Chapter Eight
ANDA
It begins with the fish.
I find it on the back step of the cottage, a small corpse of an offering. At first, my nose flares at the scent. It’s beheaded, chopped in two, and smeared with blood. Scales stick to it here and there, violently displaced from that unnaturally smooth skin. The belly has been inexpertly torn open in the tenderest of places, anus to gills, leaving a jagged maw with fascia and silken skin hanging in ribbons.
There is only one person who could have left such a thing. The boy.
Is he trying to scare me? Is it a warning, a herald of what he might do to me? The air pressure around me drops like a stone, and I draw the clouds about me. Mist dampens my forehead with comfort as I stare at the carcass. And then my father’s good sense enters my brain.
Anda, it said. It’s food. He’s trying to feed you. He worries for your body.
It is kindness.
“Oh.” I stand there dumbly for a full five minutes, until I finally pick up the pieces with my hands and bring them inside. I rinse them out with cooled, boiled water and place them, small and lonely, on a plate. I stare at them for at least an hour before deciding what to do. I dig into the small trove of cookbooks that Father kept in the kitchen cupboard and study the “sea delights” section. Every word is a bit of prayer.
Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
Dip gently in an egg wash.
Dredge thoroughly in cornmeal, well-seasoned.
Fry in butter until golden brown.
Serve with a wedge of lemon.
I only have a few eggs. Father left me with enough food to last a month. But the eggs will go bad anyway, so I use one and follow the recipe instructions as if they were sacred law. The skillet soon hisses with browning butter, and I lay the pieces in. Droplets of hot fat skip out of the pan and hit my skin, making me dance and dodge, squealing. My face near the stove feels scorched, and I burn my left fourth finger.
I laugh the entire time.
Finally, they are done. I burned half of the fish, but the cottage smells of good, cooked food, and the walls smile at me. Father has tried to do this for me. He’d create dishes to tempt me to eat. Berries like jewels, so pretty that they made me cry. Or cubes of cheese that I wouldn’t touch, because they smelled of their true origins—of rotted, curdled, glandular secretions. His care was only suitable for a normal human girl, because it’s all his mind can imagine. He tries, so hard. But his attempts are slippers that don’t fit, that chafe at my edges constantly.
But this one viciously murdered fish feels just right for someone like me.
Too fitting.
I find a piece of nice clean newspaper from the stack by the fire and wrap half of the fish in the paper, watching the oil stain the newsprint with dots of dark gray. I study the gift I’ve made, cradling it in my hands. A strange sensation tickles my fingertips.
I believe it’s called pride.
And then I leave the cottage. It is easy to find him, though it’s dusk. I go to the last place we’d seen each other and follow his footprints to the camping shelter where he’s made his new home. From a distance, his footsteps shuffle a quiet rhythm. His blurred form moves about inside.
I watch him enter a patch of light where the tired sun carelessly appears for a second. He runs his hand through his dark hair and touches his stubbly cheeks with wonder, as if time had sneaked up on him and surprised him with the truth that he is, in fact, a young man now. He stands inside his shelter and looks out, but I can tell that his eyes are focused inward. He is thinking, seeing something I cannot.
I feel left behind.
I don’t like it.
But I am here, Anda. I will never leave you alone.
I dismiss her voice, trying to concentrate.
Usually when campers come to the island, they busy themselves with hiking. They point at the mergansers and grebes that alight on the waters. They swat at the thirsty mosquitoes and pore over trail maps. They never see me. But this boy has seen me. Something, inexplicably, has changed. I can smell it in the air.
Suddenly, as if nudged by a thought, the boy gathers his fishing gear and leaves, heading for the shore.
I’m tempted to follow him, but my hands are full and that isn’t my purpose. Carefully, I push at his shelter door, which opens with a traitorous creak. Inside, it’s starkly empty, compared to when the others come. They bring bottles of oily insecticide, complicated cooking units, and expensive water bottles. They hang clothes from the trees that are always some shade of khaki. Their shoes are sturdy, with bountiful straps and colorful laces.
This boy has one bag, and his belongings remain nestled inside, terrified of abandonment. I watch the bag, wondering if it will speak to me. But there are no murmurs of filth or desecration. There are dark things, yes, but they hide skillfully and won’t reveal themselves to me. I concentrate harder, prying, as fingers would do on a closed oyster. Still, I hear nothing.
I hesitate with my newspaper packet of cooked fish. Finally, I decide to leave it on the floor by his sleeping bag, but just before I place it there, the wind enters the shelter.
Do not, Anda.
Do not.
The cool air twists about my ankles, and she tries to pull me away. But it is just wind, and the wind is part of me, too. I hear a sigh of disappointment when I place the parcel on the wooden bed. Then I run home.
All the way back, she berates me.
“I didn’t start this,” I explain aloud. “He started it first. I’m paying him back. Now we’re even.”
You’re using reason. You’re defensive.
“I am?” I wonder. It’s a delightful sensation. Foreign. “Why, yes. Yes, I suppose I am.”
When I reach the door to the house, something isn’t right. Something in my center, a gnawing. When I enter the kitchen, the scent of butter and salty fish assail my nose, pulling me forward. The cast-iron frying pan is now cold and glossy with congealed brown butter and bits of crusty skin. I lift it to my face and take a cautious lick. I lick it until it’s clean.
So this is what hunger feels like.