Catherine Knutsson - Shadows Cast by Stars

One look at Paul tells me he remembers too. The buildings aren’t all that lurk below. The lost live amid the barnacles and sea wrack, and they, too, seek a new home. That day, when he swam into the dark water to save me, was the first time he encountered the lost. That was the price of my life, that Paul be haunted by those who have died and yet not passed over, and that price is something I will try to repay for as long as I live.

Our father turns from his watch at the stern. “Is it bad, Cass?”

“Yeah,” I murmur.

“It’ll be better when we’re out a bit farther,” he says.

I smile and nod, because that will make him feel better. My father has enough to worry about already.

Once it’s dark, Madda flicks on a single red light on the port side of the boat. “There’s still some traffic out here,” she whispers, “so I’ve got to put it on, but if you need to say something, keep your voice down. The ocean does strange things to sound, especially on a night like this.”

I know what she means. The water is glassy smooth, and as the boat slices through it, the ripples turn red around us. My mind swims as spirit pulls at me, demanding I give in. Look , it whispers. Remember. You’ve seen this before . And I have, this red flame surrounding a boat plying a dark ocean. But when? I’ve never been to the Island before, but that’s not it, exactly. There’s something deeper to this feeling.

Paul sets his hand on my arm and gives me a questioning look. I shake my head. No, I’m not going under. I’m still here, but that doesn’t mean I’ll watch the bloodred wake anymore. I train my gaze on the darkness to the west, where the Island looms. My father lived there once, long ago. He doesn’t talk about it much. My mother used to, though. She said it’s beautiful there, peaceful, a haven from the Corridor and its smoke and noise. But there’s trouble on the Island too. Back then, the Band ran wild, until Arthur Eagleson got them organized, but that was after my parents returned to my grandfather’s farm, and now Arthur Eagleson is gone as well. He disappeared two years ago, and it didn’t take long for some of the Band to revert to their old ways, ways that prize violence over temperance, ways that mirror the UA tactics more than they’d care to admit.

And the Band has already stolen so much from our family-our two uncles, for one, and our safety, for another. Two years ago, the Band signed the treaty land surrounding our house back to the UA, and left for the Island. Since then, they just showed up whenever they wanted, marching into our house, taking it over like they owned the place, and while I retreated upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom, my brother and father sat with them, drank with them, listened to their stories about how, one day, the Band would overthrow the UA and take back the land that was once ours to begin with.

It’s not the boasting, or the drinking, or even the guns they brought into our house, though I hate all of them, too. It’s that the Band men filled my brother’s head with dreams, dreams of being a warrior of the Old Way, when what they really want is to use my brother as cannon fodder. They don’t tell him about the boys who die when they raid the facilities where they hook us Others up to machines and drain us of our blood. They don’t tell him about those who return home broken, those who take to drinking rather than face a day sober. But I know. My mother told me.

What would she say if she were here right now? Does she know how much it hurts to leave her behind, sleeping beneath the apple tree at the house? Sometimes when I close my eyes I think I hear her talking to me, but I’m too scared to believe that might be true. I wonder if she speaks to Paul. If she does, he’s never said. Would he keep something like that from me? I wish I knew. Sitting here in the boat, holding hands, it’s like we’re children again. When we were little, we were inseparable. I kept my hair short so I’d look just like Paul, because back then, I wanted to be him, the funny one, the happy one. I didn’t want to have seizures. I didn’t want to cross into the spirit world and see the things I saw, things I don’t truly remember.

But now, my seizures have all but left me behind and sometimes I find myself wanting to walk those spirit paths, if only they didn’t scare me so badly. But I don’t tell Paul that. Paul thinks I’m brave. I let him. One of us has to be strong, and Paul doesn’t believe it’s him.

As I think this, I look up and find Madda watching me. She’s frowning. If I closed my eyes and allowed my spirit sight to come, I think I’d find her looking for my shade too, and that frown tells me she’s just as puzzled as I am about why it’s missing.

Sometime later, just as I’m about to doze off, Madda kills the engines. We float, helpless under the watchful eye of the waning moon, as something pricks at my temples. We are crossing the boundary.

In the old times, sailors used to tell tales of sirens. My mother told me about them, the women who sang songs to lure men to their deaths. Perhaps the boundary is part of that, a siren of sorts; for if I was on my own, I’m not sure I’d be able to leave. Spirit is thick here, calling to me, blinding my eyes, whispering words that my mother once used: My gentle girl. My starshine child. Stay with me. Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t leave me behind .

When Madda starts the engines again, I almost weep. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here and listen to my mother’s voice, even though part of me knows it’s not really her. I’m only hearing what I want to hear. It’s the boundary , I think. It’s lonely. I would be too, if I were out here all by myself, waiting, watching people pass by, never to stay.

My father takes the helm as Madda sits beside me, watching me with night-dark eyes. Paul snores, his head leaning against my shoulder.

“You felt it, did you?” Madda whispers.

I nod.

“Ah. I should have known.” She looks back toward the boundary. A glimmer of phosphorescence marks our wake. “Non-Others can float right up to it and never know it exists, you know, unless they try to pass through. Then the boundary pushes them away, although to them it feels like the current, or the wind. Well, that’s the way it used to be. Not quite like that anymore-there are gaps now that didn’t used to be there. But our blood has always allowed us to pass through, and that permits us to bring non-Others across if we want to. But to feel it, to hear it, that’s something a little different.”

“How?” I whisper.

She looks as if she won’t answer but then changes her mind. “The boundary is made of spirit, and if you feel it, that means you’ve got a strong connection to the spirit world. Sometimes, the spirits of the ones we love, the ones who have passed on, can come through here. But you didn’t need me to tell you that, did you?”

She makes her way back to the wheel before I can answer, because I don’t need to. I see the pinch of her mouth, the way she’s holding her breath, the shadow of loss in her eyes.

She’s heard the siren’s call too.

Dawn rises like a gray dove. The air is cold and I haven’t slept at all.

The Island looms before us. As the sun rises, its mountains ripple with golden light, with crimson, like a christening, a great homecoming. I wish it was both, but I know it’s neither.

There are five treaty territories, established more than two hundred years ago, before the world fell apart. All of them are protected by the Band. The Pueblos far to the south still grow food by dry-till methods. The eastern Mohawk Nation is the oldest, and the most militant. They always have been, those Mohawk warriors. They were the ones who created the Band to begin with, and it was their idea to negotiate the treaty territories before it was too late.