I was at home.
I stood on my own front step, staring at the front door my mother liked to paint a new color every spring. I reached for the knob and yelped when it turned on its own.
Daddy stared at me, uncomfortable in a suit. His face looked like putty, the color off and the shape of it just a little wrong. Lips parting, he smoothed a hand over his head. Then, without softness, he demanded, “What happened to you?”
My body wouldn’t let me admit any of it. Losing the Jenn-a-Lo felt just as imaginary as the Grey Man.
Since I didn’t answer, Daddy rolled his eyes at me and went back inside. He called to my mother, “She’s back!”
I was. I was home. And I had a court date.
FIFTEEN
Grey
She thinks I’m a monster.
It was evident in her eyes and her accusations. Though I have my own motives, I can’t think of a thing I’ve done to deserve that kind of reception. I’ve been kind; I’ve been gentlemanly. I’ve told her the truth all along—most of it, enough of it.
It makes me wonder what kind of world really runs on the other side of the sea. There have always been passions and madness. Murders and cruelty and all manner of evil in the world. I’m not so naive; I was a fool for Susannah, but not unworldly. Things were no better when I walked free; I could argue they were worse.
But Willa thinks I’m a monster. As if I would take advantage of her in all her helplessness. As if I could be so ungallant—I’m not made that way. I’ll tell her what I want from her, very clearly.
I’ve promised not to lie, because she shouldn’t swallow everything with bitterness when she takes this post. A thousand years or a thousand souls, it’s an eternity to suffer alone with your regrets.
I wonder if I shouldn’t have collected her last night. Given up on the possibility that she would take my place here. I can’t seduce her. I can’t sweeten her with words. My music boxes frighten her.
I frighten her.
It must have been so much easier for Susannah. She tilted her pretty eyes, and I fell. I imagined I loved her before a single word passed between us. She was nothing more than a figure on a cliff. Her mystery lit my blood; all the rest I’d invented. I’d done all the work. By the time I found my way to her shore, she but had to wait for me to say the words. I volunteered them! Of course I would die for her. Kill and steal and lie for her.
How easily I gave up my heart, my freedom. My flesh.
Willa won’t be so easily persuaded. I worry she won’t be persuaded at all. Other sins can be rectified; if I had been short with her, or angry, or inconstant. Those could have been cured with apologies. But fear is base. Innate. It’s impossible to convince people they aren’t afraid.
But—and isn’t there always a but—she’s the one who thought of me. Who came to me. Who broke through the barriers and landed on my island. She’s the one. She has to be the one. I know that she’s wounded, but this morning above all proved she will not surrender.
Wonders and magic don’t entice her. The eerie beauty I wear on account of this curse does nothing to delight her. I can’t beat against her; she is no shore to be softened by persistence. Tricks will buy me nothing with her. I think, to win her and my freedom, that I have just one course.
I’ll have to understand her.
SIXTEEN
Willa
My mother sat in the front seat, pressing her temple against the window. Her voice was glass, thrown at me. “You feel like telling us what happened to your face?”
“There was a storm,” I started. They had to know there was a storm. Daddy would have been at the shore at daybreak. He knew the Jenn-a-Lo was gone. He probably knew I was the one who lost her. I was sick in my soul with it. Like if somebody cut me open, I’d be nothing but green bile inside.
“There’s a news flash.” Ma had a gift for sarcasm when it suited her.
Making a hard left, Daddy grunted. “Leave it be.”
“I didn’t know there would be swells like that.”
Mom turned around. A faintly orange mask of makeup obscured her real features. Granny’s pearls hung from her ears, matched by the rope of them around her neck. She was a Kabuki dancer, painted to play her part. Mother of the defendant. The wine-dark lipstick made her look old and angry. “All night on the water with Seth?”
Recoiling at the sound of his name, I stared at her. “I told you we broke up.”
Her teeth were white, too white. Like bone, behind that lipstick. They chopped and snapped, making a sharp breath whistle. “Seth did that?”
“No!” She wasn’t listening. She wasn’t even trying to listen. She just wanted me to fill in the script she already wrote. “We’ve been broken up. I hit the windscreen, Ma. I was on the boat when it . . .”
“Knock it off, both of ya,” Daddy said.
With a huff, my mother turned on him. “I don’t think I will, Bill. Look at her! Going to court looking like a prizefighter. And God knows, last time she went running around all night long . . .”
“I sailed to Jackson’s Rock,” I shouted. I raised my voice to blot hers out. It was about as elegant as clapping my hands over my ears and singing, la la la, I can’t hear you. The long drive to the courthouse in Machias was bad enough.
A death watch, counting down minutes until everything was over. I wanted to explode, or to die. Something—some kind of penance for ruining everything. For Levi and for sinking the Jenn-a-Lo and for pitting my parents against each other.
Another snort punctuated the air. Daddy flicked his pale eyes to peer at me in the rearview mirror. “I told you to stay off the boat.”
“I know.” I dug my fingers into the rubbery seat, straining against my seat belt. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry . . .”
Then he laughed. It was hollow and terrible. He wheezed when he drew the next breath, and whistled it out with laughter. Sweeping away tears, he drove with one hand, faster on the highway than Mom liked. I was baffled. I guess I could have been offended. Or hurt. Or angry, but he was laughing, and I was too confused to feel anything else.
Not so my mom. She pursed her lips and dropped back against the seat furiously. “I’m glad you’re having a good time.”
“You and me both.” Daddy said. “You shoulda seen the look on Eldrich’s face. Like somebody slapped a herring. Can’t say I blame him. His Boondocks was standing ass over end, leaning against the bait shack. Half the fleet’s upside down. Then, then . . .”
He burst out laughing again. The car veered a little, and I wondered if this was what a real nervous breakdown looked like. If all the breaking I’d been doing was just a tantrum. Daddy’s face was scarlet, and he kept coughing between his giggles. Mom took the wheel, steering us back into our lane.
“There’s the Jenn-a-Lo!” Daddy shouted, then hiccupped. “Floating all alone in the harbor. Bell missing but pretty as the day I bought her. I look at Eldrich. He goggles back at me. Then he says, ‘Guess it’s your year.’”
Daddy was the only one who found it funny. He dissolved into more laughter. And that turned into a coughing fit. It had been a long time since he coughed like that, wet and sticky. Since he quit smoking last time, as a matter of fact. It rumbled and bubbled in his chest, and made me want to cry.