And wherever it is we are out here in the most forbidding swath of Canada, Callie is acting in a way I’ve never seen. All of our siblings, these Icelings, are acting in a way that none of us has ever seen. Maybe this is them coming alive. And maybe it’s this weird moonlike place that’s allowing them to do it. It’s as if something long dormant inside of them is getting up and stretching and taking a look around.
Someone is calling my name. For one completely insane moment, I think, for no reason other than pure and desperate desire, that it’s Callie, but then that crazy thought is squashed when I see Stan running up to us, still shouting, “Hey, Lorna!”
“Emily, this is Stan,” I say. “We rode up together; his brother is that big guy over there, Ted.”
“Hey,” Stan says, and I can’t help but notice a little extra color rise up into his cheeks.
“Emily’s sister is Callie’s . . . Other,” I say, and Emily smiles and nods.
“Ah,” Stan says. “I’m still looking for whoever brought Ted’s guy up. Anyway, listen. Bobby says someone found a ferry to charter.”
“Over there?” I ask, pointing to the fleet of old metal clunkers parked over at the dock. “It’s one of those?”
Stan nods his head.
“A ferry?” says Emily. “To where?”
“The island, I guess,” Stan says. “Their island.”
“Jesus,” Emily says. “So this is really happening, huh?”
“Yep,” Stan says.
“Are we . . . going over there with them?” Emily asks.
“We better be,” I say and exchange a hard look with Stan, who doesn’t seem as sure as I do about heading over to the island.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go find Bobby.”
We make our way down to the landing, where all those industrial-looking boats and rigs are stationed. Only one looks big enough to carry a hundred Icelings and their hundred adoptive siblings, so I’m assuming that one’s ours. Bobby and another guy are standing on the dock in front of this huge barge-looking thing, talking to the grizzled guy I saw when we first pulled up, the one who looks exactly like a cartoon version of a captain, who I’m assuming is the captain. Seeing him up close, I realize he doesn’t actually have an eye patch—must have been a shadow—but he does have a cane, which makes me break into a small smile. Stan, Emily, and I push through and join Bobby in the powwow.
“And you’re sure you want to go . . . there?” the captain says, pointing to a barely discernible dot on the horizon.
“Yes,” Bobby says, and a whole chorus of yeses follow, rippling back through the crowd of people.
The captain gives us one more long, skeptical look before he relents. “Well,” he says. “So long as you’re sure.” He lifts up his chin and puffs his chest and puts his hands around his mouth. “All aboard!” he shouts, and maybe it’s just the way the cold air is affecting our vocal cords, but I think I hear a little bit of sadness in his tone.
After much corralling and coaxing, we herd our Icelings on board, and now we’re traveling again, having traded in our cars for a completely luxury-free boat built to withstand the Arctic. It’s really more of a freighter than a ferry. There’s a top deck, where the winds are awful. There’s below deck, which is still very cold but warmer than up top. It’s damp down here, like an old unfinished basement, all wet metal and bad pipes.
The fact that this captain from central casting agreed to take all of us like it was normal . . . I don’t know. Either this isn’t the first time he’s ferried dozens of bizarrely similar-to-identical teenagers and their adoptive siblings across these freezing cold waters or he’s the maritime version of the cops who ushered us through that checkpoint. Or he just doesn’t care. Any of those answers is unsettling, and I have to actively shove aside the worry that wherever we’re going, it’s a trap.
Because I don’t much see that we’ve got a choice. This is where they want to go. It’s where they have to go. And honestly, I don’t see how I could go back at this point. Going forward might kill us. But going back . . . How do you go back to your family after all this? How do you look at your parents like you still trust them? How do you look them in the eye and not spit in that eye?
Stan and Emily go below deck, but I stay up on the top while I can stand it, trying to see as much as I can for as long as I can. Callie’s with Tara, and they’re holding hands.