Remake

by Ilima Todd

  I try to ignore the tenderness in my breasts. “What is it?”

  “It’s a life vest,” he says, smiling. “Like your blue cushion, only your hands will be free to help me pull in the nets.”

  It’s a relief to see him smile at me for once. Anything’s better than his standard scowl, but it makes me wonder what changed and if it will last. I’m not sure how I feel about this shift.

  We spend the rest of the morning gathering three different nets from the water. After tossing fish and crabs into a bucket, we set the net in the water again for the next day’s catch.

  With a full bucket, we return to the homestead, where Kai shows me how to slice and gut the fish. We put them in a large pot with holes along the bottom and then suspended them from a rack. Kai starts a fire underneath, adding water every so often to create smoke that rises up into the pot. He tells me it helps preserve the fish. We toss the crabs, which are still alive, into a tank under the house until dinner.

  After lunch, I watch Kai climb a tree and toss down several golden brown coconuts. We carry them into the shade of the giant mango tree on their property. He picks up a tool with a long wooden handle and a double-pronged top. One side of the metal head ends in a sharp point, the other in a flat blade. Kai calls it a pickaxe. Bringing it high above his head, he sends the flat end into the ground with force, leaving the sharpened point sticking up in the air.

  Grabbing a coconut, he brings it down onto the pointed tool and twists the fruit so that an entire chunk of the husk peels away from the hard shell beneath. He rams the coconut onto the point a few more times, each time twisting off the husk until the bulk of it has fallen to the ground. After picking off a few loose strands, he holds the hard shell up to me and points to one end.

  “Two eyes and a mouth,” he says, pointing to three dots on the shell. He pulls something out of his pocket, a flat stone with a sharp tip. “You want to hit it between the eyes.”

  He knocks the coconut with the stone, and it splits into two perfect halves. He offers half to me, and I drink greedily, already addicted to the taste of coconut water from my weeks on the island. He pries off a piece of coconut flesh and gives it to me, then chews on a piece himself. He tosses the rest into a bucket, ready to be taken into the house. There the white meat will be grated off the shell and wrung to harvest coconut milk.

  Kai bends down, picks up another coconut and hands it to me with a nod. Then he sits against the trunk where he can see me, nibbling on his coconut piece.

  I shake the coconut and hear water sloshing around inside. I bring it high above my head and then down onto the pickaxe. The fruit bounces off and flops to the ground.

  Kai snickers from his resting spot. I glare at him and pick it up again, determined to get it right this time. I gather all the energy I have and ram the coconut into the sharpened point. The fruit doesn’t fall, but sticks in the metal. Not very far, though. I press down, jumping up and putting all of my weight into it. Nothing.

  I don’t look up, but I hear Kai give an exaggerated sigh. I despise the reminder that I’m weak. If I’d already been Remade, I’d be stronger, like Kai. I’d be male. It’s not fair for him to expect me to do something that comes so naturally to him.

  Cursing, I lean my body into the coconut, pressing with my arms and chest. The coconut slips off, and the pickaxe slices me inside my upper right arm. I gasp and pull away, revealing a long gash from my armpit to my elbow. Blood gushes all over me.

  “Holy—” Kai jumps up and tears off his shirt. “This is deep, hang on.” He wraps it around my arm and struggles to cinch it tight.

  “But it doesn’t even hurt.” Streaks of blood move down my arm from beneath his makeshift bandage to my hand. I watch as drops fall to the ground from the tips of my fingers. “I can’t feel anything.”

  Kai gulps. “Nine, I . . .” His eyes go wide as the cloth on my arm soaks through with blood. “Come on.” He hustles me to the house, and we plow through the mesh door.

  “Mom!” He pulls me to the kitchen table and lays me on top.

  “What is it?” Miriama walks into the room, takes one look at me, soaked in blood, and heads straight for the bathroom to throw up.

  “Really?” Kai runs his hand through his hair and wrinkles his forehead at me, unsure what to do. I don’t think it’s a good time to tell him there’s blood on his face and hair now, in addition to the streaks across his bare torso.

  Puangi walks in with the baby in her arms.

  “Pua, help.” Kai puts pressure on my arm and holds it over my head.

  When she sees the state I’m in, she looks desperately at Kai. “But Grandpa Rongo isn’t here.”

  “I know.”

  Grandpa Rongo is Ara’s father and is trained as a Healer. But he left this morning to hunt on the western islands with Ara and his other sons.

  “Get me some water,” Kai tells Pua.

  She nods and hands Tama to his mother, who has come out of the bathroom with a stack of fresh towels and a glass bottle of clear liquid. Pua turns on the kitchen sink and fills a large bowl with cold water.

  “What happened?” Miri asks, keeping a distance.

  “The pickaxe,” Kai says through gritted teeth. I can’t tell if he’s mad at me for being so clumsy, or at himself for letting it happen.

  “What were you doing? Trying to hack her to death?” Miri asks.

  I let out a laugh, and Kai’s face relaxes.

  He gives me a crooked smile. “Yes. But only because my attempt at drowning her this morning failed miserably.”

  I can’t help but smile at the irony.

  Pua brings over the water and soaks a towel in it. She wipes it along my raised arm.

  I can feel the wretched wound now. I hiss at the pain and Miri gasps, leaving the room.

  “It’s not so bad,” Pua says, pouring the clear liquid Miri brought over the gash.

  Bubbles form along the cut, and it stings tremendously. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to push through the pain. It’s gone in under a minute, and I open my eyes to see Kai with his arms folded, staring at me, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  “She’s going to need stitches, though,” Pua says.

  “What are stitches?” I ask.

  Pua frowns at me but doesn’t answer my question. She looks at Kai and shakes her head. “I can’t do it,” she says with a gulp.

  Kai curses under his breath. “Find me a needle, Pua.” He moves to the sink and washes his hands with soap.

  “Needle?” I ask. I don’t know why he needs a needle, but I’m sure I don’t need a needle. “What’s the needle for?” I sit up and wait for him to answer, but he doesn’t. I glance at my arm and try to ignore the logical place in my brain that knows what’s going to happen next.

  Pua comes back into the room holding a small needle in her hand with a match to the tip. She cuts off a length of string and threads it. She gives it to Kai and takes a step back from the table.

  Kai examines the cut.

  “What’s the needle for?” I ask again, desperation lacing my words.

  “The cut is too deep,” Kai says. He climbs onto the table with me, facing the opposite way. He lays my arm in his lap and ties a knot in the string.

  “It’s not too deep,” I say, shaking my head. “It’ll be fine. It doesn’t even hurt anymore. Really.” I start to pull away, planning to dismount the table on the other side, but Pua is there, climbing onto the table with us. They look at each other as though agreeing on something without speaking aloud. It must be a twin thing, and for a brief moment I wonder how much weight this table will hold.

  Kai rubs a towel across his forehead, wiping away the sweat that has built up. “It’s going to hurt,” he says, looking at me. “A lot.”

  I feel like a fool, throwing a tantrum over a tiny needle after being mauled by a pickaxe, but I am genuinely terrified. “I can’t do needles.”

  “Yes, you can, Nine.” Kai’s face is firm, determined. “You’ve done a lot of
hard things. You can do this too.”

  I recognize the resolve in his face, and I know he means it. He thinks I can do it. For some reason, I don’t want to let him down. A male wouldn’t cower in fear, would he? I give a slight nod.

  He holds my arm tight and presses the needle into my skin just above my elbow.

  I cry out. “AH!”

  Pua puts her hand on my face and moves it so I’m looking at her. She watches my mouth as she says, “Tell us about your family, Nine.” She bites her lip and shakes her head slightly, probably not sure if that was the right word to use. “Tell us about your life in Freedom.”

  I whimper as I feel the needle pierce my skin again.

  Pua squeezes my hand. “Keep looking at me,” she says.

  Her voice is calm but unassailable. It reminds me of Miri’s voice. I think of how Pua told me she started to lose her hearing five years ago. How it just slowly faded away and no one, not even Grandpa Rongo, could do anything about it. She can barely hear through her right ear, and only if you press your mouth against it to speak. Pua has lived through hard things. I squeeze her hand back and try to absorb her strength.

  I watch her face, my eyes focusing on her big brown ones. “My family,” I say, trying to think what my Freedom equivalent would have been. “Theron was my family.”

  “Yes?” Pua smiles. “Tell us about Theron.”

  “Theron was in my Batch,” I say. “He was the only one who cared about me. Who didn’t care that I was different. No—who loved me for being different.” I do my best to ignore the painfully slow, careful draw of thread through my skin and think of Theron. I picture his bald head and blue eyes. The way one side of his mouth rose when he heard something funny. Or the glint in his eye when he had a secret he couldn’t hold in any longer. I remember the feel of his hand in mine and the sound of his snoring every night as we drifted to sleep. The comfort of knowing he would always be there when I woke. Smiling. Happy. A smiling and happy that was always meant for me and no one else.

  “He was my best friend.” I clench my teeth as the needle stabs my skin again. “But more than that. He was my brother, my father, my son. He was everything to me.” A painful ache spreads through my chest, and I know it’s not just because of the needle anymore. “Theron saved me. Every day he saved me. And the night of the crash . . .”

  Pua puts her arm around me. I slide my hand between my knees to stop it from shaking.

  “He got me out of the shuttle,” I say. “Away from everything that could hurt me. He risked everything for me.”

  “Theron sounds like an amazing person.” Pua’s voice is soft but encouraging.

  I want to stop the story there. I don’t want to remember what comes next. But I take a deep breath anyway. “Then the shark came.”

  Pua holds me tight, and I lean into her, taking whatever strength I can find.

  “It pulled Theron under, and I couldn’t see him in the water. When he finally came up, he told me to swim away. He said to keep kicking and never stop, so that’s what I did. I knew he was hurt, and I left him there, left him to die.”

  I welcome the pain of the needle this time. There’s a satisfaction in the stinging, punishing bite. An atonement for things I’ve done. Or should have done.

  “It’s not your fault,” Pua says. She’s emotional too, her lip quivering as she speaks. “You are incredibly brave.”

  Brave is the opposite of what I am. Brave wouldn’t have left him. Brave wouldn’t be sitting here, feeling sorry for herself over a needle when her best friend was torn to pieces by a sea monster. I am a coward and a weak, pathetic little girl.

  Kai’s face is lowered, his eyes wide. He stares at his hands in his lap. My arm is all sewn up.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He doesn’t look up but makes a sound deep in his throat before sliding off the table and walking out of the house. I wonder what he thinks of me now, the girl he thought could do hard things—running away from her best friend.

  So much for not letting Kai down.

  Kai opens my door and tosses a black rash guard on top of my head as I try to sleep in. “Five minutes,” he says.

  “But why do I need this?” I ask.

  “No more baggy clothes, remember?”

  “I’m going in the water?” I sit up, look at my newly stitched arm, and frown. There’s slight bruising along the stitches, and my entire upper arm feels swollen.

  Kai walks in and lifts my arm. He runs a finger along the stitching, examining the wound.

  A chill runs through me at his touch, and I pull back slightly.

  “You’ll be fine,” Kai says, narrowing his eyes. He turns and shuts the door behind him.

  I crawl off my bed and hold up a swimsuit Pua gave me last night after I was stitched up. I slip on the bottom piece. It’s small—nothing more than underwear, really. I try to put on the top, but it is a tangle of strings and straps, and I have no idea how to get it on.

  “One minute,” Kai yells at me from the kitchen.

  I toss the top of the suit aside and slip on the rash guard. I don’t know why I need it if I’m wearing this top anyway. I glance at myself in the mirror and take in a quick breath. I know my body has been changing these last few weeks, but I guess I haven’t had a chance to really look at myself.

  My hips have spread significantly, and my rear end has filled in. I have definition at my waist, and my legs seem longer. Was I growing taller too? The rash guard fits tight against my torso, and I can see my breasts creating two significant bumps. They still feel tender. It’s a little annoying how they get in the way of things like lying on my stomach, or how they bounce up and down if I do anything more than walk.

  I frown at the reflection in front of me. There’s no denying I’ve become a mature female, and it’s a little unsettling.

  “Nine!”

  “I’m coming.” I tie a fabric wrap around my waist, slip on a pair of flip-flops and a straw hat, then follow Kai out of the house. I grab the life vest from its drying spot on the stairs and turn toward the ocean, but realize he’s headed the opposite way, flinging a backpack over his shoulders.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer but tosses me a pair of sneakers. “Put those on,” he says. “And you won’t need the life vest today.”

  I toss the flip-flops aside and slide my feet into the shoes. They are a little big, and I silently wish I had socks. “But I thought we were going in the water.” I tug at the rash guard as evidence.

  “We are.” He grabs a bicycle leaning against the side of the house, steps over the seat, and pats the wide handlebars—his way of telling me to sit.

  I hate it when he does his vague minimalist routine. I sigh and climb onto the metal bar, pulling my fabric wrap to my knees to keep it from tangling in the spokes.

  Kai pedals us through town on the worn street. Tall poles with wires strung across the top line up along the road. I wonder what they had been used for in another time. Houses like Kai’s emerge once in a while, complete with small livestock, wells, and garden plots. Others are empty, abandoned. If I squint I can almost picture them full of people, envision what this town used to be like before the Virus diminished its population.

  I can’t imagine it ever being like Freedom, though. Without electricity, the islanders could still gamble or run cage fights. Even brothels. With all their rules about sex and the time they spend on chores, though, I’m not surprised those things don’t exist. It’s like what Pua said about dish machines, ovens, and heat—they don’t understand what they’re missing. But if they did, I’m not sure they’d choose it anyhow. These people seem happy without it. I’ve never lived outside my Batch tower before coming here, but each day that goes by, I realize I don’t miss those things as much as I once did either.

  We turn onto a dirt track that heads toward the mountain. Large sheep pastures extend away from the road on both sides. On the right, the pasture gives way to a banana grove filled wi
th floppy leaves and bunches of green fruit that extend above my head.

  The road ends at the base of a trail that winds up the mountain. Kai ditches the bike there and leads me through the trees and bushes. After twenty minutes, I’m about to say something to him about how we are as far as anyone can get from the ocean, when I hear it. A loud surge of water ahead. We turn a corner and walk into a clearing where a large rush of water falls on the other end. It descends in one large sheet into a giant pool surrounded by wet rocks.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  Kai turns to me with a frown. “A waterfall,” he says.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Kai tosses his backpack on a dry boulder, pulls off his shirt and shoes, and runs into the water. “Come on.”

  I take off my fabric wrap and shoes and walk carefully into the water. It’s cold but refreshing after our hike. I tiptoe in until the water is at my waist, then lower myself slowly to my chest. The frigid temperature numbs my aching arm, and I sigh with the relief it brings.

  Kai swims toward the falls, becoming fuzzy as he moves farther and farther into the misty spray. He dives down and resurfaces with something in his hands. As he swims back, I see that it’s a metal cage, and inside the cage are hard-shelled animals crawling over each other.

  “Crayfish,” he says, putting the cage down in the water near the rocky shore.

  I instantly fold my arms and gasp, wondering how many more of those are crawling around at my feet.

  Kai smirks. “Don’t worry, they hang out around the falls. And I won’t make you go over there. Promise.”

  “Is that why we came? To harvest crayfish?”

  “Nope. That’s just a bonus. I’m gonna teach you how to swim if it takes all day.”

  That’s why he said no life vest. “But why here?” The ocean is a few minutes’ walk from the house. It seems a more logical place for lessons.

  “Because the fresh water will make it harder,” he says.

  I raise an eyebrow. That makes no sense.