The Girl of Ink & Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Author:Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken House

My body eased through the slight tug of the current. I had forgotten the sensation of weightlessness, remembered Gabo laughing as he managed to half-lift Ma in the lake. Swimming in the sea was different though. The water was black beneath me, and after a while I scared myself imagining what was below and had to get out.

Rubbing my arms to get warm, I watched the shadow of Pablo, his head slick as a seal’s. Just as my legs began to dry he waded out and flopped down next to me.

As if picking up a conversation we had just been having, he said, ‘This is even stranger than I thought it would be.’

‘Me too,’ I said, and he snorted.

‘Well, yes, you’re the strangest thing out here.’

‘You know what I meant.’ I felt my cheeks flushing. ‘Don’t laugh at me!’

‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded sincere. ‘I used to get laughed at, you know. For playing with you and Gabo.’

‘Why?’

‘You were younger. They used to call me an idiot.’

‘Who did?’

‘The boys my age,’ he said, sifting sand through his fingers. ‘An idiot. Simple.’

‘That’s not very inventive.’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘I suppose not.’

I shot him a sideways glance. ‘Is that why you stopped? Visiting us?’

Pablo went very still. ‘I’m sorry. For not coming when Gabo . . .’

I felt a familiar closing in my throat. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Are you all right? With all this—’ His hand made a short movement towards mine and then he stopped, resting it on his lap again. ‘You must be scared.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I am.’

Another silence.

‘Do you think we’ll find her?’ I said. ‘Lupe.’

‘Yes,’ said Pablo, too swiftly, too certainly, but a rush of warmth pushed through me. I traced the line of the bracelet through my damp pocket.

‘Good.’

We sat watching the stars shine palely in the sky. I tried to read them, not like Masha would, for fate, but how Da would, for direction. The North Star held its place firmly above us, not the brightest in the sky but the stillest. Da always called it an anchor, a tethered star about which the sky turned.

‘That piece of wood, the one that glows.’ Pablo’s voice made me jump. ‘It’s from your da’s walking stick, isn’t it?’

I nodded, guiltily realizing I had almost forgotten the Governor had it.

‘Do you really not know where it comes from? Why it glows?’

‘Not why it glows. But it’s from a boat. My great-great-grandfather’s boat.’

‘A boat? What happened?’

‘Pablo,’ I said teasingly, ‘do you want me to tell you a story?’

‘No,’ he huffed, lying back on the sand. There was a brief silence. ‘Maybe.’

I lay next to him, eyes fixed on the North Star. Da’s voice came to me, strong and deep, and I spoke the words the way he would, the way he had so many times on a clear, starred night like this night.

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