My classmates returned to our camp and collected every weapon available. Disgustedly, I listened to Rittika bark orders. Then I helped Mel take a seat on a boulder shouldering Conch Lake. We dangled our feet in the water. With her good hand, Mel poked at her sling.
“My arm’s itchy as hell,” she complained.
“Because it’s healing.”
“God,” she said, rubbing her eyes, trying not to cry. “Maybe Rittika’s right. Maybe I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, and never did.”
“Come on, Mel. You know exactly what’s going on. She’s talking trash about you so she can replace you.”
She sniffed, then smiled ruefully. “Yeah, yeah. I get that. I mean, it happens all over the animal kingdom: the desire to rule. Remember when we saw those ants at Drake Rosemont? Did you know that every ant colony has exactly one queen? One queen ruling thousands? And she’ll sacrifice every last one of them to retain her throne.”
“It’s a brutal world,” I said. “Especially if you’re a teenage girl.”
“It sure is, Rockwell.”
I wiggled my toes, watching tiny minnows encircle my ankles. “This probably isn’t the right time to ask you this,” I said.
“The right time to ask me what?”
“Can you stop calling me Rockwell?”
She looked both taken aback and amused. “Why?”
“I kind of hate it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I hate being compared to Norman Rockwell.”
“I thought he was a beloved American figure.”
“He is. That’s why I hate it.”
“I don’t understand.” Nervously, she swished her feet back and forth in the water. My own feet felt heavy, suddenly. In fact, my whole body did.
“For starters, my family is nothing like the families he painted. We’re not your wholesome, all-American, white-picket-fence type.”
“Oh, come on, of course you are! I’ve been to your house. It smells like fresh-baked cookies. Your mother wears a gingham apron. Your father puts his hat on a hat rack. You have a hat rack. It’s by the front door. I’ve seen it. You are the perfect all-American family.”
“Trust me, we’re not. All you’re seeing is surface. Underneath, there are a ton of problems. Especially with Alexa.”
“Well, everyone has problems.”
“I’m not talking about small stuff.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Self-mutilation. Bulimia. Suicide attempts.”
Agape, she stared at me. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because you always call me Rockwell. It’s sweet, in a way. I guess I didn’t want to ruin your image of me.”
“But suicide attempts … really?”
“Yeah. And stays in a psych ward. Which really is like in the movies, by the way. Bolted windows, no sharp edges, padded walls, the whole shebang.”
“Wow.”
“And that smell of cookies? It’s your imagination. My mother only cooks, like, twice a year. Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the time she’s a zombie.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a user, Mel. Sedatives, mostly. She lives on them.”
“I’m so sorry, Sam. I wish you’d told me.”
“Yeah, I should have. A long time ago.”
“And your father?”
“He’s the reason my sister can’t deal with life.”
Now I was the one fighting back tears. Mel rubbed my shoulder as I took deep breaths and tried to hold it together.
“I never told you, but I once studied Norman Rockwell for a report,” I said, sniffing. “His life was totally different from his art. Did you know he was a mess? He had four different wives. Four! And one of them killed herself. He had depression, too. Bad depression. So maybe his perfect paintings were an escape. Or maybe they were a Band-Aid. Either way, even Norman Rockwell wasn’t Rockwell, if you know what I mean.”
Mel nodded, taking it all in. Together, we gazed at Conch Lake. I noticed some dragonflies buzzing above the surface. They were beautiful, their sleek bodies slicing through the air, their wings diaphanous.
“Damselflies,” Mel said, following my eyes.
“I thought they were dragonflies.”
“No, they’re in the same family, but different.”
“How?”
“Damselflies are thinner, more delicate-looking. Pretty predators, I guess you could say. They’re amazing hunters. See the way they’re hovering right now? They’re waiting to strike. As soon as dinner comes along—a mosquito or even a smaller damselfly—they’ll nab it.”
My eyes still wet with tears, I watched the insects buzzing just above the water. Their bodies were lovely colors: sky blue, metallic green, amber. It was hard to believe that such gorgeous creatures possessed such savage instincts. That they were waiting for just the right moment to go in for the kill.
Then again, I’d seen it before.
Mel and I didn’t join the hunt that day. We didn’t see the sense in it. No matter how passionate Rittika was about finding the enemy, we knew he was better at hiding than we were at seeking.
Hours later, our classmates began to return, pair by pair, empty-handed. The enemy had evaded them once again, disappearing down his rabbit hole, leaving no trace. Rish and Chester were the last two people to arrive. They loped slowly toward the campfire, necks bent, shoulders slumped. It was clear something had gone wrong.
“We didn’t find the enemy, but we did find Anne Marie,” Chester said tremulously. “She’s on the other side of the island.”
“She’s—broken,” Rish added in a whisper.
“Is she alive?” Mel asked.
Rish just shook his head.
In a haze I followed the group, picturing Anne Marie in my mind. In a morbid corner of my imagination, I saw her atop the lookout tower, where she’d made the ill-fated column of stones. But when Rish and Chester led us to where she lay, it was on the shore below. Her body rested atop a bed of jagged rocks.
We made our way over to her slowly, wanting to avert our eyes. She was on her side, splayed and bent in ways not even a contortionist could have survived. Seawater soaked her skin. A ribbon of kelp twined around her hair. It would have been easy to focus on her body, for she was wearing nothing, and in her nakedness revealed the small, lean bones of a child. Yet it wasn’t her body we stared at, but what was attached to it. A pair of what appeared to be—what had to be—wings.
Even wet, sandy, and fractured, those wings were breathtaking. From tip to tip, each was easily as long as Anne Marie’s body. As with the nest, she had used the island’s bounty to build them: lush palm fronds, fanned grasses, stalks, leaves, and real feathers. I couldn’t tell how the wings were held together, but I could see the apparatus that bonded them to her body: the shell and straps of her old backpack. Anne Marie had not disclosed that she still had it. Then again, she’d never been one to reveal much. I hadn’t known, for instance, what she’d been doing all this time in her nest. Not just waiting and watching, as I’d thought, but working diligently on a means of escape.
She’d even told me about her project, but I hadn’t paid attention.
Anne Marie’s creation was just as inspired, architecturally and artistically, as Mel’s hot-air balloon. And, in the end, just as futile. I could imagine all too easily what had happened, how she had perished. She would have stood on the very brink of the outcrop, toes dangling over the edge. Maybe she was already wearing her wings, or maybe she’d waited until that moment to put them on. Slinging them over her back, how had she felt? Strong, tentative, certain? I wondered how hard the wind had blown. I wondered if she’d lost her balance or jumped with courage.
I liked to think Anne Marie had made it for a few seconds. In my mind I saw her aloft. Gust flying. That’s what Mr. Sharpe called it. Riding the wind, rising on each surge, falling at each lull. What seabirds did.
Mel knelt down and ran her fingers over broken feathers and torn fronds. She wiped a bit of sand from Anne Marie’s scratched forehead. Nearby, waves pounded and pulverized the rugged cliffs, churning stone into sand. The water, whitecapped and foaming, was treacherous on this side of the island. The reef didn’t extend this far. There was no protection against riptides and whirlpools curling below the surface. Any one of them could have been Anne Marie’s undoing. Or maybe the fall itself had been enough.
“Tide’s coming in,” Mel said.
“Maybe that’s okay,” I replied. Anne Marie had never liked the island. Would it be so bad if the ocean took her away?
I gazed at the choppy gray breakers and thought about how I could have done more to help her. Reality had been slipping away from her for a long time. I’d seen so many signs, and yet I’d mostly ignored them. I hadn’t even informed Mel or anyone else about the nest. Maybe if my classmates had known the full extent of her illness, they could have helped her to heal. Or maybe I could have—if I’d tried harder. So many regrets. But there was nothing to do about them now except turn them over and over in my head.
As my classmates and I stood on the shore, sloshing water crept toward us, inch by inch. Then it began to close in on Anne Marie.
“Leave her be,” Rittika said authoritatively. “We need to concentrate on the ones who are still alive.”
With a shudder I realized Mel had said the same thing about Jeremiah.
Later on, thoughts of my sister came to me unbidden. Now that I’d failed to save Anne Marie, I wanted more than anything to be there for Alexa. I promised myself that if I had the chance, I would. If I made it home, I would no longer let my parents, or my own fear, stand in the way of helping her.
The problem was, I didn’t know if I’d ever make it home. Maybe Alexa and I would always be separated by whole continents and oceans. Maybe that last road trip in the Subaru was the final adventure we’d ever have together. Maybe I’d never get to tell her how much I loved her.
I was too heartbroken to fight my guilt. Too miserable to do anything but stew in self-loathing. When I saw raw conch meat on the rock table, I swiped it without a second thought. I didn’t know whom it belonged to, and I didn’t care.
Returning to the jungle, I found a secluded spot. Craning my neck, I tried to get a look at the birthmark on my shoulder. Without a mirror, I couldn’t see it well. But I knew it was there. A colorless ghost that followed me everywhere. Alexa had more obvious signs of deficiency: scars, brittle hair, a perpetually sore throat. But I’d never doubted that there was something wrong with me, too. Something inherently and irreversibly flawed.
I took a big, fat, flesh-colored wad of conch meat and shoved it into my mouth. It went down easily enough, and I ate more. Great big bites of it, as much as I could stuff in. I’d never eaten it raw before, but I did then. Raw, briny, chewy, primal. So much I gagged and nearly threw up. But I didn’t. Juice running down my chin, I held it down. I held all of it in.