Ivey Pierce is an explorer, and thanks to her career as a wildlife biologist, she does not stay stationary for long. But when her parents die in a terrible accident, and her childhood home is left vacant for two years, she returns to the tattered me...
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THE BOAT HUMMED BENEATH my body as I glided through the bay.
After letting my frigid fingers drag in the wake, I dried them and watched the land pass in hasty blurs of green. When I spotted the tiny inland Marldec overflowing with foliage, I pulled back on the break, and the boat slowed.
I climbed out of bed this morning, clear-eyed and driven by my newfound curiosity, even after last night.
My parents didn't tell me they were working on a local journal, and I wasn't sure why it bothered me. Did they not feel like Clifton was their home anymore? Or was I thinking too deeply about it?
After getting ready, I shoved the papers and journals on Clifton from my parent's desk into a bag, poured myself a heaping travel mug of coffee, filled the tank of the motorboat in our boat garage, and took her onto the water. My hair immediately turned to frizzy waves.
My boat thudded against a mud bank, and my rain boots sank into the soft earth as I held onto the side of the boat to find my balance. The ground made a schlooppp sound as I yanked each foot out, shook mud from my shoes, and then began searching the area.
The trees were dense, except there was no sun for them to protect me from; instead, it was murky and cool in the shade.
My mother's sketches were marked with locations in the corner alongside the date she found them with my father. My parents were old school, so a polaroid was taped in the corner with every sketch. But that was their style. All their published journals were unique enough that if you saw a page from their book, you knew it was Logan and Ester Pierce's work.
When I located the same plants labeled in their sketchbook, I took pictures with my Canon camera and continued until all the plants from this area were accounted for and stored on my SD card. Then, I hopped back in my boat and headed home.
I was still determining why I went to the island in the first place, considering I was too busy with work from Larry to take on the burden of a random project my parents were working on. Though, picking up where they left off made me feel like I was a part of their crew.
I veered to the left, and my boat drifted back toward my house.
The sharp sound of metal on metal echoed off the water, and Weston, hunched over, came into sight. His boat bobbed beside my dock, and Masie sat beside him as he hammered away.
He was back.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. "You're trespassing!"
Weston stood up straight and rested his hammer over his shoulder. "You have a boat?"
"This ol' thing?" I patted the port side where the name 'Little Bird' was chipping away. "It's my parents," I said, drifting past him and into the garage hidden by vines and overgrown tree branches, then made my way back down the dock on foot.
