May: Daughters of the Sea #2 (17 page)

“Would you really like that? Would your parents let you go?”

“Oh, yes.” May shrugged. “My father has to take Zeeba to get new teeth down to Ellsworth.”

“Zeeba? Zeeba’s your mother, right?”

May was about to say no, she wasn’t, but caught
herself. It would only bring her dangerously close again to a subject she was determined to avoid. “Yes, yes, she is,” she replied firmly.

“Why do you call her Zeeba and not Mother?”

“Just do.” She gave another shrug.

“Well, to get the best view of the stars we’d have to leave in the early evening and start to climb. It’s not a hard climb. Nice path all the way, just some time involved.”

They planned to go the following week, on the Tuesday that Gar was to take Hepzibah to Ellsworth.

Within that same week at least four other people came up to May and told her about the new serving girl over at Gladrock who was her spitting image. May could not help but wonder about this girl now. She was fearful. They might look alike but were they alike? Was the other girl less than human, too? And then again May wondered anxiously that if Hugh met the other girl he might like her better. What would it mean for May? She need not ask the question—the answer was all too clear.
It would mean I am truly a freak—a freak who is completely alone in this world.

It was this anxiety that drove May to make a decision. She simply had to see this Hannah for herself. Perhaps a glimpse would be enough to know if in fact she had kin in this world. She would not, however, go right up to her. She would devise a way to see her but not be seen.

“W
HOOO — EEE! IT’S COLD THIS MORNING!”
the little girl shrieked as she waded into the water. “Oh, I forgot my swimming booties. Oh, well. Now, you count to three, Hannah, and then I’ll plunge in.”

May stood behind the thick fringe of the spruce trees that edged the cove of Gladrock. What struck her about the girl called Hannah, who was evidently taking care of the Hawleys’ young child, was the fierce yearning she contained. It was something about the way Hannah stood at the very edge of the beach and seemed to strain forward as she looked out of the cove toward the open sea. May recognized the posture. It was exactly the way she had stood perched on the east side of Egg Rock,
looking out to sea, ever since she could remember. There was an almost palpable longing, a longing that May had felt herself before she had crossed that border from one world into the other. A deep thrill coursed through her. She wanted to run toward the beach and embrace the girl, and yet instinctively she knew that she must not reveal herself. Although this girl was undoubtedly her sister, May knew she must avoid her until she, too, had crossed over. May thought of the words from the Bible, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die.”

This was not Hannah’s season, at least not yet. But how long would May have to wait?

May retreated into the deeper shadows of the woods. She would be patient.

A quarter of an hour later May was getting into the skiff at the dock when Rudd came up to her.
Oh, no,
she thought. If she had only been a little quicker, she would have been in the water already.

“Want me to cast you off?” he asked, taking the painter, which had been looped around the post, in his hand. May had the uneasy feeling that he had been watching her, waiting for this moment.

“Thank you, that would be nice,” May answered, as politely as possible.

He undid the loop but kept it in his hand and crouched down.

“Well, are you or aren’t you going to let me go?” she asked.

Rudd smiled and squinted one eye as if he were thinking about it. He wrapped a length of rope around his hand and pulled the skiff closer to the dock.
This is his game,
May thought.
He likes being in control.
But she vowed she would stay cool.

“Still mad at me?” he asked.

“I suppose so, until you apologize for your behavior.”

“Behavior!” He pulled his head back and turned down the corners of his mouth in an expression of mock surprise. “Haven’t had anybody talk about my behavior since I was in kindergarten. You think I’m a bad boy?”

“I think you’re a rude man,” May said. “Now, please let go of the rope.”

He stood up and lazily twirled the painter in his hand. “Still seeing that Harvard boy?”

“It’s not your business,” May replied evenly, though she was almost gritting her teeth.

“Well, maybe only a strange fellow from away would fancy your kind.”

My kind?
May felt something jerk inside her.

Rudd simply threw the rope he was holding into the water, not bothering to coil it and drop it neatly onto the bow. May would have to walk forward and retrieve it, an awkward task when she was the only person on the boat, but she was trembling.
My kind? What does he mean? What does he know?

“Hey, May,” he called out. “They say there’s a scullery girl up at Gladrock that’s your spitting image but prettier. Think I’ll ask her to the next dance.”

May felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She couldn’t catch her breath. It was not anger that flooded through her, but fear. Fear for the girl
named Hannah. Fear for herself, for May realized that with Rudd, one was either predator or prey. Both she and Hannah would be vulnerable to the lurking brutality she had glimpsed in that vacant space behind his eyes.

T
HE TRAIL UP
M
OUNT
A
BENAKI
was a steep one. The trees had begun to thin out as May and Hugh neared the summit, and the air cooled as the sun slipped swiftly toward the horizon.

“My goodness, May, every time I look back you’re right on my heels. You don’t tire, do you? You’re not even panting! I’ve never met such a girl.”

May felt the blood drain from her face.

“May, something wrong? You suddenly look awfully pale.”

This was her chance to redeem herself. To hike like a normal girl. “Perhaps I took that last uphill a bit fast. I’ll sit for a second.”

“It’s just a few more minutes to the peak. No need to rush.”

She had actually been holding herself back so she would not pass Hugh on the mountain trail. Perhaps it was her swimming, but she realized that she rarely ran out of breath hiking or when she was underwater. She could swim for extended periods of time without surfacing. She even had more endurance than the two dolphins who sought her out to play.

She and Hugh had been hiking for almost two hours up Mount Abenaki. The stars were just rising, and silvery moths fluttered through the night. She had packed a picnic for when they got there.

“A moonlight picnic,” Hugh had exclaimed. “Except no moonlight tonight. That’s why it will be so spectacular for star watching.”

They spread the cloth on a mossy rock ledge, and May began to unpack the deviled eggs and the sandwiches. There were also berries, cookies, and a jug of lemonade.

“Oh, dear!” May said. “Most of the berries fell out of the container and got squashed.”

Hugh came over and looked into the basket. He picked up one raspberry. “Well, we’ll just have to
share what’s left!” He put the berry between his lips and leaned toward May. She giggled and then pressed her mouth against his.

“Ummm!” Hugh sighed, then pulled himself back. “I think we’ll have to try that again. I don’t mean to suggest that you’re greedy, May Plum, but you got the lion’s share of that one. Let’s be a little more fair next time.”

“Halfsies?” she replied.

“Yes, that will take a lot of precision work dividing a raspberry exactly in half. Much practice needed.”

He reached into the basket and retrieved another berry.

Thirty minutes later May peered into Hugh’s berry-stained face. “We haven’t eaten the deviled eggs yet.”

“Who needs deviled eggs when there’s May with raspberry sauce? You should see your face.”

“You should see yours!” May replied. “Aren’t we supposed to be watching the stars?”

He brought his face close to hers and looked into her eyes. “Yes. When you tip your head up I can see them reflected in your eyes.”

“No, you can’t!” May laughed.

“Yes, I can.” He pressed himself closer to her. “I can see Vega and Altair and I can almost see …” He pulled back. May was somewhat relieved. She wanted him close, so close, but she was never sure when to stop. And did she really want him to stop? She broke from his embrace and quickly walked a few paces away. He came up behind her. “Are you cold?”

She was about to say she seldom got cold, but in fact she realized that she was a bit. The air felt colder to her than the water. “A little.”

“Here, take my jacket.” He wrapped it around her.

“I have to get back soon to tend the light. I mean, the clockworks are wound, but I set the light on a bit early, before it was dark, when we left. We really aren’t supposed to burn the lamp during the day. Too much kerosene, you know. The lighthouse service makes us keep an exact accounting. I’ll just have to say I spilled some by accident.” She was not sure why she was rattling on so.

“Look up there! Now. Come on over to where I set the scope up. You’ll see some great beauties.” She looked straight up and saw the Milky Way stretched like a cobweb across the great black bowl of the sky.

“Look, there is Albireo,” Hugh said. “See that point of very white light? Now come over to the telescope and look at the same point, and you’ll see even more.”

May was getting better at looking through the scope. It was a lot easier on solid ground instead of from the boat.

“See it?” he asked.

“I see something, but it doesn’t look at all the same. It’s like two—two —”

“Exactly—two suns. A double jewel. Many times more luminous than our own sun.”

Our own sun
; the words struck her oddly. It was as if she and Hugh owned the sky. And yet it seemed if anything the reverse. The stars owned the universe. She picked out some more of the familiar summer constellations she had learned about from Hugh, then took a step back and turned toward him.

“Matthew Fontaine Maury should not have called the sky the invisible ocean.”

“What should he have called it, May?” Hugh asked. His lovely gray eyes had a deep solemnity to them.

“The silent world.” She gave a shiver and thought of the sea and the symphony of watery sounds.

“Does it disturb you?”

“If it did, I doubt there is much I could do about it.” May laughed, but her laughter sounded slightly anxious. “It’s just …” She hesitated. “I’m not sure how to explain it, and who knows—perhaps there are galaxies beyond our own. But these stars and constellations have been turning and turning in this sublime silence and yet …”

“… and yet they are indifferent.” Hugh completed her thought.

“Yes, exactly! You understand. They are hugely indifferent toward us. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? As if I am expecting attention from something a million miles away.”

“Maybe it’s why God made humans—to love in the colossal silence and star-spiked indifference of the universe.”

That word again—
human.
Would her world of the sea seem as distant and silent to Hugh as these stars turning in the invisible ocean of air and sky seemed to her? Her secret life was more unknowable than the light of the most distant stars. Would he love her if he knew who she really was?

J
ULY SLIPPED INTO
A
UGUST.
May tried to go the back way out of the village whenever possible, through the thick woods that cloaked the point where Gladrock “cottage” rose like an immense gray-shingled, turreted hulk surrounded by rolling green lawns and lavish gardens. Screened by the dense stand of spruce, May observed Hannah on the beach with the spritely Ettie Hawley. She felt compelled to keep an eye on the scullery maid.

It had become almost a vigil with May; she wanted to know—and she felt sure she would know—instantly when Hannah had crossed over. But each time she came, she could tell by Hannah’s strained posture that she was still filled with an unsatiated
yearning for the sea.
It must be torture for her,
she thought,
having to watch little Ettie Hawley frolic in the sea.
Ettie was the only family member who seemed to put so much as a toe in the water. May enjoyed watching the child, for she had a saucy charm and wit that seemed unusual for such a sheltered little girl. Most of the summer people’s children could hardly be considered children at all. They seemed more like miniature versions of their parents.

May had been in Bee’s general store one day when two sallow little creatures came in with their nanny. Bee’s had a wonderful supply of penny candy, but May herself had just bought the last few chocolate drops. The children were disappointed. So May took several from her own bag and offered them to the two youngsters. The little boy, who could not have been more than nine, looked up at her solemnly. “We cannot accept candy from natives, nor speak with them unless they are our servants.” May snatched back her hand in shock. “I’m sure you understand,” he said.

May crouched down and looked the pompous little boy straight on. “No, I don’t understand at all. But I feel very sorry for you.” Confusion swam in the child’s eyes.

But May was sure that Ettie Hawley would not be that way. She not only lacked the inhibitions of these puffed-up, overbearing little brats, but she had a kind of inner grace mixed with a gentle humor. May enjoyed observing Ettie and Hannah together, and she hated to think of herself as spying upon them. But May also had an aching empathy for Hannah’s keen yearning for the sea. There was no sign that Hannah Albury, for she had learned the girl’s last name, had crossed over.

It was indescribably frustrating to May. It preoccupied her waking hours, even when she was with Hugh. She was so close to locating the
Resolute,
but Hannah seemed farther away than ever.