One day I walked the island out of sheer ennui and found an old canoe at the far end of the property. With my landlord’s permission, I took it out on the water. The next day I felt aches in muscles I hadn’t exerted in years. It was a good ache, a much more manageable pain than the variety I’d been suffering.
I began to row every morning for three, four hours. Initially I remained in the boat, watching the sun light the sky on fire and paint the water blood orange. Later I pushed off for unexplored shorelines, finding corpses in every quarter: empty shells, frozen starfish, bird skulls. I collected them all, laid the bouquets of cold meat on the floor of my canoe. I picked beach peas and sea celery. Straight from the rockweed I plucked and ate soft-shell crabs. Over time I grew bolder still, pulling my canoe from the sea so I could wander the islands, through untamed meadows and mossy thickets, deserted quarries and crumbling cemeteries. I discovered meadows of Queen Anne’s lace, hedgerows of rugosa. I spotted goldfinches, puffins, black guillemots. All around me life persisted, apathetic to my pain and plight. The indifference was somehow soothing. I was awake as I hadn’t been in decades. I itched with a desire to start anew.
On the fifth anniversary of Gabe’s death I realized where I’d gone wrong.
It wasn’t that my principles were unsound. The Five had hung on my every word in the early days. I could still hear hundreds of theater seats bouncing closed as my fans leapt to their feet at the end of Fearless, could smell their sweaty exhilaration when they were freed from pain and fear. I remembered rushing back to my dressing room mirror after each show for a glimpse of that orgasmic flush, understanding I, too, had been transformed.
No, the issue was not my teachings. The issue was the venue.
How could I get through to the public when a much louder and more powerful force was breathing down their necks? What hope did I have of changing hearts and minds so long as every poor lost patsy was caught up in society’s expectations? If I could get them out of their environments, away from their cities and jobs and families, perhaps then I could effect lasting change.
Had Lisa not feared loneliness, she would be happy. Had Evelyn not feared failure, she would still be an artist. Had Jack not feared parental estrangement, she would be free.
Had Gabriel not feared danger, he would be alive.
I could bear to surrender not one more soul to fear. My inheritance from Gabe could give me my second act, an opportunity to shift the spotlight. I studied the violent waters around me and thought, Why not here? Where better than the middle of the sea to prove I wasn’t afraid of my own death or anyone else’s? What better daily reminder that control over fear required constant vigilance? Five years could fall like sand through one’s fingers. With an entire ocean between us and the mainland, my acolytes could leave behind their unhealthy habits and relationships. They could start anew.
I hurried back to my cabin and told the proprietress of my plan. She tipped me off to a newly available island, listed by a family who had fallen into financial duress. The grounds had been in their name for generations, but no one had lived there for half a century. I paid a hefty price for it, considering the state of disrepair. A construction crew knocked down the ramshackle main house and built my own glass palace in its place. They cleared the land for fifty guest rooms and two class trailers. The pier, gate, and hedge wall came later. I left only the old schoolhouse to remind us of the importance of self-education.
In the summer of 2012 I opened our doors. Here my new flock could forget past calamities. We would be safe from naysayers, thanks to heightened security. This was our chance to escape the viciousness of the real world. Madame Fearless was dead, but from her ashes rose a phoenix named Rebecca.
I am goddamn invincible.
I could help the common man if he gave me one more chance. The masses made the world go round but couldn’t stop their own lives from spinning out of control. If the people learned how to challenge their fears, they might evolve into the idealized version of themselves of which they had always dreamt, the one I spoke about in Fearless, the person I’d spent all my life trying to become. A maximized self, if you will.
I knew the way. They only had to follow.
32
Natalie
JANUARY 9, 2020
I JUMP ABOUT twelve feet in the air, shoving my phone in my pocket before whirling around. A fifty-something woman, dressed top to toe in Carhartt, stands on the path. The sight of her shaved head enrages me. She drops her wheelbarrow full of tree branches and puts her hands on her hips. Has she seen my phone?
“I was trying to find the bathroom and got lost,” I say. “I’m new here.”
The woman scowls, a definite Southern twang to her speech. “You were looking for the bathroom past a ‘Staff Only’ sign? I was born at night, honey, but it wasn’t last night.”
“It was an honest mistake.”
She marches over to me, stopping nose to nose. “I think what happened is I caught you snooping.” She pulls the toothpick from her mouth, teeth yellow and uneven. “Come with me.”
The woman takes giant strides, dragging me by the coat sleeve without touching my arm. I try to pull away but her grip is firm.
“Is this necessary?”
She grunts. “We get people like you all the time. Entitled, think the rules don’t apply to them.”
I yank free, stop walking. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Yeah, you stay here, princess. See how long it takes you to find your way back.”
She has a point. I hurry after her.
“You come here with your demands and designer clothes and shiny hair, subtle as a heart attack. Meanwhile, no one sees me even though I’m a full head taller than you. Ever think about why that is?” She doesn’t give me time to answer. “?’Cause I don’t stomp around the dang woods breaking twigs and cussing my head off, whining that the whole world is out to get me. Quiet sinners get a lot further than loud ones.”
She taps her temple, never slowing or hesitating as we march through the forest. A few minutes later, I spot the door I came through and let out a breath, barely hearing her now that I’m safe again.
The woman opens the door and shoves me through. “You gotta be more fox, less hound, if you want to give ’em the slip.” She closes the door behind us and jabs at the large black letters: STAFF ONLY. “Next time, listen to the signs.”
She trudges toward Rebecca’s house. I think the ordeal is over until she turns around, waving her arms. “I don’t got all day, princess. Let’s go.”
The ‘princess’ insult has worn thin, but I think better of crossing this woman. As we speed-walk across the now-busy grounds, people watch us curiously.
“I’m Kit’s sister,” I say, hoping that holds sway.
“I know exactly who you are.”
My heart throbs. Is she the one who e-mailed me?
By now we’ve reached the garden behind Rebecca’s house. The clouds loom, thick and ready to burst. I have never seen so much gray in one place.
The woman pulls a walkie-talkie from her back pocket and lifts it to her mouth. “Kit, you there?”