Dinner was oysters, greens and roasted potatoes, and loaves of sourdough. I hadn’t enjoyed oysters as a girl, no matter how fresh, but my hunger made them delicious to me now, steamed at the fire pit, a dollop of butter dropped in the shell and chased with dry herbed mead.
We ate outside, on the bluff, like we had earlier in the day. Talk circulated about the indicator clouds streaking across the radiant sunset; rain would come soon. Without water, there are no mushrooms. I was becoming aware of how much of the colonists’ conversation revolved around water and the paucity of it, the drought that was descending on the West. It was difficult to imagine, looking out at the sea, that there could ever be an absolute end to the rain in the Northwest, even with all the stories I had written about the subject. I sucked oysters from their hot, calcified bowls while one of the old-timers, Jack, told me about the oyster, its importance to the wild waters it lives in, the way it filters and diversifies the ecosystem, how their populations have increased as their natural predators have dwindled, especially after the sea star wasting disease that swept through the year before. No one knew why the sea stars had died, only that their limbs had begun to shed, then become palsied. Then they detached themselves one by one, creeping away, leaving their bodies to die. Jack said they had to thin the oyster beds off Marrow’s shores every now and then, for an oyster bake like this. And they would smoke and jar them for the winter, too. The cooks brought more oysters from the fire, every table steaming with heaps of them, their shells burst open from the heat of the wood coals.
I began to feel sick, like my belly was full of seawater. I had eaten too many, too quickly.
Katie and I sat close together, as Tuck helped with the oyster shucking. A spirit of the celebration drew people to the fire. The mead was stronger than I had guessed, and I was warm in the cheeks, less connected to my body, and freer with my conversation. More people were introducing themselves to me, sitting nearby and asking me questions about where I was from and what I did back in Seattle. Some of them asked about the current state of politics at large; they didn’t all make it off the island very much and didn’t have much time — or chose not — to tune in to radio broadcasts from Canada or the U.S. As the night wore on, the questions became more personal. Jen, who had obviously warmed to me more than anyone else, asked whether I was seeing anyone. So I told her about the breakup, the two successive layoffs, the attempt at freelancing. And then I started talking about the cottage on Orwell. How it looked after twenty years: the same, but falling apart; how memories of those years sifted through every minute of the present there.
“Are you thinking of staying?” Katie had been sitting back, quiet, letting me hold the center of the conversation. She leaned toward me, examined my face in the firelight. I couldn’t tell which side of the question she wanted me to come down on.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just can’t imagine selling it, unless Jacob Swenson, my neighbor, will buy it so it goes back to their family.”
There was a lull in the murmur of conversations, and I felt the focus of the group shift to me. Mostly the younger folks, the ones Katie had referred to as “the cohort.”
Jen was the first to speak. “Yeah, definitely. Jacob would be the best person to buy it, if you wanted to sell. No chance of him developing the property. But if you wanted to hold on to it for a while, and you weren’t going to stay on, Tuck could look after it for you. He’s been Jacob’s handyman for years.”
“Really?” I said. I looked for Tuck, but he was nowhere that I could see. I looked to Katie.
She nodded. “Yeah, Jacob’s been a friend of the Colony since the beginning. We try to give back when we can.”
“I should talk to Tuck, then,” I said. “I think Jacob’s missing. The police were out the other night.” Katie became still, tense. The mood shifted around us.
“What do you mean, ‘missing’?” Jen asked.
An owl called in the woods not far off. I looked around the fire at the faces in the flickering light.
“I mean, I tried to get in touch with him. There was a light on in an upstairs bedroom for two days, but he wasn’t home. So I went in and found his glasses and medication and stuff, in a suitcase. And another lamp knocked over. Windows open. It was really unnerving. So I called the police.”
Jen and Elle exchanged looks, but no one spoke. It did nothing to alleviate my fears that something had happened.
“What?” I asked. “You’re freaking me out.”
“It’s just not unlike Jacob to disappear for a while, without a word,” Katie said.
“Do you know where he goes?”
“We’re not sure,” Katie said. “But you shouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure he’s around somewhere.” She squeezed my knee.
There was an awkward silence on our side of the fire, then Jen said she was on kitchen duty in the morning and needed to hit the sack. Elle followed. Katie and I sat around the fire while others came off kitchen cleanup and filled in. Tuck brought us a blanket, and we wrapped it around our shoulders. Some of the older folks were telling stories about the early days, the mishaps and minor disasters. I listened, but felt colder and colder as night settled over us, more alert to the sounds of the waves.
I leaned over to Katie’s ear. “Where’s Sister J.?” I hadn’t seen her all day.
“She’s been helping Maggie,” Katie whispered.
“Where’s Maggie?” I whispered back.
“She’s with Sarah.”
I gave her a beseeching look. I hadn’t met everyone yet.
“Who’s Sarah?”
She kissed my cheek and leaned closer to my ear.
“She’s dying.”
Katie walked me back to my cabin through the dark, arm looped through mine. Clouds covered the moon and stars. She knew the way, but I stumbled along, catching my feet on unexpected roots.
“Do you want to come in and talk?” I asked. My teeth were chattering. “You could sleep over here. Like old times?”
“That’s sweet, Lu.” She sighed, using her pet name for me. She stopped suddenly.
“Listen!”
“What?!” I was looking around in the dark. Was something coming?
“Shh.”
Then I heard it: wing beats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, somewhere between the trees and the clouds, in the black sky. Migrating birds, flying south through the night. For such delicate creatures, it was a haunting sound: thousands of wings battering the air, coming in like a wave, a slow rush over our heads. Then the chorus of their nocturnal song, the way they call from front to back, short high notes, one bird to the next, to lead each other on. We tipped our faces to the sky and listened. A minute, maybe two, and they were gone.
“I always feel like I’ve captured something precious, when something like that happens,” Katie said. She took my arm again and led me on across the field.
“Can you tell what kind of birds they were?”
“Vireos, maybe? I don’t really know. Smaller birds. The geese and the cranes, their calls are lower, harsher.”