Gifts from the Sea by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock Read Free Book Online Page A

I caught her sprinkling salt over Celia while she slept.
    “It's to keep the fairies from stealing her,” Margaret explained. According to her, the fairy people spent most of their time feasting, fighting, and playing beautiful music, but would keep misfortune from your door if you left them a bowl of milk on the doorstep each evening. Which she did.
    Each day, when our work was done, Celia and I showed Margaret our island: the nesting sites where we gathered eggs, the tidal pools where we collected shells, the tiny wildflowers nestled in the rocks. Sometimes Celia would reach up to hold Margaret's hand, and it twisted my heart to see it, but I knew I didn't have to worry about Celia's future. Margaret would take good care of her, of that I was certain.
    Margaret was cheerful, willing to jump in and help with what had to be done, her laughter like sunshineafter a storm, someone Mama would have loved. Perhaps that's why I disliked her. What right did she have to be cheerful when she was going to break our hearts again by taking away Celia? What right did she have to act like part of the family when she was going to tear it apart? I resented the way she'd slipped into the hole left by Mama, as if she belonged, as if she could take Mama's place.

    There were little agonies every day—watching Margaret stir up cornbread in Mama's blue china bowl, using Mama's sewing kit to mend Papa's pants (even squinting the same way to thread the needle)—and it was worse because Papa didn't seem to notice the way she was wiggling into his heart, pushing out Mama.
    I first noticed it when we painted the lighthouse. Papa had waited for a mild day, with little wind, and Margaret and I painted up as high as we could reach while Papa did all the high work, dangling from a rope out of the lantern room. Even Celia helped, or tried to, and Papa pretended to scold all of us, saying we'd gotten more paint on ourselves than we had on the lighthouse. Margaret looked down with dismay at her dress to discover it was true.
    “You can tear it up for rags,” Papa said.
    “That's easy for you to say,” Margaret said, “but I didn't bring much with me when I came here, since I wasn't planning on staying long. But I wouldn't expect a man to notice such things.”
    I hadn't noticed, either, being that I didn't pay much attention to clothes. Secretly, I'd always longed to wear pants, to be able to run and climb and not have to worry about silly petticoats, or being ladylike, though I'd never quite dared admit that to Mama.
    “I'll just have to wear it, paint and all,” Margaret said. “I can always say it's the latest rage.” But I could tell Papa felt bad.
    “I guess Marion's clothes would fit you,” he said slowly. “You go on in and help yourself to what you need.”
    For just a moment, I stopped breathing. Mama's clothes had sat untouched in her wardrobe since she'd died, except for the times I'd buried my nose in them, the smell of her bringing her face to mind. Every day, I tried to remember her exactly as she'd been, though now the face was blurry, like a photograph where someone has moved. It scared me that Papa waspushing his memories of her out of his life, the way you put away clothes you've grown out of.
    “Oh, I couldn't,” Margaret said, glancing at me. “It wouldn't be right.” But Papa shook his head.
    “Those dresses and things are just going to waste,” he said, “and Quila won't want them.”
    My eyes stung. Papa hadn't even asked me whether I wanted Mama's clothes or not, but even if I didn't want them, I didn't want to see Margaret in them.
    I was afraid Margaret would select Mama's pretty green delaine, the one she wore at holidays, but she picked the most worn of Mama's dresses, a faded yellow calico that Mama had already patched once. Still, it was a shock to look up and see Mama's dress without Mama in it.
    I think it was Mama's dress that made Papa start noticing Margaret. She and I were doing the laundry, and