Shining Sea Page 2

  And she did, she packed every page, filled each one with that new cramped writing.

  But she only wrote one line. Wrote it over and over again.

  I am waiting.

  She traced each word multiple times, so that every letter became darkly impressed upon the page. The words look etched, carved almost. In places, her pen actually pierced the paper.

  I remember thinking how strange it was, the way she hunched over that notebook after she got back. She wouldn’t tell me what she was writing, just laughed when I asked. She wrote feverishly, usually in the afternoon, and then at night? She went out. Snuck out. She was almost eighteen, but still. I threatened to tell Mom and Dad. She said if I did, she’d never speak to me again.

  It was only a few days later, a few short days after she returned from Maine, that Lilah—

  Stepping away from the railing, I begin to hum under my breath. The wind gusts, and my hair flies up around my face. I pace the ridged metal deck, circling around the tower, trying to distract myself by considering the choice of activities on “the Hook.” That’s what locals call this long, rocky spit of land. It feels more like an island—the ocean’s everywhere. At the end of every street, the view out every window.

  A few short days after she returned from Maine. That’s when it happened. She went out on that boat—it could just as easily have been me. The water—it could have been me. Sucked beneath the sea.

  Wishing my fearful imaginings were as easily changed as a radio station, I start to sing now.

  I’ve worked hard at this “game,” playing it when I need to, ever since I—ever since Lilah nearly drowned—

  Hands trembling violently, I move back to the railing. Hold it tightly.

  Aquaphobia. That’s what Mom says I have, but Dr. Harrison says there’s nothing abnormal about my fear. He says it’s a reaction. A result of . . . Lilah’s traumatic experience. That it’ll fade over time. But did Dr. Harrison figure this into the mix? Living in a lighthouse—is it supposed to help?

  I lift the binoculars back to my eyes—but look away from the water.

  Comprised of the lighthouse, the keeper’s house, and one small outbuilding, the light station is about twenty minutes south of the harbor—the center of life here on Rock Hook Peninsula. The compound sits at the edge of a parcel of land designated to become a park, and next July, Rock Hook National Seashore will officially open to the general public. Tourists will invade the beach, trample the woods, and leave litter in their wake, ruining the wild beauty that stretches away to the south. And yes, it is beautiful. Even with the water all around. For now, it’s untouched, a wilderness. Breathing in the fine rain and salty mist, I scan the dunes and bluffs leading from the beach up to the woods.

  The forest is sparse where it starts, then the hilly terrain becomes dense with undergrowth and trees. As the incline steepens, the land begins to show again, becoming mostly barren. Sheer granite rock faces stretch up, up, up—until finally, with rugged shrubs and tall trees clinging to the top, the park’s most dramatic feature emerges, thrusting itself from the earth and jutting into the sky: Rock Hook Cliff.

  The huge ridge goes on and on, dipping and climbing out of sight, leading eventually to the end of the peninsula. It looks like the end of the world.

  Sunlight streams through a break in the clouds. I notice my arms are tiring from holding up the binoculars. I’ve gotten out of shape in the last year—I need serious exercise. Hiking might work, although I’ll probably be wiped by the time I finish taking a walk in these woods. My gaze sweeps the miles of primeval forest, made up largely of pine and birch trees. I’ll be totally fried before I even set foot on the hills that lead up to the craggy cliff.

  Squinting, I manage to pick out what looks like a trail, then follow it with the binoculars until it vanishes into the green growth. Cloud-dappled sunlight hits the next beach over. Half-hidden by high dunes, the white strip of sand appears similar to the long, curving cove the lighthouse overlooks, but there’s been so much fog and rain since we arrived—sea, sky, and sand blending, horizon invisible—I haven’t had a chance to study the land below in such detail before.

  Between the two beaches there’s a big jetty, similar to the seawall in front of the lighthouse. I imagine a giant tossing the black boulders . . .

  I adjust the binoculars. Now I can make out part of a shingled house, weathered to the soft shade of driftwood. I can’t see more. The tall sand dunes below the bluffs loom over the empty beach, blocking the rest.

  A flash of movement catches my eye. A figure, coming from behind one of the bluffs near the house that’s stayed stubbornly just out of view. A boy. A man? Whatever, some guy, maybe a little older than me.

  Tall, he carries a surfboard under one arm, heading toward the water with long strides. The way he walks, the way he holds himself is so . . . different. He moves in a way that’s flowing, almost . . . liquid. His shoulder-length hair is an unusual shade of gold, the color of late-day sun striking the sand. The wind whips the strands around his face where they shimmer.

  He’s wearing nothing but a pair of black board shorts.

  What is he, crazy? The water must be freezing.

  The clouds change direction, swallowing the sun, turning the afternoon a deeper shade of gray. The ocean darkens in response, reflecting the steel sky, whitecaps standing out in sharp relief. Today’s low temperature has to be a record for the last day of August, even in Maine.

  Closing one eye, I focus on the boy’s face. His jaw is set. Determined. He must be insane and—even at this distance—easily the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.

  A weird ache settles in my chest as I stare through the binoculars, watching the surfer catch wave after wave, riding each one to its curling end, before turning and paddling back out to catch the next. He surfs with uncanny intuition, like he’s one of the waves.

  Finally, he rides the board into impossibly shallow water, and, perfectly poised, casually steps off. In one quick crouching movement he scoops the surfboard under his arm. Then he straightens and looks up. He looks up, at me.

  Goosebumps race along my arms and I drop the binoculars—they smack me in the stomach like a fist, the edge of the plastic cord slicing at the skin on the back of my neck. Grabbing them up again, I bring them to my eyes—

  He’s still staring up at me, head slightly tilted to one side now, as if he’s listening to something.

  Maybe he’s not a boy.

  Lilah’s voice in my head: her seventeen-going-on-twenty-five voice from before the accident. I shiver. Lilah. She’d always been right about everything.

  Oh God, Ari. You’re so easy. What else could he be? Trust me, once you know one . . .

  And then I hear something else, something like . . . music. Flutes, or pipes, or chanting voices—I can’t tell. The distant music tugs at me somehow . . .

  Still, I keep the binoculars trained on the boy. Maybe he isn’t looking at me—he can’t possibly see me from there. Maybe he’s staring at the sky, or a bird, anything besides me. Feeling like a complete idiot, I slowly raise my arm—and wave anyway.

  Continuing to look up, he gives a brief nod.

  I freeze at the railing.

  The wind begins to howl, and again, I hear the far-off music. Together the two create a primitive, atonal composition, music that the boy seems to move to as he pivots with aqueous grace—

  And glides out of my line of vision, disappearing behind the dunes.

  MISSING

  Red cowboy boots clanging on the iron stairs of the tower, I descend around and down. At the bottom I pull open the heavy arched door that leads into the vestibule house, an upturned rectangle of granite blocks nearly four stories high that forms the base of Rock Hook Lighthouse and surrounds the cylindrical tower. The stone building juts out in front where it faces the sea. I trace my fingertips along the damp walls of the vaulted hallway, my footsteps echoing eerily. Who was that boy?

  Lifting and lowering my arms, I imagine my
shadow play isn’t created by the dim light of bulbs caged in wire but from flickering Gothic torches . . .

  Opening the thick wooden door to the outside—I stare in surprise. The drizzle has turned to a deluge.

  Through the sheets of rain and the tops of the gnarled pines that surround it, I can just make out the roofline of the keeper’s cottage nestled partway down the bluff.

  When I’d first seen the tiny cottage I knew life there would be way too crowded. Mom heard the measurements of the rooms and groaned, and even to me, with my five-foot-four bird-boned build, the house felt claustrophobic.

  The first time I climbed the lighthouse and stepped out onto the deck, my feelings had been just the opposite. I’d felt as if I were inside my own spacious—and private—cloud.

  That’s when I got the brilliant idea that my bedroom should be in the lighthouse. Not actually in the lighthouse; technically the room I chose is in the vestibule house, at the top of the great granite rectangle. But since the spiral stairway inside the lighthouse tower is the only way to get there, it feels as if my bedroom is in the lighthouse.

  I consider turning around and climbing the winding stairs—only partway this time—and going to my room. Instead I hurry through the pouring rain along the path and down the cement steps, using my hands as an ineffectual shield against the water.

  A light glows yellow in the picture window of the keeper’s cottage and, as usual, the door is unlocked. I step into the little foyer, then down the narrow hall to the tiny living room. Empty. Hmm. Dad’s usually here at dinnertime, but he isn’t in the miniature kitchen either.

  The restored wood-shingled cape with its low ceilings and small doorways sits crooked on the uneven granite-topped bluffs, and as the ocean crashes against the seawall out beyond the white curve of Crescent Beach and thunder shudders across the sky, I have to remind myself that the cottage has been here since the late 1700s. It isn’t about to wash away.

  Still, I jump when the phone rings.

  “Hello?” Dial tone. Yet somehow the ringing continues. No cell towers on Rock Hook, so I rule that out; besides, my cell is up in my room, probably dead at the bottom of my backpack.

  The front door opens with a whoosh—

  Dripping wet, Dad rushes across the room to grab a receiver buried in a nest of tangled USB cords, wires, and hard drives on his desk—the Coast Guard radio. He flips a switch, and static fills the room along with an unfamiliar voice.

  “George? Is that you?”

  “Skip here,” Dad corrects. Dad’s nickname suits him better than “George” or “Dad,” but “Captain Rush” fits him best. Even now, the look he casts toward the window and the sea beyond is one of longing.

  “Right. Skip. It’s Wagner. Henry Wagner, Coast Guard.”

  “Hank! I wasn’t expecting to hear this contraption ring. Great to hear your voice.”

  No surprise that Dad knows the man on the other end of the line; he grew up in this place and still has lots of friends here: fishermen, lobstermen, people who work at the marine labs. When the light station became available just as my parents were desperate for a fresh start, I took it as some sort of sign. I realize now that Dad’s boating buddies must have rigged things for us. Maybe he’d been talking to them about his troubles with Mom.

  The radio buzzes.

  “Hank?” The interference grows louder, and Mr. Wagner’s voice becomes unintelligible. “Hank, what can I do for you? Besides get a new radio installed out here.”

  Dad had slipped easily into his role of lighthouse keeper. He knows all about weather, wind, and water—although it probably wouldn’t matter if he didn’t. All of the lighthouses in the United States are automated now. The only real responsibility we have is to contact the Coast Guard if we see a boat in distress.

  Mr. Wagner’s voice suddenly comes through clear again, sounding tense. “I’m not sure if there’s anything anyone can do, especially with this unexpected weather. We’re looking for a boat up from Portland. One of our boys picked up an SOS signal not too long ago. Thinks the Portland boat sent it from your neck of the woods.”

  “Thinks they sent it?” Dad grimaces. “Didn’t the vessel identify itself?”

  “The signal was garbled. I’m betting the boat doesn’t have the best equipment. It’s a rental, small fishing boat, out of Bay Place. You know how they are.”

  “Sloppy.”

  “Yup. They’ve got two other boats out in this soup, both on their way in, but the Lucky is unaccounted for. She was up around the end of the peninsula when she signaled.”

  “Damn. Then what? She disappeared off your screen?”

  “Right. And there’s another problem. You remember our old friends at Bay Place? True to form, the paperwork is slipshod too.”

  “Nothing new. What are you saying, Hank?”

  “Well, we’re not sure who’s on that boat. Bay Place said they rented it to a teenager. Didn’t look like a fisherman. When the boat left the dock, three more boys were aboard.”

  Dad winces. He peers at the sky through the rain-streaked window. “Looks like it’s clearing here, but this one’s tricky. May be a two-faced storm. What’s your radar say?”

  “I’ve got the same. Clearing for now. Looks like we’re in for more later.”

  “What do you think? Meet in twenty?”

  “Skip, that’s not necessary—”

  “Yeah, well, if that boat’s up around the tip—” Dad’s voice falters, and I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking: teenagers. He’s thinking: Lilah.

  “Hang on, Hank.” Dad turns to me. “Ari?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

  “Arion’s been here all afternoon, Hank. She hasn’t seen anything.”

  “No, I thought that would be the case. They were closer to the—”

  “Right, to the end of the peninsula. Be there shortly.” The crepitating static of the radio dies abruptly as Dad sets the receiver down with a crack. He tries to smile. Fails. “You heard, Water Dog.”

  I cringe at the old nickname.

  “Gotta go.” He hesitates. “There’s leftovers in the fridge.”

  “Okay. Be—” My throat feels thick. “Be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, I will be.” He heads into the kitchen, emerging a few minutes later with a cooler and a first-aid kit. “There’s chocolate in the breadbox,” he says. Then he’s gone.

  Chocolate. The two of us joke that it’s the most important of the food groups. We even used to talk about getting a chocolate Lab. “A puppy to match your hair,” he used to tease. “But who’ll walk it up the hills? You don’t need a water dog, Arion—you are a water dog.”

  And I was. Mom and Dad couldn’t keep me off his boats, or away from the local pool or beach when school was out. When I turned twelve, there were scuba lessons, and in seventh grade, junior surf team. I swore that someday I’d surf under the Golden Gate Bridge, even though the waves are notoriously dangerous, but after Lilah’s accident, I vowed never to surf again. I won’t swim or sail—won’t set foot on Dad’s boats; my heart pounds just thinking about it. He can’t even get me to go for a beach walk.

  Anxiety crawls in the pit of my stomach where dinner should be. Maybe music will help.

  I head outside and up to my room, about as far away from the water as I can get.

  But once I’m in the tower, I pass the door to the bedroom almost unaware, continuing up the spiral stairs as if pulled, stopping in the watch room only long enough to grab the binoculars from the floor.

  Clouds race on the wind through the deep-purple dusk as I step out onto the gallery deck, feeling disoriented—and strangely expectant. Gripping the binoculars, I search the rough sea for a lone boat . . .

  Like this afternoon, I can’t seem to stop looking, and soon it grows dark, the night sky becoming a starless black field.

  Glittering lights spark in the water of the neighboring cove—as if that’s where the stars are tonight—until the tops of the breakers fl
icker and glow.

  Bioluminescence. Must be. Caused by fish, squid, or krill.

  But the brilliant gold—that isn’t any kind of sea life.

  It tops a shadowy boy, surfing shadowy waves.

  MIRROR

  On the first day of school I walk into homeroom chanting a silent mantra—this is not my real life, this is not my real life—just in case Rock Hook Harbor High sucks.

  The first person I notice is a boy at the back of the room. Not only is he sitting alone while most of the students mill around in small groups or pairs, he’s somehow solitary. Sitting back in his chair with his head lowered, shaggy black hair nearly covering his eyes—which are focused on the small paperback book in his hands—he looks like he’s trying to hide. He also looks . . . familiar. I’m not sure if this is the reason I can’t tear my gaze from his face. It’s bruised along one side, and sculpted, almost delicate, although the strong-looking shoulders and muscled arms beneath his white T-shirt are not. His eyelashes are so long they cast shadows on his cheekbones, and below the hollow of his cheeks a hint of darkness runs along his jaw, setting off the full bow of his mouth, a curved crescent lifting a little at the corners now—

  Our eyes meet—sadness, loneliness. Like looking in a mirror.

  The impression is unnerving, then suddenly gone, as if a sheer curtain has dropped, so that I find myself staring into startlingly light-gray eyes, their only expression one of amusement. The slight curve of the boy’s lips grows into a grin.

  Hurriedly making my way to an empty chair, I sit down, shaken and embarrassed.

  “Jeez,” someone behind me snickers. “Just ask for her number.”

  Glancing over my shoulder I watch a girl with long dark hair slide behind the boy. Her coloring—fair skin, blue eyes—and something about the way she moves remind me of Lilah.

  His grin gone now, the boy pulls his chair in, making room for her to pass. But even with the extra space, she manages to bump up against him as she heads toward the next chair over in order to retrieve a purse that’s nearly large enough to be mistaken for a slumping student.