Private Island 2013 Link

As the summer wore on, more residents arrived to live on the island for short residencies. They painted and wrote and swam in kelp-scented water and left more things behind than they took. The presence of the letters made itself felt like a weather change: conversations turned to the island’s past with caution and curiosity. Some residents left after a week, unsettled. Others stayed longer, as if they needed the island to sit and stare at their insides.

Stella shrugged. “No one knows. You don’t unbury the past because you’re curious; you do it because you’re brave or because somebody pays you. The foundation—well, they want the island pretty. You and I know pretty’s sometimes a broom over a pile of bones.” private island 2013 link

On opening night a handful of island residents came by: Elise, Jonathan, Finn, and Stella with her bright scarf. A woman who introduced herself as Margaret’s niece stood in a corner, reading the letters as if sifting through the bones of a relative. People paused at the photograph of the two children—many faces recognized one of the children as the boy who’d once lived on the ferry route and now worked in a print shop uptown. He had grown into the same haunted expression. As the summer wore on, more residents arrived