“Well, well, good afternoon, young ladies. What a surprise this is! Out in the middle of nowhere, no less.”
I startled awake, quickly glancing about me, as was habit, for the whereabouts of my sister. She sat as she had when we arrived, capturing every detail of the beach pea’s purple flowers and curling tendrils, and the slender pods that were just beginning to form. She had not appeared to notice the man and woman who were walking toward us along the beach. I knew better.
I jumped to my feet, smoothing out my light cotton skirt and squinting up at the young man, whose voice sounded foreign, as though he had stepped right out of the pages of my book. He stood well over six feet but was slender, with long arms and long fingers and closely set hazel eyes. He was shaven, except for the dark hint of a beard that suggested his razor hadn’t been used that day. His cotton pants were slightly stained at the knees, his shirtsleeves rolled up; a wide-brimmed hat sat on his head, and a satchel was slung over his shoulder.
A few paces behind him walked a woman so slight that I would have thought she was a girl except for the way she carried herself. She was picking her way along the beach, her face flushed from the heat and sun, her nose and cheeks liberally patterned with freckles, her hair pulled back and tucked beneath a wide-brimmed hat, not unlike her companion’s. She wore trousers, rolled up at the ankle and cinched in at the waist with a piece of rope. She was no taller than I, with inquisitive green eyes and delicate hands.
The man stretched out one long limb, offering his hand in greeting. “I’m Alfred.”
I shook his hand.
“This is my wife, Millie.”
“Elizabeth. That’s my sister, Emily. She doesn’t talk so much,” I added, hoping to avoid the awkwardness that often followed someone meeting Emily. “My brother Charlie is around somewhere.”
I gazed toward the woods, thinking Charlie might hear our conversation and emerge. I wasn’t frightened, not at all, but the appearance of these two strangers on an otherwise isolated island far out on Lake Superior had unsettled me, especially since I’d just emerged from the dreamland of Gulliver’s Travels.
Alfred turned and was examining Sweet Pea. “Did you sail here?”
Sometimes adults ask the oddest questions of children. I bit back a sarcastic reply that we had actually flown the vessel there, harnessed to a flock of cormorants. Of course, he was simply making conversation, thinking, as he must, that he had traveled to the far edges of civilization, beyond the reach of children appearing on deserted shores of remote islands in a little wooden boat. So instead I replied, “Charlie is a very good sailor.”
“Have you come far?”
“Not so far. Porphyry Point Light Station.”
“Ah, yes, around the other side of Edward Island,” Millie said. I saw her looking intently at Emily.
Alfred circled Sweet Pea. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”
I nodded. “We use her at the light to ferry provisions on and off the supply boat. And to go fishing. Pa bought a motor that can be mounted on the back, and the mast can be stepped when it’s not needed. But Charlie prefers to sail her.”
I watched Millie watching Emily as Alfred inspected the “pretty little thing.”
I remembered my manners then, and made the appropriate inquiries in return, keeping one eye on Emily.
“Do you have a boat here?”
Alfred removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow and neck. “Just a little canoe, a wood and canvas thing. It serves its purpose. Millie and I have to provide the propulsion. No sails or motors. Just us and our paddles.”
Somehow Alfred didn’t strike me as the boating type. He didn’t look like he would be terribly comfortable or confident out on the wide stretches of a lake the size of Superior, especially given as it was to squalls and fog and summer storms that kicked up waves taller even than he was. And while canoes occasionally stopped at the light, they were usually paddled by someone who appeared to have more experience.
“Awfully big lake for a canoe.”
Emily had moved on from the beach peas, her colored pencils and sketchbook sitting on a rock while she crawled through the sand, following a black beetle. The insect scurried over pebbles, then flicked its legs, digging itself into the beach until it disappeared beneath the hot sand. Emily watched where it had gone, waiting.
Millie watched Emily.
“Quite. Yes.” Alfred stood looking at Sweet Pea. “Oh! Yes, right! We came out on a tug, from Port Arthur. The James Whalen, I believe she was called. Strapped the canoe to her deck. Dropped us off two weeks ago, and they’ll be back in another two. We’re just using the canoe to explore the island.”
Emily’s sketchbook had caught Millie’s attention. Before I could call out a warning, she stooped down to pick it up. Emily’s hand shot out and snatched it, clutching it to her chest.
“Please, Mrs. . . .” I was at a loss for words. We were not in the habit of calling adults by their first names, as young people do these days, but I did not know Millie’s last name. “Mrs. Millie, Emily . . . my sister, she’s a little . . .” I didn’t want to call her odd, although most folks thought her so. I didn’t want to call her different. She was. “She’s special. She doesn’t take kindly to—”
Millie reached down and touched Emily on the shoulder.
Emily screamed. She flung her arms wide, knocking the woman to the ground. I ran to Emily. Alfred ran to his wife.
Charlie appeared then, clambering over the rocky outcrop at the far end of the bay and sprinting along the beach. “What the hell?”
Millie rejected her husband’s attempts to help her to her feet. “I had no right. No right at all. I apologize. My fault. My fault completely.”
Her hat had come off, releasing her hair from its confines, and it tumbled in red-gold waves around her shoulders. I had never seen such hair, the color of the evening sky. Emily noticed, too. She pulled from my grasp and walked toward Millie, taking a lock between her fingers, twisting it.
“Emily!” Charlie’s voice was as firm as his stride.
“No, please.” Millie’s words belied the tension in her body. “It’s quite all right. Let her be.”
Emily let the coiled hair drop and moved her fingers to the freckles on Millie’s face, her gray eyes wide and inquisitive as she traced a pattern from spot to spot. She took Millie’s hand, pushing up the sleeve of her top and rubbing her fingers up and down her arm.
“Really, now!” Alfred had moved a step closer to his wife.
“Alfred.” Millie’s tone stopped her husband.
Emily continued to explore, gently, until her scrutiny came to rest on the green eyes. Millie held her gaze. It was very unlike Emily to seek out and hold the eyes of someone, anyone, other than me.