She reached out and stroked Annabelle’s forehead. Margaret had no idea how long she sat there. Her mind was far away in thoughts so foreign that it seemed as if her mind were not her own. Because for the first time in her adult life she wondered what it would be like to give birth to a child.
9
Muddy’s bottle had hit land the night before after being tossed about during a violent and rocky storm. But with two thousand years’ worth of experience, he’d weathered worse—floods, hurricanes, a tornado in some place called Kansas.
Sometimes, idiots who found the bottle heaved it away. He wondered how many people over two thousand years had thrown him away or passed him by and lost the chance for three golden wishes.
He had known the moment he’d landed. It was like riding a bounding camel and suddenly slamming into a stone wall. And something else was always the same. The inside of the bottle was a mess.
His gold silk pillows were everywhere. Leather-bound books and a stack of yellowed newspapers littered his Persian carpets. Everything he owned from an ancient brass hookah to a baseball bat and cap had toppled in a jumble on the floor. He was sporting a large knot on his head from the bat.
Each new master and new decade and new place brought with it new inventions. Muddy had managed to slip many of the more fascinating items in his bottle.
In recent years, he had collected quite a library of the latest dramatic adventures; an ivory chess board, and checkers, but he had to play by himself; a badminton racket and birdie, which he frequently batted about the bottle; his baseball paraphernalia; and some photographic equipment.
He sat cross-legged on the floor of his bottle and placed his spilled chess pieces back in their box. For just a moment he looked up at the stopper. If wishes and prayers helped, someone would find him soon.
* * *
Margaret setthe sleeping babyin the makeshift crib she’d made from a trunk and turned around. She raised a hand to shade the glare of the sun and looked at the beach.
Earlier, Hank had sent Lydia and Theodore to gather driftwood. They were stacking wood on the beach. The goat stood by Theodore, probably because Hank, the goat’s target, was nowhere nearby.
Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen much of Hank, not that that particularly bothered her. Asking for Hank’s company was like wanting to dine with the devil.
A second later she heard the devil whistling.
He came swaggering out of the thick jungle, his arms loaded with a bundle of green and yellow bamboo. He was whistling something that sounded likeHome on the Range.He walked past her, stopped, and looked around, then dropped the bamboo.
Margaret stared at the pile of green sticks. “Are those for the hut?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you put them there?”
“Because this is where we are going to build the hut.”
Margaret pointed to the spot she had chosen. “Not there?”
He shook his head.
She took a deep breath. “I realize that we’ve had this argument before, but I think you should be aware of the fact that I have given this project quite a bit of thought.”
He looked at her as if she couldn’t possibly know what she was talking about.
“It seems most reasonable that we should build closer to our water and food supply.”
He squatted down and began sorting through the bamboo. “We’ll build it here.” He started whistling again.
She changed arguments. “Look. You’ve said this island is deserted, so we are stuck together. It’s less than an ideal situation.”
He grunted.
“I would like you to treat me as an equal and consider my opinions and suggestions. It’s only fair and right. I am not a man, but of course there is no scientific proof that men are superior to women in anything other than brute strength and muscle capacity. And since I am an educated professional woman who thinks things through thoroughly and analytically, I believe my opinion benefits us all. I make no rash decisions and believe that we should have a fair and equal partnership on everything that affects us.”
He stood and walked a few feet away, then stopped. “Yeah, well, I’d like to find buried treasure but that’s not bloody likely.” He began to coil the rope she had gathered into a pile.
She watched him for a moment, her arms crossed. “Just what makes you so certain that your way is the only way?”
