Suddenly, as if nudged by a thought, the boy gathers his fishing gear and leaves, heading for the shore.
I’m tempted to follow him, but my hands are full and that isn’t my purpose. Carefully, I push at his shelter door, which opens with a traitorous creak. Inside, it’s starkly empty, compared to when the others come. They bring bottles of oily insecticide, complicated cooking units, and expensive water bottles. They hang clothes from the trees that are always some shade of khaki. Their shoes are sturdy, with bountiful straps and colorful laces.
This boy has one bag, and his belongings remain nestled inside, terrified of abandonment. I watch the bag, wondering if it will speak to me. But there are no murmurs of filth or desecration. There are dark things, yes, but they hide skillfully and won’t reveal themselves to me. I concentrate harder, prying, as fingers would do on a closed oyster. Still, I hear nothing.
I hesitate with my newspaper packet of cooked fish. Finally, I decide to leave it on the floor by his sleeping bag, but just before I place it there, the wind enters the shelter.
Do not, Anda.
Do not.
The cool air twists about my ankles, and she tries to pull me away. But it is just wind, and the wind is part of me, too. I hear a sigh of disappointment when I place the parcel on the wooden bed. Then I run home.
All the way back, she berates me.
“I didn’t start this,” I explain aloud. “He started it first. I’m paying him back. Now we’re even.”
You’re using reason. You’re defensive.
“I am?” I wonder. It’s a delightful sensation. Foreign. “Why, yes. Yes, I suppose I am.”
When I reach the door to the house, something isn’t right. Something in my center, a gnawing. When I enter the kitchen, the scent of butter and salty fish assail my nose, pulling me forward. The cast-iron frying pan is now cold and glossy with congealed brown butter and bits of crusty skin. I lift it to my face and take a cautious lick. I lick it until it’s clean.
So this is what hunger feels like.
Chapter Nine
HECTOR
Shelter, shelter, shelter.
Outside of eating enough, it’s my main goal right now. If I’m going to survive here until I turn eighteen, I need shelter. It’s all I should be thinking about, but things keep happening. Weird things.
Today it was a hat.
It was sitting on the ground at my campsite. I knew it hadn’t been tossed there by the wind. First of all, there’s nothing left behind on this island. The campers practically spit-shine the pine needles, they leave it so pristine. Also, the hat brim was weighted down with about twenty pounds’ worth of rocks to keep it from blowing away.
Kind of overkill, but charming anyway.
I’ve seen tourists wear these kinds of hats. The ones with the floppy brim and an elastic cord that cinches under your chin, because how else will muggers know you’re ripe for the picking? Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead in something like this, but I know she watches me. Yesterday, I spent the whole afternoon squinting into the sun and cursing when I went fishing. It’s hard to fish when one hand is being used as a visor. Hence the hat.
I don’t often see her, but there are other clues.
Two days ago, I froze my ass (and arms, and legs, and junk) off after a quick dive in the lake water to bathe. The shower units at Windigo have been turned off, and I couldn’t stand my own stink anymore. I had to wrestle on dry clothes over dripping wet skin. Not fun. The next morning, there was a tea towel hung on the tree outside my shack. Which means she saw me naked. Jesus, yes, she saw me naked.
Two weeks ago, it was a battered old badminton birdie. What do they call it? Oh, yeah. A shuttlecock. The kind with the plastic feathers and the little white snub tip. A few days had gone by and I hadn’t seen her. I had gotten caught up with my plan to winter-proof my shelter. I’d tried but failed to break into the ranger’s quarters—the doors were steel and the window too small to slip through. So it was this camping shelter or nothing. The front wall is basically one huge screen, and it’s got to be covered. I’d spent days and days gathering broken tree limbs, or sawing them off myself, getting my hands all gummy with sap.
And it’s hard to work on shelter when I’m so hungry. Twenty-four hours a day, my empty stomach screams at me. I’m ravenous when I sleep, if that’s even possible. I’ve already eaten through all my food supplies. My attempts to ration spectacularly failed after four days with no fish. The dreams of Whoppers and crisp, salty fries and Wendy’s Frosty shakes don’t help. My pants are already hanging on my hips more, and I’m tired all the time.
But tiredness and hunger aren’t the worst. I can’t stop thinking.
I think about Dad, and if he’s talked to my uncle about whether they’ve found me. If he really, truly needs to leave Germany to come figure out where I am. Or I think about my mom. Is she happier in Seoul without me? Does she still eat Botan Rice Candy, or did she really only buy that for me?
I remember what it was like to wake up after hours of oblivion, my mouth dry and rancid. Seeing the newest Halo for Xbox on my bed where my uncle had left it. Maybe twenty bucks. Something that says sorry. Also, shut up.
And then I would start forgetting about my shelter, about surviving, about hunger, and my mind would become a cesspool of thoughts I don’t want or need. And that’s when I’d see it.
This broken little shuttlecock, nestled in my sleeping bag. I put it in my pocket, went back to sawing off branches, and spent those hours and hours pondering why the fuck is a shuttlecock on a nature preserve in the middle of Lake Superior? Actually, maybe that’s why. Because she knows, somehow, that when I have nothing to think about but myself, I start longing for a cigarette butt. I start reaching for my knife.
I haven’t tried to hurt myself since she stopped me, days ago.
So in between shelter-building, I’ve become her fishmonger. A really sucky fishmonger. I fish every day, but I’m not lucky enough to catch a fish every time. Still, I’m getting better and better at it. Feldtmann Lake has become a favorite place to go, despite the long-ass ten-mile hike. I know which shady spots are the best, and the fact that the fish bite most when it rains a little in the early mornings. The rod and reel have become an extension of my body when I cast. The fine monofilament begins to make a proud callus between my thumb and forefinger when I feel the line for bites.