What the Waves Know

by Tamara Valentine

  “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.” Grandma Jo set a second pancake on my plate and patted my shoulder.

  After wolfing it down, I tossed my plate in the sink and headed for the front door.

  “Freeze.” My mother came through the kitchen door clutching a mug of coffee. “Where in the world do you think you’re going? Remy’ll be here any minute to get you.”

  Tell her to wait, I scribbled on a brown paper bag from Salva’s that was sitting on the table. I’ll be right back. I’d just made it to the door when I remembered the strange way Remy had acted the day before and turned around, picking up the pencil again. Do you know Mrs. O’Malley?

  “She used to drop preserves and biscuits by whenever we came,” my mother answered after a calculated pause. “That sort of thing.”

  Why hasn’t she? The lead on the pencil had worn below the crest of the wood and I was forced to scratch the last word into the smooth side of the bag. My mother leaned over, trying to decipher it, sloshing coffee on her chest as she did. For the craziest of seconds, it looked as though she’d done so on purpose. She leapt back belatedly.

  “Shit!” she cussed, swiping at the stain with the bandage on her thumb. “That’s hot. Do me a favor and leave the door unlocked in case Remy comes while I change. Okay?”

  I’ll be right back, I promised.

  “You’d better be!” she called, bustling out of the room while holding her shirt away from her skin in a small stained tent. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to her go on while you lollygag about.” Bolting out the door in a race to get back before Remy showed up, I barely noticed Luke scrambling out at my heels to make off after a rabbit in the side yard.

  I ran down the lane as fast as my feet would move, and after making sure Remy wasn’t coming down the road, cut into the path. Within three minutes, I was staring at Witch’s Peak trying to remember where I’d set down the map and flyer and stone. Dropping to my knees, I raked my fingertips through the mud, letting the stones sift through my fingers until I hit the soggy edge of a folded piece of paper under a rotted apple core. Grandma Jo’s map was dirty and wet, but at least it was whole. After ten more minutes of shuffling through the dirt I knew the Yemaya Stone was gone along with the flyer. Either they’d been brushed into the thickets by one of Mr. O’Malley’s deer, probably the one who’d left the apple core rotting on my map, or Riley had taken them. Either way, I would never get them back.

  Pulling myself to my feet, I adopted Remy’s disdain for Mr. O’Malley’s stupid salt licks and nursed my own for Riley. The stone was the one thing I had never lost from my father and a sick emptiness opened up inside me. I felt tears sting the corners of my eyes but pushed them away with the heels of my palms. Brushing the dirt off my knees, I walked back to the Booth House, miserable.

  The Purple Monster was parked in the drive, and inside the house my mother was making a check out to Remy since Mr. Herman wouldn’t take one from the mainland. Remy plucked it off the table and counted out five twenties from her own pocket, stuffing them in her shirt pocket to give to Mr. Herman before taking a plate of pancakes from Grandma Jo.

  “Where were you?” she asked, shoving a bite in her mouth and glancing in my direction.

  I grabbed the paper bag and wrote, out.

  “I was just being polite.” She gave me a sidelong look while she chewed. “I didn’t really want to know anyway.”

  Still plotting the many ways I could torture Riley until he coughed up my belongings, I stared back at her with an empty face.

  “Jeez, someone’s in a tizzy this morning,” she said, piling one more bite of pancake into her cheek before turning for the door. “Since you’re already grouchy, let’s go pay Mr. Herman his money and break up a window.”

  “Did you remember to pick me up flowers, Remy?” my mother interjected.

  “No.”

  “But I asked you,” she retorted. “Can you bring some back with you?”

  “Let me see. While you were still sleeping, I hunted down goggles, gloves, and mallets to take care of knocking that window out. Now I’m going down to face off with an old grump who’s already pissed as a grizzly about a broken window and help Izabella take care of the mess she left behind. Then I need to go scrub toilets on the ferry and make sure the deck’s clear of puppy puke. After that, I’m steering a boat across the ocean to pick up a group of pushy tourists and coming back to cart those same tourists to every corner of this blessed island. In the ten minutes I may find for myself by midnight, I might, I don’t know . . . pee or eat or something crazy like that. So, no.”

  “Well, I’m so sorry. But maybe if I had a car—”

  “You don’t need a car; you need a damn servant. Come on, Izabella, before Mr. Herman blows out an artery. Thanks for breakfast, Josephine.”

  I sighed, looking at my mother.

  “Go on,” she said, but there was a hint of gentleness in her voice that I wasn’t used to. “Just stay in the car while Remy gives him the money. He’ll be okay after that. And be sure to wear the goggles and gloves Remy brought.”

  Remy held the door wide, letting me stomp on by.

  “And don’t forget to do your social studies work. Remy has your book,” she yelled after me.

  Outside, I stood by the door waiting for Remy while my mother barked final instructions at her.

  “Make sure he gives you a receipt. The last thing I want is to be stuck on this island for eternity taking care of a lawsuit.”

  “Trust me,” Remy lobbed back. “That’s the last thing any of us wants.”

  “And make sure Iz stays in the car until he’s paid so he doesn’t yell at her all over again. For God’s sake, don’t let her anywhere near those girls.”

  “Anything else?” Remy asked. “Maybe she could just sit in the car and I could fix the window for her, too.”

  “You know what I mean. I just don’t want—”

  “Good God, give the girl a little credit. She’s not built of sand,” Remy said. “Now, if you’re done, I’ve got one for you. Get your sorry ass out of this house. Take a walk, for Pete’s pity! Lord knows you could use a little fresh air. You’re starting to look like a vampire.”

  “The girl’s got a point,” I heard Grandma Jo yell from inside.

  “And while you’re out get your own damn flowers. There are about a thousand rosebushes on this property and a field of black-eyed Susans and daisies. Clippers are in the shed. Figure it out. I’ve got better things to do than run around trying to match petals to your sofa cushions.” She came through the front door shooting me a quick wink, and when I looked over my shoulder, I was surprised to see the faintest glint of a smile turning up the corners of my mother’s mouth before she spun around.

  “Now,” Remy glanced at me once we were in the car and she’d thrown it into drive, “you have your pen and pad?” I fished around inside the pocket of my father’s sweatshirt and nodded. “Good. Then you want to tell me what storm cloud parked its rear end over your head this morning?”

  I flipped my pad open and wrote, nothing.

  “Right. And I’m gonna romp around this island to get your mum flowers tomorrow. Now that we’re both done telling big fat lies . . .”

  The back-and-forth between Remy and my mother was becoming my surest source of entertainment, better even than seeing how many of my mother’s cigarettes I could steal before she thought she was losing her mind. But something had shifted between them. What began as sheer pissiness had softened into almost a sort of game.

  The Great Purple Monster of Millbury skidded to a stop in front of Merchant’s, nearly bumping the car in front of it in the process. I stared out the window praying hard that Mr. Herman would not choose this very moment to come sweep the front stoop. We sat there for the slowest minute in all of history before my eyes dragged away from the storefront to find that Remy had set the cash on my lap and was flipping through the Mirabel’s passenger list, pen in hand. Another minute crawled by with all the sp
eed of a garden slug before she glanced up.

  “You can’t go until you actually open the door.”

  I stared at her wide-eyed, grasping at the frayed ends of the conversation between my mother and Remy not fifteen minutes earlier regarding my designated post as car ornament while Remy paid Mr. Herman and got a receipt. Her disobedience toward my mother quickly lost every ounce of entertainment value. I shook my head, shoving the money across the seat, only to have her stare at it blankly.

  “Izabella, even if I wanted to—and let’s be clear about this, I don’t—I do not have time to sit here all day while you crawl under the front seat of this car and hide from a thousand-year-old grocer who hasn’t strength or sense enough to knock a rat off a garbage tin. In four hours, Mr. O’Malley will be pulling the ferry up to the wharf, at which time we have thirty minutes to scrub down five restrooms and swab two decks before we turn the boat around to the mainland.”

  I’m supposed to wait here until he’s paid, I scribbled. Remember?

  “Trust me, Mr. Herman’s not gonna run you to the hills when you’re handing him cash. He’s just an old man. It takes him forty-five minutes to hobble down Main Street to open the store. Go on.”

  But you told my mother

  “I lied.”

  But

  “Now listen here, Izabella, this is your debt, not mine, and you’ve got about two minutes to decide if you’re going in there to settle it or not. Your mum may be worried about him raising his voice to you, but I’m not. You’re not going to crumble to dust by someone being upset. Now, today was Mr. Herman’s deadline. You choose. Fix it, or let him press charges. You want to call it off? I’ve got plenty of other things I could be doing other than smashing out a window.”

  No! I scribbled before tossing the pen across the seat and putting my notepad away to let her know I was serious about the issue.

  “Have it your way,” she said, firing up the taxi. “But I’m going to tell you right now . . . you can’t have it both ways. If you want this world to take you seriously, you’d better stop hiding under your mum’s skirt when things get hairy. You’d rather run off and sneak around than stand up and be counted for your choices. And that’s just fine—if you plan on living in everyone else’s shadows for the rest of your life.”

  Glaring at her, I snatched the money off the seat, opened the latch, and made my way into the store with my heart trying to thump its way free of my chest.

  Mr. Herman was standing just inside as if he had been watching us argue the whole time. “I hope you’ve come through that door with my money.”

  I handed over the fold of money, feeling the slippery skin on the back of his fingers brush against my wrist as he plucked it from my hand. Mr. Herman tallied the bills as slowly as possible, counting them off in his most booming voice to be sure the whole store heard him.

  “Forty . . . sixty . . . eighty . . . one hundred. Well, at least it’ll pay for a new glass. Probably not the same quality.” He drew the moment into infinity to be certain every last customer noted the level of injustice I’d inflicted upon him.

  When he was finished, I gave him a meek smile.

  “Make sure you don’t damage the wood when you’re breaking out the old pane,” he barked. “I need this storefront shipshape before the festival begins.”

  Outside, I found Remy already suited up with a pair of goggles and gloves reaching clear up to her biceps. One black rubber hand was holding out a set for me, too. While I pulled them on, she fetched two rubber mallets and a large roll of duct tape and marched over to the window.

  “Here.” She handed me the loose end of tape. “Start with this corner while we wait for Jim to bring his pry bar. We’ve got to pull these boards and finish taping it off before we can start hammering.”

  Busy taping, I did not notice the police cruiser pull up behind the Purple Monster until the sheriff sauntered over to us. Riley was at his side clutching a steel bar in his hand. My stomach teetered, sending a flush over my cheeks at the sight of him. I wondered if he realized I knew he’d stolen my Yemaya Stone. But the truth I refused to admit was that anger wasn’t the only emotion kicking around in my gut.

  “Morning.” Remy brushed the sheriff’s cheek with a kiss before patting Riley on the back. “Thanks for bringing the crowbar. I’m couldn’t find mine anywhere.”

  “Not a problem. I think that one may be yours from when I fixed my porch. I was bringing Riley down to the pier anyway.”

  “Can you pull those boards really quick, so I can tape behind them?” Remy tapped Riley on the shoulder, pointing.

  Giving me a hard glance, Riley pushed past me and wiggled the teeth of the bar under the nails, pulling them free with a groan from the wood. Remy took the paper cup from the sheriff’s hand and sipped at his coffee.

  “That should do it,” Riley said, stepping back so Remy could tape off the hole. When she turned, he gave the crowbar a toss, letting it fall at my feet.

  “Did I break this window?” She shot a look over her shoulder. Snapping to, I realized I’d been staring at Riley. Blushing, I grabbed the tape and helped her finish it off.

  “I’m gonna get a soda,” Riley said, going into Herman’s.

  “Hurry up,” the sheriff yelled after him. “I’ve got to get back to the station.”

  A few minutes later, Riley reappeared with a can of cola, heading for the cruiser. “I’m gonna drop him by the pier. You ladies have this under control?” the sheriff asked.

  “It’s as good as done,” Remy puffed, handing the mallet to me.

  As the police cruiser pulled away from the curb, I noticed two familiar figures standing across the street. Lindsey and Carly were sitting on a bike rack watching us. Our eyes met for only an instant, but it was long enough for Lindsey to toss her hair over one shoulder with a laugh.

  “It’s festival week,” Remy explained, following my gaze. “No school. Sort of a fall break.” She turned back toward the window. “Okay, goggles tight?”

  I gave the band behind my head a tug and followed her back to the window.

  “Okay, stand right here,” Remy directed, pointing to the spot in front of her. “Before you swing I want you to look in that glass.”

  I stared at the spot where she had pointed. Through the hole, I saw Betsey ringing up a customer and gazing back at me, perplexed.

  “Look again.” Remy fiddled with a loose cuticle on her thumbnail.

  It took a full minute before what she was looking at took shape and pulled into focus, and a grin worked over my lips. There in the reflection, I saw Lindsey and Carly perched like vultures on the metal rack behind me.

  “Now go ahead and hit it like you damn well mean it.”

  Smashing at the window like it was Lindsey’s skull, I did not stop until there was nothing left but small chunks, like bits of icicles, clinging to the edges.

  “You should consider doing something about that habit,” Remy said, standing back and checking my progress.

  I looked at her inquisitively.

  “You know, the urge you get to smash windows whenever those girls are around.” She gazed across the street where the two girls were pretending not to watch. “At least this time your steam came in handy.”

  Three hours later, we’d carved loose the remaining shards of glass and Remy was driving in the last nail to board up the window until the new pane arrived. When she was done, Mr. Herman hobbled out to have a look.

  “What about scraping the grooves?”

  “Did it,” Remy said, tossing the mallet into the trunk.

  “There’s still the matter of the chipped paint around the edges.”

  “Not today. I’ve got a ferry to run this afternoon. Besides, that can be taken care of once the new glass is set.”

  “Make sure it is,” he grumbled. “And it’ll need to be glazed, too.”

  “Right,” Remy answered, opening the passenger door and cueing me to get in. “Ready?” She looked at me.

  “I didn’t h
ear an apology,” Mr. Herman said.

  I looked at Remy, wide-eyed.

  “Well?”

  “She doesn’t speak, Maynard,” Remy interjected. “I told you that the other day.”

  “That’s not how I understand it. Word is she can speak when she wants.”

  I stared at Mr. Herman in disbelief. Through the open door, I saw a thin woman with a sharp nose gaze up from the box of cookies she was laying on the checkout belt.

  “Well, you should know better than to believe the half-cocked gossip of a bunch of bored housewives. Now leave her alone.”

  “For your information, your nephew told me, not three hours ago. Says he heard her for himself out on the bluff. And since she can talk when she chooses, I think I’m owed an apology.”

  “Then let me apologize,” Remy chirped. “I’m sorry you’re so bitter. I’m sure it’s not entirely your fault you’re a hostile old windbag.” Mr. Herman looked like he’d been slapped as a cloud of anger swept over his face. I grabbed Remy’s arm, trying to tug her out the door before things got any worse. “Oh, and the next time someone gets accosted outside your door by the riffraff on this island, I might have to start sending people to Salva’s instead. You know, for their own safety.”

  Remy slammed the driver’s door shut with more force than necessary and we drove the rest of the way to the pier in silence, with me trying to untangle what Mr. Herman had said. I hadn’t spoken to a single soul on this island, and it wasn’t until we skidded to a stop beside the Yemaya statue that I figured out what he was talking about. It was Riley who’d told Mr. Herman I could speak, which wasn’t entirely factual since a gasp is not truly a word.

  Sometimes, when I least expected it, tiny shreds of the knot in my throat broke free—not whole words but stray syllables. It had happened at my grandfather’s funeral when they’d opened the casket and a small oooowww, as soft as a cat’s meow, had popped into the air and gotten caught up in the groan of the coffin hinges. I remember how it felt, too, like a tiny chameleon skittling up my throat and hiccupping into the world, leaving a small empty pocket inside me and a dizzying whirl in my ears. But nobody else had ever heard. Until now.