EPILOGUE EPILOGUEDATE UNKNOWN
My dear sweet Evie. I think about you every day—I wonder how tall you are, what your favorite class is in school, if you miss me. If you remember me. I have a journal that was on the boat, and a box of pens, but there are only thirty-six, so I’m trying to spread them out, these letters. I don’t even know if we’ll ever find each other again, but the Reverend says I must have faith, a term I’m coming to hate, because it means “no one knows for sure.”
Your brother was born a year ago. Sometimes he reminds me of you, sometimes of Agnes, and sometimes of no one at all, like there are so many things inside of him, competing, that not one thing shines through. I can tell you he has sandy blond hair, and a significant bite, which we’re trying to temper, but he hates to wear clothes, and doesn’t like boundaries. He’s already walking, and often we’ll find he’s wandered off to another side of the island and is contentedly curled up under a tree, playing with stones. Sometimes he talks, haltingly, words bubbling out in different languages, although we’re trying to get him to adhere to English.
I still call the Reverend “Reverend,” and he’s not horrible company. At least he doesn’t seem interested in anything more than a platonic “kinship.” He spends most of his days tending to the seeds he’s planted, all of Kapu’s native children, which are thriving here, even though this island is small. I have convinced him to plant the corpse flower on the other side of the island, because of the smell, for one, and also because it’s a reminder of what my future might be. Sometimes when I’m tired, I wonder if it’s just fatigue, or if I’m in the beginning stages of never moving again.
Noah stopped moving about a month ago. If his eyes can still see, he has a nice view though, perched at the top of a cliff where the ocean breeze is strong. I sometimes check in on him, sit by his feet, which are slowly taking root.
After your brother was born, I lost all of the voices, like the passengers jumped ship once they knew the lifeboat had been dropped into the sea. I suspect they’re with him now. It feels like a strange kind of shunning. It makes the island smaller. But there’s one stowaway who still makes an appearance every now and again—the Julia beneath my skin. I’ll be at the stony beach, and then find myself in the island’s greening interior, the sun higher in the sky. Once I came to and found she’d drawn a gecko in the mud, although there are none here. But for the most part, if she wants to wander, she does so at night, when I’m asleep. A truce of sorts. The boy calls Julia-under-the-skin “other Mommy.” I asked him if he was afraid of her, and he said no, because she’s Kapu.
Which I guess means I’m not.
Strangely, I miss it. I could spend hours, even days, sitting in the shade, traveling through all the memories it held, the lives it incorporated. You might not believe me, but I even miss Ethan. I spent a good deal of time mucking about in his childhood, and although what he did will pain me for the rest of my life, I do have a better understanding of why his heart was such a desert. What he went through when he was a child. I finally forgave him.
Dr. Stolz would be proud.
God, I miss you too. Miss isn’t a strong enough word, though. I don’t think one has been invented, in any language.
DATE UNKNOWN
I’ve looked everywhere for the key. I have this very stupid idea that I’ll find it, and somehow magically sail away, and then find you. I don’t know if I believe myself, but it gives me something to think about. The Reverend must have buried it somewhere, because I’ve surreptitiously looked through every accessible part of the boat, every item that we brought to shore. He must have my GPS phone too. What I wouldn’t give for just one stupid headline, to know there are still people out in the world, worried about what the hot color is for fall.
The Reverend built a small church out of trees that had blown down in the last big storm, and palm fronds, binding it all with twine the boy made. He even made a rudimentary cross, and a floor of dried thatch. A good rain sometimes causes the poles to list, since they’re not set too deeply in the sand, but he just fixes them when the sky clears. Every Sunday (or what we think is Sunday), he glowers when I go for a walk instead of joining him.
We still call your brother “the boy” because he doesn’t seem to respond yet to any name we’ve tried so far. Michael, James, Daniel, Lucas, John, Dylan (my favorite), Caleb (the Reverend’s). It’s become a family game now, if family is a word you could use for our configuration, with the Reverend or me tossing out a name while we’re gathered around the fire, the boy giggling and shaking his head no each time. Maybe the Julia-under-the-skin knows. I’m jealous of her, in a strange kind of way, because she’s more Kapu than I am.
How long has it been now? I’m not sure, but the boy is taller now, as high as my waist. He loves to rhyme and mostly sticks with English, although sometimes he’ll go silent for weeks at a time. Absorbed in Kapu.
I asked the Reverend why he’s immune, and he said it was part of an agreement made a long time ago between Kapu and his grandfather. Why I’m immune now, I can only conjecture.
But it’s a terrible burden, carrying this weight of self. A kind of coffin. I’ve even gone to the other side of the island, where the corpse flowers grow, pressed my face into the center of the bloom, inhaling the spores deeply, to no effect. When you’re a “one,” you’re trapped in linear time, only able to see what’s in front of and behind you. When you’re a “many,” your joy is dispersed, but so is your pain. It’s easier, somehow.
I don’t have the comfort of faith in God, but Shakespeare isn’t a bad substitute. The Reverend memorized all of Shakespeare’s work, which I’m starting to memorize as well, just from the repetition.
“Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
My love for you is fixed here, for now, but it’s never shaken.
DATE UNKNOWN
I’m locked in the cabin of the boat as I write this. Rapunzel in her tower. I think it’s been twenty-eight days. The boy looks so solemn when he brings me my food, slipping it through the notch at the bottom of the door, which the Reverend kindly cut out with an axe. The boy snuck me my journal, and a pen, to give me something to do. Sometimes he’ll sit outside the door while I eat my food, keeping me company.
“I spy with my little eye . . .” His favorite game.
You can walk around this island in half a day, it’s that small. I’ve tried to sketch it, but I’ve never had that gift. There hadn’t been that much vegetation before we got here either. Rain clouds passed mostly overhead, and there was only one natural spring. But the Reverend’s work has taken root, and it’s hardly recognizable now, or it is recognizable if you’ve been into the interior of Kapu. Massive curling ferns. Low, stubby trees. I even saw one of those twiglike leeches, brushed it off my shoulder.
A change is in the air. What kind, I’m not entirely sure. It’s been building, though, for months.
The pen, it’s running out.
I saw them whispering together, become silent when I approached. Noticed patches on the island that looked recently harvested. Found specimen jars that’d been washed and left out to dry. I decided to have another look in the cabin for the ignition key, and then heard the click behind me, too late. I hadn’t realized he’d switched the doorknob so it locked from the outside. That he’d been watching me too.
I think a new ark is under way, but whether I’ll be going along for the ride is a question. Maybe they’ll leave me behind. It’s a special kind of agony, not knowing. Like when I’d catch Ethan whispering with you. You’d look at me strangely after, as if you were already being pulled and stretched between us. Your voice would catch in a funny way. I’m so sorry, Evie. I’m sorry for all of it. I should have done more, been more.
Damn this pen.
I can’t promise you a happy ending, or that everything will be all right. The greatest lie we ever tell our children is that we can protect them. The truth is, the world has teeth, and people are ferocious creatures, and yes, half the world is trying to eat the other half. The truth is, there are witches in the woods with houses made of candy, who entice you inside with promises of cake, but have a dark purpose.
I can’t remake the world into something better. All I can do is love you. Be something recognizable so that if—no, when—we meet again, there’s something left of me you can still call home. Come find me, Evie, if you can. Follow the bread crumbs. I wish