Our Animal Hearts

by Dania Tomlinson

“We must find it,” she said.

  “It could be anywhere. She probably already destroyed it.”

  “Molly would never do that. She knows too well the danger that comes with destroying a house of kami. Releasing them. Even my father was careful not to break the wood. Just disassemble.”

  A chill went up my spine. “But aren’t they good kami?”

  “Not if they are angry. Nothing is just one way.”

  We spent weeks scouring the forest for the shrine I knew could not be found.

  9

  When Llewelyna and Jacob finally came home, Jacob had changed in some important way. He seemed much older than me now. A darkness had crept over his features. He complained of hearing muffled voices in his right ear. My father said that was only from being underwater for too long, but Llewelyna looked at Jacob wearily. Jacob was short-tempered now and always angry. He stole matches from Llewelyna’s handbag and burned things in a tin can that smouldered beneath his bed; inside it I found the charred remnants of nail clippings, hair, a square of Llewelyna’s scarf, a thimble, and mouse bones.

  Llewelyna spent much of her time at Henry’s library. I read amongst the stacks of books while they drank coffee in Henry’s kitchen with the door closed or smoked out in the graveyard. The lake monster obsessed Llewelyna. For long periods, and sometimes even at night, she would disappear. I never saw her come and I never saw her go; she would simply vanish for a few hours and then reappear. No one else seemed to notice, or cared to draw attention to her absence.

  * * *

  Since my father was an investor, my family was invited onboard for the launch of the Rosamond, the brand-new lakeboat. Jacob stayed at home. He had refused to go near the lake since the incident. My father said Llewelyna and I could stay home as well, but Llewelyna insisted she and I come along.

  The SS Rosamond was named after the chief investor’s wife, who died crossing the Atlantic. It was a sternwheeler much bigger than any of the other lakeboats. A siren was carved into the bow. The siren’s breasts were bare and her stance rigid: arms to her sides, eyes painted closed. If this was supposed to be Rosamond, the investor’s wife, immortalized by wood, the artist had doomed her to a particular hell: the frigid waves splashed up her scaled lower half and bare chest. The ship boasted three decks, a saloon, a dining room, and twelve private cabins that dripped with gold and enamel. The dining room was decorated like a palace. Several small round tables were set with white tablecloths and bouquets of tulips. The china teacups were gold-rimmed with roses painted on their sides. Crystal chandeliers tinkled above our heads and left us dappled in light.

  Llewelyna was silent all through dinner. The woman seated beside her, the daughter of some politician who boarded in Penticton, had altogether given up on any attempt at conversation and pulled up a chair at another table. She whispered to Mrs. McCarthy and their eyes flashed at us. Llewelyna sat with her hands in her lap and stared at her uneaten fillet as if it might move, her head cocked, listening for something. I watched her nervously. Once in a while my father lifted his eyes from his plate and opened his mouth as if to speak. His black eyebrows furrowed. He silently urged Llewelyna to eat, to speak, to move. She glanced out the window nearest us. It was blue-black outside.

  “I’m going to get some fresh air,” she said, and pushed her chair out behind her. It screeched against the hardwood floor. The room was suddenly quiet and too bright.

  “Llewelyna—” he whispered. Heads turned towards us. Llewelyna was already at the door. My father’s thin lips went stiff and his moustache twitched. I watched his face flush pink right before my eyes like a kind of magic trick. “Your mother’s a sea mammal,” he said. “Always going up for air.” He smiled weakly at his joke, stood, and bowed like an actor leaving the stage before walking towards the saloon.

  Llewelyna refused to smoke indoors, where the trapped grey air collected in the corners and turned aged and ashy. She smoked outside because the smoke brought her prayers to the heavens.

  I followed Llewelyna outside. The sky was clear and glittered with the pinpricks of stars. The wind groaned against the sides of the boat. I couldn’t find her on the top or the second deck. I began looking for her in the dark water over the sides of the boat. I pictured her pale form floating spectral on the surface. I was about to scream for help when I found her on the bottom deck, at the stern, gripping the railing and staring at the moon. Her white dress and petticoats billowed and her mess of red hair whipped around her head. I stood beside her. Without looking at me she pointed to a huge mass in the middle of the lake.

  “You see?” she said. “Rattlesnake Island.” The waves supped against the rocky shore and the moon illuminated only the tips of trees. I imagined the island was the silhouette of a sleeping dragon. “That’s where the addanc that bit your brother rests. His home.”

  Llewelyna reached into her handbag and pulled out something small and white. I could see feathers in the blue light. It was Angel, Mrs. Bell’s pet dove. My father and I were returning from the Nickels’ store the night before when we ran into the Bells on their way to the beach to bury the dove. Although it had been months before that Azami and I had broken into the Bells’ home, I couldn’t help but feel vaguely responsible for Angel’s death. Mr. Bell was holding a little cardboard box and Mrs. Bell was all dressed in black with a handkerchief held up to her reddened eyes and nose. Phillip was obviously pleased with the absurdity of burying the creature. He couldn’t help but smile as he told my father about finding the white bird stiff at the bottom of the cage. Just the mention of Angel had brought fresh tears to Mrs. Bell’s eyes. Llewelyna had appeared in the garden then. She popped out of the lilacs to join us. She held Mrs. Bell close and petted her shoulder. I had been surprised at her tenderness then. We all went down to the beach to bury the bird. In the middle of the night Llewelyna must have gone back, rummaged through the leaves for the tiny wooden cross marker, and dug up the dove. My mother the gravedigger.

  “Hush,” she whispered and reached out over the railing and let go of the bird. I held my breath in anticipation for the dove to flash into the dark sky, resurrected once more. But the bird dropped, lifeless, into the water. It bobbed upside down on the surface. Llewelyna watched the island carefully, as if waiting.

  “I’m frightened,” I whispered.

  “Look,” she said, nodding towards the island.

  A silver ridge glided towards us along the water. It moved swift and soundless as an eel. As it got closer I realized how huge it was. Endless. The image didn’t merge with the dark shadows I saw the day the creature bit Jacob. The moonlight made it luminous, made of only light and spirit.

  Llewelyna clenched the railing, her knuckles white. I reached up to grab her arm and pull her back inside the dining room but she peeled my fingers away. The shimmering trail was coming closer and closer. I pushed my face into the shoulder of her dress until all I could smell were lilies and cigarettes. The boat rose up and down. There was a splash and then silence.

  “Shh,” Llewelyna whispered. Another splash. It bumped into the ship. Silverware and china clattered. There were screams and yells from the dining cabin. I lifted my head from her shoulder in time to see the creature rise to the surface. Its head was long and horse-like, its smooth skin iridescent.

  “Leviathan,” I breathed, for it was clear this wasn’t merely one of Llewelyna’s crude addancs. When the lake spirit opened its mouth I saw its large square teeth. In one bite it ate up Angel, Mrs. Bell’s dove, then spiralled spectacularly and left the stars boiling in the mirrored sky.

  “Naitaka,” Llewelyna said quietly. It was the name Henry had for it. The creature sank deep beneath the water until we could no longer see it. Then, far in the distance, it appeared again, gliding back towards Rattlesnake Island. We watched until it joined the glisten of waves. I gasped as if I had been holding my breath the entire time. There were footsteps on the deck above. Llewelyna was smiling. She opened her purse and pulled out a hand mirror and puff and powde
red her nose. When she was done, we joined the rest of the party in the dining room.

  10

  Every week the Rosamond arrived at Winteridge with more Japanese bachelors in search of work. I would sit on the wharf and watch the men disembark with their sad, tired eyes and faraway faces. I wondered about their homes. About the people and worlds they left behind.

  It had been a year since Jacob and I set fire to the Kobas’ orchard but the effects carried onward; Winteridge would never be the same. Some people even decided that the burning of the Kobas’ orchard was warranted. I overheard Mrs. Nickel tell a customer that the Japanese were impinging on settler land, were becoming a threat, and that perhaps the Japanese should see the fire as a warning to keep in line, to remind them of their place. The pull of nausea returned to the back of my throat like a stone I could not bear to swallow.

  After the fire, all Japanese children were taken out of school. The Japanese no longer attended church or shopped at the Nickels’ store. Someone had retaliated, presumably a Japanese picker, by burning a couple of apple trees in the McCarthys’ orchard. The McCarthys had the largest orchard in Winteridge, and employed the majority of the Japanese bachelors. After the burning of the trees, the McCarthys fired all their Japanese pickers and from then on refused to hire Japanese. The Kobas took on the fired employees but couldn’t hire all of the Japanese men who arrived in Winteridge every day. There were many desperate for work.

  Azami and I met in secret. Although our relationship was encouraged by my father, who wanted nothing more than to be liked by everyone all at once, it was not approved by the community. We would practise harae at least once a week to cleanse ourselves of that week’s disease and bad luck and, of course, guilt, but I could never be clear of it. I could never admit to lighting the fire in the Kobas’ orchard, and I was sure confession was at the core of the ritual.

  Azami’s sister Molly did everything she could to keep Azami and me apart. In the beginning I had thought it was because Molly didn’t like me, but I soon came to realize she only wanted Azami to stop with her old Shinto practices and conform to their family’s new life in Canada. Sometimes she followed us to the lake and we wouldn’t realize she was there until we were halfway through the harae ceremony and Molly would come out from behind the trees and splash us or glare at Azami so furiously that Azami was forced to stop and follow her back home through the forest.

  One night, on the anniversary of her baby brother’s death, I helped Azami launch a paper lantern off the wharf in Winteridge. “This will guide his spirit back to the other world,” she had said as she released the lantern into the water. Ever since her family had arrived in Winteridge, Azami had woken to the cries of a phantom infant. We had watched the lantern travel for nearly an hour. It burned like a lonely star in the mirrored sky. The flame had snuffed out or sunk somewhere out in the middle of the dark lake.

  It was that same night that I gave Azami back my blue marble. “I know it’s just a silly thing,” I said. “But I want you to have it.” She rolled it between her fingers. It pulled the dregs of light from the night sky.

  * * *

  When our orchard finally began to produce fruit, and my father was ready to employ pickers, he went down to the docks and hired the Japanese men as they disembarked. It was his goal to undo the segregation that had begun in the community after the fire. A couple of Japanese men were adept with English, but after a patchy conversation about pruning, it was clear the newly arrived men knew little about growing or harvesting peaches. So instead of working in the orchard, my father had the men build a cabin along our property where they could sleep. Once the men were busy building, my father took a trip up the lake to Vernon to find a leader for his crew. He was gone several days before we received a telegram that his trip had been successful and he would be home that evening.

  Llewelyna, Jacob, and I watched the Rosamond appear around the bend of land and creep towards the bay. The painted siren was already chipped away, her eyes dull and bored. My father disembarked in his suit coat and top hat and was followed by a tall man in tattered clothes and a wool flat cap. The man had a bushy, unkempt beard and thick black eyebrows. Behind him was a stout woman with blond hair and a grey bonnet, and two boys loaded down with wooden chests and canvas sacks. The younger boy looked about my age, fourteen. He was short with blond hair, red cheeks, and a solid, stout frame like his mother. The older one was thin and taller than his father and had dark wavy hair. Llewelyna ran up to my father and, despite the crowd on the dock, kissed him. He dipped her backwards to make a show of it. The dark-haired son grinned and winked at me.

  My father took Llewelyna by the elbow and guided her to the newcomers. “Lew, I’d like you to meet the Wasiks. This is Taras and his wife, Mary.” Mary curtseyed low, gaze towards her feet. “And these are their sons, Viktor”—my father motioned to the tall, dark-haired son, who took off his hat and nodded politely at Llewelyna—“and Yuri.” He motioned to the younger blond, who was a few paces behind, struggling to carry one of the larger wooden chests.

  “Hen,” the older son, Viktor, whispered to get his brother’s attention. Yuri took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead before bowing to my mother.

  Taras had the expertise and experience my father desperately needed. “Soil’s in my blood,” he said. He had a strange earthy accent I later learned was Ukrainian. He and his sons had worked on many orchards in Vernon. The last orchard Taras worked on was one of the largest and most successful in the valley. My father had to bait Taras to leave his position by promising a competitive wage for him and his sons as well as a plot of our land for his own, a small corner piece near the road.

  My father hadn’t really thought through hiring a Ukrainian to lead a group of Japanese, and had to convince the pickers that Taras was not Russian.

  The evening of their arrival, Taras and Viktor were taken by my father on a tour of the orchard. Taras’s English was sparse and so Viktor was needed to translate. Yuri looked disappointed that he hadn’t been invited along. Instead, he was instructed by Mary to join Jacob and me to collect walnuts for a tart while Llewelyna and Mary prepared dinner. Yuri kept glancing over his shoulder at his father and brother as we walked down towards the walnut tree. He was taller and stockier than Jacob. His blond hair and pale blue eyes made him look washed out.

  “We own all the land on this side of the hill,” Jacob was saying, “right down to the lake and up to the McCarthys’ apple orchard.” He looked up at Yuri for approval. But Yuri was staring out towards the lake. “There are three other orchards in Winteridge, but only ours grows peaches. Well, none of them have grown yet, but soon. We did a test to see if we’d have fruit.” The arrival of the Wasiks had awakened something in my brother that had been dormant for so long. It was wonderful just to see him out of the house.

  “This tree is on the plot my father has given you,” I said when we came to the walnut tree. “So these are technically your walnuts now.”

  Across the road the lake reflected the sun back up at the sky. A flock of geese flew low over the water, their wings nearly touching the surface with every beat. “It’s beautiful here,” Yuri said. He had a dimple on his chin.

  There were yellow leaves and black-skinned walnuts in the grass. Jacob and I began collecting the nuts in a potato sack.

  “Don’t bother with the black ones,” Yuri said. “They’ll be bitter as hell. Some of those are from last season. Just pick the green ones.”

  “We always use the black ones, they keep just fine,” Jacob said. “Those green ones are up too high in the tree.”

  Yuri bent down and patted his shoulders, signalling for Jacob to sit on them. I was about to tell Jacob he better not, that it might not be good for his bad leg, but the smile on his face stopped me. Yuri held on to Jacob’s legs as he reached up into the branches. Sunlight illuminated the leaves, and the upper half of Jacob’s body disappeared into that green glow. Yuri squinted up into the tree, his mouth open with concent
ration as he moved left or right to position Jacob beneath the clumps of green fruit. I noticed a circular scar on the back of Yuri’s hand. Jacob threw walnuts down and I gathered them in the potato sack.

  On our way back to the house we passed Taras, Viktor, and my father, walking through the orchard, ducking to dig at roots and pluck seedlings. Viktor caught me watching him and nodded my way, and Father and Taras turned to me. I looked down at my feet, my cheeks burning.

  “Do you two work on the orchard?” Yuri asked.

  “No,” Jacob said. “We’re just kids.”

  Yuri looked at me. “How old are you?”

  “I only just turned fourteen.”

  “And you?”

  “Thirteen,” Jacob said.

  “I started working when I was eight.”

  We were silent for a moment. I was embarrassed.

  “Well, I’m off to school soon, anyway,” Jacob said proudly.

  “I’d like to learn to pick peaches,” I said.

  “Father would never let you, Irie.”

  “Why not?”

  “Girls don’t pick fruit, dummy,” Jacob said

  “I picked apples with a girl in Vernon,” Yuri said. “She was good.”

  “How old was she?” Jacob asked.

  “Ten. She could climb the trees without a ladder and pick the best apples in the most hard-to-reach places.”

  I was suddenly jealous of this girl. “I can climb trees.”

  “Then you would be a good picker.” Yuri ran his hand through the leaves of some low-hanging branches. “It’s nice here. In Vernon we lived in a shack in the middle of a muddy field. No trees. And the lake was miles away.”

  The three of us sat on the porch with butter knives and slit the green skins that covered the walnuts. The black mash between the skin and shell stained our fingers. Yuri showed us to slice an X on the skin to twist the peel off easily. We soaked the peeled nuts in a bucket of water and rubbed the brown shells together to clean them. When Taras and my father went back inside the house, Viktor joined us on the porch. The burn of his gaze made me suddenly aware of my body. The cotton slip under my dress itched against my breasts and tickled my stomach. “What’s your name again?” he asked as he pulled a half-finished cigarette from his shirt pocket.