Chapter 2
Whatever apprehension Ember had felt about Heather’s sudden lapse of memory dissipated as summer approached. She eventually decided that her room mate must have been sleep talking, and the excitement of getting to prove herself to her family eventually washed away all of her concerns.
Gina and Thalia stood on the rocky shore, two somber women with blonde, frizzy, tied-back hair, in hippy skirts and walking sandals. They were framed by the early summer fog, like a very small family portrait. Ember tried to swallow the nervous lump in her throat. She was wearing her best slacks and cardigan, carefully applied makeup, and had meticulously styled her hair with mousse.
The strong family resemblance was nearly unrecognizable.
She dropped her bag in the water while trying to get off the little boat that had been commissioned to get her to the island. Gina and Thalia didn’t try to help her as she struggled to the shore. As Ember appraised her mother, she recognized the familiar, emotionless expression that was directed back at her. Thalia’s expression was lost somewhere between surprise and fear.
“Hey,” Ember said quietly, trying to smile warmly at her sister. She was her sister, after all, and Ember wanted to believe that even if they didn’t know each other, they could still be friends. All of her favorite television shows told her so. “Where’s Nan?”
Gina eyed her with a critical glare, her green eyes wandering from Ember’s wet, impractical shoes to the artificial mess of hair on her head. She stared at her soaked bag, and her wide eyes, and the look of sheer fear on the girl’s face.
With a short shake of her head, Gina turned and walked away. “She’s back at the house.”
Thalia turned and walked with her, and Ember took a few quick steps to catch up to them.
“It’s nice to be home…” Ember said to their backs.
Neither stopped, and neither responded. Thalia snuck one quick glance over her shoulder, but refused to make eye contact.
Ember fought the new ballet flats she had bought for the trip as they slipped on the rocks underfoot, and wedged herself between her mother and her sister. “Do you think I could come home more often?” Ember prompted.
“This isn’t your home, Ember,” her mother explained, pulling the shawl around her shoulders a little tighter to keep it from touching her younger girl. Ember was shivering; she should have brought a coat. “This is Thalia’s home. Your home is back in Pennsylvania at the dormitories, and wherever you wish after that. I’ll pay for it. You have the entire world to explore and live in, and I don’t want you to waste your life on this little island.”
They walked a few paces in silence, and Ember wondered if this forced conversation was going to be the highlight of the next three months. Her mother’s tone wasn’t unfriendly, but Ember noted that she hadn’t smiled at her once. She wasn’t happy to see her.
“So why don’t you ever visit me at my home?” Ember asked meekly. She looked down and noticed that the shirts they were wearing had the same stitched hem around the cuffs; it wasn’t a regular pattern, like something that could be bought at a store. They made their own clothes.
“My home is here, too,” she said, as if this point were obvious.
“But maybe you could go on vacation or—“
“I don’t vacation,” she said curtly. “Neither does Thalia. You’ve done fine without us—everyone says so—and I’m sure you’ll continue to do so.”
Continue to do so. Even being young and naive, Ember had grasped her mother’s meaning immediately. She wasn’t staying, so her plan to ask to stay was pointless. Her mother only required one daughter, and she had her, and Ember would just have to do without them, elsewhere.
All hope the hope that she had nurtured when her mother had cared about her being unhappy died like a flower after the frost. This woman didn’t want her to be miserable, but she didn’t want her here, either.
As Ember looked back and forth between the two women at her sides, she realized that they felt nothing for her, and as strange as it was, she felt very little for them. They were strangers, and a small twinge of disappointment struck in her heart as she mourned the family she had imagined in her mind.
The house was different than Ember remembered it, with a forgettable grey pigment slathered on the wood siding and a roof made of worn, waffled metal of some sort. Gina directed Ember her bedroom, and told her they would call her when dinner was ready. She could hear Thalia downstairs, talking and banging the pots around as she helped to fix the meal.
Ember hadn’t expected them to invite her to join them, because they weren’t the family she had thought they would be. Even looking back, the concise notes around her birthday never engendered much hope that people on Tulukaruk had missed her, or that they had even noticed her absence. She sighed and shook her head, wondering why she had ever wanted to come back.
She unpacked her clothes, hanging them over the wrought iron bedframe to dry, and hoping that the sea water hadn’t damaged anything. There was a humming in the hall, and Ember opened the door to see her Nan, pacing back and forth, humming a lullaby as she ran her hand along the stair banister.
“Oh,” The old woman whispered in a creased voice, her small eyes staring out from the wrinkled tissue paper of her brow. “And who are you?”
“I’m…Ember, Nan, you don’t remember me?” Ember stuttered. No one had mentioned in those brief birthday notes that Nan was losing it. “You used to read my books?”
“Ember? Ember, Ember, Ember…” Her brow wrinkled with thought. “Ah!” Her eyes lit up as she acknowledged Ember’s face. “You’re the little girl from the bookstore, aren’t you? Who let you in the house, I wonder?”
Ember tried not to let her disappointment show. Nan had been her only friend. She was the only one who might have been on her side, or at least less than disappointed to see her.
“You look so much like my granddaughter,” she crooned, taking Ember’s face in her hands and turning it right and left, comparing her to Thalia. She pursed her lips. “But my granddaughter is prettier.”
Ember flinched.
Nan walked away down the stairs. “Gina, there’s a strange girl in the spare bedroom!”
“It’s okay, I already know!” Gina called back without further explanation. She wasn’t going bother trying to make Nan understand. She wasn’t planning for Ember to stay long enough to warrant an explanation.
Realizing that the old woman that had pre-read her books was gone, Ember took a moment of silence to grieve, and then resigned herself to reading alone in her room. It was going to be a long summer with these strangers who didn’t want her.
That night at dinner, Thalia introduced Ember to her grandmother as a guest staying for a few months. Her mother didn’t say much. They assigned her a set of towels and explained the system for washing clothes and dishes, and asked that she please confine her possessions to her room. Sending things on after the fact might be a problem, her mother said, so it was better if everything stayed where it wouldn’t get lost.
After dinner, Nan had set to work making a quilt out of old, worn out blankets as Gina took a brush from a drawer and sat on the couch. Thalia had dutifully stationed herself on the floor in front of her mother to have her hair brushed out.
Staring at them all from the kitchen doorway, Ember wasn’t sure if she should join them or not; none of them were talking. Thalia’s glazed eyes were fixed on the fireplace across the room as her head steadily bobbed with each draw of the brush through her shiny blonde hair. Her unblinking, obedient expression was almost disturbing.
“Is this—“
Gina looked over sharply, and Ember felt herself blush. She hadn’t realized how loud her voice would sound in the silence.
“I’m sorry…Is this how you spend the evenings? With everyone in the living room?”
Thalia’s unfocused gaze slowly started to turn in her direction, but her mother used a gentle hand to keep her head still as she continued to brush.
>
“Yes,” she whispered. “Family time. You can tay if you like, or go upstairs.”
Rubbing her palms flat against the stiches, belt loops, and irregularities on the sides of her pants, Ember quietly excused herself to the stairs to fetch a book to read as everyone sat in silence. Once she was in her room, however, the muted silence of the house compelled her to stay there.
Ember went to bed early. In the sitting room below, she heard her mother comforting Thalia that it was only for the summer—after that, she was hopeful that Ember would find somewhere else to go. Somewhere where she would be content, and safe, and where she wouldn’t trouble the community anymore.
Ember knew it wasn’t a normal thing for a mother to say about her child, or even a complete stranger. She wasn’t sure how she felt about any of them. Her mother, sister, and grandmother had hardly been present in her life; she was a foreigner now, and the people she remembered were only memories.
Nan was gone for good, and Ember’s last moments with her had been stolen away by one untimely fit at the book store. Gina had taken away the relationship she should have had with her sister, and Thalia had grown into the awkward adult-child downstairs who stared warily at Ember, as though she were a thief come to rob them.
Ember closed her eyes and shook her head. She had been on her own for a long time. Now, she was going to be on her own forever.
She was okay with that. Blood aside, these people didn’t want her. She didn’t need them, and she wasn’t going to bother trying to impress them anymore.
Her grandmother had gone long ago, and it was easy to hate her mother. This was all her fault. But Thalia, the sister she should have had…
Ember bit her cheek. She didn’t know if it was better to make a clean break and never talk to any of them, or else risk a friendship with her sister and have to deal with her mother by association on every visit.
Sixteen years old, lying in bed that night—or evening, as it was, because she had gone to bed so early—there came a light tapping at her window. She was listening to her would-be family talking in the living room. At first, Ember thought it was raining; the light, steady tapping of drops hitting the window pane. Then a rock the size of a large walnut sent tinkling shards of glass across the wood floor like a horizontal waterfall.
Ember felt herself bounce on the bed as she leapt in surprise. The sound made by the breaking window was like an explosion in the weird silence of the house. Even as her heart went racing, no one in the living room missed a beat of conversation.
Cursing under her breath, Ember slipped on her shoes and walked to the broken window to gaze out at a group of teenage boys trying to stifle their laughter. She slid the empty window frame open and leaned out.
“Excuse me!” she bellowed, her voice echoing around the forest as she took stock of the situation. There were three of them, and they weren’t even slightly embarrassed.
“The prodigal daughter returns!” the one closest to the house called at her. He was wearing a red sweater. Pacing lightly from foot to foot, he toyed with a small stone in his hand before letting it drop to the ground. “We just wanted to introduce ourselves and invite you out for the evening!”
Ember cocked her head in confusion and then closed her mouth. She searched her mind for an appropriate response, but her learned manners failed her. Three boys had just broken her window, and were now attempting to ask her out to dinner? “And your name is…?”
“Isaac!” he called, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“Do you have a problem with front doors, Isaac?” Ember yelled, but she had lost her force. Her voice trembled with doubt, but she was too polite to call them out forthright. They laughed off her implied accusation.
“Ember!” called the one with the dark hair. He was wearing a black suede jacket that had worn down to a soft grey around the elbows. “I am sorry about the window. Come out with us so we can make it up to you. Let us welcome you home. We’ve waited for years to meet you.”
Ember stared them down. Boys like these were the gateway drug to cussing and sloppy dressing. However, as she looked down on them like a princess in a tower, she felt that to deny them her presence was somehow so rude and pretentious that it would make her a horrible person for refusing their offer. They wanted to welcome her home. At least someone did.
She pursed her lips in indecision.
As if on cue, a girl with shining blonde hair walked out from behind a tree to greet the group, filling the summer air with ringing laughter as she rested a hand on the shoulder of the last young man. His hair was a similar color to hers, though they obviously weren’t related. She leaned in to kiss him politely on the cheek before he turned his easy, amiable smile on Ember.
Placated by the presence of another girl, Ember found herself with no excuse to decline joining them for the evening. Without even pausing to tell them her plan, she ran from the window to grab her coat and clamored down the stairs so loudly that the noise almost broke the spell she had come under.
“Stop!” Her mother yelled from the living room as Ember’s hand hit the knob and wrenched open the front door.
Ember froze in place.
“Turn.”
Her hand left the handle and she turned towards the living room. Her mother strode forward, arms crossed and confusion clouding her expression.
“Explain.”
Perhaps it was the influence of the house where she had been a terror of a child, or maybe she was angry that her grandmother and sister were gone forever. Ember rolled her eyes at her mother before her grooming took over.
“I’m going out with friends,” Ember said. She immediately wished she would have paused long enough to make up a lie.
“You have friends here? Who?” Gina’s tone was as calm as ever, but the way she twitched when her daughter said “friends” was a definite sign to Ember that she had caught her off guard.
“Isaac,” Ember said once again, closing her eyes in regret. She was used to lying, but only about her family. Maybe that was why it was so difficult.
Her mother cocked her head. “And?”
Ember looked at the floor, defeated. “Some other guys.”
Gina made a show of thinking over the proposition for a moment, her gaze caught halfway between Ember and Thalia as she started to turn back to the living room. Then her airy blue eyes flicked back to Ember. “You’re staying in.”
Ember and Gina locked stares. Thalia got up to stand behind her mother, gawking at Ember as though she was about to commit a heinous crime. Ember could hear the beat of her own heart beneath Nan humming “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in the kitchen, keeping rhythm like an organic metronome.
But then she heard her new friends laughing outside. They were carrying on like normal teenagers with friends and happy homes. She felt the weight that had been dislodged in her brain upstairs give way and drop free of her being, crashing through the soles of her feet. The last moment that her mother controlled her life had already come and gone, and Ember couldn’t remember it. It certainly wasn’t this moment.
“I’m going out,” she said with finality. “I’ll see you later.”
Thalia stepped forward and caught her hand on the door, gripping her wrist so tightly that it hurt. Ember glared at her. She was shaking her head. “Mom said no. Don’t go out. Just go back upstairs…”
But Gina had stepped forward, also shaking her head, and pried Thalia’s hand off of Ember’s, shooting each a look of severe disappointment. Thalia was looking to her mother for guidance as she let her grasp go. Gina was looking at Ember with her jaw clenched, but didn’t say a thing. She wasn’t going to stop her.
Ember had a sneaking suspicion that she knew what Gina was up to, and it made her lip curl in disgust. Gina didn’t want her to go out, but even more, she didn’t want her to stay in. She wanted Ember out of her house.
“No,” Gina repeated in a low whisper. “Stay in.”
Ember closed her eyes as her sweaty palm threw
the door all the way open, and she bolted. Her feet pounded the dirt pathway and her heart was no longer ticking the rhythm of a nursery rhyme, but pounding like a heavy bass. When she cleared the property line, she turned and looked back. The door was still open, but Gina and Thalia were nowhere to be seen.
The boys were laughing again. Ember could hear their voices drifting towards her as she stared at the gaping hole in the house the open door left. It was like she had ripped a piece out of it, and for one fleeting second, she wondered where her mother was. It seemed odd that no one was closing the door.
Where had they gone?
The blond boy, whose name Ember didn’t know yet, clapped a hand around her shoulder, and she could feel his cold, stony grip through her jacket. “Well done, Ember! I see you have a problem with front doors as well…”
Ember finally tore her gaze from the house and turned to look at the people standing in a circle around her. Isaac was taller than she had expected. He had deep brown hair and a gangly, casual composure, made even more casual by the worn and scraggly red sweater with bits of yarn pulled out at odd angles. His face was angular in a way that made his eyes peak like he was nervous about everything, and the way he pushed his hands down into his pockets made his shoulders hunch up and he looked even taller.
He had a habit of staring at the ground, but he would look up anxiously every few words, as if he wanted to be sure Ember was listening to him.
He introduced the other two boys as his brothers. Asher was the shorter, sturdy, blond one with perfect teeth, and Acton was almost as tall as Isaac, with dark, almost black hair and deep set eyes. He wasn’t gangly like Isaac, but still thinner than average; he was wearing his black suede jacket, but Ember could tell he was more muscular than Isaac. He looked decidedly younger than the other two, but there was something in the way he offered his hand, the enigmatic, tight smile curling on his lips, and the way he was wearing newer, neater clothes, that made her think he was the oldest.
“Ember,” he said, taking her hand and lightly kissing it, his eyes always on her face. “Our lady of the shattered window.”
“Um, yeah…” she stuttered, trying to think of something equally clever to say back at him. The feel of his lips against her hand was new, and both frightening and exciting. It made her feel adult beyond her years. “Acton. It’s…it’s nice to meet you too.”
Acton smiled politely before turning back to the group. He released his grasp, but didn’t remove his hand, so that Ember’s still rested lightly atop it. It was as though he was presenting her as a debutante.
He used his free hand to gesture. “And this is Kaylee, Asher’s girlfriend—“
“Vindictive harpy,” Isaac muttered at the ground. He glanced up, first at Kaylee and then at Acton, and then used one hand to cover his mouth as he went back to studying the forest floor.
Kaylee was wearing black leggings and a pink puffy jacket, and she was built like a cheerleader: short, muscular, and perky. She smiled a lot. Standing next to her, Asher’s own muscular build seemed much more graceful; he could have been a dancer.
“Thanks Isaac,” Kaylee smiled sweetly. “You know I love you too, sweety.”
What captured Ember’s attention most was their eyes. Asher’s were a light blue, and Isaac and Acton’s were hazel, but they all had copper flecks in them. Once she had noticed it, it was hard not to stare. They were long striations, reaching all the way from the center to the rim of the iris—tiny ruddy brown veins of copper and what could have been little green flecks of verdigris. She had never seen eyes like them before, and the contrast the red-brown made against Asher’s light blue was stunning.
Acton’s patient smile made her realize she had been quietly staring at each of their faces for a conversational turn too long.
“I’m sorry…” she said, laughing nervously and shaking her head.
“It’s okay, they’re used to it.” Kaylee batted her eyes. “The Knox boys have quite a reputation around here. Be careful or you’ll become part of it.”
Asher and Isaac broke into laughter as Kaylee raised a playful eyebrow, and Acton joined in. Not wanting to single herself out, and happy that her moment of embarrassment had passed, Ember gave a smile and a laugh as well. She had no idea what she was laughing at.
They started to walk into town. Asher and Kaylee fell back as Isaac chattered on about cars or farm equipment—Ember wasn’t quite sure which. He was using words like torque, belt slippage, alignment…things that Ember wasn’t entirely familiar with, but she didn’t care. She was lost in the thrill of having friends to be out on the town with, and it kept her from thinking. Acton stayed constantly on her other side, not talking, with a little reassuring smile in her direction every time she looked over at him. He didn’t need to talk. Ember felt like she had known him forever, or at least almost, even though she knew it was silly.
Every time she looked over, he would give her that little smile and nod just slightly. He kept his hands tucked into his pockets and matched his pace to hers, and soon Ember found herself looking to him, not just for his smiles and nods, but because he seemed to have some vague idea what Isaac was talking about, and Ember matched her expression and reactions to his. Acton didn’t seem to mind, even though he must have realized what she was doing.
They stopped in front of the one little pub that existed on the island—The Garden. Ember hesitated, glancing skeptically at the warm light flowing out of the windows onto the misty streets, the noises of happiness and frivolity flooding her ears.
“I’m not old enough to…” She didn’t want to finish the sentence and ruin the evening. Things had been going so well before.
The warm light and the welcoming noises suddenly made her sad as she turned to look at Isaac, Asher, and Acton again. She must have misjudged them. They could have been late in their teens, just a few years older than she was, but they might also have been in their early twenties. She analyzed Acton with consternation, desperately trying to figure out if he was her peer or not. It was hard to tell sometimes with the working classes. Men started working on the fishing boats young and stayed fit as a matter of survival. They didn’t act like the boys back in Pennsylvania, or what little Ember knew about boys and how they acted. They looked young, but they had confidence, and Ember was fairly sure that most of the teenage boys she had encountered had been more arrogant than confident.
What was worse…they were all watching her expectantly. Kaylee gave her an impatient nod, as though they were waiting for her to walk into the bar so that they could follow.
“I…” Ember started, looking around at them desperately. She wondered if she had it in her to walk back to her mother’s house, in the dark, alone. She hardly knew the island, let alone the way back. “Um…”
Acton suddenly stepped in front of her as she started to turn beet red. “Go on ahead and save a table.” When no one moved, his tone became more commanding. “We’ll join you in a minute.”
Kaylee opened her mouth to say something, but Asher grabbed her by the shoulders and quickly steered her through the door. Spinning lightly on his heel, Isaac gave Ember a glance and a fleeting smile before following.
Standing alone on the street, Acton turned to face Ember. With a strange mix of anxiety and gratitude flooding her system, she smiled in relief. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said lightly. He watched her patiently.
Ember shrugged as she started to explain. “I don’t drink. I’m sorry, I’m not really popular or good at talking to people or making friends—“
Acton broke out in a smile, and then laughed. “We’re not here to drink unless you want to. My mother owns the bar.”
Ember blinked, looking back the bar door. “She does?”
Acton nodded. “We visit her at work some nights. She’s always wanted to meet you.”
“Me?” Ember asked. No one had ever wanted to meet her. People simply knew her or didn't, and this woman most certainly didn't.
Acton crossed his arms, leaning in toward her. “Because of your mom. She's...different.”
Ember looked at the ground; she hated being the center of attention. Her voice quavered. “She wants to know what's wrong with me, you mean. Because I got sent away, and Thalia didn’t.”
Despite Ember's quickly deteriorating mood, Acton’s tone stayed light. “I think most of us here would like to know what's wrong with your mother and sister. They want to congratulate you for getting out.”
Ember looked back up at him.
“You're the first one to ever fight Gina and win. Everyone wants a look at the great Ember Gillespie,” he said her name like she was more legend than reality.
Ember only pursed her lips and nodded her head. They thought she was a freak, and they had brought her to town to put her on display. Acton had to duck down a little to see the frown on her face as she stared at the familiar sight of her shoes.
“It’s not like that,” he said with another laugh. “You’re a hero here. You didn’t get sucked into her delusions like Thalia.”
In her mind, her mother had won the day she had sent Ember away. She had never considered that it could have been her victory over Gina.
“I’ll take you home if you like…” Acton said with a displeased frown. “Or we can go in the bar, say hello to my mother, and have some fun. Seeing as you’ve just broken free from the ivory tower, I would think you would want to do some living while you have the chance.”
He stepped back away from her, and towards the bar door, laying one hand on the large, brass handle.
For a moment, Ember looked out across the abandoned street of Main, on the tiny, lost island of Tulukaruk. It was easily the most exciting place she had ever been, and even as far as the night had progressed, the most adventurous thing she had ever done. It had taken a lot to push her as far as she had come, and she knew that if she turned back now, she might never have the opportunity again.
She turned back to look at Acton. He knew about her family, and still wanted to be her friend, because he understood.
“Well?” He asked. “It really would be my honor, Ember Gillespie.”
Ember walked towards him and nodded, hardly able to keep the excited smile from her face. Acton opened the door for her.
She stepped into the bar, and Acton followed close behind her. The music was loud, the air smelled like beer and moldy peanuts, the flashing lights felt dirty, the shadows seemed dangerous, and Ember suddenly felt very small and out of her element. Through it all, Ember could still see the heads turn.
“They’re looking at me,” Ember said quietly, her stomach knotting up.
“You scare too easily,” Acton breathed into her ear from behind. She could hear the amused smile in his words. “They’re looking at me. Come on—I’ll introduce you to my mother. She’ll like you.”
“You?” Ember asked, confused.
Acton walked up next to her and winked. “The Knox reputation.”
He started into the room, and she tried to stay close behind him. Asher, Isaac, and Kaylee were so absorbed in conversation that Ember was sure they had already forgotten her. The crowds pushed in, and she felt Acton put an arm around her to keep her on track as they made their way through the clouds of body odor, thumping music, and kaleidoscope lights. She tensed up at his touch as he pushed her towards the bar. He smelled like suede, burning wood, and mint.
As the space became tighter, he pushed her in front of him so that they were single file. He moved his hand from her shoulder to rest on her back, and Ember’s heart started to race. She had never had a boyfriend, and Acton was much too close. The feel of his hand against the soft curve between her ribs and hips was new and strange.
“Sorry—so sorry,” he muttered close to her ear again, letting go as soon as there was room.
He settled her into a corner of the bar and let her have the red pleather stool closest to the wall. Acton gave her another genuine smile, and her anxiety started to fade away. She took a deep breath and looked around, much more confident against the wall than in the middle of the room.
Adventure, she said to herself, this is an adventure.
Acton leaned out across the bar, gesturing down the way. Ember followed his gaze, and it felt like the room, and everything around her, slowed down.
The woman tending the bar was the most provocative person that Ember had ever seen. She had bright red lips the same color as the corset that bared her shoulders. A black eyelet lace skirt fringed her delicate ankles, and black ribbons from the ballet slippers she wore trellised up her legs.
As she walked towards them, Ember felt herself smile, but she didn’t know why. The woman was stunning, and scandalous, and Ember already knew she was going to trip over her words. If she could get this woman to take her under her wing, she might have a chance at being liked on the island. Women like this one couldn’t be ignored for all the right reasons.
The shiny bun of coiled braids on top of her head quivered like medusa’s snakes as she smiled. She leaned over the bar to hug Ember. Balancing on her lower abdomen, the beautiful woman’s feet left the peanut shell-littered floorboards as they embraced. “And you must be Ember…we wondered if we’d ever see you again!”
She smelled like wine, baby powder, and cinnamon. Ember’s head was swimming, and it was only then that she remembered Acton had brought her here at this woman’s request.
“You’re…the mother?” Ember said, dumbfounded. She blushed. “You don’t look…old enough.”
The woman only smiled and winked, lowering her voice to a cheery growl. “Plastic surgery is an amazing thing.”
Acton cleared his throat. “Zinny, Ember. Ember, my mother, Zinnia Knox. The mother of the Knox reputation.”
“Oh, now, you hush!” Zinny touched her cheek, feigning embarrassment, but winking at Ember at the last second.
Ember looked back at Acton, astonished and feeling like the heat in the room had just gone up by several degrees. Acton shrugged and smirked, and Ember looked back at the reprehensibly young and sexy Zinnia, called Zinny and not ‘mom’ by her son. A bottle had appeared in one of Zinny’s hands, and two glasses in the other.
“Schnapps, Acton?” She frowned when she saw the expression on Ember’s face. “Or perhaps something less alcoholic…?”
She disappeared to the other end of the bar, and Ember looked over at Acton to see him smiling as he shook his head. “What?”
He shook his head. “You look like a doe in the headlights.”
“Headlights. Ha. Ha, ha,” she responded, taking one last look at Zinny in her corset, and he laughed again.
“How old are you?” she blurted. Ember flinched as she realized that the sudden voicing of her uncensored thoughts was happening a lot that day. She made a concerted effort to look at Acton as though it were a perfectly normal continuance of conversation, trying not to let her smile appear too sheepish. “I mean, because, your mom—Zinnia—Zinny, I mean, she just looks…”
“I get that a lot.” Acton stood and reached around to the other side of the bar, fishing beneath the counter until he brought up a bag of salted peanuts, and set them in front of Ember.
Zinny set a tray of drinks down in front of them, the glasses clanking against the metal tray as she set them down—two waters and two glasses of schnapps. Acton picked up a schnapps as Zinny winked and slinked back away down the bar, her bare shoulder blades dancing.
“Old enough to drink?” Ember asked, somewhat deflated.
“I think so.” Acton smiled as he downed the drink. “That’s all that counts.”
Ember was horrified. Seeing her face, Acton frowned and quickly set the glass down as he cleared his throat again. His tone was understanding. “So…your mom?”
She had almost forgotten. As her evening deflated a little further, she reached out and grabbed a glass of water to occupy her mouth for a few extra moments. Acton waited patiently, his eyes seeming to beat with anticipation as he cornered her into
her seat with his knees, blocking the bulk of the rest of the bar from her view, and she was once again grateful. Trying to ignore the room full of people, she focused on Acton’s face.
“Yeah…” she started. “My mom.”
“We can talk about something else if you like,” he said with a shrug.
“Yeah…” she repeated, desperately searching for something else to discuss, and realizing that her entire life could be boiled down to her academic record, a handful of volunteer events, and her broken family. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to talk about why she had been sent away, which was undoubtedly the most interesting thing about her. She didn’t even understand why her mother wanted her to leave, beyond the fact that she wasn’t allowed to consider this island her home. Sitting in The Garden with Acton, her academic devotion suddenly felt cheap and pretentious. The ivory tower—that was what he had called it.
Ember sighed. Acton was still patiently waiting for her to say something. He had taken her out on a pity date because he knew her mother…and how she was. That thought alone made Ember want to crawl under a rock and die. He was trying to do her a favor by getting her out of the house, taking her to the hot spot in town, introducing her to his mother, and offering up alcohol. He had mistakenly assumed that she would jump at the opportunity. He had assumed that she was someone interesting.
Across the room, Asher, Kaylee, and Isaac were all talking and laughing like the life-long friends Ember was sure they were. They were completely at ease in this malted environment, and it only made Ember feel more awkward.
Asher looked over, his arm still casually draped around Kaylee’s shoulders like he was an accessory to her outfit, and nodded at her. It was in that brief acknowledgement that Ember realized that even though she had never been an interesting person, the moment had arrived where she had the power to change the fact.
Her entire life, she had tried to fit in, because she thought being normal would make her family take her back. But here, in the only bar on Tulukaruk, she was the village oddity, and it felt good to be noticed. She was never going to win over her mother, but she had a chance to win with everyone else. And her entire life, she had been missing out on that opportunity.
Ember knew that if she got drunk that night, it would mean a lecture the next morning. Or would it?
Staring into Acton’s hazel eyes, the red-brown color pulsing behind them as the bar lights reflected off them, she realized that a lecture wasn’t such a bad thing. If her mother was going to make her leave, Ember intended to make an unforgettable reputation for people to remember her by. The Knox boys’ reputation.
As Acton watched, his eyes sparkling with amusement, Ember raised up the schnapps and tried to swallow it in one gulp the way he had. She choked, and most of it went dribbling down her chin and front.
She sputtered and took another gulp of water to kill the burn in her throat. Ember wondered what she had been thinking seconds earlier while attempting the stunt. She had never drunk alcohol before.
Acton was in a fit of laughter as he grabbed a wad of paper napkins from behind the counter and started wiping the booze from Ember’s face and shirt. His laughter had once again relieved her embarrassment, and she started to laugh with him. As they both started to settle down, Ember was charmed by the way that he seemed so taken with her. She was beginning to like the feeling of excited disquiet that came every time he reached out to touch her.
“What was that?” he asked with one final laugh.
Ember raised her eyebrows. “When we walk out of here, they’re going to be looking at me.”
Acton gestured for Zinny as Ember tried to sop up the rest of the mess she had made.
“Maybe another water for—“
“Schnapps,” Ember interceded flatly.
Zinny raised an eyebrow at him, but Acton only smiled and shrugged. “Her choice. I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
Zinny left the bottle, and Acton refilled her glass.
She continued to drink another few ounces of schnapps, and then somehow they ended up at Isaac and Asher’s table. Kaylee was playing with Ember’s hair while the boys traded stories on all the stupid and reckless things they had done for entertainment on the island, and Ember couldn’t stop laughing. She was so giddy that she was hardly thinking. She convinced Zinny to let her do a few shots before the bar mistress convinced her to stop, saying she “didn’t want to bring down Gina’s wrath.”
Ember was so happy that she hardly noticed it was after midnight, and Asher made a joke about needing to get her home before she turned into a pumpkin. Ember laughed so hard that she vomited, though later she couldn’t recall where. It was probably everywhere. Zinny very graciously never brought it up after that night.
She didn’t remember leaving the bar that night. Later, she thought that Acton might have loaned her his jacket to keep warm. There might have been a motorcycle ride involved, though she didn’t know how Acton managed to keep her balanced the whole ride. All she remembered was the bitter wind scratching past her face as she tried to bury herself in the supple, warm, musky suede of Acton’s jacket.
She didn’t remember anything clearly until lunch the next day. Thalia glared at her fiercely across the table, cutting through the hazy and painful stupor, clearly angered that Ember had defaced her public image, and her mother begged—literally begged—her not to go out again. Then there was screaming, and threats. Then came the explanations to Nan, the lectures on how Ember “hadn’t been raised to act like this,” and Ember’s angry rant that she hadn’t been raised to be anything. Not by her mother, anyways.
As Ember had climbed the stairs to go back to bed, her clammy hands sticking to the bannister and her head simultaneously throbbing with its own weight and threatening to float away, she didn’t have the energy to wonder if it had been a mistake. As she opened her door, swaying dangerously along, she didn’t think about the science behind her hangover. As she collapsed onto her bed, she didn’t wonder at the fact that she had managed to go from being a little girl to a teenager in a single night.
The only thought in her head was Acton Knox. Everyone had been watching as she left the bar the night before, but he was the only one that counted. She wondered what he was doing now, and reached for her cell phone…then remembered that she didn’t have any friends.
Except that now, she did.
You have a cell? Let me see…
Nearly breathless, Ember remembered the sparkling excitement in Asher’s eyes as he had taken the phone from her hand to program in their numbers. The glow on the screen had been magical in the dark, misty night; the moon had been out and full, and with Acton’s arm tight around her shoulders…
The moon? In a bar?
Ember closed her eyes, squeezing them shut until stars popped in front of them, trying to press out the story of the evening prior. There was the bar, and the drinks, and then…Kaylee had braided her hair. Yes, because she hadn’t used any hair ties, and it had been a mess in the morning. Knots all over.
But at least the braids had kept it out of her hair when she had thrown up.
“Better get her home before she turns into a pumpkin.”
Ember had laughed when he said it. Asher always said the funny things. Isaac was a poet. Acton didn’t laugh. It took her hours to realize that when he smiled, it never touched it eyes. His lips had smiled, but his eyes hadn’t.
“I’ve got time, and so does she. I want to take her for a tour.”
The tour of the island—that’s right, they had left the bar. People had clapped for her, and whistled, and she had made a grand bow at the door as they exited.
Ember cringed, pressing her face into the pillow. She had bowed to the townsfolk.
After the bar, everything was bathed in icy moonlight and freezing mist. Laughter boomed through the forest. There was a fire, something old and rusted, and the feel of Acton’s suede jacket against her cheek.
The feel of the grass in her hair.
; Ember raised her hands to her hair. Her eyes shot open. They had been lying down in the grass.
She rolled over onto her stomach, pressing her face into the pillow. It was there, somewhere in her mind, buried deep.
“Where are we?”
“Are you one of those shallow girls? The ones who never think about life?”
Ember wasn’t one of those girls. She would have said so.
“Do you love your mother? Does she love you?”
She remembered staring up at the stars, trying hard to think of something clever to say, but all of her wits seemed to have evaporated. The air around them was so cold, but the mist was hot. Not mist—steam, from the ground, was rising in wisps all around them. The mist was making her eyes water, and then she had started to cry.
“I wish she was dead…”
Fortunately, Acton was happy when he was drunk. He had started laughing, and then she had started laughing.
“You’re not afraid of anything.”
“No.”
“And you really wish she was dead.”
“Sometimes. Most times. It would be easier than explaining, or wondering…”
And Acton had looked her in the eye. The two of them, lying on their stomachs facing each other in the tall grass. The steam was swirling around them, and the night sky was above them, dawn making a pink fringe on the horizon.
“Okay.”
That’s all he had said about it. It took her breath away how simple his acceptance was.
“Okay.”