The Island at the End of Everything

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

  A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

  Kiran’s second novel isn’t really a story about an island – or even about butterflies, or the way a terrible disease was misunderstood and mistreated. It is about an incredible journey, about how beauty and love make a difference to a group of children who have to fight for their beliefs – despite adults who want to tell them what’s best. Kiran writes beautifully, thrillingly and memorably: you’ll want to stay in her world for ever.

  BARRY CUNNINGHAM

  Publisher

  Chicken House

  Contents

  Culion Island, the Philippines 1906

  A Visitor

  The Meeting

  Article XV

  The Test

  The Results

  The Collector

  The Boat

  The Butterfly House

  The Going

  The Escape

  The Orphanage

  The Orphans

  The First Day

  The Letter

  The Hatching

  Butterfly Lessons

  The Killing Jar

  The Burning

  The Secret

  The Crossing

  The Forest

  The Horses

  The Orchard

  The End

  Thirty Years Later

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  For my husband

  Also by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

  The Girl of Ink & Stars

  GLOSSARY

  Nanay

  Mother

  Ama

  Father

  Lolo

  Grandfather

  Gumamela

  Hibiscus, a kind of flower common in the Philippines

  Tadhana

  Fate

  Takipsilim

  Twilight

  Habilin

  Something given to someone for safekeeping

  Lihim

  Secret

  Diwata

  Guardian spirits, usually of nature

  Pitaya

  Dragon fruit

  Pahimakas

  Last farewell

  CULION ISLAND,

  THE PHILIPPINES

  1906

  T

  here are some places you would not want to go.

  Even if I told you that we have oceans clear and blue as summer skies, filled with sea turtles and dolphins, or forest-covered hills lush with birds that call through air thick with warmth. Even if you knew how beautiful the quiet is here, clean and fresh as a glass bell ringing. But nobody comes here because they want to.

  My nanay told me this is how they brought her, but says it is always the same, no matter who you are or where you come from.

  From your house you travel on horse or by foot, then on a boat. The men who row it cover their noses and mouths with cloths stuffed with herbs so they don’t have to share your breath. They will not help you on to the boat although your head aches and two weeks ago your legs began to hurt, then to numb. Maybe you stumble towards them, and they duck. They’d rather you rolled over their backs and into the sea than touch you. You sit and clutch your bundle of things from home, what you saved before it was burned. Clothes, a doll, some books, letters from your mother.

  Somehow, it is always dusk when you approach.

  The island changes from a dark dot to a green heaven on the horizon. High on a cross-topped cliff that slopes towards the sea is a field of white flowers, looping strangely. It is not until you are closer that you see it forms the shape of an eagle, and it is not until you are very close that you see it is made of stones. This is when your heart hardens in your chest, like petals turning to pebbles. Nanay says the white eagle’s meaning is known across all the surrounding islands, even all the places outside our sea. It means: stay away. Do not come here unless you have no choice.

  The day is dropping to dark as you come into the harbour. When you step from the boat, the stars are setting out their little lights. Someone will be there to welcome you. They understand.

  The men who brought you leave straight away, though they are tired. They have not spoken to you in the days or hours you spent with them. The splash of oars fades to the sound of waves lapping the beach. They will burn the boat when they get back, as they did your house.

  You look at the person who greeted you. You are changed now. Like flowers into stones, day into night. You will always be heavier, darkened, marked. Touched.

  Nanay says that in the places outside, they have many names for our home. The island of the living dead. The island of no return. The island at the end of everything.

  You are on Culion, where the oceans are blue and clear as summer skies. Culion, where sea turtles dig the beaches and the trees brim with fruit.

  Culion, island of lepers. Welcome home.

  A VISITOR

  I

  am luckier than most. I was born here, so I never had to know the name-calling, the spitting in the street. My nanay was already carrying me when they came for her, though she didn’t know it until she stepped from the boat a month after leaving home and felt a flutter in her stomach, like wings. Me, growing.

  Nanay was one of the first to arrive, was brought even before the eagle. She helped build it when I was small, barely tumbled from her and wrapped tightly on to her back. When they plucked the sun-bleached coral rocks from the shore they were just stones. Now, they are a bird.

  I tell Nanay this when she is afraid, which is often, though she tries to hide it. See, I tell her, that bird is all stone the colour of bone, and it is beautiful. What I mean is that even as her body melts away from her, down to its bones, she is still beautiful. Nanay says back, But that bird’s meaning is not so beautiful, is it? It’s the symbol of the Department of Health. It means we are a cursed island, an island of illness.

  I wish she sometimes wouldn’t make things sad straight away.

  I’ve noticed that grown-ups often reach for the bad side of things. At school, Sister Clara’s lessons are full of sins and devils, not love and kindness like in Sister Margaritte’s classes, even though they are both teaching us God and Church. Sister Margaritte is the most important nun on the island, and the kindest, so I choose to listen to her rather than Sister Clara.

  Nanay has other gods, small ones she keeps on the windowsill or under her pillow. She does not like me going to church, but the sisters insist. And anyway, I like Sister Margaritte. She has a wide mouth and the cleanest fingernails I’ve ever seen. You have a very serious face, she said once after prayer, but she did not say it in a way that was unkind. Nanay says I squint so much I’ll give myself lines, but I can’t help that I squint when I think.

  My face is scrunching now, but that’s because of the sun. I have found a clearing in the trees that edge our yard where I can kneel so my body is cool in the shade, and my face can tip up to blue. It is Sunday-day-of-rest so I don’t have school, and church isn’t for an hour.

  I’m watching for butterflies. Nanay and I have been planting flower seeds on the wild land beside the bakery for three summers, but they still haven’t sprouted. Nanay says the soil must be wrong for growing the plants butterflies like. I still have never seen one anywhere in town. I’m certain they’re always wafting behind me, just as your shadow disappears when you suddenly spin around. So I’m being still whenever I can remember.

  ‘Amihan!’

  ‘Out here, Nanay.’

  Nanay looks tired and her skin is stretched around the eyes. She used my full name, and her blue cloth is wrapped across he
r face, which means we have a visitor. It is a not nice fact, but her nose is nearly not there any more. When she breathes it sounds as if the air has hooks. Being Touched means different things for different people: for some it’s sores like pink ink splotches on their arms and legs, for others it’s bumps like they’ve fallen into a patch of stinging leaves or angered a wasps’ nest. For Nanay, it’s her nose and swollen fingers, and pain, though she’s good at hiding it.

  ‘Sister Clara is here to see us,’ she says. ‘Dust off your knees and come inside.’

  I brush my trousers down and follow her. The room is hot and Nanay has placed bowls of water under the windows to cool it. Sister Clara is standing by the open front door and does not come in even when I arrive. Doctor Tomas told everyone that you can’t become Touched by inhaling the same air, but I don’t think Sister Clara believes him, because she never goes near my nanay or any of the others. Then again, she never goes near me, either, though I am Untouched. I think perhaps she doesn’t like children, which seems strange for a nun, especially a nun who’s a teacher.

  ‘Hello, Sister Clara,’ I say, as we have been taught to, in a voice that is almost song.

  ‘Amihan,’ says Sister Clara. It is meant to be a greeting, but it comes out flat.

  ‘Is she in trouble, Sister?’ snaps Nanay through her cloth. ‘What is it this time? Running in school? Laughing in church?’

  ‘There’s to be a meeting in church this afternoon. Service will be cut short,’ replies Sister Clara coolly. ‘Attendance is compulsory.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Sister Clara shakes her head and leaves with a damning, ‘God bless you.’

  Nanay slams the door shut behind her with her stick. ‘God bless you.’

  ‘Nanay!’

  Her forehead is sweating. She unwraps her face cloth, hangs it on the doorknob and collapses into her chair. ‘I’m sorry, Ami. But that woman—’ She stops herself. She wants to say something she shouldn’t, and continues carefully, ‘I don’t like her.’

  ‘What are you going to wear for the service?’ I say, trying to distract her. She gets upset when people treat her like Sister Clara just did: as if she’s something to be skirted around, not looked in the eye.

  ‘Same as last time, I suppose.’

  Last time was a long time ago, when the nuns first started working here. Half my lifetime. I help Nanay up and she limps into our room to change, muttering. She is so angry I do not dare offer to help her with her buttons.

  I change too, into my blue dress. Nanay is wearing her next-best dress, which I suppose is her way of showing what she thinks of church.

  ‘We could take more flower seeds,’ I say to fill the silence. ‘Sow the butterfly garden a bit more?’

  ‘I’m not wasting any more time on that. Not a single butterfly came last summer, Ami,’ says Nanay. ‘I don’t think they like it on Culion.’

  We sit quietly in our best and next-best clothes, and wait until it is time to go.

  THE MEETING

  C

  hurch is the most beautiful building on the island. I like it here because it is always cool inside, even now when the sun is heating the sand to coals on the beach below. The walls shine white like the centre of coral. To see it glowing like a beacon at the top of the hill makes the last, steep stretch easier, though Nanay found it harder than her last visit.

  We are sitting behind Capuno and Bondoc, who live down the street from us. Nanay has not said ‘Amen’ even once, or stood when she is meant to, though this may be because she is sore from the climb. The other children from school are sitting at the back, all together in one big clump like they do after class. When we came in, the girls bent their heads together and whispered. I know they think I’m strange because I don’t stay to play after school, but Nanay needs me to help her at home. I slide my hand into hers and squeeze. She’s all the friends I need – though I sometimes wish the girls wouldn’t whisper.

  Father Fernan is about to start the final part of his sermon. This week it is about temperance, which I think means not drinking alcohol, because it makes God sad when you sing loudly in the street. I hope Bondoc is listening, because though his name means mountain and he looks like a mountain, he sings like a strangled goat.

  Capuno and Bondoc are brothers. Capuno is Touched, Bondoc is not, but he followed his brother to Culion anyway. Capuno is as small as Bondoc is big, but he has a quiet energy about him, an undertow. They are two of the kindest men I know, even if they do sing in the street through lack of temperance.

  ‘So remember, next time you pass the tavern,’ Father Fernan intones, ‘tip your hat to the owner and turn up your palms to God. Let us pray.’

  I go to bow my head but Nanay unclasps my fingers and crosses her arms. The sisters do not notice because we are told to look down to talk to God, even though apparently He is above our heads in Heaven.

  Father Fernan makes the sign of the cross over us. There is silence for a moment as everyone wonders what is going to come next. Father Fernan rearranges his sombre expression into a smile. People sit a little less straight and murmur to each other. Nanay uncrosses her arms slightly. They are marked where her fingernails dug in. Sister Clara sits beside the pulpit while Sister Margaritte sets up another three chairs and then settles in one.

  There is the sound of footsteps up the aisle and a man I have not seen before passes us with Doctor Tomas, whose face is solemn. The stranger is wearing a pale linen suit and carries two wooden planks. He walks like a marionette, picking his feet up high, then sits on one of the chairs, head-string pulled taut. We all look at Father Fernan expectantly.

  ‘Thank you for joining us,’ he begins, as if we have only just arrived. ‘We are here to discuss some very important changes that will be taking place in Culion Town. These changes may seem strange at first, but we must remember God’s plan, and trust in Him.’

  Sister Clara nods gravely, but Sister Margaritte’s wide mouth is sealed thinly shut as an envelope, and Doctor Tomas looks pained, his face scrunched up like a chewed toffee.

  ‘Sitting beside Doctor Tomas is our special guest, Mr Zamora.’ Everyone’s heads swivel. ‘Mr Zamora works for the government in Manila. He is going to share with you the future of our island.’

  The stranger unfolds from his chair. He is so long and thin he looks like a locust standing upright. His hands jangle limply from his wrists as he steps forward and takes off his hat, which he shouldn’t really have been wearing inside anyway.

  ‘Patients and families,’ he starts, and I already know this is not going to be a good meeting. Nobody who lives here thinks of the Touched as patients, except maybe Sister Clara. ‘Thank you for having me. I very much enjoyed the service.’

  His voice is full and low, at odds with his skinny frame, his lips puffy as a fish’s. Nanay is tense again beside me, and in front Bondoc leans back on the hard wooden pew and crosses his arms.

  ‘Father Fernan is right that I am here to tell you about some very important changes, but he neglected to mention that they are also exciting. We, the government, are moving Culion towards a place of en-light-en-ment.’ He strikes each beat of the word on his palm. ‘Progress is being made in the fight against the affliction that many of you suffer from. With all due respect to Doctor Tomas, the methods used to treat the disease are evolving very fast outside this colony. We already know that leprosy is caused by bacterium, and I am sure Doctor Tomas has advised you all that cleanliness is paramount. We are hopeful that within the lifespan of your children, we will find a cure for lepers.’

  There is a collective intake of breath and Nanay flinches. We do not use that word. My palms itch. It is suddenly stifling inside the church.

  ‘But until that day, changes must be made. We must prevent the spread of the disease. It has been brought to the government’s attention that many of you are breeding. I know that Father Fernan and the sisters will have advised you about the merits of abstinence, but what of those children who are born wit
hout the disease? Must they, too, live the life of a leper?’

  He has found his rhythm now, striding across the front of the church on his needle-thin legs, hands waving. Meanwhile, we have stopped sitting silently. People are hissing angrily, the noise rising like spit on hot coals. Nanay takes my hand and squeezes.

  ‘We say, no!’ Mr Zamora continues as if the hissing were applause. ‘We are going to save Culion’s innocents and give them a better life. Is that not what all parents want? A better life for their children? From here on, we will facilitate this through a process of segregation.’

  He swoops suddenly on the wooden planks beside his chair and holds them up, one in each hand. On one is written SANO. On the other LEPROSO.

  Bondoc stands up, more mountain-like than ever. His body is trembling as he shrugs off Capuno’s restraining hand and forces his way into the aisle, striding to within a foot of Mr Zamora. I think he might hit him, but he just stands, fingers clenched into fists.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he says furiously. Sister Margaritte has stood up too and is beside him, speaking soothingly. Mr Zamora twitches his fish lips into a smile.

  ‘I was just about to explain,’ he says.

  ‘Well, explain. And choose better words than the ones you have already used,’ says Bondoc, allowing Sister Margaritte to lead him to a space on the front pew.

  ‘Please, this is our guest—’ starts Father Fernan, but Mr Zamora raises his hand the way Sister Clara does to us in school, and inclines his head in an of course. He displays the planks again.

  ‘Sano – clean. Leproso – leper,’ he says.

  ‘We can read,’ mutters Capuno.

  ‘Many of these signs will be placed around the island. Those who are clean must stay in the areas marked Sano. Those who are lepers must keep to their designated places.’

  ‘But what of the families?’ Nanay drops my hand and stands with the suddenness of Bondoc, but she does not approach Mr Zamora.