by Tom Crockett
She drank some water before leaving but took no food with her. She kissed Mai-Ling and they held each other fondly for a long moment, but the fever that had come over her seemed to have passed now, and she parted from Mai-Ling as she might a sister or dear friend.
Marina walked slowly down the trail beside the cliffs to the lower island. She was in no hurry now and made a morning of her slow descent. She stopped to listen to the calls of birds. She stopped to smell the moist, fragrant air. She stopped to practice seeing the little shimmer of silver and blue around the trees and plants and found that it came to her easily.
In the afternoon she came upon a stream and took the opportunity to rinse her feet. She’d walked over rough terrain in the past days. She’d cut and scraped and banged and bruised her feet, but they seemed now unscathed. She pulled up her skirt to examine her legs. They were smooth and unmarked, save for the faint old scars. All signs of her rough crossing had healed. She’d fallen, and marked her legs on her journey. She could remember the falls and the wounds, but she couldn’t recall where any specific injury had been.
She continued her inspection, unwrapping her skirt and pulling off her shirt with the pretext of rinsing in the stream. She could find no evidence of the journey on her body. She recalled that her skin had, at one point, seemed different, somehow new again, but this was the skin she remembered from before Turtle Island. It made her happy, this feeling of being back in her own skin, the skin she’d earned.
She splashed herself with water, dried in a patch of warm sun, and dressed again, deftly tying the skirt on so that she knew it wouldn’t slip off.
As she continued on, the path grew level and sandy. She could see more palm trees around her and became aware of the steady rhythm of waves. Not far, she thought, and then, not far to where?
When I’m dreaming, she began a conversation in her own mind, I don’t think about how real I am. And when I’m awake, I don’t think about it, either. So I wonder why I am so aware of it now. Marina did feel more real, more solid, full of more energy than she had before. Was this coming back to life? she wondered.
She’d been alive, then dead, then dreaming, somewhere between dead and alive, now she was alive, or very close to it. She felt excitement and a certain amount of apprehension. She wondered if she was really ready. The pouch at her side with the makings of her altar was reassuring. I can do this, she thought. I wonder what happens next?
It occurred to her that there must be some mechanics, some logistics involved with this return to life. She hadn’t really thought about it before. Each step in her journey had, in its own way, seemed to have been supported by such a fragile reality. At first she had not been able to accept that she might come this far back to life. She had not wanted to believe it. Then it seemed as if she had dreamed her way across the island, always afraid that practical questions, anything that challenged the reality of the dream, might wake her. And where would she wake? she wondered. Drowning again? In a real heaven or hell?
Now the practical questions began to creep back into her mind. How long had she been dead? How long had she been on Turtle Island? Were they the same thing? There were people who, by now, surely thought her dead. Erin would know. Her family would know. She would have caused them terrible grief. Would she simply make her way back to civilization and call them? Hi, Mom, Dad, guess who? It was a morbid thought. What would she say? She’d left a note clearly announcing her intention to die. She could not now claim to have fallen accidentally. Would she say that she tried to die but it didn’t take? Would she say that she had died and come back to life?
She wondered if there would be some prohibition on her speaking of her experience. Perhaps it happened to people all the time, and perhaps they did talk about it. Maybe before Turtle Island she would have seen these people as crazy or disturbed individuals. Or, more likely, perhaps she simply looked right past these people, not even seeing them or registering their stories. Maybe she would not want to speak of her time on Turtle Island. Or perhaps she would forget about it.
This thought bothered her most. If I forget about this, I will forget the lessons of this place. No . . . I can’t forget about this. I won’t allow it. She patted the bag at her side. It somehow made her feel better to have these tangible reminders with her. Their weight was reassuring, but still she worried.
You are not thinking in the present. This came in a voice that was not Marina’s, but it came from inside her. At first she did not realize this and looked around for the person who had spoken. She was, by now, well used to being surprised by people. But she saw no one. It slowly came to her that she had thought this and not heard it, but it was a strange kind of thought, as if she now carried the spirit of the Turtle Woman, or Rafael, or Atana, or Téves, or even Mai-Ling inside her. It was the kind of wisdom she would not have been surprised to have heard from any of them, but, it had come from inside of her.
Yes, she answered herself, I am thinking too far out. I’ve taken each moment as it’s come to me here. It’s a good way to go. I don’t think my journey is completely over yet.
Suddenly Marina realized she was facing a choice. She’d come to a stop when she thought she heard a voice speaking to her. She’d listened and looked, but all she heard was the sound of waves off to her left. Now she was aware that there were two directions she could take. The wide trail continued on ahead and disappeared around a turn, but to her left was a narrow, less-traveled trail. It was this path that beckoned her.
The trail ended at the beach, a beach not much different than the one on which she’d begun. The sand was creamy white with few shells, decorated with the occasional piece of sun-bleached driftwood or fallen palm husk. The sand was hot and felt good beneath her toes. Despite having gone barefoot for days, she stood and squirmed her toes in the sand just to feel it.
She walked to the water’s edge. Waves lapped ashore gently, but she could see them breaking more violently far out where the coral reef created sandbars and breaks. She lifted the edge of her yellow silk skirt and waded into the water up to her knees. It was warm and flecks of foam splashed about her legs.
She looked up and down the beach and contemplated swimming. She could see no sign of other people. There were no footprints on the beach. There were no sounds other than the natural music of ocean and jungle and sky. She laughed at herself when she realized that she was concerned about taking off her clothes. She’d had only barely perceptible traces of modesty since waking up on Turtle Island. It had been liberating and awakening to live with her skin, her body, so open to experience and physical sensation. She did not now want to lose that feeling, but realized that there must be some balance.
Perhaps that’s why I’m here, why I turned off the main path, she thought. Maybe I need to learn how I’ll integrate Turtle Island into my new life.
For the moment Marina decided against swimming. Instead she turned and walked back up the beach to the place where the trail had been. Set back from the edge of the tree line she noticed a primitive hut like the ones Rafael and Mai-Ling had lived in. It had a simple plank floor and thatched roof, but this hut had walls of woven mat on three sides and split bamboo shades that could be rolled up or down on the fourth side, facing the sea. They were rolled up now, which revealed the inside of the hut.
It was bigger than the other huts had been and furnished simply. There was a low platform for sleeping, several low tables and chests, and a tall cabinet with double doors. There was also a low counter with a stone top near a big opening on the back side of the hut. There were pillows and carpets and grass mats on the floor and the stuffed mattress on the platform was covered in ivory sheets.
Marina walked completely around the hut. It was clearly lived in, but she found no one around and no footprints other than her own on the ground. At the back of the hut was a small stone-lined fire pit. The ashes in it were cold. There was a pile of firewood beside it and a round stone cistern filled with fresh water. A coconut-shell cup sat on the edge of the wa
ter basin and Marina dipped water for herself. She looked in through the back entrance to the hut and saw that the stone counter was a place for preparing food. Neatly arranged on the counter were several small wooden bowls, cups and plates, and a long chef’s knife.
She continued around the hut until she was standing in front of it again. Still seeing no one, she climbed the two steps up into the hut and looked around. There was a mirror in one corner. There was some stationery, block-printed with a crude sea turtle, sitting on one of the low tables. There were clean towels in one of the chests on the floor and a bowl of sweet-smelling soap. The tall cabinet contained a pair of sandals and several cotton sundresses and gauzy Indian print skirts that looked as if they might fit her. Another chest contained more odds and ends of clothing, neatly folded, but other than that, the place had no personal items.
Marina tried her foot in one of the sandals and it fit her perfectly. She lifted one of the dresses in her hand and brought it to her nose. She could smell no perfume or fragrance on it. She let it fall back into the cabinet and shut the door.
* * *
She waited for the owner of the dresses to return, even though she suspected no one would come. She waited three days, gradually settling in. The first two nights she slept on one of the carpets on the floor.
She slept in her clothes and rolled three of the four split bamboo screens down each night before retiring. She did this out of more than just abstract concern. Each morning when she woke, she found a tray of fresh fruit and sliced bread neatly covered with a red cloth on the edge of the stone cistern outside of the hut. She neither heard nor saw the person who delivered it. She could not even distinguish tracks in the sand that might have belonged to this person.
The tray would vanish just as mysteriously late in the morning when Marina walked down to the beach, and other meals would replace it whenever Marina was away from the hut or napping. The trays of food sometimes contained soups and each evening there was a simple dish of cooked fish with vegetables in different sauces flavored with ginger, mangoes, and peppers.
It took her some time, but gradually she overcame the sense that she was constantly being observed and relaxed into her new home. Late on the afternoon of the third day she washed and rinsed her yellow silk skirt and red top and hung them to dry outside the hut like the flags explorers once put down to claim a place for king and country. She swam naked in the warm sea and scrubbed her skin with sand. Back at the hut she rinsed herself with fresh water and washed her hair with some of the sweet soap. She dried herself with one of the thick, clean towels she’d found and, after feasting on a delicious fish soup and balls of rice wrapped around a core of sweet potato, she slipped luxuriantly between the clean sheets of the raised platform bed and slept.
When she woke the little hut had become hers. She tried on one of the sundresses, a pattern of leaves and flowers in warm earthtones, and it fit her well enough to wear. It fell to just below her knees, but left her shoulders and arms bare except for the thin straps that held it up.
She still had no use for the sandals. She put her anklet on every morning, but otherwise wanted nothing about her feet or ankles. She found but did not put on a straw sun hat, though she appreciated a scarf she found in the back of the cabinet. She used this to tie back her hair.
She also unpacked her little bag and spread the contents of her altar out on one of the tables. She placed her little tree in its box stand and dangled her crystal pendulum from its branches. She carefully arranged Rafael’s stone pendant and the shiny black pebble from the mirror pool. She placed Mai-Ling’s bowl in the center and laid the feather and some of the other things she’d found around it. She filled Mai-Ling’s bowl with water and floated upon it the blossom that always accompanied her food tray.
Each day thereafter she would explore a little ways around her hut, often bringing back items for her altar. Though she never saw anyone, Marina would sometimes hear voices in the jungle around her. They were not speaking to her but seemed to be carrying on conversations of their own. She always retreated from these voices. She needed time, she told herself. But time for what? Her days were filled with simple meditation before her altar, walking along the beach, swimming, napping, eating, watching the sun rise, watching the tide come in, retreat, and come in again.
For the first time in her life she spent little time thinking about her past. She did find herself looking for objects for her altar that might, in some way, honor the little girl in her who had once lain buried to her face in mud in the middle of a steamy summer storm. She might like this crab’s shell, or this feather, or this fish bone, Marina thought, fully aware that the “she” to whom she was referring was a part of herself. She would like signs of the nature she stalked with her camera.
In the same way, she brought back flowers and the leaves of plants to honor the part of herself most like her mother. She recalled her mother’s studio as always being filled with flowers and plants. If I can, she thought, I will sit again in my mother’s studio and watch her paint, and listen to her talk, half to me, half to her canvases, as I once did. Perhaps I can learn again to make art that satisfies the deep places in me. My mother knows this secret, Marina thought, she always has.
Marina also brought back odd little pieces that struck her in some way as being playfully erotic: a peach-colored conch shell with undulating vulva-like folds of pink on the underside, a smooth, brown seedpod that spiraled and twisted in a phallic dance, a twining branch of coral that reminded her of the tangled legs of sleeping lovers. These pieces also honored some part of her long ignored, but she did not think of this as dwelling in the past. She had no regrets now, had, in fact, no place for regrets.
She also tried to avoid anticipating the future. Sometimes she would catch herself thinking of things she might do, but, like a meditation, she let these thoughts come and go without dwelling upon them.
Sometime after she’d lost count of the days she’d spent in her little home on the beach, she came to realize she was waiting for something.
Marina had fallen asleep in the afternoon and woke to the awareness that someone was watching her. She was sleeping on her side on the raised platform bed and opened her eyes slowly. A child squatted on the floor about five feet away studying her. There was within her a certain quality of sadness.
The little girl looked to be about eight or nine years old, though Marina was never a good judge of the ages of children. She was slender, with lightly tanned skin and pale blonde hair that fell straight, if a little wildly, over her shoulders. She wore the bottom piece of a green bathing suit but nothing over her torso. She had a little necklace of shells and had put a small flower behind one of her ears.
“Are you a ghost?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“A ghost?” Marina responded.
“You know. Are you real?” She pinched her own arm to emphasize her point. “Or are you a ghost?”
Marina did not know quite how to answer this. It was in fact the question she’d tended to want to ask of everyone she’d encountered lately.
By way of answer she extended her own arm to the girl. She realized as she did this that she too was naked from the waist up. She was wearing one of the gauzy skirts she’d found, but had taken off the shirt she’d been wearing with it. Somehow, though, this did not seem a problem but instead put them on an equal footing.
For a moment the child did not move. Then she dropped to her knees and crawled close enough to pinch Marina’s arm gently.
“Ghost?” Marina asked with a smile.
“I guess not . . . but I’ve seen ’em, you know.”
“Ghosts?”
“Yeah, they’re all around, especially up the trail, toward the volcano. You see ’em and they look just like a person. Only when you get close they aren’t there anymore. It’s weird.”
“So you’re pretty sure I’m not a ghost?”
“Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“Nothing. I’ve just been feeling like a ghost late
ly. It’s good to know that I’m a real person.” Actually, it really was a relief to know that someone considered her alive, though why she trusted this child’s opinion, she couldn’t say. The child thought about what Marina had said for a few moments before answering.
Marina wanted to put her arms around this little girl and hold her, but instead she sat up and stretched. “My name’s Marina,” she said, extending her hand.
“I’m Grace Carolyn DeVries,” she answered, shaking Marina’s hand enthusiastically. “But you can call me Gracie.”
“Well, Gracie, where are your parents now?”
“Oh, they have one of the inland huts by the waterslide.”
“The waterslide?”
“Well, it’s not really a waterslide, not like an amusement park or anything, but you can slide down on this real slippery rock into a pool. It’s kind of like a waterfall.”
“Is it far?”
“Not too far.” Gracie seemed to think about this a moment. “Probably farther than I’m supposed to go though. You won’t tell them will you?”
“No, I don’t think so. As long as they won’t be worried about you.”
“They won’t.” She seemed sure of this but the certainty was nothing she took pleasure in. “I don’t think they’d notice if I didn’t come back at all.”
“Of course they would,” Marina answered quickly, though it hadn’t been too long ago that she’d believed the same thing about herself.
“I don’t know. I mean we eat dinner together, and sometimes one of them makes the other do something with me, but never together. Mostly they say to go play, but there’s no one to play with. There are no kids on this island. There are the ghosts, and some other grown-ups, and the big house, and you. That’s it.”
“What’s the big house?” Marina asked.
“You know, the big house. It’s like a hotel or something. It’s near the pier. It’s where the ship brings you. You had to see it.”
“No, not yet. I came from the other side of the island.”