Chapter 3
At some point, someone in the house had tapped a large chunk of cardboard over Ember’s broken window pane and swept up the shards. Over the next three days, she created a nest for herself in her bedroom that she only left to eat and shower. She read the books she had brought with her, and for the first time, all of the plot lines were too simple for her to enjoy. The heroes wanted all of the wrong things, and the villains didn’t seem so villainous.
She paced the room, wanting some noise, or at least a different book. Her mother’s house had no radios, and no television. The electricity in the house was limited to the kitchen, the furnace, and the water heater. There was one light on a switch in the lower hall, and one the second story near the top of the stairs. Thalia had grudgingly fetched a lamp from the attic for Ember to read by, but she had been forced to go to the grocer’s herself to get a bulb for it.
She had walked into the living room the evening before, coming down for dinner, to find her mother patching clothes on the living room couch in the dwindling light. When she had flicked on the downstairs light, her mother had squinted up at her in the sudden brightness.
“Has it always been this dark here?” Ember laughed nervously. “I don’t remember it being so dark inside the house back when I was…was here.”
Gina’s eyes had hardened, drilling in to Ember until she finally directed her attention back to the pair of Thalia’s pants that she was hemming.
“We kept more lights in the house when you were little because you complained about it,” she said with another steely glare. “Kept the heat turned up, too. You were a sensitive child, and expensive to keep. The money I save on the things I had to do to keep you here pays for your tuition now.”
Ember tried to ignore her tone. She walked around the back of the couch to sit next to her mother. “I was a sensitive child?”
Gina stood to reseat herself a little further away. She set her sewing aside, and folded her hands in her lap, giving Ember the same appraising look that she had on the dock. “Ember, honey, you really want me to like you, don’t you?”
Ember smiled, looking down to smooth her blouse as a smile crept onto her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but Gina beat her to it.
“It will never happen.”
Ember felt her frown stretch all the way from her mouth to her wrinkled forehead. “What?”
Gina leaned back on the couch. “I moved to Alaska to get away from people. Needy people, like you, who can’t take care of themselves.”
“But Thalia—“
“—looks after herself,” Gina finished. “She’s been a fantastic companion for me. She helps me in the garden and doesn’t mind sweeping or cleaning windows.”
Ember’s jaw had dropped to the floor, and she felt herself choking on her own words as Gina stared in annoyed boredom, until she finally forced a sentence out. “I could do those things.”
“Oh, honey…” Gina leaned forward to give her a pat on the cheek that was just a little too hard. “You could, but you would only do it to make me like you, and that’s pathetic. I was hoping a swift kick into the real world would do something for you, but it’s only made it worse. I brought you back to see if maybe, just maybe…but you’re just the same needy little girl you’ve always been. When you couldn’t get your approval from me, you went out and got it from the first boy who looked at you.” She stood, grabbing the pants from the couch arm. “I don’t hold it against you, of course, but you have to understand that I can’t respect you, and that’s why I’ll never love you. It’s a kindness to send you away. You’ll go and find someone out there who will love you, I’m sure, with all the other needy people.”
Ember felt tears of embarrassment stinging just under the surface. “I didn’t—I just—the window—“
“The window, yes,” Gina said with a sudden scowl. Her eyes searched the room, as if she were looking for something, before she finally crossed her arms. “Someone has to pay for it, and I don’t intend to go chasing your new overnight friends. I’ll remove it from your trust fund.”
She walked away toward the kitchen. When Ember turned and stood and started to follow her, Gina only raised a single finger and shook her head. Her eyes said everything. The conversation was done, and so was the relationship.
Feeling thunderstruck, Ember managed to get back to her bedroom. She pulled on her shoes and a coat, and shoved a wad of money into her pocket, holding it to the light coming in through the window to count the bills. She turned to go, but then stopped.
The light coming through the window.
She turned back, and goose bumps raised on her skin, because the window was still boarded up. No light was coming through it. She went back over and dragged her hand over the cardboard box, trying to back-pedal the last minute in her mind.
Deciding that drinking really did kill brain cells, and she needed to sleep more, she brushed it off.
When she came back out, Thalia had opened her bedroom door, and was standing in the frame.
“Going somewhere?”
“Out.”
“Apparently,” she stood in front of Ember. Her eyes, the same as Ember’s, wandered over her mismatched accessories. “Where?”
“Bookstore.”
Thalia nodded, stepping aside. “Get home before dark. The house goes in to lockdown, and Mom isn’t opening the door for Acton Knox to dump your defiled body on the couch again.”
“He didn’t defile me!” Ember huffed, clattering down the stairs.
At the front door, she paused when she heard a quiet noise in the kitchen, and was shocked when she turned to see her mother, bent low over the sink, holding a damp towel to her face. She was crying.
Nan was standing behind her, slowly rubbing her back. When the older woman noticed Ember staring, it only took her a few long strides to arrive at the front door, blocking her view.
“This is because of you!” she snapped, and Ember felt her spine jerk to attention as her grandmother waved a threatening finger at her. There was a vein pulsing in Nan’s neck, and her left eye twitched. “Get out of this house! Get out, and don’t come back!”
Ember bolted out the door, stopped fifteen feet from the house, and started to heave. She wanted to believe it was still the effects of the alcohol she had consumed, but that had been several nights before. Her family was poisonous.
When she heard the front door slam open, and saw her grandmother standing there with a confused look on her face, she bolted before she could catch another verbal assault from the woman that had once been her best friend.
Halfway between her mother’s house and Main, she found a less wet fallen tree to sit on, and wondered if she was allowed to go home again.
Not that it was her home. It never had been, and it certainly wasn’t her home now.
Looking around, even the forest was alien. The fog that made the forests around Tulukaruk seem magical was absent this evening.The bark on the trees was cold and wet, and the gritty forest floor clung to her shoes and pants cuffs, caking on in a way that Ember was sure would make them dirty forever. It wasn’t just the mud. It was pine needles and twigs and small chips of bark and gravel. Too much to wash out in the sink or the washing machine, because the particulate would never drain. This kind of dirt had to be scrapped off by hand.
The coat she had grabbed before leaving wasn’t nearly thick enough. The damp permeated everything.
She thought about going back to school in Pennsylvania, and bedding down next to Heather with her spider fetish, and supposed that was what she had to look forward to. She would go back to school, finish out high school, and be accepted into any college she wanted—her grades were perfect, and she had a good memory for academics. She could quote sections of text books that she had only read once. While other students were picking majors they thought were easy, Ember would become whatever she wanted. A surgeon, or a software developer, or a preschool teacher—it didn’t matter. It was all easy.
A
nd whatever she chose to do, she would have to do it alone. She had spent her childhood on Tulukaruk, too sheltered to meet anyone. She had neglected to make any school friends, fantasizing about the family that had abandoned her. Now that she knew they didn’t want her, the weight of her solitude was collapsing in on her.
She had no one, and that was how her life was going to go on.
Wiping a chilled hand across her cheek, she realized that her tears had finally broken through in silence, and cold snot was beginning to freeze under her nose. She tried to sit a little straighter, and cleaned herself up as best she could. No one else was going to take care of her, or look after her anymore. Now was the time for bravery.
“Charming.”
Ember quickly removed her sleeve from under her nose. Acton was making his way through the trees, wearing a knee-length black wool pea coat and carrying something in his hands. He stopped before her, staring at her sternly.
His shoes were practically new, and the pants legs visible beneath his coat were dark corduroy.
“Acton,” Ember said thickly.
His eyes wandered from her dirty shoes to her red face and messy hair. Ember was suddenly very away that she hadn’t done anything with it beyond brushing it out, and the humidity made it frizzy. Acton’s eyes fixed on her face, and Ember compulsively wiped her cheeks.
“Ember,” he said flatly.
She picked at the lining of her pants, and then pulled the sleeves of her jacket down to cover her wrists and part of her palms. She tried to keep her teeth from chattering, but the cold was seeping under. “You look nice.”
Acton looked down at his coat. “My mother bought this for me, but I haven’t had occasion to wear it.”
“What’s the occasion?”
Acton slowly held out the bundle of cloth that he was holding. As Ember accepted it from him, he withdrew a folded umbrella from his coat pocket. “Trying to impress the new girl.”
Ember stared at him. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t joking. But he was clearly disappointed, in the most stern way possible, that the sentiment wasn’t returned.
“I—um—“ Ember looked down at the thing he had given her. It was a red wool jacket with large, pearl-like buttons. With her mouth still hanging open, she looked back up at Acton, and said the first thing that popped into her mind. “I’m in trouble. I think they just kicked me out.”
“You’re a mess,” Acton replied. He slowly and deliberate opened the umbrella. “You should clean up before we go out again. They jacket belonged to my mother, but I want you to have it.”
“You stole it from her?”
“I asked her blessing.” He watched as she stood and belted the jacket around her waist. “She never wears it, and you don’t have enough clothes appropriate to the weather here.”
Ember smiled, wiping at her face again. “I love red.”
“You told me while you were drunk,” Acton replied. He gestured for Ember to join him under the umbrella as the rain started to trickle down. “Don’t worry about your mother. She’ll take you back.”
“Maybe,” she said, feeling her voice quaver. She looked at him, wanting to explain what had happened, but she knew it would be rude to tell Acton that he was the root of it.
Acton waited for her to speak, but when she didn’t, he only nodded and started to walk. Ember followed his lead to stay beneath the umbrella as the downpour thickened around them.
“Where are we going?” She asked over the sound of the rain.
Acton stared straight ahead. “To the bookstore.”
“The bookstore?” Ember started. “How did you know that I was going to the bookstore?”
“I didn’t,” Acton replied. “You told me, before, that you liked books. I thought it might improve your mood. You talk a lot when you’re drunk.”
“Oh…” Ember felt the blush creeping up her neck. As much as she hated it, at least the blushing made her warm again. “I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have—“
“Ember.” Acton stopped abruptly. “Getting drunk is what we do here. There’s nothing else to do. Are you saying that you don’t want to go out with me again?”
“No!” Ember said compulsively. “I mean, yes, I want to, I would love to, but I don’t think—“
“Excellent.” Acton said with a smile. “The coat looks good on you. You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to. You’re not one of those religious nuts, are you?”
Ember shook her head, laughing. Acton held his out towards town, another calm smile gracing his lips.
“After you.”
Ember led the rest of the way to town. When they reached the bookstore, Acton held the door for her. He shook off the umbrella, closed it up, and then followed her in. As Ember explored the shelves, trailing her fingers over the spines of her childhood as she smiled and wanted to cry for all the times she had dreamed of this place, she almost missed Danielle Cassington.
As timeless as the books she kept, she was stationed behind the same counter that she had been years before. When Ember looked up and saw the chilled expression on her face, she frowned. Mrs. Cassington had let her borrow the books, but Ember didn’t think that she would remember her anymore.
“Ember,” Mrs. Cassington said quickly. Ember immediately smiled in relief. Mrs. Cassington’s sharp grey eyes shifted to Acton as he walked up to stand next to Ember. “Mr. Knox.”
Ember had to stifle a laugh as she looked over. Acton only gave the shopkeeper a slight nod and a smile that neared sarcasm.
“Mr. Knox?” Ember said finally. “Seriously?”
Mrs. Cassington’s already cold expression soured further as Ember looked back to her in confusion. “Your family may own this island, Miss Gillespie, but the Knoxes own everyone and everything on it.”