Lucy: Daughters of the Sea #3 (5 page)

Lucy’s eyes began to close. Her kin were not mythical. Somewhere, they really did exist and they had begat Lucy. Was this the edge she was approaching, a precipice over which she might peek and discover who she was and from where she had come? Discover her kind?

Lucy sat bolt upright in her bunk. How could she have fallen asleep? Peering through the porthole, she could see two stars. Thank heaven it was still night. There was still time to go up on deck. She could hear the soft snores of her parents in the adjoining cabin suite. The ship was moving smoothly now. There was very little rocking motion. The wind must have died down. She put on her warmest coat, added a thick shawl, and slipped out of the cabin.

As she stepped on deck, she knew she had stepped up to the brink, the elusive edge of another world. Wrapped in the light breeze, the scent of the sea, she gasped as she saw the wobbling reflection of the moon on the water. Tears started to stream down her face. She wondered why she was crying. She had never been happier and yet the world suddenly felt fragile to her, as fragile as that quivering reflection.

G
AR
P
LUM LEANED
against the rail of the circular walkway on the outside of the lighthouse that he tended. The signature of the light was two one-second flashes every ten seconds. It was in this ten-second interval of darkness that he could catch a glimpse of her, his daughter May, her tail lifting like a waterborne comet from sea to sky. What he had known yet denied for years, from the time he had first fetched her from that sea chest floating offshore, had been confirmed nine months earlier, in September, when he first caught sight of her swimming straight out to sea on a blustery night. It had taken him that long to accept the inevitable — that his May, his dear May, belonged to the sea. They were as close as any father and natural-born daughter could be. And yet he could not bring himself to confess that he knew her secret. He had rehearsed it in his mind so many times, but it always came out wrong, as if he were forgiving her for being what she was. There was no need for forgiveness. He often wondered what would have happened if he had not found her. Would she have died? Had he really rescued her? Or had he committed her to a life of suffering shut up in this lighthouse?

“Crossing over” — that was how he had thought of May’s transformation. She hadn’t always been this way, or rather, she had not always known that other secret part of her self. He was pretty sure it had happened a year or more ago. The previous spring when the last nor’easter blew through. She’d kept it a secret, though, even from Hugh, her beau from Cambridge — a Harvard man. He wondered if Hugh would be back this summer.

There!
He saw it. The dazzling tail lifting from a swirl of phosphorescence. She was a quarter mile out. The light’s sweeping flash blurred the colors that were more beautiful than any rainbow.
Where did she go?
he wondered. What would he do if he lost her? Would she someday swim away forever?

May could hear the thumping reverberations of the
Elizabeth M. Prouty
coming through the passage between Egg Rock and Bar Harbor.
No more acrobatics,
she thought to herself. She didn’t want to attract the attention of any crewmembers on deck or the pilot who stood on the prow. She was about to dive straight to the bottom, but then the void that so often pressed against her left side began to quiver, then pulsate with a stronger beat. Once there had been two such voids pressing against her, but the one on her right side had disappeared after she found her sister, Hannah Albury, at the end of the previous summer. She and Hannah had discovered each other while swimming right in the center, the windless eye, of the hurricane. May had felt that pulsing in the void just moments before they had caught sight of each other. Soon after meeting, May and Hannah became convinced that there was a third sister. Could she be coming now? May could hardly contain her excitement as her flukes twitched with anticipation.

May felt the flutter in her stomach harden into concern. What if she was rich and snooty? What would she think of a sister who lived in a lighthouse? Who owned only three dresses that had been patched and repatched so often that her summer one made her look like a walking quilt? At least Hannah, who served in a rich family’s house, had some sense of the finer things — like finger bowls and harp music. But May knew none of this. She had grown up in almost perfect isolation on this small island, only venturing into town to attend school or visit the library.

May knew it was wrong of her to assume that all rich people were snooty. Hannah said that little Ettie Hawley was the sweetest person ever. But it was one thing to be friendly with your employer’s young daughter. It was quite another to build a relationship with the sister you’ve never met — who might not even know that she
had
sisters.

She was very close. May sensed it. Perhaps she was on the deck of the
Prouty
. May dove and swam deep beneath the keel stream of the steamer. She could not tear herself away. She knew the girl was on that ship and she had to follow it.

She’d experienced a similar sensation when she and Hannah had made the long swim to the shipwreck of the
Resolute
and found where their parents had died. It was as if they had been pulled toward the long-lost shadows of kin. One did not need a compass; one was just inexorably drawn. May had begun to call these instincts the Laws of Salt. They were not mere passing urges but something more primal, and they told May that one who had crossed over could not approach one who had not.

May and Hannah were mer. The salt flowed through their veins, but if this sister had not yet completed the transformation, she had to be allowed to find her own way to the sea.

May left the keel stream and began to swim quietly next to the
Prouty
, just inches beneath the surface of the water, disturbing it no more than a small school of fish. She moved alongside for several minutes, then swam aft and followed in the white curl of the wake, rolling over onto her back so she could try to spot her on deck.

When nothing was revealed aft, she swam toward the prow. It took no effort at all for her to keep up with the steamer. Just as May rolled onto her back again, she glimpsed her. It was her hair really that caught her eye. It swirled around her head like a pale fire in the night.

The Laws of Salt did not, however, prevent May from telling Hannah. She couldn’t wait. She hoped Hannah came swimming tonight instead of spending the evening with that painter. He was so — She broke off the thought. She had no right to think such things. And it was not that she thought ill of the painter Stannish Wheeler. Not really. There was just something about him that she found slightly — what was the word she was looking for? —
disquieting
.

“W
ATCH THE TREE ROOTS
.
They bump up and we wouldn’t want you to trip, Reverend and Mrs. Snow. Elmer, you and Petey go easy with that trunk. It ain’t a cah of bugs.”

“Ayuh, don’t worry none, Elva.”

“Bugs?” Lucy asked as they followed Elva Perry through the woodland path.

“Ha! Forgot myself, de-ah. Bugs is just a local name for lobstah.”

Does no one ever pronounce the letter
r
in New England?
Lucy thought. But she had never been happier. The woodland path had begun to thread its way through the pines and spruce closer to the sea. She could hear the crush of the waves. Scraps of fog hung in the branches like vaporous scarves of chiffon.

“She be comin’ in thick as mud, ain’t she?” Elmer called back. “Won’t be able to see the cove by the time we get to the cottage.”

But I can smell it
, Lucy thought.
I can feel it.
There was a tang in the air as the salt mingled with the piney scent of the woods.

Lucy glanced at Marjorie. She could see her bottom lip quivering. “It’s all right, Mother. It’s all so lovely after the city and the smell of fumes and all.”

“But so rustic and rather remote.”

“Remote?”

“How long have we been walking?”

“Not five minutes, Mother. Even less from the churchyard to here. It’s so beautiful. I can’t wait to do some watercolor and ink drawings of all this.”

“You paint, de-ah?” Elva Perry asked.

“A bit.” In truth Lucy had thought a lot about painting the sea ever since she had seen the exhibit at the natural history museum. She marveled at the colors the museum scene painters had come up with, and was anxious to see how the sea might be colored by the sky, the light of sun on water. If the day was cloudy, would the sea turn gray?

“Oh, she’s quite accomplished, our Lucy,” the Reverend Snow said, smiling.

“You know, we got one of the country’s greatest painters who comes here most every summer,” Elva said.

“Who might that be?” Marjorie Snow asked.

“Stannish Whitman Wheeler.”

“Stannish Whitman Wheeler!” the two elder Snows exclaimed.

“I can’t believe it!” Marjorie gasped.

“Oh, yes. He comes to paint all the rich people’s portraits — Astors, Rockefellers, Bellamys, Benedicts, Hawleys. You name it.”

“He painted Bishop Vanderwaker,” Marjorie said.

“Indeed he did!” Elva said. “Loveliest man who ever walked the earth.” She then inhaled sharply. “Oh, de-ah! What a thing for me to say. Guess he isn’t doing much walking now that he lost that leg.”

“Yes, so sad,” Marjorie chirped. Although these were kind words, the alacrity of her response undercut any true compassion. “Now, tell me, Mrs. Perry, how far to the Quoddy Tennis and Bathing Club that we passed?”

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“Don’t worry, Mother,” Lucy said as Marjorie grimaced. “Nothing can be so far. We’re on an island. And they said there is a buckboard and one of the church deacon’s servants will drive us anywhere we want to go.”

“Yes, that’s nice.” Marjorie was silent for a few seconds. “I — I —” she stammered.

“What, Mother?”

Marjorie dropped her voice a bit. “I just wonder if we mightn’t have done better to take rooms at that hotel, the St. Sauveur, we passed on the main avenue? They say a very smart set goes there.”

“My dear,” the reverend interrupted. “Firstly, they do not call the streets here avenues, they are just streets or roads. And secondly, it is customary for the minister of a church to live in the rectory, not a hotel.” Just as he spoke the word
hotel
, a stone cottage appeared behind a scrim of blue spruce trees. Its foundation was buried in thickets of ferns, and ivy scrambled up its granite walls. The shutters were painted a dark bluish green to match the spruce.

“Now come round for the real view,” Elva Perry said. “Won’t have you going in through the kitchen door.”

As they rounded the house, the damp east wind smacked them in the face. “Look to the north quick before it gets swallowed by the fog. That be Mount Abenaki — said to be the first place that the sun strikes on the continent!”

Lucy stood on the porch of the little stone house. She heard her father say, “How fascinating.” It was the same empty tone he used when he baptized a rather unattractive baby and said “how handsome” for boys or “how engaging” for girls.

“I guess you’d say I’m a bit
pahshul
myself. Me being part Indian, you know.”

“Excuse me?” Marjorie nearly yelped.

“Ayuh — most of us round here have a bit of Indian blood — Scots and Irish, ’course them folk come down from Nova Scotia, but Indian Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, or Abenaki, most of us have a bit of that.” Elva wove her long hands through the tendrils of fog swirling about them. “We mix it all up here.”

Lucy saw her mother blanch, becoming as white as the fog. Elva continued, “Over at the Mount Desert Canoe Club, they always got a few Indians to show summer folk how to paddle a canoe.”

The luminous seascape with the Inuit skimming across the water flashed through Lucy’s mind’s eye. “Oh, Mother, I’d much rather take canoe lessons than tennis lessons.”

“Absolutely not!” Then under her breath, Lucy heard her mother mutter something about how Indians certainly would not be teaching tennis.

Elva Perry took out a key, unlatched the door, and held it wide open so Elmer and Petey could carry in the trunk.

“We’ll get the rest of the baggage in a jiff,” Elmer said as the Reverend Snow and his wife followed them in. However, Lucy lingered on the porch and looked out toward the sea.

“You still out here, hey? Can’t see much now with the fog rolling in,” Elmer said.

“Where are we on the island exactly?”

“This here is round the bend from where the
Prouty
came in. You’re on a southwest corner. Just above Otter Creek.”

“Do people go swimming out there?” She nodded toward the ocean. Although it was cloaked in thick fog, she could hear the waves.

Petey laughed. “You mean out there in the ocean?”

“Yes, where else?”

“Water’s awfully cold, and there are some wicked big currents. Not really safe. Kids swim off the town wharf all the time, and it’s nice going swimming in the ponds, but no. No one goes swimming out there.”

But Lucy was sure they were wrong. When she had come on deck on the
Prouty
, she had felt a presence in the water just before dawn, so close by it was as if she could have leaned over the rail and touched it. Someone had been swimming just beneath the surface, and at one point, she thought she caught a shimmering form, but then it had vanished, leaving Lucy with an emptiness that ached deep within her.

“Lucy! Where are you?” her father called out.

“I’m coming!” She walked through the door. It was a charming parlor. Elva Perry was explaining the intricacies of the wood-burning stove that heated the downstairs. “And I got some chowdah heating up on the cookstove. You only need this heat stove when it’s foggy like this morning. Takes the damp out of things, but you can shut it down if the sun comes out. Easy as pie really, but I’ll be coming down every day and can help you out.” Then she tapped her head as if to remind herself of something. “Oh, yes. There’s the rat poisoning up there on the top shelf in the kitchen.”

“Rats! There are rats?” Marjorie Snow’s eyes seemed to bulge out from their sockets.

“No, de-ah. Not bad as that. But red squirrels sometimes get into the walls from the outside. If you hear any scurrying around, just tell me. No need to fool with it yourself. I felt it was safest to put it on that high shelf. I wasn’t sure if you had youngsters who might get into it. Best it be out of reach.”

“That was very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Perry,” the Reverend Snow said.

“Yes, well, one can’t be too careful. If you need anything, just holler. No telephones down here. Very few on the island to tell you the truth. Just in the grand cottages.”

“Hardly a grand cottage here,” Marjorie said through clenched teeth. “No electricity. No phone. And the threat of invading squirrels. All quite rustic.”

“Oh, that’s the way Bishop Vanderwaker wanted it. He loved this place, so when the Peabodys offered to install modern conveniences, he said no, absolutely not! He always quoted Matthew, chapter nineteen.”

“Ah!” the Reverend Snow exclaimed softly. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

“Yes, sir. He is a plain man. We miss him.”

“I can assure you we need no embellishments. This cottage is perfect the way it is. We are honored to be here and will try and follow in the distinguished steps of our esteemed predecessor, Bishop Vanderwaker.”

Lucy could tell her father was set on delivering a sermon, so she was thankful for the arrival of Elmer and Petey with the last of the trunks.

“Now there’s a real steep path,” Elmer said as he put down the trunk. “It winds down from the cottage here to the sea. But it’s slippery and dangerous and not much of a beach. If it’s a beach you want, go down to the Quoddy Tennis and Bathing Club. That’s the best place.”

“Oh, yes. That’s what we’ll do,” Marjorie said enthusiastically. “I bought Lucy a very fine bathing costume.”

It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. Lucy shuddered as she thought about the horrible mustard-colored yellow canvas skirt, which hung just below her knees and under which she was to wear thick black stockings.

“You know,” Elva said. “A lot of the women are wearing the new style with bloomers under the skirts, or just plain trousers with a blouse.”

Marjorie squared her shoulders. “Mrs. Simpson, our seamstress, assured me that the canvas or wool dress style was most appropriate.”

“Yes, they still wear them, too. But hardly anyone gets into the seawater. Wicked cold, you know. They go in the club pool. Oh my goodness, time’s gotten away from me. I’m due at the Hawleys.”

“The Hawleys!” Marjorie exclaimed. “The Boston Hawleys?”

“Only ones I know. They be coming in next week, and I always go and help with the airing out of Gladrock.”

“Gladrock?”

“Their cottage. Probably the prettiest on all of Mount Desert. Which reminds me.” Elva Perry wheeled about and looked straight at Lucy. “They got a maid over there and if she ain’t the spittin’ image of you, de-ah! Same red hair, perhaps a shade or two darker. You could be sisters.”

Marjorie gave a shrill little laugh. A muscle near her left eye flinched. It was an odd little tic that afflicted her occasionally.

“Really?” Lucy said. “Well, I hope I have occasion to meet her sometime.”

“She’s a serving girl, dear,” Marjorie said. Her pulpy face settled into an expression of mild consternation. Lucy had seen that expression before, but as she looked at her mother and then slid her eyes toward her father, she was suddenly struck by the gulf between her parents and herself. Had she really never noticed this before? It was as if coming to this place, this edge by the sea, had revealed that of which she had only the dimmest intimations previously. It should have been a frightening thought. But, to her surprise, more than anxiety she felt an intense, almost joyful anticipation.