Chapter Twenty-Eight

ANDA

I know what death tastes like.

It’s sweet. Not like sugar, which coats the tongue with those cloying molecules—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen. No; death is not encoded in atoms or things you can touch. It’s bitter to some, like a tincture that must be taken in an inevitable dose. But to me, it’s an unearthly sweetness that I crave, that can’t be satiated with anything but the resolution of life.

I could have three deaths. I can almost taste them.

Thomas still clings to his boat, hoarsely screaming for his wife. There is so much water on board that the bilge pumps are useless. He cannot tell the difference between the lake and the rain anymore. It is all gray, the strange color between night and day, life and death, the places where I exist best.

The water has become one powerful thing, so overwhelming that he wonders why he ever thought it was a good idea to sail, when such a force lay simmering beneath the surface all along. He knew the history behind Lake Superior and me. He remembers only now the tales of the November storms so brutal, they’re called witches. I’ve fooled him with his own tenacity and confidence.

It’s a beautiful day, Aggie. C’mon. Just one last sail for the season.

His belly is full of lake water. He’s vomited twice and keeps swallowing it down with every relentless splash. He screams into the void for Agatha. He continues to fight.

I like them like this.

Agatha, in her life jacket, is sloshing on the waves, lost to him. Her gray hair is plastered to her skull. I can see her skull so easily now. Her flesh is but a thin covering on what will soon be at the bottom of the lake. She stopped screaming a few minutes ago. Despair has set in, and her tears add salt to the storm. Agatha carries more peace in her heart than Thomas, or younger sailors, who lust for more years of life. Her death will not satiate nearly as well. When life comes with more to lose, it means more when I take it. When hope has trickled away, they welcome the inevitable. It would be effortless to take them then. There would be no beauty in that.

Next November, I’ll listen for the bells tolling at the Mariner’s Church. Three more sonorous noises, added to those I’ve already taken from the St. Anne. The music is written. It’s waiting for me to play the tune.

I could tear the life jacket off with a sigh and let her sink to meet me. Thomas, I could pitch into the water with just a whisper.

And there is Hector.

He hasn’t a breath left. But he fights so hard against the unnatural riptide I’d created to pull him away from me. He let himself come to Isle Royale. Every night, he has come into my arms. He could have been at home.

Ah, but that was not a home. It was never safe. He hasn’t said this explicitly, but I know it. Because as terrible as I am, I am safer than what he had. What a sad truth. My conscience creaks at these thoughts. But he fed me. Didn’t he? He tasted my lips. He saw me. No one ever sees me with so little effort.

Ah, take him, Anda. I know how hungry you are.

I am. So ravenous. I reach my hands forward and feel the lake water in my blood.

Thomas. Agatha. Hector.

This should be easy. I never have to struggle like this. But I can’t fight the newborn feeling mewling in my chest. I don’t want Hector’s life to keep mine alive. I just want Hector. But if I let him live, I have to relinquish my hold on the whole storm. I could let go.

But I can’t.

I cannot.