Marrow

One

For years, Oona had dreamt of her return to Marrow. At night, lying in bed beside Jacob, she used to fantasize about the sour brine of the marsh air, pretend she could still feel the grit of salt on her skin. It would bring her a kind of peace, she'd thought, to see the island materialize on the horizon, to catch sight of its foggy shores and rocky coast. But of course in her dreams. Oona had always imagined herself up on deck, stationed at the bow like a figurehead. In reality, though, she spent most of her first ferry ride in over a decade down in the bowels of the boat, squatting on the slick floor of the head, vomiting up her breakfast.

As yet another wave crashed into the side of the hull and the ferry lurched sideways, Oona tried blaming her nausea on the years she'd spent onshore. She blamed the storm that had rolled in earlier that afternoon, the reason they were all running late. But deep down, she knew it wasn't as simple as any of that. She'd thought it would've passed by now, but the truth was she'd been sick back in Portland too. It had been a struggle, trying to conceal it from Jacob. She couldn't tell him yet, though. It was too soon. Something could still go wrong.

Something always went wrong.

Belowdecks, Oona braced herself once again as the captain threw the engines into reverse, but thankfully no great pitch forward followed. Instead, she heard the grinding whir of the propellers as they began churning in the water, and she realized they were docking. They'd made it. She was home.


Marrow Island was large compared to some of its neighbors-rocky outcroppings reachable only by dinghy or rowboat-but compared to towns on the mainland, compared to Portland, it was nothing. Just twenty square miles of marshland, caves, and tide pools. A tiny town that had grown up around the port where the ferries docked. As a girl, Oona had lived in awe of that small town. She’d loved its hustle and bustle: the shops that lined the cobbled main street, the dive that sold lobster rolls and french fries in the summer. She’d even loved the hawking cries of the fishermen at dusk, the way the gulls would circle overhead as customers stooped to examine the daily catches displayed in rows of coolers on the docks. Still, she was surprised to find the town largely unchanged.

It was April, offseason, so the town's only restaurant hadn't opened yet, but everything else was just as she remembered it. As she made her way down the ferry's gangplank, she could see the grocery store off to her left. Its faded green canopy still said Albert's, though she'd read in the papers that Al himself had died a few years back. Next to the grocery was the Robertses' pharmacy, and then after the pharmacy was the hardware store owned by the Clarks. Looking at those shops, all in a row, Oona couldn't help but remember the last time she'd seen their owners, the way those three men had stood to block her entrance to the funeral. They were only doing what the Tanakas had asked them to do, only trying to support their grieving friends and neighbors, but that didn't mean Oona couldn't hold a grudge. Good riddance, she thought as she turned away from Al's.

At the end of the dock, she put down her bag to rest. Her luggage wasn't heavy, but she was out of breath. That last hour in the ship's bathroom had taken a lot out of her. She leaned against the dock's railing and stared down at her duffel. She didn't even know what she'd packed. An old pair of sneakers? Her navy raincoat? Her trip-it hadn't exactly been well planned. She'd panicked, that's what Jacob would say if she was to call him, tell him what she'd done. She'd started feeling desperate, so she'd allowed herself to be lured in, once again, by the fairy-tale promise of a simple solution. If she let him, she knew he would convince her to return to the mainland.

"Mrs. Jones?"

A young woman approached Oona tentatively. And though she wasn't wearing anything all that telling-wasn't, for instance, dressed in a purple robe-still, Oona's first thought was that the girl looked like an Initiate. Only, to be an Initiate, she would have to be pregnant, and as far as Oona could tell, she was not.

"Are you Mrs. Jones?"

It took a minute before Oona remembered the name she'd assumed when she'd called the Center from Portland and found there was actually one guest not yet accounted for, her arrival time for that very weekend still unconfirmed. It was a minor miracle-though the Center technically remained open all year long, the midwives spent the offseason caring for local women. The only time they accepted outsiders was during the Summer Session, which ran roughly from just before Beltane to Lughnasadh, or from late April to August 1. Oona hadn't actually expected to be able to attend. She'd called out of sheer desperation. But when she'd discovered there was an opening, she'd made the split-second decision to claim it as her own.

"That's me," Oona said on the dock. "I'm Maggie Jones."

The girl breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness! For a second, I thought I was going to have to tell them that I'd lost you." She laughed, but Oona offered only a small smile in return. "I'm Holly," the girl said. She reminded Oona of a Girl Scout-all bright helpfulness and good cheer. "I'm an Initiate here this season."

She stuck out one hand, and this time Oona smiled more genuinely. So she'd been right, she thought. The girl was an Initiate. That was good news. It meant that she was new to the island.

"Here," said Holly. "Let me get that bag for you. We've got a Jeep waiting just over there. You see it?"

She pointed and Oona nodded. The Jeep, though, that was also new. It even had the Center's name stenciled on the side: Bare Root Fertility Center. Fancy. When Oona was little, the only car the Center had owned was a truck. Red, with rusted wheel wells, it broke down at least once a month. That's how Oona got to spend so much time running wild on the docks in town, watching the fishermen. Otherwise, for many years, she'd rarely left the Center's grounds.

"You were late getting in," Holly said, as Oona followed her to the Jeep. "We were expecting you all closer to two. I was just telling the other ladies here that I'm afraid you've likely missed supper."

When Holly opened the car's back door, Oona realized there were already two other women waiting: a wealthy-looking Asian woman, who was perched on the bench seat farthest from Oona, her wrists adorned with gold; and a tall Black woman, who was holding a small spiral notebook. Once Oona finally got herself up and into the car, the woman with the notebook chuckled. "This thing needs a set of stairs or something," she offered. Oona smiled politely but didn't respond. She'd never been very good at small talk, and anyway, she figured she wasn't there to make friends. Friends were just a liability for someone like her, someone who needed to go unnoticed.

It was bad enough that she'd shown up looking like such a mess.

The two women to her left were dressed quite differently from each other-the woman seated by the window was wearing a pair of fur-lined duck boots and what looked like an expensive winter coat, while the woman with the notebook was dressed more simply-but they both looked put together, tidy, and well-groomed. Oona, on the other hand, was greasy and bloated. When she glanced down, she saw there were flecks of vomit on her coat. She hadn't bothered to look up how much a visit to the Center would cost because any amount would have been too much for her, but now she worried that her ratty duffel, her thrift-store jacket would give her away.

"Ready, gals?" Holly called from the front seat, as the Jeep's engine turned over.

The other two women chirped back, "Ready!" but Oona just slouched against her door, pressed her forehead to the window's glass.

It was after six and already the sun was dropping low in the sky, dusk drifting in like a rolling fog. As the car pulled onto the main road the other two women closed their eyes, probably grateful for the respite after the long ferry ride, but Oona found she couldn't look away. She needed to see the salt-stung, shingled buildings of Port Marrow give way to the sharp rise of the forest's towering pines, to stare out at the breathtaking expanse of rocky tide pools that stretched along the shore for miles. She told herself that she wasn't scared, she just needed the reminder that it was all real, that she was finally home, but when she glanced down she saw she was gripping her seat belt so tightly, every one of her knuckles had flushed white.

Still, despite her anxiety, Oona soon found herself lulled by the journey, drowsy by the time they pulled into the Center's long clamshell drive. As soon as the car came to a stop, though, the fear was back in her chest, thrashing like a caged bird. She jiggled the handle on the door twice before Holly told her to wait a minute. She would come around to let them out. Trapped, Oona thought, briefly panicked, but then the door swung open and she tumbled out onto the drive.

The woman with the notebook followed, but when the other woman moved to join them Holly told her it wasn't yet her turn. She was going to be staying in a cabin on the other side of the compound, in House Imbolc. Oona and Shelly (for that was the name of the woman with the notebook, Shelly) were marked down for House Samhain. Oona had nearly forgotten that the cabins were each named after one of the eight sabbats.

"Here are your keys," Holly said, as she handed first Oona and then Shelly a heavy iron key, strung on a band of soft white ribbon. "Go on in and make yourselves at home. Like I said, you've missed supper, but there should be plenty of healthy snacks in the pantry in the common room, if you're hungry. Fresh fruit and organic granola. Stuff like that. Oh, and skyr in the mini-fridge, if you eat dairy. But if none of that is to your liking, just call the kitchen. They'll send over anything you want. Okay?"

Dumbstruck, Oona nodded. The cabins had never had mini-fridges before. They'd barely had electricity, running water.

Holly turned eastward and pointed to a sandy path that wove through the trees, then she explained what Oona already knew: that the part of the compound where they were standing was still surrounded by forest, but if they were to follow that path the woods would open up onto a bluff, below which they'd find the beach. After checking her watch, Holly told them that the Welcoming Ceremony would be taking place on the beach in thirty minutes, just after sunset. "Meet us down there?" she asked.

"Of course," Shelly said, answering for them both.

And with that, Holly climbed back into the Jeep and drove off.

Oona watched her taillights disappear around a bend while Shelly picked up the handle of her rolling suitcase and turned to the cabin. "Shall we?" She didn't wait for Oona to respond, she just started walking, taking quick, purposeful steps as if she'd been there before.

Oona felt jealous of her confidence and her getup. Despite the fact that Oona had never traveled out of state, Shelly, in her heavy knee-length rain slicker and her grip-soled boots, seemed somehow better dressed for the climate. But Oona was relieved to discover that, unlike the wealthy woman from the car, none of Shelly's belongings looked particularly expensive. Rather, it appeared that she'd bought most of her gear at the army-navy store. Oona was pretty sure she even recognized the boots. Jacob had a pair just like them.

As they neared the cabin, Oona stalled so she wouldn't have to be the one to use her key. It was stupid, maybe, but she was afraid of betraying herself, afraid her breathing would turn ragged, afraid her hands would shake. As a child, tasked with changing the linens, she'd worn a whole necklace of those keys, and as she stood there at the cabin's door she once again felt the weight of them pressing against her chest.

"Coming?" Shelly prompted from inside.

Oona hurried to catch up with her in the common room.

"It looks like there's four of us staying here." Shelly pointed to a chalkboard that hung between the two bedroom doors, where the women's names were written: June, Shelly, Maggie, Gemma. "Or maybe more. . . ." She walked across the common room toward the final door, and Oona spoke without thinking.

"No," she said. "That's just the bathroom."

Shelly pulled open the door and peeked in. "So it is." She turned to smile, curious, back at Oona. "Good guess."

Oona's heart pounded, but she tried to look casual as she shrugged. "Well, it was that or start looking for an outhouse."

Shelly laughed, and Oona thought: If you only knew. The Center had been built on a former campground. She was thirteen by the time they'd saved enough to put in proper plumbing. Now . . . Oona turned and saw that the whole back wall had been transformed into a kitchen, like the efficiency motel where she used to work as a housekeeper. Only nicer. Much nicer. The countertops looked like they were made of real marble. Oona could hardly believe her eyes.

"The others must already be down at the beach," Shelly said, brushing her locs off her shoulder. "I'll just throw my stuff in my room and then we can walk down together."

"Together?" Oona echoed.

"Unless you don't want to." Shelly's left eyebrow ticked up, and Oona saw her gaze turn inquisitive.

No, more than inquisitive-she looked suspicious, which in turn made Oona tense. "I'd love to walk together," she hurried to say. "Let me just find my phone. One second."

She ducked into her room and closed the door behind her, hefted her duffel onto the foot of the only unclaimed bed. She'd packed underwear at least, she was relieved to discover, and two pairs of cotton shorts. Her red bathing suit and her white canvas sneakers. Her favorite fisherman sweater and her baggy jeans. It wasn't much, but it would do for the long weekend.