First Prize
Unihipili by Michael Kaukeano Sonray-Kelly, Oregan, USA
Second Prize
The Choice by Claire Davies, Fleet, UK
Third Prize
Lost Things by Holly Brandon, Petal, USA
Shortlist
Where’s Tato by Marcin Ostasz, Spain
Unihipili by Michael Kaukeano Sonray-Kelly, Oregan, USA
The Choice by Claire Davies, Fleet, UK
The Boot by Juliet Hill, Madrid, Spain
Lost Things by Holly Brandon, Petal, USA
Cloch na nDeor by Marcin Ostasz, Spain
Longlist
Where’s Tato by Marcin Ostasz, Spain
Unihipili by Michael Kaukeano Sonray-Kelly, Oregan, USA
The Choice by Claire Davies, Fleet, UK
The Boot by Juliet Hill, Madrid, Spain
Overdue by Autumn Bettinger, Portland, USA
Lost Things by Holly Brandon, Petal, USA
Like a Dandelion, by Giada Biocchi, Waltham, USA
Joseph by Marcin Ostasz, Spain
From the Journal of Special Agent, by Michael Wood, Saint Albans, USA
Cloch na nDeor by Marcin Ostasz, Spain
A Song for Elijah Shultz, Alex Atkins, Utterson, Canada
Unihiphili, by Michael Kaukeano Sonray-Kelly
Kahu waited outside the stone walls of the heiau, the volcanic rock still warm from the day’s heat, and remained calm as the crowd splashed through the moonlit river and gathered near enough that he smelled candlenut oil. Torchlight danced on the dark belly of the forest, the bamboo and palms silhouetted in gold. The flames carried a threat for this heiau. Strangers marched through the silent valley with torches aflame, brandishing maces and mallets and the promise of a new god’s love. Kahu had seen the bonfires at other temples and knew the crowd came to burn and tear down the old ways, stone by stone, so Kahu had secreted into a polished wooden box the bones and hair of a deified ancestor, to keep the ‘unihipili, their spirit, safe and intact.
Hawaiʻi would be a haole nation. The queen now worshipped at a new altar, beneath an ironwood cross, and had abolished the ancient law of kapu that had bound their people to their pantheon of ‘akua. Sacred places had been deemed relics from an ignorant past, the islands too small for a people who now knew of lands which dwarfed their home and their customs. Kahu, who interpreted the will of gods now dead or dying, would diminish, destined to fade into a life of unimportance, to pull wet stems from the mud with the mahi’ai and eat the sour poi of peasants.
He sensed the encroaching crowd of converts gnashing their teeth and growling in the dark, keen to reduce Kahu’s prestige, his mana.
A dozen torchbearers entered the clearing in a somber line, many with their faces and eyes averted. Though they claimed to worship the god named Christ, their hearts understood that this was a house of Kū-kāʻili-moku, the snatcher of land, the god of war. They knew it was Kū who ensured the last king’s conquest of this island and had enabled these people to be born. Kū, who slept beneath ferns in the shadowed forests, would see them enter these stone walls, where none of this lout had ever been allowed. They still feared Kū, powerful and plotting, who might never permit another god to tread into his house and rip down his wooden statues. The men walked in silence and stopped before Kahu.
Those who braved to look into his eyes stood defiant, clad in imported wool and cotton. The young men sported hair and beards in the foreign style, unshaven on the sides of their heads, hair waxed and parted, growing thick from their chins and jawlines. Already they resembled the haoles, but Kahu knew that he too would soon abandon the simple barkcloth pareo wrapped around his waist, and clothe himself in coarse, tight suits to appease people he had not yet met.
Kahu recognized some in the group, those who had come to this very place or others like it, to ask for successful feats, for strong children, for fast waves and nimble limbs.
“Aloha ahiahi kākou,” the man at the head of the procession greeted. His was a face Kahu had never seen. Pale as the clouds, hair grey and beard red, the man stood short, fat, and barrel chested among the tall, dark-skinned locals.
“Maikaʻi ʻoe?” Are you well, he asked.
“Maika’i no au” I am well, said Kahu. He glanced at the crowd behind the stranger. They seemed to have slunk back against the edge of the clearing, beyond the row of broad leafed ki.
Sweat dripped from the stranger’s face and pooled beneath his arms in the fabric of his long linen shirt. It was incredible that these people would layer so much over their bodies when the night air sweltered and stifled. The stranger pulled a small piece of cloth from within his vest pocket, and dabbed the drops from his forehead. “I’m sure you were expecting us,” he said in the island’s language.
“If you had come a month earlier I might have been defiant, but I have made preparations.” Kahu said in English.
The stranger replaced his kerchief and chuckled. “I am glad you know English, because I can’t speak your tongue worth a damn.” He looked back at the gathered men and lowered his voice. “You know, a lot of you Kahuna have said one thing and done another. Buried heathen artifacts. Continued to make offerings to your ʻakua. Hell, some of you even encourage the kids to skip church on Sundays if the waves are big.”
Kahu did not answer but rubbed his naked chest and looked the stranger in the eyes.
“I should introduce myself,” the stranger said. “Earl Macdonald.” He held out his hand for Kahu, who did not care for the custom.
Kahu moved to embrace the man and pointed at his nose.
“We can do away with that,” Macdonald laughed. “Don’t need to press noses together when we can shake hands. My kin have been shaking hands for centuries.” He grasped Kahu’s limp fingers and shook.
In the darkness a voice shouted. “Hui! Macdonald! Are we to begin soon?”
Macdonald held up his hand. “Not quite yet, Timothy,” he said.
“That man’s name is Kealaikekai,” Kahu said, recognizing the voice. “Why did you call him Timothy?”
“At his baptism, he took a Christian name. They all did.”
Kahu frowned. Many people took new names, or multiple names, but always they took Hawaiian names, with Hawaiian meaning.
“What does Timothy mean?”
“Hell if I know,” Macdonald said. “He was in the Bible. The good book.” Kahu stared, uncomprehending. “Timothy took the name of an early preacher, a disciple of Paul the Apostle.”
“I do not know Paul the Apostle,” Kahu said.
“Well, you will, if you follow Christ. Paul is one of the more venerated figures of our faith. Man wrote half the New Testament… What does Kealaikekai mean?”
“The path to the sea. For he is a skilled surfer.”
Macdonald only waved to the gathered, and they moved in closer, their light illuminating every face for Kahu’s judgement. Half understood truths fell upon the valley. Kahu had been angry about the new god, but he recognized he knew little of the newcomers and their faith. If these young men were to garner mana, prestige, amongst these Christians, they’d need to learn their ways, as would Kahu. As they say: “One can think of life after the fish is in the canoe.”
“You may dismantle the heiau,” Kahu said. “But please, mālama pono the stones and the keepsakes you find here. I am not yet ready to desecrate all that i have spent a lifetime guarding.”
Barefeet and boots marched past him. They first set fire to the few wooden effigies and pili grass buildings. Flames rose above the trees and illuminated the clearing. Smoke and heat lifted toward the stars. Grunts and thuds echoed in the night as the men pried and pushed the un-mortared stones from their settings, and the head-high walls tumbled down like waves.
Macdonald barked orders and drank from a silver flask as Kahu watched the demolition with dry eyes.
Macdonald offered Kahu a taste. “Bourbon,” he said. “From back home. Came all the way here with barrels of it, for your king. Of course, we kept some for ourselves.”
Kahu took a sip and winced, the alcohol stung his nose and burned his throat. He coughed, and Macdonald laughed.
“Want anymore?” Macdonald asked.
Kahu held a hand up. “No,” he gasped.
“How did you come to learn English?” Macdonald asked.
“From English sailors, when I was young.”
Macdonald took another drink and looked at the smokey sky. “I think it’s close to midnight,” he said. “Might want to send these boys home.” He whistled, and the young men stopped their destruction. “You know, this clearing will make fertile farmland. You might want to think about tilling it yourself. You can make an honest life.”
Kahu wrinkled his nose. “I had an honest life,” he said.
Macdonald’s belly sagged over his waist like a pig. Kahu knew he could outrun, outwrestle, out-swim the foreigner as easily as the young boys could. But unlike him, Macdonald had their attention and obedience, and Kahu decided that if he wanted the same, he should be as fat and commanding as the pale man beside him.
“I am no farmer,” Kahu said. “I am a priest.” He grabbed Macdonald by the shoulders and turned to face him, to show the fire reflected in his eyes. “If your god allows it, I will remain a priest.”
Macdonald’s wide cheeks erupted into a toothy grin. “I think God would like to see a kanaka minister very much,” he said. “Very much indeed.”
***
More than a decade later, seated in a dinghy on the Salish sea, a dark, heavyset man once known as Kahu gripped his bible as others rowed him to shore. Dozens of kanakas, Hawaiian workers, splashed into the frigid waters of the American continent, shadowed by towering pines and an overcast, grey sky.
Kahu, now John Kahuhipa Shepherd, prayed to Christ for health and good fortune, he and his flock now under the employ of a company of English traders. “Heavenly Father, protect these men as they step into a new land, and help them to turn the hearts of those they meet toward you, oh God.” He believed not a word of his prayer, but he recited it with skill and passion. Most of his flock knew less English than a dog, and nodded along with the rhythm, heads bowed, hands clasped at their chests.
Traders from Vancouver to Oregon had established camps teeming with trappers and loggers, brothels and saloons. Shepherd led the men into the small port town, to the hastily constructed hovels where they were to bunk until they could afford something better. The voyage had been cold and rough, and each of them had longed for Hawai’i while swinging in their hammocks. The wintry air clogged their noses, their blood longed for the heat of the tropical sun. The north felt like the summit of Mauna Kea, where the goddess of snow froze the land in defiance of her rival’s lava, but that was another country, and these men had little use for the myths of Shepherd’s past life.
Most in the camp hated the look of the fat kanaka preacher. They soon knew him from reputation, as he stumbled through the saloon and brothel, cried in the streets and behind buildings. He howled about sin, to repent for selfish mistakes. Men in these parts asked less of God than they admitted, though they still showed their face at church every Sunday. Not kanaka church, no; Shepherd and his ilk held service in a wooden shack in their row of shanties near the pier.
Shepherd guzzled from a silver flask and often yelled at passing fishermen. “We used to fish,” he liked to say. “We fished in waters bluer than the sky. But now we are here, rich men, praise Jesus.”
At night, he stumbled into his creaking, unpainted cabin and pulled curtains over the wax-paper windows. He looked around in the dark, as if expecting Jesus himself at the pinewood table, or behind the iron stove, but he was alone.
Beneath a loose floorboard he had hidden a long box of koa wood. From its hiding place, he removed a garland of polished teeth strung on a braid of black hair, a bleached white arm bone, and two dried lei of ki and lehua blossoms. He unfurled a mat woven of hala leaves, and on the mat, spread an ornate piece of barkcloth, on which he set his belongings.
Wheezing in the cold, he bowed his head as he had done in secret each night since the dismantling of his heiau, and he spilled tears for Kū-Ka’ili-moku, of the snatched land, who Kahuhipa killed daily in his prayers to Jesus Christ.
The Choice, by Claire Davies
I could easily have missed the moment it all began. I had just slowed to a stop behind a Seat Alhambra with old Valencia plates. Beyond stretched a line of stationary traffic. ‘Looks like we’re not the only ones trying to get out of the city,’ I said, turning to Marta. It was as I reached over to squeeze her hand that I spotted movement in her wing mirror.
We shouldn’t even have been in the city that day. The forecast had been for heavy rain. Marta wanted to stay at home, but I persuaded her to drive to the beach, where it was meant to be fine. We’d only been there an hour or so. I had passed most of that time watching the young family next to us, each in their own separate world. The little boy, in blue shark motif trunks and a matching bucket hat, was intent on building a line of sandcastles, undeterred by the incoming tide. Every time the water washed a castle away, he would scoop up the lumpen remains in his pudgy hands and build another on the same spot. A few feet away, under a parasol, his mother lay on a sunbed, breastfeeding a baby, while at the water’s edge, out of earshot, his father paced up and down, phone clamped to his ear, presumably making business calls.
When I wasn’t watching them, I’d been enjoying the sight of Marta stretched out on her back on a towel, one hand behind her head, the other holding a book. A pink floppy hat shielded her eyes from the glare. Sweat and sunscreen glistened on the fine hairs around her belly button and her feet were crossed at the ankles, blood-red toenails peeking through a dusting of sand. Not for the first time, I was wondering what this gorgeous, funny, talented woman was doing with a boring skinny bloke from Middlesborough who couldn’t tan if he stood outside naked all summer.
Glancing back at the shoreline, I noticed that the father had taken the phone away from his ear and was looking at the screen. He turned towards his wife, checked the screen once more, and started walking in her direction. I looked away as my own phone pinged.
At first, I thought it was a bad joke.
‘Look at this Marta – apparently we’re all going to drown!’
She lowered her book. ‘What?’
Then I heard identical pings all around us. Saw others reaching for their phones. Frowning. Exchanging words with their companions and strangers. Testing the waters, so to speak.
Barely half an hour later, we were in the traffic jam. Up ahead, on the balcony of an apartment block, a stout lady was pegging out her washing. Already, a pair of ample underpants were flapping in the sea breeze. I imagined her looking down and chuckling, ‘What idiots, stuck in traffic on a fine day like this.’
Perhaps, from her vantage point, she saw the trickle of water at the same time I saw it in the wing mirror. Perhaps, like me, she didn’t think anything of it. It looked like someone further up the street had emptied a bucket. But in seconds, the trickle swelled to a rivulet. Within minutes, the rivulet had grown to a torrent, spilling out from the gutter, disappearing under the car, surging across the pavement. A woman walking past screamed and leapt into a doorway, trying to save her shoes. A man pushing a buggy began to run, leaving a frothing wake as the wheels churned the water.
‘Noah, look!’ Marta said, her voice thready with alarm. ‘What do we do?’
‘I don’t know!’
“WARNING – IMMINENT FLOODING” the text alert had said. “EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.”
Later, at the public enquiry, questions would be asked about whether the alert was issued early enough, whether people received sufficient prior instruction about the emergency warning system, and to what extent a mistrust of messages from unknown sources played a part in the disaster. All I know is that we were completely unprepared for what happened next.
It's a very strange feeling, when your car starts to float. Cars are solid. Heavy. They’re meant to stay on the road. When your car breaks down, you need a whole gang of strong people to move it. A car is not supposed to pitch up and down like a boat. I gripped the steering wheel as though it might help me stay in control. The engine choked and died.
‘Noah! We’ve got to get out! Noah!
Marta grabbed my right arm with both hands and shook me so hard that the bones in my neck cracked. Letting go, she unclipped our seatbelts, reached for her door handle and shoved. Nothing happened.
‘Madre mía, no se abre! Noah! I can’t open it!’
‘The water must be too high – use the window!’ I stabbed at the button. ‘Jesus, the electrics have gone.’
We were now flotsam on the surging flood, pitching, bucking and twisting, grinding against cars that had been in front and behind us on the street. Freed from my seatbelt, I was thrown onto Marta. Grunting, she pushed me off.
‘In the back!’ she shouted. ‘Windows!’
Brilliant, Marta, I thought, thank God for manual handles. I threw myself through the front seats and started winding down a rear window. It stopped about two thirds of the way down. I wrenched on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. It would just have to be enough. And we would have to be quick. Coffee coloured water was slopping through the window, pouring through the door seals and swirling in the footwells.
If I pause to analyse the next critical moment, I know that nobler men, more selfless men than I, would have pushed their partner through the window first. They would have got her to safety before braving the torrent again to rescue the child in the Seat Alhambra, who was beating his pudgy fists against the window as the flood waters rose to his chest, and a hat with a blue shark motif slipped over his tear-streaked face.
But there was no nobility in me that day. I was reduced to pure animal instinct.
I squeezed through the window and crawled onto the roof, clinging to the edges like a starfish. Marta was right behind me. As she reached through the window, I grabbed her forearm, but before I could pull her out, the car pitched sideways, wrenching her from my grasp and hurling me into the raging waters.
I learned later that, by some strange twist of fate, a wave carried me over the wall of a first floor balcony and deposited me on my back like a beached whale. When I opened my eyes, a stout woman was kneeling beside me, her face flanked by flapping underpants.
At the inquest, I would explain that a Ford Fiesta is a very small car. I would say that, while I am slim, I am also tall, and that once I had climbed into the back seat, there was no room for Marta until I had got out. I would hide my head in my hands and sob, ‘I had no choice. I had to leave first. I had no choice.’
But alone in our bed, in the dark hours of every endless night, I would taste the coffee coloured water in my throat. I would feel on my arm the scabbing hollows carved by Marta’s nails as she slipped from my grasp. And I would know the truth.
Lost Things, by Holly Brandon
I’ve always been good at finding things.
I was left on the front steps of Saint Joseph’s Orphanage, a ruby bracelet gripped in one tiny fist and a handwritten note in the other. Sister Cecelia would tell the story of my arrival, grin wide and crinkled eyes twinkling. “From that day on,” she’d laugh, “those little hands of yours were always clutching something.”
As I grew older, I became the go-to girl for recovering what others in the orphanage had lost— dropped coins, borrowed pencils, misplaced rosaries. Lost things would whisper their whereabouts, reaching for me like a shadowed vine reaches for the sun, and I came to understand I could only find things that wanted to be found.
When I was nine, we searched the building tip-to-toe for the slipped-off ring of a visiting woman. It called to me from beneath a rusted radiator, tangled in cobwebs and unswept dust.
“I’m so grateful you found it!” the ring’s owner exclaimed, returning it to her finger.
Not grateful enough, I thought, watching her leave hand-in-hand with another girl, to take me home with you.
“How can I be so good at finding things,” I asked Sister Cecelia as she combed my damp hair that night, “when I'm just awful at being found?”
“Perhaps,” she said, pausing to set the comb on my bedside table before meeting my eyes, “lost things call to other lost things.”
I shook my head. “I’m not lost.”
“Of course not, my sweet child.” Sister Cecelia tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “You're right here with me.”
I wrapped my arms around her, inhaling comfort in her familiar scent. “I will find her.”
She took my face in her hands, planting a peck on the top of my head. “If anyone can do it, my dear, it’s you.”
Sister Cecelia bid me goodnight, leaving to help the other girls prepare for bed. My pillowcase smelled of Ivory soap as it soaked up stray tears and I reached inside, retrieving my two prized possessions. I admired the bracelet’s oval cut rubies, letting its delicate gold chain pool against the well-read letter I smoothed across my lap, its curling penmanship as familiar as my own.
I named her Ruby, for she is precious, but I have enough jewels. I can not keep this one. I will not return for her.
She was the only thing I never found. The day I arrived at the orphanage, a milkman witnessed a woman depositing a small bundle on the doorstep. He recalled nothing about her, other than her lavish mink coat and golden hair. She left no name, no address— no hints as to the person I might be.
When I was sixteen and the orphanage grew too crowded, I was nudged from the nest with barely stretched wings and more questions than belongings. I didn’t return, but I kept in touch with Sister Cecelia through letters— until I learned I’d lost her too.
Now, for the first time in eight years, I step back into the building I once called home, the crumbling brick shell empty and cold without its beating heart. I join the line of those paying respects to Sister Cecelia, tears stinging at the first sight of her peaceful face.
“Thank you for loving me,” I whisper when I reach her, clutching the wooden casket with shaking hands. “You’re the only one who did.”
There’s a shuffle of feet behind me—a group of orphan girls in the same joyless, drab uniforms I once donned. One of the older girls, thin and pale-haired, locks eyes with mine, and something within me jolts. It’s as though I’m being pulled to her by some strong, invisible force.
The feeling is not unlike the whispering caress of a lost object’s beckoning, but more urgent and fierce; it’s unlike anything I’ve felt before. The girl stares back with parted lips and shock-struck eyes, and I know she feels something too.
I step away from the casket to allow other mourners their turn, my mind a carousel. Could this girl somehow be related to me? Did my mother have another child? Or perhaps the girl is in need of my help in some other way.
Whatever the reason, I can’t deny the pull I feel towards her, and I’m determined to learn why.
After the funeral service, I visit Mother Superior’s office. She is happy to accept my offer of temporary work, and even happier to do it for room and board. “The war took so much,” she says sadly, handing me a key. “The only thing it gave us more of is orphans.”
The washroom’s familiar scent of mildew and laundry soap hasn’t changed in my absence. As a girl, I spent countless hours sorting, mending, and folding; I could match any pair of socks, their missing mates often stuck to skirts or hiding beneath tables.
I’m folding a stain-speckled blouse, still warm from the afternoon sun, when I feel that same peculiar pulling sensation from before. The pale girl walks in with a few other girls, no doubt attending to their evening chores. She pauses, glancing towards me before her eyes dart away. After a moment’s hesitation, she offers me a timid smile.
“Hi.” I clear my throat. “I’m Ruby. I grew up here.”
“You’re Ruby?” Her eyes grow round. “Sister Cecelia told me about you.”
“She did?”
She nods, grabbing a basket of clean laundry. “She always said I reminded her of you.”
Goosebumps prickle my arms. Did Sister Cecelia notice some familial resemblance?
She sniffs. “She was my favorite nun. The only one who…” She trails off, wiping the corner of her eye.
“She was my favorite too.” I blink away resurfacing tears. “What’s your name?”
“Marjorie.”
The dinner bell rings. “Will I see you tomorrow?” she asks.
“Tomorrow.”
***
When I enter the washroom the next day, I’m pleased to see Marjorie already there, sewing a button onto a tweed skirt. She looks up, her face lighting with a smile. “Hi Ruby.”
“Hello Marjorie.” I grab a basket of loose socks, trying to maintain a casual tone. “How long have you been here?” I ask. “In the orphanage, I mean. Not the washroom.”
Majorie’s eyes never leave the threaded needle. “Seven years.”
“How old are you?”
“Turned thirteen last month.”
“Happy late birthday.” I pull two navy knee socks from the basket, working up the courage to ask more.
“My parents died when I was six,” she provides, to my relief. “Tuberculosis. Both of them.”
“I—” I drop the socks, turning to face her. “I’m so sorry.”
“I still remember them.” She blinks, eyes shining. “They were wonderful.”
“What did your mother look like?”
If Marjorie thinks my question is odd, she doesn’t show it. “She was pretty,” she said. “She had full, rosy cheeks, even when we had nothing to eat but turnips— and she had long dark hair, smooth and black as a raven’s wings.” She brushed a tear from her nose. “Do you remember what your parents looked like?”
The balloon of hope floating inside me sinks to the floor as I shake my head. If she’s not related to me, then why did I need to find her?
I take a steadying breath. “Marjorie, do you—”
A cry rips through the warm, soapy air. It’s coming from the hallway. Marjorie and I rush to the source, a girl around five on her hands and knees, tears striping her puffy pink face.
“What is it, Caroline?” Marjorie kneels at the girl’s side, gently squeezing her shoulders.
Caroline gasps her reply between heaving sobs. “I … lost … my … other … ribbon.” She pulls two braids over her shoulders, one of which features a dainty red bow at its end, and one which does not.
“It’s alright, darling,” I say, “it’s only a hair ribbon.”
Caroline’s sobs grow louder as she buries her head in Marjorie’s lap. Marjorie pats her back reassuringly, glancing at me with concern in her eyes. “Caroline is meeting with a couple today,” she explains, “who are interested in adopting her.”
My stomach lurches, a familiar desperate ache clawing at a wound I thought had healed. “Don’t worry Caroline,” I tell her. “I’ll find your ribbon.”
A nun leads Caroline away with soothing murmurs. Marjorie takes off in the opposite direction, turning back to shout, “I’ll search this side of the building!”
As I walk through the halls, the ribbon beckons me; I can feel its desire to be found. I step into the chapel, where silence echoes and everything’s cloaked in shadows. I lower myself to the floor, crawling down the center aisle as I follow the ribbon’s lead. It guides me down the fourth row back, and I feel around on the cold stone floors, shrieking in surprise when I feel another’s hand.
“Who’s there?” I cry, squinting in the dark. “Marjorie?” She holds out her hand, revealing Caroline’s red ribbon. “How—”
Marjorie shrugs. “I’m good at finding things.”
“You’re …” I shake my head, trying to make sense of it all. “I’m good at finding things too.”
“I know.”
She always said I reminded her of you.
I collapse onto one of the benches. “Is that why I felt this strange pull toward you?” I glance up at her. “Did you feel it too?”
Marjorie takes a seat next to me. “I felt something when I first saw you,” she says softly. “You called to me, like all lost things do.”
“But I’m not—”
Lost things call to other lost things.
Marjorie offers a kind, timid smile. “Whether you realized it or not, you wanted to be found.”
We sit in silence for several minutes as I ponder her words. I am the lost thing.
Marjorie nudges my shoulder, breaking through thoughts. “We ought to get this ribbon to its rightful owner.”
***
Caroline’s squeals of delight are far louder than those of distress, and my ears buzz with happy ringing as she flings herself upon us. I’m filled with joy and hope watching her bounce down the hall, two neatly tied ribbons swinging behind her.
“Is it possible,” Marjorie asks, watching her go, “to be both immensely happy and exceedingly sad, all at the same time?”
The lunch bell sounds, and we join the stream of bodies into the dining hall, sitting down to a lunch of navy beans and cornbread.
“I do think it’s possible,” I say, sprinkling pepper on the bland white beans, “to be pleased a friend has found happiness, while feeling pain for not having it yourself.”
“I just want someone to care about what happens to me, to ask me about my day. Like Sister Cecelia used to do.”
I nod, remembering our bedtime conversations. “I miss her too.”
Marjorie slams her fork down, chipping the ceramic plate. “I don’t care about lace dresses or porcelain dolls or silk gloves and hats. I’d just like to belong to someone kind.”
“Me too, Marjorie,” I tell her. “Me too.”
***
When morning comes, I visit the pawnbroker’s shop two blocks over.
“Gorgeous bracelet,” the shop owner says, admiring the gold and rubies. “You sure you wanna sell it?”
I nod. “It’s time to let it go.”
He gives me a fair sum, and it’s more than enough for the adoption fee and two tickets to California.
Marjorie is sunshine bright as we take our seats on the westbound train, looping her arm through mine.
“Why California?” she asks. “Not that it matters,” she hastily adds, pink cheeks glowing. “I’d happily live in a shack, as long as that shack is ours.”
The strange pulling sensation warms and softens like saltwater taffy left in one’s pocket. “They say there’s still gold buried deep in the mountains, for those who are willing to search for it.”
Marjorie beams, leaning against me with contented ease as she lifts her face to mine. “And we are very good at finding things.”