“Hurry on now, Maid, we wants to catch the fish before they all up an’ dies”

Millie tumbled down the steps towards her Uncle’s voice.

“I’m coming!” she laughed. She wasn’t about to miss this for the world. Nearing the end of summer, before Millie would be tied down to the burden of schoolwork again, her Uncle Bob put aside his fishing gear and took her out in his boat for a morning of fish, and an afternoon spent touring the island. They would lunch in Candle Cove, across the tickle, where she’d count Jellyfish between bites of her ham sandwich. Millie had been waiting for this day for weeks, and couldn’t wait to get out on the water.

Still, there was a heavy air about as uncle and niece made their way to the wharf. This summer, the island’s population had been cut in half, and then in half again. Resettlement. The Wave of the Future. Millie was sick of hearing it. Only a quarter of the original population remained on Silver Island now. It had been all the talk for the past two years, and she knew the deadline for moving was coming up. Families who had decided to leave were scrambling to make arrangements to get their houses off the island before the first of September, and families who had decided to stay, well, they faced a long winter ahead. So far, Millie had been lucky. She had lost a few of her friends to the mainland, whose parents saw Centerville and Wareham as the solution to debt, but most of her own family stuck by their island. Only one aunt had convinced her husband to get off, and Millie had watched their house float away only a week ago. Otherwise, the Buttons and the Felthams seemed to be staying put.

Millie and her uncle walked hand in hand past the school, whose roof was sagging due to neglect amongst all the talk to resettlement. Grey shingles, always bearing the weathered look, appeared even more battered than ever before, and this had been a good summer for sun. The windows were drooping like sad wrinkled eyes. The whole building looked wilted. The pair passed on, past the site of the Winters’ house lot, where all that remained was a square patch of decaying earth. The Snows had left behind their crumbling stage, but their house, too, had sailed away in early June. Even the post office was being readied for demolition.

This was another trick of Joey’s. If the 500 dollar bonus offered to every family who moved was not enough incentive, perhaps cutting off their link to anything civilized would get them out of there. Silver Island had no hospital to loose, but Joey would hit them anyway he could: First by cutting out the schooner traffic in and out of the harbour, then by tearing down the old post office. Rumour had it Old Joey wasn’t stopping there either. Word was out that even the schoolmaster’s position was up in the air. But that was one rumour that Millie could live with- the less spelling and multiplication tables, the better!

“Come on, Millie, pick up yer feet.” Her uncle was trying to lift their spirits. “Want to hear an old marching song from the war? I ‘low that old boat heard lots o’ these.”

Uncle Bob was referring to the old Jolly Boat, a lifeboat from the war towed into Silver Island and tossed up on the shore. The children had taken up the habit of jumping on it, and its hollow sound would ring out across the tiny harbour and the hills that surrounded it. When she was in a good mood, Millie would never miss the opportunity to jump on it on her way past, but not today.

“No, thanks” Millie was in a slump now.

“Well here’s another one for you, Maid” And her uncle started in with

“There’s a noble fleet of whalers a sailing from Dundee, Well manned by British sailors to work them on the sea; On the western ocean passage they started on their trip And they flew along just like a song on the gallant whaling ship”

“Well the wind was on her quarter and her engine’s working free There’s not another whaler that sails the artic sea Could beat the old Polina and you need not try me son For they challenged all both great an’ small from Dundee to St.Johns”

* * *

Millie was on the day bed, hiding behind the stove. She was afraid someone would see her and send her to bed. They had told her to get upstairs an hour ago, but no one had really noticed her after that. So she stayed where she was, curled up by the warmth of the stove listening to every word being spoken by her family, and the ever-present rolling of the sea.

Her mother was sitting still in the rocking chair. In the gap between the stove and the scorched wall, Millie could see her mother’s stray wisps of gray hair coming out of their clips. She needed only to turn her head, and Millie would be caught. Normally, she had eyes in the back of her head, and Millie couldn’t get anything past her. Only tonight there was enough going on to keep her mother’s mind off the mischief of her children.

Millie’s father stood in the opposite corner of the kitchen from Millie’s warm nest against the wall. He was looking out the window at the sheltered harbour that he had fished from all his life, at the sea and shoreline he knew so well. How could he ever take his family away from here?

Her grandmother, her father’s mother, was at the wash-basin, washing and re-washing the dishes from suppertime. The clink-clink of dishes on porcelain was the only sound Millie could hear above her Uncle’s voice. Even the sea was quiet; thinking.

“An’ you’d have a job, Arthur!”, Millie’s uncle addressed her father. Uncle Bob had been there for supper, and talk had turned quickly to Resettlement, only this was a side Millie had never heard her Uncle take before.

“You’d ‘ave a steady income, and the youngsters would get a proper schoolin’ instead of that crazy half-wit they’ve got down at the school telling them two twos is five. Now don’t give me that look, Annie, me and you both knows you could teach them better than he could, an’ Joey is paying he!”

There was a pause- Uncle Bob was her mother’s brother, alright. The two of them could go at it when they differed in opinion. Those two were known to talk the ears off a cod. It was a trait that seemed to run in the Feltham family, and Millie was no different.

From behind the stove, Millie could see her mother’s neck straining and her forehead crinkling, trying to come up with something to say back to her brother. But there was nothing. She wished Arthur would speak, and get her mother-in-law’s eyes off her.

“Are you going to make me say it all over again? Five hundred dollars to your name! No strings attached. Arthur, you’d get to keep yer boat! Wareham’s got a nice little wharf you could tie up to an’ take the youngsters out on the water on the nice days. The job in the store wouldn’t keep you tied up the way the fish does. It won’t keep you away from the youngsters so much. Annie, wouldn’t it be nice to ‘ave Arthur home for the birth of yer littlest one?”

Littlest one! Millie almost cried out. Her mother had said nothing about a new babe!

Her grandmother whipped her head around to face Annie.

“Hush, Robert, you knows you ain’t supposed to be blabbing that out- what if one of the children were listenin’?”

Millie could see her mother’s ears flush with a hint of red. But not at the thought of a child listening, because she knew the three boys were out and up to some kind of mischief, but so long as nobody got themselves killed, she let them do as they please. And Millie, well she was certain Millie was asleep by now. A ten year old couldn’t stay awake this late after a day on the water.

“I s’pose I would like to be around to see one of my babies being born, Annie. After seeing four of my babies only months after they were out, seeing one still wrinkly might be nice”

At this, Millie blushed. She didn’t like to hear her father talking about things like that.

Her grandmother still said nothing, but went back to scrubbing a tea cup for the third time.

“But I loves the water, by’, an’ I don’t know what I’d do on the mainland without it” Arthur spoke to no one in particular. His phrase hung heavy, and it gave Millie some hope.

‘Yes, yes please’, Millie begged in her head ‘don’t let them want to leave’. It was a lot to ask, she knew, but she figured she had a chance. After all, when all this talk first came up, her father had whispered to her one evening that he’d never ever give up this island. Her mother could be more easily swayed, and would come home from visiting talking about the wool shops and the knitting clubs they had up in Centerville. For all her mother’s education, she could be a bit dull sometimes. But Millie knew her mother wouldn’t set foot on the mainland without her father, and in the end, it was his decision whether they stayed or went. It was her uncle that surprised her tonight, though. All summer he never said a word on the subject, and even today he kept his mouth shut as Millie talked on about the people who left with the times. But here he was now, almost begging them to move!

“But to think my kids would get a real learnin'” Millie’s father continued. “Millie could do what she wants, instead o’ marrying a poor Carter somewhere down the line and end up old as the hills on her twenty-fifth birthday. ‘An Timothy! Well think what he could do! With a bit o’ help he could turn his wood carvings into real art!”

There was another pause, and Millie curled herself tighter into the corner, praying her Daddy would come to his senses and stay on Silver Island, where they all belonged.

“I loves this rock, by’, but what you say is true, Robert”

Millie’s uncle breathed a sigh of relief. This is what he had been waiting for.

Arthur wasn’t finished: “When does word have to be in to say that you’re moving?”

No! Millie couldn’t believe it! How did her uncle let her Daddy agree to go! Why didn’t her mother say anything to stop him? His own mother? Her grandmother! She’s lived on this island longer than the rest of them, and even she kept quiet! Nobody said a word, and Millie was afraid her gasps had given her away.

“Well if that’s that, by’s, I s’pose I’ll be off now” and her uncle headed for the door. He took a minute to get his jacket on, and when he looked up, he saw Millie huddled in the corner, glaring at him.

“Right then”, he nodded, “see you tomorrow”, and at that he turned and stepped out through the doorway into the salt air.

“Oh, Arthur” her mother started in. Her voice was weak.

“Not tonight, Annie, ’tis time to get some sleep. We’ve got a lot of jobs to do in the morning. Come on, Mam, off you go to bed”.

No one spoke, just the sea whining at the coast, as if trying to remind them it was still there. ‘Don’t forget about me!’ Millie heard it say. ‘Don’t forget I am still here!’

“Well perhaps” This was the first word Millie’s grandmother had spoken since dinnertime “I’ll just see to my granddaughter before I bed down for the night”

With a meaningful look at Annie, she came towards the daybed, and towards Millie. Scooping the child up, she whispered in her hair, “Now, Maid, ’tis worth getting angry, so cry your heart out. But tomorrow, Millie, tomorrow you dry your eyes, and start a new day”.