Chapter Twenty-Four

ANDA

Seeing the America was not a good idea.

I did not expect Mother to threaten him in such a way, to threaten me through Hector. She’s angry. But I’m angrier. I only wish more than ever to safeguard this precious thing we have, that I have remade for myself. Inside, a ferocity has arisen that I didn’t know was there.

And I like it.

I think of Hector, and our kisses, and the scent of his skin that still rises from me, a perfume I’ve never worn before. I wanted to share with him something beyond beauty and time. Something near and dear to my faulty, human heart.

But there is a problem. The forlorn cries of the drowned ship did nothing but whet my appetite. It’s November 1 now. How could I have lost track of the date? The sinking of the St. Anne was already too long ago. I find that I’m famished again, and the emptiness is consuming me. And Mother’s actions have occupied my mind.

On the way back to the cabin, I forget several times that I’m with Hector. He calls out to me and clasps my hand. I remember for a moment who and where I am. He steals a kiss and I give it to him, but the haze of his presence is wearing thin—not from irritation, but from a larger presence grinding away at my existence. Like sand and grit against a boulder, it will eventually thin me out until I can’t resist any longer.

You knew this would happen. You can’t ignore what matters. You can’t ignore me.

Her voice is clearer now than before, and she’s attempting to sound dulcet, not angry. I’ve been trying not to listen, but there are other things that force me to notice them. The creeping juniper that ought to be evergreen is browning. The old man’s beard lichens, usually hanging aloft in the pines, have fallen in irregular tufts and blow along the trail closer to the cabin.

But then I think of how the America’s bones saddened Hector. How he sees death with an opposite polarity that I can’t understand. All I only know is that Hector nourishes a side of me that has slept since birth. And I don’t want Hector to hurt.

You can’t ignore me.

I’ll try and then some, I say savagely without speaking.

...

That week, Hector and I live at home. He’s quieter than before, warier. He looks out at the lake as if expecting a serpent to arise from the depths and swallow him whole. But when it lies there in peace, he relaxes ever so slowly. He spends a portion of every day fishing. Sometimes he brings home a fish, sometimes he doesn’t. But when he does, he fries it, alive only an hour ago, and presents it glistening on a plate for us to share.

This pleases me. I am so used to being the one who keeps everything nourished, or drags them back into the humus of the soil to disintegrate. Father used to try to care for me, and vaguely, I remember enjoying it when I was younger. But those needs had left me.

With Hector, he’s awoken what I didn’t realize I missed. Once, he feeds me with his fingertips, dripping with browned butter. I nearly tackle him to the ground, rewarding him with hour-long kisses.

I make things that might please him, like more rock cairns in the living room. He comes home and sees my creations, scratching his newly growing beard thoughtfully. He doesn’t read their words like I do, but that doesn’t bother me.

What does bother me is that I can sense his pulse from a mile away. It’s an inviting river of blood, and when he asks me to shave his beard again, I decline. It’s too much temptation. I try to feed myself with other things, but we are already running low on camp store candy bars and dry soup packets. I’m starting to notice that Hector doesn’t cook enough for two people—only enough for me.

If he only knew how misguided his actions were.

So I eat very little. Unlike Hector, I don’t grow thinner as the days go by, and he consumes my leftover meals like a ravenous Isle wolf. And at night, he feeds from a different kind of hunger. We tangle ourselves on the floor by the hearth until inevitably, Hector gently pushes me away. The riotous noise of his blood is so loud in my ears, I can barely hear his voice.

“No,” he says, but I don’t understand what he’s saying no to. There’s an invisible wall that I can’t see, but he does, and apparently, we can’t walk through it. “No,” he repeats, before kissing me gently on the neck and walking outside, coatless and shoeless, to cool off his warm skin on the stone steps outside the house.

I don’t follow him. If I did, neither of us might return.