Chapter Six
ANDA
I understand, in a split second, what he’s going to do. I’ve done it a hundred times in my own lifetime, but never with a knife. I don’t need a blade. But it’s like watching the act in a mirror: witnessing the breaking of another human is somehow altogether obscene.
Every day, the push and pull of life around me is a harmony I struggle to curate. Everything—the microbes, the fungi, the bats—everything trying to consume and destroy each other. Relentless. Human death is an inevitable fragment in this cacophony. My sisters surrendered, well before I ever set foot on the Isle, to the simplest part of the cycle, the most giving part—the ending of things. They beckon for me to join them, and in November, they sing most sweetly when I’ve taken a ship.
Father is glad that I wait until November, but it’s November that waits for me. The winds and temperatures and decay, they restore me like no other month of the year. But now, here—I couldn’t have ignored the rift in the lake-tinged scents in the air. I’d followed the coppery tang that came from this warm body, this boy.
I came here to tell him to leave. To say that he didn’t belong. But the sight of the knife on perfect skin—it incites me to emotions I can’t process. I understand what I must do, and not do, and the clash of the two is a massive wall of hot air hitting a cold one, swirling together to make something bigger, more frightening.
No, Anda.
The boy presses the knife harder against his skin, and finally I unstop the word that has lodged in my throat.
“No!” I scream.
My body shrieks at me for speaking. It’s angry, and a punishing, twisting sensation in my back makes me gasp in pain. The wind rises and whips against my cheek. He jerks his hand away, but the sudden movement causes him to nick his skin with the blade. A welt of red blooms upon his arm, followed by a tiny trickle that winds down his wrist and drips onto a plastic bag at his feet.
The boy stares at me, and I stare at the ruby drops on his skin. This blood does me no good. What I need now can only be found at the bottom of a lake. Blood on land only satiates normal human needs, like lust, or hate. And I am not normal.
“Jesus! What are you doing here?” he asks. The words sound like an accusation. I’m too shocked by the blood to flee or answer. He’s still standing there, unmoving. Fatigue wears on him like a hundred years of rain on sandstone. The backpack gapes dumbly, its half-vomited contents of torn plastic bags strewn about.
“Why did you do that?” I know part of the answer already, but I’m desperate to own the rest.
The words shock him into movement. He hastily sheathes the knife. His body is so tall that even the trees seem respectful of him. His hair is thick and curly, though disappointingly, it is trimmed short. For a moment, I wish I could tangle my nails in it. I shake the thought away.
He pulls his sleeve down, and the droplets of blood seep through the dark green fabric. “It was an accident.”
“But you’re lying!”
He pauses and his head ticks back. “What are you doing here?” he asks again. He’s dodging my answer, as I am his. We’re both stones skipping on the lake, trying to avoid sinking into the depths. It’s inevitable, though. Maybe he knows it, too.
He takes a step closer with a crunching boot, and I take a step back, almost simultaneously. As dance partners do. We’re still the same distance apart, and neither of us has gotten anywhere with this conversation. My heel hits something hollow, and I look down to see a water bottle that must belong to him.
The shard of sunlight that had been brave enough to show itself suddenly disappears, and the grove of spruce becomes shaded within seconds. The NOAA forecast woman’s voice echoes in my mind.
Pressure is dropping rapidly
The air around me begins to change, imperceptibly at first, but then prods me with a knowing gust of cool air. It’s coming. Not a big storm, but big enough I can already feel its strength gathering about me, pressing me to seek the shore. I turn away but hear footsteps in my wake and realize he’s following. The air swirls and hits him straight in the chest. I watch him stagger back and blink dazedly, holding his arms to shield himself from the dirt and dead leaves pelting his face. The water bottle skips and dances over the rough ground, rolling away to clonk quietly against his shoe.
Tell him to leave. Make him go, Anda.
I open my mouth and take a deep breath. Instinct tells me to listen, to do what is right. The pain of resistance twists again in my back, making me wince.
Do it, Anda.
When silence continues to scream inside my brain, she pushes a little harder. The wind whips the dying leaves around us in a slow whirlwind. He doesn’t see her, but I do. The brown leaves rise and take shape behind him. There is a head, a matronly dress. She takes this form because it’s what Father tells me she looked like. She is as motherly as the dead tresses of trees could be.
Anda. Tell him to leave.
“The wa…water.” It hurts to speak. I swallow and clench my fists. “Boil it, or the parasites will eat you alive.”
The leaves fall unceremoniously to the ground in a faint whoosh, the spell broken. I spin around and head to the shore. This time, he doesn’t follow me.
All the way to the lake, I hear nothing but the lamentation of the rising wind and her voice, scolding me.