Eve set her bags down with a sigh, and looked around. The room’s white walls stood out in stark contrast to the wood floors, the bed, with its antique-looking iron headboard and footboard and the patchwork quilt, and the bare walnut bookshelf. The only ornament in the room was an old-fashioned fishing net hanging on the wall, with seashells and sea creatures attached to it. Eve looked at her relatively bare surroundings, and remembered her room at home, misty green, Eve’s favorite color, with a huge bed and a canopy Eve blinked away a tear, and began to unpack. Before she could take anything out of her bags, a knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” Eve called. The door opened, and Nan Carter appeared. Nan was Eve’s foster mother for the month, tall, motherly, and gray-haired. Nan had two children, twins, a boy and girl, a bit older than Eve’s age of fourteen. The twins would be sixteen in October, which was four months away. Eve was just one of the many foster children who came to the Carters’ house. “Well,” Nan said, concern showing in only her eyes, “How are you doing?” Eve bit her lip. “I’m great, Ms. Carter. Thank you for the room. It’s beautiful.” “It’s not much,” Nan said, sighing, “I need to paint it a nice color, and maybe get a couple of rugs down. But the view from the window’s lovely, and I’ve got some nice curtains I’m going to put up tomorrow.” Befbre she could take anything out of her bags, a knock sounded on the door Eve nodded. “That’d be nice, Ms. Carter.” “Call me Nan, please. Supper’s going to be on the front porch in about an hour, so I’ll leave you to get unpacked and settled. You get your own bathroom, it’s right down the hall, and we made a little sign with your name on it for you, and there are towels in the linen closet. You can get Jasmyne to give you a tour of the house, if you want. This is pretty much your wing of the house, because my room’s on the other side, and the twins have the upstairs, so don’t worry about disturbing any of us. I hope you’ll be comfortable here during your stay. We’ll talk more during dinner.” “That’s good,” Eve said. She turned back to her packing as Nan closed the door. Pretty soon, it got too dark to work without a light, so Eve switched on the electric light overhead. It didn’t work, so Eve had to make do with two bedside lamps and a floor lamp that lit the room surprisingly well. Pretty soon, Eve had her worldly belongings unpacked, and arranged. She lay on the chaise lounge and looked out the window at the rocks and the ocean. Nan Carter owned a small island with a “cottage,” and from almost every window, you could see the ocean. Eve had a room that looked out over a rocky area, and then ocean until the mainland, with its little twinkling lights. Eve sighed, and settled down. It had been a tumultuous day, what with her coming to her first foster home, and the flurry of getting to Carter Island, and introductions, and so many countless little things. Eve kept busy, not liking to think about her parents, her loving wonderful parents, who had been working at the prison. While Eve had waited at home, there had been an awful fire, and both of her parents had died. Eve had no other relations, and so she ended up in foster care. Before Eve was even settled, there was a rap at the door. It came again, so Eve ran to the other side of the room, and opened the door. Jasmyne and Jake were standing in the doorway, grinning. Eve suppressed a sigh. “Hello,” Jasmyne said, coming in and perching on the bed. “Are you settled yet?” Jasmyne was beautiful, so beautiful that Eve had nearly walked into a pole the first time they met. Jasmyne had long, thick, glossy black curls, with wonderfully fair skin, and not a freckle. Her eyes were big and violet, her mother spoiled her, and she was dressed at the height of the fashions. She had pierced ears, a professional manicure, and Eve would have bet anything that Jasmyne had a huge room, elaborately decorated, and with big windows. Jake was Jasmyne’s perfect counterpart, tall, handsome, with glossy black hair, and gray eyes. Eve was all too aware of how she looked next to these Carters. Eve had long thick blond hair, with startling green eyes, and red lips, but she wasn’t really pretty. Eve had older clothes, her ears weren’t pierced, and manicures were unknown to her. The twins, despite their angelic appearance, were on Eve’s bad side though. She didn’t trust them, not one bit. And they knew it. “So,” Jasmyne said, smirking. “Is this all of your stuff? Cuz it isn’t very much. My room is packed with stuff.” “This is it,” Eve said, retreating into her shell. That was what her parents called the quietness and mumbling that came with Eve being upset, or embarrassed. “May we look around?” Jake asked. “I’d prefer you didn’t.” “Oh, but surely,” Jasmyne said, “you don’t have anything to hide?” Eve didn’t, but she didn’t want these twin devils looking at her parents’ pictures, and at all her other stuff. To change the subject, Eve said, “Why don’t you give me a tour of the house? Nan said you should.” Jasmyne frowned. “I dunno. Why would you want to do a thing like that?” Eve smiled. “I want to know where I’m living for the next month. I’m sure your room is lovely. Can I see it?” Once upstairs, Jasmyne flung open the door. Eve bit her lip to keep from gasping. It was a large room, about the size of a master bedroom. The room was painted a pale yellow, and it
September/October 2003
Music from the Heart
“He’s back again?!” exclaimed Kaitlin, dropping her backpack on the floor. “What did the owners complain of this time?” Steve, the thirty-year-old manager of the animal shelter, replied, “Oh, the usual. He barks too much, bites, growls, and they simply can’t put up with him.” “Poor little Bullet,” she sympathized, going over to the sign-in desk. “This is the fifth time he’s been here. Wasn’t his mother an Australian shepherd?” “Yep. We still don’t know what his dad was. He’s cute though. Anyway, today you get a fun job. You get to clean all of the cages!” “Whoopee! What fun I’ll have,” Kaitlin said sarcastically. She turned and got a bunch of plastic bags, a pile of the last week’s newspaper, and rubber gloves from a closet on her right. Over her back she called to Steve as she left the front office. “See you around!” “Oh, Kaitlin! Wait!” he exclaimed, apparently remembering something. Kaitlin backtracked at his call to listen to what he had to say “There’s a girl coming today and she’s going to be working here from now on. Her name’s Gabriella; be nice!” “Don’t worry! Of course I’ll be nice. I mean, she’s going to have to put up with you and that’s always really . . .” she ducked as Steve threw a pencil at her. “Begone, rascal!” he said good-naturedly. Laughing, Kaitlin left, and went to her job. “He’s back again?” exclaimed Kaitlin I wonder what the new girl will be like, she thought. It had been years since anyone except for Steve and Kaitlin had worked at the shelter. As she started the first cage, she glanced down the dark row and toward the big black dog she and Steve had been talking about earlier. After being found when he was seven weeks old in a gutter, he had come to the shelter, and had had four owners since. Now he was a year old, with a bad reputation. Still, Kaitlin believed that he could be trained if someone just found the secret trick to getting him calmed down. A cat pulling on her long, red braid brought her back down to earth. “OK, OK, I’ll feed you,” she told the cat. “Just let me finish cleaning the cages first.” Forty-five minutes later she was done, and she went to the storage room for food for all of the animals. There, she found Steve giving a girl of about fifteen a tour of the building. She was a tall, skinny, Hispanic girl, with long black hair that hung below her waist. Steve grinned as Kaitlin walked in the storage room. “Here she is!” he exclaimed. “Gabriella, this is Kaitlin, who will be working with you. She’ll show you how everything runs here in more detail. We have a lot of fun here, and are really happy for you to join us! You can help Kaitlin feed the animals now, and later you can walk the dogs together. So long!” As he walked out the door of the storage room, he tripped over a bag of birdseed and knocked into a shelf, toppling a bag of dog food and causing it to rip open. Soon it was raining dog food. Kaitlin burst into laughter instantly. Steve looked hilarious lying on the ground with a confused expression on his face, and dog food in his dark brown hair. Gabriella was trying her best not to laugh out of respect for her new employer, but finally gave up and laughed hysterically. Bright red, Steve got up and went to get a broom, mumbling about how he should have hired a boy. In bed that night, as she did every night, Kaitlin tried to think of a way to convince her parents to let her get a dog. They were convinced that she wasn’t ready for the responsibility, because she had play rehearsal three days a week after school, and spent almost all of her other time at the shelter. “You can’t have a pet. You’re only thirteen, and you’re too busy.” Really, it was ridiculous that she couldn’t have a pet because her dad owned the shelter. Not that he cared about it at all; he had inherited it. Every month he would send Steve the money to pay for food, supplies, the vet bill and, of course, to pay him. It had been Kaitlin’s dad’s idea to hire someone else because he and her mother thought that Kaitlin spent too much time at the shelter. The very idea, Kaitlin thought, was absurd. Of course, her parents also worried about her because she didn’t have many friends. That was even more nonsense. She had Steve, all the animals at the shelter, and her teachers. But by the time she got to bed at night, she had always made out a pretty sorry case for herself. * * * The next day, as Kaitlin was doing her homework in the auditorium during rehearsal, a girl walked up to her. At first, she was so startled someone had even noticed her that she didn’t realize who it was. It was Gabriella. “Oh! Uh . . . hi!” she finally managed to say. “Are you in the play? I don’t remember seeing you here before.” “No, I’m not in the play,” was Gabriella’s reply. “My younger sister, Maria, is. She’s in seventh grade.” “Oh, I see,” Kaitlin said. She tried to think of what to say next. I know I’m not very good at talking to people I don’t know, she thought. What do I say? Is she trying to be my friend? “I was just wondering if you could tell Mr. Riley that I won’t be at work this evening because I have a dentist appointment. I’m really sorry, but I just found out, and my mom couldn’t change it.” Gabriella waited a moment and then asked cautiously, “Do you think he’ll mind?” Mr. Riley? Who’s Mr. Riley? Kaitlin wondered. Oh! She means Steve! Aloud she said,
A Lasso for Adagio
I look back on that night and wonder why I was so scared. Was it the noises—or the fact I was alone, surrounded by water, with nothing overhead but the glittering stars and the Cheshire moon? That day began just like any other Thursday. At school I almost fell asleep in math class, and by the time I got home, I was ready to go outside. Unfortunately, my mom made me finish my homework first. I had just finished my homework when I heard the announcer on the radio say, “It’s five-thirty and the temperature is sixty-three degrees.” “Yes!” I cried. Grabbing a jacket and telling my mom goodbye, I got on my bike and rode to Jim’s house. He usually finishes his chores and piano practice by five-thirty. Jim lives near the Cypress River. I found him behind his house, working on the model boat he planned to enter in the county’s annual model boat contest. “How is the boat coming?” “Fine,” Jim replied as he tangled his finger in a ball of string. “Do you want to go to the river—that is if you aren’t too wrapped up?” He rolled his eyes. “Sure. I’ll leave a note for my mom.” I raced him the two blocks to the river. Jim won, but he was out of breath. This section of the river has immense oaks, cypress and willow trees growing beside it. Sometimes when the wind blows hard it sounds as if they are whispering among themselves. “Hey, look at this relic,” he said. “Think it belongs to Captain Volger?” The pier creaked under our feet as we walked out to the edge and sat down. The breeze off the river felt good against my skin. I was watching an egret flying against the pink skyline, scanning for fish before dark, when I heard Jim mutter, “I wonder what that is.” He was staring at the reeds to the right of the pier. “What?” “That green thing in the reeds.” Jim went over to investigate. With a stick he knocked away the brown reeds to reveal an old wooden fishing boat about three feet wide and twelve feet long. Its once white color had faded to gray. The paint was peeling on the sides like sunburned skin. A frayed yellow rope tied to the bow led up to a cypress root. “Hey, look at this relic,” he said. “Think it belongs to Captain Volge?” “Do you think it belonged to the Captain?” Captain Volge was a one-eyed fisherman rumored to have been a pirate. One morning he went out on the river to check his nets and that night his boat washed ashore empty. His body was never found. I must have looked a little scared, because Jim looked up at me and laughed. “If it is and we mess with it, he’s liable to come looking for you.” Jim pulled the boat into the water. “Sure is rickety.” I decided to prove to Jim that I wasn’t scared. I got in and sat down on one of the three slats that served as seats. “Still seaworthy,” I declared. “Tell it to the captain.” “I ain’t scared of no ghost!” I stood up and began swinging an imaginary sword in the air. “You’d be heading for the hills leaving a cloud of dust behind you if you saw the captain,” Jim taunted. “Oh is that so?” Trying to execute a particularly daring sword thrust, I lost my footing and fell back into the boat. The shifting weight pushed the boat on out into the river. I sat up and grabbed the rope at the bow, hoping to pull myself in, but when I pulled on it there was no tension on the end. Jim was frowning at the boat, as if he was trying to think of a plan. I could see him, receding away from me. “Turn it around,” he called. “Try to paddle it back to shore.” I frantically searched around the boat for an oar, but all I saw was a frayed rope. “There’s nothing to paddle with!” “Jump in and swim!” I started to slip over the side—and then I remembered hearing about a swimmer who had been bitten on the foot by a sand shark down at Spivey’s Point, only a mile or so away. Shark sightings weren’t that uncommon in this section of the river, which was only a few miles from the Albemarle Sound. “What if there’s a shark?” Jim shouted something back but I couldn’t hear what it was. The boat was moving fast now in the current, and in the fading light I couldn’t make out the expression on his face. He ran along the bank, trying to keep me in sight, but after a while, I couldn’t see him anymore at all. The boat moved away from the bank, into the center of the wide river, and headed south toward the sound. It was dark, and the eerie cry of a screech owl sent a chill down my spine. I saw the ghost of Captain Volge, his blade shining in the light of the moon. At such times, my imagination can be my enemy, transforming driftwood carved by years of water into a ghost, and a jumping fish, scales shining in the moonlight, into a sword blade. Knowing it was my imagination didn’t help. I huddled up in my windbreaker, shivering in the wind that chilled my bones. I looked out at the river, shining like onyx in the moonlight, and wondered what was lurking beneath its depths. A shark? I couldn’t let myself get carried off to the sound. I’d read about boats overturning there and people drowning. I tried to pray, but the only thing I could think of was “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.” I felt OK until I got to the part about “if I should die before I wake.” Somehow that didn’t seem very comforting. I lay back in the
