Read Online An Island Between Two Shores by Graham Wilson - Free Book Online Page A

dagger-sharp beak. The wolves howled. Liana lay on her bed and covered her ears and closed her eyes until the raven stopped its rampage and the wolves wandered away.
    The next morning sunlight pierced the entrance of Liana’s chamber beneath the log. She lifted her shirts and jacket to check the cut. Despite being red and angry, it was starting to heal. Liana was surprised the wound was looking so good. She prodded gently on the skin around the cut and felt its sharpness. Reassured, Liana pushed her tangled hair off her forehead and carefully climbed out from beneath the log without disturbing the snow covering the pony wall. In the brightness she was surprised by how much the island had changed. In the last week it had gained almost a foot of snow. In the distance Liana could see that the ice shelf had grown as well.
    Liana had come to yearn for morning, when she would fill her belly with water. It felt good to feel the sensation of fullness, even if it was only water. Her mouth frequently salivated and often she thought of hunger, her constant companion, for uninterrupted hours. Like a campfire left to burn down in the night, Liana could feel her essence begin to fade. She thought about herself as mere embers and hoped when the opportunity to escape arose she would have the strength to resurrect herself.
    She held the leather slip with the frozen bait, hook, and line like a treasure. There was no turning back. She thought that she shouldn’t let her bad luck of the previous day discourage her. She once again took up her silent fishing vigil like a young novitiate assigned to pray continuously. Weakening, her muscles growing slack, her waistband growing loose, Liana was clumsier each day she remained on the island. She pulled her arm back and tossed the line into the silent current. It made a small plunk and then the transparent line sank into the eddy until it was hidden under the ice shelf. The line wasn’t long enough for her to sit on the rocks. Instead she crouched on the ice with an arm outstretched toward the river. She wondered if she was alert and strong enough to pull in a fish if she hooked one.
    She threw the rig into the river and then jigged the hook, moving the line back and forth around the eddy before letting it sit on the bottom. Hours passed to no avail. She didn’t even see a fish, let alone feel one at the end of her line. Before long the sun had climbed high in the sky. Much of the morning chill was gradually burned away by the weak warmth of the sun.
    “Where are the fish?” she asked aloud. She had seen salmon in other rivers choking the current and turning the river crimson red with their rotting carcasses. The hook-like beaks of the disintegrating sockeye broke the surface as they crowded eddies and rested before charging the current. She would give anything to have just one salmon now—a single, half dead, molting salmon.
    When she was a child, Liana’s father would take her trout fishing on a muddy tributary of the Seine. He was a good fisherman and their wicker basket was often filled with writhing trout after just a short while on the water. She was startled the first time she saw languid sockeye salmon choking the entrance of a creek near Dawson City. She had never seen so many fish in one place. The abundance she had known stood in stark contrast to her present reality.
    Liana cupped her hand over her eyebrows to cut the glare of the water and ice. She scanned the river’s surface for the darting of a fish. She stared into the deep pool and concentrated her attention on a single spot in front of a large rock. The rock was dark and Liana felt that a silvery fish would be easier to see when it swam in front of the rock. She spent hours concentrating on this minute area of the river but never saw anything. It was as though the river didn’t have fish, but Liana knew that was not possible. “All rivers have fish,” she said under her breath. “How can a river suddenly be