The Edge of the Water by Elizabeth George
Ivar Thorndyke reared up at that one. Jenn had been drifting away but his roar of “No one’s touching that seal!” not only got her attention but also rendered Annie mute for ten seconds. Finally, she managed a “No one would take her from the island. I’m talking about an enclosure where she’d be safe until her health—”
“No way,” Ivar said. “I won’t have anyone trying to catch that seal.”
“Geez, it’s not like you own her,” Jenn muttered.
Annie said, “Catching her isn’t what would happen. Look, there has to be a reason she’s here early. I hate to say it, but there also has to be a reason that she looks the way she looks.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Ivar demanded, like a man whose child has been insulted. “She looks the way she’s always looked.” He gestured at the white board where the picture of Nera out in the water had been displayed. “You can’t tell from a picture that she looks any different. And have you ever seen her before?”
“I’m not referring to how she looked last year versus this year. I’m talking about how she looks in the first place: black, every inch of her. There has to be a reason. The seal could be a victim of—”
“That seal’s a victim of nothing,” Ivar declared. “And she’s not about to become a victim by getting herself caught and tested for anything.”
“Well, gosh,” Annie said. “She’s not exactly your property, Mr. Thorndyke. And from this meeting you’ve just had, it seems to me that people would like to keep her alive.”
“You stay away from the seal,” Ivar snapped.
Annie’s face asked the questions that were on Jenn’s mind. “Why?” was one of them. “What’s that seal to you?” was the other.
PART TWO
Saratoga Woods
Cilla’s World
Days and nights have passed. What I did at first was the only thing I knew, which was to follow the turns of the climbing road to depart the place where the mommy and the daddy had left me. I looked for them. I looked for the silver gray of their car. But when I reached the top of the climbing road, there was no one around. So I began to walk.
I walk to the south. For me there is only light and dark. In light, I wander along the roadways that I come to, turning right or left as the feeling suggests. I walk along the top of bluffs. I walk next to fields. I walk deep into forests. This is what I do in the light. In the dark I sleep. I try to find a safe place to lie hidden from sight, and I try to stay warm.
Cars whiz by me when I walk on the roadside. In the rain or the snow, they slow and someone within them rolls a window down and calls out, “Hey! You need a ride?” But I have no words, and I do not answer. Need, I think. What is need?
I feel hollow with hunger and this hunger has taken me to the backs of isolated houses, where cans hold garbage. In the one town I’ve come to, it has taken me to containers behind buildings where the scent of food tells me meals are being cooked and served. But after that town, there have been no others, so I have just walked.
The nights are long. The days are cold and brief. Frost powders the fence posts when I come upon them. It forms a skin on the leaves of bushes and on the fronds of spear ferns in the forest. It hardens the ground.
I move merely from one object to the next. I seek nothing in the distance beyond what I can reach. I have always lived this way in the world and I understand that it’s how I must live now.
I’m caught in a tide that’s sweeping me somewhere. I let it take me.
TEN
Of all things, it was a project for their Western Civilization class that more or less brought a complete end to Becca and Derric. When she thought about it later, Becca couldn’t believe something so totally meaningless in the scheme of her life would have had the power to kick them to the curb.
Step one had been their teacher Mr. Keith making the assignment: You’ll be doing it in pairs, it’ll be oral and written, and I don’t want to see or hear a damn thing off the Internet, all right? It’s due in six weeks. I’ll be checking, and you can trust me on that.
Step two had been pairing off: Naturally, everyone wanted Squat Cooper for a partner because no one anywhere matched him in brain power. Jenn McDaniels yelled “Kindergarten and milk!” for some bizarre reason, to which Squat replied, “Told you. Scored,” and indicated they’d be coupled for the work.
Step three had been everyone else scrambling to find someone worthy to work with. During that step, Becca should have asked Derric and would have asked Derric and wanted to ask Derric, but she heard him asking EmilyJoy Hall to partner up, and that was that.
Step four was ending up with Tod Schuman as a partner, because within thirty seconds, he was the only person left. That fact, along with his nickname Extra Underpants Schuman, should have told her something was off about him, but even if it had, she didn’t have a choice. She had to have a partner; the only partner was Tod.
“Library at lunch,” he told her as they left the class. “Easy A. We got it made ’s long as your part’s rad. My part? A-plus. No big deal.”
But his whispers weren’t as confident as his words and they revealed a plan that didn’t soothe Becca’s worries. Keith . . . stupid dickhead . . . internet because how would he ever . . . pretty much made him an open book. So did get her to do that part ’cause no way . . . that accompanied his phony smile.
She met him in the library as requested. There was no librarian, just a volunteer mom from the PTA who sat on a stool behind the checkout station and watched them suspiciously when they dropped onto chairs at one of the tables. She said to them, “No make-out sessions, you two.”
Tod said, “As if,” and gagged himself to illustrate his point in case the PTA mom didn’t get it. His additional thought of Rather kiss . . . cow pattie for a butt made Becca want either to slug him or to ask why he assumed he was such a prize. But she ignored the whisper and took out her notebook. Maybe, she figured, they could divide the work up so she’d never have to see him until the day of their presentation to the class.
Unfortunately, Tod had a Big Plan. He was blazin’ on it, as he put it. The assignment was to create alternatives to conquest that could have easily resulted in ancient cultures being preserved instead of destroyed by their European conquerors. Students could choose among existing European countries as the conquerors, but the primitive culture and its preserved traditions were to be their own creations.
No one would think of using Switzerland as the European conqueror, Tod announced happily, like a man expecting Very Big Applause for his Incredible Moment of Complete Genius. So they’d start with the Swiss people, get it? The Swiss guys would build a whole bunch of ships and sail off in 1500 or whatever to conquer the world. They’d come to a tribe in Polynesia, he said, or maybe Patagonia or even Antarctica, which would be so excellent—
“I don’t think so,” Becca said.
Tod stared at her. “Like . . . why the hell not?” Dumbshit skank.
Her eyes narrowed and she clenched her jaw for a moment to control her temper. “Because Switzerland is landlocked,” she explained. “They don’t even have a port, so why would they be building ships? Are they supposed to’ve carted them over the Alps or something?”
Tod threw himself back in his chair, his face transformed to an expression of disgust. “Why d’you happen to think you’re so hot?” he asked her. “Because lemme tell you, you ain’t.”
“Huh? What’s that have to do with anything?”
“You got a better idea? Let’s hear it, smart hole.” As if.
“I’m only saying . . . Look, we want a decent grade, right? Well, we’re not going to get one if we start out with something that’s completely impossible in the first place.”
“Who says it’s impossible?” he demanded. Stupid . . . thinks she’s so hot and . . . all the time uglier than a flattened toad constituted what he really wanted to say.
Becca found her earphone finally and smashed it into her ear. Otherwise, she figured she’d be smashing something else. “I’m only saying it probably needs to be realistic, Tod. There’re lots of countries with seaports and all we need to do is find one.”
“Switzerland has lakes, dummy.”
“And this is important why?”
“Duh? ’Cause they have boats on lakes?”
“So what’re those boats gonna do? Sail out on the lake to the other side so one part of Switzerland can conquer another? Come on. I want us to get a good grade.”
“Like I’m not gonna get us a good grade? Listen, cow pattie—”
“Hey!”
“Yeah, that’s what they eat. Hay. Har har har.” He shoved his chair back. “You come up with a better idea, you let me know. Meantime, I’m outa here. One of us has work to do on our project and you better start being glad I was willing to partner up with you.”
She stared at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but there was nothing she could come up with to say other than to point out to him nastily that a boy who can’t even spell his own first name isn’t exactly prize material. He said, “Yeah, right,” like someone with every answer on the test. Then he swung away from her and out of the library.
• • •
THINGS GOT WORSE at once. Derric Mathieson and EmilyJoy Hall walked in. EmilyJoy was chatting enthusiastically. Derric was listening with a half-smile on his face. This half-smile went to no-smile when he saw Becca.
Becca refused to turn her head away. He was angry with her? He didn’t want to talk about why he was angry? He wanted to make her squirm? He wanted to make her jealous? Fine, she decided. Go ahead and try. She gazed at him until he was the one to drop his eyes. He and EmilyJoy sat three tables away, close enough to be seen in an earnest conversation that Derric kept up with the other girl. They chatted and laughed and opened notebooks. They each began to make some sort of list that, in two minutes, they compared.
“No way!” she heard him say. “I can’t believe that!”
“Great minds thinking alike,” EmilyJoy enthused.
“We are on the same wavelength for sure,” he told her.
This was all Becca could stand. She went over to their table. EmilyJoy looked up, her bright face a smile. Becca said hi to her and then spoke to Derric, “C’n I talk to you for a minute?”
“We’re sort of working here, Becca,” EmilyJoy said.
“This is important,” Becca told her. “It won’t take long.”
Derric said to her, “What?”
Becca said, “Private,” and she walked to the stacks, only hoping he’d follow.
He did. She eased the earphone from her ear. She almost never did this with Derric, generally giving him the privacy of his thoughts. But things had gotten to a point where she didn’t understand him and she needed to know him, and she had to get to understanding and knowledge before it was too late.
No way . . . wish she . . . trust is what but no way does she . . . came from him, the same sort of broken thoughts she picked up from others. She muttered to herself in sheer frustration. When, she asked herself, and how would she get to the point of the whispers becoming clear enough to do her some good?
When Derric joined her in the stacks, he crossed his arms. He stood near enough that she caught the scent of him, that nearly nonexistent fragrance of cooking fruit that rose, she knew, not from his body but from the memories he tried to keep at bay. Doesn’t get it . . . equal is what . . . can’t happen . . . face it . . . were on his mind.
She said, “We could’ve been working together on this. We could’ve been getting a good grade.”
“I’m going to get a good grade,” he told her.
“You know what I mean.”
“Nope. I don’t.”
She’d never seen his eyes so flat. Never understand . . . never want to either told her what he felt was more than anger. Hurt, jealousy, bitterness, sorrow? What was going on with him?
She said, “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“We’re not fighting,” he said evenly. “We were, at one point. But we’re not now.”
“What are we, then? Why’re you doing this?”
“I’m not doing a thing. Neither are you. That’s sort of the point.” He looked away from her, back to the table where EmilyJoy was quietly writing in her notebook.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you want it to, Becca.”
Her throat was tight because his words were as final as the over that comprised the only whisper she could hear. She said past lips that were suddenly dry, “But we’re special. The you-and-me of us. We’re special.”
He turned his gaze back to her, and she read it in his eyes before he said a word. “We were,” he said. “We had something good, but it’s gone. I don’t know if that’s how it is for you, but that’s how it is for me.”
“Why?” she asked, and she could hear the desperation in her voice.
“We went as far as we could,” he said.
“This is about sex?” she asked incredulously.
He cocked his head, his expression altering. It hovered between surprise and disgust as completely and totally out of it floated in the air between them. He muttered a curse and said, “Don’t play me, Becca. You know exactly what this is about.”
“You’re ending things, aren’t you?” she demanded. “Because I won’t tell you where I’m staying. It’s like . . . It’s like you’re threatening me. No, you’re not threatening. You’re actually doing. I wouldn’t tell you. I’m still not telling. So you’re walking away. Like where I’m staying is even important. I thought who I am is what’s important, not the information you want and can’t get from me.”
He shook his head. “Information, Becca, is the symbol, okay? It’s the . . . it’s the symptom. The disease, though? It’s something else.”
She felt the bite of tears, but she refused to let him see her cry. She said, “Whatever,” and she pushed past him.
There was nothing left but to get away. Why can’t you followed on the air behind her, but like all the other whispers, it was incomplete, just like her.
ELEVEN
In very short order, Becca got to see the Derric Transformation, and she had to ask herself how well she’d ever really known him. She’d thought he was different from the typical high school boy. Africa, she’d thought, had made him different. She’d thought he’d been molded by losing both of his parents by the time he was five years old, by having lived in a cardboard box in an alley in Kampala, Uganda, till he was picked up by a children’s charity. She’d thought all of this made him see the world differently. But that didn’t turn out to be the case.
Courtney Baker was every girl’s nightmare. She was also the living embodiment of what—and whom—every boy wanted: blonde hair, blue eyes, satin skin that didn’t need makeup, great body, pretty hands with nice oval fingernails, excellent legs. She was one of those girls who were friendly to everyone, a Homecoming Queen in waiting, Becca thought sardonically. But the worst thing about her was that not a single one of her characteristics seemed phony. That alone allowed Becca to know absolutely what the future held the first time she saw Derric and Courtney talking together after school.
Other kids might have thought, No way does Mathieson have a chance with her! because Courtney was in eleventh grade and Derric was not. But their ages matched, and even if they hadn’t, it was pretty clear that what mattered to them both was some sort of connection they felt. They talked eagerly. They laughed together. Courtney gave Derric a little shove on the arm at some remark he made. He beamed at her and grabbed up her backpack to carry. He jerked his head in a “let’s go” movement, and when they moved off, they walked in sync, Courtney altering her pace to match his.
South Whidbey High School being South
So, okay, she and Derric were over. It hurt as badly as anything ever would. But Becca found that the strange part for her was what hurt worse than being ignored by Derric and seeing him with Courtney. What hurt worse was seeing him change. It was like he’d given up part of himself. He removed the small Ugandan flag from the inside of his locker door, he took down a picture he had of the street band he’d played in while at the Kampala orphanage, he didn’t attend a concert of Zimbabwean musicians at the local art center that at one time he would not have missed, and worst of all, he stopped shaving his head. That smooth dark scalp of his had been his cultural trademark, the way he told the world who he truly was. But once he began dating Courtney Baker, he let his hair start to grow. And this saddened Becca more than anything else.
He was putting Africa behind him. While this might have been understandable under some circumstances for a boy who’d been adopted into an American family, for Derric to do it meant something more than moving on. It also meant leaving someone behind.
That person wasn’t Becca King. That person was Derric’s sister Rejoice, abandoned by him in the Kampala orphanage when he was adopted by the Mathiesons, with no one the wiser—aside from Becca—that Rejoice had been his sister at all. This was the secret that Becca held, the one thing that she knew about Derric that he wished no one on earth to be privy to. It was the secret that had unbalanced their relationship and had caused it to falter. She knew his secret; he did not know hers.