Chapter Fifty-Nine
Vanessa
We are choked with death,” Pastor Saul says, his voice trembling. His wife and both his children died, and his new wife sits in the front pew, staring at him like someone struck her over the head. It’s been weeks since church has reconvened, and his messages of gratitude have slowly become more and more sorrowful. “Death has smothered us. And yet we still live. There is no death without rebirth, and our island has been reborn. We thank the ancestors for our deliverance.
“And yet, why did this happen? Why did such a terrible plague fall upon our society? Perhaps the ancestors asked God to punish us for our sins. Perhaps the ancestors are displeased with us.
“As I look upon us, I can see the reasons for their displeasure. We have strayed from them. We have strayed from their vision and their holiness. We clot up the minds of our daughters with useless knowledge, instead of taking the precious time to teach them to be a solace to their fathers. Wives have forgotten how to be a support to their husbands. We let our aged live too long, past their prime years, for the simple reason that our hearts are soft. Men are swayed by the words of women, by the words of wives and daughters who refuse to submit to their will as wives and daughters should.”
Vanessa sneaks a look at Mary, who looks incomplete without the tall figure of Janey next to her. Her face is white, her eyes closed, her lips still. One of her hands lies limply in the grip of her mother, who chafes it like she’s trying to bring Mary back from the dead.
“With rebirth comes the chance to start again. We will have outsiders coming to fill our pews again, families who survived the scourge and have longed for this. We can start them off anew. We can teach them correctly. We can guide them the way we should have, all along. We will cleanse them of the filth they carry with them. The discarded relics of a sinful society, a society that set itself on fire and burned, burned until bodies littered the ground.
“We will cleanse ourselves. Our wanderers will show us the way. Discipline will be sharp, harsh, and yet what are we doing but cutting away the mangled, rotting fruit of a harvest and letting the healthy fruit live and flourish? What are we doing but following the will of the ancestors?”
The wanderers have been coming to Vanessa’s house late at night. She wakes to hear them arguing through the walls. The first night, she crept downstairs to hear them and was shocked to recognize, strewn in a nest of vehement words, her own name. Unsure if they were aware of her presence or simply talking of her, she fled back upstairs and pretended to be soundly asleep, in case a troop of wanderers was about to storm into her room to question her. Now she is too scared to try to listen, and simply lies in her bed, while the tones of furious male argument drift up from downstairs.
Pastor Saul bows his head. “We must pray for our renewal.”
There is a rustling of assent, or discontent, or grief. Vanessa starts to sob, and the people around her sit facing forward dully like they are deaf, or asleep.
Chapter Sixty
Vanessa
Vanessa feels Father come to shake her in the night. She wasn’t really asleep—she was lying half awake, thinking about Janey Solomon. They say she was so light that her mother carried her to the fields in her arms, that when she was dropped into the hole in the ground she floated like a feather.
It’s late, but Vanessa turns down the blanket, lies back, and opens her arms like she’s supposed to, before she remembers that she’s no longer even allowed to.
“No, Vanessa,” says Father. “Get up.”
“What? What’s going on?”
He has already moved back. “I need you to get some of your clothes and get ready to leave.”
“Leave?” Vanessa sits up. “Leave for…”
“I don’t have time,” he says, and is gone. The moon is so full and glaring that she doesn’t need a candle. She gathers some clothes in the dark. Then, gasping, she drops them in a heap and runs to the library.
“Vanessa,” says Father when he finds her with an armful of books. His voice is stern, but she catches a glint of affection in his eyes.
“I’ll wear Mother’s clothes,” she tells him. She’s grown tall lately, her body disarranging and rearranging itself in new, messy, hideous patterns. Mother’s clothes should fit her now.
Ben and Mother are standing by the door, Mother with a big bundle in her arms. “What’s happening?” Vanessa asks her, although she knows what’s happening.
Mother shakes her head, her mouth pursing and stretching. Vanessa sees she’s been crying.
“I need you to be quiet,” Father says. “As quiet as you can be. If anybody wakes and finds us…Irene, I’ll take the clothes, you carry Ben.”
Wordlessly, Mother hands over the clothes and stoops to take a fretful Ben in her arms. She leans her head on his.
Father opens the door and slips out, and the rest of the family follow in a straggling line. The books drag heavily at Vanessa’s arms, but she refuses to drop one and her arms grow sore, then numb. Her scarred hand aches. They’re past the Abrahams’ when she realizes she didn’t put on any shoes, and her feet are needling with cold. There’s nothing to do but walk on.
When they reach the ferry, Vanessa’s sleepy mind suddenly jolts with the full recognition of what is about to happen. Her heart leaps up into her throat, and she bites her lip hard. Father goes up to the ferryman and whispers something. The ferryman doesn’t move. Turning, Father beckons them on board.
Vanessa’s numb feet step onto the flat planes of wood. The floor is dusty, splintery, and cool. Vanessa bends to release the books in a pile, and when she straightens the ferryman is staring at her. His eyes are like pools of darkness under the brim of his hat, and she looks away.
“Did you tell anyone?” Father demands of the ferryman, who merely gazes at him, swaying slightly. “Did they ask you anything?” Shrugging and looking away, the ferryman reaches for his long pole and sweeps it into the water.
As they pull away from shore Ben cries, and Mother sings a little song to him. Father is staring out at the water.
Once they’re out of sight of the island, the ferryman pulls a cord and a terrible growling comes from under the raft. Vanessa grabs Mother’s hand, trembling, and the ferryman laughs silently to himself. “It’s all right,” says Father. “It’s always like this.” A waterfall pours from the back of the raft, and they begin to move quickly. With eyes on the horizon, Vanessa sees the gray sky turn pink. She sits cross-legged and watches the water go by.
Father squats next to her. “I’m doing this for you, Vanessa,” he says.
“You’re doing this because you didn’t get to say what happens next,” she replies, not looking at him. “You pretend it’s about me, but it’s really because they wouldn’t listen to you.”
There’s a silence, and he says, “You don’t understand.”
“What, then?”
“They were going to burn my books. They still are. But I just couldn’t stand there and watch it happen. It would be like watching my family go up in flames. You don’t know how proud I was when I saw what you were bringing with us.”
Vanessa is still for a moment, thinking of her father’s library of beautiful words and pictures catching fire, crumbling to ash. “You left because of your books?”
“No.” He is silent, then sighs. “I left because I was worried they might try to kill you someday.” Vanessa hears Mother inhale sharply and looks up to see her wrapping her arms tightly around Ben, as if only he can save her from drowning.
Reaching out, Vanessa squeezes Father’s palm, just for a moment. When his fingers try to wrap around hers, she draws her hand away. Squinting into the gray morning, she thinks of last summer, and how beautiful the island looked from the tallest tree.
Finally she sees the horizon’s end: land turning bright with the sun. As they approach, she can see figures moving. Everything is in flames, blazing brightly, dark silhouettes outlined by flicker and glow. She can’t tell if it’s the waste
lands burning their forever fire, or the sun catching light on human bodies as it rises behind them.
Acknowledgments
First thanks to Karen Siegel, who read an old high school friend’s snippet of a novella and gave invaluable feedback. Bryan Melamed and Christopher Brown also provided helpful and incisive critiques.
I am new to this field, but I think it’s safe to say that Stephanie Delman at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates is the best literary agent in the world. Thank you so much for your support, guidance, fantastic ideas, and for literally making my dreams come true.
I was fortunate and honored to have Carina Guiterman as my U.S. editor. Carina, I am so grateful for your astonishing skill in honing plot and prose. Thank you for making my novel a hundred times better than when it was passed to you. And thanks to everyone else at Little, Brown who helped my novel along its journey.
Leah Woodburn at Tinder Press was my U.K. editor and Carina’s partner across the pond. Thank you for your spot-on observations, fabulous ideas, and insightful comments. Thanks to Leah’s colleagues at Tinder Press for your help and contributions.
Deborah P. Jacobs, my copyeditor, has a mind like a steel trap. Thank you for turning your expertise toward my novel and catching everything I didn’t.
Thanks to Stefanie Diaz, the intrepid international rights director at Sanford J. Greenburger, for introducing my book to new lands.
Thanks to Helene Wecker for reading my manuscript in her very scant spare time. Cookies forthcoming.
Thanks to Molly and Ember, my muses, who cannot read and yet still deserve recognition for their unflagging support.
And finally, heartfelt thanks to Chris, my captain, best friend, and true love. Next year in Palau.
About the Author
Jennie Melamed is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who specializes in working with traumatized children. During her doctoral work at the University of Washington, she investigated anthropological, biological, and cultural aspects of child abuse. She lives in Seattle with her husband and three Shiba Inus.
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