I plant the supplies out by the turnaround when I am supposed to be fishing. I have to run to get away from the other group members, but it is not unusual for me to run for exercise, so no one follows.
Once I am sure no one is close enough to see me, I wander off the path to an overhang in the rock formation where the four of us used to hide things. As I push our bundle of supplies toward the back my hand grazes something solid and I pull it from its hiding spot.
The velvet from the box is caked in mud and cobwebs. I remember it instantly, and my cheeks flood with shame even though no one is there to see me. I pry the little box open. Its once silver edges are now brown with rust but the white satin inside is still slick and shiny. The diamond pendant catches the sunlight over my shoulder and I am mesmerized by the stone.
I found it my second morning in the wild. I was walking the shoreline, too anxious to sleep past the sunrise, when I spotted a small canvas bag lying in the wet sand. Quiet waves lapped up and around it, pulling particles of sand past the bag and out to sea.
I reached down and tugged the zipper open. There wasn’t much inside. A couple of books too waterlogged to salvage, a notepad and pen with Hyatt Hotel printed on the side, and the box.
When I took it from the wreckage of our plane I didn’t know if it belonged to a member of our group or someone who died in the crash. I kept it in my pocket for a week before I trusted Christa enough to show her.
Her eyes went wide with awe when I opened the then pristine velvet box. We argued. She thought I should keep it and I thought I should put it with the rest of the supplies from the plane.
Those first few days we dove in and out of the water, dragging everything we could salvage from the plane to the beach and inside the blanket of trees. Nothing felt trivial. The luggage from the overhead compartments, the little plastic trays from our mid flight meals, even the cushions from our seats were piled neatly on the forest floor.
If I had put the pendant with the rest of the stuff from the plane someone might have claimed it. It could have belonged to Eli’s partner. She was always talking about how much she missed dressing up, looking nice, having things of value.
But I didn’t put it with the rest of the things. I held onto it. Sleeping with my hand curled around it each night, as if someone were coming to take it from me.
We weren’t a group then, just a scattering of strangers, still trying to determine if we should work together or take all that we could for ourselves.
In the end I felt like I had to hide it. I had held on to it too long to put it with the rest of the stuff. Within weeks everything had been archived, sorted and rationed. If I gave it back then I would jeopardize the small bit of trust I had built with the other passengers, but I couldn’t keep it on me anymore either. It felt like the tell tale heart pulsing in the palm of my hand every night.
When we found the overhang and the nature built shelf hidden low within, I knew I could keep the pendant there. Though I had not thought of it in years, I tuck the box into our bundle of supplies and push it to the very back of the hiding spot. Tonight when we leave camp it will be with that pendant pressed close to my skin.
The day drags. I fish until the hot sun beats at my neck and my basket is nearly too full to carry. Back at camp Christa remarks that I was gone longer than usual and I point at my haul as if that is all the explanation she needs. Cade too returns with more than his usual bounty. Without Cade and I to contribute the group will be down a hunter, a fisher/gatherer, not to mention the supplies we have taken. One day of extra fish and rabbit won’t feed them while we are gone, but it is all that we can do and we want to do something.
That evening the group sits around the fire and behaves as if nothing has changed, as if Christa and Tanner haven’t broken our rules and Cade and I haven’t suggested we break more. No one says anything they wouldn’t have said days before, but there is a change among us. We all feel it.
When the oldest and youngest begin to rustle toward sleep I suggest that Christa and I sit down by the water. She follows me without question, taking her place on the boulder where Cade and I sat two nights ago. I don’t get to tell her that this may be our last conversation.
“I’ve been thinking about my mother,” she says. “I know she had plenty of things to prepare her for a baby. A hospital, books and things, but I bet she was still scared.”
She looks at me now, wanting me to agree, to make her feel like she is any other woman having a baby, but she isn’t.
“Was she a good mother?”
Christa wraps her arms around her legs, resting her head on her knees.
“I think so. I was thirteen when the crash happened. We didn’t get a chance to argue about teenager things.”
Christa is a year older than me and for a moment I am jealous that she had thirteen years with her mother and not twelve.
“I already feel like it’s mine,” she says, looking hard into my eyes. “I already feel like losing it would be the worst thing possible.”
I bite back the words I want to say. You won’t lose it. We’re going to save you, and whoever you’re carrying.
“I wonder if it is worse to be us or our mothers?” she thinks aloud.
I don’t answer. We’ve considered this before without coming to a conclusion. We know what it is to be lost, but not to lose someone.
“Right now I feel bad for her,” she says, tracing the skin around her knee cap with one finger. “The always wondering. It would eat at you.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and gaze up at the moon rising fuller and brighter in the sky.
She turns her head so that we are close enough to feel the breath on one another’s face. Her eyes are hard as she says, “Promise me you won’t leave me wondering.”
Four
I feel terrible as I slip out from under Christa’s arm later that night. I won’t leave her wondering. I will come back, it’s a promise, but one I can’t share with her. Cade is already waiting at the turnaround. He has a worn hikers bag on his back and tosses a child’s backpack in my direction. We agreed earlier not to take both good hiking bags. But now, I see my tiny bag with its fabric worn around the zipper and straps stretched from overuse, and I wish we had.
I reach into the side pocket and feel for the velvet box. Without explaining I clasp the pendant around my neck. I can feel Cade’s eyes lingering on the stone now lying flush against my skin, but he doesn’t ask about it. Instead he begins walking in silence.
It is the first time either of us have gone beyond the turnaround, and I find myself holding my breath as we pass the marker. We have been told for so long not to go beyond this point that it feels like there should be tripwire or gunshots alerting the others that we’ve broken the rules. Did Christa and Tanner feel this way when their lips met for the first time?
An hour later, Cade speaks.
“In the morning they are going to try and determine where we went and if Tanner and Christa knew about our plan.”
What if they are punished because of us? What if all this risk is for nothing, and Christa and Tanner are exiled from the group anyway.
“Do you think they’ll be punished?”
Cade shakes his head. “I don’t think they can afford to lose Tanner as a hunter. Christa may not be much use now, but he’s still essential.”