by James, Ella
I look up to find him glancing at me over his shoulder.
“Come again?”
His face is fiercely handsome as he smiles before swinging the hammer. “What show is that song from?”
“I rarely watch the telly.”
“Mm, so you don’t know?” He flashes a smirk my way. “Ever heard of a show that rhymes with The Shady Hunch?”
I snicker. “What?”
He turns to me, dark brows arched skeptically. “The Brady Bunch?” He gives a low whistle. “You’ve never watched The Brady Bunch?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,” he says in a falsetto, and I shake my head.
Declan chuckles. “You’re a tabula rasa, Siren.”
“I know what that is. I do know my Locke.”
“And I thought I was isolated growing up at a Swiss boarding school.”
“You went to Swiss school?”
I watch his nape as he nods. His tricep flexes as he swings the hammer.
“Where was it located?”
“Near Geneva.”
“Do you speak French, then?”
“I do.”
“Parlez-vous aussi Italien et Allemand?”
He turns around to smirk at me. “Oui, oui. Et vous parlez Francais.”
“Yes, I had several years of French, and for a year we had a tutor. I do believe you paid for it.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t pay for it. I didn’t even know we still brought stuff out to the island—” he falters, his gaze veering away from mine for just a moment— “until my cousin told me.”
“Why Tristan?” I know the answer, of course, but I’m testing him to see if he does.
My heart pounds as he says, “My father came here as a young guy. Says he never forgot it.”
The ache in my chest breaks like a wave, and pain drips through me. I remember Mummy as we walked to the post office. I remember how her face went dreamy when she thought no one was looking. I remember putting my hand to hers—to her hand that held the letter.
“What’s that word mean, Mummy?”
“Which one, darling?”
I frowned, trying to remember what it looked like on paper. “Yearning.”
She stopped and glanced around, and seeing no one, leaned in closer, speaking softly. “Dearest, did you read my letter?”
“Just the one bit. What does it mean?”
Her face softens, and I can see her thinking—trying to decide whether to tell me. “Yearning is when you want something, my darling…especially something you can’t have.”
“So, when you want something forbidden?”
“Yes, my dearest. It’s a bit like forbidden.”
Chapter Thirteen
Finley
When I was fifteen, someone phoned Gammy. I suppose the call must have come when I was lingering about, so she waited and returned it when I was at the summer dance.
I couldn’t dance that afternoon, though—I remembered too well father twirling Mummy in our living room—the calm before the storm—so I picked up the end of my dress and walked slowly home—not to Gammy’s house, but to my other home. The one that still sits empty by the cliffs.
And there I wrote my name in dust, and there I found the letters.
Dearest Hudson…
To My Darling Isla…
If they had a girl child, they would name her Finley. He thought it whimsical; she would be a sort of lovely mermaid. If the firstborn were a boy, he would be Declan—a family name in the Carnegie line.
Mummy called him Hudson because his favorite of his family’s homes was there—a castle, he said, on the verdant bank beside the river. He’d told her he’d never cared for Charles, his given name; it was a hand-me-down from his father, who sent him to a place called Le Carogue.
He had refused a planned marriage since he’d arrived back in New York, he told her in one of the first letters. When could he come back and get her? He would make his father understand…
Mum refused to go without her mum. Hudson said he would send for Gammy, too, and buy her closetsful of gowns and a home of her own, with stacks of fine china and a mountain of silver.
Mummy wasn’t sure that she could manage in America, even alongside him. He wrote her, “Here I am a king—and you would be my queen. There is nothing I can’t give you, dearest.”
He was wrong. He couldn’t give my mother strength.
She didn’t go. She urged him to marry as he’d planned, a better wife than she could hope to be, and in an effort to propel him toward that end, she let herself be married to Peter Evans, the last of the island’s capable, unmarried males—a quiet, slightly younger boy who’d brought her a flower when her father died at sea.
When she told Hudson what she’d done, his letters halted for five months, and when at last he wrote again, he raged and railed. Henceforth, he wrote daily, begging her to annul the marriage if some unknown-to-me bit of information she’d conveyed to him in a previous letter was indeed true.
Finally, after a few months of such letters, one read simply, “Please take great care. If you would deliver in Cape Town, I could help with transport. For all three of you. Anything. I am always yours, Isla. Always, insensibly always…”
Another year, another creased, time-stained letter: “I developed the film, love. She is nothing short of magic.” And on another line, one halfway down the page, “I did it. I can’t say much for fear of breaking my own heart. Soon she’ll be with child. If a son, Declan. If a daughter, my Isla.”
I found the last letter hanging from the mouth of a wine bottle, having previously been tightly rolled.
My father likely found it shortly before my seventh birthday.
“I pray you’re on your way here. He’s gone mad! Finley & I must escape. There’s no time for further correspondence. Hear me through the stars. I’m always yours, and you are always mine. Remember Rumi?”
And there was a poem there at the bottom, something heady and enchanting.
I took that letter with me, a cylinder I folded into an accordion and pressed against my palm, and at the moment I stepped back into Gammy’s cottage, she was on the telephone, telling someone, “I understand—but she can’t go. Finley is not a simple girl, but she is broken. She has never spoken since it happened. No, it’s not. In Switzerland?” My Gammy laughed. “See if they will learn to read her mind, as I have, Charles. In the meantime, send her tutors.”
I waited, still, until the call ended, and longer before making a sound. Gammy turned to me and smiled as if I wasn’t mute, as if she’d merely been baking a pie. And from that day onward, I imagined Charles. Years later, I looked him up on the new Macintosh at the café, gotten, as were all our things of value, by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.
I found a newspaper image of his wedding, and inside me, something swung open—a sort of locked door. Charles had a son, I found, and he had indeed named the boy Declan. I saw him as a young teen pictured on a sailboat—lovely eyes, a luscious mouth, and wild, dark hair befitting of a prince. Sadness blossomed like a flower in my heart.
That night at the dinner table, when I set my napkin down beside my empty plate, I opened my mouth, and I told Gammy I’d enjoyed the meal. Each night after, I lay on my back in the field under the cliffs where Vloeiende Trane flowed, and I whispered to the stars the poem Mummy had scrawled. Those final words she thought to send to sea.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
when the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
I didn’t know until I met Doctor, who had been to university, that the poem was longer. Longer than, by then, I cared to memorize—although I did learn some of it.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
when the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is
too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
It comes to my mind now because I think he is asleep—Declan. The prince who’s not a prince. The man who, in some backward-bent world, might have been my brother, were that Mummy had been braver. Were that Charles and his son arrived the day before my seventh birthday, as, years later, I found they were scheduled to.
I watch him lying on his side now, having first eaten part of a bar and drank some water, and I wonder what he knows of me. What he remembers from his last trip here. What had his father told him as they traveled? Had they really planned to take us? How would they have spirited us away? Here on Tristan, if a married person wishes to leave the island, it requires spousal consent.
Here I am a king—and you would be my queen.
His voice cuts into my thoughts, saying a word I don’t understand at first: “Nike?”
“Come again?” I tuck the hammer to my chest and step a bit closer to him.
He doesn’t move from where he’s lying, but he says, “You heard of Nike?”
“Oh—the shoes. Of course.”
Just as I’m turning back toward the cave’s mouth, he says, “George W. Bush?”
A small smile curves my mouth. “If you’re tired, you should sleep.”
“Is that a no, Siren?”
“I know history and politics. In fact, I believe he’s number forty-three.”
“What’s a Macbook?” he asks from behind the hand rubbing his temples.
“Macintosh,” I murmur. Macbook. “Is it a computer?”
In the lantern light, I see his small smile. “Martha Stewart.”
“The cookbook?”
“Yeah.” His voice is low and quiet.
“Tired, Sailor?”
He shakes his head. “Shoulder needed a quick break.”
“You’re younger than me. One would think you would be able to keep up.”
His brows crease as his shrewd eyes narrow, and my tummy backflips. “How do you know that, pray tell?”
I can’t help giggling. Because I’ve no sense of decorum. Because I’m plebian and inexperienced and tired. Because I’m oh so tired. He looks up at me, and I put on my poker face.
“Everyone here knows your age, Carnegie. The island was obsessed long before you arrived.”
“And now?” His mouth twists on one side.
“Now we’ve got you buried in a burrow. I’d say your stock has plummeted dramatically.”
That earns me a soft chuckle.
I spend a moment looking at his face. From several meters away, in the gentle amber of the lantern light, his dark brows, wide cheekbones, and princely lips stand out the most. I run my gaze down his lovely form and then back up, and I wonder what his loved ones would think if they knew where he was tonight. What sort of people love him? Likely many…
“I suppose you’re not so awful.” The quiet words are blurted, but I can see them reach his ears. His mouth opens, and he gives a chuckle. “It’s true,” I continue. “I’d have never given you a chance prior to this…entrapment. But perhaps I do believe you weren’t yourself that night.”
He pushes up off the floor and gets to his feet, surprising me anew with his height as he strides toward me. He stops beside me, and for a breathless moment, I can feel his gaze caressing me despite my own eyes clinging to my feet. “Glad you’re seeing reason now.”
I hear the grin in his voice. I don’t dare peek at his face until he bends to scoop my rock off the floor. His muscular back ripples as he bashes it against the wall. “So—we bros?”
I fold my aching arms, trying to stifle a smile. “I’m no one’s bro.”
“Buds?”
I snort. “I’ll agree to be your friend. A proper friend and confidant, for the duration of our time here in the burrow.”
He knocks my shoulder gently the next time he stops his swinging to get a gulp of water. A strange warmth spreads through me. For the first time, I feel grateful for his company.
* * *
Declan
Two days in, and I’m starting to learn her siren ways. I’m pretty fucking sure she’s shy—or at least reserved. She doesn’t like me zeroing in on her too much or asking her too many questions. I can get her talking if I don’t seem over-interested. If I grin at her or nudge her arm with mine, woman’s like a hermit crab. Goes right into her shell.
“You’re pretty funny, you know that?”
We’re sitting on what’s left of the old rubble pile, and Finley’s pulling a square of Atkins bar into a bunch of little pieces, having just insisted “it tastes different this way.”
When I give her a smile, she draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arm around them, one hand cupping the remnants of her bar, her damp hair curling over one shoulder.
“I’m not wrong. It does taste different with the insides pulled out.” She pops a little piece into her mouth. “If nothing else, the texture’s different.”
“I guess so.” I have the last bite of my own bar, which is sitting heavy in my stomach.
“You know you can eat more than me, right?” she asks. “You’re what, twice as large as I am? I can go without a bit if need be. I doubt you can.”
I make a cringy face, and Finley shakes her head. “Samesies.”
That makes me laugh. “Pray tell me, where’d you come across ‘samesies?’”
She shrugs, looking shy again. “One of my friends says it.”
“Which one?” I drink some of my water, trying to ignore the churning in my stomach.
“Oh, you know. Anna.” She rolls her eyes.
“Hey, now, let a guy make small talk.”
“Anna is my dearest friend. She’s married to Freddy, and they have a wee one, Kayti.”
I smile when she says “wee one,” and she shoots me a dark glare. “Let’s avoid critiquing your American-isms, shall we?”
I stand up, stretching my sore-as-fuck back before bending down to grab the hammer. “Tell me what slang is gettin’ your goat.”
I hear her laughter behind me. For someone so prone to bossiness, she’s got a nice, soft laugh that’s what I think one might call a giggle.
“Gettin’ your goat? Are you sure you aren’t from Mississippi?”
Something tugs behind my breastbone. I rub at it before swinging the hammer again.
“Used to have a buddy from down in Texas.”
For a moment, all the air is sucked out of the cave and I can’t get a breath, but then she’s smiling beside me, tucking her hair, which she just washed, into a bun atop her head. “Did he or she have goats there?”
“I don’t know. It was a friend from Carogue,” I manage.
But I realize I do know. I went to Nate’s family’s place a couple times, and I never saw goats—although I guess that doesn’t mean they didn’t have some.
“Did he wear a cowboy hat?”
Another steady breath. “He did. He liked them Stetsons,” I drawl.
“Did he speak like that? Do they speak improperly, as in caricature?”
“Texans?” I shrug. “Sometimes, for effect. Most of them know the difference, though.”
I hear her make a soft, pained sound when she swings her arm, and I reach for her without thinking. She recoils, and I step back.
“Sorry.” I rub my forehead, which is throbbing. That was stupid.
She folds her arms and gives me a look that’s hung somewhere between a frown and a glare. “Was that a sneak attack?”
I shake my head, letting a breath out. “Used to locker rooms.”
/>
Her blank look lets me know she’s got no clue what that means. “Have you ever seen a locker room?”
“I have—in the movie Carrie.”
That makes me laugh, which makes her glare. “Anyway.” I bring my hands together. “Locker rooms are full of guys stretching and getting dressed, undressed, taping themselves up, just fucking around.” I wince when she does; now I know what bothers her, and any swear word is on that list. “There’s not a bunch of space that’s yours. You want someone’s attention, you just knock their shoulder or give them a swat.”
“Is this your way of calling me a bro again?” Her mouth curves up into a smile that makes my dick hurt, and I shrug. “Too good to be my bro?”
“Of course.” She rolls her eyes, and I frown at her right arm. “Where’re you hurting?”
She rubs a strand of hair back off her forehead and says, “Everywhere.” Now that I’m looking closely, I realize she looks tired as hell.
I hold my own sore arm out, massaging the inside of my forearm with my free hand. “Is it more down here, or more up here?” I squeeze my triceps.
“There,” she says softly.
“So stretch your arms above your head like this, right?” I stretch mine toward the ceiling, bending them so I don’t touch it. “Keep your hand closed and reach back like you want to grab the back of your neck. Then with your other hand, lightly press the side of your elbow.”
I demonstrate for her, feeling almost sick with joint pain as my triceps pull.
Finley shuts her eyes, looking relieved, and I resist an impulse to tweak her chin. When she looks at me again, her face is relaxed.
“Wow, that did help. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“I suppose you’re well versed in such things,” she says, at the same moment I’m saying, “You want to use your other arm more, too, if you can.”
She switches the rock to her left arm.
“Are you left-handed?” she asks.
“Little bit of both.”
“You’re ambidextrous?”
“Not really,” I hedge.