It was such a funny thing, to feel as though she knew the long-gone girl. What, wondered Jinny, would Abbie have thought about Loo? What kind of an Elder had she been?
Jinny wished there was more of Abbie here for her, more clues tucked away. She wondered what the scribbled notes in all those buried books might have told her, if she’d ever had a chance to read them. She wondered if perhaps there were more letters hidden and waiting.
From her spot on the wrecked couch, Jinny found herself searching for another hiding place. Given that the first letter had waited all those years to be found, it seemed at least possible that there might be more of them. The books had all been flipped through a thousand times by one kid or another, but what about other nooks and crannies in the room? Jinny stood up, and then slowly she walked, running her hand along the undersides of windowsills, staring up at the ceiling, trying to imagine that there was some corner of the room she’d never considered. She walked every inch of the little cabin, touching all the floorboards with her toes, feeling for a loose panel. But in the end, there was nothing.
At last she lay down on the floor, annoyed, and stared at the mildewed ceiling. But when she did, something caught her eye—a glimpse of something pale, something white, glowing in the dark recesses under the couch. Something wedged up inside the springs. Jinny scooched over and turned on her side to wriggle and stretch a long arm under the sofa. Then she reached up, tugged, felt the tips of her fingers graze a slip of paper. Her heart raced. She repositioned herself, craned her neck, twisted her body, and managed to reach in a little farther and snatch at it. Something tore, gave way, and when she withdrew her hand, she found she was indeed holding a piece of paper.
“‘Do not remove tag from sofa,’” Jinny read aloud. She groaned and let the scrap of paper fall from her hand as she struggled to her feet. But when she leaned over to grab her stack of books from the table, Jinny froze. There was a smear of blood on her calf. She couldn’t begin to imagine where it had come from. Had she scraped herself, wriggling under the couch? But, no, there were no scratches on her legs at all. As she wiped the blood off with her hand, she backtracked in her mind and couldn’t think of anyplace. She was as clean as a person could be, her hair still slightly damp from the water in the sea-star field, while her clothes had dried in the sun.
When Jinny stood up, she noticed more blood, a stain on her tunic, where it must have been bunched up while she was sitting. She glanced over her shoulder, to be sure the door was shut, and then she leaned down and examined her pants. Sure enough, there was a little more blood, seeping through the thin fabric between her legs. Had she cut herself there? How?
Praying nobody would burst in on her, Jinny loosened her drawstring and then reached a hand down inside the pants to pat between her thighs. When she withdrew her fingers, they shouted with blood, bright and red. The sight made Jinny’s stomach turn over. She was bleeding there. She was bleeding from the inside. Was she broken? Had she cracked, somehow, inside herself? And how could she fix it? Would all her blood seep out?
What did this mean? She had no idea and nobody to ask. She looked around the book cabin and tried to think of a story where something like this happened. People in books got killed by bullets, arrows, and wild dragons. They bled all the time, but not like this. She’d never read about anything like this. What was wrong with her? “Oh, Abbie,” she called out to the silent room. “What do I do?” But of course there was no answer.
Suddenly, she recalled a moment. Deen, by the boat. “The world might break to bits,” he’d said. It was just some words, a story he’d made up. But now the mist was thinning, and here she was, breaking. Breaking to bits. Was it possible they were all connected—one to another? The sky, her body. The hissing snakes and the angry bees, the empty nets, and Loo. All broken, part of the same disaster. It was her fault. And she was the only one who knew it, that the world was unraveling.
Jinny jumped to her feet before she could make a bigger mess and ran next door to the store cabin, where she pulled off her stained pants and tunic. Then she wiped herself roughly between the legs over and over, as though she might somehow stop the bleeding that way. She pulled a torn sleeping shift from the ragbag and, using her teeth to start, she ripped it into several strips. She tied them together, so that she had a thin piece of fabric, several yards long. Then Jinny bound herself. She started by wrapping the cloth around her waist, like a belt. She knotted it, and then passed the fabric between her legs, where the blood was. Over and over she did this, until it felt thick and bulky, uncomfortable, and tight. But secure. She wrapped herself, until that part of her, the bleeding part, was covered with a good thick inch of cloth. As though she could bind herself back together with rags, keep her body from coming apart at the seams, keep her bits from breaking. Finally, she slipped into a fresh tunic and pants and darted to the wishing cabin, where she dropped the bloody clothes into the wishing hole.
Satisfied that she was covered up, and that nobody had seen anything, Jinny dashed down to the kitchen to wash her hands from the scalding kettle of water on the cookstove. She splashed her hands with the dipper and winced, but somehow the pain felt right, good.
So. Now she knew for certain. Her body had shown her. Deen had been right and Jinny had been wrong, and everything she did only made things worse.
If she left, if she climbed into the green boat now, was there any chance the mist might knit itself magically back together? Would the pictures return to the sunrise sky? Would she, Jinny, heal on the inside? Or would she just be running away if she left now, deserting the others, stranding them on the island she’d broken? That seemed very wrong. Escaping to that other place, wherever it was, and leaving everyone else behind in a fracturing world. She couldn’t do that. Most of all, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ess to an island she’d broken. She’d thought she was holding on to her life, when really she’d been strangling it, gripping it so tightly it shattered.
And if she did leave now, if she could bring herself to do that, what would she find out there, beyond the mist? How could she know it would be any better? How could she be sure of anything?
Jinny looked around her as she walked back to the sleeping cabin, and it brought tears to her eyes to see how normal everything seemed. The dishes gleaming on the drying rack, and Eevie and Nat sitting at the end of the dock. They didn’t know. Only Jinny knew what was happening. And yet the knowing didn’t make her feel stronger or smarter. She’d never felt so unsure before, so lost. It was exactly the same feeling she’d had in the sea, when she’d realized she could no longer see the island. Helpless. Adrift.
Back in the cabin, Loo had fallen asleep. But Ess was sitting up in the bed, eyes wide open, waiting for Jinny.
“What book?” whispered Ess, as Jinny perched beside her on the bed.
Jinny groaned. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ess. I totally forgot to bring the books. I got distracted.”
“Why?” asked Ess.
Jinny paused, not knowing how to answer. “Because I had to fix something, in the storeroom,” she said at last.
“Why?”
“Because it was broken.”
“Why?” asked Ess again, tilting her head to one side and staring at Jinny.
Jinny suddenly had the odd feeling that Ess wasn’t actually asking her a question so much as she was daring her to answer.
“I don’t know,” said Jinny, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Tears sprang into her eyes and she moved to wipe them away, but not before Ess had noticed. The little girl got onto her knees and crawled over to Jinny. She sat down beside her and put a thin arm over the bigger girl’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Jinny. Right?”
“I hope so, Ess,” said Jinny, closing her eyes. “I really do.”
Ess gently laid something in her lap, and Jinny opened her eyes again. It was the grubby bracelet made of shoestrings. “What’s this for, Ess?” she asked, holding it up.
“For you,” said Ess, smiling. She patted Jinn
y on the hand. “Mama is for you now. To fix it. Make you happy.”
Despite everything—her cramping belly, the tightness of her bindings, and the heavy knowledge she carried inside her—Jinny did smile then. She couldn’t help it. No matter what, some things were still good and whole and true.
23
Unbreaking the World
When Jinny woke up each morning after that, it was with a strange dark feeling. As though something was pulling at her, tugging at her hem. A warning. The two children sleeping peacefully in the bed above her gave no particular cause for alarm, and yet, as Jinny piled her cushions and slipped into her clothes every day, she couldn’t shake her worry. It grew.
All Jinny wanted was for the world to feel the way it had before the boat arrived with Loo. And so she fished and fetched. She helped Ben in the kitchen, and smiled even when she didn’t feel like smiling. She’d never been so diligent before, so focused. She didn’t argue with Eevie. She didn’t say anything when Ess disappeared with Sam to play, leaving her behind. Please, please, please, she thought. Let it be okay. If she could only keep the changes at bay. If she could only keep things the way they were.
But no matter how many crabs she caught, no matter how many plomms she pitted, the sky each morning was hazy and bleary. The pictures were gone. The haul from the nets was smaller and smaller. And Jinny carried the dragging feeling with her.
At least when Jinny unwound her rags one morning, she found her bleeding had stopped. She stared at the dark-brown stains and wondered if, maybe, things could go back to the way they had been before. Maybe she’d learned her lesson, and the island knew it and forgave her? If only there was some way to know. If only there was a way to check, to test the island, to see that it was healing. Jinny decided to take a long walk. Perhaps the bees would be calm after all, the snakes silent, and the chickens full of eggs.
“I’m going on a fetch,” she said to Ben, when she found him in the kitchen. “So if there’s anything you need, let me know. I think I’ll walk along the beach to the sea-star fields, and then cut across the prairie and head up the cliffs. That way I can get the last batch of dried snaps, and we can make honeyed snaps for a treat. How does that sound?”
“Wow, that’s a long walk,” said Ben. “Any particular reason?”
Jinny shrugged. “I just feel like walking,” she said.
“Are you going to take the littles with you, or should I watch them here? That might be too much for them. Don’t you think?”
“If you don’t mind,” Jinny said, “I’d love to go by myself. You sure that’s okay?”
Ben nodded, and Jinny ran back to tell Ess, with a snap bag over her shoulder, whistling. But it wasn’t so simple.
“I want to come too,” Ess said firmly.
Jinny sighed. “No. This one time, I want to go alone. Just me.”
“Why?” demanded Ess.
Jinny didn’t know how to explain the why of it. “Because . . . sometimes, it’s nice to be alone.”
Ess looked worried. “It’s nice to leave me behind?”
“Not you, Ess. Just . . . nice to have a little quiet.”
Suddenly there were tears in Ess’s eyes. “You’re leaving. You’re going away, like Oz and Jak said.”
“No!” cried Jinny. “Oh, Ess, no, no, I’m not. I just . . . I’m tired, and want to take a walk alone.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Ess still looked so sad. “Promise you’ll never, ever, ever leave?”
Something twisted inside Jinny, at the question and the sight of the sad girl. But “I promise” somehow slipped from her lips. Consoled, Ess ran off to find Sam.
After the discomfort of that conversation it felt extra good to be able to move fast, to walk hard, away. As she made her way down the path, past the cabins, and then along the beach in the direction of the bone tree, Jinny stopped to look back at her island. She could see Oz and Jak hunting for something in the dunes. Probably crabs or scuttles. She spotted Nat reading a book. Ess and Sam were back under the table, playing some sort of game. Everything seemed so calm, so normal. Maybe that was true. Maybe everything was fine again. Jinny would see for herself.
She took a deep breath, smiled, and tried to enjoy her walk. She stared into the tide pools, where everything looked as it always had. The petalfish glowed purple and green. She walked along the sea-star field and gazed out at the flat calm water. Then she headed up into the prairie. She opened the hives and peered in, to find happily buzzing bees, busy at their constant work. Every step she took, Jinny felt a little bit better.
Farther up the prairie, a kitten tore past Jinny’s feet, in play. And a few minutes later, she marched through a cluster of chickens hunting bugs in the grass. Everything was fine. Everything was utterly usual. The sun was shining, and a breeze was blowing, and Jinny could find nothing to worry about. So why did she still feel . . . nervous? All the time, every moment. Even with the birds singing above her as she climbed up to the cliffs. It was all a little too perfect.
By the time she arrived at the flat rocks above, Jinny noticed clouds were roiling out over the water. And it was almost a little satisfying, the imperfection, the threat of rain. I’ll work fast, she thought to herself. I’ll work double fast.
Jinny ran to and fro, as quickly as she could, picking up the sweet dark snaps, sticky with crystallized sugar. Now and then she popped one into her mouth, bit through the tight, thick outer skin to the sweet gummy fruit that stuck wonderfully to her teeth, and spat out the slick pit onto the stone. Thhpt.
Jinny was almost finished when she turned and remembered something. She and Deen had another game they’d played with the wind. Deen would stand below, on the rock cliff, and Jinny would step very intentionally, out into a gust of wind, holding his hands, to keep her from falling right back. There, sometimes, she’d fly. When the wind was right, and Deen’s grasp was firm, Jinny could stay like that for long moments. Up in the air, the wind in her face, breathless.
“Don’t you want to fly?” Jinny would ask him, when she was done.
Deen would shake his head, and flash her a quick bright grin. “No, I like to watch you,” he’d say. “Plus, I’m too big. You couldn’t hold me down, I don’t think. Just imagine how bad you’d feel if I flew away.”
“You goof,” Jinny’d tell him. “The island wouldn’t let that happen.”
But by then they’d be on their way back down. Sliding, shouting.
Now, standing alone with her memory, Jinny realized that “flying” wasn’t a game she’d play with anyone else. Deen had been right. It would feel funny to trust someone smaller than herself to hold her down. With Deen gone, there was nobody left to be her ballast. Jinny hefted her bag up over her shoulder, and then she noticed something—that the rushing, roaring wind that usually swirled around the cliffs wasn’t as loud as usual.
That was strange. Jinny stopped for a moment, pondering how to check it. At last she opened one of her bags, pulled out a handful of fruit, and tossed the sweets gently over the edge. But rather than flying back at her, bouncing against the wall of wind, the fruits fell, plummeted over the edge to the waves below. Jinny walked closer and leaned over. She stared down, down into the water, and felt a tremble, a strange sense that she was in terrible danger. As though her feet might suddenly decide to leap off the cliff without asking her head for advice.
Jinny lowered herself shakily, placed her hands flat on the warm rock beneath her, and closed her eyes. She tried to steady herself, and to hold down her breakfast. She sat a moment, thinking. Attempting to think. Well, it can’t get worse now, she thought. This is the worst thing I can imagine. But in fact, that wasn’t true. Jinny could imagine far worse. Of course she could.
At last she forced herself to stand, hefted the straps of the bag up on one shoulder again, and made her way across the flat stone surface, to where she could slide easily back down to the prairie. But for the first time ever the ride didn’t feel like ple
asure. It was only speed, a necessity. Jinny wanted to be home now. Wanting to get away, she had come out today, walking. She’d pretended she was hunting for signs of safety, but that had been make-believe, a dream. Really, she’d been looking for danger, and she’d found it. Underneath her thrumming fear, there was some twisted satisfaction in having found what she was searching for.
As stray drops began to pelt her head, she tore through the prairie, ahead of the rain, not stopping to look out for the kittens. Not stopping to pick flowers at the stream. Jinny dashed back into camp, breathless, and collapsed near the fire circle.
“Here,” she said, panting. “Snaps. And there’s heavy rain coming, I think.”
“Thanks,” said Ben. “Glad to have them. But are you okay? You seem awfully rushed. Why so worried about a little rain?”
Jinny leaned against the table and tried to catch her breath. “It’s not that. It’s . . . much worse.” She panted. “Something is bad, wrong.”
Ben regarded Jinny in that delicate way that she was starting to hate. “Day rain isn’t anything to get so alarmed about.”
“Ben!” she cried. “Just stop! Stop it!” The shout flew from Jinny, took her by surprise. It shocked Ben too. He looked unsettled.
“It’s not okay,” said Jinny. “Do you understand me? Stop trying to make things fine. Things are not fine!”
“What do you mean? What’s not fine?”
Jinny wanted to shake Ben, hard. He was so frustrating! And so blind. Everything, she wanted to say. Absolutely everything. She wanted to tell him about the blood on her legs and the dreams she’d been having. She wanted to shout that the very air felt wrong, even when the weather was perfect. She wanted to show him the fin that had risen above her head, and Loo’s face when she’d struck it. She wanted him to know that she was always waiting, waiting, waiting . . . for something terrible to happen. But he wouldn’t understand any of that. He wasn’t ready, and he didn’t want to. So instead she took a deep breath and said, “The wind.”
Orphan Island Page 17
