Inexpressible Island

“We sure did, Wild.”

“So what was I, then?” says Finch.

“Aww, you’re not a musketeer, Finch,” Wild says. “You’re more like Richelieu.”

Finch ignores the mockery. “I think you made it too tight,” he says to Julian, “their circulation will be cut off.”

“That’ll teach them to loot houses,” Julian says, kicking one of them in the ribs. “Bastards.”

When Mia reappears in the street, Wild and Duncan call her over and interrupting each other tell her what happened, while she listens, twinkling approvingly at Julian. “He did that, did he?” she says. A disgusted Finch storms off.

“Folgate, Julian’s going to show me how to use a knife and a hammer,” Wild says. “And tie a handcuff knot.”

“Okay, let’s pipe down, Wild,” Julian says. “I’m not a magician. You can’t tie knots with one hand.”

“Who says?”

“As you were, boys,” Mia says. “But, Duncan, I need you. That woman is trying to drag a trunk the size of a cupboard out of her house. It’s too heavy for her, and it’s too heavy for me. I tried, but I can’t move it.”

“I’ll help you, Mia,” Julian immediately says, handing the stick to Wild.

“There you go,” Wild says. “Jules will help you, Mia.”

“Shut up, Wild,” she says.

“Yeah,” says Julian. “Shut up, Wild.”

“Folgate, are you sure you don’t want Finch to help you move some heavy furniture?” Wild says, not shutting up—just the opposite.

“Shut up, I said! Of course I asked Finch first, but he’s busy. Pay no attention to him, Julian, come along.”

Leaving the boys snickering behind them, Julian and Mia make their way through the debris on the street to the old woman’s house. “They’re impossible,” she says. “Don’t mind them. They’re just teasing.”

“I know,” Julian says, inexpressibly pleased to be teased. “And I don’t mind.”

“So you know how to fight?” Mia says.

“I got lucky.”

“Sure you did,” she says, giving him an amused up and down. “I think it’s us who got lucky when you found us. I can’t tell you how badly we needed someone like you. Now that Lester’s gone, Duncan’s the only one facing the thieves. Nick comes sometimes, but he doesn’t like to fight. Wild likes to, but can’t. Hard to find someone who likes to and can.”

“Who says I like to?”

“I don’t know.” She squints at him. “You have that look about you.”

Julian squints at her in return, takes a breath. “Glad to help. Who is Lester?”

“One of us. He died last week,” she says.

“A blast got him.” At the house, Mia holds the kerosene lamp to light the way, and together she and Julian locate the woman’s half-open trunk in the debris of her partially destroyed home. The woman stands out in the street, shouting orders in a trembling but grateful voice. Near the spilled-out trunk lie necklaces and photo albums, a torn and dusty wedding veil, a child’s baptismal gown.

“Thanks for helping me,” Mia says to Julian as they collect the valuables. “Look how precious these small things are to her.”

“They’re not small,” Julian says. “They’re irreplaceable.”

“I guess. Often, finding these items is what matters most to these poor people. Not the house, but the wedding rings.”

Before he can respond, the all clear sounds. It’s an intense, one-note, high-pitched shriek, and it lasts one interminable minute. Julian can’t express the relief he feels for the blessed silence that follows. “Mia, you don’t do this every night, do you?” he says as they drag the trunk over the bricks. Please tell me you don’t do this every night.

“We try for every night. It doesn’t always work out.” She chuckles. “Sometimes Nick and Wild and Dunk get so drunk they can’t go anywhere when the siren calls. Finch judges them pretty harshly for that. He never overindulges.”

“In anything?”

That makes Mia blush for some reason and hurry past it without replying. “And the week Dunk had a concussion, I didn’t go. It wasn’t safe.” She shrugs, calmly acknowledging the reality of certain disadvantages of being a woman during war. “The thieves bring big wooden sticks. It’s a good thing all scrap metal, including tire irons, has been requisitioned by the city. Otherwise they’d be swinging iron, not wood, and we’d all be in a lot worse shape.”

After they pull the trunk out into the street and leave the old woman sitting on it, Julian looks Mia over. “Are you okay?” He stops her from walking. With his thumb, he wipes a trickle of blood off her forehead.

“Tonight was nothing.” She smiles. “It’s not always this easy.”

“This was easy?” Three houses destroyed, valuables lost, families homeless, looters. Seeing her quizzical expression, he coughs. “I mean, of course it’s been worse, but surely this wasn’t easy.”

Mia tells Julian that once Duncan had to battle six guys on his own.

“Well, I can attest that’s certainly not easy,” Julian says.

Sometimes parachute mines float down, she tells him, and when you get close to them, they explode and rip you open. That’s what happened to Lester. “Have you seen them?” When Julian shakes his head, she continues. Sometimes the incendiaries fall and everything is aflame and no one can get out. “Have you seen any of that?”

Julian nods. That he has seen, everything on fire and no way out. “People get caught under walls and broken glass.”

“Yes. Children—the few that are left—get trapped in the houses with their mums and grandmas and aunts. The older men and the kids can’t help. They sit nearby and watch their loved ones die under rubble no one can move or in a fire that’s out of control.”

“Are you afraid of fire, Mia?” Julian says, mining her face.

“I’m not not afraid of it,” she says, undisturbed by his scrutiny. “It’s not my favorite thing.”

He wants to ask her what her favorite thing is but doesn’t. What if she says it’s Finch?

“Today we helped a little,” Mia says. “But sometimes we can’t. Are you ready for that, to do everything in your power and still not be able to save the lady under the rubble?”

“No.”

He will never be ready for that.

7 (#ulink_486ea2a0-f8b1-5d29-830c-c7e2e0d750a9)

Folgate (#ulink_486ea2a0-f8b1-5d29-830c-c7e2e0d750a9)

MIA BRINGS HIM A MUG OF HOT TEA FROM THE REFRESHMENT truck. Julian must look as if he needs it.