The girl screamed when placed in the copper tub upstairs. Dad shouted at Mom, accusing her of making the water too hot, that she should have tested it. She denied it, making him test it himself. The water became clouded from the mud. The girl calmed down after some coaxing from Moni while I sat on the toilet, knees tucked in, covering my ears from her screams. Her eyes, those fawn-like eyes, shone when they came upon Moni, as if she drew comfort from simply looking at her.
She became calm enough to be dressed in a pair of my pajamas. The leggings were too long; the tips of her fingers barely made it out of the sleeves.
“Hold her for a second, Stella. I want to take her temperature,” Dad urged.
Mom pulled the girl into her lap, sighing as though she were surrendering to all the nonsense. When the girl looked up at her, Mom unstiffened ever so slightly, like a cold stick of butter that had just been set out.
The girl made a noise, a burble and then a cough.
She vomited all over Mom, dark muddy water spreading like poison across her lap.
CHAPTER 4
ISLA
Labor Day: September 7, 2020
I stared out over the lake as it shone, a spotlight with a pitch-black audience. The tops of the trees shook and encroached, watching over what was happening below.
I could not scream that night at the lake.
The light from the porch flickered weakly, afraid to show me. The long dock of the cabin an illusion that never ended. Plank after plank, row after row, elastic and unfathomable—a gleaming wet runway pointing to a figure.
There was someone at the end of the dock.
My feet were implanted in each wood grain, tied down tight so I couldn’t escape. I could smell remnants of fish . . . guts and frothy blood. Its belly torn open earlier, the knife placed on the dock as if left for me. A gleam from the blade flashed over as I passed it.
I paused mid-step, the arch of my foot bent and disturbed. I heard it right then.
The faint laps of water at first. They grew stronger. Thicker. Pulsating. The water churned, loud and roaring. I ran closer to the edge, straining to see and hear as the surface broke so viciously.
The brief moments of complete silence in between each violent splash sickened me. I was a useless tower of fear, stuck on those planks.
A circle of matted hair sank into the water before a hand burst out and then disappeared. I reached out as if I could touch it, my arm extending so far that it hurt.
There was a force that drew me into the dark waters. Sucking me in, the top of the water a gaping mouth, starved for me to enter. I was submerged in all that was cold and calm. I floated, then sank farther.
A gurgle. A choke.
Then all silence.
CHAPTER 5
ISLA
1995
As the girl turned and looked at me from the hospital bed, the pillow beneath her head was so stiff it crunched. I didn’t say anything to alert anyone else in the room. Mom’s arms were crossed and Dad was hunched over as they quietly talked with the doctor in the corner under the mounted box television set.
I opened my mouth to say hi. Nothing came out, but she tilted her head as if to let me know she understood anyway. She placed two fingers on the IV catheter, tapping it at first and then trying to rip it out. I shook my head at her and gently held her wrist still. She stared back at me, like a baby would, before going right back to yanking at the catheter. I wrapped my hand around it, trying to keep it in.
A plump, red-haired nurse walked in and rushed over.
“No. No,” she said, each time in the same level tone. It seemed directed more at me as she lightly pushed me away from the bed, glancing over at the doctor. She decided not to interrupt and turned her attention back to the IV catheter. The girl’s free hand shot out and then retracted back as fast as a party horn.
“Oh . . .” the nurse gasped under her breath.
She touched the thick part of her forearm, where the girl had pinched her.
The girl looked up from under the sheets with a blank expression, then slowly turned back to stare at me.
The nurse’s hands remained motionless above the bed, curled in. A few seconds later, she lowered them. “You’ve been through a lot,” she whispered, justifying her decision to be idle on the whole matter, nodding at me as if I was in agreement. She checked the saline bag, tucked the sheet up farther, and left the room.
The girl still hadn’t said a word.
The previous night, we had stayed up as long as we could. Sleeping would’ve somehow made us even more vulnerable to what had happened—what exactly we were still grasping. I woke up in the middle of the night next to Moni, who had fallen asleep in my bed due to my pleading. I had become suddenly panicked as the storm raged on while Mom and Dad took turns watching over the girl in their bed. The trauma of the evening had finally become too much for me.
By then the rains and winds had ceased. It was like being in a different cabin, this one so still and nearly soundless. I left my bedroom as Moni snored softly. I crept into the bedroom across the hall, the cedar floorboards under my feet cold and creaky. I did not find the room in silence. Instead, a low and muted dialogue—hushed in some waves but then sharp and stabbing in others, quickly reciprocated with an even coarser tone, only to die back down to an abrupt whisper.
It was Mom and Dad speaking livid words that I could not decipher, but I could sense the hostility coming from both of them. I stiffened by the door and slid down, willing myself not to make another move, as if their arguing were my fault. I dared not cause even more disturbance.
I woke up in the hallway, my head resting on my stretched-out arms. I looked back into the room. Both of them were passed out, Dad face down into his pillow, Mom on her side, her knees tucked in.
The girl lay between them, wide awake. It was strange seeing another girl where I had so often been—a replacement that did not stir up jealousy, but curiosity. If she noticed me, she gave no sign of it.
An ambulance arrived right at dawn. Sheriff Vandenberg pulled his brown prowler behind it, its lights ceremoniously swirling. A blue-and-red show flashed on our cabin exterior.
Dad carried the girl out. She seemed bigger, as if she had grown overnight. A young female paramedic opened a stretcher and guided her down onto it.
