by Ella James
“I like ume candy, Carnegie. Once a tourist from Japan sent seven pounds of it over prior to visiting. A sort of pre-greeting, I suppose. I ate most of it and had to have a tooth filled after.”
“You’re right, that is awful.”
“You’re awful. Be quiet and listen.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I sit up, because I can’t lie down. Not for this. I peer down at him, and he looks up at me, and I continue in a quiet, steady voice. “I like colored telephones, the rotary sort, in orange or neon green or pink. If I had a need to, I would own more than one. Also, I’m incredible at knitting. I can knit a long, warm scarf in under a quarter hour. My hands just…understand. When I throw clay, that’s also quite natural for me. I’m good at it. I’m bad at swing dancing, and truly I don’t care for telly. It seems so distant and irrelevant. Why would I care what these people are doing? Books are different. Books feel real. I’ve got a few books in my pack because I can’t go anywhere without a book, not ever. I have three dear friends, two of whom helped welcome you that day at the café. They’re younger and naive, and I believe that day was magical for them.”
He gives me a funny little smile, but offers no comment.
“The four of us came up together, learned alongside each other at the schoolhouse. I’ve never been in love,” I whisper, “but I—I’ve been close to someone. I’m not so strange, I promise. When I tell you this, you’re going to suspect I am, but I am not this story, okay? I’m a piece of ume candy or a constellation. Aquarius, in fact. January-born.” I take a deep breath, and find I feel I need to sit up straighter to bestow these facts upon him.
“Are you ready for this melancholy, Carnegie?”
He sits, too, and in a way that feels magnetic, we’re shifting to face each other. “Ready, Siren.”
The pet name brings a deep sting to my eyes, but I blink past it. Best to spit it out, or else I never will.
“As you perhaps already know…when I was seven—on my seventh birthday—I went with my parents in a boat on an excursion.” Saying that, just that, makes my throat feel so tight, I have to stop and swallow. His eyes hold mine, and I let myself be hypnotized by their dark shine. He doesn’t blink or move, not while I put a hand over my mouth then move it down and draw a shallow breath.
“A storm came and…my father—he pitched overboard. Mummy went in after him.” I don’t mean to close my eyes. They slip shut because I’m not seeing his somber eyes; I see her halo. Flowers in the white caps. “Mummy and him drowned—” It doesn’t feel real, even saying it. “And I remained on the boat...floating, unmoored, as you can likely recall. For seven days.”
I open my eyes and am relieved to find his face impassive.
“On the seventh night, the boat ran aground on Gough Island. The one place, as it were, that I could run aground and be found by those searching.” I suck back a breath and force myself to carry on. “I believe your father was on the boat that found me.” I didn’t realize that until much later, when I saw his face on the world wide web. “Gammy, Mummy’s mother, took me in after. I grew up in your cottage. We flew kites in that field between the house and the cliffs there at the plateau behind it, and for a brief time Gammy let me use my bedroom’s walls as a canvas before we painted over. Gammy was a good mum, to my mum and me. She made the greatest pies you’ve ever tasted, and she loved the scent of lemons.”
It’s there on the tip of my tongue, a terrible addendum to an unthinkable story. I didn’t speak for ten years after…
I look at his face—his now-familiar face that I can sense is waiting before jumping to expression. I look at his painful-handsome face that makes me feel like someone scooped my guts out. And I can’t tell him I was broken.
I say, “I won’t go near boats now.” What I mean, of course, is that I barely look at boats and wouldn’t get in one to save my mortal life. I don’t even go down to the harbor. Cresting the hill just after he arrived was the closest I’d been to the ocean in years.
I don’t remember anything about what happened after I lost sight of Mum. I never have been able to, not even during the two years a specialist made visits to the island to try to help me. But I know I can’t get in a boat. I know it the same way I know I can’t hold my breath indefinitely. It’s a limit that I can’t exceed, no matter how much I may need to. Any plans toward that are simply…silly.
The Carnegie blinks at me, and his mouth softens.
“I’m an all-star knitter, remember? I forgot to mention—I, too, make great pies. There are many things about my life that are quite wonderful, so don’t go feeling badly for me. That’s the story of my phobia. I’d like to know if you remember any of it—you were visiting here at the time—but I’d also like to stop speaking about it now. So it’s your turn. What’s your fear?”
I watch him from the corner of my eyes as he lies on his back again, so I can’t see his face as clearly. I watch as his chest rises and falls. He waits a while to speak, so long I think he isn’t going to.
Finally I feel him look at me. He props an arm behind his head, and his eyes close. After another small moment, he opens them and gives me a small smile. “Confining spaces.”
I lie down beside him, feeling strangely light and also quite heavy.
“Like my knitting and pie-making,” I say finally, “you seem quite good with a hammer. So that’s fortunate.”
He chuckles softly. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
Fifteen
Finley
“So what do you think?” He holds out a copy of The Paris Review, topped by chunks of chocolate-chip granola. “This look like a breakfast you could choke down?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” I leap from my bag and launch myself at him, knocking a small chunk of granola onto my sleeping bag as my arm goes around his shoulder. I give him a squeeze before shifting back into a crouch beside him, my hand hovering over the granola. “Where was it?”
He grins. “Bottom of your bag, in a zipper bag underneath a pair of pink socks.”
I pop a piece into my mouth, closing my eyes. “Heaven.” I gobble down a few more bites before frowning at him. “Did you have some?”
“I’m good.”
“Speak now or forever I’ll hold your piece.”
His smile widens, and he hands the magazine/plate to me. “All yours, Siren.”
I can feel the chocolate melting on my tongue—real chocolate, not the sad brown casing that coats the outside of the Atkins bars. “I was going mad with those horrid bars.”
“Why do you have them?” He’s got his knees folded up toward his chest, his thick arms propped atop them.
“There’s a story there. Joshua McGillin’s diabetic, and he spends much of his time out at the Patches. Elderly gentleman, quite set in his ways. We ordered some meal replacement bars for him—two dozen, early this past spring—but something happened and the crate contained twelve dozen.”
I shake my head, laughing at the memory. “It turned out he didn’t care for them at all, so they were divvied up among the ones of us whose duties keep us out of our homes at times. Normally if I’m about the slopes, I pack another snack. Often a number of other snacks. I don’t know—I suppose the bars got pushed down in my pack and I forgot them.”
“It’s good you did.”
I sigh. “I long for an apple or a Pop-Tart.”
“There are Pop-Tarts here?” His brows shoot up, making me smile.
“Indeed. Brown sugar cinnamon.”
He makes a soft sound, like a laugh that doesn’t quite launch. “Nice.”
“When we get out, I’ll go to Gammy’s place and put one in the toaster for you.”
I tell him to turn around, and I go to the stream, where I change into another pair of shorts I found in my bag and a white tank top. I clean myself as quickly and discreetly as I can, using the inside of my dirty clothes to dry myself, and then wash those and hang them out to dry. The clothes I wore the night we fell into the burrow are near-dry, finall
y; I imagine they took such a while because it’s slightly damp here.
When I return to the cave’s mouth, I find Declan swinging the hammer, standing atop a pile of fragments that’s impressive.
“Did you sleep at all last night, Carnegie?”
“Some.”
“Liar.”
His eyes are ringed with exhaustion. His bearded face looks leaner now, and a bit somber. My gaze dips to his lips, and I find they look in need of moisture. “You need lip balm, buddy.” I flash him a silly grin, and he touches his mouth, looking a bit zombie-like.
Poor Carnegie. I decide I’ll fetch some for him.
“There you are.” I pass some cherry ChapStick to him, watching as he glides the tip over his lush lips then caps the stick. That’s how I notice his fingers trembling. Really trembling, like he’s terror-stricken…
I reach out and wrap my hand around his. Declan freezes, his expression carefully blank.
My stomach does a slow roll as I look up at him. “What’s the matter?”
He frowns. “Nothing.”
“Yes it is. You’re shaking.”
He pulls his hand away from mine and holds it out, long fingers spread. “Not shaking.” But his voice is too steady, his tone a bit too ardent. I grab his hand again and thread my fingers through his, finding his hand damp and cool…and shaking.
His eyes close as his fingers relax. I wrap both of my hands around his larger one, and I can feel his whole arm trembling.
“Oh, Carnegie…are you quite sure you’re okay?”
He nods once, but doesn’t lift his eyes open. His hand between mine feels heavy. I give it a rub. “I don’t believe you.”
As I peer up at him, he opens his eyes to look at me. His face is utterly unreadable as he holds my gaze and squeezes my hand. “No one said you had to, Siren.” He lets my hand go and turns away. “I’m going to keep digging now, okay?”
Is it okay? Surely it isn’t. What would make him tremble like that? He’s put his blood-stained shirt back on for reasons I can’t fathom, and even with the cotton stretched over his back and arms, it’s plain for me to see he’s trembling all over.
Could it be anxiety? He told me he’s afraid of being confined. I’d like to ask, but he won’t look at me, is now striking the rim with what appears to be unbridled force.
I wait for him to turn back my way, to relent and explain, but he keeps bashing the wall, making me feel a bit abandoned, and then quite ashamed of myself for caring so much how he behaves in the first place. He is not my friend. Being trapped here with him—and only him—is addling my brain.
I get my stone and join him, bashing the cave’s rim until my body aches and dust from flaking rock stings my eyes. Tears fill them as my throat tightens unexpectedly. How can we be trapped here, with no one having come for us? How is that possible?
As if he hears me, Declan looks over his shoulder. I set my rock down before my tears spill over and walk quickly to the stream, where I sit cross-legged with my hands over my shameful, hot face.
Crying is useless. Sure, it can be clarifying, but it’s mostly wasted time, a spilling over of emotions best left in their own allotted cup. I take a few fortifying breaths and tell myself I’ve endured worse.
We’ll keep chipping at the cave’s mouth until we get a different angle on the stone that’s blocked us in, and at that time, we will break free. I believe it. That’s one thing I do believe in: believing. Outlook cannot be overrated.
More tears leak from my eyes, even as I tell myself how absurd I’m being. I hurry to wipe them as I hear him approach.
Not your friend, I tell myself.
I’m feeling frightened and out of sorts, but he is not my friend. He’s an interloper who’ll be gone soon. There’s no point in making any headway with him. The fact that his presence makes me stupid is even more reason to put distance between us.
I wipe my eyes and straighten my spine, and then he’s at my back, crouching beside me. I feel his attention settle on me, even as I’m looking down at my lap. I feel his hesitation, and I hate that I enjoy it. I enjoy his eyes on me. Like a forlorn child seeking acknowledgment…beyond pathetic.
“I think if we hit this hard—if we both do,” he starts— “if we go harder than we have so far, I can shift that stone enough to get my hand in there beside it. It’s been moving more now when I push a certain way. Trust me, we’re just about out of here. Just gotta go a little harder for a little longer. What do you say, Siren?”
It’s Finley, I want to scream. Instead I snip, “Of course.”
I let him help me up, and we walk toward the cave’s mouth, where we resume working with renewed vigor. We work the entire morning, Declan taking frequent breaks to splash himself with water from the stream and me swinging my stone so hard, my shoulders feel as if they’re broken.
Every so often, he stops and shoves upward against the boulder, and I hold my breath, my head spinning with hope and dread and fear—but nothing happens. We press on. We work until sweat drips off his hair and soaks his shirt, and spots are dancing in my eyes. He pushes up against the stone again and again. He’s correct: we can feel a wee, wee bit of breeze, so we can’t be far from breaking free, but he can’t lift the boulder.
I can tell it’s driving him quite mad. When I stop for lunch, he keeps swinging his hammer. Then he drops it—more like tosses it across the way. From my spot atop the sleeping bag, I see his muscles flexing, hear him panting as he strains beneath the boulder.
Stubborn male. He should wait for me so we can try together.
“FUCK!”
I jump reflexively, but when I blink I find him bent at the waist, his head in his hands, his broad back and shoulders pumping.
Oh, no.
Before I make it more than a few steps in his direction, he stalks past me with his head down, anger radiating from his form. I watch as he crouches by his sleeping bag, rubbing his hands roughly through his hair. Then he’s on his feet again, his face stony as he walks back toward the cave’s mouth, not sparing a blink for me.
There, instead of picking up the hammer, he scoops up one of the fallen stones and hurls it at the wall with so much force it crumples.
“FUCK!”
He grabs another stone and hurls it, then another and another. I watch with bated breath as he loses his composure, bashing the offending boulder in a sort of fury-frenzy, using the hammer to rip into the rock wall with freely flowing rage.
“FUCK! FUCK!” He hurls the hammer across the burrow. It lands with a thud, and he sinks to his knees.
I can scarcely swallow as I watch his back, crisscrossed with shadows that dance as he pants. He lets out another growl of rage, his fist tugging his hair, before he slowly stands and walks back to his sleeping bag. He lies on his side, still breathing hard, though silent now, and covers his face with both hands.
I hear something like a groan, and then a choking sound that makes my chest go hot with sorrow for him.
When I sink down beside him on my own bag, he rubs his forehead with such force, his knuckles whiten. “Sorry.” His big hand sinks into his dark hair, fingers tugging harshly at the damp locks.
“Don’t be sorry. Next, it will be me.”
His hands drag down his face, one covering his throat as the other rubs at his temple. “Finley?” It’s near-whimpered.
I lean closer. “Yes?”
His body shudders as his jaw clenches. His hand, covering his face, curls like a claw, and the hairs on my arms feel like they’re lifting.
“What’s the matter?” I whisper.
“Could you…put some stuff around my head?” His voice sounds tremulous and strange.
My mouth is open to ask what he means when his body starts seizing.
Sixteen
Finley
It seems to last eternity: his body jerking as his head lolls back against the blankets. Each time his muscles jolt, his arms twitch, fingers curling slightly in the air. His face is slack, so he looks li
ke a stranger lying helpless on his back there.
When it’s over, his mouth remains a bit open. A line of blood drips down his thick throat. I note the paleness of his skin, the stillness of his body—so still that I throw myself at him, pressing my shaking fingers to his jugular. I find his heart racing. Then my hands are on his face, they’re in his hair; my fingers push at his brow.
“Open your eyes!”
I jostle him and slap his cheek, and then his eyes crack open. He looks pained.
“Declan?” I’m not aware I’m weeping until I hear his name in my thin, breathless voice.
He blinks. His lips tremble. “Where am I?” The words are thick and slow.
My hand rubs his chill-covered arm. “You’re in the cave.” His body starts to quiver again. “We’ve been confined here together—remember?”
His mouth twists, a bit of a wince. His eyes close. When he opens them again, they seek my face.
“What’s…your name?” His voice is raspy.
“Finley!”
He flinches at the volume of my proclamation.
“Siren.” His lips scarcely move around the word. His gaze is hung somewhere over my shoulder—so although he says the word, his face remains a frightful blank.
His hand comes to his chin. He frowns when he draws it away and sees the smear of red there.
“Why’m…I bleeding?” His eyes shut as a shudder racks him. He tightens his jaw, and I can’t keep my hand from stroking his hair off his forehead.
“I think…you had a seizure.”
His eyes open. “I did?”
I nod. I stroke his hair again, and he exhales. “I…like that.”
Though his eyes remain open, they’re glassy and unfocused. His hand moves over his mouth again, the fingers shaking.
“Siren…I don’t feel good.”
“I’m so sorry.” I press my fingers gently to his jugular as his eyes cling to mine.
“Tell me how you feeling, darling.”