The Other Side of the Island

by Allegra Goodman

  The Pratts were taking care of her mother, but Honor couldn’t help. She curled up on the floor of the pillbox and tucked her knees to her chest. She was shaking, freezing. She couldn’t stop thinking of the Watcher screaming in the flaming tower. She kept thinking of the flames and the ground crawling with orderlies. As soon as she closed her eyes, she saw them writhing and creeping in the dust. She felt she would never be warm again.

  In the morning, Honor found herself curled up at Pamela’s side. She touched her mother and she was real. “It’s me,” she whispered. Pamela did not stir. Honor drew closer and whispered again in her mother’s ear, “It’s me.”

  “She’s still sleeping. We have to be patient.” Honor sat up now, wide awake. It was her father. He was standing with the Pratts, smiling down at her. His sleeve was torn and his arm bandaged, but there he was.

  She sprang to her feet and rushed over to him. “How did you escape? How did you get here?” Her voice was muffled against his chest.

  “I ran until I reached the north watchtower,” he told her. “Then I climbed the ladder and knocked out the Watcher inside. I saw all of you running away and the Safety Officers and their dogs chasing you. I was afraid to shoot from up there and hit one of you, so I climbed down and followed at a distance.”

  “How many were they?”

  “Two Safety Officers and two dogs. When they began closing in on you, I closed in on them. I ambushed them from behind and shot the dogs.”

  “How come the Safety Officers didn’t capture you then?” Honor asked.

  “They would have, but I had the taser and I had the Thompsons with me.”

  “They’re alive!”

  “They’d been waiting in the forest near the Barracks in case of emergency.”

  “But where have they been?”

  “They ran away beford I did.”

  “So they weren’t taken to be orderlies.”

  “No, they’d escaped into the forest. After I ran away, I found them. At first we all camped together, but then we decided to split up. I stayed with the Pratts and they hid closer to the shore. We were hoping that if Retrievers found some of us they wouldn’t find all. Mr. Pratt was the messenger between us because he knows the forest best.”

  “Now they’ve gone ahead,” said Mr. Pratt. “We’ll meet them tomorrow morning.”

  Will bent over Pamela and stroked her cheek.

  “If you want her to open her eyes, lift her head, like a doll,” Honor said.

  Her father smiled. “That will wear off,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  All day they rested there while Pamela slept. Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they ate the fruit Mrs. Pratt had picked, and sometimes they just watched the white clouds in the bright sky.

  When the sun began to set, Will told Honor, “Look at the colors. Tell me how many you can see.”

  “Gold,” she said, “and yellow. Now the blue is changing to lavender.”

  “How many colors?”

  “I can’t count them all,” she told him.

  “But look again.”

  She’d only glanced away for a moment, but the whole sky had changed. The lavender was on fire, flaming red. Then the red was gone, and the clouds burned fiery orange. “Everything’s changing,” Honor said. “It’s too fast.”

  “That’s how natural sunsets are,” her father reminded her. “And every night is different.”

  “We need to wake her and start hiking down,” said Mr. Pratt.

  They half lifted Pamela from the floor, but her eyes did not open. Honor spoke to her. Will spoke to her. Pamela did not respond. Her breathing was regular. Her arms hung loose and relaxed, not limp over the top of the blanket as they had in the Barracks. She was in a deep sleep.

  “Pamela. It’s time for us to go,” Will said firmly. “Wake up now.”

  But she did not wake up.

  Honor bent over her mother and sang softly, “Over the river and through the wood to Grandmother’s house we go . . .”

  Pamela rolled over on her side.

  “. . . the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, o’er the white and drifting snow . . .”

  “Over the river and through the wood,” sang Will. “Oh, how the wind does blow. It stings the toes and bites the nose as over the ground we go.”

  Pamela’s eyes opened. She looked up at Will and blinked.

  “Pamela,” said Will.

  She didn’t answer. She just looked up at him.

  Will cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lips. He whispered, “I’m here.”

  For a moment Honor saw a hint of recognition in her mother’s eyes.

  All night they hiked down the mountain. Mr. Pratt led the way with his flashlight. Will followed him, and then Honor and Pamela. Mrs. Pratt brought up the rear. Together they slipped and slid and clambered down through muddy gullies and overgrown gulches. Even Will had not traveled on this slope, but Mr. Pratt knew the ground, and he was confident they would not lose their way.

  It was still dark when they came to the ragged seaside edge of the forest. The ground was sandy and covered with sea grapes—scraggly, succulent plants. The ocean was calm all around them, scarcely visible in the darkness except for silvery ripples on the shore. The sand was powder soft and, where it was wet, covered with tiny holes, the breathing holes of little white crabs so delicate Honor could almost see through them. Honor had never seen creatures so quick and fine as those white crabs skittering across the water-smoothed sand.

  There was no one else at the shore. There were no drowned buildings or Danger signs or fences of barbed wire. The only noise was that of the water breathing softly in and out.

  “We’re here,” said Will.

  “We’re here.” That was Pamela’s voice, echoing his. And those were the first words she spoke.

  “Come into the water,” Will told Pamela.

  Honor was confused. She didn’t understand, but Will led Pamela into the dark water, all the way up to her waist, and then he cupped his hands full of salt water and washed Pamela’s eyes. Pamela cried out in pain when the salty water stung her. Water streamed down her face as she winced and blinked. Her eyes were no longer fixed and motionless. She looked everywhere. She recognized everyone.

  Honor ran to the edge of the ocean. She only hesitated a moment. Then she waded into the warm water. The cut on her leg stung from the salt, but Honor ignored the pain and leaned against her mother. “Do you recognize me now? Did you know I’d find you?”

  Pamela didn’t answer at first. Then she wrapped her arms around Honor. She whispered, “I didn’t know, but I was waiting. I waited so long I didn’t even know I was waiting.”

  All the rest of that night they talked.

  “Can you believe it?” Mrs. Pratt asked softly. “Did you ever think about escaping?”

  “No,” said Pamela. “I never thought of escaping on my own.”

  “I wished that they had taken me,” Will murmured. “I wanted to trade places with you.”

  “But that’s the strange part,” Pamela told him. “I didn’t want to trade with anyone. As soon as they put me in the sack I felt that I belonged there.”

  “Weren’t you scared?” Honor asked.

  “No,” said Pamela. “The sack was coated inside with enough Planet Safe to tranquilize me. I curled up in the darkness and I felt calm, and as the drug began to work I felt relieved and even happy. I felt as though I were floating. One memory after another returned to me. . . .”

  “But how? Weren’t you memory-sick?” asked Will. “With that much Planet Safe you’d forget everything.”

  “I was forgetting the recent past,” said Pamela, “but all the old times were coming back to me. I saw all the pieces of my life; it was like watching my life underwater. I saw you, Honor. And you,” she said to Will. “Quintilian. I saw our kites up in the sky. I saw that little cat,” she told Honor, “the one that jumped when we found the drawing book. I saw the Northern Islands and the light there in
winter, the way the sun melted in the sky. I saw our wooden boat and felt the slosh of water in the bottom. I could see the chipped paint on our boat. Do you remember the color?”

  Will shook his head.

  “Blue. I remembered the name of our boat. Do you remember what we called her?”

  “No,” said Will.

  Pamela laughed. “We called the boat Shamela. Wasn’t that a funny name?”

  “You remembered all those things?” asked Mrs. Pratt.

  “Oh, it was lovely. Delicious. I remembered things I haven’t thought about in years. All those times in the past came back to me, but they began rushing faster and faster. They began to blur. The boat and the water and the kites in the sky began to spin and I felt lighter and lighter. Soon the mail carriers were lifting me from the sack and setting me down on the ground.”

  “Were you in pain?” Will asked.

  “No,” said Pamela, “nothing hurt me, not even the needle tattooing the number on my arm.”

  “Didn’t you want to run away?” asked Honor.

  “Even if I’d wanted to, I had no control over my body. My legs wouldn’t carry me,” her mother said. “I grew lighter and lighter as the tranquilizer wore off. Then they fed me and gave me mineral water to drink.”

  “Orderlies consume much stronger food and drink than the rest of us,” Mr. Pratt said. “Ordinary people only lose their long-term memories—of their childhoods, their parents, their first loves—but they keep their short-term memories. They’re up-to-date within five years. I always thought orderlies lost their memories altogether.”

  “They lose the recent past and dream of long ago,” said Pamela. “The longer orderlies work, the less they remember of themselves or where they were when they were taken. Eventually all they have is fragments of their early lives. They start dreaming all the time. It’s like living in a trance.”

  “If you were in a trance, how did you remember me?” Honor asked.

  Pamela thought for a moment. “You were always in my dream,” she said. “You came back to me as you were in the Northern Islands. In the bakery you didn’t look the same as the little girl that I remembered, but I knew you must be Honor, because you looked directly at me.”

  “So your eyes worked,” said Honor.

  “Orderlies can see what’s right in front of them. And they can see faces too,” said Pamela. “But no one ever looks.”

  “What else did you remember?” Will asked Pamela.

  She sifted the white sand through her fingers. “I remember the other beach,” she said.

  And for a moment Honor could remember too. She could remember the smooth pebbles on the beach in the Northern Islands and the gold light and the cold water. And she could almost remember something else. She could almost touch the memory; she wanted to, but she only felt the edge of it.

  “Did you remember all the constellations?” Will asked Pamela. “Could you still find them when you looked at the stars?”

  “No,” Pamela said. “I never looked at the sky.”

  Mr. Pratt set his battered box on the sand. He opened the lid and unpacked something wrapped in scarves and soft cloth. It was a strange musical instrument of satiny smooth wood. The instrument had a body shaped like a teardrop, a long thin neck, and many strings. Honor counted fifteen. When Mr. Pratt plucked the strings, they rang softly. He turned pegs to tune each one, and as he tested the strings, Honor heard their sound amplified by the rounded body of the instrument.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “This is a lute,” Mr. Pratt told her. His left hand played on the instrument’s neck as his right hand plucked. “Listen.”

  They lay on their backs in the sand and listened. Mr. Pratt played music that sounded like sweet rain falling and then like fairy tales. Like princesses running up and down secret staircases. He played music that sounded like dances and then like the memory of those dances, wistful recollections of times past.

  “Why is the lute so sad?” Honor asked when Mr. Pratt finished playing.

  Mr. Pratt smiled. “The lute isn’t sad. The music was. I was playing a song in a minor key.”

  Honor was surprised. She went to music class three times a week, but she had never heard of a minor key. “We only learn happy songs,” she said.

  “Oh, you’ve been missing out,” said Mr. Pratt as his fingers played on.

  There was no other sound in the world like the sound of the lute mixed with the shushing waves. The music was wistful and quiet, ancient music with ancient patterns, sometimes expected and sometimes Unpredictable. Honor lay between her parents, and as they listened, they looked up at the stars. There were so many they seemed like silver dust. So many more stars than Honor remembered.

  SEVEN

  BEFORE DAWN, THEY BRUSHED THE SAND OFF as best they could and walked back into the trees. They followed Mr. Pratt on a path skirting the shore to a cover where the Thompsons were waiting. They rushed to Pamela and to Honor. They wanted to touch Pamela and talk to her. She seemed almost like a dream to them. They had to know that she was real. And they had to ask Honor about Helix. If only there had been more time. The sky was brightening. Soon the sun would rise.

  Mr. Thompson and Mr. Pratt and Honor’s father walked back into the forest. When they returned, they dragged a boat through the sea grapes onto the sand. The boat was an outrigger canoe, and it was made of hollowed-out logs and rigged with the sinew of plants. In the hull of the canoe the Thompsons had hidden food and water. They also had new clothes for Pamela and Will. Mrs. Thompson gave Pamela a hat to protect her bald head from the sun.

  Together they all pushed the boat into the shallow water. Mr. Pratt held it there, ready to sail.

  “How will we all fit?” asked Honor.

  “We aren’t all going,” said Mr. Pratt. “Just the Thompsons and your parents.”

  “But what about me?” asked Honor.

  Her mother wrapped her arm around her.

  “Why can’t I go with you?” she pleaded.

  “Who will watch Quintilian?” asked her mother.

  Honor bowed her head, ashamed she had forgotten him. “But couldn’t we take him too? And Helix? We could get them and—”

  “You know it’s not safe to get them,” said her father. “And where we’re going is not for children.”

  “We don’t know if we’ll succeed,” her mother said.

  “Other people have tried to take the Weather Station,” Mr. Thompson told Honor.

  “And what happened to them?” Honor demanded, holding on to her mother.

  “No one knows,” said Will.

  “Then you can’t go,” Honor said. “I won’t let you.”

  “We have to go. It’s a day’s sailing at least. Maybe two.”

  “How is it safe for me to stay here?” Honor demanded. “They’ll send Retrievers after me. You know they will.”

  “We aren’t going to let Retrievers find you,” Will said. “You’ll go back to school first.”

  “I can’t go back there.”

  “You have to,” said Will.

  “We’ll come for you, just like you came for me,” Pamela promised.

  “If we succeed, it won’t be long,” Will said. “Watch the sky and you’ll know if we have the Weather Station.”

  “But you might not succeed,” Honor said.

  “We have to try,” said Will. “We have to try, even if we might fail.”

  “And what will happen then?”

  “Then you’ll be at school,” said Pamela. “You’ll think about what to do next. You’ll take care of your brother.”

  “We named you Honor for a reason,” Will said.

  EIGHT

  “THIS IS WHERE I’LL LEAVE YOU,” SAID MR. PRATT. HE HAD guided Honor back over the mountain to the edge of the Old Colony School’s Model Forest. “You remember what your parents said.”

  Honor nodded.

  “All right, then. Good-bye. No crying,” Mr. Pratt added.

  “I’m no
t.”

  Mr. Pratt looked hard at Honor and cleared his throat. Then he left her alone.

  Garden orderlies were repairing damage from the storm, carting off debris and wheeling in new plants. Honor saw one orderly kneeling, planting new ferns, and another with a whole cart of potted orchids. He transplanted each into a special niche in a rock or on a tree. Honor hadn’t understood before how tame the Model Forest was or how organized, with its pretty orchids hanging from every rock and tree. The real forest had no orderlies to keep it neat. The real forest was thick and dark and overgrown, not pretty; it was frightening—and also beautiful.

  She came to a bench and lay down. She closed her eyes and dreamed of her parents and Helix’s parents sailing out on the blue ocean. She imagined the clear warm night and her mother navigating by the stars.

  Screams woke her. She started up to find Helena and Hortense shrieking in terror at the sight of her.

  “Heloise!” Hortense exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

  Helena didn’t say a word. She ran as fast as she could to call for help.

  Orderlies arrived in minutes to pick up Honor. A pair of them scooped her up and raced off with her down the path toward school. Familiar buildings flashed by, but they were all in ruins. Walls weren’t just cracked; they’d crumbled. The vegetable gardens were soupy mud, the greenhouses piles of shattered glass. Monkeypod trees had been torn up by the roots, upended. Everywhere orderlies were digging, sweeping, raking, carting away more rubbish. Everywhere Honor heard the sound of hammers and saws. She smelled new lumber. Carpenters were erecting rough new wood buildings. The orderlies carried Honor into one of these. She saw a row of beds and a familiar desk. The orderlies had brought her straight to the infirmary.

  “Heloise,” gasped Nurse Applebee. “Look at you. Your uniform. Your hair!”

  Honor looked down at herself. Her shirt was torn, her identity card missing. Her skirt was caked with mud.

  Nurse Applebee looked almost as frightened as Hortense. “We almost gave you up for lost.”