Don’t ask questions. Don’t pry too hard. It was the By-the-Sea way.
Charlene left us alone. My mother inclined her head slightly toward me. “Are you okay, Georgina?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I am,” I said.
She took my hand again. My mother’s hands had always been firm and cool, but there was something different about them now.
Now, they were shaking.
I hope it doesn’t seem strange, the bird funeral that took place the next night, the way the entire island met once again in the backyard of the inn to bury Annabella near the cliff. So she would be close to the water, people said, as if the entire island wasn’t close enough to the water. But I knew it was really so she’d be close tous, to her once-home of the Fernweh Inn, to her living relatives, to the girl who shared her dead sister’s name.
I hope we don’t seem silly, the people of By-the-Sea and the birdheads (even though I have made fun of them plenty of times, but I’m allowed), everyone arriving with bowed heads and somber expressions.
I hope I have accurately described the island and all its eccentricities. I hope I have accurately detailed what Annabella meant to all of us: our tiny claim to fame, but even more so than that—she had been one of us.
My sister had avoided me since yesterday morning, emerging from her room only to pee and brush her teeth and find something to eat. She ignored me when I knockedon her door and even though our bedrooms didn’t have locks, I left her alone. It’s not good to disturb a Fernweh when she doesn’t want to be disturbed. Like vampires, you should wait until you’re invited in.
Now she stood on the outskirts of the little group that had formed in the backyard of the inn. She wore a tattered, oversized black sweatshirt, and she pulled her hands into the sleeves and hugged her arms around herself.
The funeral was not a huge production. It rained the entire time. The grass was spongy and soft. Everyone held umbrellas over themselves but came away wet anyway. Peter dug the small grave for Annabella. My mother had put the bird’s body into a wooden cigar box, and she placed it inside the hole with a tiny sprig of rosemary on top. Then Peter covered the box up with dirt and people just wandered away, unsure of what to do or where to go, unsure of how much grief was allowed when the person you were grieving wasn’t a person at all, at least not anymore, but just a little flicker of a bird.
Pretty soon there was a small handful of us left, sitting in the grass in the twilight: Vira, Prue, Abigail, Eloise, and me. Shelby hadn’t stayed after the ceremony; she hated things like this, big showings of sadness. My sister had disappeared somewhere after the first fistful of dirt was dropped onto the grave.
Abigail smoked a long skinny joint and passed it aroundour lopsided circle. Eloise cried silent tears, wiping at her cheeks every few seconds. Vira put her arm around Eloise’s shoulders and squeezed.
Prue sat beside me, as close as she could manage. I didn’t know the last time she had slept; her head kept nodding forward. Finally I leaned close to her and said, “I think you need to get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I don’t feel tired at all.”
I stood up and helped her to her feet, and we walked together into the house. I found my mother in the kitchen while Prue waited in the dining room.
“Can I have a cup of tea? For Prue?”
“Tea tea orteatea?” my mother asked.
“The latter.”
“Poor girl.” My mother poured a mug from a kettle already warmed on the stove. She handed it to me and said, “Make sure she drinks it all.”
Harrison had joined Prue in the dining room; they were sitting at one of the tables together and looked more like twins in that moment than Mary and I ever had. Equal in sadness, equal in exhaustion.
I set the mug in front of Prue and then pushed it closer to her when she didn’t immediately pick it up.
“It’s good for you,” I said. “It will help you sleep.”It will knock you literally unconsciouswas closer to the truth.
She took a tentative sip, and then another, and thenfinished the rest of the mug in one giant gulp.
“Oh,” she said when she was done.
“Are you okay?”
“I have to lie down. No. I’m fine. Sleeping. Fine. Immediately.”
“Do you need help upstairs?” I asked, but she stumbled out of the room without answering.
Harrison watched her go, bemused.
“I don’t think she’s gotten much sleep lately,” I said.
