2 Liney To Pine #2
Thomas and Elle sat in the parlor the first time he came calling after an exchange between our fathers.
I peered at them between the sitting room’s curtained window.
My mother had given Elle a fan and instructed her in the ways of holding it to convey flirtation.
Elle gripped it with white knuckles. She flicked it so forcefully that she threw it halfway across the room.
The marital burden never fit Elle, like her old dresses didn’t fit me. But she wore it dutifully so I didn’t have to. When she woke me, promising escape, I agreed without hesitation.
We chose this life together. While Chamomile is my confidante, she’ll never understand the world we turned away from. The world that I, in my weakness, want back.
Chamomile has spoken, but I’ve missed it.
“What?”
You could ask her to teach you to use the rowboat. Or I could teach you.
“You know as much as I do!”
Chamomile rolls over and mimes poking at my side until we squirm in a fit of giggles. Her face is only inches from mine, sharp and red- cheeked. She turns serious. You could learn to swim. Begin with small distances. Soon you’ll swim across the whole harbor!
It’s tempting. And forbidden. I’ve only swum in the ocean once, and I ended up dragged into a riptide.
I would’ve surely drowned if Elle hadn’t been there.
The problem is also in my lungs. I’ve always been told not to physically exert myself, for fear of my asthma.
The few times I was given enough freedom in my childhood to run and play as others did, I was soon doubled over and desperately swallowing for air my lungs wouldn’t accept.
While Elle developed tall and broad-shouldered, a paragon of health, I remained slight and pale.
My mother would call me Elle’s little ghost.
Imagine, Chamomile continues, swimming to McNabs, crawling up to the fortress, dancing with the officers in the light of their bonfires.
Sunbeams flash on the water not far from shore. I glance up. How can light shine when the clouds are so thick today?
“Chamomile!” I yelp.
Fine. Dancing with the officers’ wives.
“No, Chamomile! Look!”
I scramble up from the rocks, staring into the mouth of the harbor. The bright speck grows larger. It’s a rowboat with a single occupant in a dark coat.
“He’s heading here. To us. Directly.”
A fisherman?
“In so small a dinghy, alone? At this time of day? No.” I back up toward the grassy soil. “What if he’s coming to check on the lighthouse keeper?”
The last keeper drowned. That’s why Elle picked this island. It will appear suspicious to find us here, squatters in a dead man’s home.
Chamomile hasn’t risen. She has no reason to worry, invisible to others.
Then he’s in for an interesting surprise.
“Chamomile! Stop it!” I back up farther until I reach the edge of the small woods. The copse of red maple and underbrush of hay-scented ferns extends down the length of the island. “I must warn Elle.”
The man in the rowboat, his silhouette dark against the slate-gray water, waves an arm in an animated arc as I’m almost behind the nearest tree.
Run, Caroline, Chamomile commands, unhelpfully.
I curse myself as I tear through the forest. My hesitation. My dress snagging on the ferns. My lungs, already winded. My hubris in thinking it could ever be safe to swim. Not even sitting on the beach is free from danger.
I push past the close-grown trunks. Their red-leafed branches brush against my cheeks and try to tangle in my hair. I bring my arms up to guard my head only to trip over a clump of ferns and fall, shoulder first, against another tree. A squeal escapes me. My whole arm radiates excruciating sparks.
Is it broken? Chamomile asks.
“No,” I snivel between heaving breaths. From the beach and dock, it’s less than a kilometer across the island to the ocean-facing lighthouse. If I can’t even manage this, I’d be drowned in minutes. “Dislocated.”
I can’t fix it.
I hold my arm close and keep walking. Every step shoots pain from elbow to shoulder until I’m nearly through. Elle will fix it.
“Elle!” I reach the edge of the clearing, the lighthouse finally looming ahead.
A tall tower of salt-crusted white shingles leads up to the ever-burning red light.
Elle’s lighthouse. Neither of us trusts me in the lightroom or down in the basement with the oil drums. When Elle suggested she could tend the light alone, I was relieved.
I nearly trip in my haste across the grass, sending agony surging up my arm again. I yell for my sister between each ragged breath.
Elle’s face appears at the window; old salt marks smudge the glass. A moment later she comes barreling out the front door. She wears the lighthouse keeper’s garb, a loose-fitting cotton shirt tucked into a pair of dark wool pants I hemmed for her months ago.
“What happened?” she asks in a hurried breath. She tries to grab my arms, but I shrink back.
“I think I dislocated my shoulder,” I explain. “There’s someone rowing. To the island.”
“Who?” Her caramel eyes grow wide, searching my face.
I double over, hacking. I can’t stop picturing tides sucking me down into the harbor.
“A man. He saw me,” I spit out. My breaths come quick and shallow, not helped by my panic. “We are found. I’m so sorry, Elle.”
Elle straightens me up. I want to howl at her touch, but I bite my tongue instead.
“We aren’t found. Not yet. Don’t yell.”
She pulls my arm down, out, then above my head before I can react. A sickening pop sounds as a hot jolt arcs through my shoulder and down my arm. Relief follows as my shoulder rests naturally again.
“Come in. Tell me everything.”
I follow her. The ghost of suffering sharpens my senses. The wind at the back of my head, the smell of fresh fish in the kitchen, the warmth of the fireplace. Chamomile slips in before the door closes and settles into a corner of the room, watchful as a cat.
“I was on the beach. I saw the boat, small like ours,” I begin.
Elle hurries around the small room, clearing the clutter of the day from the counters on one end, then stuffing linens into a trunk beneath the bed on the other.
“One man. I snuck into the trees for cover, but he saw me. He waved. I’m so sorry, Elle. I’ve wrecked everything.”
Elle stops her hurrying and comes back to me. She cups my face with her rough hands. “You warned me, little ghost.”
My eyes water, but Elle presses her hands against my cheeks.
“No tears.” The warmth in her voice is replaced with focus. “Tears won’t save us. You’ll hide upstairs. You won’t make a sound.”
It will be all right, Caroline, Chamomile soothes.
“He saw me,” I remind them both. “Why else would he wave? He’ll be looking for me.”
“Give me your dress,” Elle orders. Her face has turned to stone, the same look from the night we escaped. “He saw a fair-haired woman in a dress. He’ll find her.”
All of Elle’s dresses are stored away, as she doesn’t enjoy wearing them, and we don’t have time to search. The lighthouse keeper’s clothes flood on me, but I don’t need them for a ruse. Elle puts out the fire in the corner and closes the curtains.
“He might not be coming to the lighthouse,” Elle mutters. “Maybe firewood, or fishing.”
Come, Caroline. Chamomile is halfway up the stairs to the storage room. He’s close.
“Be careful,” I tell Elle, hugging her close. Her form softens at my embrace. “Oh, your hair. We need to undo it, like mine.”
With clumsy, hurried fingers, I unbraid her tresses. She stands, awkward and tense, my white cotton dress and waves of blond hair spread around her like in a mourning portrait.
“Be silent, my love,” she says as I scamper up to the storage room. “One man won’t destroy us.”