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I sit up, because I can’t lie down Not for this I peer down at him, and he looks up at me, and I continue in a quiet, steady voice “I like colored telephones, the rotary sort, in orange or neon green or pink If I had a need to, I would ownI can knit a long, warm scarf in under a quarter hour My hands just…understand When I throw clay, that’s also quite natural for , and truly I don’t care for telly It seems so distant and irrelevant Why would I care what these people are doing? Books are different Books feel real I’ve got a few books in o anywhere without a book, not ever I have three dear friends, two of whoer and naive, and I believe that day was ical for them”

He gives me a funny little smile, but offers no comment

“The four of us caside each other at the schoolhouse I’ve never been in love,” I whisper, “but I—I’ve been close to soe, I pro to suspect I am, but I am not this story, okay? I’m a piece of ume candy or a constellation Aquarius, in fact January-born” I take a deep breath, and find I feel I need to sit up straighter to bestow these facts upon him

“Are you ready for this ie?”

He sits, too, and in a way that feelsto face each other “Ready, Siren”

The pet na to my eyes, but I blink past it Best to spit it out, or else I never will

“As you perhaps already knohen I was seven—on my seventh birthday—I iththat, just that, ht, I have to stop and s His eyes hold mine, and I let myself be hypnotized by their dark shine He doesn’t blink or move, not while I put a hand over my mouth then move it down and draw a shallow breath

“A storm came and…my father—he pitched overboard Mummy went in after him” I don’this somber eyes; I see her halo Flowers in the white caps “Mu it “And I re, unmoored, as you can likely recall For seven days”

I open my eyes and am relieved to find his face impassive

“On the seventh night, the boat ran aground on Gough Island The one place, as it were, that I could run aground and be found by those searching” I suck back a breath and force myself to carry on “I believe your father was on the boat that found me” I didn’t realize that until much later, when I saw his face on the world eb “Garew up in your cottage We flew kites in that field between the house and the cliffs there at the plateau behind it, and for a brief time Gammy let me use my bedrooood reatest pies you’ve ever tasted, and she loved the scent of lemons”

It’s there on the tip of ue, a terrible addendum to an unthinkable story I didn’t speak for ten years after…

I look at his face—his now-fa to expression I look at his painful-handsouts out And I can’t tell him I was broken

I say, “I won’t go near boats now” What I et in one to savethe hill just after he arrived was the closest I’d been to the ocean in years

I don’t reht of Mu the two years a specialist made visits to the island to try to help et in a boat I know it the same way I know I can’t hold my breath indefinitely It’s a limit that I can’t exceed, no matter how much I may need to Any plans toward that are simply…silly

The Carnegie blinks at me, and his mouth softens