An hour later, when Samuel Pierce burst through the door from the garage, his son’s hair was the last thing on his mind.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Sam said before the door could bang against the stop.
Robby, sitting at the table, looked up from his book. Sarah sat the pot of boiling onions back down on the burner instead of dumping them out in the colander.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.
Sam cursed under his breath, kicked his boots into the tray next to the door, and waved-in a smaller, clean-shaven man.
“Hey, Paulie,” Sarah said. Paulie Carver waved and nodded. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked again.
“Nothing a permanent move a thousand miles south wouldn’t fix,” Sam said.
Sarah leaned back against the counter and waited for Sam to get around to explaining his frustration.
Sam turned to Paulie—“The landline is in the front room.” Sam pointed Paulie down the hall.
“Cells are out,” Sam said to Sarah. To demonstrate his disgust, he tossed his cell phone to the table. “Power’s out to the port, and more than half the town is dark. Paulie’s supposed to Mate over to shore, but Early disappeared.”
“Disappeared?" Sarah asked.
“Poof,” Sam said. “He came aboard with Paulie. I saw him. Then we couldn’t find him.”
“Overboard?”
Sam shrugged.
“Is Master Johnson taking her back across?" Sarah asked.
“We were going to ask him that very same question, but it turns out we couldn’t find him either. Can’t even find the Harbor Master,” Sam said.
“Jesus,” Sarah said.
Sam looked down at his feet, shaking his head. When he tilted his head back up, his face softened. Robby admired the way his dad could always tuck away his worries and find his way back to his normal mellow state.
“Hey, smells delicious,” he said. Sam cross the room and put his hands on Sarah’s shoulders. He pulled her in for a quick kiss. Sam leaned down to reach her—he stood at least a foot taller than his wife. Sarah held on to fear much more tenaciously. After the kiss she chewed the inside of her cheek as she processed all the information Sam brought home with him.
Paulie appeared in the doorway. “Your phone is out too,” he said. “I get a dial tone, but I can’t connect to anything. I guess I’ll head back to the docks and wait for Early or Johnson to show back up.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sam said.
“You don’t have to do that,” Paulie said. “Smells like your supper is almost ready and all.”
Sam glanced at Sarah before answering—“Plenty of time to eat later. We’ll both go down,” he explained to both Sarah and Paulie. “And if nobody shows up in an hour, then we’ll shut her down and both come back here for turkey, and you can stay on the couch tonight.”
“I appreciate that,” Paulie said, “but I can hole up in the lounge. I’ve done it before.”
“Nonsense,” Sarah said. “It’ll be as cold as a cave in there tonight.”
Robby watched the conversation and noted that all the adults seemed resigned the ferry wouldn’t be running back to shore that day. The boat wouldn’t run without a captain, but Robby had never heard of the ferry staying overnight at the island. Sam caught a ride to the mainland before each shift, so he could maintain his residence—the only thing his parents left to him—on the island. Any one of these things happening—the ferry staying overnight, the captain disappearing, the Harbor Master missing—would have been extraordinary. Together, the events of the day seemed almost incomprehensible.
Sam pulled his boots on and Paulie fished his gloves out of his pockets. They exited back through the door to the garage and Robby stood up. He would have to shovel under the garage door as soon as they left. Otherwise the snow tracked in by the Jeep would stop the door from shutting all the way.
“Don’t forget your hat,” his mom said.
THE SHOVELING TOOK FOREVER. First, the snow drifted into the garage as fast as Robbie could shovel it out. Then Robby stayed outside and started shoveling down the driveway. It wouldn’t really help. His dad would use the snowblower in the morning and the extra shoveling wouldn’t give him much of an advantage, but it kept Robby out of the house and away from his mom, who would be trying to hum away all her worries. Robby could picture her in there, standing at the stove, nervously mashing potatoes, and humming a tuneless song.
His dad would be back in an hour. Robby wondered if he could stay outside that long. He had his good jacket on, but he wasn’t dressed for the wind. A black shape up the street caught his eye. The falling snow made it hard to see past the end of the driveway, but that big black mass hadn’t been there before, he was sure of that. Robby kept shoveling, but kept his eyes trained on the shape. When he flicked the shovel to throw the snow, his hood pulled to the right, blocking his vision. When his hood came back to center, the shape moved closer.
Robby backed towards the garage door. He had closed the big door, so more snow wouldn’t drift into the garage. The path to the back porch sat under a foot of powder. The black shape shifted, right before his eyes. It moved to the end of the driveway. It stood tall in front and trailed off towards the back, like a centaur. Robby backed onto the path to the back porch, slogging through the drift. The black shape—the centaur-thing—approached faster, closing the gap to Robby.
Robby dropped the shovel he had been dragging. He turned to run for the door. His feet couldn’t keep up with his momentum and he pitched forward into a drift. He flailed on hands and knees in the snow. When he stole a glance over his shoulder, the centaur-thing reached all the way to the shoveled part of the driveway. Robby flipped over on his butt, so at least he would be able to defend himself when the beast came for him.
Just before his eyes made sense of the shape before him, Robby’s brain put together the clues. His centaur-thing had to be Ms. Norton, trailing her two sons—Brandon and Jim. On that deduction, Robby pushed himself to his knees and got back to his feet. He picked up the shovel just as Ms. Norton approached.
“You’ll move a lot more snow with the shovel than with your hands, Robby,” she said.
“Yes, Ms. Norton,” Robby said.
She turned to her youngest son and said, “Jim, you help Robby clear this walk and then you both get inside.” She held a big white bakery box from the island’s grocer out in front of her, the cardboard nearly soaked through from the snow.
Ms. Norton waited for Robby to step off to the side and then she led Brandon towards the house. When Brandon passed Robby, he pushed Robby in the chest, sending him backwards into the snow. Jim grabbed the end of the shovel and hauled Robby back to his feet.
“My brother’s a dick,” Jim said.
“Yeah,” Robby said.
Jim took the shovel and started clearing the path out to the driveway while Robby brushed himself off.
“So you guys aren’t taking the ferry?” Robby asked.
“No,” Jim said. The rest of his response was carried away by a gust of wind. He repeated himself, “Early’s not there.”
“Master Johnson?” Robby asked. Technically, Early was a Master too but everyone just called him Early.
“He’s gone too,” Jim said. “Not enough people to crew the ferry. Your dad said he’s coming home presently.”
The boys finished their shoveling and then headed back inside.
THE BOYS PUSHED the coffee table out of the way and sat on the floor in the front room. They had a deck of cards and three stacks of Monopoly money. The game was Texas Hold ’Em.
In the kitchen, the adults crowded around the little kitchen table. As soon as Robby’s dad and Paulie came back, they shooed the kids away so they could talk. Even Ms. Norton, Haddie, kept her voice down as they talked. You could usually hear her three floors away. Unable to hear the conversation, Robby focused on the card game.