Page 51 of The Wild Beneath

“This is a chance for a new start,” Ruth says.

“I don’t want a new start.”

“You and Evan will be safer in Vancouver. Think about the opportunities. No one is trapping you in any kind of life. No one is trapping you anywhere.”

“Evan hasn’t even been here.” Irritation rings in Annie’s voice. “He should be here.”

Ruth nods. “He will be. He’s sorting things out with Isaac.”

Annie clenches her jaw. “And you’ll go with us?”

“They say we all have to.”

Annie waits for her to say more, but Ruth picks up the bucket and walks out to the porch.

“Butyoudon’t want to leave, do you?” Annie says, following. “Unless you get sicker, and you have to?”

“We’re talking about you. It’s not a bad thing for you to have your feet on solid ground for the time being, to give you a new perspective.” Ruth pours the dirty bucket water over the railing.

Annie watches the water drain into the earth. “I wish I could talk to Mom.”

Ruth opens her mouth to speak but then stops herself. She shakes the last of the water from the bucket before turning to Annie. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too.” She takes the empty bucket from Ruth’s hands. “I’ll fill this up again.”

Annie reads the coast guard notice again shortly after.

She tries to imagine climbing aboard a boat and leaving, a wake frilling out behind them, Hale’s fading in the distance. It feels wrong. She folds the pamphlet again, hiding the words.

She wants to hide herself in a drawer, too, some inner compartment where her ears will shut off.

In the garden, she uproots weedy intruders with her hoe and watches pink earthworms scoot around the dirt. Then she kicks around the beach alone, digging clams and checking the lines for mussels. Near the shoreline, she finds a flip phone with a single crack through its screen and puts it in her pocket as she searches the empty horizon forGalene’s return.

Walker’s sound is too faint for relief.

Back inside the cabin, she opens the closet and adds the phone to her collection. On the middle shelf, her eyes land on something unexpected.

A sand dollar lies waiting for her, white and smooth and delicate.

Chapter 18

The following week is full of wide blue skies, unfurling green, and heat steaming off the sand. Weather so perfect that if Annie keeps her mind blank and her eyes on the sky, she can pretend her life hasn’t evaporated. Hale’s hasn’t crumbled, and she isn’t about to be forced to leave it behind.

She meetsGalenein Hale’s during an unusually sweltering afternoon while Walker unloads a day’s worth of crabs onto the area cleared by Isaac’s excavator. Henry is handing them out to a line of familiar faces. It’s enough to feed everyone who needs to be fed and then some.

Walker smells of sweat and salt; Annie finds it weirdly distracting. He unloads the last crab pots in minutes, as if they’re light as air.

“Can I show you something?” he says, as he stacks the last pot.

She follows him off the beach, through the huckleberry shrubs and salal, up the hill to the shipyard.

It’s dark and cool in the warehouse. Angled light falls through the grimy two-storey windows. An emerald-green canoe is stowed in the rafters with a single broken oar beside it. Cobwebs thread over the beams, and faded orange life jackets line the far wall, straps dangling.

Walker points to a sailboat up on a cradle, the namePolarisprinted on the aft. Her black bottom paint is peeling and the hull is stained with algae.

“Isn’t she amazing?” he says, eyes shining.

Annie wanders her perimeter. The keel has a fair amount of damage, but the hull joint looks sound. No cracks. The mast lies on the concrete floor. The fibreglass looks sturdy enough, but the wood trim is cracked. Rust weeps from the lifelines and along the terminals. One copper porthole is missing its glass. “Looks pretty wrecked.”