“Did you think there was something off with me all along?”
His side-view smile was heart-stoppingly sweet as he pretended to keep watching television. “Let me ask. Did you think there was something off with you?”
“Once I found a dead squirrel in the fireplace at Skylark,” I told him. “He’d tried all winter to get out of that room. And I hate thinking about how he died; of starvation, probably, or exhaustion—but there must have been so much panic, before. You could see it, the way he’d chewed around the windows. That perfect, sealed view of the world. Sometimes I feel like that. Like I can’t get to that other side, no matter how hard I try.”
His silence was weighted as he mulled over it. “That sounds like something Pete said to me once.”
“Did you ever think Pete brought down that plane on purpose?”
He shrugged. Eyes on the television again. “It’s a rumor. There’ll always be rumors about Pete. What he might have been capable of. They’re both gone now. We’ve got to let them rest.”
Of course there wasn’t any hard truth or one explanation. If Sebastian had suspicions, he’d keep them to himself. He was still a local, a Bly boy, and he was too deeply attached to the island. Just like the Quints and Featherings and McNabbs and Hubbards and all the others, he’d guard his privacy. What did it matter? It had only mattered to me because of what Pete and I shared. And it still matters to me to have my truth. Every morning and evening, when Sally delivered my meds, I couldn’t help but cast back to Katherine Quint, her cornered eyes and scrabbling fingers. I could do better than Katherine’s life. I could do better than Pete’s death. I could, and I would.
“You do realize this is my whole foreseeable future?” I asked Sebastian. Only half joking, and painfully aware that he knew it.
“Yeah, yeah. But I look at it this way—when I talk about my crazy girl back home, I can really back it up. Besides, I think a schiz girlfriend’ll play well at Yale. Gives me some artistic cred.”
“If I weren’t bedridden, you’d get thwacked.” I thwacked him with the pillow anyway. And then I made myself ask. “How’s Isa?”
“She’s dealing. If you want to look on the bright side of this whole thing—and I always big-time believe that there is one—her dad came home the day after your accident. Then the two of them went to Maryland to spend time with her grandmother.”
“There you go, always finding that stupid bright side.”
“Only because it’s not hard to find.”
“Do you think Isa hates me for disappointing her? For just abandoning her like I did?” Nothing, not one single thing, had struck me worse than this idea, and now I couldn’t stop my tears. Sebastian pulled me in so that my head tucked neatly under his chin, and his arms were reassuringly tight. He promised she didn’t hate me. He promised that she’d want me to call.
Sebastian left soon after. The next day, with a parent propping me up on either side and a physical therapy schedule, thick as a Bible, tucked under my arm, I checked out of the hospital and went home. Where, when I arrived back in my bedroom, the first thing I did was remove Katherine’s ring, which I’d secreted in a side zip of my toiletries kit. Just seeing it again, the diamond winking like a sightless eye, set a chill through me as I slipped it into my jewelry box and, for the first time, turned its key.
Peter Quint’s ring was not something I wanted to hold on to. One day, I’d return to Little Bly, and I’d make good on my promise to Katherine. But that day was a long way off. Like everything else, I’d set out when I was ready, and not a minute before.
That same weekend, Sebastian took off for New Haven. Whenever he writes, I write back. I don’t delete anything. I try not to second-guess myself. I let the hope for his letter in my in-box remind me that no matter what the weather is like, the sky really can be this blue.
October 20
Dear Jamie,
It’s low season here at Little Bly, and Mr. M. and Isa are long gone home to Beacon Hill, and most of the other tourist types, too. So now it’s just folks. I ran into Amanda Brooks the other day, and she told me you and her son, Sebastian, have kept up, and I was glad to hear. I’m not one to sit at a kitchen table with a writing tablet, but that’s the situation I find myself in, so as to put down a few words to you. On account of how you’d left the island so abrupt, I believe there are a few things to make right.
Firstly, I am glad to hear from Amanda that you are healing. Secondly, Dr. Hugh has been by and he has set my understanding of your Condition. I will admit now that many’s a time when I’d thought you were acting alarming and unruly—for example, how you would sleep till all hours, and burn paper on the third floor and generally put things in disarray. I am relieved to know it was not entirely due to your lack in Character. My Mother, before she passed, had bravely battled memory loss from Alzheimer’s Disease, and Dr. Hugh assured me that your case is in some ways the same.
There’s occasions I’m asked by others here—sometimes in an eager, gossipy tone I don’t care for—to recount your visit to Skylark, and I have been questioned as to why I allowed you and Isa to indulge in your game of “Milo.” To them, I say that I was pleased that Isa took to you so easy. Despite your failings in other areas, I can attest with Conviction that she blossomed under your care, and you must always keep Knowledge of that, when you look back on the less positive transpirings of this Summer.
My great-great-grandfather Winslow Hastings Horne was an esteemed Architect who was plagued by Visions and Sensitivities. He once said that those who suffer from watching the World the wrong way In can see Out too clear. Perhaps you can take Comfort in those words.
As for myself, I do feel it is my Duty, and perhaps the point of this letter, to note that I have come to a reluctant agreement with you, that the soul of Skylark is not at rest. And while I cannot put my sense of it to words, it is why I have decided to take my indefinite leave from the island. Over the years, I have put aside Savings, though as yet I have not seen very much of the world, nor any great Architecture beyond that of my famous kin. I plan to remedy that, and am looking forward to this next Adventure.
Regards,
Cornelia Hubbard