Lost Children of the Far Islands (11 page)

Gus and Leo remained sitting on the cool sand of the little beach. Gus’s head was spinning, and she thought she might be sick. She also felt a sharp stab of disappointment, almost a pain, and she could tell from Leo’s face that he did too. It was like taking off a lovely costume and putting on your bland old street clothes again.

Ila, however, was still a fox.

The Bedell stretched out one arm and spread the fingers of his hand. His intent was clear—it was a gesture of power and command.

“Yes,” he said sharply, and the red fox’s coat began to shimmer, as if in a heavy wind. She reared up and stamped the ground with her front paws, for all the world like a human child having a tantrum.

Then the fox turned to run.

The Bedell lifted his other hand and brought it level with the first one. Ila reared up one more time and then
fell forward into her human body, landing on the beach on her hands and knees.

She jumped up and stood with her chubby fists on her hips, scowling furiously.

The Bedell bent forward and put his hands on his knees. He stood that way, breathing heavily, for a moment. Then he straightened up.

“We must move on,” he said.

Gus looked up at the little man. She felt too exhausted to stand.

“What happened?” she managed to say. She meant all of it, but the Bedell misunderstood.

“You are just lucky I was there,” he said irritably. “Otherwise, she would have drowned for certain.”

“Thanks for warning us,” Gus said angrily.

Leo, sitting next to her, put a hand on her arm. “It’s OK,” he said. “We’re OK. But, um, Bedell, what just happened? How—”

“Come now, children,” the Bedell said, and his voice was softer, gentle even. “I am afraid you cannot wait any longer. Time is moving all around us. We must step into it.”

He reached into one of his overcoat pockets and pulled and tugged and pulled again until Gus’s backpack popped out. Next came Leo’s, and finally Ila’s, with Bear peering out of the top of the pack. Ila yanked Bear out and gave him a quick, fierce squeeze. Leo looked anxiously inside his backpack—checking his books, Gus
guessed. With a light sigh, he tightened the flap back down and hoisted the pack.

The Bedell set off without a word, leading them across the small beach. They scrambled over a long stepped shelf made of granite. Above the shelf lay more rocks leading upward, mixed with small, scruffy pine trees with twisted trunks and low bushes that clung to the bits of dirt between the boulders.

They stood for a minute, looking up. Loup Marin was a pile of boulders. Above was only rock and pine, with no visible path through them.

“We’re going up there?” Gus said skeptically.

“Just a skip and a jump,” the Bedell said. “Follow me. Stay close. Mind your feet.”

With that, he began to climb, twisting his way among the boulders as though there was a path. And in fact there
was
a path. It was very faint, but the children could just see where many feet over time had flattened the dirt or a boulder had been moved to allow passage. The island, which appeared to be an uninhabitable pile of rocks, was definitely inhabited, or at least it had been at some point.

Ila, scrambling over a boulder, suddenly cried out.

Gus turned back quickly, but it was just Bear, who had slipped from Ila’s hands and was wedged in a deep crack. Gus fished him out by one strap of his overalls.

“Into your backpack,” she said sternly to Ila.

“Sorry, Gus,” Ila said in a small voice.

Leo grinned. “At least she’s talking. That’s good, right?”

“Good, good,” the Bedell said. “Now hurry up and mind your hands and feet. This last part is a bit tricksy.”

They scrambled up the steep section, Gus in front and Leo boosting Ila when she needed it. As they reached the top, the Bedell put out a gloved hand and pulled each of them up and over the lip of the granite. They stood in a loose semicircle, breathing hard from the climb.

The Bedell swept one arm out in a dramatic gesture. “Voilà.”

“Wow,” Leo said.

They were standing at the top of the island. Instead of gray rock, a meadow stretched before them. It was wild-looking, made up of tough stalks and low bushes that would be full of blueberries later in the summer. Right now the color came from the green grass and tiny pale pink, lavender, and white bell-shaped flowers. Far off to their right and left, they could just see the ocean. The fog had lifted and the water spread out, deep blue flecked with sparkles and the white crests of waves. Gus turned slowly, taking in the view. It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.

“Not long,” the Bedell said over his shoulder, moving at a brisk trot. “Watch your step,” he added just as Gus tripped on something hidden in the grass. It was a rough pile of rounded stones, tumbled as though they had once been part of a wall, or a gate, or—

“A house,” Leo said, crouching down. “It’s an old foundation of a house. Here’s where the doorway was.”

Gus could see the break in the stones. It did indeed look like it might have been a doorway, and now that she was looking closer, she could see the depression in the grass that must have been the foundation.

“It was tiny,” she said.

“Come now,” the Bedell said impatiently.

Gus rose to her feet. “Did people live here once?”

“A long, long time ago,” the Bedell said. “Long forgotten. Now it is just the Móraí. And me, of course.”

“Do you live here too?” Gus said, surprised. The dapper little man did not seem to fit this wild island.

“Indeed,” he said, and began walking again.

The children followed the Bedell over the hilltop meadow. As they reached the far edge, it dropped off into granite again, shielding its lush secret from any passing ship. At the very edge of the stony cliffs, a house sat waiting for them.

Except that it was not a house at all. It was a lighthouse.

“Cool,” Leo said approvingly.

The structure rose tall and white from the rock’s edge, seeming to hang over the ocean below. There was no grass anywhere around it. The gray of the rocks was broken here and there by green and yellow mosses.

As they drew closer, the children could see that there was a very small, white-painted cottage with a dull red
roof crouching in the shadow of the lighthouse, hidden from the sea.

The cottage and the lighthouse were bordered by an iron railing built in a semicircle on the ocean side of the buildings. Beneath the railing, the rocks dropped sharply into the Atlantic, which hissed and spat against them.

“Very cool,” Leo said again, and Gus had to agree, although it did look a bit lonely, with only seabirds and crashing waves for company.

The Bedell led them to a door that was almost too small for an adult to fit through. It was the brilliant blue of old dinghies, the paint flaking and peeling off from the salt of the ocean wind. As they drew near, they could see that it had an image painted on it, a fish in vivid silver and gold. Each bright scale on the fish was carefully outlined, and its silver eyes glowed with a fierce and particular intelligence. Gus reached out her hand toward the fish to follow the curve of its leaping body with her fingers. As her fingers made contact with the fish, it shivered.

Startled, Gus dropped her hand.

“Don’t touch that,” the Bedell said. Reaching past her, he pushed the door open, carefully avoiding the fish, whose painted face now bore a pained expression. The three children went in, Leo ducking his head slightly to pass through the small doorway.

They were in a living room. It was yellow and warm, lit, even in the daylight, by lamps. A blue velvet couch covered with bright throw pillows faced a fireplace and,
next to that, a tall bookshelf. Books alternated with other treasures: large and small shells, piles of green and blue sea glass, dried starfish, and odd pieces of driftwood. In a corner of the room, a woman was sitting in an armchair that was turned sideways for a view of the ocean through the window.

She was very small, with snow-white hair woven into a heavy braid that hung over one shoulder. She wore blue jeans rolled several times at their cuffs, a fuzzy pullover, and woolen socks. Her feet did not quite reach the ground.

“Here they are,” the Bedell said, presenting the three children with a low bow. Then, turning to the children, he said, “The Móraí.”

The woman turned in the chair. Her eyes were brown, set into a wrinkled face that was tanned and creased by sun and water. She looked like an older version of their mother.

“About the little one …,” the Bedell said.

“Not now, my friend.” The Móraí did not look at him. “Let me see my grandchildren first.”

The man nodded and said, “Of course, of course,” as he stepped back into the shadows at the edge of the room.

“Now come here,” the Móraí said, not getting to her feet.

* * *

The children stood shyly around her until she reached out her arms and gathered them up. Then it was as if a dam were breaking, and exhausted, hungry, and overwhelmed, they all cried a little bit, even Leo, and then they sat on the floor near her and Gus and Leo told her the whole story, starting and stopping and helping each other along and circling back as they remembered other bits and pieces, like the prints under Ila’s window, their mother’s illness, the way their father had rushed them out of the house. They stopped there, by some sort of unspoken agreement. The trip to the island, the
swim
to the island, was too strange, too unbelievable, to talk about just yet. They sat in silence for a moment, and then Leo said, “Our mother’s very sick. She’s—” His voice choked off and he stopped talking, taking a deep breath. “She’s very sick,” he finished miserably. “And we don’t know what to do.”

“I know all about that,” the old woman said. “And I know how frightened you must be, and how worried. But the most important thing, the only thing that matters, is that you are here, and you are safe.”

Gus swallowed hard. The past few weeks had been full of such sadness and confusion that she had forgotten what it was like to feel safe.

“Thank you,” she said.

The Móraí nodded to her, her face very gentle. Then she looked over Gus’s shoulder. “Shall we have some supper, my Bedell?” she said to the darkness by the door.
“Why don’t you show the children where they can wash up and then we can all sit down.”

The shadows shifted, and the little man stepped out. “Right this way,” he said, smiling at the children.

“How long have you lived here?” Gus asked the Bedell as they took turns washing their hands at a low sink. The sink was in its own room. The toilet was in an adjoining room that was no bigger than a closet. It was an old-fashioned toilet with a tall back and a chain to pull on in order to flush. Leo was in the toilet room while the girls were crowded at the sink.

“Since I was quite young,” the man said. “Yes, step on that,” he added, showing Ila a pedal on the floor. She stepped on it, and water gurgled out of the single faucet.

“It’s cold!” Ila said. “You go, Gus.” She stepped aside to let Gus wash her hands but insisted on working the pedal herself.

“But you weren’t born here?” Gus asked, gasping a little as the icy water splashed over her fingers.

“No, no,” the man said. “My kind came from farther north. A long, long time ago.”

“Is it true, what Leo said?” Gus asked. “Ila, stop pumping! That’s plenty of water. I mean,” she added as Ila reluctantly took her foot off the pedal and stepped away from the sink, “I mean, about your kind—the sea minks—being extinct?”

Just then, Leo came out of the toilet room.

“Let me do the pedal!” Ila said, shoving Gus.

“Cut it out, Ila,” Gus said as Leo asked, “What pedal?” and Ila started stomping. In the ensuing splashing and shouting and more shouting and apologizing, the Bedell slipped out of the room, and Gus’s question was forgotten.

They finally made it to the table, all three damp and hungry and irritable. The Bedell sat at one end of the table, and the Móraí at the other.

“Go on,” Leo said to Ila as they slid into the three empty seats. “Tell them you’re sorry you flooded the bathroom.”

Ila stared at her plate and said nothing. Her face was as red as her hair.

“When I first came here,” the Bedell said, “I tried to fill the bathroom with water so I could swim in it!”

Ila looked up and the little man winked at her. “That, my dear, was a flood. It was quite glorious.”

Ila grinned at him.

“Now let’s eat,” the Móraí said.

They ate a delicious dinner of fish and dark greens that tasted of the sea and thick slices of brown bread spread with butter and honey. The three children were ravenous. They kept eating and the Móraí kept refilling their plates until, finally, Leo sat back with a sigh.

“Full,” he announced.

“More bread, please,” Ila said quickly, as though she were afraid that Leo might ruin it for everybody. The Móraí handed her another slice.

“Are you really the lighthouse keeper?” Leo asked.

The Móraí nodded.

“What—” Gus began just as Leo said, “Um, about that trip here?” but the Móraí cut them off.

“No questions,” she said. “Not tonight. We can talk about it all in the morning. You are far too tired tonight to understand any of it.”

And indeed, even as she spoke, the children felt a great quiet sweep over them, and with it a yawning exhaustion. The bread slipped from Ila’s fingers as she slumped forward in her chair.

The Móraí stood. “I have to smoor the fire. Then we can go to bed.”

“What does that mean?” Gus asked sleepily.

“It’s something I must do each night,” the Móraí explained. “Bedell, please clear up while I show the children.”

“You will show them the song of protection?” the little man asked. His voice was wistful.

“Can’t Bedell come?” Gus asked.

The Móraí shook her head. “The Bedell can keep an eye on Ila.”

“But of course,” the Bedell said. “I will watch the child. This is a very good plan.” And he busied himself stacking bowls, all the while watching Ila, who slept soundly in her seat.

Gus and Leo followed the Móraí to the living room.