May: Daughters of the Sea #2 (3 page)

Then the unthinkable occurred.

“What the devil! That drunken old fool! I knew it! I knew it!”

Hepzibah Plum stood in the doorway of the watch room. She was a tower of dark, glowering rage. She glared at her husband. Her eyes settled on the star that was sewn on the lapel of the indigo blue coat, the uniform that all keepers were required to wear. The star was awarded to keepers who had been commended for efficiency four consecutive quarterly inspections by the lighthouse service board. “They’re going to rip that star right from your jacket, Mr. Plum!”

“Mother!” was all May could say. Never in her entire life had May seen her mother in the tower. Never had she climbed the stairs. But never had her father fallen, and never had the chimney shattered and the signature of the light been scrambled.

Suddenly May felt as if her entire world was as fragile as that glass chimney, and was breaking all around her, threatening to crush her at any moment.

H
ER FATHER’S CUT WAS NOT AS BAD
as the blood indicated. But Gar had injured his hip and was in great pain. It would be days before he could walk enough to get himself down the winding stairs. “Don’t worry about me! Don’t worry about me!” he kept repeating as May bandaged his hand. “I’ll be okay. Look—the light’s still working. You’ve stopped my bleeding. We’re still a lighthouse.” He gazed around the neat, spare lantern room with its small workbench, neatly arranged tools, and gleaming wood floors that May waxed twice a month.

“We got a spare chimney you can fetch,” Gar said.

“But it’s not as good, Pa, as the one that’s broke.”

“It’ll do for now. We’ll order a new one soon as we can.”

Somehow May managed to get her father down from the circular platform to the service area. She ran back down the winding stairs to bring him blankets and pillows so he could rest more comfortably.

From the floor of the service area one could look straight up into the dome of the lantern room with its large glass storm panes and polished brass fixtures. The only decoration in the entire lantern room was a small figure of Saint Anthony, the patron saint against shipwrecks, attached to a narrow panel between two of the windows. Almost every lighthouse up and down the east coast of the United States had either a painting or a carved figure of this saint, who was also charged with a vaguer mission as the saint of “lost things.”

She noticed the figure was slightly askew on its hook.

Her father patted her hand. “Now, don’t you worry none, May. We’ll get a replacement for the chimney soon as we can get ashore. I got a spare here like I said.”

May knew this, but the spare did not draft as well; the wick in the lantern wouldn’t burn as steadily. But
her father kept trying to reassure her. “Ships can still see us, de-ah. We’re still a lighthouse and I’m the keeper. With your help we’ll do fine. Now, if you could fetch me a cup of tea, that would set well.”

Hepzibah, who had remained in the service area, or watch room, had hardly said a word since her initial outburst but merely pressed her lips together, then turned around and began to descend the stairs, accompanied by a stentorian array of groans, inhalations, and exhalations that telegraphed her fury.

For Hepzibah Plum, that consummate miser of illness with her insatiable greed for suffering, it was unimaginable that she was not the only one whose body was now failing. Her avarice for illness became so overwhelming that she headed straight for her bed like a passenger embarking on a transoceanic passage who grew seasick if she ventured on deck.

In addition to keeping up with the usual lighthouse-tending chores, May became a full-time nurse for both her parents.

The first day after the accident May thought she herself might collapse from running between two patients separated by fifty-eight feet of vertical
distance. Her mother became more demanding than ever. Illness was not something to be shared, divided. May was called to rub her mother’s poor cramping feet; fetch the endless array of powders, pills, and tonics; cook special broths for her failing stomach, her bladder complications, her heart palpitations.

“Bring me my powders, May,” Zeeba croaked from her bed.

May came in, stirring the glass with the greenish powders vigorously with a small spoon. “I’m doing it just like you like them. No bits left in the bottom.”

“Good,” Zeeba replied. May handed her the drink. While she sipped, Zeeba kept her eyes leveled on May, then handed the glass back. “You understand why you can’t go back to school when the weather breaks.”

May tried to hold the glass steady, but a rage boiled just beneath her skin.

“Well … I mean if Pa’s okay and —”

Zeeba cut her off. “Pa will be fine. But I’m declining, and I need you here. Pa can’t fix my medicines,
and soon as this storm clears out it will be allergy season. It’s always that way.”

“But that’s spring. That doesn’t come until late April or so.”

“Storms bring it on early.”

“But, Mother —”

“Don’t ‘but, Mother’ me!” Hepzibah snapped, and sank back on her pillows.

If she had felt stifled before, May was almost suffocating now. She was cut off more with each passing minute. There was no respite, no chance to escape. It was as if a noose were tightening and she was being strangled, gasping.

She began to imagine the interminable dreariness in which she was destined to grow old. She pictured an old withered version of herself—her red hair fading to gray, wrinkles scoring her face, her generous lips becoming thin and pale, clamped tight trying to hide purple toothless gums as the years slipped by and she tended not one but two invalid parents. The future loomed ahead with a relentless grimness that was crushing.

On the second night after Gar’s accident the wind gusts became so strong the lantern room in the tower actually began to sway. Beyond the rattling windows, May heard another sound.

This was not the shrieks of the wind nor the shrill cries of seagulls. This sound threaded through the crashing of waves on the rocks. It was that of a human voice crying out in the midst of the storm.

“Pa! There’s someone out there!” she gasped.

“What?” He looked bewildered. How could she hear anything through the din of the storm?

“There is someone out there!” May was amazed herself but certain that she had heard a voice crying out.

“But—but —” her father stammered. “The light’s been working.”

“Pretty good, yes. But someone is out there, Pa. He’s in trouble.”

The light had been working as best it could. The backup chimney, it turned out, was slightly chipped, causing the light to waver just a fraction because of imperfect drafting. There was a stuttering hiss she
had detected. Had that affected the beams of refracted light? She wasn’t sure. But maybe, in that sliver left dark by the stuttering, a ship … She did not complete the thought but raced over to the telescope and pressed her eye to it, then turned the eyepiece to focus. She gasped in horror. Through the wind and crashing waves she saw it—the three spindly masts of a coastal schooner slanting into the night. They were leaning almost parallel to the sea, and the hull of the ship lay on its side like a mortally wounded creature. Immense waves crashed over the rock ledges, scouring the wreck.

“Pa, there’s a ship on The Bones! It’s on The Bones!” She pressed her eye so hard against the scope’s eyepiece that she would have a half ring printed beneath it for almost a day. The sight through the lens was terrifying, and she began to relate what she saw to her father. She heard him trying to drag himself to a window, but his hip was so bad he couldn’t stand. “Stay there,” May ordered. “I’ll tell you everything. They’re launching a surfboat from the rescue station!”

A half dozen men were climbing into the craft to man the oars. It would be a race between the men in the surfboat and the fury of the sea. She saw the captain of the surfboat standing in the stern, trying to steer with a gigantic oar through the raging sea to the wrecked schooner on the ledges. It seemed to take forever.

“It must be Duncan captaining the surfboat,” her father offered.

“Well, whoever it is, he’s having a time of it getting close.”

“’Course he would. Too close he’ll get snagged in the rigging.”

Periodically May would gasp and think all was lost as the surfboat disappeared into the deep trough of a wave and then in the next instant reappear and seem to hover ten feet above the wreck.

“The bow oarsman just heaved a big grappling hook with a line attached. I think he got it hooked on the stern rail. Almost! Almost!” May was nearly jumping up and down. But then a tremendous wave cracked the schooner in half, the masts plunged
into the sea, and the ship was scrubbed off The Bones. She gasped as she saw three bodies falling into the water.

Two men stood up in the bow of the surfboat. A tiny spark of hope was kindled when she saw they stood with life rings to toss. Yes, there was a man in the water clinging to a piece of wood. They were close, but each time she felt they might grab him, a wave pushed them back. Finally, they flung a line that unfurled like scribbling in the darkness.

Just at that moment she spotted another man. He was not that far away, and yet she was not sure if the men on the surfboat saw him. May felt something rise up inside her. She turned from the telescope and ran down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” her father shouted. “May, where are you going? You can’t do nothing. The surfboat is out there! Don’t you go out there. Don’t! Don’t go near the water. May!”

But she was already out the door. She could hear the surfboat’s men yelling to the sailors and the sailors’ desperate cries lacing the night. She raced down
to the dock and clung to a piling. Suddenly the snow and rain cleared and the moon staggered out from behind oily clouds, casting a ghastly light on a scene of wild destruction. She held on to the piling and leaned out as far as she could. She had no fear of this water. She had never been afraid of this sea. Why then was her father so fearful? She’d seen something deeper than any rational fear inscribed on his face when she ran from the house. It was terror—absolute terror.

Her eyes were now fastened on the man that the crew of the surfboat did not see. Every second she stood there watching the drowning man, she felt as if the surge of the sea were rising within her, empowering her. She tried to yell over the wind, but it slammed the words back down her throat. There was a man drowning seventy-five feet from where she stood on the pier, and yet the sailors in the surfboat did not see him. Once more she began screaming. Her throat was raw. Tears streamed from her eyes. She had to force herself not to let go of the piling and dive into the sea. She knew she could swim. She’d
never done it, but she knew it just as she knew she could breathe. A startling thought seized her.
I can breathe water.

It was unimaginable that she could stand by and watch a man drown. She knew water. Somewhere deep inside of her she knew the tides, the currents, the ways of water, the sea. But the memory of Gar’s ashen face loomed in her mind, so May finally tore herself away and retreated to the lighthouse.

“May! May! You came back.” Her father seemed surprised, with disbelief in his eyes. “You’re all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. It’s the fellows out there who aren’t.”

“The schooner’s gone?”

“A wave got it; biggest wave I ever saw.”

“Lucky they didn’t get the heaving grapple hooked on it or they would have been drug right under.” He looked at her hard now. “May, you were crazy to run out there like that! Just crazy.” His chin seemed to quiver as he spoke, and his lower lip moved as if he wanted to say more.

What was it that he so feared about her going near the water? She lived on an island. They had to go back and forth all the time to the mainland in their own skiff. Her father’s crushing anxiety made no sense. She looked away, avoiding the shadow of terror that lingered in his eyes.

T
HE MEN FROM THE SURFBOAT
had brought three of the rescued sailors of the
Josiah B. Harwood
into the lighthouse. A fourth’s body had been recovered and lay on a cot, his rock-bashed head covered with a sheet.
Was that the one I could have saved?
May thought. She could not tear her eyes from the sheet. The anonymity of the lumpy form beneath it appalled her. But the bashed body marked with the violence of the sea might be even worse. She spotted fingertips peeking out from under the sheet. They were so normal looking, slender and long and with calluses from hard work. How could this little part of the dead man look so normal? What had that hand held aside from ropes and fishnets? Had it ever stroked a child’s hair or held a woman’s hand at a dance?

“The other fellow we couldn’t reach.” A voice interrupted her thoughts. “He’ll most likely fetch up tomorrow on the south side of the island,” said the skipper of the surfboat. He looked down and shook his head. “The rest went over on the far side of The Bones, and they most likely got dragged straight out to sea.”

“Where’s your pa?” A tall young man May recognized from the summer came up to her. He held his knitted watch cap in his hand in a gesture of gentlemanly politeness that seemed rather ludicrous given the situation.

“He’s up in the tower. He fell tending the lantern—hurt his hip and can’t manage stairs.”

“And your ma?” the man asked.

“She’s poorly.” And perhaps a bit too quickly, May felt the need to assure the men in the room that they need not worry, even though she was quite unsure of herself. “But I can take care of things.”

“My name’s Rudd—Rudd Sawyer. I seen you last summer some. I fish—lobster—with Cap’n Haskell, here, when he’s not fishing drowning folks out of the water.”

“I’m May—May Plum.”

“You have to take care of things here, I guess.” He looked around. She had lit several kerosene lamps, and the light glanced off his dark curly brown hair, burnishing it to a deep bronze.