“Whatcha got down there, old man?” Paul says, hanging his head into the darkness.
My father pops out of the hatch, grinning from ear to ear, and motions for Paul to get out of the way. “Close your eyes,” he says. “Both of you. Go on, do it!”
Paul groans as we do as my father asks. He grunts as he pulls himself up through the hatch, and then I hear the snap of a latch and the scrape of something against wood.
“Come on, Dad,” Paul says. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Just a moment longer,” my father responds. His voice is positively crackling with excitement. I laugh. I haven’t heard him like this in ages, and soon I know why. The notes of a jig fill the room. My father has found a fiddle.
He pauses to retune, and laughs. “Not bad for an old scrap of wood, huh? All those years under this house, and it still sounds good!” He draws the bow across the strings again, then peers at Paul and me, beaming. “Well? You two think I’m going to play for nothing? Go on—dance!”
And so we drop the mop and the bucket and the washcloth to dance while our father plays. His fingers aren’t certain at first, the fiddle squealing as his bow slips across the strings, but we don’t mind. When he plays the final chord, Paul and I are panting and sweaty and the happiest we’ve been since our mother’s passing.
“I can’t believe this is still here,” my father murmurs as he sets the fiddle back in its case. “I just can’t believe it.”
“What’s that, Dad?” Paul says, reaching into the case before my father can snap it shut. He pulls out an old photograph.
“Oh. That.” My father won’t look at it. “It’s of me and your mother and your uncles, back when we were all here on the Island.”
I peer over Paul’s shoulder. Staring back at us is a young man who looks a lot like me. My father, probably not much older than I am now. Two men stand next to him—his older brothers, whom I only remember as tall and serious. My mother is pretty and fair and laughing. She reminds me of Paul. There’s one more person in the photo I don’t recognize, another man, younger than my father, with enough similarities that he must be related to us too.
“Who’s that?” I say, pointing at the one I don’t know.
“Oh. Just some kid,” my father says, taking the photograph from Paul’s hand and setting it back in the violin case. “I can’t even remember his name.”
As my father snaps the case shut, Paul and I share a look. My father is a terrible liar. He knows who that young man is, and I know Paul is thinking the same thing I am: Why won’t he tell us?
But soon the mysterious young man in the photograph is forgotten as we take up mop and broom and bucket again. We have so much work to do. Cleaning the house is just the start. Our only source of water is the lake. There’s no outhouse. We have no beds, or any furniture for that matter, and no wood for the fireplace. There’s no garden to grow our own food, and nothing to feed the chickens with. What little joy we had while we danced to the tune of my father’s violin has vanished, replaced by the truth of our predicament. In the Corridor, we had enough wood for two winters stored up at all times. Our garden had been planted. The apple tree had already bloomed and would, with luck, produce some fruit, for I’d fertilized it by hand myself.
Here? We are not just starting over. We are starting from scratch.
I set the mop down again and stare at my hands, where blisters are already rising. Is this what this place holds for me? Am I all that I’ll ever be?
“Dad,” I ask as he passes by, “is there a school here?”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Don’t know. Probably nothing formal, but we’ll figure something out for you and Paul, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, even though I have a sinking feeling in my gut. No school means no university, and no university means … that my only future is here, working my bones into the earth, all to live the Old Way. And what then? Will I be married off to some Band man? Am I destined to tend the homestead? Keep the hearth warm? Wait and see if my warrior returns from war? The treaty lands are full of women like that, most broken at the hands of their Band husbands. Those men have seen things in battle, the Elders say by way of an excuse. Bad things. Terrible things.
This is why my mother never wanted to live here. She never wanted this future for me, and I don’t want it either.
Later, when I’ve taken out my frustrations on the floor, my father comes and slips the mop from my hand. “That’s enough for tonight, Cass. Why don’t you go get washed up?”
“Okay,” I say, turning to head outside, but pausing and turning back. “I almost forgot—I know I’ve got work to do, but Bran invited me to his house tomorrow. Is it okay if I go?”
Paul bounds down the stairs. “He invited me, too,” he says as he stops to pick up the bucket of dirty water at my feet, and then continues on outside.
“Oh,” I say before I can stop myself. It’s good that he asked Paul too, so why do I feel so disappointed?
My father doesn’t notice. “Sure! Might as well start making friends because we’re going to be here for a while.” He reaches out to ruffle my hair. “Go on. Get cleaned up. I’ll dig a sleeping bag out for you, okay?”
“Thanks, Dad.” I lean in to kiss his cheek, and then head out into the night.
Outside, the waning moon spreads silver wings over the forest. When I was little, my mother told me the story of the princess of the stars, who sat on the edge of the heavens, listening to the cry of a wolf. When the princess reached out to catch the wolf’s song, she fell to earth and was captured by a demon, who took her to the bottom of a great lake. I never learned if she escaped. Is she out there, that princess, trapped beneath the still, black water? This lake looks like the sort of place a demon might lurk.
Stop dreaming up nonsense, I tell myself as I pick my way down the hill.
On the opposite shore, a fire burns bright and bloody. The sound of throbbing drums races across the lake. Band business, no doubt. Whose fate are they deciding tonight?
I crouch and plunge my arms into the water. The wound site where Madda removed the chip aches, and as I stare at the black spidery stitches, the impulse to cut them from my skin overwhelms me. It’s too soon, I know, so I leave them alone, but they’re such a strong reminder of what was once there. How could I have let anyone plant a chip under my skin?
Gravel crunches on the hill. I don’t have to look to know it’s Paul. He squats down beside me and holds his arm out next to mine. His stitches are already gone. Even in the flickering light of his candle, I can see the edges of the incision have separated, exposing pink flesh beneath the dry, crusted blood.
“You shouldn’t have taken them out,” I say. “That’s going to be an ugly scar.”
Paul pulls his sleeve down to cover the wound. “I know,” he says almost triumphantly, then wanders away.
• • •
Something wakes me. I sit up, straining to listen to the silence around me, but there’s nothing to hear. Still, something is amiss.
I rise and dress, and slip downstairs. It’s early. Night hangs heavily over the forest. Down by the boathouse, a fire burns. A solitary figure stands beside it.
Paul.
I pull on my shoes and go outside to join him.
He crouches by the fire, feeding slivers of cedar bark to the flames. He doesn’t look at me.
“You’re up early,” I say.
He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He must have had another vision, but with the memory of last time still fresh in my mind, I just poke the fire with a twig instead, stirring up sparks. “Hungry?”
“Nope.” He stands, unfurling his long, thin arms, stretching toward the sky. He’s barefoot.
“Where are your shoes?” I ask.
“In the house. Got to toughen myself up if I want to run with the Band.”
“By going barefoot?”
“They’ll never hear me coming.” He drifts away, and he’s right. As he leaves, he doesn’t make a sound.
I sit by the fire, watching the sun rise, wondering if Paul will return. He compares himself to me, Paul does. He beats himself up that he can’t weather his visions like I can, even though, by comparison, mine aren’t nearly as bad. His, though—his are terrible, but if I could, I would trade in a heartbeat.
I just wish we understood why. Why have we been given these gifts that we don’t know how to use? I think of the shades that I see, following people around, and wonder, why do I see them? There must be a reason, but what that reason is, I don’t know. And Paul—why does he dream of the future? Is it so he can change it? If that’s the case, the future would be wise to send Paul visions that make sense, because every time, it’s not until afterward, when it’s too late, that we understand.
Not long after the sun has risen above the trees and turned the lake to gold, my father comes down to join me at the fire, bringing along a bowl and some flour and a little oil for bannock. We wrap dough around willow branches and stick it over the coals, and though it’s nothing more than a flour paste, something about cooking it over open flame turns it into the best-tasting treat I can imagine.
“Should I call Paul?” I ask as I pull the bannock from the fire.
My father stares up toward the house, which still sits in darkness. “Leave him be,” he says. “He’ll come back when he’s hungry enough.”
But he doesn’t—not after we’ve cleaned up, not after my father goes back to hammering the old house back together, not after I turn the chickens out to scratch and begin to mark off the corners of a garden plot. I can hear him, though, the thump of the pickax in the soil as Paul digs the pit for the outhouse, swearing up a storm as he does battle with the rocks and the roots.
Finally, around noon, he reappears, covered in red, iron-rich soil. I’m back in the kitchen, mopping the floors again.
“Guess you should have worn your shoes after all.” His feet are filthy, and I raise an eyebrow at them.
He wiggles his toes. “A little dirt never hurt anyone.”
“That won’t be the case if you step on my clean floors.”
“Yours?” He inches a toe toward the threshold.
I brandish my mop like a sword. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
He shrugs. “You win. Going to get cleaned up before Bran gets here? You’re a mess too.”
I hand him a bucket of filthy water. “Since when do you care about my appearance?”
“Since Bran Eagleson came to call. You know who his father is.”
“Who he is?” I straighten up and shake my head. “He’s been gone two years. Two years, Paul. Do you really think he’s still alive after all that time?”
Paul’s smile falters. “I wouldn’t say that too loudly if I were you.” He brushes his hair away from his eyes, and the smile returns. “Come on. The house is clean enough. Do you want me to heat up some water for you?”
“Thanks, but no.” Sweat rolls down my forehead, stinging my eyes. “I’ll bathe in the lake.”
“Then you’d better hurry. No matter who his father is, Bran Eagleson doesn’t get to see that much of my sister.”
“Hah. Funny.” I toss a rag at him.
Paul ducks outside. The rag hits the wall instead, and harmlessly drops to the floor.
The lake is wreathed by heathered mountains. A glacier, which supplies this land with water, is the sole exception. It stretches between peaks, a brilliant expanse of white amid all the green. How it survived when the other glaciers of the continent died their rapid death is a mystery, but then, the Island is steeped in mystery. One of the mountains up there is called Forbidden Plateau. My mother told me its story. They say long ago a group of women and children took refuge there during a war, but when their men came back to get them, they were gone, never to be found again. I stare at the mountains, trying to find the forbidden one, but they all look forbidden to me.
Heat radiates from the dock as I slip off my shoes and stroll to the end, where I sit and test the water with a toe. It’s icy cold, but I plunge my feet in anyhow, smiling as minnows come to investigate my toes. Then, in a bright flash, the minnows vanish.
Below, a shadow glides through the water.
I jerk my feet up. The shadow is huge, easily twice as long as I am. It drifts under the dock, unhurried, emerging on the other side and circling back again before slipping out toward the center of the lake.
Too big for a trout. Too big for an otter. Too big for anything logical.
Water does strange things, I think. It plays tricks on the eye.
But I’m not convinced. I run back to the boathouse, picking up my shoes as I pass them, and end up crouching on the shore to wash, staring out at the lake.
Myth doesn’t live in lakes or descend from stars, I tell myself, and even though logic says the shadow isn’t a monster, logic has never been my strong suit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Paul and I wait in the shade of the boathouse, staring out at the lake, waiting for Bran. Paul is whittling a piece of wood. I’m trying to figure out a way to make a necklace out of a piece of weathered glass I found on the lakeshore and the ribbon I brought from the Corridor, though that’s only to give me something to do while I debate whether to tell Paul about the shadow in the lake. It’s one thing to see something irrational, but to actually articulate it? Just the thought makes me feel stupid.
Bran’s canoe sidles up to the end of the dock just as the sun reaches its apex. Paul pulls on his shoes and runs down to meet him.
“Oh sure, put your shoes on now,” I grumble as I fasten the ribbon around my neck and make my way down the dock, taking my time, feigning complete disinterest in Bran Eagleson, even though it’s hard work not to look at him. Guys aren’t something I know much about. At school, they avoided me as much as I avoided them. So this, the way my stomach suddenly flip-flops, is unexpected, and maybe would be even a bit unwelcome, if it weren’t for the way he watches me.
Paul grins at me when I draw close, as if he’s privy to some great secret.
“What?” I say.
Paul just shrugs and steps into the canoe, though that cheeky grin doesn’t leave his face.
“Do you want the stern?” Bran asks, flashing me a bright smile.
“No. I can paddle, but not well,” I admit, watching as my brother settles himself into the bow of the canoe with uncanny ease.
“Then I’ll steer. You sit in the center. Paul and I will bear you across the lake. Like royalty, hey, Paul?”
Paul snorts. “Don’t give her any ideas.”
Bran offers me his hand.
I falter. The last thing I want is to take his hand.
The only thing I want is to take his hand.
“Well?” Bran raises an eyebrow.
My cheeks burst into a furious blush as our fingers touch. I turn my face away to shield myself from Bran’s cinder-gray gaze as I take my seat. The canoe teeters as he steps in and I hold my breath, remembering the shadow that passed under the dock.
“Don’t worry,” Bran says. “I’ve been doing this all my life.”
I want to believe him and that certainty in his voice, but the shadow in the water is still fresh in my mind. “So, is the fishing good in this lake?” I ask, steadying my voice so the question sounds like nothing more than idle conversation.
“Yep. Sometimes we even get sturgeon.”
With that one word, my gut releases the knot it’s been holding. Sturgeon. A lovely, logical explanation. The bottle-green depths no longer seem quite so menacing.
Paul and Bran dip their paddles and the canoe glides away from the dock. They spring from the same branch, Bran and my brother, matching each stroke with the same strength, the same cadence.
I close my eyes. I can no longer see the lake, or the water, or what might lurk below. Instead I am flying alongside a raven and a kingfisher, who leave a space between them for my own absent shade.
Bran’s house sits on the southern edge of the lake. While it might have been
grand at one time, the shutters now hang at odd angles and the windows appear filmy, as if they watch us with the milky eyes of the aged.
A woman in a billowing fuchsia dress strolls along the strand. She is rail-thin, and her hair, as long and white as a sun-bleached bone, streams behind her.
“That’s my mother,” Bran says.
She’s nothing like what I expected. She looks as if she has been left behind by time.
The canoe runs up the beach and Bran holds it steady so I can hop out.
His mother doesn’t even notice me. She only has eyes for her son. “My darling,” she whispers, reaching out to touch him and then withdrawing her hand as if she was about to make a mistake. “I’ve missed you so!”
He stows the paddles, ignoring his mother altogether.
Paul gives me a questioning look. We stand side by side, waiting awkwardly. Finally Bran wades up onto the shore, wipes his hands on his shorts, and sighs. “Mother, this is Paul and Cassandra Mercredi. They’ve taken the place with the boathouse on the northern side of the lake.”
Her eyes fall on me. They’re blue, but not like any blue I’ve ever seen—almost crystalline, pale, translucent. Unearthly. “Cassandra, Cassandra,” she says, rolling my name about in her mouth, the words catching on the odd lilt of her voice. “The entangler of men?” She looks me up and down and gives me a withering smile. “No, I suppose not. Well, come up to the house, then.” She doesn’t move, peering at Paul for a long moment before clapping her hands. “Call me Grace, darlings! Come along!”
Bran trails behind me, and though I’m not sure, I think I feel his fingers brush my arm.
Grace watches me from the corner of her eye. “You don’t say much, do you? Well, Bran has that effect on girls sometimes.” She stops, twirls around, and plants a kiss on Bran’s cheek before he can escape. “Darling, why don’t you and Paul go find something to do? Take him to your workshop, maybe. I’m sure he’d like that.” She eyes me. “I want Cassandra all to myself for a little while.”
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