Winnie nodded.
I shook my head and offered my cousin a handkerchief. She took it without looking at me. “I can’t walk down there at night, not safely.”
“Not even for your own sister?”
The accusation, that it was my fault Laura was now missing, did not go unheard.
“I thought you two were together, that you meant to make me jealous, or that she was meeting someone—”
Winnie looked at me now, and I didn’t like her expression, dark and lined and old, like someone had taken a coffee-stained cloth and draped it over her face. “Someone? What someone? What do you know?”
A knock at the door saved me from answering, from telling her about the boy in the lake.
“Lizzie, you all right?” Father asked.
I grabbed the blanket and threw it over Winnie’s head before crossing to the door. I opened it and smiled at my father.
“Winnie had a bad dream,” I said.
Father looked beyond me, to the lump on my bed. I followed his gaze to see Winnie’s pale face emerging from the blanket.
“You all right?” Father asked her.
Winnie nodded. “Lizzie is a great comfort,” she said, and smiled through a new haze of tears.
“Indeed,” Father said. He kissed me on the forehead before drawing the door shut and leaving us.
“What someone?” Winnie asked again, standing so close to me that I jumped.
I turned to look at my cousin, feeling courage curl around my shoulders. “Why are you glad your father is dead?”
Winnie held my gaze and at first said nothing. When she would have turned away from me, I grabbed her arm. My arms and hands were strong, and I held her effortlessly. She squirmed and still I held on; Winnie resigned herself to captivity.
“Everything would be fine if you hadn’t gone into the pond,” she said, a growl shading her voice black.
I released Winnie’s arm. Courage left me small as ever, and I wanted only to leave this room. But now it was Winnie who took hold of me.
“The water made you sick, and he blamed himself.” She shook me hard. “Fretted over you every which way he could. Paid for doctors. Drove hours just to walk with you.” Winnie leaned in so close that our foreheads almost touched. “He loved you the way he should have loved me.”
“Winnie, no.”
“I didn’t want a sister, and neither did Laura. Wanted to toss you in the lake myself, let the fish eat you.”
Laura once told me that gypsies left me on the porch one winter’s evening, in a Burma-Shave box. I was a nuisance to the tribe and they could no longer stand me and my crooked body, so they deposited me at the first house that looked sturdy enough to withstand my screaming.
Father thought he had won a great contest and had been rewarded with his favorite shaving cream. When he discovered otherwise, it was too late, for that’s how gypsy magic works. Take the child in, and she’s yours forever.
It wasn’t polio that withered my leg, Laura would say, it was the gypsy in me. Our parents overlooked it, but they loved her best, for she was their true daughter. The first time I heard such things, I cried; I cried until I was weak and empty and Father had to carry me to bed. That same feeling drew around me now, of being empty and never understanding why.
“I tried to get sick,” Winnie whispered, “and couldn’t, so I wished you dead, wished you dead so many times and now — And now he’s gone—”
Winnie couldn’t talk around the tears. I wanted to hug her and at the same time shove her away. Winnie turned away from me and crossed to the window, to push the curtain back and look at the lake. In daylight, everything seemed normal; the island was just a small lump of tree-covered land.
“She’s out there,” Winnie said. “On the island with those young men. They’ve snatched her away.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “How—”
“What do you see when you look out there, at that tree, Lizzie?” she asked me. I came to stand by her side, seeking comfort in the lines of the old tree.
“The Madonna tree,” I said.
“That’s what everyone says. What do you really see?”
I looked at the tree and saw broad shoulders, two arms encircling two children. I saw my father, whole and strong, holding me and Laura, holding us beyond all danger. I shook my head, refusing to tell Winnie this.
“Only the old tree, that’s all.”
“I see a vulture,” Winnie said. “And if we go there, it will pluck our bones clean.”
We disliked each other, Winnie and me, but we linked arms and pretended to be the best of friends in front of our parents and Granny. Laura had left without us that morning, we said, walking around the lake. We meant to head out the other way and catch her coming around. Granny smiled at us and offered us pocket pies wrapped in wax paper. We each took one, and left the house as fast as we could.
We walked two houses over, then cut through the yard, down to the lake. It didn’t escape me that Winnie and Laura could still be playing their game. Still, I played along now, because no matter how hateful Winnie could be, her fear this morning at Laura’s absence was genuine.
“We’ll row out,” Winnie said, and kneeled beside a small green boat lashed to the dock. “We’ll—”
Whatever Winnie meant to say was lost in a scream. A glistening silver hand wrapped around her wrist. I covered her mouth to silence her and looked down into the eyes of the young man I had spoken with days before.
“Only Lizzie comes,” he said.
Winnie jerked away from both of us, leaving me to sprawl on the dock. She couldn’t get her feet under her though and settled for crawling some distance away.
“W-what is it?” she asked.
The morning sun draped the young man’s shoulders not in gold but silver. He was silver everywhere I looked, save for the mop of russet curls on his head. Silver from scales.
“Laura needs you, Lizzie,” he said and lifted a hand to me. “She’s on the island.”
“I can’t swim,” I said. “But I would try. I would.”
The young man shook his head. “There’s more than one way to cross water. You can row. And bring her pie,” he added before slipping under the water.
I looked at Winnie and held a hand out for her pie. “You heard him.”
“What — you’re going? Lizzie!”
“I can’t leave Laura there.” Not when I knew now that this was no game of pretend.
“He’ll pluck your bones clean,” Winnie said, and threw her pocket pie at me before huddling on the dock. The pie fell short of my grasp, but I picked it up, looking at Winnie so small and scared. I felt a moment’s pity when I climbed into the boat, feeling equally small. I set the pocket pies on the seat opposite me. “Untie me, Winnie.”
She untied the boat and pushed it away while I fitted the heavy oars into their locks. I watched Winnie grow smaller and smaller while behind me I felt the Madonna tree growing larger. Its shadow spread over the surface of the lake and seemed to pull me toward the island.
When I saw the russet head in the water, I jumped in surprise, fearing I would hit it with an oar. But he moved like a fish, effortlessly under and around the boat and oars. He broke the surface of the water twice to smile at me, to beckon me onward when I felt my arms tire.
“You’re almost there,” he said, and a moment later the boat touched the muddy island shore.
I climbed out on shaking legs, shaking even more when the young man handed me the pocket pies and my cane. He had legs, legs like any normal man, but his feet and hands were webbed, and every inch of him was covered in shining scales.
“She’s just up here, Lizzie,” he said, and stepped through the trees.
I looked back at the far shore, the houses nearly swallowed by trees and greenery. How small they seemed, and I couldn’t see Winnie at all but somehow felt myself being watched.