“What do you mean?”
“It’s almost here,” says Janey. “It’s getting colder and colder, and we’re half freezing already. Some of the girls don’t even have shoes. And it would be too dangerous to try to steal our winter clothing. We’d all have to go home.” Caitlin has a sudden vision of barging into her house, rushing to the cupboard, and running out, streaming sweaters and blankets behind her like a river of warmth.
“So what will we do?” ventures Caitlin after some prolonged silence.
“I don’t know,” says Janey, deep in thought. “We can build fires at night, at least small ones, but even that is dangerous. I suppose we could build them during the day, wherever we find to sleep, but I don’t trust some of the little ones not to burn the entire island down.”
“I’ve never actually heard of someone freezing to death,” says Caitlin tentatively. “I mean, they say you will, but I’ve never known it to actually happen. Maybe it’s not true, that people freeze. Maybe you just get colder and colder.”
“I’ve never known anyone to leap off their roof, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t break their bones,” replies Janey.
There are watchers at night, for movement, for sound, and they crouch in the cold sand, often falling asleep until Janey begins rotating them more often. Fitful and nervous, they envision the wanderers swooping in like birds of prey, seizing the girls with their talons and carrying them off to break their bones and tear their flesh. The wanderers, who have always represented majesty and order, now resemble monsters. And yet the only intruders to break their peace are boys: a runaway pleading to join them, or a little brother seeking the solace of his sister.
And then, the next night, they come. The girls are alerted by Sarah Moses’s shrill scream from the edge of the woods. Sarah comes flying toward the girls, who flutter and flurry like a flock of hens, until Janey runs straight toward the wanderers with her arms outstretched. “Run!” she cries. “Run down the beach and into the fields!”
She collides with the men, and Caitlin can’t tell if they’re trying to contain her or she’s trying to contain them. All she can make out is a tangle of dark, twisted limbs like fallen trees in a storm.
“Run!” yells Janey from within the scuffle, and cursing herself for her cowardice, Caitlin does.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Vanessa
One morning, as Vanessa is leaving for school, Mother stops her. “There’s a shaming today,” Mother says, sounding confused. Usually everyone is informed of both the infraction and the punishment well before the day of a shaming arrives, and school is always canceled so the children can watch and learn.
“Who?” Vanessa asks.
There is a pause, and then Mother says, “Janey Solomon?”
Vanessa shakes her head. “No, that can’t be.”
“No, it can’t,” says Mother, sounding more confused. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
But nothing makes sense lately. Half the girls are missing from school. Letty showed up last week with a broken arm splinted to her side and two black eyes that she refused to talk about. She spoke about the beach, though, as if she would go back soon. “I did whatever I wanted,” she said dreamily. “I slept in the sand and fell asleep by counting stars.”
Mr. Abraham, usually such a stickler for attendance and rules, seems to have given up. Vanessa has the feeling she could get up and walk out of class at any time and he would barely react. Most of the time he has them reading from textbooks, or Our Book. He didn’t mention a shaming when he dismissed class yesterday afternoon, as he usually would.
Vanessa does not look forward to shamings the way some children do, those who love the unique opportunity to mock and jeer an adult. They are simply part of island life, a punishment for those who blaspheme, or have secret meetings, or refuse their chosen profession, or a hundred other reasons. They tend to be fairly perfunctory, unless the crime is something particularly scandalous, like when Jonathan Balthazar lay with June Gideon before her summer of fruition; they were both shamed and then exiled.
When Vanessa arrives at the field, it is milling with people, most of whom are taking the opportunity to catch up with friends and neighbors. Mrs. Joseph the beekeeper’s wife is exchanging some vats of honey for fluffy, peeping chicks from Mrs. Aaron the weaver’s wife, and there is a flock of teenage boys by the edge of the field, voices swelling like there is about to be a fight. The small scaffold is empty, nine wanderers standing nearby in a line, looking solemn. Usually all ten are present, but Vanessa has heard that Mr. Gideon is badly ill and confined to his bed. Father tries to catch her eye, but she gazes in another direction.
Pastor Saul ascends the scaffold and clears his throat to silence everyone. When that doesn’t work, he cries, “Attention!” People quiet and turn to him, although the teenage boys remain distracted until some women hiss at them.
“My brethren, we are attending the shaming of Janey Solomon.”
Vanessa freezes, and there is a buzz of shock. So Mother had heard correctly. But children are never shamed, no matter what their infraction—it is a punishment reserved for adults. Before she realizes what she is doing, Vanessa runs up to Father, ignoring the gasps from the crowd and glares from the other wanderers. “Father, it’s a mistake,” she whispers.
“Vanessa, please go back with everyone else.”
“But she’s not an adult! You can’t shame her.”
“It’s done, Vanessa,” he says in a dull tone she doesn’t recognize, and she backs away. Looking around wildly, she sees her teacher, Mr. Abraham, who appears as stunned as everyone else. Running over, she tugs on his sleeve.
“Mr. Abraham,” she hisses. “Stop them. They can’t.”
He looks at her for a few moments, as if he doesn’t recognize her. “What do you want me to do?” he says finally.
“Stop them! They can’t shame Janey, they don’t shame children, children belong to their parents—”
“Janey doesn’t belong to anyone,” he says coolly, but then sees her distress and takes her hand in his.