The November Girl

by Lydia Kang

  You can’t ignore me.

  I’ll try and then some, I say savagely without speaking.

  ...

  That week, Hector and I live at home. He’s quieter than before, warier. He looks out at the lake as if expecting a serpent to arise from the depths and swallow him whole. But when it lies there in peace, he relaxes ever so slowly. He spends a portion of every day fishing. Sometimes he brings home a fish, sometimes he doesn’t. But when he does, he fries it, alive only an hour ago, and presents it glistening on a plate for us to share.

  This pleases me. I am so used to being the one who keeps everything nourished, or drags them back into the humus of the soil to disintegrate. Father used to try to care for me, and vaguely, I remember enjoying it when I was younger. But those needs had left me.

  With Hector, he’s awoken what I didn’t realize I missed. Once, he feeds me with his fingertips, dripping with browned butter. I nearly tackle him to the ground, rewarding him with hour-long kisses.

  I make things that might please him, like more rock cairns in the living room. He comes home and sees my creations, scratching his newly growing beard thoughtfully. He doesn’t read their words like I do, but that doesn’t bother me.

  What does bother me is that I can sense his pulse from a mile away. It’s an inviting river of blood, and when he asks me to shave his beard again, I decline. It’s too much temptation. I try to feed myself with other things, but we are already running low on camp store candy bars and dry soup packets. I’m starting to notice that Hector doesn’t cook enough for two people—only enough for me.

  If he only knew how misguided his actions were.

  So I eat very little. Unlike Hector, I don’t grow thinner as the days go by, and he consumes my leftover meals like a ravenous Isle wolf. And at night, he feeds from a different kind of hunger. We tangle ourselves on the floor by the hearth until inevitably, Hector gently pushes me away. The riotous noise of his blood is so loud in my ears, I can barely hear his voice.

  “No,” he says, but I don’t understand what he’s saying no to. There’s an invisible wall that I can’t see, but he does, and apparently, we can’t walk through it. “No,” he repeats, before kissing me gently on the neck and walking outside, coatless and shoeless, to cool off his warm skin on the stone steps outside the house.

  I don’t follow him. If I did, neither of us might return.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HECTOR

  It has been the best and strangest week of my life.

  We’ve been doing these ordinary things—cooking, walking, messing around every night until I’m almost seeing red from wanting her so badly. But I have to stop myself. I worry about what she understands. I mean, she can recite the geological history of the Great Lakes region like she’s got a PhD, but she doesn’t know how to make toast. Some nights, she stays awake, and I find her in the morning still standing by the window, watching the lake’s horizon as if she’s guarding something. And some days, she falls asleep in my arms like a child. So I can’t take our physical stuff further, because she never pushes for it, and I won’t. I would never.

  She still spends hours listening to the weather radio. That NOAA lady’s voice is grating on my nerves, but only because she always seems so fucking neutral about everything. I’ve been listening to the radio, too. They don’t talk much about the St. Anne anymore. The excitement of the wreck has faded into a vanilla memory, like all horrible events in the news. I listen for any bulletins about my own runaway status before I remind myself I’m a runaway teenage boy who isn’t even white. Who the hell cares?

  There’s one thing that isn’t fading into memory, and that’s survival. We’re quickly running out of food, despite my attempts to supplement with fish. Every time I go fishing, I try to scope out any other cabins that we could steal food from, but they’re either too hard to break into, or there’s nothing once I get into the tiny kitchens. Anda doesn’t know I do this.

  I’m getting really worried and start making mental plans about hiking to another part of the island for food, maybe the hotel lodge at Rock Harbor. I’m starving all the time, though Anda isn’t bothered by hunger the way I am. And it’s taking a toll. My throat aches a little, and this morning I was chilled in my sweatshirt. Goose bumps arise on my arms, though I’m wearing two sweatshirts. I hope I’m not getting a cold.

  Anda is on the floor, listening to the radio. I sigh, watching her. Because none of this—her, me, this island—is rooted in reality. At some point, I’ll have to leave. Or we might be discovered. Or her father might come back. At times, I wonder if all this is just one marathon dream, and I’ve been immersed in some raging fever since I rescued Anda.

  I gather my fishing tackle and hoist on my coat. Anda doesn’t move as I head for the door. There’s something awesome about that. It’s not that I need kisses and sweetly packaged good-byes. It’s just Anda’s surety that I’ll be back and in her arms tonight that makes me satisfied.

  Outside, a wind is rising. The sky is a gunmetal gray, and mist hangs in the air. Most of the leaves have already changed colors and fallen, so there are no lush gold and red views now. I guess the island doesn’t save them for trespassers like me, since I don’t deserve that beauty. Add it to the list of other things I’m unworthy of.

  You don’t deserve what you have. A good house. Family. This from my uncle only one month ago, all coming after my grades were less than stellar, and after I got fired from Walmart. Sometimes it’s not words, just silence. A week’s worth of quiet fury can be worse than a bruise. At least the bruise heals, but silence digs into your bones for days on end. And then there’s the guilt. I’m doing the best I can, Hector. Can’t you see that? I never wanted this.

  I know what he meant by “this.” Not the fighting. Not the unexplained, dark sickness that would overtake me almost every month. He meant just me. Only me.

  It pisses me off that even now, he demands to be in my head, though I’m the one who left him behind.

  I concentrate instead on the wild around me. It’s unforgiving and amazing, and I’ve got a hell of a newfound respect for it. I see one ray of sun shining on Washington Harbor behind me, and through the trees, Lake Superior’s wet horizon stretches widely.

  In the middle of all this beauty, I think, this island is eating me alive, little by little. It’s winning, and I can’t lose this time.

  The dark green of the pines and barren swaths of trees seem to be bracing themselves for the onslaught of winter. The mist transforms to rain, soft at first, before it starts to pelt me in the back and penetrate my jeans. Waves of chills run down my spine, and my sore throat is getting worse instead of better. A faint headache pulses under my temples. I’d better catch this fish, and fast.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ANDA

  After Hector leaves, I look around the house. The sofa and the braided rug are empty and forlorn, wanting someone to touch them. The kitchen has crumbs on the counter from the granola bars we’ve eaten. A glob of jam smears the countertop, and I wipe it off with my finger and onto my tongue. The sticky gel of tart fruit and sucrose dissolves as I press it up against my palate. I close my eyes.

  How could I have forgotten that I liked this? I mourn that I’ve forgotten.

  While Hector fishes, I pace around the house. Something is amiss. What am I to do, to make this house into a home? I think of Hector’s mouth pressing against the crook of my neck. Yes, this. And no, not quite. Maybe more food. More blankets. I gnaw at a fingernail.

  Father knows. He brings food and things that he believes I ought to like, such as broken geodes and rare pieces of beach glass. He thinks I’ll be bewitched by these pretty objects, by the lure of food laden with sugar or salt. Sometimes he brings flat, circular lake stones with holes he’s chipped into the middle. He thinks these will keep me safe somehow.

  But none of it fits. He only knows the human way to care. I am made of storms and corpses, of granite and paper-white birch. Trinkets and morsels of food ha
ven’t comforted me since I was a child.

  I’m not the one who needs to be kept safe. It is everyone else.

  Then why do you let this boy stay?

  I don’t know.

  Why do you need food now?

  I don’t know that, either.

  You need to make it stop. You are losing the balance, and that way lies despair.

  I understand, but I wonder—did I ever have balance? Or did I simply veer so close to her axis that the pull nullified everything else? I’m terrified. And yet I’m too weak to banish it all, to make Hector go away. I need a storm, not calories. I know this.

  It is November 7. It has been 348 hours since the sinking of the St. Anne. My body knows this, too, feeling light and airy as dandelion fuzz. I need grounding, the way lightning hungers for a good, tall tree.

  I’ve stood in the middle of the kitchen for over an hour, motionless, just considering these things. Finally, I loosen the stiff air about me and reach for one of Father’s cookbooks. Hector will be back soon, and the morsels of breakfast have since dissolved away into my blood. One book has a recipe for quick breads. It calls for flour, butter, and baking powder. Also salt. There is no flour left, but I crush the remaining crackers to use instead. I don’t bother to clean the bits of dust on the floor, instead letting my bare feet push them around, here and there.

  I turn on the NOAA radio to keep me company.

  Temperature dropping to forty degrees.

  Waves of eight feet or more.

  Forecasts are for ice-free areas.

  No, that can’t be right. The NOAA voice is wrong. It’s not that cool, nor are the waves that large. I go to the window and splay my fingers against the glass, startled at the coldness of the glass. Between the branches of dead, lichen-covered birch trees, I see the waves of the lake. They are far larger than I sensed.

  I’ve always been finely attuned to the air pressure and moisture, the vectors of wind and penetration of the judging sun. A radio can be fixed, instruments recalibrated. What do I do with myself if I am already becoming so broken?

  Well. I can make other things, I think. It’s a practical thought, and I readjust my spine to this new sensation of practicality. I snap the radio off, turn away from the windows, and busy myself in the kitchen, taking the ingredients down. I’m wrist-deep in the sticky mixture when static begins to tug at the cut ends of my shorn hair. The chimney begins to moan, and raindrops patter the roof. Such wonderful, delicious music. My eyelids have closed, so I can listen with heavy intention.

  My mind begins to swim. Deep within, my spine and long bones ache for the storm. My heart beats, and with every pulse, there is a yawning need.

  My hands squeeze the dough, and it oozes between my clawed fingers. I scrunch my face, breathing long and hard, opening my eyes and concentrating. That’s right. I’m making biscuits, aren’t I? Hector will be hungry. I am hungry, too.

  You need something else to feed you, Anda. Not wheat, nor butter.

  “Shh,” I hiss.

  I wish I could distance myself from her. I’m almost out the door when I stop. I’m making food for Hector, I remember, and shake my head. I grab a handful of sticky, needy dough. I try to drop it onto the cookie sheet when the wind whistles for me. It creeps under the eaves, through the cracks of the wall, and circles my ankles, coaxing me.

  “Stop it,” I whimper.

  I drop irregular handfuls of dough onto a metal sheet. Mechanically, I put the sheet of lumpy dough in the tiny kitchen stove, the insides glowing red as hell. My vision swims. I see blood, not the heating elements of the oven.

  Before I can wipe my sticky hands on a kitchen towel, the tug inside my belly grows too insistent and irresistible. It’s a rope, tied to my spine and pulling hard. It would pull hard enough to rend me apart, I know.

  Sustained winds of up to thirty knots.

  Small craft should exercise caution.

  The last storm was “large in size.” A rather bland way to put kinetic energy, wind speeds, rain, cubic kilometers, and vortices of current into one measure of size. Words never suffice for much anyway. This storm, however—it’s far larger than the last, in that I can feel the pull deep in my marrow.

  It is November 7. It has been 349 hours since the sinking of the St. Anne.

  “No,” I gasp.

  Yes.

  My hands twist the doorknob to exit the house before I know it. My feet fly across stone and pine needles. The water is so close, and the rain makes my skin burn with a fury. The shore coaxes as only it can. In a blink, I’m at the lake’s edge. The stones of the lake dig into the soft soles of my feet. I don’t ignore the pain. Instead, it makes me smile. The stones don’t hurt me; they’re crying out for having touched me.

  The water is up to my knees when I see the white sailboat in my mind’s eye.

  It’s no longer within sight of the Upper Peninsula. Everyone who touches the lake knows that the silhouette of Lake Superior resembles a wolf, and Isle Royale, its vengeful eye. The sailboat is in the throat of the wolf, about to be consumed. Through the splash of white water, I see the name on the boat.

  The Jenny.

  Thomas and Agatha are on board, panic showing as white rings their blue irises. The boat is named after their only daughter, safe in landlocked Colorado. They thought the storm would not come up so quickly; they were wrong. They thought it would be the last good day to sail before winter set in; they were correct.

  It will be the last day they ever sail.

  They are mine for the taking, if I’m willing to take them. My fingertips touch the lake water. To me, it is warm as new milk. Remotely, in my brain, I remember there was a boy. And that there is a stove turned on in a house somewhere, but I don’t care.

  Nothing matters when death is calling for me.

  It is November 7. It has been 350 hours since the sinking of the St. Anne.

  It has been too long. The Jenny calls for me.

  Good girl.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  HECTOR

  I carry two fish back with me, shivering nonstop. Now my thighs and shoulders ache, too. I’m definitely sick, and it’s freaking me out how fast it’s coming on.

  The rain starts pouring. This storm’s far more vicious than the last. The drops pelt my face over and over. My head has that blown-up, dizzy feeling. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink today. That was stupid.

  When I get to her house, I’m so thankful to reach shelter. My hands are shaking when I drop the fish on her back step. I’m too tired to clean and scale them. I need to rest first. I’m going to just sink face-first into the couch for a few hours. Days, maybe.

  As soon as I touch the door, I realize something’s wrong. It’s open again. The wind is smacking it repeatedly against the jamb, chattering a warning. I smell smoke. I step inside, and my hand touches something sticky on the doorknob.

  I look at my fingertips. Ugh. What is this stuff? I sniff the gluey beige goo on my fingertips and smell a yeasty scent. It’s dough. But that’s not all. I look upward to where faint wisps of dark smoke spread across the ceiling.

  Something’s burning.

  “Anda? Anda!” I yell, barreling down the hallway toward the main room. Stinging smoke coils up to the kitchen ceiling from the oven. Coughing, I spin the oven dial to off and open the oven door. A cloudy black plume meets my face. Shrunken, burned lumps decorate a black cookie sheet. I run to the bedrooms, but they’re empty.

  Oh shit. Where is she?

  “Anda!” I yell hoarsely, the words feeling like sandpaper in my throat. I tear out the door and spin around wildly, looking for her. But I don’t see her anywhere. The treetops are bending and whipping back and forth and grit blows into my face. Maybe she just wandered off? Or maybe she went back to the lake.

  No.

  I forget about my exhaustion and run through the trees, heading for the water. You can see the lake through her kitchen window between the trees. The closer I get to the water, the colder the wind
becomes. The clouds have darkened, fast. Sickening thunder rumbles everywhere. Sheets of rain fall near and far away, looking vaguely like the sweeping folds of a woman’s skirt. I’m soaked when I reach the water’s edge.

  “Anda!” I yell, but the splashing is so noisy. The water’s surface is sharp with a million points from splattering raindrops. I see a white thing floating in the water. Something small, like the top of a blond head.

  Oh my God.

  She’s too far out for me to wade in and reach her. Remembering how hard it was to tug her to shore in my clothes, I yank my coat off, and then kick away my pants and boots. I run into the water. The icy temperature causes my body to revolt, making me hyperventilate. I dive in and swim hard toward the last place her head was bobbing on the waves.

  My limbs immediately stiffen like lead from the blazing cold water. My head is buzzing from panic and faintness. I lift my face. The white thing in the water rises just at the surface. It is her. A foot or so away, I see the tops of her hands near the surface. Her body must be deeper, like her feet are pulling her down.

  You might die doing this, an inner voice says to me. It’s so calm, so filled with common sense. But I ignore it, swimming harder.

  I reach for her arm and grab it savagely, pulling her to me. Once again, her skin is scorching hot. It feels good inside my chilled palm. I need to grab her body and tug her to shore, but I’m underwater. There is nothing to anchor myself so I can pull, and my face goes underwater when a wave hits me square in the head. That old familiar panic hits my heart, and I kick in a frenzy to break the surface. I cough and sputter, gasping for air, and keep going. Anda’s face is only inches away. Her white-cropped hair sways in the turbid water. Her eyes are closed. She’s dead in the water. The most beautiful dead person I’ve never seen.

  Really, Hector. Am I worth it? the voice says again.

  Suddenly, her eyes open.

  Alive eyes, seeing eyes. They bore right through me, like acid. In a way that tells me that I’m not supposed to witness this.