The first wave of Glowfolk embraced us, their guests, with measured pressure.
The teenagers stood stiffly as poncho plastic rustled off their jackets. The heady smell of it, in the island’s surprisingly humid environment, gave me something short of a migraine.
Glowfolk surrounded us, gently chanting something, swaying back and forth like anemone fronds, waving sparklers. As placid as they appeared, they were obviously malnourished. Smiles revealed teeth of mismatched color: those that had always been were darker than those replaced.
As objective as I was sure Heath and Corinne wanted to be, their faces took on parental looks of pity as they embraced Glow members. Like they wanted to scoop up all these sorry people and take them home.
The sparklers died, and the Glow swarmed us, settling us together in a sticky web of a hug, plastic crinkling in my ears.
“So glad to meet you,” a woman with a messy bob said to me.
“I love your jacket, wow,” said a tall man behind me, stroking my sleeve.
The teenagers smiled, trying not to giggle.
Heath smiled back at the members, while Corinne looked about to vomit.
I felt male hands inside my jacket, exploring the pockets therein, knuckles brushing past my breasts. I cringed and pulled my arms closer to my sides.
Excessive signs of protest on my part would surely not be received well. I’d already figured that—but what would I let the Glow do to me? If I’d taken that in, I probably wouldn’t have come. I guessed I was thankful that I hadn’t, then. Though that really depended on my progress on finding my sister.
A disappointment hit me in the gut that Joanna wasn’t on the front line, as if by learning the identities of island Glow members, the chances of Joanna being out here diminished. The more new faces I took in, the more this feeling gripped me.
“Hey!” I said, pulling away, clutching my suitcase. I pushed out of the crowd and regained my breath. The zip on my bag was down. I pulled it back up.
Members stepped back, their feet padding on the mulchy floor. Between sharp ridges of microwaveable packaging, cassette tapes, fragments of old TVs and photo frames, were mounds of purple moss. Small clusters of some glowing, alien vegetation filled opportunistic holes like unattended warts left to thrive. Dead hermit crabs sloshed in the floor’s crevices, in the water that pooled over the ragged edges. Beads of sunlight, in splashed seawater, shone upon the mottled plastic fabric. And yet the island smelled like a steam room, of a gentle clean fragrance entrained in thick water vapor.
The circle of Glowfolk receded and I had a chance to look around.
Chubby succulents lined the undulating floor and—not trees, but tree-shaped clumps of foreign vegetation, pulsing with light, encircled the plaza.
Mold-spotted shower curtains secured the doorways. Members sat cross-legged just outside them, plastic tubs in their laps, scrubbing clothes on hand-made plastic washboards in dark, soapy water.
Monolithic creepers ran up the plastic towers. The plants wound and wormed their way around them, spiraling towards weird amalgams of treehouses and small woven huts. Their chewed and reconstituted structures looked like the hives of alien wasps.
The members looked us up and down, taking us in. Beneath their colorful translucent ponchos, they wore regular comfy clothing: t-shirts, jumpers, joggers, harem pants and even pajama bottoms.
The teenagers had pushed through the crowd and collectively embraced a tall blond man who wore a fancier-looking tunic than the rest, made from iridescent plastic. It had to be Gabriel Brooks, I told myself, but it took an inordinate time to recognize him. He looked like he’d cut his own hair, and had something like liver spots on his face. I doubted they’d used that much Photoshop on his posters—in which case, how could anything that had aged him that much, that quickly, be good?
As I pondered this, someone hugged me from the side. I recognized the coconut scent, and inhaling it delivered a flood of favorite memories, of unfettered silliness, distilled life-affirmation.
A cheap flat warming party for her in London, with nuts and crisps in paper bowls because she hadn’t bought any crockery yet, drinking champagne from plastic flutes and dancing to music on cheap phone speakers, getting messy and shouting “This is what it’s all about!” Until we’d riled her neighbors.
Hanging out with the wrong crowd down the nature trail by the school, passing a can of deodorant between us and huffing solvents from it through a hand towel like a bunch of idiots.
Holding hands and running away from the wedding reception for her dad and our Mum.
That we were stepsisters didn’t remove us from one another. We lasted longer than our fathers did with Mum. We were the ones those unions were supposed to bring together.
She released me. I turned to her. She was so pale I could barely see her freckles, her skin the same color as the long plastic tunic she wore. Her hair was its natural chestnut for the first time since she was thirteen. She resembled the skinny sixteen-year-old I’d force-fed apple slices and chocolate squares, with her jutting hips, angular elbows, emaciated face.
I hugged her again, swaying her from side to side.
“Welcome.” She didn’t sound like herself. “My name is Joy.”
I’d guessed it would be unwise to reveal family connections to members on the island. Like that, we were instantly complicit. Unless she didn’t remember me at all.
“Joy,” I said. “Joy it is, then.”
From across the plaza, where a tall pair of men welcomed the other visitors—the teens and journalists—to the island, Heath and Corinne looked at me. Despite myself, I met their gaze. Though we hadn’t known each other long, I could tell they knew exactly what the shock and excitement in my eyes meant.
Shit.
I didn’t want to give anything away. Even if they’d claimed they were on my side, I’d just met them and had no reason to trust anyone at all. I had to suppress all natural instincts, keep everything bottled up for the duration of my stay.
“You two seem to be getting along!” A woman walked up behind Joanna. She had a wind-weathered face, long ash-colored dreadlocks flecked with sea mist, and large wooden gauges in her ears.
“Lily, was it?” Joanna said to me.
She hadn’t forgotten. Well, that quashed a worry I’d just developed, placing me just a step beneath square one.
“Meet my wife.”
I let Joanna go and turned to this woman, shaking her hand.
“Ella,” she said. She looked between us. “Joy gets a hug and I get a handshake?”
“It’s so nice to meet you.” I held her by the shoulders, looking between her and my sister. “I mean it.”
“You’ve been lost a long time, huh?” Ella said. “It’s okay. You’re home now. Let go.”
Of course I couldn’t. I had to hold myself back and dry my eyes. They couldn’t learn what got to my emotions, or anything further about me. As pleasant as they might have seemed, as normal as they wanted to pretend this place was, they were insidious.
As for Joanna, it was promising that she kept our connection secret. Over the time I spent here, I’d try to enhance our alliance, ideally reaching a tipping point where she would re-devote herself to family over the Glow. And then we could leave.
For now, I had to leave the name Joanna behind. For our safety.