“I’ve learned my lesson; I’ll listen to you from now on.” She spit again, then poured the rest of the punch onto the grass. I offered her my dessert plate.
“To get the taste out of your mouth.”
“This is a liberal spread you have here,” she said.
“I haven’t had Aggie’s cooking since last August, so I’m just remembering how good it is.”
Prue picked a peanut butter brownie off the plate and took a big bite. “Oh wow,” she said through a mouthful of chocolate. “Oh geez.”
“I know, right?” I set the plate on the bench between us. “Be my guest.”
“Technically, Iamyour guest,” she said, swallowing. “You live here, right? At the inn?”
“Since we were born.”
“Oh, yeah. Mary... she’s your twin, right?”
“In everything but looks and personality.”
“Yeah, you don’t look alike. Is it cool, living here? It’s kind of...”
“Creepy?”
“No, I like the inn. I mean the island. Does it ever seem... small?”
Did it ever seem small, this island I had spent every minute of my waking life on, this island I knew like I knew my own body, this island where every tree was named and everyone knew each other and every person played some intimate, vital role in making sure it functioned smoothly, day after day after day until the day I left, until the day we all would leave, to seek our fortunes elsewhere.
“Do you know how the Amish leave home and spend a year just sort of doing whatever they’ve always wanted to do?” I asked.
“Rumspringa,” she responded.
“And you know how almost all of them return home after that and never leave again? That’s kind of like this island.”
“Heavy.”
“Yeah. But that’s how it is everywhere, right? It’s hard to leave the place you grew up.”
“I wouldn’t really know; we’ve always traveled around a lot. My father’s an archaeologist and my mother’s a linguistic anthropologist. Harrison and I were homeschooled, dragged all over the place. Our parents have settled down now, retired, but I still feel kind of... untethered.”
“How did you end up here?”
“My brother. He’s in graduate school for ornithology; this is part of his research. It was either tagging along with him, official sister-cum-lab-assistant, or stay with my parents until college. They’re great, don’t get me wrong, butI’m used to traveling. So I picked the lesser of two familial evils, and here I am.” She paused, took a bite of cookie. “It’s kind of charming, this island. I hope that didn’t come across like I didn’t like it.”
“Oh, no. Itissmall. I think I’m just used to it.”
Behind us the birdheads were loud and rambunctious, stretching their legs after a full year of doing whatever they did when they weren’t looking for Annabella.
As if she could read my mind, Prue asked, “So what’s the deal with the bird? My brother wouldn’t stop talking about it for the entire trip over here, but honestly, I get a little sick on boats, so I think I missed most of it. She only shows up during the summer, right? Where does she go for the rest of the year?”
Where did Annabella go? Somewhere far, far away, if she knew what was good for her. Somewhere where the rumspringa never ended. Somewhere where she didn’t have to deal with birdheads documenting her every turn, photographing every tiny movement of her head, singing songs to her at night before they left her to get some sleep. Somewhere where she didn’t have to worry about eggs that didn’t hatch and summers that kept feeling shorter and shorter. Somewhere where you couldn’t smell the ocean, somewhere where the ocean was the faintest memory. A rumor heard from a friend of a friend of a friend. Somewhere where the color blue did not exist.
“Georgina?” Prue asked.
“Sorry. What was the question?”
“Forget the question,” she said with a wave of her hand. She forked a bite of Fernweh Inn–shaped cake and handed it to me. “Questions later. Cake now.”
I took the fork obediently.
