The Rattled Bones(40)

Sam’s eyes narrow. “Regretted it how?”

My screen empties of dirt and I let it hang from my grasp. “She told Hattie she was sorry she didn’t have more love in her heart. I can’t let that go, you know? That she was sorry, like it was a personal regret.”

“What are you thinking?”

I sculpt out another small chunk of earth, easy with my blade as I slice. “I’m thinking Hattie’s nan knew what was happening on these shores and was complicit, or her family was complicit. I think she was basically telling Hattie that maybe if she had had more love in her heart, she might have tried to stop what happened out here. At least, that’s what I want to believe.” I see Hattie’s nan hovering over me, straightening my uniform, always making triple certain I looked proper for Brownies—even though she knew Gram already did the same for me before I left the house. “She would’ve been really young then, though. Maybe ten or twelve years old.” I want her youth to exonerate her from the crimes that were committed.

“The population here was pretty small then, and word would have traveled by gossip. She likely heard about it at a community gathering.”

“Or over supper.”

He nods.

Everyone on the mainland would have known what was happening eighty years ago. The news articles didn’t print themselves, and they were too salacious to have gone unread. And what about Gram’s parents? Did they want the islanders gone? Dad always taught me to judge a person by their capacity for kindness and nothing else, but this was an entirely different generation of men.

Men who evicted other men. And their families.

“I think most mainlanders wanted the island cleared by the time the order of eviction was served. Malaga became a local embarrassment after Boston papers started running articles and photos. But I don’t think it was always that way.”

“It couldn’t have been. Malaga residents were left in peace for decades, no different from other island communities around here.” I sift the dirt clear of the excavation site, watch small bits drop through the fine screen.

“And the people probably would have been left alone if the island itself wasn’t so desirable. It seems like all the research agrees on that one point in the end—that the racial and economic tensions regarding Malaga really boiled down to the fact that the mainland saw a chance for developing tourism to the island.”

“That’s the shameful part of this whole story. That an entire culture could be erased so someone could build a hotel. It feels like the shame should sit with the state, the developers, the mainlanders—not the people of Malaga or their descendants.”

“Power of the press, right?” Sam uses a brush to smooth away dirt from the exposed wrought iron.

The grate looks so familiar to me now. I recognize it. My adrenaline rushes, bringing satisfaction for connecting one small piece of this island’s history.

“Sam.” I’m not sure why I didn’t make the connection before. I grab his moleskin from my pack, open it to the photo of the empty schoolhouse decorated for Christmas. I point to the child’s desk in the foreground, its ironwork legs identical to the ornate metal Sam excavates.

“I know. Pretty cool, right?”

“You’re not surprised?”

He shakes his head.

“But you said you didn’t know what it was.”

“I don’t. I won’t know for absolute certain until it’s above the earth.”

A not-so-small part of me deflates. The part that was hoping I could discover some long-forgotten piece of this island’s story. “I hope that’s what it is. I want some part of the school to survive out here.”

“Hope is an important thing, Rilla. I think the missionaries who raised money for the school had a lot of hope. The school probably represented hope to the residents.”

“Until it was taken away.”

“Yes, well, I’m not sure the school or the islanders could have suffered a different fate.”

I feel cold breath on my neck, the same biting cold that joined me in bed this morning. I turn to see the girl, but there’s no one. Still, the shiver climbs inside of my bones. “Why do you say that?”

“Discrimination is discrimination. Racism is racism. There’s no getting it right when one group thinks they’re inherently superior to another.”

“But the islanders were institutionalized. That’s the part I can’t get my mind around. Why take their freedom away? Why lock up innocent people?” Why lock them in a place where people were sent to be forgotten, and worse?

“Malaga Island residents weren’t innocent, Rilla. They were immoral, living out of traditional wedlock. Shiftless. You read the articles.”

“You can’t possibly believe that propaganda.”

“Of course not, but it’s important to contextualize our findings in this field. And back then, difference was unacceptable. Mainstream society didn’t know how to look at the poor or disabled any other way. So they built warehouses—institutions—to store people away. They believed they were removing a danger to middle-class values.”

“But the middle class was the danger. The islanders probably knew that on some level, don’t you think? That’s why they lived off the grid.”

“Probably.”