“You can’t poke at the ocean,” she said. “Look at the mood you’ve put it in.” He didn’t say anything in response. He never said anything. He just stared at her and then looked away. “You’ll get a rash. Or something else. You should see Natasha’s scars from the last time she touched it. And she wasn’t even poking. She was just trying to play. Come on.”
She pulled him and when he didn’t move, she pulled him again harder. This time he pulled back, and then he pushed her off and she shoved him hard and he stumbled back and then his feet were in the water. Up to his ankles. Splashing up to his knees. The water gripped him and tried to pull him deeper. And he screamed. And his scream was louder than any scream Luisa had ever heard. And as soon as he screamed the water turned darker, and she heard a drum start beating up in the hills. The sea started heaving, gray and angry, and she screamed, too. The entire island seemed to hold its breath. Eddie’s face was pale and his mouth twisted, and he struggled to get out of the water. His screams were steady now, like they’d never end, and Luisa splashed in herself and yanked him toward the sand. Her wet legs burned. Her throat got tight. A sob pushed through her lips, but she sucked it back in and pulled and pulled until they both fell backward onto the sand, away from the water. The water, like tongues, licked just inches away. She’d pushed him in. What had she done? She couldn’t hold the sobs back now.
A laugh carried down from the villa where the grownups lived. A laugh, and then a shriek.
“We have to run,” she said.
Eddie looked at her. Red welts were forming on his legs. He leaned over and vomited.
“Run now,” she said. “They’re going hunting. We’ve got to go.”
She dragged him by the arm and this time he followed, whimpering but moving fast.
The other kids were already in the cave by the time they got there. They helped Luisa push Eddie inside, and then, all together, they rolled the boulder across the opening. Darkness closed around them. Silence. They were used to it, and they didn’t even try to whisper. They could wait it out. They’d waited it out before. The sun would come back out. The sea would turn bright blue again. The grown-ups would realize they all just needed a nap. Just be quiet, they all thought inside their heads. Just wait and don’t make a sound.
Luisa’s whole body ached, but she bit her lip and kept her mouth shut. Then, from nowhere, but really from Eddie, a moaning rose. It was like the wind. It was like the water. It was like a car that hadn’t been started in a long time, whose engine wasn’t sure it would ever turn again.
“Shut up,” Mimi said.
“They’ll hear us,” Andrew said.
The moaning kept on.
“So your legs hurt,” Luisa hissed. “Mine hurt too. It’s your own fault, anyway. The water was clearly gray. You have to stay away from it when it’s like that. If you hadn’t been poking at it, we wouldn’t be here. Shut up.”
They couldn’t silence him. In the dark, with all five crowded together, they couldn’t figure out who was Eddie, and they kept slapping their hands across each other’s mouths. They had no idea how long it went on until they heard a voice, exhuberant and adult, just outside the cave.
“By golly, I think I’ve found them,” they heard.
“Not really? You’ve found the little scamps?”
“Do you hear that moaning? The new boy must not realize he’s in hiding. What luck!”
Luisa shivered. Her finger throbbed. The languorous adult conversations were never supposed to directly involve them. They cowered toward the back of the cave and tried to turn to stone themselves.
“Roll back that rock,” a voice said.
“But my nails. I’ve just had them done.”
“Use this crowbar I happen to have with me.”
“You’re so handy.”
“You’re so lovely.”
From just beyond the boulder came the sounds of kissing. The children felt a collective “ugghh” pass through them, but they knew control, and only Eddie made a sound. It was another moan, but they could translate it easily: “Let me go home,” the moan said. “I want to go home.”
Then came a scraping and some grunts of hard work, and then the stone rolled back.
Daylight invaded. The smell of thyme and lavender. The squeals, far away, of pigs. And then, blocking the light, platinum blonde hair pulled back, the scarlet-lipped face of one of the grown-ups appeared, smiling, teeth so white they might as well have been painted.
“I’ve got them,” she sang. She reached her hand out quicker than a whip, pressing her nails into Luisa’s upper arm. “Come out, darling.” Luisa found herself hurled into the open air, into the light, into a giant net as if she were a butterfly. One by one she was joined by the other children, until even Eddie, no longer moaning but still crying, huddled in the light beside her.
“We’ve been searching for hours,” the man said. His black hair was slicked back and his eyes were green. “Silly things. Did you think we wouldn’t find you? The pigs need feeding. The ocean needs tending. It’s sent us some more junk. You’ve been delinquent in your work.”
“Look at them,” the woman said. “They’re scared, poor things. Let’s get them back home where they can clean up and get some rest. Maybe an early bedtime tonight.”
“Early to bed, early to rise,” the man said.
“That’s what I always say,” the woman answered. They started laughing uncontrollably, and it was minutes until they calmed down enough to jab at the children with sticks.
It isn’t easy walking in a net, especially across an unpaved island. There was a path, but it was narrow and encroached upon by thorn bushes. The woman walked ahead, her ankles twisting in her high heels from time to time. She looked elegant, but it was clear that she was in a certain amount of pain. She muttered curses under her breath. The man followed, prodding at the children occasionally with his crowbar. The children didn’t speak, but Luisa held Mimi’s hand, and Natasha clung to Mimi’s leg, and even Eddie, whom they all blamed for the trouble, kept his hand on Andrew’s arm. It was hot, and the air around them smelled too sweet, and halfway down the path Eddie started hiccupping. By the time they got back to the hut, they were covered in thorns and skinned knees and bleeding bottom lips, and nobody cared that Eddie had oozing red sores up and down his legs. Luisa had welts on her legs, too. They were all in pain. The grown-ups pushed the net, children and all, into a hollow just outside the hut, and left them there to go have something tall and cool.
The pigs were loud now. They grunted and snorted as if they were giggling. Luisa counted them in her mind—the one with the spots, the one with the lopped off ear, the one whose hooves looked dainty, the one who liked to scratch her side against the fence post, the one who was smaller and skinnier than the rest but who seemed to have the sharpest teeth of all, and the one she always forgot to count. She wondered which was talking. She wondered if they were dividing the children up among them. They wouldn’t divide evenly—five into six. She wondered what the pigs would look like bathed and with wreathes of flowers around their necks.
Far, far along the horizon, a ship passed. It was hard to tell, but it was probably a cargo ship. An oil tanker, maybe. Just the kind to send some junk ashore that evening. Razor wire? Plastic table cloths? Leaky tents? Incorrect homework that no one had bothered to do over? Maybe the pigs would get a double meal. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it didn’t seem to faze them. Pigs don’t know when they’re full. They can eat and eat and eat until their stomachs burst. A couple of children in the morning? A couple of sailors in the early