by J. G. Kemp
“The one on the island… that you can see from the lighthouse? The one they say is like… a prison?”
Mary settled on the mattress, her shoulders slumped forward, and stared at the rug. “Yeah.”
Cassie gasped. “Oh no, Mary—”
“—I’m so sorry Cassie,” Mary interrupted. “I should have listened to you. It’s all my fault. I never should have taken that key. I never should have opened that door. I should have known better.” She clenched her fists and sat up taller. “Now he’s sending me away? Separating us? This isn’t fair. Mom said he would take care of us. He can’t separate us. He can’t. I won’t leave you. How can he be so… ARRRR!” Mary grabbed a dress off the floor, quickly bundled it into a ball, and threw it across the room. It hit the wall softly and fell, crumpled, like a tissue paper. “ARRRR!” she said again, and stood, and picked up a shirt and threw it, and some pants, and two socks, and her pajamas—each hit with a gentle poof and landed in a soft pile. When she had thrown all the clothes near her, she slumped down on the bed again.
The wind outside quietly whistled against the bedroom window, and Mary imagined being carried-off on it, carried away, like a leaf, or a feather, or a speck of dust.
“I know,” said Cassie excitedly, sitting on the bed beside her sister. “What if we ran away and never came back?” Mary’s eyes lit up. “We could hop on a train and ride it to a far-off, exotic, city,” Cassie continued.
“Yeah,” added Mary, sitting up straighter, “and we could meet handsome princes and live in splendid castles—”
“—and ride magnificent horses with glorious, flowing manes,” added Cassie, tossing her curly hair over shoulders.
“Yes, and live as gypsies, playing our violins on the streets for spare change—”
“—and sleep in tents in the forest—”
“—and travel around the whole world—”
“—and…” Cassie paused, her voice became serious, “we could try and find Mom.”
Mary was silent. She looked away and slumped forward again and sighed. “Mom’s gone Cassie. She left us. It’s better to just forget about her. Trust me.”
“But Mary, what about her journal, and Grandma’s? There has to be more. Why is Uncle Edwin keeping them in there? He knows everything, he just doesn’t want to tell us? Why—”
“—I don’t know, Cassie. Please, I don’t want to talk about Mom, or Grandma, or—”
“—But Mary, I have to know. I have to know why she left. What if she’s still out there? What if we could find her? What if—”
“Cassie, stop,” Mary said firmly. “We’ll never know. It’s no use asking. Uncle Edwin is in charge. You’re trapped here and he’s sending me away and that’s all there is to it.”
Cassie looked at the floor. The wind outside was getting stronger. It whistled around the high stone walls of the mansion. It was almost dark. Lightning flashed through the crack in the curtains but there was no thunder; the storm was still far away.
“Mary,” Cassie began, “before you have to leave… will you tell me what she was like again… will you tell me what you remember?”
“I’ve already told you everything I remember,” Mary answered flatly.
“I know, but I don’t remember anything. Please tell me again. I won’t be able to hear it for… who knows how long.”
Mary sighed. She didn’t want to think about her mother; she just wanted to forget about her.
“Please?” Cassie asked again.
Mary looked into Cassie’s eyes. She couldn’t leave her—she couldn’t leave her sister. Why is this happening to me? she thought. Mom promised— She took a deep breath… and another… and another. “Okay,” she finally agreed and pushed her glasses farther up her nose.
“Before we came here, we lived in a small house. I was 5, you were 3. I don’t remember much about it, just big mountains and a big tree in the yard that had a swing, and Mom would push me. Her hair was blond like ours, but straight, and she always wore it in a pony tail. I remember one time I fell off the swing and landed on my head, and she washed the blood out of my hair. She had taken her glasses off, and I remember looking up into her blue eyes as she rinsed the soap out and thinking that she was beautiful.”
“I remember we were playing in our room one day, when Uncle Edwin came, and he and Mom yelled at each other in the kitchen, about Dad and Aunt Annie and Aunt Cecilia. I remember her crying when she told me they died in an accident, right after you were born. I remember her crying as we drove here. I remember I asked her what was happening, and she said she had to leave, but that we would be safe, and Uncle Edwin would take care of us, and that I should take care of you. And I remember you, crying after her as her car drove away… and that’s all, I don’t remember anymore.”
When Mary finished, Cassie hopped off the bed and began to pace excitedly, like she was thinking hard about something. “What do you think happened to Dad anyway? Don’t you ever wonder… how he died… what the accident was?”
Mary shrugged. “I used to. I don’t think about it anymore. What difference does it make anyway? He’s gone. Mom’s gone.”
“Mary—” Cassie’s eyes lit up. “While you’re at the Institute, I’m going to find out what happened. I’m going to get back in that room. I’m going to find more journals and find out about Mom, and Dad, and Grandma, and the accident. Uncle Edwin can’t keep it a secret forever. I promise, Mary. I—”
“No,” Mary interrupted, “you can’t get caught again. You have to forget it.”
“Well, maybe if I get caught again,” Cassie argued, “Uncle Edwin will send me to the Institute too, and we can be together?”
“If he wanted to do that, you would be coming already,” Mary argued back.
Cassie stopped pacing and thought for a moment and sat back down on the bed. “Yeah—” She shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
The wind outside continued to whistle. More lightning flashed in the distance.
“Mary?” Cassie asked.
“Yeah?”
“Can I sleep in here tonight?”
Mary smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that. You can help me pack in the morning.”
Cassie popped up and hurried out of the room, and Mary walked to the pile of clothes by the wall and pulled out her pajamas and put them on. In a few minutes, Cassie returned, wearing her pajamas and holding a pillow, and soon, the sisters were lying under the covers, in the dark, staring up at the ceiling.
“Oh Cassie,” Mary sighed, “what am I going to do without you?”
Cassie’s voice sounded encouraging. “Maybe the Institute won’t be so bad. You might make new friends… and at least you won’t be locked up here.”
“Yeah… I’ll just be locked up somewhere else,” said Mary bitterly.
The wind whistled.
“Remember the dome in that room?” said Cassie. “That was amazing, the way the clouds looked so real.”
“Yeah it was,” Mary agreed.
“Wouldn’t it be great, if your bedroom had a glass ceiling, and you could look up at the stars every night?” Cassie added.
“I guess so,” Mary replied.
Lightning flashed through the crack in the curtain.
“Goodnight Mary.”
There was a gentle rumble of thunder somewhere far away.
“Goodnight Cassie.”
Mary closed her eyes and listened to the sound of her sister breathing, and the whistling wind, and the rumbling thunder; and after what seemed like a long time, she finally fell asleep.
✧ ✧ ✧
It was nine o’clock the next morning. The sky was gray; the air was still; the world looked dull and lifeless.
Mary and Cassie stood by the driveway, at the bottom of the stone stairs that led up to their uncle’s mansion. Their uncle, of course, was not there to say goodbye. A black car approached, pulled up next to the girls, and stopped. It was a driverless car—the new
est model. Uncle Edwin always had the newest model. The doors and the trunk opened. Mary rolled her luggage to the car and heaved the suitcase into the trunk, and Cassie set a violin case down beside it.
“I don’t know if I’ll be allowed, but I’ll write if I can,” Mary said.
“You better,” Cassie replied, sniffling.
“Goodbye,” said Mary.
“Goodbye,” said Cassie, and she wrapped her arms around Mary and sobbed freely.
HONK… HONK… HONK…
The car started honking loudly—it was 9 o’clock. Mary quickly turned away from her sister and crawled into the back seat. The honking stopped, the doors closed, and the car began to drive away.
Chapter 3
Caroline’s Corner
The drive to Port Oceanside began on a narrow road that wound up and down and around rolling hills, and past luxurious houses, like her Uncle Edwin’s, with their vast green lawns, and white fences, and big stone fountains. The road went through an old forest, where little sunlight touched the ground. The canopy overhead reminded Mary of stained-glass windows. Mary remembered lying on her back, with Cassie beside her, in their treehouse, gazing up through the branches, imagining faces in the leaves and the blue sky beyond.
The trees rushed by, and soon the narrow road became two lanes, and then three lanes, and then four lanes, and the houses got smaller, and smaller, and closer together until there was no space between them at all—no forests, or fields, or hills—just house, after house, after house.
Her uncle’s car joined countless others, zooming along, almost noiselessly. Some were driverless, their passengers busily working while they rode, but the rest were driven by people—staring straight ahead, gripping the steering wheels, frowning, like they were in a trance.
Mary had been to the city once before and she hadn’t liked it. Everyone had seemed distracted and anxious—they walked quickly and never talked, and their eyes were always fixed on screens in their hands, or in their cars, or on the buildings, or in the restaurants. They were all like her Uncle Edwin, she thought.
The houses rushed by and the car crested a hill and Mary saw the tall buildings and the sprawling city of Port Oceanside. She saw the glimmering blue sea and the Port Oceanside Lighthouse, perched on a hill, overlooking the bay.
Mary had been to the lighthouse, with her sister, on her other trip to the city. It had been turned into a museum, and her uncle had left them there—while he ran an important errand—and she and Cassie had climbed, up the winding spiral stairs, to the antique light. She remembered the giant lenses, and the gears, and the motor; she had liked how everything was visible and not hidden away, out of sight. She remembered the observation deck, the view of the city, and the sound of the ocean. She loved the sound of the ocean.
She also remembered Caroline’s Corner, a bookshop she and Cassie had discovered nearby; Cassie had to use the bathroom and the one in the lighthouse was out-of-order. Mary remembered opening the door to the bookshop, and a little bell rang. She thought it was so clever and simple, how the moving door made the bell ring, with no wires or batteries or electricity. A woman with curly gray hair and glasses had poked her head out from behind a bookshelf and said, “Oh, hello sweethearts. Let me know if you need anything.”
Mary remembered paging through a book, and glancing up, and seeing the old woman had been staring at her, smiling, with kind, loving, caring eyes. Something about the woman had made Mary want to run into her arms and cry, but just then Cassie had come out of the bathroom, and they had to hurry back to the lighthouse to wait for Uncle Edwin.
Mary knew her grandmother’s name was Caroline, and since that day, she and Cassie would sometimes pretend that the woman in Caroline’s Corner was their grandmother. They had never met their grandmother—Uncle Edwin said she had died—but they would play games in which their long-lost Grandma Caroline would rescue them from their uncle’s mansion and sweep them away to live happily-ever-after in the bookstore by the lighthouse.
Mary had tried to forget Caroline’s Corner, just like she had tried to forget about her mother.
The buildings rushed by, and the car went deeper into the city—towards the ocean, towards the lighthouse, towards the docks and the boat to the Institute. Mary searched for Institute Island in the middle of the bay but could not see it through the haze. She imagined sitting at a desk, all alone, in a small room, behind bars, staring at a screen, without her sister, trapped on an island with no hope of escape.
As the car descended the last steep hill before the ocean, Mary saw the masts of sailboats, and the long wooden docks, and the lighthouse on the hill directly in front of her. The car approached the curb and stopped, and its door and trunk opened automatically.
Mary climbed out. She breathed in the air and the smell of the ocean… she stood up taller and breathed in again… ah, the sound of the water, and the squawking gulls, and a distant horn across the bay! For a moment she forgot everything: her sister, her uncle, the Institute. The smells and sounds of the sea rushed into her. She closed her eyes and breathed deep and the breeze caressed her hair, and her thoughts were carried away on the wind.
HONK HONK—it was the car again—two honks, reminding her not to leave without her luggage.
She opened her eyes and saw the lighthouse rising above her, and she smiled and thought of her sister. She glanced at Caroline’s Corner—there was a Closed sign in the window. She looked towards the docks and saw groups of children and a man wearing a blue uniform. He was pointing at a row of small boats nearby.
Mary lifted her suitcase and violin out of the trunk and stepped onto the curb, and the car drove away. This is it, she thought, and sighed, and slowly walked down the dock, towards the crowd, rolling her luggage behind her. As she approached, the attendant in the blue uniform noticed her and spoke:
“Eh, what’s your name Miss?” He had shining green eyes and a short white beard and a friendly smile.
“Mary Andromeda,” she replied quietly and pushed her glasses farther up her nose.
“Andromeda, eh?” He looked down at the clipboard in his hand. “Right at the top, of course. Last boat, down at the end. Allow me.” He reached for her luggage and nodded at the violin case in Mary’s hand. “Don’t know if you’ll need that, not much music at the Institute.”
Mary gripped the violin. “Um, can I sit over there,” she asked, pointing to a row of benches on one side of the pier, “until it’s time to go?”
“Of course, Miss, should only be about…” He checked his watch. “10 minutes. Won’t leave without you.” He smiled and winked and turned to greet another new arrival.
Mary wheeled her luggage to the benches and sat down and watched the other kids. Many of them seemed to know each other—they were standing together and talking and laughing. I wonder why they all look happy to go to the Institute, Mary thought. Some of them wore gray uniforms, while others wore t-shirts and jeans, or summer dresses. I guess I don’t look that different, Mary glanced down at her own summer dress and smoothed the light yellow, cotton fabric over her legs. As more students arrived, the attendant continued to check his clipboard, point to the boats, and carry luggage on board.
The small boats were driverless, or captain-less, Mary supposed. They were enclosed, like a plane, and the stairway which connected them to the dock folded back in, like a door.
When a boat had five passengers, its door would close, revealing the Institute logo—a large letter “I” with a flame on the top as if the “I” were a candle. The boat would then slowly and stealthily back away from the dock, turn towards Institute Island, and shoot out into the bay. Mary wished the boats were open on top, so that she could feel the wind in her hair as she sped across the water.
She watched nine boats leave, one after another, until there was only one left, bobbing gently up and down with the waves. The attendant looked at his watch and then towards the road and then back at his watch again and muttered somethin
g under his breath. After a few minutes, Mary heard a car approach.
It was driverless, like her Uncle Edwin’s, but even longer, and with tinted windows, like a driverless limousine. A boy stepped out and stood there for a moment, in conversation with whoever was inside, and then the door closed, and the trunk opened, and a robotic arm from inside the trunk pulled out a suitcase and set it down on the sidewalk.
The boy was tall and skinny, with glasses, and dark black hair parted in the middle and combed down. He wore dress-shoes and slacks and a gray collared shirt, buttoned all the way up, with the Institute logo on the front pocket. As he walked briskly towards the dock, the suitcase followed him!
“Mr. Henry Kelvin, sir?” the attendant asked, as the boy approached.
“Yes, yes,” snapped the boy, “who else would I be?”
