Spells for Forgetting(48)

Twenty-Seven


    AUGUST


I could breathe in the city.

Seattle wasn’t Portland, but I exhaled as soon as I stepped off the ferry and onto the loading dock. The skyline was half-hidden in the morning fog, buildings peeking through the thick white drifts. But that rotting-sweet smell of the island was gone, and so was the sick feeling that had lived in my gut for the last several days.

As a kid, I’d always seen the island as a prison. We didn’t talk about my dad much. No one did. My mom didn’t bring him up and I never asked my grandfather questions because when I did, he took his anger over his son leaving out on me. Emery’s mom, Hannah, was the one who eventually told me that he’d up and left one night, taking his boat across the sound to Seattle and never coming back.

Almost immediately, I began to fantasize about doing the same exact thing. I remember the first time I realized that one day, if I wanted to, I could leave. I’d been up on the most remote rows of trees in the orchard clearing a patch of poison oak by myself. My grandfather saved the worst jobs for me and I almost never had help, except when an older farmhand like Zachariah took pity on me.

I was taking the shears to another vine, and when I heard thunder, I looked out past the water. Far in the distance, a black tangle of clouds was drifting over the sea. But it wasn’t moving toward Saoirse. It was moving away from it. It occurred to me suddenly as I looked down to my scraped arms that I understood why my dad had done it. Henry Salt believed that the orchard was in our veins, and it was true. It had drawn my blood many times. But there was one thing that divided my dad’s story and my own. There wasn’t anything on Saoirse that he couldn’t leave behind. Not me. Not my mom.

But I had Emery. And she was the only thing I’d ever missed after I left.

I walked up Fourth Avenue, weaving in and out of the crowds on the sidewalk. I liked that, too, about cities. The fact that you could disappear. I hadn’t really felt that until I moved to Portland for school. Before then, I’d never shaken that feeling of being watched, like even from all the way across Puget Sound, the island’s eye was still on me.

The Recorder’s Office of King County was one of several city buildings that lined the street. I pushed inside, shaking the rain from my jacket, and followed the placards until the hallway opened to a waiting room. On the far wall, two women sat behind a glass window.

The one on the right waved me forward, her eyes still glued to her computer screen. “Can I help you, honey?”

I pulled the paper from my pocket, setting it down. “I need to get a copy of a deed.”

“All right.” She slid the paper toward her and stood. “Just a minute.”

The woman on the left stopped typing and, though I didn’t look, I could feel her attention on me. A sharp prick crept up my spine, making me sweat. My face had been all over the news when the Seattle Police announced that I was a person of interest in Lily’s murder. I told myself that it was years ago, that no one would recognize me. But still, I always had that drop in my stomach when I caught someone staring at me. It happened all the time. On the train downtown, in the middle of class, even when I was walking on campus. Like my body couldn’t forget that feeling I’d lived with for so long.

I finally glanced up, and her eyes dropped back to the keyboard. Maybe she did recognize me. Or maybe my face had been just familiar enough from the news headlines that she thought she knew me from somewhere. I wasn’t going to ask. But when a small smile broke on her lips and she blushed, I realized it was a different kind of fascination that had drawn her gaze to me. I’d never been much good at that, either.

The first woman reappeared around the corner and her chair rolled as she sat back down. “Looks like that should be filed over at the records office on Saoirse Island.”

The younger woman looked up again, curious. It wasn’t just what happened the night of the fire. There were a lot of rumors on the mainland about the people who lived on Saoirse.

“It’s not. I’ve already been there,” I said.

She frowned, reaching into one of the open trays of paper on the left side of her desk. “Well, fill this out and we can have a copy sent to you.”

I stared at the paper as she slid it toward me. “Can’t I just get a printout or something?”

“We don’t keep the archives here.”

“A digital copy then? There’s gotta be a way to get it now.”

“We only do physical copy requests. Just jot down your address and I’ll process it.”

I leaned into the counter, trying to think. “How long will it take?”

“A few days. Maybe more.”

I blinked. “I don’t have a few days. I need to get this dealt with.”

She finally tore her eyes from the computer screen. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. This is the system we have to request copies.” She plucked one of the pens out of the cup to her right and held it out to me.

I reluctantly took it, finding a seat in one of the chairs and fishing my glasses out of my pocket.

The blanks on the page looked up at me. I couldn’t have the deed sent to the cottage because by the time it arrived, I wouldn’t be there. I didn’t want to chance it being delivered to my apartment in Portland. Half the time, the mailman shoved envelopes into the wrong boxes.