The Light Pirate(83)
A moment later, Phyllis was alone. It was dark, but with a thick curve of moon above, casting a silvery glow on the water. She looked at her hands: empty. Across the lagoon, a white egret stood in the shallows, its feathers luminous, legs invisible, as if it were levitating. Phyllis decided she had been watching this bird, so she went on watching it. She thought to call out, to know if someone was nearby, but she didn’t want to disturb the egret and couldn’t seem to remember whose name she should call. The egret darted its head down into the water, a sharp, abrupt movement, and when it came back up, a silver fish had appeared in its beak. She felt proud of the egret: graceful and clever and quick.
“That’s my girl,” she whispered, and it all came rushing back. The day Wanda first came to her, not yet ten and already more curious and capable than any pupil she’d ever had. The squeak of rubber waders, slung across her shoulder. Wanda’s curls with a fistful of wind in them, water rushing past, slippery roots and slimy rocks. The rumble of Kirby’s truck in the driveway. Baggies full of alligator jerky she started keeping in her pocket in case Wanda was hungry. Petri dishes on the dining room table and a tousled head bent over the microscope. A glow spreading across a dark body of water. The moment she realized that it was her job to keep Wanda safe. The moment she realized how hard that would be in a place like this. The moment she failed. Three shots, four staring eyes, and the roar of flames crawling up the sides of her little blue house. She remembered all of it in an instant, and she felt it, too: the intensity of her love, the ferocity of her protection, a sense of wonder as she watched a little girl grow. And then, just as fast, she forgot it. Maybe for good this time.
Above her, the thud of footsteps on a wooden platform. Feet coming down the ladder. Out of the dark, a woman she didn’t recognize appeared.
“Who are you?” Phyllis asked, afraid and curious at the same time.
“It’s okay, my name’s Wanda,” the woman said. “And you’re Phyllis.”
“Wanda,” she repeated, but it didn’t mean anything to her. “Phyllis…” she said, but this didn’t mean anything, either. She could see that she was supposed to know these names and was upset that she didn’t. Her mind was cloudy, grasping for something to hold on to. “Where…”
“You’re in the field,” the woman said.
Ah, she thought. The field. Even at the end, she knew this was where she wanted to be. There was so much to notice. So much to learn. She saw an egret standing in the water and pointed it out to the woman.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” she said.
“It is.”
Chapter 60
Wanda rests for as long as she can, but after two nights spent tending to the damage that heatstroke has wrought on her body, her supply of water runs too low to ignore. She would like to ignore it. She’d like to go on lying here in the nest that she and Phyllis built, pretending she doesn’t have a choice to make. But doing nothing is its own decision.
More than anything, she’d like to ignore the fact that she can’t stop thinking about Bird Dog. When Bird Dog strides into her dreams with her shorn blond head and her snaggle-toothed smile and those long, elegant fingers and calloused palms, she’d like to pretend that this appearance is the work of a feverish brain. She’s never touched anyone in the way that she’d like to touch Bird Dog, and it terrifies her.
What Wanda wants is to go back to her hiding place outside the sunken bungalow where the others gather, that place full of voices, bodies, endless activity. And concurrently, she wants to never go there again. She wants to wrap herself around Bird Dog like a starfish and to stay as far away from her as possible. She wants everything to change and she wants it all to remain the same. She wants and wants and wants. At least here, lying still underneath the thatch, she can go on wanting everything without the complication of having any of it.
But all things end, especially the moments in between. Her supplies dwindle and it’s time to return to the endless work of survival. When the sky loses its pink on the third night, she ventures out for the freshwater spring—arms still weak, mind still cloudy. There’s a strange scent in the air, a prickle at the nape of her neck, something she would immediately notice if she were well, but tonight she isn’t well at all. Her attention is on the strain of wielding the paddle, the tug of the water against the hull of the canoe, the ragged inhalations that scrape up against the insides of her throat. She can’t hear the lights whispering when the machinery of her body is so loud.
The pitch dark of an overcast sky settles, and beneath it, Wanda begins to feel more like herself. It isn’t until she’s filling her bottles in the freshwater pool that she realizes what has been nagging at her, trying to get her attention since she struck out. The smell is ozone. And the feeling is anticipation. A hurricane. She caps the bottle in her hand and reaches down to count how many empties she has yet to fill. There’s time, she tells herself, just fill them fast. There are no manatees tonight, no swooping birds. The creatures are all tucked away in their homes. They know what’s coming, and now, a little late, so does she.
The rain begins just as she’s finishing filling her bottles. It doesn’t arrive gently or gradually—one moment the surface of the lagoon is smooth and undisturbed; the next, Wanda is being pelted so hard it hurts. There will be bruises later. The torrential rain knocks the last jug out of her hands and she lets it go, frantically grabbing for her paddle lest the rain knock that into the water, too. She wields it blindly, only just able to make out the parting between the trees that will lead her back toward the river. In this leafy corridor, the canopy does its best to shield her from the sky, but even the trees are being beaten back by the onslaught. Leaves and fronds are stripped from their branches, flowers are crushed, young plants that are just beginning their journey upward are smashed back down.