"Sienna, could you go get some fish? You can bring Sayo with you," my older sister told me as she stood near the sink. She didn't even look up from the pan as she washed it.
Our kitchen was small, but it was nice. There was a map above the sink, from our great-grandmother. The tables were made of polished driftwood. Our dishes were all-porcelain, which was very popular.
"Okay, fine, Dusk." I rolled my eyes. She got distracted when she was working around the house, but she couldn't even look at me? Whatever. She was four years older than me, so I guess she knew best, but still.
Rude.
But I wasn't one to judge. She was always kind and bubbly when she wasn't distracted. I preferred being by myself. No, I'm not some mysterious, secretive introvert, but I would rather be with my drawings than in the middle of the village. I'm not great at talking with people. That doesn't mean I'm terrible at it, I just don't like it.
I stood up from the chair I was sitting in, put down the pencil I was drawing with and walked out the front door after grabbing a net for catching the fish. Dusk still didn't look up as I walked out.
Her real name wasn't Dusk, it was Dakota. She insisted that everyone called her Dusk, though. She never said why, only that she wanted to choose her own name.
As soon as I stepped outside, my ears were welcomed to a variety of sounds; people chatting, younger children running around, dogs barking...
The village was small but lively. I hurried over to my friend Sayo's house. She was outside with her younger sister, Yuri. They were kicking a ball back and forth. "Sayo!" I got her attention. Sayo bent down and told Yuri something and Yuri went inside with the ball.
"Komandosi, Yuri!" Sayo called to her sister, "Sorry! I'll be back soon, we can play ball later!
Sayo walked over, "Leo?" she asked with a sigh. Leo was my cat. He was a calico, covered in different colors like orange, white, brown, and more. He was an indoor cat, too, so it was bad that he had been getting out recently. I had to ask Sayo to help every time he got out. She could run like the wind, while I was slower than a snail. It was hard work, but she helped anyway, being the helpful person she is.
"No", I explained, "Dusk said we gotta get some fish."
Sayo muttered her agreement and we walked off to the shore.
. . .
Not many people went to the shore. Not since the older people from the town started telling stories. They told about how there were monsters living in the ocean, and they ate all the other islands. That's why we're the only land in the world. That's what the younger kids believe. People my age and older just don't have a lot of reason to go there. We get fish, but that's it. No one uses the boats by the boardwalk because there's nowhere to go.
I felt the soft sand under my sandals and heard seagulls. It had been a while since I'd been here. I'd forgotten how pretty it was.
The sand was perfect tan color, the ocean was a clear blue that you could see through. I ran over to the waves with the net in my hand, Sayo behind me.
I tossed one end of the net to her as I held on to the other. We walked backward until the net was stretched out. It was a long rectangle, about twelve feet long and two feet tall. We walked out to the ocean so that the water was up past our knees. Then we dipped the net into the water and started walking slowly back to shore.
Suddenly, a fish jumped out of the ocean, spraying Sayo's face with water. She just stood there for a second, then started giggling. She did it quietly, though, as to not scare any more fish away.
Once we got back to shore, we closed the net, trapping all the fish that got caught in it. Which, by the way, was a lot. It took both of us to lift it up. We started walking back the way we came when I got an idea. I set down the net, and Sayo did the same.
"Sayo, Dusk probably doesn't need all these fish. We have way too much. She only needed a few to make dinner. What if we sold some at the boardwalk? And we could give some to your mom?" It seemed smart; we had caught about twenty fish or so.
Sayo thought for a moment. Then she nodded, "Yeah, that'd be smart. But we have to split the money. I helped with the fish."
"Okay." Sayo grabbed a hair tie off her wrist and tied her shoulder-length dark brown hair back. She picked up her side of the net and I picked up mine. It was heavier than expected, but there were also a lot more fish than expected. I think it was the most I'd ever caught. I tried to think back, but then got distracted by a crab walking on the sand. I pointed it out to Sayo, and she told me, "That's cool, but we should hurry before the shop closes."
We turned around and start walking.
It was a while, but that was expected for a three-mile walk. Once we got to the boardwalk, we carried the net up the front steps. I looked out at the boardwalk.
I hadn't been there in a while. They had made some changes. Instead of light, birch wood as the floor above the seawater, they had painted it green. Not a bright grass green, but a sea green. It looked nice. And they had attached the shops to each other. Instead of having little alleyways in-between for poor merchants to sell their items and shop owners to plant their flowers, the gaps were closed up and the flowers were out front. The poor merchants had to resort to buying a stand or leaving.
Everything else was the same. It just shows how much doesn't change.
I spotted the fish shop and pointed, "There." Sayo understood and we carried the net over to the brick building. Smells of seafood greeted us as we walked inside. I walked up to the wooden counter and placed the net on the surface. "I'd like to sell some," I told a man that had walked over.
"Alright. How many?"
"Half."
The man opened the net. The fish had died on the way, so they were easy to handle. He took out half, put them in a bucket, and brought them into another room. He came back with a bucket and some money.
"You can use this bucket to carry the rest of the fish," he told Sayo and me as he tossed the net somewhere under the counter into a bin. "They were worth seventy-four dollars." He handed me an organized pile of cash. "Thank you for selling. Would you like to buy anything?"
I told him "No, thanks" and we left.
While walking out of the building, I handed Sayo her thirty-seven dollars. She took it and put it in the pocket of her jean shorts. I tucked my orange hair behind my ear as we walked towards the way we came. I spotted a cotton candy stand and suddenly we were walking along the beach eating bright pink fluff.
"What's that?" Sayo pointed off towards the shore somewhere. "Oh my God, Enna, it's a shipwreck! It wasn't there when we were walking here, was it?"
I shook my head, no.
We walked over and saw wood scattered everywhere, along with a shredded sail. Whoever had taken this boat had to be very unlucky.
Something caught my eye. I turned and lifted a piece of the wood, careful not to get a splinter. There was a map underneath. It was a map of our island. It had little X's on it. But that's not what scared me.
What scared me was the fact that one of the X's was on Sayo's house. I stared at it for a few seconds before reacting.
"Sayo, you might wanna take a look at this," I warned as I walked over to her, but she was distracted. She pointed to the ground, where there were footprints. They were too big to be our feet, and they had strange prints, like strange clown shoes. It was all swirly and at the bottom it had dots. Neither of us could have made these prints.
"We have to follow them," Sayo said as she started walking, her brown eyes glittering with determination. I followed, tucking the map in the pocket of my yellow-and-white striped sundress.
. . .
As we walked further, the tracks came to a halt. I looked around. There seemed to be nothing else for miles.
"Where'd they g-"
"Hello." We heard a voice behind us and jumped. We turned around. Sayo tried to punch whatever was there and missed. "I've been stranded on this island, could you help me? I believe there is a town around here somewhere, is that correct? I seem to have lost my map."
Sayo and I stared at each other for a moment. She shook her head. I gave her a "really?" look and turned to face the man.
"Um, yeah, there's a town around here. We could, uh, get you some food and water and...stuff," I said nervously. No one had ever come to this island because there was no other land. How was I supposed to stay calm when everything I had known just evaporated into thin air? I decided to add on, "Also, I have your map."
The man waved his hand, "It's fine, you may keep it. I don't need it anymore. I memorized what I need." That made me even more scared. This man hadn't just been stranded, he was looking for our island. How did he know about it? I dismissed the thought. Of course, he knew about it, it was the only island in the world.
But if that was true, where had he come from...
No. This was too much thinking. I'd try to make sense of it later. Right now we needed to help this man to our village. And try to get some information out of him.
"So," I asked while we walked, "I would like to know a few things before we let a complete stranger into our village. No offense."
The man nodded, "I suppose that makes sense. But I have only limited information. I do not know all. Do you? I know the stars know everything."
Okay, this man was a bit weird. So I started with a simple question, "Who are you?"
"I am a man. But you can call me Tom."
Weirder.
"Alright, Tom, where did you come from?"
"My home."
I waited for him to explain, but he didn't. Okay, then.
"Why did you have a map of our village?"
"I needed to come here."
"Why?"
"Because the stars told me."
"What did they tell you?"
"To come here."
At this point, I was on the verge of yelling in frustration.
"How did you know about our village?"
"The stars told me."
"What stars? Like a talented person, like a star celebrity or something? Do you have a friend named Star?"
"No. Do you have stars here? If you don't, they're these little dots in the sky. They only come out when it's dark. What a weird village, no stars."
Okay, I was on thin ice with this person, partly with frustration, partly confusion, but I still had one more question.
"Why are there X's on some of the houses?"
"They are chosen."
I, again, waited for the man to elaborate but he didn't, and we walked in silence all the way back to the village.
Hundreds of questions followed me home, not one of them being how the people of my village would react when we returned.