The Rattled Bones

by S. M. Parker

  “It might be best not ta swim with a rope grabbing at ya ankle, but that’s just me.” He gives me a wink, one that tells me he’s glad I’m safe.

  “I’ll remember that next time.”

  “You’d better. Ya fathah would want ya fishing these waters for a lotta years to come, Rilla.”

  “I plan on it.” Despite Reed believing otherwise.

  Sam hands me the slip, his face trying to contain the biggest smile. “Five hundred and eighteen pounds,” he whispers. “Boo. Yah!” He doesn’t whisper the last part.

  “Damn.” I take the slip, double-check the number.

  “Our best haul yet, huh?”

  It’s another superstition that keeps me from calling any haul the best haul. “It’s impressive.”

  He wipes his hands on the bib of his rubber overalls. “I think I might change my major to fishing.”

  “Ha! We’ll make a salty dog of you yet.”

  “I think maybe you already have. This fishing stuff gets in your blood.”

  It does. “Sure does.”

  I push at the throttle and the engine hums. The salt breeze swirls around us as I head through the sea of buoys bobbing their colorful necks out of the glistening Atlantic.

  We’re about a half mile from home when Sam joins me in the wheelhouse. “Hey, Rilla?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think we could anchor out here for a little while?”

  “Too deep to anchor here. What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” Sam gazes out at the expanse of blue where the horizon and sea bend to meet each other. “I just wanted to float for a while. I’ve never done that.”

  I check my gauges, my depth finder. The only boat traffic is far off the port bow, so I cut the engine. “We can float.” It was one of the things I liked to do most with my dad. Sit in the waves and watch for marine animals. As if they know, a pod of dolphins swim by, their sleek backs lifting in and out of the water in precise rhythm. Two juveniles play at the rear, teasing us with their backward swimming and head nods.

  Sam watches, awe lighting his features. “That is by far one of the coolest things I have ever seen.”

  I smile. “It’s pretty cool.”

  “In Tucson the sky is so big and blue that sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s real. But here, it’s like there’s a blue sky and then another one just below it, one that’s alive and breathing.”

  “I think you should change your major to poetry.”

  Sam laughs. “A fishing poet?”

  “It’s honest work.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  When the last of the dolphin pod disappears, I take a seat next to where Sam’s got his feet up on the cooler. I lean forward and rest my elbows over my knees. I let the sea fall around me, the humidity curling the tiny hairs around my face. The spray from the waves coats my skin with wet and salt. I lick at my lips, draw the salt onto my tongue.

  “I think I’d like to get to the desert someday.”

  “See the ocean of sand.”

  “With sage plants instead of waves.”

  “And coyotes howling instead of wind.”

  “That too.”

  “Look me up when you do.”

  I laugh. “Will do. Considering you’re the one person I’ll know there.”

  We let the waves rock us for some time before Sam says, “I think I might really have the ocean in my blood. Being out here feels like coming home.”

  “Same.”

  “I’m also kind of afraid of it, if I’m being honest. It’s still so wild. But don’t tell your grandmother that the sea intimidates me or she’ll never trust me on the water with you again.”

  “Your secret’s safe.” I tilt my head back, let the sun reach inside of me.

  “You know that book I found in my parents’ shed? It had this section on men fishing off this coast, how they didn’t even need fishing gear to pull cod from the ocean. They could just lean overboard and grab a six-foot codfish out of the ocean with their bare hands.”

  “Sure. That’s how Cape Cod got its name.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep. And Gram says that her great-grandfather used to fish by throwing a simple net over the side of his boat. No hook, no bait.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. And that was after most of the cod stocks had been reduced.”

  “Do you think it was that way for the Malaga fishermen?”

  I remember the open dory at the shore when I first saw the girl. It was big enough for four men, men who would pull their catch up and over its edges. “I do. I think the fishing was different then. Less people. Fuller ocean.”

  Sam leans forward, assumes my exact position. “I looked for your girl last night. I read and reread every article written about the island, even accessed the state archives and searched the records of the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “University perk.”

  “Anything?”

  Sam shakes his head, unable to hide his disappointment.

  But I know her story exists somewhere. “My gram always says that bees bring stories.”

  He squints, looks at me. “How’s that?”

  “She taught me that bees bring stories on their wings, deposit them into plants as they pollinate. Then humans eat the plant, share the stories.”

  Sam sits back, a smile rolling over his features. “I like that.”

  “She believes that stories connect us, make us appreciate all the shared parts of being human.”

  “I feel the same way about the earth. That it keeps our stories.”

  “Exactly. And what if . . . what if the girl has a story that can’t be told through the archives or your dig site?” How far would she go to crawl under my skin, make me know her truth? “What if the girl from the island has a story she’s trying to tell me?” The girl from the sea, the girl with her song. Is she trying to tell me not to make a mistake?

  DONT GO!

  Or is she trying to tell me about a wrong that was done to her?

  IM HERE

  “I’d like to know her story,” he says.

  “Me too.”

  “Can you tell me what you know?”

  I stretch my gaze to the sea, to the blue horizon with its straight line and perfect predictability. And I let go.

  I tell Sam about her voice singing from the shore, singing from the deep. I tell him about the scratches in my sill, the flower she left on my boat. I tell him about the baby’s wail, the fingers at my window, the girl in my bed with her matted hair, the cut on her lip, the raw of her fingertips. I tell him everything because we’re supposed to share our stories. Some so they bring joy. Some so we don’t repeat our mistakes.

  I slog up the stairs when I get home, my muscles tired, even if my head feels lighter for sharing with Sam. I run my fingers through the divots of scratched wood at my sill.

  DONT GO!

  “I have to,” I tell her. “I have to go.” I need to see the bigger world.

  Then I trace IM HERE and press my palm over the two words, honoring them.

  “I know,” I tell her. I know.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next morning, I drop anchor off Malaga Island. I turn off the VHF, can’t hear Reed’s All in? I don’t know how I’d answer his call now, if he’d even make one at all. I haven’t answered Reed’s text, his apologies.

  “You’re sure you don’t need to pull traps today?” Sam asks.

  “I’m sure. I’d rather be out here, if that’s okay. My muscles could use a rest after the last few days.”

  Sam nods like all of this—everything I’ve been through lately—is perfectly acceptable and sane.

  He rows to shore and we unload, me with a backpack heavy with food and water, Sam with his shoulder bag stuffed with tools. We hike to the dig site, set down our belongings.

  The sun is already warm above us, and the gulls are pecking at the water, darting
with the retracting high tide. I tuck my fingers into my lower back and arch to stretch. My muscles are still calming after being dragged down through the ocean, then hauling such a strong catch yesterday. My eyes scan the forest edge, the rock face of the island. There’s no movement in the trees, no wind to bend them with its sway. I catalog all the things I know: the sea, the sky, the granite ledge beneath my feet.

  And the things I don’t know: how the girl could be here still, how I can see her, hear her. “Could I ask you to walk up through the trees with me without sounding too weird?”

  “Only if you tell me what you’re looking for.”

  “That first day, I heard an infant crying. I saw the girl run into the forest. I think . . .” What do I think? That she could be camping here? Living here? “I think maybe she’s there somehow.” Somehow.

  “Let’s go.”

  It’s an easy invitation despite how strange this information must sound to him.

  We walk to the woods, and I search the tree line, the low spruce branches that reach out, almost naked because they can’t get enough sun at their bottoms. I look for anything. Hanging wash. Caught fish. Blankets warming. Anything to tell me that my girl lives here, that she is human and not a ghost.

  We hike the length of the forest but find nothing. Not a hint of campfire, no area of needles disturbed. No girl. No baby. When we round high on the cliffside of the island, we leave the dense forest at our backs. Sam points to a patch of ground. “That’s where the university wants to set up the next dig.”

  “Why there?”

  “We know from photos that a boatbuilder’s home sat on the ridge there.” He scrambles down to this future dig site, and I follow.

  I can see Fairtide from here, my closed window, the trellis just below it. The skin along my spine pops with gooseflesh as if I’ve been here before. I feel the weight of memory like years sitting in my bones. Me, staring at Fairtide. Staring at the house’s windows as they flickered with candlelight. An instant stretches into years. And I am here, watching Fairtide’s green lawn, its dock. Me never taking my eyes from the house, the home, its people. It is a tsunami of a déjà vu.

  And then it’s gone.

  And I know the memory isn’t mine.

  My legs feel shaky, unsure of their strength. My head spins, knowing this girl has watched my home for decades. She watched my mother here, maybe even my gram, the men and women of my family who came before. My flesh bumps cold, knowing that we are connected, me and this girl. But how?

  Sam turns to walk to his dig site. I’m not ready to leave this spot. Not yet. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  Sam leaves me where a craftsman made his home. The air feels thick in this place, pressing against me on all sides as if holding me upright. There’s an odd smoke that fills my lungs. I cough out the burn that sits in my throat, and the air around me smells of death holding its breath.

  I pick up a stick from the ground and I write what I know. I scratch the two words into the dirt. YOU’RE HERE. I place the stick below the words, underlining them. Then I turn toward Sam. I move quickly, watching my footing over the uneven ground as I jog to him. The granite juts out in places, surrenders into bowls at other points. Sam’s whistling a tune only feet in front of me as I close the distant between us. It is unmistakably “Pinball Wizard.” Sam carries this bit of Gram and her eccentricities out here, lets her favorite song live in the wind. His footsteps seem carefree, childlike. Dad used to say that you could gauge a person’s happiness by the heaviness of their step. Did Dad ever walk on this island? Did his feet grip the hard granite underneath each step the way mine do now? Sam drops below my sight line as he makes his descent to the dig site. He takes his whistle, The Who’s song, with him.

  I’m about to call to him, tease him for his choice of music, when I’m slammed to a stop. The wind pushes me, or something else. Hands. Two strong hands at my chest. They shove at me, thrusting me off-balance. Their push is hard and deliberate. I fall onto the hard rise of my tailbone and pain sears my spine. My eyes search the island, but I can’t see anyone.

  Could it be my girl?

  My heart thunders. I scramble to my knees, force myself upright. I step toward Sam, but the thick, hard hands rake across my throat, squeezing my air. I choke. These hands find my windpipe and press. Too hard. So hard. I try to pull away, but the hands rip at my shoulders, my hips, my hair.

  They pin me to the granite rock, a hulking mass pressing out all my breath. I try to choke out Sam’s name, but the words can’t make sound. I gag, try to breathe. Hands are on my shirt, pulling, tearing. I scream.

  The scream ripping from me isn’t mine.

  It’s from the wind, or the trees. So similar to the baby’s cry.

  The screaming rises around me, magnifying. It drowns out the sea and the gulls. Fear pulses within my ears. I smell the thick tar of tobacco, dusty as if trapped in facial hair. The invisible man smells of rage and hate, and it makes my tongue burn. I beat at him with my arms, but his hips press too close to mine. He holds me down, my legs pinned, my one arm restrained. He wrestles me with his rabid strength. And there’s another scream. I want it to be Sam. I want him to be here, to help me. But it’s the baby’s wail. My ears fill with the wretched screech. My fingers find the man’s hands, and I claw at them. Flesh packs under my nails as I dig. Time slows, and I feel his blood trickle onto my own. The man traps my free arm, pins it. My wrists are bound by his strength, the skin on my hands scraping as they scratch against the coarse granite.

  Then I see him.

  His shoulders blocking the sun.

  Wide shoulders, all muscle.

  Sam’s shoulders. His hands are on me, his face searching mine. “Rilla!” he calls. “Rilla!” His voice is loud and echoing, as if he’s trying to wake me from a dream. I flail at him, my fists crashing against his chest, his head. My legs kick at his side. Sam falls to his knees on the ground next to me. “Rilla?” His voice is so soft now. I punch at his figure, scream at him until he’s washed of color, out of breath.

  “What did you do?” I yell. “What was that?”

  “You were screaming, so I came running, and then you attacked me.”

  “I attacked you?”

  He shakes his head, surrenders his hands. His palms are clean, unscathed. Where are the scratches I left? The blood I felt dripping down my arms? I search my own hands, looking for cuts. For proof. “Rilla. What happened?” His voice breaks with tenderness.

  I bring myself to kneel. “I was pulled down. Something . . . no, someone knocked me down. Held me down.” My throat burns from the pressure there only seconds ago.

  Sam gathers me in his arms, and I can hear his heartbeat thud. I let him hold me, his hands so different from the ones I felt only moments ago. “There’s no one here, Rilla. You’re safe. I promise.”

  “It was so real, Sam.”

  “I believe you.”

  “How?” Anger rises in me for feeling so helpless. For another person’s weight stealing all my strength. “How can you believe me?”

  “The way you were calling for me.” He takes a stuttered breath. “Like someone was hurting you.”

  “They were.” I can’t explain it, can’t put it into words. “Something’s here, Sam. On this island. Something is trapped here.”

  I press my gaze to Fairtide, to the color of Gram’s gardens. Gather what’s real.

  “It’s okay now. Just breathe.”

  The hands were on my chest, grabbing at my throat, my hair. I check my shirt for the rip I know I’ll find there, but the front is clean. My leggings too.

  “Did you see someone?” Sam is careful with his words, like he doesn’t want to push me.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I felt . . . there was . . .” I bring my hand to my temples. “It was more like a memory.”

  “This happened to you before?”

  “No. Not my memory.” I watch Fairtide, unsure how this spot can seem so familiar to me. “It was like I was tr
apped inside someone else’s memory. The girl’s memory.” I know how strange this sounds, how strange I must have looked. And yet.

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure it is.” I rub at my wrapped wrist, the bones I felt scrape across the rocks. “But someone attacked me, Sam. I felt his weight on me, the smell of his tobacco. I didn’t make this up.”

  He reaches for my hand. “I’m not saying you made anything up, Rilla. I believe you.”

  My mind’s not slipping. I felt that attack. I felt the man’s strength. And more than that, I felt his anger, his intention. “I think he may have hurt her, Sam.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “Am I? Is this what okay looks like?”

  Sam squeezes my hand. “We’ll figure this out, Rilla. I swear. But I promised your gram I’d keep you safe, and I’m pretty weirded out right now.” He scans the island. “Are you good to walk back to the site? You can sit, get some water.”

  “Yes.” I stand, Sam helping me up. I steal one more look toward Fairtide. Its sloping lawns, the dormers in its roof, my bedroom window. We walk past the dirt patch holding the two words I inscribed there: YOU’RE HERE.

  The invisible man is real.

  The girl is real.

  They are connected.

  To each other. To me.

  When we reach the dig site, Sam invites me to sit.

  “I’d actually prefer to stand.” I pace the length of the excavated earth.

  He rummages in his pack for a bottle of water and hands it to me.

  I gulp at the water, still so cold. I wipe at my lips with the back of my hand, watch as a paddling of mallard ducks swim atop the rolling waves, their dark feathers buoyed against the sea-glass-green ocean. “I saw her here with you, Sam. The girl.”

  “With me?”

  “She followed you up to the dig site when I went home with Reed the other day. She was behind you.”

  He rubs at the skin on his forearms. “That’s creepy.”

  “I realize, believe me.” I look behind me, fearing my attacker. Not that I’d see him, but still. “Sam? Is it possible the girl lived on the island but wasn’t here when census workers came? There’s that note in your journal about how some islanders worked on the mainland.”