~
Next morning the coming sun cast the earth in gray. Isme stayed behind the cloth entrance to her father’s cave, until she could bear no more. I will just poke my head out, she thought. She half-crawled to the entrance and set her fingers against the seal-skin cloth where flecks of light from the late morning sun shone through.
When I pull this back, Isme thought, there had better not be a man sitting outside watching to see if anyone is here.
That was impossible with the watcher stones.
Isme pulled back the cloth and looked. Everything was in order. The sun still shone gray, but that was due to the cloudy skies, distorting all light to the paler ends of the spectrum. Isme’s eyes traced over the circle where her father had buried the watcher stones. She knew what they looked like: faces, carved in stone, set upside-down with their chins pointing upward.
Each stone had two faces on it—a face looking inside the circle toward her father’s cave, and another face looking outward to the rest of the world. The ones facing outside had their eyes open; but the ones facing inward had their eyes shut. Every few years, Isme and her father had to dig them up and move them about, to ensure that they stayed aware at their posts, her father said, like changing the guard of a city.
“But I don’t even know if they work,” said Isme. After all, no man had ever arrived at the island to test the watcher stones. She had only her father’s claims about the stones as proof they would work. But if she trusted her father about the coming end of the world, then surely she could trust him about the watcher stones.
Stepping cautiously, Isme surveyed everything. Nobody in sight. The birds of the island were singing. She imagined that they would fall quiet if something was in the woods.
Approaching the fire, Isme made sure it was completely out. The sky may be gray today, but a column of smoke could still be seen from the ocean. Smoke was different from clouds, darker, less fanciful, reeking of death rather than rain. Fortunately, the embers of the fire were long dead. Yet as Isme considered this, she realized:
Last night she had left her torch on the beach.
Anyone on the beach could find it. She had not hidden the torch; she had just stabbed the handle into the sand while awaiting the turtles. Again, her thoughts in the previous night came to her: turtles do not make fire. Only gods and men do.
If anyone saw her torch then they would reach the same conclusion. The torch was burnt out, but might as well be alight. It would guide men to shore.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said, ducking into her father’s cave to take one of the walking sticks he had carved and hardened in the fire. She had often tumbled staves with her father but never won. Yet this was better than nothing to defend herself with.
She paused at the watcher stones, sent up a silent song—Kalliope, let the song of this journey be of a foolish new-woman who encountered nothing but only scared herself.
The walk through the woods was much more treacherous this time. Isme moved slowly, aware that if someone was in the woods, whoever spotted the other first would have an advantage. The overcast sky dulled everything. She rubbed gray ash over herself before leaving, hoping this would camouflage her.
Cresting the hill toward the beach, Isme noticed something unusual through the trees. She crouched, crawling to get a better line of sight, and found herself confused.
There was a dark shape lying in the scrub-grass, about the size of a human being. Isme pieced together the figure’s shape and position: a man, lying face down, one arm splayed out over his head and the other tucked under his body.
How unpleasant, Isme thought. The scrub-grass had burrs in it.
Something was wrong.
The question came: continue on toward this man, with the risk that could involve, or return to her father’s cave and safety? Isme gripped her staff and drew a line in the dirt with her toe. She gazed out over the rest of the scrub-grass, not quite able to see the beach beyond the ridge. Anyone and anything could be out there.
He might be hurt, thought Isme. Father would know what to do. But he isn’t here. This is my decision—just like going to the beach last night. I am not supposed to reveal myself to people. But Father doesn’t have a rule about what to do when a man is hurt.
And she thought: in stories, when people are hurt, someone always helps.
That thought spurred her, and she left the safety of the trees, keeping herself crouched low, but approaching the man. About two arm’s length, she thought better of coming within grabbing distance, and instead called, “Sir, are you awake?”
The man did not stir. This close, she could see that his hand stretched out above his head had fingers bent in ways that they should not bend. Deciding that a wounded man was less of a threat, she took a step forward and poked him with her stick. No reaction. Reaching out, she touched his head. His skin was cold and wet. Worried now, she rolled him over and found his eyes were open, unblinking, limbs stiff like driftwood.
He was dead.
Isme had never seen a dead man before, let alone a live one besides herself and her father. He did not look as ugly as she had supposed men would. In stories, women wailed for the dead. But making noise seemed dangerous if Isme did not know whether anyone else was on the beach over the ridge.
The only thing Isme could think to say was a quick prayer: “Lord Hermes, guide of the dead, take this man’s soul to the underworld and let him pass the river in peace.”
Carefully, Isme turned and stepped
