The Light Pirate(85)

“I think it’s over,” Bird Dog whispers, and Wanda, not wanting it to be over, says nothing. Bird Dog pushes back the canoe to reveal a clear, starry sky. A subtle brightness has begun in the east. The water rushes beside their little island, so high its waves almost reach them where they lie. Thrust out of the safe, close darkness, Wanda feels suddenly exposed. The brutality of the past few days—the sun beating down on her, the rain beating down on her, the wind and the waves roaring on either side—comes to bear. Then she feels Bird Dog’s warm, rough hand find hers.

“Don’t run off again,” Bird Dog says, helping her up out of the mud, each of them relying on the strength of the other. Bird Dog’s hand travels up to brush the side of Wanda’s face and then to cup the sloping base of her skull, fingers threaded in her hair, a place Wanda didn’t know was made for this hand although it clearly was.

“I won’t,” she says, and when Bird Dog leans in and kisses her, it sends a jolt from her mouth, down her spine, through her groin, into the earth she’s standing on. She is rooted and airborne at the same time, wanting and wanting and wanting, but also finally understanding that this is what having feels like. She fills her hands with Bird Dog’s waist and her mouth with Bird Dog’s mouth and her lungs with Bird Dog’s breath, and for the first time in a very long time, she knows what it feels like to have more than enough.



Wanda and Bird Dog make their way to the sunken bungalow with sturdy branches as quant poles, slowly maneuvering through the overflowing canals of what was once Beachside. Bird Dog has promised Wanda a new paddle when they get there. Other promises float between them, not spoken aloud but understood. They move past broken trees, debris in the water, ruins in a state of even more ruin, but neither woman is fazed. They have seen all of this before. They understand this cycle.

And so when they arrive at the sunken bungalow and see that the roof has been torn off and the foundation is beginning to collapse, when they see that the community Bird Dog has bound together is busy trying to load what they can salvage onto the boats that remain, they don’t bother with surprise. They help.

“Who’s this?” Ouita asks.

“This is Wanda. I known her a long time,” Bird Dog says.

There are a few raised eyebrows, but everyone here trusts Bird Dog. And so now they trust Wanda, too. There will be questions later, but for now, they all work side by side. Saving what they can, leaving what they can’t to sink along with the house. Every second matters as the sun pulls itself up over the rim of the ocean and into the sky, as the structure of the house groans and slumps farther down into the water.

“Time to go,” Freddy says. He helps Gem and her son, Dade, into his little rowboat. Skipper brings out a last armful of supplies to where Ouita waits in their dugout. Bird Dog appears in the window of the collapsing house with the promised spare paddle for Wanda. She hands it down and then hops lightly from the window into the canoe. Wanda reaches out to steady her without thinking. Looking up, she sees Ouita smiling at them and almost snatches her hands away. But instead, she leaves them just a little longer than she needs to.

“Where’d you have in mind?” Skipper asks.

“Old marina maybe,” Freddy replies.

“Roof’s gone. Saw it just now,” Bird Dog says. Freddy grunts, a sound of muted distress.

“Town hall?” Gem suggests.

“Could do.” Freddy digs his fingers into the white tufts of his beard. He doesn’t sound convinced. “Water might be too high, but we could try.”

A thought begins to form in Wanda’s mind as the others discuss where they’ll weather the unforgiving sun. It surprises her. Unsettles her. But it’s a stubborn thought. It has roots. Wanda can see it so clearly it’s as if it’s already happened. “I know a better place,” she says. It’s the first thing she’s said to any of them. They all stare at her, and it reminds her of the last time this many eyes were on her. A classroom-ful, menacing and childish and confused—seeing everything that made her strange, all of her otherness and all of her power. Hating her for it. A spark of panic wells up in the back of her throat, but she swallows it. No. This is different. They are ready for her now.

Wanda starts paddling because there is no use explaining a thing they must discover for themselves. She doesn’t wait to see if they are wary, if they hesitate, if they doubt her. They are, they do, but it doesn’t matter. They’ll follow eventually.

The new paddle is smooth and easy in her hands. After so much rain, the air tastes like minerals. A squirrel scampers along the ridge of an old ruin and stops to look at them. An unusually cool mist rises from the water. The trees lean in. Bird Dog grins as she watches Wanda row and Wanda discovers that she is beginning to like being looked at.

“Where are we going?” Bird Dog asks.

She searches for a word she hasn’t used in a long time. Finds it. “Home.”





Time





The passage of years could be assigned a number, but in this place, time has a different measure. Its progression is marked by the smoothness of water where ruins once broke the surface. The thickening of a young grove’s canopy. The collapse of an old utility pole. It is marked by the end of one species or the beginning of another. Here, time sprawls and curls. The land returns to the way it was; it becomes something brand new.