Estelle’s head suddenly landed on my shoulder. Her blonde hair draped over my back, tickling my bicep and forearm. “They’re at peace.”
I didn’t respond.
The three bodies in front of us lay on their backs, their hands tied together in prayer, pebbles placed on their vacant eyes, and rocks inserted into their clothing.
We’d taken anything that might be of use. A pen engraved with Duncan’s initials for Conner, a gold tennis bracelet from Amelia for Pippa. We removed the wedding rings and decided to use them as a memorial. We’d already painstakingly carved their names on a piece of driftwood and attached two plaited pieces of flax to hold the rings.
Akin lay beside the Evermores, together but apart. Would his family be searching for him? Would they know how to find us? Or had any hope of being found died the moment we stepped aboard a helicopter without a working Emergency Locator Transmitter?
Slowly, dawn crept closer as did the tide. The bodies went from being lapped gently to slowly consumed, their legs vanishing beneath the surface, followed by their chests and faces.
It had been Estelle’s idea to use the ocean.
The island soil was rich and fairly simple to dig, but tree roots and obstacles didn’t make it easy. After a few minutes of trying, Estelle had asked me to trust her, and together, we found Amelia and Duncan and respectfully, painfully, so, so slowly dragged them to the opposite side of the island.
Our pace had been a gait between a hobble and a lurch, careful not to damage the dead any more than they were. The causes of death had been easier to see the lighter the sky became. Duncan had perished from a broken neck like Akin, and Amelia had bled out from a piece of metal cutting her carotid artery.
The beach on this side was rockier than on ours. A steeper slope to the water with sparse undergrowth. By weighting the bodies down, they would sink and be dragged along the ocean floor as the tide took them farther out to sea.
There was a risk they would eventually make their way to our side of the island. However, the teeming sea life would help with that. Crabs and fishes, sharks and crustaceans, the creatures would live another day by the grace of one of our dead.
I wanted so much to sit. To lie down. To close my eyes and slip into sleep with Estelle in my arms.
But we’d made an unspoken agreement to be there until the end.
So we stood as the night gave up its cloak of black and the sea slowly devoured the dead. When we could no longer see them through the water’s surface, Estelle raised her head from my shoulder.
Her voice was haunting in the dawn. “Rest in peace knowing we’ll look after your children. We’ll love them. Care for them. Make sure they grow and eventually find rescue off this island. Akin, we promise to let your family know your final resting place. Goodbye.”
Silence fell.
Should I say something?
But what?
I didn’t know the first thing about eulogies. I hadn’t given one at my mother’s funeral because I hadn’t attended. I didn’t know how to say goodbye.
Estelle saved me from the task by turning and clambering up the beach. She turned to look back. “Are you coming?”
Every part of me shook but I nodded. Slowly, I hauled myself up the sand, crutch and hop, crutch and hop. One lumbering step at a time, following the woman who made me a better person just by smiling at me.
Together, we returned to our furnitureless home.
Together, we stripped off our clothes and waded into the fresh ocean and washed away the remnants of the night—washed away the smell, the memories, our old life.
Together, we looked forward to the future.
Chapter Twenty-Five
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E S T E L L E
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I’ll die on this island.
I’ll survive on this island.
I’m afraid.
I’m no longer afraid.
I’m alone.
I’ve found someone worth fighting for.
Taken from the notepad of E.E.
...
DAY FOUR
THE CHILDREN KNEW.
After our swim, Galloway and I set up the driftwood memorial at the base of our umbrella tree. The pen and bracelet taken from their parents were placed by their respective heads for when they woke, and the wedding rings glinted in the sunshine, clinking together in the muggy breeze.
When the children woke, their melancholy blanketed the campsite. They didn’t speak, merely hugged their tokens and sat in vigil to say goodbye.
No one mentioned what we’d done. An unspoken bond that their parents were gone and all that mattered was their memory.
The day followed much like the last.
Water collected over the course of the day, the leaves graciously donating liquid the hotter the sun became. After a brief nap in the shade, Galloway mentioned he would go clam gathering. But when he went to stand, he couldn’t.
He’d done as much as he could.
His body had reached an impasse.
The self-hatred and curses he layered upon himself broke my heart. He needed to be kinder to his body and mind if he was ever to find true happiness.
I brought him water and kissed his brow with sweet sincerity. He held my hand, whispered his thumb over my knuckles, and looked at me as if I was an angel, begging for salvation.
I wanted to fall into his eyes and forget. I wanted to curl in his arms and remind him that he wasn’t alone.
But there was too much to do. Too many tasks to complete in order to stay alive.
Leaving him to heal, I organised the day even though I hurt all over. My ribs hadn’t let up their torture and my back ached from dragging corpses all night. I never, ever, ever wanted to do something like that again.