‘Morning children,’ he leers cheerily. ‘Sister Teresa has been taken to a hospital on the mainland, and Luko is accompanying her. As for the troublemakers who started the fire . . .’ He pauses, and fixes his bloodshot eyes on Mari and me. I glare back. ‘They will be relocated to workhouses as soon as I receive a suitable placement for them from the government.’ Shock lances through me, and Mari grips my hand.
‘He’s blaming us for the fire?’ she hisses, but I don’t care about that. I care about what he said next: a workhouse?
He holds up a piece of paper. ‘I am sending the request now, and expect to have a reply within a week. They will be relocated separately, of course.’ He smirks, then places the letter in his breast pocket and starts down the hill.
My hate has crystallized: it sits in my chest, hard and shining. Useful. He thinks he’s won, but all he’s done is given me strength. A week, and we’ll be gone, but together, and not to workhouses. Mari and I head for the cliff.
The forest is reduced to scorched trunks, and we run to avoid the cinders burning our feet.
‘I’ve already thought it all through,’ she says. ‘We can salvage some materials from behind the outbuilding – they left plenty of wood and nails and Luko should have any tools we need. The main problem will be waterproofing, but as long as the boat isn’t too badly damaged, I’m sure we can fix it. We’ll need oars, of course. How long did you say it took to get here?’
‘About two hours.’
‘Of course it will take longer than that to sail there. Maybe half a day.’
‘How will we know the wind is right?’
‘We keep an eye on Siddy, of course.’
‘And if the wind isn’t in our favour?’
‘We row.’
‘I’m not sure we could row there.’
‘We can. It’ll just take a long time. But if the current helps us—’
I stop in the middle of the path. ‘You seem to know exactly what to do.’
‘I’ve been planning on fixing the boat for a long time. The only thing that stopped me was I had nowhere to go. And no one to go with.’
Warmth floods through me. All I can think to say is, ‘Thank you.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Thank me when we get it floating.’
‘You don’t have to come, you know.’
Her face falls. ‘You want me to go to the workhouse?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Do you not want me to come with you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘And can you sail? Do knots?’
I shake my head.
‘That’s settled, then.’
Climbing down the narrow path involves a lot of controlled falling on my part. I snatch at tufts of grass and send pebbles scattering. Mari is a lot more graceful than I am though she uses only one hand. When we reach the spit of sand she is barely panting. The red-painted boat sits just below the water line in the shallows, mast arrowing up, tied to a stake by a length of stinking green rope. It looks more like a fishing canoe than a rowing boat, and I know this is a good thing, because they are made to be light and strong, carried to and from the water every day.
‘Here it is!’ She makes a ‘ta-da’ movement with her hand. ‘First job, pull it out.’
It is not an easy job. Though the boat looks light, sand has filled the bottom and made it heavy as stone. I see instantly why it has sunk – a long graze near the lip of the hull where it must have scraped a rock.
‘We need to tilt it,’ says Mari. ‘Tip it over to get the sand out, then we can pull it ashore.’
We roll up our trousers and wade in. I take a firm grip of the underside of the boat. It is rough with barnacles and I wince as they scrape my fingers. Mari joins me, hooking her shoulder under the lip of the boat.
‘On three. One . . . two . . . three!’
We heave. The boat rocks minutely. Mari counts to three again and again. Each time we strain so hard we sink, sending the sand around our feet swirling. Slowly, achingly, it begins to shift. ‘Keep going!’ cries Mari. I push and push until finally, with a great rush of water, the boat comes unstuck and rolls.
Sand pours out, and Mari sloshes around the other side to steady the boat and make sure it doesn’t turn all the way over and smash the mast. The boat begins to lift slightly, with its damaged side up out of the water, and for the first time since reading Nanay’s letter I feel a small seed of hope lodge next to the worry in my stomach.
‘Now you go that side and pull,’ Mari orders, pointing to the front of the boat. ‘I’ll push.’
This part is easier, with the seal of the ocean already broken. We drag it clear of the tidemark and collapse on the sand. The boat sags sideways.
‘Now what?’ I pant.
‘Now, we steal.’
Mr Zamora refuses to break his writing routine to keep an eye on us, and so Mayumi is left to control us as best she can. I feel sorry for her, but her soft approach means Mari and I have plenty of time to work on the boat. The other children also make things easier, because without a schedule to occupy them the boys also ransack the wood-pile for material to build tree houses and forts. It is easy enough for Mari and I to take what we need, which is not as much as I’d feared. The hull of our boat is virtually hole-free, and we patch up the crack at the lip as best we can. We steal a rusty bucket from Mayumi’s cleaning cupboard, for bailing.
Aside from shaking off Kidlat when he tries to follow us, the sail presents the greatest challenge. A single bedsheet lets the wind weave right through, and even with two it barely flutters. I steal three more when it is my turn to do the laundry, and we layer all five, one over the other, and stand with them stretched between us at the cliff edge. The wind shuttles across and catches in the sheet, and Mari is dragged off her feet.
‘I think that will work!’ She laughs, brushing mud off her knees.
After three days, the boat floats at the end of its green rope. After five days, we have made three oars out of poles and boards bound together – Mari insisted on a spare.
‘What shall we call it?’ she asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘All boats need names,’ she says. ‘It’s good luck.’
We both go silent, thinking. Finally Mari snaps her fingers. ‘I’ve got it. Lihim.’
‘Secret?’
‘Our secret.’ She smiles.
On the sixth day Mr Zamora returns from town with a letter. He brandishes it at Mari and me at dinner. ‘You may want to take today to say your goodbyes. I’ve had letters from two workhouses keen for children – good for sliding into spaces between machinery.’ His face seems more skull than skin as walks away to his hut, whistling.
‘Why are you smiling?’ says Tekla to Mari, her voice harsh. ‘Those places are horrible. You could lose a hand – oh, wait.’
Some of the other girls giggle but Mari looks right at Tekla. ‘You should be kinder. Your face will be as vile as his soon enough.’ She leans her head into mine. ‘First light, yes?’
I nod, looking around the fire. No one seems much upset by our leaving. Only Kidlat is watching me, though even he has pulled away the past few days. I suppose if you push someone away enough, they will stop trying. The small pang in my chest is swallowed by determination. We are going to get back to Nanay: we will.
I barely sleep, and as soon as light gleams from the courtyard through the shutters, I hear the creak of a floorboard above my head. I creep past the sleeping girls to where Mari is waiting with a pillowcase in the courtyard, her face alight with excitement. She points at Siddy. Siddy, in turn, is pointing towards the front of the orphanage.
Without a word to each other, we snatch as much fruit as we can from Luko’s stores by the firepit, and take off at a run. The forest is blackened and quiet, the ground ashes, the smell of woodsmoke still hanging in the early morning air.
I hesitate at the top of the cliff, my heart pounding. The shadow of Culion Island is pinkening in the sunrise. It seems an
impossible distance, and I am afraid of what we will find there. But then Mari takes my hand and squeezes it.
‘Come on.’
We plunge down the path and I land in a bundle by Mari’s feet.
‘We did it!’ I cry, but Mari is not looking at me. Her eyes are wide, staring up the slope behind us. I turn. This is one thing we haven’t planned for.
There, making his unsteady way down the twilight cliff, is Kidlat.
THE CROSSING
‘S
top!’ I shout, but he is already halfway, reaching the dangerous scree towards the base of the cliff. Mari shoves her pillowcase at me and clambers up to meet him. I expect her to turn him around but she helps him navigate down.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘We don’t have time to take him back,’ says Mari, regaining her breath. ‘And we can’t leave him here. He’ll have to come.’
I stare down at the silent child.
‘It’s all right,’ I say softly. It looks like he is biting down on his thumb rather than sucking it. I reach out a hand and lay it lightly on the crook of his small arm.
Kidlat’s eyes flick rapidly from Mari and me, his breathing fast. I move closer and lay my other hand on his back, rubbing gently. Mari sits down too, and slowly, slowly, his breaths calm. He allows me to guide his hand out of his mouth and I see the tooth marks around the base of his thumb. His eyes fix on mine, and I know Mari is right. We have to go before anyone notices we’re missing, and it would be nearly impossible for him to climb back up on his own.
‘Listen, Kidlat. We’re going on a trip. You’re going to have to do exactly as we say, OK?’
He nods.
‘At least he’s only small,’ says Mari.
I bite back any meanness, though I am angry that he’s followed us. I want to get to Nanay as quickly as possible.
Kidlat sits on the beach as we ready Lihim, tying on the bedsheet sail and guiding the oars into their grooves. Mari helps Kidlat aboard and takes an oar in her good hand.
‘Ready?’ I say.
She nods, her pale skin flushed. I push us out into deeper water. When I am up to my chest I kick my legs hard and haul myself over the side of the boat. It rocks precariously, and some water seeps in through the patched crack below the lip, but soon it rights itself.
‘We need to get clear of the cliffs,’ says Mari, nodding at the empty sail. ‘They’re stopping the wind. We’ll have to row.’
Mari holds out her right wrist and I bind it to the oar so she can use both arms. I sit next to her and take up the other oar.
‘Kidlat, you can be in charge of the pail. If any water comes over the side—’
‘Or through the side, or the bottom—’
‘Thank you, Mari,’ I snap, before turning back to the silent boy. ‘Scoop it out, all right?’
He takes up the rusty bucket and begins to fill and tip. Mari and I start to row. It is hard from the first moment, and as the moments add up I pray silently that the wind is still blowing to Culion when we clear the bay. Mari grunts with the effort, the string cutting white into her arm. After a few long minutes, the mast creaks. We turn and see the sail billow. I hold my breath, and the wind seems to too. Then the sail fills. The boat begins to move.
Mari lifts her oar clear of the water and unties the string. She throws down the wood and jumps to her feet.
‘We did it. We’re going! We’re really going! Come on, Lihim!’
The boat rocks again and she stumbles to her knees laughing. Kidlat is smiling widely, waving his little arms in the air. We edge out into the open ocean.
The sea is not calm like it was the day of our first crossing. Or perhaps it is because we are in a boat that is so much smaller that the waves feel bigger. After only a few minutes Kidlat goes pale and uses the bucket to be sick into. Mari rinses it out and takes over bailing out the water seeping in through holes that are only noticeable because of the bubbles springing from them. But it is not an impossible amount of water, and I know from our journey to the orphanage that it is not an impossible distance either. Mari seems in a good mood, and I suppose that sailing a boat is making her think of her father.
I crawl to the front of the boat, ducking under the sail so I can watch the boat cut the water. I think of the people who owned it, who hauled nets full of fish aboard and painted it red and finally left it tied in a shallow cove. Where have they gone? Perhaps they hoped someone would find and fix it some day. Perhaps Mari and I were always meant to find it.
But that would mean I was always meant to come to the orphanage, which in turn would mean Nanay was always meant to be sick, and I don’t like to think that. That’s the problem with believing there’s a reason for everything – you have to take the good with the bad. Nanay taught me the word for it: tadhana, the invisible force that makes things happen outside our control. Like earthquakes or shipwrecks. Or falling in love.
Mari comes to join me in the bow of the boat. She holds out one of the oranges she stole from Luko. ‘Breakfast time.’
I peel it and we share the segments, spitting the pips over the waves. The wind carries them further than we could throw, and I think of that same wind blowing ahead, all the way home.
‘Is Kidlat all right?’
Mari shrugs. ‘I think so. He’s sleeping.’
‘What’re we going to do when we get to Culion? Hand him over or . . .’
‘We’ll have to bring him with us,’ says Mari. ‘There’s no way to make sure he’s safe without handing ourselves over too. They’ll put us on the first boat back.’
‘How can we be sure we’re gong the right way?’
‘Siddy said.’
‘But the wind changes, doesn’t it? So what if he’s not saying this way any more. What if we go off course, or hit another island, or—’
Mari holds her hand up to my mouth. ‘Ami, trust me.’
Trusting her has nothing to do with the wind or the sea, but her light, clear eyes fix on me and I feel a bit calmer. I lean to peer around the sail. The wind hits me full in the face, making tears start in my eyes.
Kidlat is curled up with his thumb in his mouth. Behind him, our cliff is already a smudge, a raised line as high as my finger. On the other horizon there are only waves, small hills rolling on and on. The sea is not light blue any more – up close it is a night sky, opaquely navy. I think of all the things beneath us, the fish and the coral and the sharks. Trust me. The mast groans and rasps as the wind cracks in our sail.
Mari is sitting sideways with her knees drawn up to her chest so she fits in the narrow hull. I slide down beside her.
‘You’re still worrying,’ she says. ‘Your face is all scrunchy.’
‘How are you not worried?’
‘It’s an adventure. It’s exciting.’ Her eyes shine. ‘I’ve never had one before.’
‘But what if the monsoon comes early? What if the clouds roll over and—’
‘And what if the sea opens up and swallows us! What if a huge ship comes through and snaps our boat in half! What if we fall overboard and forget how to swim!’
‘Exactly. I suppose we could pray?’
Mari wrinkles her nose. ‘You don’t believe in all that, do you?’
‘All what?’
‘Praying. God.’ She says it like Nanay does.
‘I don’t know.’
She shakes her head, exasperated. ‘Ami, if you always worry about the worst that could happen, you’d never do anything. We’d still be in that orphanage, or on a ship to somewhere else, probably not the same place as each other. But we’re here, going to see your nanay. We’re doing it. We’ve gone. So stop worrying. It’s too late. And if any of those things do happen, we’ll deal with them, all right?’
‘All right.’
‘Tell me about her.’ Mari’s voice is level again. ‘About your nanay.’
I have spent weeks not doing this. Not allowing my mind to fully turn to her. But now I reach for everything I know and let it fall out,
all jumbled up and in the wrong order. I tell her about the butterfly house, about star catching and our stories. I tell her about Nanay facing down Mr Zamora without her scarf, and Mari lets out a low whistle.
‘She sounds brilliant. She sounds brave.’
‘She’s not brave exactly,’ I say. ‘It’s more that she doesn’t care what other people think. She didn’t care if Mr Zamora thought she was strange-looking.’
‘That’s brave, though,’ says Mari. Her voice is soft. ‘If my parents had stopped worrying about what other people thought, I’d still be with them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean your nanay is brave,’ Mari says, brushing off my question like she has every other question. ‘Tell me one of her stories.’
But my eyes have fixed on something past Mari’s head. The small hills of the waves beyond waves are growing higher. Growing higher, and not shrinking.
‘Look!’
And Mari turns her light eyes towards the hills of Culion.
We wake Kidlat and share another orange. The sun is at its highest point, and I cannot believe that it has taken only half a day to sight home. We play at guessing how many hours it will take to reach the shore, Kidlat holding up pudgy fingers, changing his mind every minute.
Mari and I are laughing so hard at him holding up one finger that it takes a moment to realize he is pointing. Too late, I see the jag of coral, mouthing up like a fang as the waves fall away. Mari scrambles for an oar and manages to jab us away, but the sail is carrying us fast towards another. I look down and see the water is aglow with coral, red and pink, and the water foaming white over it. The reef.
‘Help me!’ Kidlat hurries to help Mari steady her oar. I grab the other and join them in heaving us away from the shallows, but the wind is straining to pull us back.
‘The sail,’ Mari shouts. ‘We have to take it down.’
My fingers scrabble at the knots binding the sheets to the mast. The boat jolts and I drop to my knees, feeling rather than hearing the scrape of the underside against coral. Mari’s right hand is making it hard for her to grip the oar, and though Kidlat’s little arms shake with effort they aren’t able to push us away. The blade of the oar catches and Mari makes a grab for it, almost falling overboard. The oar falls away and I snatch it back up, knuckles grazing on a vicious orange frill. The blade is snapped and I stab at the sail, tearing through sheet after sheet until finally the wind gushes through and we slow, rocking but no longer scraping.
The Island at the End of Everything Page 11