From “The Sailor’s Song” (Traditional)
The waves doth rage
And the wind doth blow
But a brave young man was he,
For he’d heard a voice
Singing on the storm
So he went down to the sea…
There was water all around her. She couldn’t see the horizon, and somehow she knew the shore was a long way off. She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten here.
The moon shone down on the calm black water. The stars were out-more stars than she had ever seen before, like a blanket of diamonds. And the constellations were strange. She wondered where she was.
Farther in, her mind whispered. Farther in.
She swam forward, then stopped, treading water. Something brushed her arm, and she drew it away quickly. The movement caused a splash that sounded deafening in the silence of the dark sea.
She became aware that the edge of the horizon had shifted slightly. A black shape had blotted out part of the stars-a mountain. She swam toward it, wondering how she could have missed noticing it before.
She concentrated on swimming, but her arms were tired. She looked up, expecting to feel despair at the mountain’s distance. But, surprisingly, it seemed much closer now. She was making progress.
She redoubled her efforts, moving with great effort through the sea. The next time she looked up, she realized that the mountain was almost on top of her.
But it was no mountain.
She struggled against the water in a desperate attempt to swim backward, but it was useless. The wave slammed against her. She was caught in the giant wall of water. Claws scraped at her face, her legs. The tsunami had churned up so much debris that driftwood and pieces of shell scratched and bit at her like living things.
Her lungs strained.
I have to swim toward the surface, she thought. But there was another voice in her mind. Down, it whispered, down.
And then she saw the eyes. They gleamed through the dark water like silver coins at the bottom of a pool. Then-teeth. They revealed themselves slowly in a dangerous, razor-like grin. “Gretchen,” the thing said.
Gretchen tried to cry out, but her mouth filled with water.
An arm reached toward her, grabbing her shoulder in a grip that burned like a brand. “Gretchen,” the thing repeated. “Gretchen!”
“Gretchen!”
The voice changed, deepened.
“Gretchen!”
And suddenly a man stood before her. Wild hair, dark eyes, black goatee, a strange dark mark like a flower near his temple. Water streamed down his face like tears. “Gretchen!” he cried.
She pressed her palms against his chest. “Dad?” Gretchen looked around. She wasn’t in the water. There were boards beneath her bare feet. She looked down at her dark blue T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms. Her clothes were sticking to her limply. “I’m all wet.”
“It’s still raining,” Johnny said as water lashed the porch. “The storm hasn’t passed yet. Are you okay?” Creases appeared at the corners of his dark eyes. It was an expression Gretchen’s father wore often lately-he looked worried.
“I’m fine.” Gretchen glanced out over the front yard. It looked like the storm had already taken out one of the smaller weeping willows on the edge of the creek that ran through their property. Even in the darkness, Gretchen could see limbs littered across her front lawn. “Why am I on the porch?” she asked. “What time is it?”
“Midnight,” Johnny said. Naturally, Gretchen’s father was still wearing his jeans and faded concert T-shirt. He didn’t go to bed before three in the morning most nights.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said. Then, hesitating, “I mean-I guess you were.”
“It’s been five weeks,” Gretchen said. Since the last sleepwalking incident, she meant. That was nearly a record.
“Why are we still standing out here?” Johnny took her elbow and guided her through the front door. “Do you want some cocoa, or something? It’s chilly.” He grabbed a cashmere throw from the faded couch and swept it over her shoulders. He touched her chin gently, then led the way toward the kitchen. Gretchen’s cat, Bananas, took one look at her and skittered under the couch.
“Thanks for the support,” Gretchen told the cat.
The house was warm and comfortable, but Gretchen kept the blanket around her shoulders. Her father liked to cluck and fuss over her, and she knew it made him happy to think that he was keeping her warm, even though Gretchen hardly ever felt cold. All winter long she would wander the streets of Manhattan with only a light jacket and no hat. It drove her father crazy. Even here, in the summer house, he kept jackets in the hallway and blankets on the couches. “Just in case,” he said. Unlike her, Johnny was cold-blooded.
Gretchen sat down at the wooden table in the breakfast nook as her father walked to the cupboard. She looked around the cozy kitchen. I could live here all year. The thought was comforting… especially since it was starting to look like she’d have to.
Johnny stood staring at the cupboards. He looked baffled.
“Cold,” Gretchen said.
“What? You’re cold?”
“No-you are,” Gretchen told him.
Johnny looked at her quizzically as he touched the lotus tattoo on his temple.
“Wrong cupboard,” Gretchen explained. “Ice cold.”
Johnny scooted to the right.
“Warmer,” Gretchen told him.
He moved farther to the right.
“Warmer. Warmer. Getting hot.”
Johnny opened the cupboard and rummaged around on the middle shelf until he found the cocoa. He leaned against the counter, studying the label. “But this is for baking,” he said.
Gretchen sighed. “Let me do it.”
“I can make cocoa,” Johnny protested.
“Right.” Gretchen rolled her eyes and shook the blanket from her shoulders. “Just like you can cook chicken.”
“The fire department guy said they handled fires like that all the time,” her father protested as she took the cocoa from his hand.
Johnny was pretty famous for his incompetence in the kitchen. The gourmet meals they’d enjoyed when Yvonne-Gretchen’s mother-was behind the apron had devolved to boxes of mac and cheese and Chinese takeout in the years since she had moved out. But Gretchen didn’t care. She had always hated fancy food.
“He was clearly a Johnny Ellis fan,” Gretchen countered as she yanked open the fridge. “He was just being kind.”
“Nobody’s a Johnny Ellis fan,” her dad corrected. “Studio musicians don’t have fans.”
“Oh, please.” The milk hissed softly at the rim as the pan heated up. “Everyone knows who you’ve recorded with. They’re all hoping that we’ll have a pool party one day and invite all of their favorite rock stars.”
“Well…” Johnny stroked his goatee, pretending to think it over. “We’d have to get a pool… and I’d have to make some friends.”
Gretchen let the sugar fall into the milk in a steady stream. Steam started to rise from the cocoa, and she poured it carefully into two mugs.
“What’s that?” Johnny asked as she passed him a mug. His favorite-the one that said World’s Best Dad.
Gretchen cocked her head. “Cocoa.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Yeah-I got it,” he said as he blew across the top of the steaming liquid. “I’m not a total idiot. I meant, what’s that song you’re humming?”
Gretchen sat still. She hadn’t even realized she’d been humming. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Hum it again.”
Gretchen tried, but the tune was like sand that slipped through her fingers. “I can’t.”
Johnny shrugged. “Too bad. Could’ve made me a million.”
“Next time,” Gretchen told him. But she wasn’t even sure what she meant. What next time?
Will looked out his window as the raindrops splattered the glass. It was past midnight, but he couldn’t fall asleep. His mind was whirling with thoughts and images. That girl-he couldn’t get her green eyes out of his mind. When he closed his eyes, he saw them clearly-luminous, with hypnotic intensity.
Guernsey let out a soft snore from her place at the foot of Will’s bed. Will stroked her gray-flecked black coat softly, so as not to wake her. Let the old girl sleep, he thought as the Labrador shifted slightly, dreaming.
Will’s room was directly over the kitchen, and his father’s and uncle’s bass voices floated up to him. When he was a child, Will had always found their talk soothing. Tim had been interested in the parental gossip, but Will tried to listen not to the words but just to the calming drone of the voices, like the crash of the sea. It was hard now, though, since the words were about him.
“You should have seen him.” Carl’s voice was a sigh, and Will could picture his uncle sitting at the ancient wood table, swigging a bottle of non-alcoholic beer. Will’s father always kept the fridge stocked with them in case Carl came over.
Carl had waited until Will’s mother went to sleep to mention anything about the incident on the beach.
Carl is a wise man, Will thought. Mom would’ve had to be strapped to something.
“He looked… well, to be honest with you, Bert, he looked crazy.”
Will’s father let out a soft hissing sound. “It’s the timing.”
“Next week. I know.” There was a gentle clink as Carl set his bottle on the table.
Next week. The God’s honest truth was that Will hadn’t realized that it had been almost a year. But of course it had. It’s the end of June, isn’t it?
It was frightening how little he thought about the night his brother died. He used to think about it all the time, trying to remember what had happened. He would talk to anyone who would listen in an attempt to puzzle out the events of that night. Will knew that he and Tim had gone sailing at sunset. There was nothing unique about that. Except Tim hadn’t come back. And Will had. The police had found him on the beach, unconscious. He’d been wet, his face covered in blood. Nobody knew how he’d gotten there. And nobody knew what had happened to Tim.
Eventually people stopped listening to Will. They would sit with him while he talked, sure, but their eyes would lose focus or drift to the clock on the wall. Will could tell that some of them didn’t believe that his memory was like an empty shell. He had to remember something, they’d say. Something. But Will didn’t remember.
Why did they find me when they never found Tim?
It was a question with no answer.
The wind howled mournfully through the trees. It was dark, but Will could see the branches bending with the gusts. He wondered how many trunks would be torn from the earth before the night was over.
“Don’t say anything to Evelyn.” His father again.
“Of course not. I just don’t know-maybe there was a girl, Bert. But-”
“In this storm?” Will’s father sounded doubtful.
“I didn’t see anything.”
“There was nothing to see.” Silence. And then, “He’ll be better in a couple of weeks. This anniversary is taking a toll.”
“I know it is.”
Will lay on his back, still feeling the motion of the waves with his body. He could still see that girl. He could see the water as it closed over her, gobbled her up. She had seemed so real.
He stood up and went to the bathroom. The fluorescent light flickered on, revealing his greenish face in the mirror. Maybe I am crazy, he thought, staring into his own eyes. No matter how often he saw it, he couldn’t get used to the purplish scar that ran diagonally across his forehead and sliced down the top of his cheekbone. His sandy hair covered it most of the time. But sometimes the wind would push it back, and a passing stranger would stare. It made Will feel like Frankenstein-like someone stitched back together. Especially in a place like Walfang, where all of the summer people were surgically perfected.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I could just remember, Will thought as he pulled open the medicine cabinet. If I just knew what happened.
Will pulled out an orange bottle and unscrewed the white plastic top. His doctor had prescribed sleeping pills, but Will hated taking them. They made him groggy and lethargic the next day.
Then again, so did staying awake all night.
He shook two pills into his palm and popped them into his mouth. Then he scooped cool water from the faucet to wash them down. He put the bottle back and closed the medicine chest, then clicked off the light.
Will settled back under the ancient quilt his great-aunt had stitched and listened to the wind’s complaints. He tucked his feet under Guernsey’s warm body. There’s a hurricane happening on the other side of this wall, Will thought.
The wind picked up. The sturdy oak near the farm stand stood tall, refusing to bend, but the wind simply redoubled in rage. A crack like a gunshot, then several pops and a groan as the wind delivered its vengeance. The oak leaned, then toppled with an explosion and a strange silver tinkle.
“Greenhouse,” Will’s father said.
Footsteps, and the sound of the kitchen door opening and slamming shut. The house was suddenly silent. Will lay perfectly still in the darkness.
A year ago, Will’s father would have shouted up at both of his sons to get their asses downstairs and help. But not now.
Will curled onto his side, like a question mark. He knew he’d fall asleep eventually. He just had to wait.