Маргарет Миллар - The Cannibal Heart

“She said Jessie was all hers.”

“Hers?”

“I think she meant she would take Jessie away with her some place.”

“But there isn’t any place to take her.”

“The island.”

“They’d never get to the island in that thing!”

“She doesn’t care,” Mr. Roma said again.

There was rage and fear now behind every pull of the oars. The boat was catching up easily with the clumsy rubber raft, but neither Mrs. Wakefield nor Jessie had turned around and seen it. They seemed inexorably headed for a destination.

Mrs. Wakefield looked so funny with her hair streaming and her dress puffing in and out with the wind, that Jessie could hardly stop laughing. Wind-tears and laughter-tears squeezed out of her eyes and dried saltily on her blotched cheeks.

“My arms are getting tired,” Jessie said.

“Rest a while then. I will, too.”

“Will we find seals there, do you think?”

“Certainly.”

“I’d like to catch a baby one to take home with me. I bet the kids at school wouldn’t believe their eyes.”

“Home?” Mrs. Wakefield half-turned, so that Jessie could see how very still her face had become. Her hair blew, her dress fluttered, but her face was quiet as stone. “Where’s home?”

“Manhattan.”

“Manhattan.” She spoke with her fingers pressed against her mouth. “That’s an island, too, isn’t it?”

“A city-island.”

Shivering, Jessie hugged her arms together to warm them. The sun had disappeared and a flock of clouds was blowing across the sky. The sea was changing color, from blue to green, and silver to slate. She was a little awed by all the changes, and she looked toward the island to see how close they were getting, and how soon they would be arriving.

But the island had vanished. There was only the sea, going on and on and on.

“It’s gone,” she shouted. “The island’s gone!”

“No, no, it hasn’t. It’s still there, only we can’t see it. The weather’s changed.”

“But we’re getting closer to it. We should see it better. It should be bigger.”

“It’s only hiding behind the weather.”

“Hiding?” She leaned forward straining her eyes, but there was nothing hiding out there. The sleeping giant had wakened and walked away.

She remembered the mystery of the puddles on the highway. It had been a sunny day, and she was out driving with her father when she noticed on the pavement ahead of her shining wet puddles. But no matter how fast her father drove he never caught up with the puddles, they had always dried up and disappeared by the time the car reached them.

“Why can’t we catch them?” she had asked.

“Because they’re not there,” Mark said. “It’s only the reflection of the sun’s rays.”

“But I see them, I see them with my own eyes!”

“It’s an illusion.”

“But...”

“See that one right now beside the maple tree? When we get to the tree we’ll stop and you can get out and look.”

She got out and looked, and there was no puddle. She picked a maple leaf off the ground to take home and wax, as a souvenir.

“There isn’t any island,” she said in a hard tight little voice.

“Jessie, I’ve told you...”

“It’s like the puddles. I looked and they weren’t really there.”

“I don’t understand. Jessie dear, listen...”

She climbed over the seat and put her arms coaxingly around the resisting child. Then she saw, not more than fifty yards behind the raft, Mr. Roma and Mark in the old rowboat. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said harshly. “There isn’t any island.”

“It was all pretend?”

“Yes.”

“And we can go home?”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t play jokes like that on people,” Jessie said righteously. “It isn’t nice.”

“I see that now.”

“You won’t do it anymore?”

“No, Jessie. Never.”

“That’s a promise.”

“Look. Look behind you. Your father and Mr. Roma have come to — to meet us.”

“My father !” Jessie swung around, and there, her eyes told her, was her father, and Mr. Roma, and the rowboat. There was no island, but her father was real, and so was the rowboat, and the realest of all was Mr. Roma. He’d taken off his hat and was waving it furiously. His face was all squeezed up with smiles, and he kept nodding and shaking his head so hard it seemed that his neck had come loose.

Jessie screamed with laughter and shouted to him though he couldn’t hear her: “Mr. Roma! Hey, there isn’t any island! It’s just a joke!”

Mrs. Wakefield put out the sea-anchor. She sat in silence until the rowboat pulled up alongside and Mark grabbed the rope that was tied to the sides of the raft.

“Ahoy, ahoy,” Jessie yelled, and Mr. Roma yelled back, “Ahoy!”

“Hey, Mr. Roma! Do you know what? There isn’t any island.”

“Fancy that,” said Mr. Roma, sniffing and wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “Fancy that now.”

“Daddy, did you know that?”

“No,” Mark said. “Here. I’ll help you over. You’re going back with us.”

“But why?”

“Be a good girl and don’t ask questions. Step right here now, in the middle.”

He held her as she clambered over the side. Mr. Roma wrapped her in a blanket like a cocoon and she sat pressed tight against his side, rocking back and forth with the motion of the boat.

Mark turned to Mrs. Wakefield, his face cold with anger. “Are you coming?”

“No.”

“Pulling a crazy stunt like this — you must be out of your mind. Now get in here.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You’re going to, anyway.”

“You’re only wasting time,” Mrs. Wakefield said. “Jessie should be taken home. Her clothes are wet.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I?” She blinked. “I’ll... I’ll be back in a little while.”

“The wind’s against you, and it looks as if it’s going to storm.”

“We never have summer storms here.”

“For Christ’s sake, Janet, stop arguing. Haven’t you been foolish enough for one day? I can’t leave you out here like this, and I’ve got to get Jessie home.”

“Take her then. I don’t want to go back just... just yet. In a little while. I’ll be there in a little while.”

“Janet... Janet, please. Act sensible.”

“Leave her be,” said Mr. Roma, and Mrs. Wakefield looked across at him, gratefully.

“What about the storm?” Mark shouted.

“Storm? Like Mrs. Wakefield told you, we never have a summer storm.”

“Thank you, Carl,” she said.

It began to rain before they reached shore.

Mr. Roma said that Mrs. Wakefield had gone on a long journey, and Evelyn said she didn’t know... “ Hush now, Jessie. No one knows. There’s no use asking any more questions.”

But Luisa, whispering from her window across the dark wet driveway, said she knew. “She’s at the bottom of the sea. The sharks are eating her.”

“No!”

“They are so, I bet.”

“Mr. Roma said...”

“You’re such a baby they don’t tell you things. I happen to know they found the raft two days ago. The Coast Guard found it in a tide cave on the island.”

“What island?”

“The island, silly.”

“You’re a stinking liar,” Jessie said and closed her window tight and put her fingers in her ears so she couldn’t hear the trees crying in the dark outside her window, drip, drip, drip.

It was nearly a week before the rain stopped and the sun came out and it was all right to go into the woods again.

She shuffled down the path wearing an old pair of ladies’ rubber boots that Mr. Roma had found in the garage and brushed the cobwebs out of. (“Whose are they, Mr. Roma?” “No one’s.” “They must belong to someone.” “Hush, no more questions.” “Are they Mrs. — ?” “Now, now.”)