parts of the soul. I watched the low tide receding back into itself and noticed, not for the first time, the exposed hull of the shipwreck.
“We should swim out and see if there's more food stuck onboard,” I suggested but Summer shook her head.
“We could drown. Neither of us can swim well and it's a long way, even at low tide.”
Instead, I spent hours staring at the shipwreck and the possible food inside, while wishing again I had never left the English shores. Summer watched me.
“Don't leave me here alone,” she said, as if she could read my thoughts.
~
Eventually, the food ran out on the Island. With hunger, isolation, fear, and the constant clouds obscuring the sky, our time became a barren void without expectation. We were simply waiting—waiting to survive or waiting to die, I could not be sure which. I hoped the siren's purse would return. It didn't. I hoped the stench of the bodies would go away. It wouldn’t.
“I think you're right,” Summer said one evening when the sun appeared for the briefest of moments. It shone across her matted hair and highlighted the shallows beneath her protruding cheekbones. Her clothes hung like rags. She looked like a tree in late autumn, hanging on to her last leaves before winter stripped them away.
“We need to swim out and search the wreck for food,” she said.
“We should have gone before, when we were stronger,” I said, which didn't help at all.
The water receded, and we stripped down to our underwear, saving our rags to dry ourselves after our heist. The bitter wind