The Island(46)

This was all her fault.

Dad had been reluctant. Please, she’d said. Everything we’ve been through. With Mom. Good for Owen. You know how much he loves animals. Please. Let us come with you for once on one of these things. It’s Australia. Like Disney World but better. Everything magic. The animals. The people. The landscape. The accents. A complete escape.

It had worked. Then they just had to convince Heather. Heather hadn’t wanted to come. She was worried about bushfires. She didn’t like snakes. She didn’t have a passport. But Dad wasn’t going to take two kids to Australia by himself.

And it had been awesome.

The desert.

Uluru.

Everyone had been so nice.

This island, too, had been her idea. Hers and Owen’s. Dad hadn’t wanted to come.

But Dad had come here because of the koalas for them. It all led back to her.


Alki Beach A boat called a Zodiac.

The moon was part of the real zodiac.

The word moon came from the word for “mother.” Mrs. Taggart said a lot of languages shared the same root. Even in Latin, where the actual word for “moon” was luna, they had the related word mensis.

Zodiac, moon, mother.


Dutch Island Ocean at her back, sun overhead, the sound of them over there on the spinifex, as they’d called it.

She wasn’t stupid.

She was fourteen.

When her dad was fourteen, fourteen was fourteen. When her mom was fourteen, fourteen was fourteen. But not now. Now fourteen was older. There were things you could see anytime anywhere on your phone. Could never unsee.

She knew the word rape. She’d known what it meant last night.

She wasn’t dumb. No. She knew what was going to happen.

Sand.

Heat.

Sea.

She looked behind her. She was moving quicker now. The boy with the rifle would catch the others soon. She imagined Heather would try to fight him with the penknife. It wouldn’t work. She didn’t know anything. Her mom would have run rings around Heather. Who did she think she was? Owen said she hadn’t even graduated high school. Best to leave her. Only problem was leaving Owen. Owen, a kid. She shouldn’t have done that.


Alki Beach The cold air.

The snowflakes.

The bobbing little Zodiac boat.

I don’t want to go.

Olivia.

I don’t want to. It’s not good for the ocean.

Get in the boat.

Owen doesn’t want to do it either.

You’re being silly, both of you! Get in!

OK, Dad.


Dutch Island We’re going to get caught.

And I am going to die from thirst.

At home Dad has those bottles of Evian in the fridge.

At home.

None of us are going home.

None of us.


Alki Beach Owen folding his arms.

Dad yelling at him. Dad losing his shit the way he used to.

Dad taking Owen by the shoulders and getting real close to his face: It was your mom’s last wish. Don’t you want to honor your mom, you little shit?

Owen crying.

Owen getting in the boat.

Dad pulling the starter on the outboard motor.

The Zodiac leaving the dock.

Dad saying nothing.

Owen still crying.

Dad dumping the urn.

Mom saying nothing.

Mom splintering into a million pieces in the black water of Puget Sound.

A single seagull.

Owen crying.

Dad not crying.

Dad mad as all hell.


Dutch Island Water up to her knees.

Birds on those rocks would have to find somewhere else to rest soon.

The rocks would be underwater in an hour and all those weird birds would have to— Olivia stopped and rubbed her eyes and stared at the line of rocks about twenty feet offshore. They were jagged and funny-looking, and if you imagined a little you could pretend they were the spines of a dinosaur’s back.

A stegosaurus.

She looked at them and nodded and knew what she had to do next.

She turned and ran back the way she’d come as fast as she could.





20



Through the bushes. Through the water. Hard to breathe. Hard to think.

“Look behind us,” Petra whispered.

Heather turned.

Less than a hundred yards back, coming around the bend, a man and a boy, both with guns. With them was a very little girl tagging along like they were going to a birthday party. The pursuers couldn’t see them in this vegetation, but they were certainly going to catch them soon.

Heather had been cooking up a little Hail Mary plan in her head: Hide. Wait. Ambush the kid as he pushed through the bushes. She’d get one go at him with the penknife, but one go was better than none.

But she had no chance against two of them, armed. The man looked like Ivan, the big brute from the ferry.

Shit.

Her against the two of them?

Damn it.

So this was it, was it?

The giving-up place?

She’d always wondered where that would be.

Not after a twenty-hour waitressing shift. Not when that truck rear-ended her and totaled her Honda. Not when she got appendicitis and had to drive five hours to the VA hospital in Tacoma because she knew she couldn’t pay the bill at the Bellevue Clinic.