Though the island’s children were all still home for at least a few more weeks and the summer tourist season continued in high gear, Little Sister felt emptier. Not that Rebecca had ever spent a lot of time with Joey, but knowing her nephew was around, that Jenny’s family was all nearby, it had been something she’d taken for granted. When Matty had moved to Big Sister to be with Brandi, there’d been a small pang, but not like this.
It wasn’t only Joey. Irene Woodhouse’s brother and his husband, for the time they’d been here, they’d become part of the island community. It was certainly quieter without them. When the three had left a few days ago, there’d been tearful good-byes down the marina. Jenny in particular, hadn’t been able to stop her tears as she clung to Joey.
“We’ll get him set up with a cell phone as soon as we get to the mainland,” Kenny had promised. “So you can call anytime.”
It was kind of strange to think of a man Joey’s age needing to be tutored on things others took for granted, like cell phones.
“But I was the same,” Rebecca had recalled, “during that time I spent with Nadiya. There were things I’d never seen or done before, like using her cell phone to summon some stranger with a car instead of calling for a taxi when we wanted to go somewhere.”
To everybody’s surprise, Irene had gone with them. “I have a few things I need to take care of on the mainland,” she’d said vaguely, when even Roy and Meredith seemed shocked at her departure.
Rebecca tapped her finger absently on the side of her tea cup as she thought. A knock and call from the front of the cottage snapped her back to the present.
“Morning,” said Kathleen as she and Blossom entered the kitchen. “You said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes.” Rebecca got up to pour another mug of hot water. “Have you spent any more time with Eryn?”
There it was—the slightest shadow over Kathleen’s features, and then it was gone.
“Some. Miss Louisa had us all over for lunch a few days ago, and then yesterday, I went with her to the cemetery, to show her our family’s markers.”
“That was nice of you.”
“Figured that was the least I owed her,” Kathleen wagged her head, “after that day at the library. Sorry I was so rude.”
“Understandable that you’d feel protective and possessive of your family and its history, after all these years thinking you were it.”
Rebecca leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table. “That’s kind of what I need to talk to you about.”
Kathleen choked mid-sip and had to cough before she could sputter, “What’s what you need to talk to me about?”
“Your role here.” Rebecca reached across the table for the Keeper’s book. “If you’re to be the next Keeper, we need to make it official.”
“What do you mean?” Kathleen frowned. “You’re still here. Why would I officially become the Keeper now? And what’s official about it anyhow?”
Rebecca got up and busied herself for a few minutes, cutting a couple of slices of banana bread she’d baked the day before. She sat back down and pushed the plate toward Kathleen. She stalled a bit longer by buttering her slice, but finally Kathleen slapped the table.
“Are you going to answer?”
“Nadiya is planning to return to the island after Labor Day,” Rebecca said at last.
“Okay,” Kathleen said slowly. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I hope so.” Rebecca allowed herself a small smile, but then the smile faded. “Kathleen, I don’t—”
It was a moment before Rebecca trusted her voice. “I don’t want to live without her in my life. More than she is now. I don’t know for sure how she feels, but…” She forced herself to meet Kathleen’s eyes. “If she’s willing, I want to start spending more time with her. In Philadelphia.”
Kathleen’s mouth opened and closed as she considered the ramifications of this. “What exactly does that mean? You’d live there full-time? Basically retire as Keeper?”
“No,” Rebecca said quickly, recalling what Jenny had said. “More like joint custody, split between us. I can’t stand too much time in the city, but I was thinking I could probably tolerate a month at a time, then back here for a month. Through the winter when the ferry only comes monthly anyhow. And then we could see what the warmer weather schedule might be.”
She held her breath, waiting for Kathleen’s reaction. “You’re the only one I’ve spoken to of this. I haven’t talked to Nadiya yet, so this may all be for naught.”
Kathleen chewed slowly, still thinking. “Has the island ever had two Keepers before?”
“Not that I could find.” Rebecca laid a hand on the book. “And I think the Keepers would have recorded such a thing if it had happened. Usually, a new Keeper wasn’t brought on until the former was old and nearing end of life.”
“Are you…” Kathleen asked.
Rebecca burst out laughing. “No. I’m not dying. That’s why this is rather unusual.”
“Do we need to run this by the Council?”
“I suppose we should notify them, but this, I think, is for us to do.”
Kathleen sat back. “What, exactly, is for us to do?”
“There’s a ritual.”
“Of course there is.” Kathleen dropped her forehead to her hand. “And it involves blood.”
“Curiously enough, it does.” Rebecca couldn’t keep the amusement from her voice. She flipped through the pages to the back of the book. “This ritual is one only the Keepers know about. Part of it is to swear never to reveal it to anyone else.”
Kathleen raised her head. “You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding.”
“I can’t even tell Molly?”
Rebecca gave a firm shake of her head. “That was never an issue for me, obviously. But you can’t tell her. I suppose you’ll have to ask her to accept this as part of the position.”
She hesitated. “I’ve never told anyone this, either, but when I was seven, I had a dream. The most vivid dream I’ve ever had. In it, I saw myself doing this, going through this ritual. This is why I always knew I would become Keeper. I never felt I had a choice.”
Kathleen frowned. “Would you have chosen to be Keeper if it was a choice?”
“A year ago,” Rebecca said softly, “I would have said yes without hesitation. But now,” she gazed out the window for a second, “I don’t know.”
“What’s involved?”
“It’s a kind of vision quest.” Rebecca spun the book around to Kathleen. “It’s a little different for each of us. It’s done during a nighttime storm. The First Ones believed the island’s spirits were most active in the thunder and lightning, and it’s for the island to accept or reject us.”
Kathleen stared hard at her. “What do you mean, accept or reject?”
“Just that. The island gets to choose.”
“So, there’s a chance, I could go through all this, and the island could say no?”
“I don’t—” Rebecca paused at the look in Kathleen’s eyes. “Yes.”
A warm nighttime breeze ruffled the curtain. Molly turned over, her arm automatically reaching out to touch Kathleen, but when it kept moving without encountering her, she woke completely. She propped up on her elbow, listening for sounds from the bathroom. When all remained quiet and Kathleen hadn’t returned to bed, she got up. Blossom’s bed was empty, too.
She padded out to the hall and checked the office and bathroom. Both empty. Downstairs, she found Kathleen sitting on the front porch, Blossom stretched out next to her. Molly sat on her other side.
“What are you doing up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Something bothering you?” Molly wrapped an arm around Kathleen’s waist. “You were really quiet tonight.”
Kathleen shrugged. “Guess I’m still taking in the whole ‘other family’ thing.”
“Thought that might be it.” Molly studied Kathleen’s profile, which always looked a bit different when she wasn’t wearing her glasses. “Eryn leaves today, doesn’t she?”
Kathleen nodded.
“You going to see her off?”
“Yeah.” Kathleen sighed. “It’s the least I can do after I was such a jerk. None of this is her fault.”
“You going to invite her back?”
“Probably. Maybe.” Kathleen sighed again. “Yeah.”
They sat for a while, listening to the night sounds—the rustle of critters in the woods, the hoot of an owl. Overhead, the stars blanketed the sky. Kathleen leaned her head against Molly’s shoulder.
“Have you ever wondered if the island wants you here?”
“Why would the island not want us here?” Molly asked.
Kathleen shrugged. “I guess I keep thinking, what if Eryn had found Little Sister before I came back? Would I have had a place here? Do I really belong here? More than she does.”
Molly craned her neck to look at Kathleen. “I think, for the most part, things play out the way they’re meant to. You’re part of Little Sister. You were here as a kid. You had more of a connection to the island than she did. So maybe that’s why you were led to come back first.”
Kathleen picked her head up. “You think?”
Molly kissed her gently. “I do. Now come back to bed.”
When they woke, Molly prepped her gear for an early row, and Kathleen dressed to go join Eryn for a last breakfast.
“She’s not come down yet,” Wilma said by way of greeting when she brought a mug of coffee to the table. “Should be soon.”
Kathleen sipped her coffee, recalling her first breakfast here, after a stormy return to Little Sister. The kindness of Wilma and the other islanders who’d welcomed her back, commiserating over Maisie’s passing, they’d helped her feel at home. Eryn hadn’t gotten to experience that, and Kathleen felt guilty all over again.
So when Eryn entered the diner, Kathleen smiled and gestured to the seat opposite her as an invitation.
“Didn’t expect to see you,” Eryn said.
“I wanted to see you off.” They paused while Wilma delivered coffee for Eryn and took their orders. “And I wanted to exchange contact info so we can stay in touch.”
She pushed an index card across the table with her phone number, mailing address, and email address.
Eryn glanced at it and looked up at her hopefully. “Really? You want to stay in touch?”
“Yeah.” Kathleen grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry about my attitude. I guess I was like a kid who found out I have to share my toys. You have every bit as much a right to be part of Little Sister as I do.”
Eryn’s eyes teared up. “Thanks. I mean it. This place…” She glanced out the window at the main street, a few of the shops now open. “It gets under your skin. Even before you come here. Then, when you do, it’s like you know it’s the place you’ve been missing. When you didn’t even know you were missing something.”
Because Kathleen did know, she merely nodded. She handed a blank card and pencil to Eryn, who quickly jotted her own contact info and handed them back.
“Tell me about your friends in DC,” Kathleen suggested as Wilma brought their breakfasts.
Eryn chatted animatedly about the folks she worked with, her elderly landlady—“I’m pretty sure she snoops around my third-floor apartment when I’m not there, but the rent is unbelievably cheap, so it’s worth the nuisance.”—the bird lady on Eryn’s morning bike rides who always feeds the birds in the park.
“I love history, but I’ve only done a few of the monuments and stuff,” she said. “Have you ever been?”
“Not since my eighth grade field trip. Stayed in Philly mostly.”
“You and Molly should come down sometime, let me show you around.” Eryn’s smile faltered. “That is… if, you know, you want to hang out or anything.”
“That would be nice.” Kathleen found she actually meant it. “Every now and then, even we feel the need to get away from the island. Visiting you would give us a kick in the butt to do it. And maybe you could meet us in Philadelphia, too. I could take you around. If my dad still has his house, it’s huge with plenty of room for all of us.”
“That’s an easy drive for me.”
“And,” Kathleen faltered but forced herself to continue, “the next time you can come up this way, you’ll stay with us.”
Louisa’s heart pounded, though she tried to hide her anxiety. She’d told Ollie that she’d be fine if Irene and Roy returned to the mainland, that she’d still have Meredith and Aidan, but when Irene requested a family meeting, Louisa realized it wasn’t true.
I’ve only just found my girl, only now have her back in my life after all these years. It isn’t right or fair to have her taken away again.
She wanted to scream her frustration and anger, but years of discipline, of hiding her deepest feelings kept her face carefully neutral as she did what she always did when she was troubled—she baked.
“It smells heavenly in here.” Meredith followed her nose into the kitchen, sniffing like Jasper when he scented a rabbit. “Orange cranberry bread?”
“Yes.” Louisa bent over the loaves in the oven, poking them with a skewer to test their doneness. A few more minutes. Her family loved this bread. My family. As soon as the thought hit, she felt her composure crumbling. Meredith must have noticed.
“Are you all right?”
Louisa gave a jerky nod. “Of course.”
But Meredith’s narrowed eyes plainly said she didn’t believe it. “I’m nervous, too.”
“You are?” Louisa risked a glance at her.
“Yeah.” Meredith leaned into the dining room to make sure no one was around. “The morning we dug potatoes, when Dad got mad at Mom for fussing over him, he told me they might separate.”
Her voice hitched on the last word.
“Oh, Meredith.” Louisa clasped her hands over her chest to even her own breathing.
“I don’t know what they’ve decided,” Meredith continued, “but I have a feeling when Mom went to the mainland with my uncles, she was looking for a place to live.”
“And you think that’s why she called this meeting?”
“Why else?” Meredith ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I’ve lived apart from them for years. This should be no big deal, right? So why does it feel like a big deal?”
“Because it’s not happening under happy circumstances,” Louisa said heavily.
“Wish we could get it over with,” Meredith grumbled. “But I want Aidan to be here for whatever this is, so it’ll have to wait until tonight.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m going to go for a walk. Want to come?”
“You go ahead, dear. When these are done, I’m going to putter in the garden for a bit.”
With the last of the loaves baked and cooling a few minutes later, Louisa plopped her battered straw hat on her head and took a basket out to the garden. There, she weeded and picked—beans and tomatoes. She cut some lettuce and tugged a few carrots and radishes and onions from the earth.
As she carried the basket toward the house, Irene sauntered up the drive, her bag containing her art supplies slung over one shoulder.
“Let me help you with that.” She insisted on carrying the loaded basket into the kitchen. She set her bag on one of the chairs. “I’ll help you clean these.”
Louisa watched her worriedly, noting the dark circles under her eyes. “You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
Irene kept her eyes focused on the carrots as she scrubbed them. “I wake up about thirty times a night, listening for Roy’s breathing, waiting for the time I’m not going to hear it.”
Her chin tremored, but she pursed her lips tightly.
Louisa recognized the effort to stem tears. She stood beside Irene at the sink and cleaned the lettuce. “I would probably do the same.”
“That man drives me to distraction, with his spreadsheets and charts and insisting we can be more efficient,” Irene burst out. She grabbed a peeler. “But I don’t know what I would do without him.”
“I know what you mean.” Louisa got a large bowl from a cupboard and began to shred the lettuce into it. “Ollie and I drove each other crazy at times.”
She was certain she heard a “harumph” and had to hide her smile.
“I thought this house was lonely after Daddy passed, but Ollie and I still had each other. When she died so suddenly, so unexpectedly, it left me feeling like a hollowed-out shell.”
Louisa turned to her daughter. “Irene.”
Irene paused her scraping of the carrots but didn’t look up.
“You and Roy need to do what’s right for the two of you.”
Still, Irene keep her eyes lowered, frowning as she whispered, “Even if it means leaving here?”
Though she’d prepared herself for it, Louisa still felt a pang to hear the words spoken aloud. “Yes. Even if it means that.”
Irene raised her face at last, her eyes filled with tears. “I love it here. And I love—” She paused. “I should have said it before now. I love you.”
Louisa couldn’t hold back her own tears. “I love you, too.” She pulled Irene into her arms. “I’ve always loved you.”
Late that night, Meredith lay nestled securely in Aidan’s arms, trying to quiet her own tears.
“It’s not so bad,” he said soothingly.
“I know.” Meredith sniffed. “At least they’re going together. Dad surprised me with that.”
“He surprised all of us.” Aidan kissed her forehead. “And it makes sense, really. They’ll spend this winter on the mainland, where he can get to a hospital right away if he needs to. If he’s still doing this well in the spring, they’ll move back here. It’s just a few months.”
Meredith nodded into his neck. “Just a few months.”