Orphan Island Read online

  2

  Two Sad Shapes

  Jinny dropped her hands to her sides. Her last moments with Deen had been the absolute wrong last moments. The worst last moments she could imagine. She had never felt so lost. Or tired.

  Only then did she remember the lump on the sand. The new girl. She glanced over. The kid had been there, silent the whole time, watching with her big brown eyes. Jinny slid down into the sand beside her. “Well, that’s a welcome for you, I guess,” she said.

  The girl didn’t reply. Her chin was wedged between her knees. For some reason, that made Jinny want to do the same. She wrapped her arms around her legs, then poked her own chinbone down into her knees. It felt good, sharp. She hugged herself tightly and thought maybe she could remember sitting like this before, when she was younger. It felt familiar.

  They sat together. Two sad shapes in the sand. Watching the day sink behind the cloudy sea. The oranges and pinks of the bleeding sunset made their usual swirling patterns above the mist, looping and arching. Tonight the shapes looked like dolphins. Or maybe just waves, calm soft waves. The new girl stared up, her mouth open slightly, saying nothing as she watched the sky shift and dance, a wash of shapes and colors.

  Jinny took a deep breath, but it shook coming out. “You like that?” she asked after a minute, pointing at the sky. Her own voice sounded fragile to her, thin.

  The girl didn’t turn her head to look, but she nodded silently.

  “Sunrise shapes are better,” offered Jinny softly. “The pictures are clearer in the morning. You’ll see.”

  Slowly at first, and then all at once, the shapes faded and the light drained from the sky. It was dark, but the two girls were still sitting in the sand when Jinny felt a small head of wet curls lean against her arm. The girl sighed deeply. It was a big sigh for such a small body. She set a hand on Jinny’s foot.

  Jinny was startled by the touch, and then she was crying silently. Hot fat tears dripped down her face. The girl stared at her in the shadows, watched her cry with that intense gaze. Jinny wiped her face against her arm, shook her head, and sat up stiffly. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m okay. Let’s go!” She stood up, brushed the sand from her clothes; and when she did, the girl followed her lead.

  Then Jinny realized—she wasn’t doing her job at all. She was Elder now, and her Care must be tired. It wasn’t the new kid’s fault Deen had gone, or that he’d been so distant and strange before he left. Jinny put an awkward arm around the girl and gave her bony backbone a few hesitant pats. “Hey, you never told us your name. Do you have a name?” Jinny asked.

  “Ess,” said the girl softly.

  “Well, then, are you going to tell me what it is?”

  The girl tilted her head up. “Ess,” she repeated.

  “So, what is it?” asked Jinny.

  Now the girl looked puzzled. “Ess!” she cried in a sharper voice. “Ess.” She pointed at herself.

  “Your name is Ess?” asked Jinny.

  The girl frowned and shook her head. “Ess,” she tried again.

  “Bess?” This happened sometimes. The kids couldn’t pronounce their own names. They were too young, with their soft, slippery little-kid tongues, lacking the hard consonants they needed. But it didn’t matter. Soon enough they got used to their island name, whatever it turned into.

  “Ess,” repeated the girl, clearly frustrated.

  “Okay,” said Jinny. “Close enough. C’mon, Ess.” Jinny didn’t wait for Ess to answer her. She grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her off down the beach, heading for the sleeping cabin the two would share until the boat returned.

  Ess, snotty and stumbling behind her, hardly seemed a fair exchange for Deen. But now they could all take a deep breath and not think about the boat, for however many sleeps the year turned out to be. Things would go back to normal.

  Jinny pulled Ess with her as she walked along the beach and into camp. There, Joon was banking the fire, her face glowing in the firelight. It was early yet, but the kids always skipped fire circle on the night of a Changing. Joon looked up as they passed, but Jinny didn’t stop to chat or introduce Ess. There would be time for that in the morning. She only waved and headed straight up the sandy path, climbing the ridge to her own cabin.

  Probably the others were together tonight, thought Jinny. Bunking together, whispering beneath the blankets. Oz and Jak. Nat and Eevie. Maybe Ben had stayed with Sam, after carrying him back to his cabin. It would be like Ben to do that.

  Jinny and Deen had always bunked together on these strange nights. She remembered once, years back, she and Deen had snuck away on a Changing night and made a bed in the high grass of the prairie, with their blankets and pillows. When they’d woken up, there had been a mouse, chewing on the pillow between them, and Deen had screamed so loud that Jinny’s ears rang. Jinny smiled, remembering how Deen had leaped from the ground, shaking his blankets in a frantic, goofy-looking dance. They’d never taken their pillows to the prairie after that.

  Once inside the cabin, Jinny lifted the girl up onto the bed and pulled off her tiny shoes. It was early yet to go to bed, but Jinny was finished with the day. It had been plenty already. She’d do better tomorrow. She’d know how to handle it all in the morning. She hoped.

  “Good night, Ess,” she said softly. “Go to sleep.”

  But Ess didn’t lie down. She just sat there on the bed and stared at Jinny, like she was waiting for something. Jinny wondered what it was she needed. Deen had told her he sometimes sang to Sam at night, but it felt odd to just start singing at the new girl. They didn’t even know each other.

  “Ummm . . . how about I get us some tea?” asked Jinny. “Mint tea. You want some?”

  Ess didn’t seem to exactly understand the question, but Jinny grabbed her mug from the bedside table anyway and said firmly, “Wait here.” Then she opened the door and stepped out.

  As she passed the door to Deen’s cabin, she stopped. It struck her for the first time that it wasn’t anymore. It wasn’t Deen’s cabin, and never would be again. It was Sam’s cabin now. I need to see it, she thought, as she twisted her body to face the door, to open it slowly. I need to see it without him. She took a deep breath and peered inside.

  “Hello?” she whispered.

  “Jinny?” A small voice, alone in the darkness. Sam was awake. Ben hadn’t stayed with him after all. The boy looked so tiny in the double bed. Pale, like a ghost, his blond hair against the pillow.

  “Oh!” said Jinny. “Sorry. I didn’t know if you’d still be awake.”

  “I don’t want to be,” said Sam. “I can’t sleep. Why are you here?” He gave a sniff.

  Jinny peered around, as if she might find an excuse for her presence on the floor or windowsill. Sam’s and Deen’s mugs were on the small bedside table. She looked down at the heavy mug in her own hand. “I, umm . . . I just thought I might . . . grab Deen’s mug. That okay?”

  “Sure,” said Sam. “I guess so.”

  Jinny reached for the mug with her free hand, but once she was holding it, she found she wanted more. She wanted to take everything from this room, take it all back with her. Everything Deen had left behind. The collection of locust shells. His sleeping shift, hung on a nail by the door. She switched both mugs to the same hand and reached for the shift. “I’ll just take this too, run it over to . . . the ragbag for you. Okay?”

  “O-kay,” said Sam. Though it didn’t sound exactly okay to Jinny. She wished she knew better how to talk to him. She’d never quite figured out how to do that. She ruffled his hair instead, like Deen would have done. G’night, Sam-man, he’d say.

  This whole long year, since the day Sam had arrived, Jinny had never really known what to say to the boy. That had been the day Tate had gone away, clambered into the green boat eagerly. Tate hadn’t felt conflicted at all. She’d been ready, as she was always ready for an adventure, and that had stung Jinny. She remembered the moment, the burn of it, the tears in her eyes as she’d hugged her excited frien
d good-bye. But at least she’d still had Deen. . . .

  How had it been so easy for them—for Tate and Deen? Jinny knew it wouldn’t be like that for her. She wouldn’t be able to just step into the boat, wave, and turn away. . . .

  She should be better to Sam, she knew, try harder. It hadn’t been his fault that things changed when he arrived. But it had felt a little like his fault. Deen had lifted him from the boat, just as Jinny had lifted Ess. Dangling the kid by his armpits, snot faced and sad. Then a moment later, Tate was gone. That had been the first night that Jinny and Deen hadn’t sat up by themselves talking before bed, watching the stars from the path in front of their cabins.

  Then there had been the following morning, when Jinny had showed up at breakfast and found Sam in her usual spot beside Deen. Right away, before Jinny even said a word, Deen had frowned at her. “He’s little, and he’s my Care, Jinny.”

  “Yeah, Jinny, got it?” Eevie had echoed with a sneer.

  Jinny had gotten it.

  In his bed, Sam yawned, startling Jinny from her memory. “I’m tired now,” he said. “All right?”

  It was her cue. Clutching the mugs, with Deen’s shift over her shoulder, Jinny turned to the door. “Well, okay then,” she said. “I hope you get some good sleep tonight, Sam.”

  “I’ll try,” said Sam in a faint whisper. Then he added. “Hey, Jinny?”

  Jinny paused. “Yeah?”

  Sam’s voice sliced through the darkness. “Are you okay?”

  For a brief moment, Jinny paused before she reached for the doorknob. But only for a moment. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Totally fine. Good night, Sam.”

  Then she opened the door and ran, with the pewter mugs clanking. Down the path, letting herself fall downhill, so that gravity pushed at her, forced her to keep moving. So fast she couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to.

  The sky over Jinny’s head was clear, and the stars were blazing as usual in the black sky. But they blurred as she ran down the sandy path to the dunes and the beach. It was lovely as ever, the hush of the island. The night breeze in the tall sharp grasses, the chirping and clicking of insects. It made Jinny feel better to run so fast, to be utterly alone in the familiar night. The grassy, sandy path still warm beneath her feet. Everything wasn’t changing. Mostly, things were exactly the same.

  Down on the beach, Jinny walked past the fire circle and the long wooden table and headed for Joon, who stood under the tin roof of the outdoor kitchen. At the the cookstove, Joon stepped aside so that Jinny could reach for the rag-wrapped ladle. Once a day, someone filled the water pot with well water, so that it was always there, steaming and ready on the edge of the stove.

  “She okay?” Joon asked as she rinsed the last few dinner dishes, abandoned by someone at the sound of the bell. “The new girl, I mean?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Jinny. “I guess so. She’s just sitting there on my bed, waiting. But I don’t know what to say to her. She seems confused.”

  “Of course she’s confused,” said Joon. “We all were, at first. Probably.”

  “Well, sure,” said Jinny. “But it’s making me confused. And . . . I don’t know. Sad.”

  “How could you not be sad, Jinny?” Joon’s gaze was blunt, unsympathetic. “Deen was your best friend.”

  “I mean she’s making me sadder,” said Jinny, inhaling the steam from the hot water in the two mugs. “Or . . . Oh, I don’t know what I mean. I just didn’t know what to say to her. I thought I’d get us some tea.”

  Joon shrugged. “Tea never hurts. Here you go.” She tore a clump of fresh mint leaves from the fragrant patch at her feet.

  Jinny added the leaves to the steaming water and poked them under with a quick finger. Then she nodded good night and headed back up to her cabin, wishing silently that it had been Ben by the fire just now, and not Joon. Ben would have understood what she was feeling without her having to explain it. Ben would have given her a hug. Joon was fast and smart and strong, but not very huggy.

  When Jinny got back to the cabin, she found Ess had conked out in her absence, tumbled right over on top of the blankets. Sprawled beside the window, the girl seemed to shine in the moonlight, her thumb in her mouth. Jinny reached out to touch her. “Ess?” she whispered. The girl looked so small in Jinny’s bed. Her curls were still damp, and now so was the pillow.

  Jinny took a sip from the mug in her hand. The tea burned the roof of her mouth, but somehow the burning almost felt good. Or it felt right. Jinny took another punishing sip and watched the girl sleep. Then she set down her mug, slipped into her sleeping shift, and pulled back the blanket at the foot of the bed.

  The kids always slept this way, tip to toe, when they had a Care, with a pillow at each end of the bed. Jinny remembered when Deen had told her about that part. It had been the first Elder lesson of all. After his first night with Sam, he’d explained it. “So they can’t drool on your face,” he’d said. “But watch out for the kicking!” and Jinny had laughed out loud. It had seemed funny at the time. It had all seemed so far away.

  There had been a lot of Elder lessons, in those first days after Sam arrived. Deen had told her about how she should sing the alphabet song while her Care brushed her teeth. And he’d shown her how tree sap could close a small cut or scratch and stop the bleeding. “Little kids hate bleeding,” he’d said. She was glad she remembered those things now, but what else? How much had she forgotten? She should have paid better attention.

  Oh, Deen.

  As Jinny tugged at the blue blanket, Ess turned over and muttered, “Mama?” Jinny winced as she climbed up into the bed. Mama. She wished she could wipe the memories of that particular word from Ess’s mind right away. It would make the next few weeks so much easier.

  Still, as Jinny lay in bed, rubbing her tongue against the itchy burned roof of her mouth, listening to the night rain begin to patter on the roof of her cabin, and hugging Deen’s worn sleeping shift, which smelled so familiar, she couldn’t help wondering what it felt like . . . to remember.

  Silent, in the darkness, Jinny let a few tears come.

  3

  Explosion of Morning

  Jinny woke early the next day because something was in her nose. At first she rolled over and tried to sniff away the bug, or whatever it was. When the bug didn’t fly off, Jinny opened her eyes, reached to swat at her face, and discovered that the bug was not a bug but a finger.

  “Ugh!” she shouted, slapping the small hand away and sitting up in bed. “What are you doing, Ess?”

  Ess scrambled back to the other end of the bed. Her eyes were now scared, but framed by a ridiculous lopsided tangle of hair. Jinny couldn’t help wanting to laugh at her.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Jinny, scrubbing her nose with the back of her hand.

  The girl’s big eyes started to fill with tears. She shook her head wordlessly, then pulled a blanket over herself.

  “Oh, jeez,” said Jinny, patting the lump under the blanket. “Never mind. It’s fine. Just please don’t cry. Please? Don’t? Okay?” The crying continued to shudder the blanket, so Jinny reached for a shell on the windowsill and said, “Hey, I’ll give you a present if you stop. Don’t you want a present?” She held out the shell.

  Ess stuck her head back out from under the blanket, gulped, and nodded at Jinny. Her fingers snatched the shell, but tears were still trickling down her face to her chin. Jinny watched the tears fall and darken the blanket, feeling helpless.

  Then she had a thought. “Hey!” Jinny said, jumping down out of the bed and trying to sound cheerful and distracting. “Hey, I know. Are you hungry?”

  The girl looked up at her, still crying but now also startled. She nodded again and whispered through a shudder, “Ess h—hungy.”

  Jinny clapped her hands together. “Good! I mean, not good, exactly, but I know how to fix that, at least. Let’s get up and start the day. Nobody else will be up so early. It’s still pretty dark out. Do you like eggs?”
/>   Ess shrugged meekly, sniffing back tears.

  “So okay, let’s get moving!” Jinny turned her back to Ess and slipped as discreetly as she could out of her sleeping shift and into her tunic and pants, but when she turned back around to hang the sleeping shift on its hook, she found that Ess wasn’t looking at her. Instead, the girl was deeply engaged in picking her nose. Jinny blanched at the sight but said nothing. She didn’t want to start Ess weeping again, but she did wonder what an Elder was supposed to do about a habit like that. Deen hadn’t given her any lessons at all on the nose-picking front. Jinny was sure she’d remember if he had. She tried not to cringe as the little girl slid down from the bed with one finger still in her nostril.

  But when the two girls stepped out of the cabin onto the sandy path, the problem melted away. At the sight of the early morning, Ess was so awestruck, she withdrew the offending finger to raise both hands skyward in delight. “Ahh!” she gasped.

  Directly overhead, the sky was a blue-purple color, stained with the last traces of night. Above the mist in the distance over the water, the sun was beginning to streak and shine, sending golden snakes writhing out into the rich expanse of the sky and waking up the day.

  “Yeah?” said Jinny, glad to see the sudden change in the girl’s mood. “See, I told you sunrise shapes are best of all. But wait. Just wait a minute. This is only the beginning. We’re in time for everything. Hang on. . . .”

  Ess watched the sky with an unblinking gaze. The girl’s eyes widened when the sky began to lighten, as the snakes continued to make their way into the morning, fingers of fire carving up the lavender expanse and setting pictures in motion. Blazing wheels and tumbleweeds began to turn. They burst into vines, which rippled overhead, sprouting buds. Ess gasped, her mouth open wide, but when the buds blossomed into petals of fire, she screamed and clapped her hands, and Jinny couldn’t help laughing with her. No matter how many times she saw it, the explosion of morning was breathtaking. In the end, the flowers became a field of glittering dust, a school of flitting fish, stars and particles of light that faded, vanished into day.