that what the Band will charge us for this new existence far away from the Corridor and the danger of searchers?
I don’t know, but I don’t want to be here anymore. I wish there was someplace else
Except there is no other place. It’s here, or nowhere.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll sit here and listen to them.
I’m halfway down the hill when Bran catches up with me. “Hey,” he says, giving me a curious look. “What are you running away from?”
I stop in my tracks. “Why do you think I’m running from anything?”
“Whoa.” He holds his hands up. “It was just a joke. But seriously, are you running?”
I look out over the lake. Am I? “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”
“Hmm. Well, don’t go too far. I haven’t had a chance to get to know you yet.” He peers at me. “My mother would like to meet you too. She asked if you would visit her tomorrow.” He bites his lip. “Would you?”
I manage to nod. I don’t want to like him. He’s part of the Band. But I can’t help it. I do like him, and I want him to like me, too. Me, who has never cared what anyone thought about her, who has never given a guy the time of day, and here I am, nodding. I can’t seem to stop myself.
“Good.” He smiles. “I’ll come get you after lunch, okay?”
I shouldn’t go tomorrow. We’ve only just arrived. There are still so many things to do. I have to help my father. I can’t go with Bran.
But I don’t say a word. He assumes my silence is assent, and by the time I find my voice, the only thing that remains of Bran are the ripples of his canoe.
CHAPTER SIX
“Whatcha got down there, old man?” Paul says, hanging his head into the darkness.
My father pops out of the hatch, grinning from ear to ear, and motions for Paul to get out of the way. “Close your eyes,” he says. “Both of you. Go on, do it!”
Paul groans as we do as my father asks. He grunts as he pulls himself up through the hatch, and then I hear the snap of a latch and the scrape of something against wood.
“Come on, Dad,” Paul says. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Just a moment longer,” my father responds. His voice is positively crackling with excitement. I laugh. I haven’t heard him like this in ages, and soon I know why. The notes of a jig fill the room. My father has found a fiddle.
He pauses to retune, and laughs. “Not bad for an old scrap of wood, huh? All those years under this house, and it still sounds good!” He draws the bow across the strings again, then peers at Paul and me, beaming. “Well? You two think I’m going to play for nothing? Go on-dance!”
And so we drop the mop and the bucket and the washcloth to dance while our father plays. His fingers aren’t certain at first, the fiddle squealing as his bow slips across the strings, but we don’t mind. When he plays the final chord, Paul and I are panting and sweaty and the happiest we’ve been since our mother’s passing.
“I can’t believe this is still here,” my father murmurs as he sets the fiddle back in its case. “I just can’t believe it.”
“What’s that, Dad?” Paul says, reaching into the case before my father can snap it shut. He pulls out an old photograph.
“Oh. That.” My father won’t look at it. “It’s of me and your mother and your uncles, back when we were all here on the Island.”
I peer over Paul’s shoulder. Staring back at us is a young man who looks a lot like me. My father, probably not much older than I am now. Two men stand next to him-his older brothers, whom I only remember as tall and serious. My mother is pretty and fair and laughing. She reminds me of Paul. There’s one more person in the photo I don’t recognize, another man, younger than my father, with enough similarities that he must be related to us too.
“Who’s that?” I say, pointing at the one I don’t know.
“Oh. Just some kid,” my father says, taking the photograph from Paul’s hand and setting it back in the violin case. “I can’t even remember his name.”
As my father snaps the case shut, Paul and I share a look. My father is a terrible liar. He knows who that young man is, and I know Paul is thinking the same thing I am: Why won’t he tell us?
But soon the mysterious young man in the photograph is forgotten as we take up mop and broom and bucket again. We have so much work to do. Cleaning the house is just the start. Our only source of water is the lake. There’s no outhouse. We have no beds, or any furniture for that matter, and no wood for the fireplace. There’s no garden to grow our own food, and nothing to feed the chickens with. What little joy we had while we danced to the tune of my father’s violin has vanished, replaced by the truth of our predicament. In the Corridor, we had enough wood for two winters stored up at all times. Our garden had been planted. The apple tree had already bloomed and would, with luck, produce some fruit, for I’d fertilized it by hand myself.
Here? We are not just starting over. We are starting from scratch.
I set the mop down again and stare at my hands, where blisters are already rising. Is this what this place holds for me? Am I all that I’ll ever be?
“Dad,” I ask as he passes by, “is there a school here?”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Don’t know. Probably nothing formal, but we’ll figure something out for you and Paul, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, even though I have a sinking feeling in my gut. No school means no university, and no university means… that my only future is here, working my bones into the earth, all to live the Old Way. And what then? Will I be married off to some Band man? Am I destined to tend the homestead? Keep the hearth warm? Wait and see if my warrior returns from war? The treaty lands are full of women like that, most broken at the hands of their Band husbands. Those men have seen things in battle, the Elders say by way of an excuse. Bad things. Terrible things.
This is why my mother never wanted to live here. She never wanted this future for me, and I don’t want it either.
Later, when I’ve taken out my frustrations on the floor, my father comes and slips the mop from my hand. “That’s enough for tonight, Cass. Why don’t you go get washed up?”
“Okay,” I say, turning to head outside, but pausing and turning back. “I almost forgot-I know I’ve got work to do, but Bran invited me to his house tomorrow. Is it okay if I go?”
Paul bounds down the stairs. “He invited me, too,” he says as he stops to pick up the bucket of dirty water at my feet, and then continues on outside.
“Oh,” I say before I can stop myself. It’s good that he asked Paul too, so why do I feel so disappointed?
My father doesn’t notice. “Sure! Might as well start making friends because we’re going to be here for a while.” He reaches out to ruffle my hair. “Go on. Get cleaned up. I’ll dig a sleeping bag out for you, okay?”
“Thanks, Dad.” I lean in to kiss his cheek, and then head out into the night.
Outside, the waning moon spreads silver wings over the forest. When I was little, my mother told me the story of the princess of the stars, who sat on the edge of the heavens, listening to the cry of a wolf. When the princess reached out to catch the wolf’s song, she fell to earth and was captured by a demon, who took her to the bottom of a great lake. I never learned if she escaped. Is she out there, that princess, trapped beneath the still, black water? This lake looks like the sort of place a demon might lurk.
On the opposite shore, a fire burns bright and bloody. The sound of throbbing drums races across the lake. Band business, no doubt. Whose fate are they deciding tonight?
