And so on their mottled hands they wrote Ethel and Joseph, the names lifted up and offered to their guide. Finally, he nodded toward the pen and Mary handed it to him. Their guide once again let go of the oar and, with a slow and steady hand, wrote John, the ink nearly disappearing into his brown skin, before handing the pen back to Mary.
As they approached the island, John’s stroke became more nuanced, as he turned the paddle and let it cut through the water in beautiful sibilant curves. The canoe slid up tightly against the small dock that ran from the island, neither bumping it nor giving it any undue space. And with a turn of the paddle, the boat stopped.
John hopped off the canoe first, standing on the dock and extending his hand to help Ethel and Joseph off, then Hannah, and finally Mary.
“Thank you, John,” she said, meeting his eye. Hannah stood waiting, but her eyes were on the trees. Even in the swamp, she had never seen anything like them before. She couldn’t have. John gave Mary a respectful nod before she took Hannah’s hand and followed Ethel and Joseph onto the island. Halfway down the dock, Mary looked over her shoulder and saw that John, with one foot in the boat, one on land, was still looking at her. And not the way that men normally did. Not with lust or longing or disbelief. But with concern. Each of his hands formed what looked like a peace sign and he stacked one on top of the other and moved them in circles toward his body. Mary knew it must be sign language, but she didn’t know what it meant. When she turned, the end of the dock was nearly upon her and she heard herself gasp as she stopped short to avoid falling. One day, she would find herself in a small town inside a vast state. She would see a small girl nearly step onto the street, her eyes lifted toward a solitary cloud. “Careful!” her mother would say, while making that same motion. Careful.
“Watch your step, girls,” said Ethel, looking over her shoulder as Mary, then Hannah, stepped onto land.
“This is so cool,” whispered Hannah, as she looked up at the giant oaks that stood like cobweb-covered sentinels in an almost perfect circle around the island.
With their clasped hands, Mary tapped Hannah’s side. “I knew you’d like it,” she said.
For the first hour, Mary and Hannah walked around the island, looking up at the giant oaks and finding a unique and finite world underneath each of them. Moss hung from their branches to the ground, so that Mary felt like a child hiding underneath the skirt of some regal gown-clad mother.
In the center of the trees was a clearing, and Mary understood that this was where tour guides would begin their lecture on the history of the Shrouded Trees. The trees were brought in as saplings and planted on the island during the early days of the Underground Railroad by a group of free blacks who hoped to provide escaped slaves with some protective cover so they could make it north to a more organized network. Those who knew about the island said the trees grew quickly there, quicker than they would have naturally, as if the oaks knew they had to link their great arms together in protection. It was said that they reached a height of eighty feet in fifteen years, rather than in forty. That the moss was thicker and longer than on any other trees in the swamp. That the trees helped to provide shelter and rest to thousands of souls, warding off not only search parties but also gators and bears and all manner of threats. It was said that no harm came to anyone on the Island of the Shrouded Trees.
“Let’s watch the boats come in,” Mary said to Hannah.
Hannah reached for Mary’s hand. “I want to walk around more,” she said.
“Okay,” replied Mary, as she lowered herself onto the earth. “I’ll be right here.”
Hannah’s brows drew together as she looked at Mary. It seemed the freedom that Hannah increasingly longed for wasn’t quite so appealing when offered on Mary’s terms. She hesitated for a moment, and then she wordlessly set off, looking back over her shoulder at Mary as she did so.
As Hannah began her tentative exploration, Mary leaned back on her elbows and waited for new boats to glide steadily toward the island. It wasn’t long before Hannah rejoined her, before she wordlessly took her place again next to her sister. And so together they sat studying the faces on each boat as they arrived, though Hannah didn’t understand why.
“Did you know Princess Hannah and Princess Mary were once lost in a swamp?”
Hannah turned toward her sister. “They were?”
Mary nodded. “Not a swamp like this one. It was a cursed swamp. The water seeped poison, and the princesses had to cover their mouths with their skirts. And even then they were gagging and coughing; the air was so terrible they couldn’t breathe.”
“How did they get out?”
“Well,” started Mary, her voice transitioning into storytelling mode. And she spoke of the magical creature who lived there. Who was as black as night, but whose eyes glowed white. “He found the girls near death,” said Mary. “But he lifted them with his mouth, then tossed them onto his back and raced them to his underground lair.”
“Could they breathe there?”
“Yes,” said Mary, her eyes focused on another boat that was now visible on the still waters. “But not until he placed his mouth over theirs and breathed fresh air into their lungs.”
“And then they were okay?”
“Well,” replied Mary, with a tilt of her head. “Then they could breathe.”
“Did he take them out of the swamp?”
“He couldn’t leave the swamp. If he did, he would die. But he put them on his back again and raced them to its edge, and then lowered his head and let the princesses slide down his neck onto the ground. They rolled back and forth coughing and gagging from not having been able to breathe on the ride out of the swamp, but once the fresh air entered their lungs, they were fine.”
“What was the creature’s name?” asked Hannah.
Though her head remained static, Mary’s eyes lifted slightly as if the answer were written in the air above her. “I don’t know,” she mused, her voice lifting with curiosity.
At noon, Mary pulled out two sandwiches she had packed, and the girls ate them under one of the trees, taking shelter from the bright, high sun, but Mary kept her eyes toward the dock.
“Who are you looking for?” asked Hannah.
Mary hadn’t realized Hannah had been paying such close attention. “No one, Bunny,” she said. “I’m just watching the boats.”
And as the sun started to lean toward the west, Mary noticed the glances from the tour guides who were now on their tenth recitation of the history of the Shrouded Trees. Hannah was growing restless; John had guided his canoe back and forth a total of six times now.
“Are we going to go back soon?” she asked.
Mary unscrewed the top of their canvas-covered canteen, took a deep draw of water. “Soon,” she said, as she offered the bottle to Hannah.
Hannah’s body heaved with protest, but all she said was “I’m gonna go walk around again” before she pushed herself up off the ground.