My grandmother, of course, had no control over the boy. Still, the bracelet never broke or faded or fell apart and the girl stayed faithful. 'Something to remember me by,' he'd say, but the women of Prince Island had seen enough hair and sea grass to know the truth. Later he'd slide it over his darling's hand.

So he would stick it into his pocket, still frowning, and leave. This'll break in a moment and then what will my Sue get up to?' Often the boy would hold this flimsy thing in his hand, feeling its impossible lightness, and frown. 'Put it on her wrist,' she would say, 'and your girl will remain true.' My grandmother would tell him: 'Bring me a dozen strands of your sweetheart's hair and cut off a lock of your own.' Once he returned with the items, her long fingers would weave and bind the hairs with sea grass, building a loose bracelet. He'd be anxious, excited, more nervous about leaving his girl than about the years-long voyage he would soon endure. And the people on my island would nod with pinched lips, but they'd visit her all the same.Ī man-although they were usually so young they could still be called boys-might ask for a fidelity charm. A deal with her was a deal with the devil, he'd tell them, raising his fist and cracking it down on the podium. Every man, woman, and child on Prince Island knew the way to her cottage, had to know the way because their lives depended on it.Įven back in the good times, the pastor with the dried-apple face would spend his sermons lecturing the congregation against my grandmother's promises. That was back, too, when the people on my island treasured my grandmother and her role in their fortunes. That was ten years ago, when Prince Island was more than just a rock out in the Atlantic Ocean, when its docks choked with ships, when the factory furnaces spat out a constant stream of thick black smoke and the island's bars spat out a constant stream of laughing men, their faces round and shiny.

DESPITE MY MOTHER'S BEST EFFORTS, I NEVER forgot the day my grandmother taught me how to tie the winds.

Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper