Damselfly

by Chandra Prasad

  At that moment, I understood that one day my sister’s shell might grow too hard, and if that happened, I might no longer be able to get through to her. Already, she saw herself as broken. Even worse, she was addicted to pain. I think my sister loved the perfection of it. Simple and pure, that kind of hurt, while so much at home was complicated, twisted, and ugly.

  We drove like there was no tomorrow, listening to a playlist Alexa had made. All of the songs were depressing, and all of them made her strangely happy. When we arrived on campus, she reoriented my bindi—it had migrated to my eyebrow—and gave me a high five.

  “You’ll do great,” she promised.

  At first, I didn’t say much. I was too nervous about Alexa’s instructions. I didn’t know if I could pull off her plan. The interviewer, Mrs. Duval, asked me about my extracurriculars, my favorite classes, my writing samples. I struggled to introduce the topic of being mixed; there never seemed to be a good segue.

  “Being Indian, do you relate to any Indian authors?” she asked. “Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai? I myself love reading about India. What a diverse country. So vivid, so vibrant, so colorful!”

  “I’m not sure I relate to any of them,” I told her, seeing an in. “Since I’m mixed-race, I don’t totally identify as Indian. I’m different—part of a population that needs to be acknowledged. Did you know mixed people didn’t used to be counted on census forms? We were invisible for a long time. I’d like to change that.”

  Mrs. Duval scrutinized me. I could tell from her expression that she was thinking something, but I didn’t know if it was good or bad. “What you say is interesting,” she replied finally. “If you are selected to be a student here, perhaps you’ll consider starting a club for other mixed-race students? I think Drake Rosemont would benefit from that.”

  I nodded. “Sure, I’ll think about that. And for the record,” I added, “sometimes I do like to read Indian writers.”

  When she smiled broadly, I could tell she’d already made up her mind. Alexa had been right.

  “You know,” she said, “we have some rather high-profile Indian families affiliated with Drake Rosemont. Have you ever heard of a businessman by the name of H. Vijay Singh?

  I shook my head.

  “Mr. Singh is very supportive of Drake Rosemont. I think it’s fair to say he is one of our most generous donors. His daughter and son are students here. They’re your age, I believe.”

  “I’d love to meet them.”

  She continued to smile and I saw myself reflected in her eyes. I’d become a symbol of multiracialism, the wave of the future. When Alexa asked me how the interview went, I told her I’d nailed it.

  Just for kicks, we stopped at an Indian restaurant on the drive home. We ordered mango lassis. Alexa drank hers and half of mine and for once didn’t go to the bathroom afterward. I peeled off the bindi and stuck it on the underside of the table, next to an old wad of chewing gum.

  The road trip had been one of the best times I’d ever had with my sister. Later, I would come to see it as a turning point. I was off to Drake Rosemont only a few months later, and she was admitted to the hospital for the first time. Apparently, her shell wasn’t hard enough to withstand a razor blade plunged too deep.

  At the hospital, I told her I didn’t have to go away to school. I could stay home and be with her. But she wagged her finger in the air defiantly, despite the IV line and stitches in her arm. “You have to go,” she said. “I need you to go.”

  As it turned out, I had no trouble convincing my parents that I should go away. Their attention was on my older sister; they didn’t need another distraction. When I showed my dad the pictures of Drake Rosemont’s campus, he liked them. He liked my scholarship even more. There was no way we could have paid for even one semester on our own.

  “You’re the one I don’t need to worry about,” he told me as he drove me to campus, suitcases and boxes loaded in the trunk and stacked in the backseat. It was my second trip to Drake Rosemont in the Subaru. My mother had stayed home in an Ambien daze. It was just as well. I went crazy when both of my parents were together in close quarters.

  I watched my hand trail out the open window, my palm long ago scrubbed of mehndi. There was no music this time. We were crawling in traffic, nowhere near space.

  “You’ve got it together, Sam,” my father continued. “Alexa could learn a thing or two from you.”

  I thought about how my father had one voice for me and another for my sister. He was always gentler with me. He never had that nasty glint in his eye that he had when Alexa was around. I don’t know why Alexa was his only target. Maybe they were too much alike, both stubborn and strong-willed. Or maybe she resembled his forgotten Indian bride in a way that made him resentful. Whatever the reason, I hated my father most when he was kindest to me. Right then in the car, I wished he were dead.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Mel. I’d been wanting to tell her that since the accident. We were still in the tent. She’d just awoken. I’d been unable to sleep.

  “Why?”

  “Because it was my fault—what happened to your arm. I distracted you while you were in the basket.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rockwell. You played no role in what happened.”

  “I played some role.”

  “Not really. It was my own pride that got me in trouble. I wanted the balloon to work so badly, you know?”

  “Why did you climb into the basket anyway?”

  “I was worried the rope might snap.”

  So I’d been right.

  “But it was never going to work,” she confessed. “The flaws were always there; I just didn’t want to see them. All I could think about was escaping into the sky—like Amelia.”

  “Right, but you didn’t end up like her. You’re still here.”

  When she smiled, it was more like a grimace. I could tell she was still in great pain.

  “When your arm heals,” I said tentatively, “maybe you can help with the raft. Betty and Chester are close to making it work.”

  She nodded and I felt relieved that she’d finally come around. I had a hunch that she’d always known that a raft was our best—our only—way off.

  Seconds later, she went quiet. I assumed she’d fallen asleep again, but then I noticed her whole body beginning to tremble. When I touched her forehead, it was burning up. She began to sweat, too. I knew a fever could mean infection. I kicked myself for not preparing tea right after the procedure, for not being prepared.

  There was a little pennywort left, thank god. That day I’d found more of the shiny, round, scalloped leaves in the jungle. I prepared the tea as quickly as I could. Mel drank no less than half a gallon before her fever broke, but it spiked again a few hours later. I realized my friend wasn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot.

  The next forty-eight hours were touch and go. Betty came frequently to help. I welcomed her reassuring presence. But the rest of my classmates, even Chester, were missing in action. I didn’t understand how they could abandon Mel in her time of need. At the same time, a part of me was relieved. I shuddered at the memory of Rittika’s expression after the bone-setting. Maybe it was better that the others not see Mel so weak. I didn’t want to give them reason to believe we were in need of new leadership.

  When Mel had finally stabilized and I ventured out of the tent, what I heard from my classmates gave me the chills. Everyone seemed to have something bad to say about my best friend. How Mel was a control freak. How she had wasted the nylon on a “vanity project.” How she was responsible for giving Avery and Ming third-degree burns.

  “Her life is one long power trip,” I heard Rittika complain.

  I had no doubt that she had started the accusations. I took Rittika aside and tried to reason with her. I knew if I could change her mind, the others would follow suit.

  “The hot-air balloon was the only big mistake Mel ever made,” I said. “Isn’t everyone entitled to one mistake?”

  She ro
lled her eyes. “One mistake—sure. But you’re forgetting the other hundred.”

  “Name three,” I dared her.

  “Number one, she left the bodies of Warren and Jeremiah out to rot. For someone who’s always worried about sanitation, that was pretty stupid—not to mention disrespectful.”

  “Okay, but …”

  “Two,” she said, cutting me off, “she risked Chester’s life making him climb up to get that stupid parachute. Because it was so important. And three …” She ticked off a third finger, but couldn’t come up with another example.

  “See? She’s done way more good than bad,” I argued.

  “That’s debatable.”

  “We need to listen to her.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell Mel what was happening—how Camp Summerbliss was turning against her. But I knew I had to tell her eventually. If I didn’t, I feared we’d descend into chaos. As delicately as I could, I explained the situation. To my surprise, she said she’d expected it.

  “There’s no one to keep us in line. No teachers or parents. We’ve been devolving since we got here.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  She shrugged pragmatically. “It’ll either get better, or get way worse.”

  Scared, I tried to do my part in the upkeep of our little society: patrolling, keeping the fire going, diving for conch meat. At low tide each day, I wrote in giant letters on the beach MAYDAY and SOS. When high tide came to wash those letters away, I tried not to get upset. From time to time I thought about going to look for Anne Marie, but Mel was my priority. If I were being honest, I’d have to admit that I abandoned Anne Marie during that period. We all did.

  Pablo was a different story. I continued to wish he’d appear suddenly, as if he’d never left at all. He’d look at me with his dark, sympathetic eyes and I’d tell him all that had happened. He’d help me care for Mel. He’d understand how important it was for her to get better. He’d know, intuitively, that her health mattered to all of us. But he never did arrive during those long, dire days. I felt desperately alone as I tried to keep our sinking ship afloat.

  There was only one positive consequence of Mel’s accident, and that was the clarity it brought. For the first time since the crash, I was able to pause and really open my eyes. I saw that our behavior had become as bad as the state of our camp. We’d gone from being considerate and collaborative to careless and selfish, all in what felt like the blink of an eye. I didn’t know how it had happened. Maybe we’d forgotten the rules of normal society. Maybe we’d finally given ourselves over to the wildness of the island. Or maybe we’d been savage our whole lives, rash and animalistic on the inside, and never known it till now.

  I knew Mel was almost better when the bruises were no longer black. The swelling in her arm had gone down, too. Little by little, she was acting more like her old self. Then one day she was full of ideas again, speaking urgently of things we had to get done. Of things she had to get done.

  “They can wait,” I told her. “Give yourself another day to get some strength.”

  To make her rest, I readily agreed to do everything she asked, which is how I found myself in the middle of the jungle, holding her knife. I was on my way to make another tally on the tree. It was still light out, though barely, and I found the V-shaped trunk without trouble. I touched the score marks, like Braille, that Mel had already carved into the bark. There were many of them now—too many. A shudder ran through me as my fingertips registered each and every one.

  I opened Mel’s knife and began to whittle. And then I heard it: a cross between a whimper and a cry. It was nothing, just one more instrument in the jungle’s wild orchestra. But when I heard it again, the humanness of it caught me off guard.

  I knelt down and tried to make myself small. Still clenching the knife, I peered in the direction of the sound. It came again, followed by a muffled moan. Suddenly, I realized what I was hearing.

  “Someone’s hooking up,” I whispered, eyes wide. Curious, I plunged quietly into the jungle, making my way toward the sound. Soon I was close—too close. I stopped abruptly, no longer titillated and entertained. I realized what I was hearing.

  The female voice was assured, assertive, vaguely British. Rittika’s. And the boy’s, of course, was Chester’s. I wasn’t surprised, but I did feel disappointed. And disturbed. I’d hoped Chester would have known better, but I guess he couldn’t see past her looks. Or maybe, her looks were all that mattered.

  After a while they started to talk. I craned my head toward their voices, trying to make out what they were saying through the din of the jungle. On the island, dawn and dusk were always the noisiest times.

  “You like her. God knows why, but I can see you do,” Rittika said.

  “I don’t like her that way.”

  “Come on, just admit it,” she teased.

  “What’s there to admit? She’s different—that’s all. Different from anyone else. Even you have to admit that.”

  “All I know is that she drives me crazy. And everyone fawns over her, like she’s freaking Einstein or something.”

  “You sound jealous.”

  “Jealous?! Are you kidding me? The last thing I am is jealous.”

  “Why are we even talking about her? It’s not like she’s leading us anymore. She might as well have broken her neck instead of her arm.”

  “I wish she had!”

  Maybe I should have confronted Rittika and Chester then and there, but I didn’t. For one thing, I didn’t quite have the nerve. And for another, I didn’t see how it would help. Clearly, Rittika and Chester had already made up their minds about Mel. I doubted anything I could say would make them come around.

  I just hoped it wasn’t too late to influence the others.

  The next day, I awoke beside Mel feeling groggy. I felt so groggy, in fact, that I didn’t register the dread on Ming’s face when she peeked into the tent. But then, I swear, I smelled her fear—acrid and sharp.

  “On the beach,” she whispered, trembling. “An ibis. Someone cut its head off. There’s a note, too. On the sand.”

  “What does it say?” I asked, shivering.

  “ ‘Last warning. Get out.’ ”

  Mel sat up abruptly, more alert than she’d been in days. “Take me to it,” she said.

  We ran to the beach in one petrified drove, Mel and I at the rear. She was still really weak from the infection and I had to help her along. Ming took us to the dead bird. Its severed head lay several inches from its body. There was blood on the sand. Beside me, Mel looked like she was going to puke.

  I looked carefully at the message in the sand. It was in the same place where I usually scrawled SOS. I didn’t think this was a coincidence. The enemy had probably watched me write the message—once, or many times. Maybe he’d watched Mel, too. Maybe he’d targeted the ibis, knowing how important those birds were to her.

  I looked away and gazed at my classmates one by one. I was surprised to see that Anne Marie had joined us. It was like she’d come out of nowhere. For a moment, I confess, I suspected her of the killing. It was hard not to consider her isolation and disturbing behavior, the feathers in her nest, the way her toenails were grown out long and ragged, how she talked about “the beast.” But her face was as horrified as everyone else’s. When I tried to imagine her cutting the neck of that friendly, trusting bird, I simply couldn’t.

  “That’s a set of footprints over there—isn’t it, Rish?” Rittika asked.

  Mel looked at where she was pointing. “I think there are two sets,” she answered. “Look at the …”

  “I was asking my brother,” Rittika said sharply.

  “I was only …”

  Rittika’s lancing green eyes silenced her. “Mel, I’ve talked with everyone,” she said, “and we’ve decided we’ve had enough of your opinions. They’ve gotten us nowhere. We’re no better off now than we were when we crashed. In fact, we’re worse.”

  Mel stared at her icily. />
  “You didn’t talk with me,” I said suddenly.

  “What?” Rittika asked.

  “I said ‘You didn’t talk with me.’ You said you talked with everyone. But you never asked me about Mel.”

  “Fine,” Rittika snapped. “I spoke with the majority. That’s enough.”

  “It’s not. We’re not back at home. This isn’t a democracy. Never has been.”

  “What are we, then?” she asked sarcastically.

  “We’re a team. And we’ve got to stick with the same leader who’s gotten us this far.” I turned to look at the others. “I think you’ve all forgotten how much Mel has done for us. Her ideas have gotten us fresh water. They’ve built fires. They’ve kept the enemy away.”

  “Mel’s ideas,” Rittika spat, “have cost lives, wasted time, and broken her own arm.”

  To my horror, the others nodded in affirmation. Even Betty.

  “You can argue all you want, but we know she’s a bad leader,” Rittika continued. “She only thinks about herself. It’s always Mel first, the rest of us second. And as for her ideas, the only good one she’s had was putting mud on her skin. I think you know what I’m getting at, Sam.” She paused, then said, “You need to choose which side you’re on.”

  Mine or Mel’s. The Golds or the Pales.

  “I already know,” I replied, meeting her eyes. And for once, I had no trouble making my decision. In fact, I’d never felt so sure about anything in my life. Mel was only just recovering, and now she faced a brand-new setback. She needed me, plain and simple. It wasn’t about color anymore, or popularity, or even power. It was about family. Here, on the island, Mel was the only family I had.

  “What are we going to do about this?” Betty asked Rittika, gesturing toward the ibis.

  “I couldn’t care less about a stupid bird,” Rittika retorted. “It’s the note that matters.”

  “We could take the raft. It’s almost ready …”

  “Forget about the raft. We need to find the enemy and kill him, once and for all.”