Shading her eyes with a hand, the girl looked out to sea. After a week the howling wind had finally stopped. In the sudden silence she could hear the hardwoods at the center of the island creaking and scraping bare limbs together as they tried to straighten back up.
           It was as if the island breathed a sigh of relief, not for finding safety, but for at last having rest from torment. The girl listened, suspicious of the sudden peace. A heavy weight still lay across the place, not the withering weight of the sun, but a feeling of imminence. The trial wasn’t over, she could feel it on her shoulders, the island had been fooled.
           Far away the girl spotted changing currents in the ocean. The wind hadn’t stopped, it was shifting. In a moment it was back, tearing tops off waves and throwing salt water in clouds through the trees.
           Blown tight against her body, the girl’s clothes fluttered like a slack sail on a boat. Sand from the beach grated her legs and filled the cornrow braids in her hair.
           Months of drought withered the little island until nothing was left but scorched trees and dirt. Just as food and drinking water started to run out the wind came. It blew day and night for almost a week, never letting up, not until that one false pause, and then only to turn around.
           The girl’s arms had withered to sticks and her black body was covered with a dust of dry skin. She hadn’t eaten in three days, hadn’t taken a drink in two. The youthful softness left her face, showing instead sharp lines and tired eyes.
           To the right she saw both her younger sisters laughing as they ran across the beach. Palm fronds were coming ashore with the waves, driven back home by the new wind. The girls collected the huge, hard leaves as if somehow they could be turned into food.
           At the end of the beach a long sweeping arch of mangrove trees spread out into the ocean. Of the trees on the island, of anything on the island, only the mangroves still held firmly to life. Filtering bitter salt water from the ocean, roots laced together for support, mangroves grow with conviction enough to halt hurricanes.
           Turning, the girl saw her two younger brothers running along the other side of the beach collecting tree branches and a few pieces of wood cast up by the sea. Behind the boys another long arm of mangroves spread over the ocean on the other side of the island.
           Turned around as it was, the wind would probably give back much of what it took. The crescent shape of the mangroves caught all kinds of garbage floating in the sea.
           The crescent shape of the mangroves also gave the little island its interesting bird shape. When she was younger the girl’s father told her children’s stories about their little bird-island. Stories filled with familiar places like the body of the bird where they all lived, where the hardwood trees grew and the family planted small fields of vegetables. Of course the mangroves were the bird’s wings. The beach was the tail and at the opposite side of the island a coral bank pointed out to sea like a hard, rocky beak.
           After the stories she sat on that bleached coral outcrop, pretending to ride the giant bird, but the place was somehow empty. Even with the excited imagination of a child she couldn’t feel good about the coral beak. It was a lonely spot, isolated from the rest of the island by a small hill and surrounded by rough water. Unrest seemed ever to be with her in that place, so she stopped going there.
           Shouting as they ran, the two young boys raced across the beach carrying a wooden bench between them. They dropped the furniture at their sister’s feet, then hurried back to the water.
           Shading her eyes the girl again looked out to sea. The waves were filled with bits of their home. Days of wind tore the wooden house apart and cast most of it in the ocean. Apparently the pieces hadn’t floated far and with the shift in wind much of it was already coming back.
           To the right she could see the door of their house floating toward the mangroves. The girl frowned and her full lips ached from dehydration. The door, it wasn’t hope, wasn’t much of anything, but it was something, something to distract her parents.
           Past withering palms she drug the bench up into the hardwoods and through a small clearing marked by scattered stones, the place her home was before the wind took it. Further back in the woods she made her way down a narrow path to a strange little brick doorway hidden in the bushes.
           The door lead into a dark room with brick walls and a vaulted ceiling. More than a decade ago the girl’s father was out fishing when a tropical storm caught him by surprise. Carried out to sea and lost for more then a day, his boat was eventually driven ashore on the bird-island. He took refuge in the odd room. Not only was it safe from the storm, but a depression in the floor held two hundred gallons of rainwater to drink.
           Later the lucky fisherman learned such rooms are called storage magazines. In the turbulent Caribbean past many magazines were built in uncharted places as supply depots for one navy or the other. The brick room was likely older than a hundred years and forgotten most of that.
           The magazine made it easy for the fisherman to move his family from Guadalupe out to the little island. They lived in the magazine for a time, until he built a more comfortable home near the beach. Many years life had been happy on the island. Even with five children the sea was so abundant he need only work two days a week to feed the whole family. The rest of the time he could collect sponge for trade back in Guadalupe or enjoy the company of his wife.
           As she came near, the girl heard shouting from the magazine. In the shadows she could see the few bits of furniture they brought in when their house collapsed. Hunched over the table in silence, the girl’s parents stared at each other with white-hot eyes, sparkling anger from the darkness.
           Harsh words had been spoken; what was worse, the fisherman knew they were all true. Though he loathed to do it, he had to relent.
           “Ya’ right,” he grumbled.
           In the dark his wife’s eyes narrowed, but the tension in the magazine went away, she couldn’t keep the heat of anger if her husband wasn’t arguing.
           “So now we all gon’ die Jean, ‘cause ya’ won’ set out for Guadeloupe wit’ the win’.” She had to heat the argument again, it didn’t suit her to win easily.
           “I tell ya’ Marie, it suicide ta sail in this win’,” shouted the fisherman. “An’ only in lookin’ back it look a better way than waitin’ till the win’ drop!”
           “Least before we ha’ blow up ta Guadeloupe,” shouted Marie. “Now we be blow all way down ta South America ‘fore we fine’ lan’ an’ drink!”
           “We already say all this woman!” The pitch of Jean’s voice rose. “Ya’ wan’ keep yellin’ a’ me so ya’ can hear ya’self over the win’? Maybe I jus’ go out an stan’ in the win’ wit’ them children. Ya’ can sit alone an’ yell at the sea for the water bein’ salt!
           The fisherman’s daughter stood quietly at the door. Arguing didn’t do anything but dry the mouth and the girl knew if she could interrupt just then the fighting would stop. She swallowed to clear her throat but her mouth was too dry.
           Dragging the bench inside she turned to her parents as if she just noticed them. “All sorta’ thins’ floatin back wit’ the new win’. The boys get this bench, I thin’ the door floatin’ back too!”
           “Silvie!” shouted Jean. “Ya’ troublin’ us wit’ a door when we got no home lef’ ta hang it on!” Rising from the table anyway, he took the chance to escape his wife. Jean set the bench against the wall, near the dry hole that usually held rainwater, then went outside.
           Standing in the sunlight he shaded his eyes with a hand and looked through the trees at his four younger children on the beach. Silvie stood at his side, but didn’t shade her eyes. She didn’t want her father to know she imitated his habit.
           Like the rest of the family, Jean’s clothes were simple. Marie made them out of leftover sails from his fishing boat. Wind pulled Jean’s shirt up at the waist; his dark black body was covered with a powder of dead skin, the same dust that covered his children. Dehydration and hunger were taking their toll, but his body was still rugged like the work it did. His shape was well cut from hauling nets. Even his face, though rounded with a wide flat nose and large eyes, seemed cast from metal.
           Most of her life spent on the forgotten bird-island, Silvie hadn’t seen many men, but she knew from the feelings that stirred in her heart that this man was quality. Her father worked hard and liked to work. He loved his wife and favored his children. Arguments and disagreement had come and gone among them and always Jean was happy to compromise, to learn from his mistakes, to work and move forward.
           On hot afternoons as he unloaded his catch Silvie even heard him say he felt bad for killing the fish, he hated killing anything. Silvie loved him from her teeth to her toes, all she cared about was his praise.
           For three years she worked toward the day Jean would tell her she was a woman, that she wasn’t a child anymore, that he was proud of his grown up daughter. It was taking longer than she thought, Silvie’s fourteenth birthday came and went without any progress, but she had a feeling this disaster could prove her. So firm was her resolve she could almost stand up on top of it. Silvie would be an adult throughout the hunger, more than that, she would be three adults! Silvie was made of stone, even if the whole family fell to their knees with fear she would hold them up, and then wring water from the trunk of a palm tree with her bare hands if she had to!
           “How them kids can laugh an’ play t’a time like this?” Jean mumbled to himself, watching his four younger children piling up bits of their shattered home on the beach.
           “Kids got strong spirit,” Silvie spoke, obviously excluding herself from the class. “An’ they don’ know no better.” Silvie nodded to show she knew better.
           Jean frowned at Silvie but said nothing. More then a year Jean had watched her trying to act like an adult. He didn’t know what she was up to, why she was playing that game, but to Jean, the skinny little thing at his side was still a child.
           Now if Silvie had been a boy, things would be different, Jean wouldn’t call the boy a child. Unfortunately Silvie wasn’t a boy. Without a boy around Jean had worked her like one at times. Hauling nets, unloading the boat, the usual work a man would do with his son.
           Silvie took on quick to everything she tried and that didn’t help. Then Marie taught her to read and write and soon she could do both better then her father. Silvie walked around with her head up high like she was someone important, always right behind Jean trying to be a boy or trying to be an adult. It was enough to drive a good man crazy.
           What was worse, the two girls on the beach were older then the two boys. Those girls were bound to grow up thinking themselves men like Silvie. Jean loved living on the little bird-island with his family, but if his daughters kept turning into men he would have to make some serious decisions. The whole question was of little importance at the moment though, the wind and heat might impose an harsh solution before long.
           It was a while before Jean could spot the door floating back. Silvie must have eyes like a hawk, Jean thought, but didn’t say it.
           “It gon’ in the mangroves. I get it.” Jean grabbed a rope from the magazine and went down to the beach. Walking past his fishing boat Jean checked the stakes he drove in the ground to make sure the boat wouldn’t blow away. If that wind ever did stop, there was nothing more important then the boat. It was the only way to get to Guadalupe for food and water. Even so, he knew the boat was fine, it would take four hurricanes working together to pull it up the way he lashed it down, checking the boat was an excuse to avoid the sad spot where his house once stood. Jean didn’t know if his heart could take the sight of that empty space.
           Turning from the boat Jean started out toward the mangroves. Sand and seawater blew in his face and the wind was so strong he had to shuffle along like an old man. After all his years at sea Jean thought he was wind and water himself, like the seagulls. It was humiliating to stagger across the sand, and he wanted nothing more then to be left alone.
           “Ya’ gon’ in the water?” Silvie screamed. All the way from the magazine she followed her father in silence, hoping she misheard his intention.
           Silvie didn’t stagger or even cover her eyes, her small frame was better suited to move through the blast, and youth gave her balance adults forget. Jean didn’t see it as the blessings of youth, he only saw one more thing his daughter could do better then him, one more way she was acting like a man.
           Through the wind the four smaller children heard Silvie’s shout and saw their father heading to the water with a rope. Rushing across the sand they grabbed Jean by the pant legs, screaming as they dug their feet in the sand like anchors.
           “Darn ya’ kids!” Jean pulled their hands away. “The win’ll only blow me agains’ the trees. Don’ trouble me wit’ cries, I got work ta’ do!”
          Growing out over the sea Mangroves have no dry ground beneath them, but their stilted roots capture sand so the water around the trees is never deep. Jean was able to make his way along the edge of the trees holding their roots for support. Up to his waist in the ocean, wind blasted waves threw spray in Jean’s face and the salt water on his dry lips made them ache.
           The door was wedged in the mangroves, Jean pulled it out, tied the rope around it and started pulling for home. Waves tossed the door and as the seaward edge came above water the wind caught it, hurling the door and jean against the trees. Jean tried to push on, but every twenty feet it happened again.
           Getting the door was easy, but the trip home was about to wear him out. Stopping to catch his breath, Jean noticed a little black spot pop out of the water ahead. He saw it again, closer, then it was gone. In his years as a fisherman Jean saw many creatures bob up and down in the water looking at him, there was no need to worry, it was just a curious animal. The water wasn’t deep enough for anything really big or dangerous, unless….
           Before Jean could finish his thought a dark shape came at him under the waves. There wasn’t time to climb up in the mangroves and Jean had no weapon to defend himself. He tried to get behind the door but it was too late, the water bust open and Jean could do nothing but hold up his arm as a shield.
           “Why ya’ hole up ya’ arm like that?” Silvie asked, standing chest deep in the water before her father.
           “Ya’ wan’ kill me wit’ fright, girl!” shouted Jean, putting his arm down.
           “The win’ don’ blow under water,” Silvie said, trying very hard to sound educated. “It easier ta go alon’ that way.”
           “Never mine’ that. What ya’ doin’ out here?”
           “I see ya’ almos’ bein’ kill by the door.” Silvie stood still and calm, as she thought an adult offering aid might stand, “I come ta’ help.”
           “I don’ need no help, girl,” shouted Jean. “There nothin’ ya’ can do.”
          Anger made a poor mask for fear, Jean was afraid the current might carry his daughter out to sea. Even the fear was a lie and Jean knew it. Silvie was the best swimmer in the family. Several times she swam all the way around the island, then came up from the water as if nothing at all had happened. Every time, Silvie got a scolding but, of course, Jean would have been proud of such behavior from a boy.
           Silvie ducked suddenly under water. Her head came back up at the windward side of the door.
           “See, now I hol’ the door from under an’ it keep down,” said Silvie. “Jus’ my head is out the water so I can breathe.”
          Jean turned away to keep himself from yelling. He looked up and the relentless sun made his face sore. The whole situation was ridiculous. The door didn’t matter; it was an excuse, a distraction from the grinding starvation that gnawed at his helpless family. More then anything he just wanted a minute alone, some time to consider things as a man does. If Silvie were a boy Jean could talk to her, confide his anger and fear, the helplessness he felt against brute nature slowly killing the people he loved. Though Silvie tired to be a man, she wasn’t even a boy, but she had solved the problem, so Jean bit his tongue and pulled her and the door back to the beach.
           Safely on land Silvie went quickly away to collect other pieces of house along the beach. Her father was frustrated, Silvie had to assert her usefulness and adulthood a bit at a time or Jean would snap. Just like blacksmiths hammer steel, Silvie had to give Jean time to cool down before she started pounding again.
           Jean carried the rescued bit of his home to the magazine and leaned it over the doorway. The wind’s vacuum held the door in place and with the opening covered the magazine was suddenly dark.
           “Nobody can eat or drink no door,” Marie said from the table. “Maybe ya’ go in the sea till the win’ blow up some ham an’ gravy?”
           “Maybe I go out the other side the islan’ an’ get ma’self blow’ off ta’ South America,” Jean shot back. “Then leas’ I get some peace from ya’!”
          Quite an exchange was about to begin but both stopped when they heard Silvie shouting over the wind. Silvie ran up to the magazine but was surprised by the familiar door in a place where no door had ever been, so she knocked.
           “Get in here ya’ darn’ girl!” Jean pulled the door aside.
           Eyes wide, Silvie smiled so hard her teeth showed. All her adult posturing forgotten, she jumped and pointed out to sea. “A boat! A boat gettin’ blow up!” Silvie screamed. “It on it’ side an half sunk an goin’ where the door went!”
          Jean ran down to the beach and looked out to sea. He shielded his eyes from the sun and seawater but it was still a minute before he could spot the shape in the ocean. Even then he couldn’t tell what it was.
           “It some fifty feet long,” said Silvie. “A sailboat, wit’ thin hull and lon’, thin keel.”
           “I don’ need ya’ tell’ me what it is,” Jean grumbled. “It musa’ blow out port at Pointe-a-Pitre. Sailboat like that belong to rich people. It gon’ be stock wit’ food an’ water.” Staggering in the wind, Jean marched off again toward the sea. Silently on his heels, Silvie followed right behind.
           Jean stopped and looked over his shoulder, “Ya’ gon’ follow me ‘gain girl?”
          Silvie’s father had never looked at her that way, just a glance over his shoulder. A sudden fear shot through her skinny body and Silvie wanted to take a step back, but she didn’t. She clenched her fists and toes and pronounced firmly, “Yea.”
           “What if I tell ya’ stay?” Jean narrowed his eyes.
           Silvie never defied her father, not outside childish tantrums or games. Searching the boat would be no game; any number of terrible things could be waiting in that drifting wreck. Even so, Jean was not commanding her to stay, he was asking a serious adult question. What’s more, and the most important thing, the question was flexible, and it could be answered in ways so as not to contradict him.
           Taking a deep breath Silvie replied in the most even tone she could stir, “What if we all ‘lone this night ‘cause ya’ get stuck in that boat wit’ no one ta’ help an ya’ die?”
          Jean clenched his jaw: his daughter, the little girl he loved, answered him back like an adult. What was worse, Jean had talked to her like an adult and that allowed her to answer back like an adult. He felt like a fool, like he set a trap for himself. There was something in it though, something Jean didn’t want to admit, he needed her to be an adult. Marie was a hard worker but not clever like Silvie. Jean’s little girl was the best help he could get at the moment, she was probably the best help he could get anywhere.
           Without another word Jean turned and made his way back along the mangroves. Right behind, Silvie was smiling so hard she thought her dry face would crack. The proving had begun, she was along to help with adult work, all she had to do was stay strong.
           Wind and waves turned the big boat around until its deck faced the island. Sails from the two masts spread out in the water, a hideous disarray with ropes and bits of shattered wood hanging from the ends. The boat came slowly; its masts entered the mangroves, sliding all the way up until the deck came to rest against the stilted roots.
           Working his way through the mangrove roots Jean pulled the ropes and sails aside so his daughter wouldn’t be tangled in them. A large hatch stood at the center of the deck, Jean grabbed the handle, then stopped.
           “What?” Silvie asked.
           “Somethin’ wrong ‘bout this,” Jean shook his head. “The sails is out. If the boat blow out a port the sails a’been in.”
          Jean pulled the handle and the hatch burst open, water rushing out of the boat. Lifted by the wind and roots of the trees, the water in the boat was higher then that outside and the sudden torrent spilled paper, cloth, and garbage of all kinds into the murky water around the mangroves. Then, one after another, four white people spilled out, thrashing and shrieking as they sunk beneath the surface.
           “Stan’ up!” Jean yelled over the cries, trying to grab a woman by the arm to help her. “The water ain’ deep! Stan’ up and hol’ the roots!”
          The four white people were in a frenzy, grabbing at one another and dragging each other down. Struck with terror, Silvie backed away but one of the men grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her under.
           Jean grabbed the frantic man. Arms taut like the cables of a cargo crane Jean lifted the white man so high out of the water that Silvie, still in the man’s grasp, came out with him. Holding him in the air, Jean punched the white man so hard his head snapped back. Silvie slipped from his grasp and with one hand Jean grabbed his daughter and set her safely up in a mangrove tree.
           The white man was limp, but Jean pushed him against the mangrove roots and he was able to hold on. Taking the other white man by the collar Jean slapped him in the face and shoved him against the roots. Then Jean grabbed the two white women, they were light enough so he held them up without striking them.
           “All right, ya’ all done bein’ crazy now?” shouted Jean.
           The four whites trembled as they held the roots. Their skin was sunken in hard to the bone and their lips were split open but so dry they didn’t bleed. Once expensive luxuries, their clothes were torn and covered in filth. One woman’s shirt was ripped down the side and her ribs showed as she panted for air. Jean had never seen a person that thin, not even a dead man.
           “Please help us get to land,” the woman groaned, her voice so raw it was hard to hear.
           “All right, I got a place ya’ all gon’ be safe,” said Jean. “But ma’ family is there so ya’ can’ no act crazy no more.”
          The four whites nodded. One by one Jean helped them around the mangroves and out from behind the boat, then he came back to his daughter. Silvie jumped from the tree back into the water.
           “Ya’ all right girl?” Jean set his hand on her shoulder.
           Silvie pushed past the hand and hugged her father around the waist. Jean patted her back.
           “I all right, dad,” Silvie said, stepping back. “They jus’ people, people don’ scare me.”
           “Well, they scare me, girl. People is trouble, white people more ‘n’ mos’. Now I wish this boat never come here. But it here so we see what we can do.” Jean kneeled down in the water to be eye level with Silvie and held her shoulder with his hand. “Silvie, I gone trus’ ya’ like I never did before. I cane’ leave them folk go ta’ the family without me, but neither cane’ have ‘em here while I search the boat. Silvie girl, can ya’ search the boat for food an’ water by ya’self?”