“It can’t happen. Her sisters were the same way. Don’t know who the fathers were, but legend says her sisters were like Anda. And they kept killing every November, tending to the Isle until their human sides just faded. I don’t think there is ‘trying’ in this scenario, Hector. There is no good end to this story. But there could be one for you, and that would mean leaving.” He pauses. “I’m not being selfish about Anda. Truly. If you don’t leave, she’ll swallow you whole and spit out your bones. She’ll forget you meant anything to her by December.”
All this time, I’ve been hanging out with something that could kill me, but I thought it could end. That she could change. What was I thinking? Should I just get out of here as soon as I can? But then again, she didn’t kill me. She did the opposite. But how much longer can she hold out until I get hurt? Until I die?
I digest all this for several minutes.
“So why did you come back?” I finally ask.
“I knew something had affected Anda when she allowed that survivor. I didn’t expect it to be you. You’ve changed her, somehow.”
“You say that as if I’ve done something wrong.”
“You have.” He stands up, slowly, hand on hip as if his joints ache. As if the conversation just aged him ten more years. He starts to descend the metal staircase, lantern in hand. The light blinds me as I follow him.
“Wait. What have I done that’s so bad? She would have killed people. She’s a murderer, you’re telling me, right? She sinks ships for breakfast. So why the hell is it so bad for her to…not kill people? To be more human? Maybe none of her sisters ever tried hard enough.”
Mr. Selkirk turns around, and the lamplight shines upward, casting eerie shadows on his chin and nose and eye bags. He looks straight out of a Halloween horror movie, but when he lowers the lamp a little and the harsh shadows soften, he transforms back into a sad old man. Loneliness has carved out his cheeks, his temples.
“There ain’t no life without death. Always has been, always will be.” He shakes a finger at me. “And it’s not just that. Boats aren’t natural, Hector. Trying to use a hollowed-out hunk of metal to command something untamed like a lake, it isn’t natural. Men take and take of nature all the time. Oh, they think they’re being good and fair, lording over everything. That they deserve it all. But witches have been taking payment since we first started to challenge the Lady, back in the seventeenth century, the first time a schooner ever touched the water. And she don’t take much, to be honest. It isn’t up to you or me to decide the balance of things we don’t really understand.”
“But—”
“I find it curious that a fella running away from humanity wants someone like Anda to be more human.”
I shut my mouth.
“Anyways,” he adds, “time to sleep.”
Without another word, he descends. When we make our way back to the house, Mr. Selkirk helps set up the sleeping bags. Only two. I explore the other small rooms, but they’re empty. I run up the stairs, but the upper floor is empty, too.
When I come back down, I ask, “Where’s Anda?”
“Never you mind.”
I head for the front door, but Mr. Selkirk beats me there with a crooked few steps. He slaps his gnarly hand on the doorknob. “She’ll be fine. She can take care of her own.” He lies down on his sleeping bag and shuts his eyes. “You won’t see her until morning.”
Eventually, I fall asleep. And I dream of black waters, of my uncle looming in the recesses of my mind, sad and weary, but with a strange, starved look in his eye that I can’t wash off my skin. I dream of Anda, peering at me with her tireless, wide-open stare.
And behind her, a watery shadow that watches us all.
Chapter Forty-Four
ANDA
I’ll stay away all night. My presence is unwanted at the lighthouse, and there’s nothing like a lighthouse and closed door to drive me far, far away.
The sky is carpeted with a thin film of clouds. Layers, actually. Cirrostratus fibrous duplicatus. I love the names of every species of cloud. I’m thankful that science has categorized them like the living things that they are—each with their own temperaments and life cycles.
I have already reached the shore, only twenty or so feet from the door of the house. The water laps at my toes and begins to climb my ankles, coaxing me in.
I walk step by step until there is no need to walk. Until gravity falls away and there is nothing between me and the water. The surface of the lake climbs through the strands of my hair and cradles my scalp with icy fingers. And then I succumb to the liquid, letting it carry me into the deeper, darker depths.
Mother.
I want things I cannot have. I want to be something I cannot wholly be. I feel things that I could not before, and they gnaw at my untouchable heart.
I have done some terrible things that, perhaps, I should not have done.
What once was a simple question—how must I be with this boy?—is drowned by something far larger. What am I?
I don’t know. Oh Mother, I don’t know.
I’m afraid of what she will think of me.
I sob with my eyes closed. The lake is just a reservoir for my tears now. She’s cold at first, but like all mothers, she welcomes me back into her arms.
Welcome home, my dearest.
...
I stay the whole night, drifting in layers of silken, blanketed currents above and beneath me. Father understands my need for immersion; he’s seen me disappear into the water for days at a time.
The water soothes, but doesn’t quell my mind.
In Hector, I see what I can take, mercilessly, and what it would cost. There is beauty in keeping him alive. It also means keeping his pain aloft, perhaps forever. Death has always been a pretty thing to me. A relief. An exhalation. But I don’t want this. Not for him, or for us.
He’s broken you.
No. He handed me the glass; I let it shatter. Hector brought me closer to the other reality in my life that I’ve never been comfortable with.
Do you miss Father?
Yes. And no. I feel the loss of him every day, though he tries to stay close to me. But I am content to be, without him. It is our nature. We belonged to this world before we ever belonged to anyone else.
This is the price I paid to love a man. The pain. You are a price I paid, too. I knew you would inherit this legacy. Are you willing?
I don’t know.
Oh, Mother. I don’t know.
...
It takes a while for the morning temperature to penetrate the surface of the lake. It holds energy and releases it so sweetly. Just as it’s releasing me back to my father.
The stones of the lake bed touch me underfoot and I splay my hands out, balancing myself. My feet take one step after another as I rise out of the water. My body is drenched and so awfully heavy. So clumsy, this body on land. Eyes still closed, I let my face find the warmth of the risen sun to my right. East. The wind begins to dry the beads of water on my eyelashes and cheeks. The lake water leaves behind a film on my skin, an ancient perfume. I inhale the cold air and let my lungs fill, the first breath I’ve had in almost twelve hours.
“You aren’t even cold, are you?”
My eyes fly open. Right on the dense, wintering foliage of the island, Hector sits. He’s fully dressed, with a coat and a sleeping bag loosely draped over his shoulders. His expression is inscrutable.
He’s spoken to Father. They’ve spoken of me, of Mother, perhaps all night long. But I recognize the dark gleam in his eye.