But there’s enough of my old self to firm my grip and pull him the final hundred yards to shore. She can’t fight what I’ve already won, though barely. When the waterlogged craft lands with a crested wave onto a flat stone of the beach, my father hollers. This is enough to free him from his fear, and he carries the lamp with him as Hector trips and falls out of the boat onto dry land.
He just kneels there, gasping. He’s been hyperventilating since the motor stalled, and with good reason. Triangles of light through the punched tin partitions of the lamp mark his wet skin and soaked pants. He shivers violently. After a few minutes, he stands up and refuses Father’s offer to help him up.
He won’t look at either of us. We stand there, a trio on the brink of something that will change everything, waiting for his sentence to ring out.
“I’ll go back to the mainland without a fight,” he whispers. “I promise. If you swear you’ll tell me everything.”
Mother brings a soft breeze that caresses us all.
Do you understand the worst thing about making choices? There are consequences.
...
I wait outside while Hector and my father go in the house. I think of the ordinary tasks that must happen. They comfort me, almost as much as a soothing low barometric pressure.
He’s changing out of his cold clothes.
Father puts on water to boil for a hot drink.
They find two crates to sit on, flanking the fire.
But that’s all I can imagine. These are the limitations I have; the bit of normal life I’ve had only carries me so far. Want and need grate at my heart, making it beat erratically. It’s not in tatters, not yet. But it’s growing more ragged by the hour. What do I want? Still, even now, I’m not fully sure.
But I do know that I’m not capable of hurting Hector.
That’s a lie. Now you’re capable of more hurt than you can even begin to fathom.
I stare out at the darkness of the water, the oily black sky. I know she isn’t trying to upset me. She only tells me truths that I need to hear.
After a stretch of fifteen long minutes, I knock on the door. It creaks open, and Hector’s face meets mine.
“May I come in now?”
“He wants to talk to me, alone. We’re going to the lighthouse for a while. We’ll be back soon.”
Of course. No one could explain it better than Father. He was there in the beginning, before there was an Anda of flesh. He can tell the whole story, without me and my clumsy attempts at kneading words into useful sentences. And it makes perfect sense to go to the lighthouse—the one place on this island that I’m loath to follow. It hurts my teeth just to know they’ll be climbing that iron staircase soon.
I wait another hour. Then I open the door to the house. They’ve already gone. The room inside is empty, and the light from the camp stove is dead.
I shed the boots and the clothing that were never anything but a disguise. I find a white eyelet nightgown in my bag—one of my favorites, with the hem so frayed and worn that its softness lulls me with familiar comfort.
And then I walk to the lake. It’s been too long. Any energy I had, I used bringing Hector to shore. I’ve never been so drained. The jealousy of the wind and air has settled into neutrality that relieves me. They’ll let me pass without more bickering. The coming storm hasn’t arrived yet, but there’s enough energy in the depths to nourish me just a little. I’ve spent entire weeks in the water in November, but during this month, I’ve never spent so much time on land before. It has taken a toll.
And I’m finding that it’s a toll I simply can’t pay.
I’ve been trying to ignore the consequences of turning away from my witch side. But the island tugs and heaves with rot where there ought not be decay, wheezes in unblinking awakeness when it should be resting. And my own hunger is becoming something I’m terrified will be uncontrollable. Around Hector or Father, I might commit something so monstrous, it would fracture me forever.
I have to be one Anda. I cannot live in halves or quarters or broken pieces. How? How am I going to do this?
Come to me, Anda.
I hate her. I love her.
But I cannot say no, not right now. And so, with water in my eyes, I answer the call.
Chapter Forty-Three
HECTOR
Teeth chattering, I change into a spare set of clothes. Mr. Selkirk unzips my sleeping bag so I can wear it as a blanket around my shoulders. He pours out two steaming enamel mugs of hot tea and hands one to me. When I stop shivering, he grabs the lamp and tilts his head to the darkened corridor. “Let’s go.”
I follow him through the house to the back. A narrow covered passageway leads to the door of the lighthouse. Inside, a metal spiral staircase climbs the interior of the octagonal walls. As I start up the steps, my hand goes to touch the sandstone bricks. Two crowded windows of thick glass reveal nothing outside.
“How tall is this thing?” I ask, wanting to say something. Anything.
“About sixty feet or so. Walls are double-built. Pretty solid.”
We’ve only gone about ten steps, but my legs are already fatigued from climbing. The lack of food has taken a toll. I try to hide my huffing and puffing once we’re halfway up. The staircase spirals narrower and narrower as we climb, and it’s just as cold in here as it is outside. Must be barely forty degrees.
“Seems like a miserable place to live,” I comment between heavy breaths.
“Yes, well. The second lighthouse keeper was warned it was lonely, so he got himself a wife before he started working here. Stayed on from May till December for thirty-two years. Had eleven or twelve kids, too.”
What a life that must have been. I can’t tease out if I’m jealous of that lighthouse keeper, or glad that wasn’t my life. But I’m no one to judge.
We finally reach the top and it’s open to the air, with nothing but an iron railing to keep us from falling sixty feet down. At the center is the light, pulsing into the darkness. It’s housed in an octagonal chamber built of iron and fitted with glass. The thing inside is blindingly bright as it goes on and off. I have to shield my eyes from the flashes.
“God. This thing is on every night, all year long?”
“Yes. Runs on solar. It changes its own lightbulbs when they burn out. It’s not even glass.”
“How far out can you see it?”
“Eh? Maybe ten miles or so.” But Anda’s dad doesn’t seem to want to talk about the light anymore. He invites me to sit down with my back to the powerful beams. We stay silent for a long time, and the sound of the water hitting the shore rises up to us. It’s windy and freezing cold, but I’m not budging until I hear what I need to know.
Mr. Selkirk fishes around in his pockets for something. “Did you mean what you said? That you’ll go home, without a fight?”
“I said I’d go. I didn’t say I’d go home.” I won’t meet Mr. Selkirk’s eyes. “But I’ll be off the island, if that’s what you’re asking.”