled and raised her eyebrows at Jinny.

  “What?” Jinny snapped. “Why are you smiling? There’s nothing funny about this!”

  Nat pointed at the table a few feet away, and when Jinny glanced down at it, she recognized a lumpy tuft of tangled black hair sticking out from under the tabletop.

  “Ess!” Jinny shouted. She dashed the short distance, ducked down, and then fell over with relief. There, beneath the table, sat Ess and Sam. Both of them were grinning.

  “What were you thinking?” Jinny said. “You gave me a huge fright!”

  “We were hiding,” said Sam shyly. “Me and Ess. Right, Ess?”

  “Yes!” said Ess proudly. “Me and Sam!”

  “You guys!” said Jinny, with mingled tones of annoyance and relief. “You can’t run off hiding, first thing in the morning. Nobody knew where you were. I was worried. And, Sam, I know you know better than that!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Sam gravely. His eyes were very serious. He wasn’t accustomed to being yelled at.

  “Me too,” said Ess brightly, with a firm nod of her head. “But it’s okay. Okay?”

  Jinny groaned and stood up. “Yeah, it’s okay.” She walked back over to where Loo stood and reached for his hand. “Let’s start this day all over again. Do-over! Come on, Loo. We need to change our clothes.”

  As she marched back up the path, dragging the squawking Loo behind her, Jinny found herself filled with a mix of feelings. Relief, of course. But she was surprised to discover another emotion tangled up with the relief. A faint twinge of envy. She tried to dismiss it, shrug it off, but there it was. Ess had never gone off without her before this. And Sam, of all people . . . Jinny knew it was silly and tried to shake away the feeling. But it stuck.

  Then, like a flash, Jinny found herself caught in a fog—pulled into a picture she’d forgotten, lost and tumbled in all the gone years. Jinny stopped at her cabin door but didn’t reach to open it, so arrested was she by the power of her memory. In her mind she could see th
e green boat, sailing away, and with it, Emma. Her red hair glinting in the sun off the water.

  Jinny finally remembered that boat, that day, that beach. Jinny had stood and watched. She recalled crying, and then sitting in the sand, digging in the sand with her fingers. And there, beside her, was Deen. One head taller than she was. Deen saying, “Don’t. Don’t cry.”

  She remembered it with unusual clarity. His hair was tied back with a strand of dune grass, but not well. The strands kept slipping free. And he reached out and took her hand. For what must have been the first time. Took her hand, and led her away from the beach, up to the table. The two of them had ducked beneath it that day, just like Ess and Sam. Sat beneath the table, safe there, and Deen had pulled the dune grass from around his ponytail and held it out.

  “For me?” she’d asked.

  And he’d nodded as he reached down and tied it around her wrist. A gift.

  That had been the beginning, hadn’t it? Everything had been better after that. Everything Jinny could remember about anything had happened after that. How funny, to have forgotten something so important.

  “Oh . . . ,” whispered Jinny as she thought of Ess and Sam, giggling together. “Oh!” as if she’d stumbled onto something but only just barely recognized what it was.

  A little while later they all stood, dressed and ready, around the fire circle. Ben passed out bags and baskets, and then they marched off in a line—up past the dunes and the cabins, along the sandy path, past the swink bushes, into the prairie and along the creek. Jinny couldn’t remember the last time this had happened, the last time they’d all gone on a fetch together. She found herself happy, whistling. What was wrong with her lately? She needed to stop worrying so much.

  Together they stopped to pick swinks. Together they hunted chicken eggs in the low branches of the trees and the tall grasses of the prairie, but when they came to the beehives, everyone but Jinny and Joon hung back. They were best with the bees, and there wasn’t room for so many hands in the hives, lifting the dripping frames. Together the two oldest girls laid a clean sheet on the ground and got to work.

  It was sunny in the glade. Good medicine, after the last few confusing days. Jinny inhaled the warm day and the smell of grass and dirt. She wondered idly if these bees were the same bees that had made honey for Abbie. Surely the hives must be the same. These were the children of the children of Abbie’s bees, perhaps. It was a nice thought—Abbie lifting the lid, just this same way.

  But when Jinny opened the box and reached in gently for the first frame of honeycomb, she found herself holding her breath. She wasn’t sure why, but she suddenly felt a charge of energy, despite the lazy day and the sunny weather. As though the tensions of recent days had followed her up into the prairie and were buzzing along with the bees. Something stirred inside Jinny. She moved carefully, hesitantly. The bees felt somehow louder than usual. Not far away, Ess and Sam sat picking flowers beside a large boulder, while farther off, the others chased after what Jinny assumed to be a lizard or a kitten in the grass.

  Just as Jinny was lifting the first panel free of the hive, and gently brushing the bees off it, she heard a shout and turned. Behind her she could make out Jak, Oz, and Loo racing toward her, arms in the air, streaking after a small black cat, who ran, ears back, tail low. Jinny stood, bees buzzing industriously around her head, honeycomb in hand, frozen, and watching.

  She put up a hand to stop the boys barreling at her, to say stop. Only they didn’t seem to notice. They kept coming, straight for her, chasing the cat. Jinny stared down at the bees covering the honeycomb in her hands, and she felt panic well up inside her. The bees were buzzing, and now Jinny was buzzing too. She took a breath and tried to calm herself. She braced for the hot sharp sting that would no doubt come when the shouting boys flew past. The calmer Jinny was, the less the stings would hurt. She knew this. And she knew stings weren’t the end of the world. Like scratches and scrapes, they happened and healed.

  Then, as if in slow motion, Jinny saw Ess rise from behind her boulder. The girl’s face lit up. Ess grinned, called, “Kitty!” and tossed aside her handful of buttercups, which showered Sam, as Ess began to run. Now she careened toward Jinny too, in her lopsided gait.

  Jinny was trapped, stuck. Her mouth opened to shout Stop! No, stop! but the bees buzzed and the air trembled with them. And as Jinny felt the hot bite of a single annoyed bee sting her hand, she had a flash, a vision of what would happen when clumsy Ess hit the hives. Ess, who couldn’t ever seem to help knocking things over, whenever there were things to knock.

  The bees had never done real harm before. But, Jinny thought, the morning pictures had never been blurry before. The nets had never been empty. And nobody had ever run smack into the hives. Jinny could do nothing but clutch the buzzing frame of dripping honey as she watched Ess careen her way.

  Like she knew Ess would drool each night in her sleep, like she knew the stars would appear when the sun went down, Jinny knew what was going to happen next. She knew, and what could she do? She felt like she might choke.

  “No, Ess, no!” shouted Jinny, shaking her head hard. She winced as her movement panicked the bees and she felt another sting. Sharp.

  But it was too late. Ess bolted at Jinny, and in her rush of worry, Jinny did the only thing she could think of. She flung the frame of bees as far from her as she could, then ran forward, reaching out both arms, to catch Ess before the girl could hit the hive.

  Unfortunately, as she did this, two other things happened. The cat changed direction, and the boys tore after it, doubled back toward the hives, straight into the path of the flying honeycomb. Before anyone else knew what was happening, the frame hit the ground near the boys and exploded, buzzing and transforming into an angry cloud of stingers. As one, the buzzing cloud seemed to constrict and condense, tighten into a knot of noise, a swarm of wings. And then, just as quickly, the knot unraveled as the bees dispersed, filled the air around Jak and Oz with speed and fire.

  As screams filled the air, the cat became a scowling, snarling streak of dark fur. Jak and Oz fell to the ground, rolling and writhing. Loo, far behind them, stopped to stare. At the hive, Joon shouted a helpless “No!” And in the distance, the others began to race toward the disaster.

  Clutching Ess, Jinny heard the shrieks and screams. She released the girl, turned, and ran to the boys. Ran for them. Everyone else was running too, but Jinny was closest.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” she shouted, staring down at Oz and Jak.

  Their eyes were closed, lips drawn tightly against gritted teeth as they rolled on the ground. Without thinking, Jinny dropped to her knees and began to beat at the boys with her bare hands, brushing and slapping the bees away as best she could, flinching at the stings on her hands. The others gathered around and stared at the trio, frozen, unsure of what to do.

  In a matter of seconds, the bees flew off, but they left behind two boys covered in stings, angry red welts rising on their faces and arms. Tears in their eyes.

  From the ground, Jak looked up and painfully opened one eye. “Jinny?” he whispered. “Are they gone?”

  Jinny didn’t know what to say. She looked down at the tiny brown stingers stuck in her own burning hands. “I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t tell if the tears in her eyes were from the pain of her stings or something greater. Her chest was constricting. She could barely breathe.

  “This is my fault. It’s all my fault.” She began to cry. “What did I do?”

  That was when she felt someone push her out of the way, and Ben was there. Under his breath he said to her, “Calm down, Jinny. You’re scaring everyone. The boys will be fine.”

  “But what if they aren’t? What if . . .” Her voice faded.

  “What are you talking about?” Ben hissed. “We’ve all had beestings before. It’s okay.”

  “But that was . . . before!” she cried. This was different. Everything was different now. Didn’t Ben feel the change?

  Ben frowned. “Bef
ore what? Stop it, Jinny. You’re overreacting. The littles are scared. Look!” He pointed up at Ess, Sam, and Loo, who all stared, wide-eyed, at Jinny.

  “Before . . . ,” she whispered, but then she looked at Ess’s wide eyes and found she couldn’t say more, or didn’t want to.

  Jinny peered down at her bee-stung hands. She tried to take a deep calming breath. But she couldn’t help it. Instead, the breath shuddered inside her, and she burst into another storm of ragged tears.

  “Jinny!” Ess snapped out of it and ran to her side, draping herself over Jinny. She reached for one of Jinny’s hands with her own small fingers. But even for Ess, Jinny couldn’t stop herself from crying.

  “Hey, what’s wrong, Jinny? Are you okay?” asked Oz, sitting up and wincing.

  “Yeah, Jinny, you okay?” croaked Jak, as he pulled a stinger from his arm.

  Ben still looked at her with a question in his eyes, but then shook his head. He stood up and clapped his hands, gave a whistle. “See? They’re fine! All right, everyone! She’s fine. We’re all fine. Now come on. Let’s get back home and clean ourselves up. Joon, can you finish the honey?” Without waiting for an answer, Ben marched away. “Come on—you too, Ess,” he called. “Everyone, this way! Let’s give Jinny a minute to herself.”

  Jinny sat alone, calmer, and yet still—not fine. She awkwardly wiped her face on her shoulder, sniffed back a runny nose, and stood up, her bee-stung hands stretched out in front of her. She managed to stop crying, but her face felt red and puffy, and she didn’t trust herself to join the others. She wasn’t ready to speak. She felt . . . fragile. Like she was built of broken bones.

  Gingerly, Jinny stood up. She took her time, walked slowly, inhaling deep slow breaths as she made her way through the prairie. And thinking. Even as she calmed down, she knew that things were different now. These things that were happening that had never happened before . . . they weren’t accidents. And nobody could tell her different. Nobody would understand. Not Ben, not Joon. Not Ess.

  “Would you believe me, Abbie?” she whispered as she walked. “I think you might.”