by Lisa Unger
She used to believe that anger was the absence of love. Her parents had been so angry with each other. She remembered the sound of their voices, the looks on their faces, even though she was very young when they divorced. Anger broke you apart, she’d always thought. Recently, she’d come to understand that sometimes love and anger wrapped around each other and became one living thing in your heart. It was her father, Sebastian, who had taught her that. Because that was how she felt about him.
Chelsea powered up the radio, and it came to life with a whine. She pressed down the transmitter, as she’d learned to in boating class—it was very similar to a nautical ship-to-shore radio, like on the boat where she and her mom had taken lessons.
“Heart Island to Blackbear Police,” she said. “We have an emergency, three intruders and a stranded vessel.”
There was only static for her answer. She waited a moment and then repeated herself. She looked around at the stacks of boxes, the bunks that had never been used, the refrigerator that was unplugged. The place was bare and cold, the bunk beds and their thin mattresses uninviting. More static.
Lulu sat on the ground beside Chelsea and rested her head on her friend’s lap. Chelsea stroked Lulu’s hair; it was so soft that the feel of it between her fingers gave her comfort, even though an hour ago she’d wanted to pull it out by the roots. Chelsea pressed the transmitter button again. “Heart Island to Blackbear Police,” she said. She felt less sure of herself, her voice wavering. “We need assistance.”
“Why aren’t they answering?” Lulu asked. “The police are supposed to answer when you call.”
Then, “Blackbear Police. We read you, Heart Island.” A male voice, staticky and far away.
“There are intruders on our island,” she said. “Please help us. Over.”
There was that whispering static again; they might as well be on the moon, isolated and unreachable. Why didn’t he say something?
“Are you safe for the moment?”
They weren’t safe. They weren’t safe at all, maybe for the first time ever.
“For the moment,” she said. She had to be grown up; she had to be strong. She would be. “My friend and I are in the bunkhouse. My mother is trying to find my grandmother on the other end of the island. She says two people, a man and a woman, came to the door. When she was trying to save the boat that they ran aground, another man shot the first man.”
If you listened to the white noise long enough, it started to sound like voices.
“Understood, Heart Island,” said the police officer “Stay where you are. The weather is bad, but there’s a boat on the way. The people on your island are possible fugitives. Stay away from them at all costs. Can you lock the door?”
They’d thrown the inside latch on entering. She told him as much.
“If your situation changes,” said the male voice, “radio back. I’ll be right here.”
“Okay,” she said. She wanted to say more. She wanted him to say more. But he was just a voice on the radio. He couldn’t help her. “Heart Island out.”
She turned down the volume on the radio so that the hissing wasn’t so loud. She sat for a second, listening.
“If we’re going to die,” said Lulu, “I don’t want you to die mad at me.”
“We’re not going to die,” said Chelsea. She walked to the window and gazed outside. She willed her mom and grandmother to come out of the trees. But there was only the dark, the leaves tossing and whispering.
“I’m really sorry, Chelsea,” Lulu said. She came up behind her friend and wrapped her arms around her middle. “It was so stupid.”
“I liked him,” said Chelsea. “Figures he wasn’t real.”
Lulu buried her face into Chelsea’s neck. “I didn’t think you even cared about boys.”
“I don’t,” she said. “But I’d never met a boy like him. And now I know it’s because he doesn’t exist.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lulu.
“You lied to me. You used private things you knew about me to trick me.” Saying it made her feel angry and hurt again, which was fine, because it was a good distraction from the real matters at hand.
“It’s not like that,” said Lulu miserably. She pulled away from Chelsea and sat on the chair by the radio, wrapping her arms tight around herself. Chelsea turned to watch her. She felt cold in the absence of her friend’s body against hers. “It really isn’t.”
“It is,” said Chelsea. She felt stubborn and mean; she didn’t want to forgive her friend, not yet. Lulu got away with too much.
“Do you know what it’s like to be your friend, Chelsea?” Lulu was looking down at her feet.
“What it’s like to be my friend?”
“Yes,” said Lulu. She looked up with those glittering movie-star eyes. “What it’s like to be friends with someone so perfect.”
For a moment, Chelsea thought Lulu was making fun of her. But one look at Lulu’s face told her otherwise.
“You’re gorgeous, you’re smart,” said Lulu. She held up a hand and started ticking items off on her fingers. “You have a perfect family. Your parents love you. Your father is a celebrity. You have everything, and you don’t even know it.”
Was Lulu really this stupid?
“You think it’s so great that I have boyfriends?” Lulu asked, raising her voice a little. Then, more quietly, “Boys like me because I sleep with them. That’s why. My parents don’t have time for me. My brother is in and out of rehab. I’m barely passing school. My life is a mess.”
Chelsea walked over to Lulu, who rose and sank into her arms.
“I’m sorry,” said Lulu. She drew in a deep shuddering breath. “I would never hurt you. I didn’t do it to hurt you. I’m a moron.”
As she said it, they heard something at the door.
“Shh,” said Chelsea. She switched off the light by the radio, and they stood, frozen, as the knob on the door started to turn.
Lulu pulled Chelsea toward the back of the one-room cabin. They hid behind the corner of the thick stone fireplace jutting out about two feet from the wall. They pressed their bodies tightly against the wall and gripped hands. The turning of the doorknob became a kind of rhythmic thumping, as if someone were trying more forcefully to enter. Then there was an awful silence. Am I dreaming? Chelsea thought. Please let this all be a dream. She found herself leaning forward. Lulu started tugging at her. Don’t. Don’t move, Chelsea, please don’t move.
She reached out, snaking her hand around the cold stone and finding the wrought-iron stand that held the fire poker and the heavy ash shovel. She felt it at her fingertips. What are you doing? He’ll see you. If she could just stretch a little farther, she could get it. They’d have something to defend themselves with.
As her mother had said a hundred times, those doors wouldn’t keep out anyone who really wanted to get in. And the two windows, one beside the door and one over near the bunk beds, could be easily smashed. No one ever cared, because they were safe on Heart Island. No one who didn’t belong here would come here, until tonight. Chelsea’s heart was thumping so hard that it felt like a bird in her chest. Just a little bit more, a little more.
Then the pounding started, a heavy kicking like a boot against the door again and again. Of course, Lulu couldn’t help but scream. Chelsea started and reached too far, tipping over the stand. She held her breath as it banged loudly over the stone hearth and onto the floor. God, how could it be so loud?
The pounding suddenly stopped; Chelsea and Lulu held one collective breath. How much time was passing? It seemed like hours. With her ears ringing and Lulu weeping softly, Chelsea got to her knees and reached for the poker. As she did, the pounding started again, hard and slow. One: The whole bunkhouse seemed to shake. It was a house of sticks, and they were the two little piggies. The big bad wolf was outside: I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. Two: A picture of her grandparents fell from the wall, and the glass shattered. Chelsea had the poker in her hand and wa
s handing the ash shovel to Lulu, who was shaking so hard she could barely hold it. It seemed too heavy for her, like she might not be able to lift it. Chelsea could barely see her friend’s face in the dark. Oh, God, oh, shit, this isn’t happening, Chaz, tell me it’s not happening.
Three: Chelsea started moving toward the door, with Lulu following.
She raised the poker high like a softball bat. What was it that her coach always said? Don’t hit the ball. Smash the ball. Pulverize it. Send the little shreds of it into outer space.
But when he came through the door, splitting the wood in two and sticking one booted leg in through the hole he’d made, then trying to squeeze his body through, he was every nightmare she had ever had, everything they ever warned you about. Here he was, the stranger, the one who wanted to hurt you and take you from your parents. Chelsea froze; she couldn’t breathe as she watched him fit one arm through, his hand searching for the doorknob to try to unlock it. She thought, That’s it, we’re going to die.
It was Lulu, who had just been crying a minute before, who let out a kind of warrior’s yell, a guttural scream. She moved by Chelsea fast. She was on the same softball team, and maybe she had the same words in her head. Because she held that shovel just like she held the bat, and she started pounding on that intruding arm and leg like she wanted to turn them into hamburger.
The sound of her, the sight of her, put air back into Chelsea’s lungs. With her free hand, she put the whistle in her mouth and started to blow and blow with all her might. And then she joined her friend in beating back the wolf at the door.
chapter thirty-three
Moving toward the bunkhouse, Kate heard Anne issue a horrible keening wail from behind them, so primal that it cut a swath through her. Kate could imagine her bent over the body of her fiancé. And Kate, even in this moment, could feel her grief.
She could tell by the look on Birdie’s face that her mother felt it, too. It was the very sound of grief and rage. But it was happening on another planet. She could think only of that monster headed for the bunkhouse where Chelsea and Lulu were. The world seemed to impede her progress, distance and time pulling like taffy. She’d vomited twice since leaving the house.
“I’ll get them,” Birdie had said after Kate vomited the second time. Birdie had the gun now.
“We stay together,” said Kate. Besides, Birdie wasn’t moving that much faster. She was limping badly.
Above the sound of her own labored breathing, Kate thought she heard the sound of a boat. She prayed she did, but the water played tricks with sound. Boats too far to be seen could sound as though they were nearby. Even the screaming seemed to echo on the night air. It was possible that the harbormaster had seen the flare or that Chelsea had managed to contact the police.
“Do you smell smoke?” Birdie had dropped behind and was looking back in the direction of the main house.
Kate did smell smoke. She looked back and thought she saw a golden glow. Then it was dark again. She didn’t trust her eyes. There was that siren of pain in her skull and an odd fuzziness to her vision. She was keeping herself upright to get to Chelsea. But fire was the thing to dread on the island. The trees, the wood-framed buildings, everything would be consumed.
“It’s nothing,” said Kate. She didn’t care about the house; all she cared about was getting them all off the island and away from the nightmare that had come ashore. “Not with all this rain. Let’s just get the girls and go.”
As they started to move again, Kate heard the sound she’d always hated and dreaded. It took a moment for fear to replace annoyance. It was the panicked shrilling of a whistle.
Kate started to run, and as she drew closer, she heard the girls screaming. On her approach, she could see that the door to the bunkhouse had been smashed open. She ran up the stairs, yelling for Chelsea.
“Mom!”
She heard her daughter’s terrified voice and pushed her way through the smashed center of the door. It was quiet inside, only the sound of someone crying. She flipped on the light and first saw the girls huddled by the back window. Then she saw the man who had attacked her lying prone on the floor in front of them. Lulu gripped the iron fireplace shovel, Chelsea the poker. The intruder lay sprawled by the hearth. Kate didn’t bother to check if he was breathing.
He’d been looking for a safe, the young woman had said. It was amazing to Kate that he even knew about it. The sad thing was that they never kept anything in it. Maybe her mother might put in a piece of jewelry, so as not to misplace it, but rarely. And they never brought anything of value here. What would they keep on the island? It amazed her that these people had come here looking for some prize that had never existed. That all of them had destroyed themselves for nothing.
The girls seemed paralyzed, afraid to move. They both had their eyes on the intruder, as if waiting for him to get up again.
“He got up once,” said Chelsea. “I don’t think he’s dead.”
“Chelsea hit him on the head with the fire poker,” said Lulu. “It was amazing. She held it just like a bat.”
They seemed a little unhinged, on the verge of hysteria.
“Girls,” Kate said gently. They looked at her. “Let’s go.”
Chelsea ran to her, and Lulu was close behind. She took them into her arms. She looked down at the man on the floor. She thought of taking that poker in Chelsea’s hand and driving it through his heart. He was a mad dog, and the world would be better without him. Wasn’t that what anyone would do? Kill the man who’d tried to hurt her child? But Kate lacked whatever element that existed within a person that might allow her to kill or hurt someone when he was unconscious on the floor. She felt as though it might be a weakness within her. Certainly, Birdie would put a bullet in him. But Birdie had the gun and was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s okay,” said Kate. “We’re okay.”
The feel of Chelsea in her arms melted away all her panic and tension. There was a physical release in her shoulders and her chest, a lightening of her breath. All she wanted to do was get them out of this horror show. That was just what they were going to do. They were going to get on that boat, and she was going to take them away from this place. She pulled the girls along.
It was when they were outside the bunkhouse that they saw the first lick of flames through the trees. The smell of smoke was strong, the wind carrying it north toward them. They all stood there staring, disbelieving. A moment of unreality settled over Kate; she heard Chelsea start to cry again. Then Birdie joined them, silently coming to stand beside them.
“Oh my God,” said Lulu. “It’s burning.”
It seemed to Kate that she had been here before, watching the flames rise from the trees, listening to the girls crying, feeling Birdie steady herself against Kate’s shoulder.
Kate knew there wasn’t time for tears. She was surprised to feel nothing for the house or anything inside it. Everything that was important to her was right beside her or, mercifully, out of harm’s way. She found she couldn’t care less if the whole island turned to dust as long as she’d gotten them safely off before it did.
Birdie could tell that the main house was on fire. Though the rain had slowed to an almost imperceptible drizzle, the trees on the island were saturated with moisture, so maybe the damage would be contained. When she was a girl, her family had watched a fire rage on a neighbor’s island. Even though the season had been wet, the house was consumed. The fireboats arrived too late, and when the fire had burned out, the trees were nothing but black lines against the sky. The structure disintegrated; only the charred skeleton remained. It had always been her worst nightmare, a fire on the island.
Somehow she’d known that Joe would manage to take even the island from her. Watching the fire through the trees, she almost could have predicted it. The three girls stared, the glow reflected in their eyes. Birdie had a wave of déjà vu—the three of them staring in horror into the distance.
Hadn’t Caroline claimed there was a fire once, the or
iginal shack owned by her mother’s uncle that burned after being struck by lightning? Birdie had never really listened to her sister, who always seemed like she was speaking a different language, always looking for beauty and meaning where there was only the cold, dull ordinary. Caroline would have liked that the island—well, the new house that Joe built—was burning. Even Birdie could see that there was a kind of poetry to it.
“Mom,” said Kate. Her voice was strained with fear. “We can’t get back to the dock that way.”
It was true. Even if the fire hadn’t spread to the trees, which it may have, the smoke could overcome them. Or it might have spread far enough to block their way to the dock. If that were the case, they couldn’t escape that way, either.
“No,” said Birdie. “You’ll have to swim around the perimeter.”
Kate looked out into the blackness. On her daughter’s face, Birdie read the fear she’d always seen when her child looked at the water. But this time some mettle Birdie hadn’t known Kate possessed settled into her features. Birdie wondered if they were so different after all. Kate had Caroline’s beauty and Joe’s expansiveness, but she had Birdie’s strength. Why hadn’t she seen it before?
“Good girl,” she said. She reached out to touch Kate’s cheek. “Get the children to the boat.”
Kate’s brow wrinkled into a worried frown. “What are you going to do? You’re coming with us.”
“No,” said Birdie. She looked back at the house. “I have to try to put out the fire.”
“Mom,” said Kate. Her eyes followed Birdie’s gaze. It looked bad enough that no sane would person would consider moving in that direction. Fire demanded that you go the other way. “No.”
“Please,” Birdie said. A sob in her chest surprised her, but she choked it back. “It’s all I have. This place.”
“You have us, Grandma,” said Chelsea. “You have your family.”
The look on her granddaughter’s face, bewildered and sad, almost moved her to go with them. Lulu was already walking toward the water. The girl was a survivor, at least. The other two would go down trying to save people who didn’t want to be saved.
