May

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Her pulse quickened at the thought of him coming to see her.

  “Good-bye, then,” he said, and smiled.

  But as she walked away, she felt her stomach sink. Hugh would figure out a way to continue his research without going to all the trouble to sail to Egg Rock. He’d never come. He was just being polite. By tomorrow, he’d have forgotten all about her.

  11

  BELONGING

  MAY COULD HEAR THE MUSIC from outside the Odd Fellows Hall. She hesitated and stood in the shadows of the big elm by the building. She could see the swirl of dancing figures inside through the tall windows. She had never been to a dance before, but she so wanted to be a part of something. She wanted to come home and have Zeeba see her cheeks pink from dancing. And for her father to say, “Who’d you dance with?”

  I need to do this! she told herself firmly. I need to be a normal girl, doing normal things.

  She walked quickly toward the front steps of the hall and pushed the door open. A twirling dancer brushed by her. Then Rudd appeared in front of her.

  “I thought you weren’t coming. Dance is half over. Where you been?” She recoiled at the slightly accusatory note in his voice. “Thought I was going to have to go out and hunt you down!” He laughed, and there again was the hard fierce light in his eyes that had unnerved May the first time they’d met. He must have sensed her discomfort, for immediately his eyes softened. He smiled, and a quick dimple appeared that she had never noticed before. In a flash, he seemed boyish and charming. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  May smiled and forced the lingering thoughts of Hugh Fitzsimmons from her mind. Rudd was the handsomest young man in the hall. She should feel flattered by his attention.

  “I’m not sure if I know how to dance,” May replied. Zeeba had certainly never taught her.

  “Yes, you do. It’s easy. They’re going to do a reel. Get into the line with the other girls and I’ll be just across from you in the men’s line.”

  “Hey, Rudd, I thought you were across from me! Aren’t we partners for the Island Reel?” Susie Eaton said as Rudd slipped between Ralph Emery and Robert Cram.

  “Rob’s your partner this time round. May’s mine,” he answered.

  May felt herself blush. The two short little words — May’s mine—cut into her. What was it about the way Rudd Sawyer talked? It was as if there was a light and dark side to everything he said, a rough and a smooth. Another girl might be pleased as punch at the way he seemed to take an interest. And part of her was, too. She had to admit it. But at the same time there was a slight sense of danger. Still, danger was a welcome relief from the stultifying predictability of life in the lighthouse.

  The fiddles struck up the tune and the dance began.

  “Keep your eyes on me and you’ll know just what to do, darlin’!”

  Darlin’! No one had ever called May darlin’ in her life. Dear or de-ah was the favored term of endearment of downeasters. But darlin’ was a far cry from dear. It was something that younger men often called their sweethearts. May was hardly his sweetheart—yet. Nevertheless she felt a shiver of excitement.

  She had scanned the room just before the music started. There were many familiar faces, schoolmates who were known sweethearts. They would get married very quickly upon high school graduation. Her eyes settled on Doug Hardy and his wife, Evie, who were sitting at the edge of the room. Her belly was sticking out to kingdom come with their seventh child. He was holding her hand. They had their heads tipped toward each other and were smiling and talking intimately. She was too pregnant to dance and he was too thoughtful to go out on the floor and leave her. But their enjoyment of a night out was obvious. They were having their own little dance in their own little world.

  If May had an island sweetheart she could have that, too. She could get married out of high school. Have children. Not seven, but, say, two or three. That seemed enviable, but could it turn into the world of Gar and Zeeba? She looked up at Rudd. He was very handsome. He was a good fisherman. He didn’t drink like a lot of them—at least as far as she knew. If he kept fishing he could have a little house in town like the other successful fishermen. She could be a fisherman’s wife. That was as respectable as one could get on the coast, next to being a captain’s wife. One thing for certain was that they would never move inland. Rudd would be as bound to the sea as she was. She looked over again at Evie and Doug Hardy. But could there ever be that ease, the trust between them, that seemed to radiate from this couple?

  Rudd called her darlin’ one more time. “See, darlin’, you know how to dance,” he said as they twirled around each other in the reel.

  “Hush!” May felt herself turn scarlet. They stepped up to each other, then circled as the two lines of dancers began to weave together.

  While the whirling dancers slid by her in what seemed an unending reel, she studied the rest of the people in the hall. The older folk sat on the sidelines in straight chairs, enjoying the music and the sight of the young people dancing. Many of them tapped their feet in time to the music, most likely remembering when they were young. Perhaps they had found their mates at a dance like this.

  May had never waltzed before, but the three-quarter rhythm seemed made for her. She felt cradled by the music and yes, she had to admit, cradled by Rudd’s arm around her waist. He was looking steadily down at her and the hard, bright glint in his eyes had melted away completely. She had always thought his eyes were a dark brown, nearly black, but now she was not so sure. They seemed lighter—not brown, more amber.

  “You’re a born dancer, May Plum.”

  She smiled. He pressed his hand into the small of her back and guided her around the dance floor as if he were sailing a skiff in a light breeze. She felt her skirt billow out. She felt happy and light and beautiful.

  “You two look mighty smart together dancing,” Phineas Heanssler said as he swept by with Susie Eaton.

  “She’s got a good helm on her, Phin!” Rudd said, and they all laughed, even May. Phineas Heanssler was the son of Raymond Heanssler, the best shipbuilder in Maine, and some said on the entire east coast. And there were those who said that the son Phineas was going to surpass him. To build a ship with a good helm took skill. It meant that the ship was balanced and didn’t drag up to windward in a stiff breeze. Yes, May liked that Rudd had said she had a good helm.

  Still, she couldn’t quite banish Hugh from her thoughts. She wondered what he made of the Maury book. He was certainly familiar with it. But she shouldn’t let herself think of him. He would never come to the island, and once the rich summer people arrived, he would be going to all their fancy parties and not dances at the Odd Fellows Hall. It would be champagne and debutantes from New York and Boston in elegant gowns. May had heard about these parties. She wondered if Hugh would be as shocked to discover those young ladies reading Maury’s book as he had been when he’d found her.

  She turned her thoughts back to the passages she had read earlier that evening, and the sense that she knew things about the sea he did not. How had it come to her? Because there was a part of her that belonged to the sea. Yes, that’s it! she thought.

  The press of people in the hall was almost too much. There was a sudden nearly stifling warmth. She tried to imagine Gar and Zeeba here over twenty years ago, dancing. Impossible! But Gar had said he had come to dances.

  Suddenly all the faces seemed oddly strange to May. She felt a gulf opening up between herself and all the people at this dance. I don’t belong here. She knew as surely as she had ever known anything that she was different, and she shuddered at the thought.

  By the time they reached Rudd’s skiff at the town dock, the fresh air had calmed May’s nerves. “Sea Pup?” she said as she stepped aboard.

  “Yeah, well, makes sense. The mother ship, Gus’s, is Sea Hound,” Rudd replied.

  “Oh, yes, I forgot,” she said quickly.

  They had danced every dance until the band stopped playing. Now Rudd was sailing
her back to Egg Rock. It was a lovely night. The moon was not quite full and slightly lopsided, with a hump swelling from one side that cast a silver path leading directly to Egg Rock.

  “Nice night for a sail,” Rudd said. “You going to be warm enough? You want to wear my coat?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’ve got this shawl, and I don’t often get cold.”

  Rudd said something under his breath that she could not quite understand, but it made her slightly nervous.

  The wind was a favorable one, and they were soon skimming over the water. She peered out across the gleaming black expanse of Frenchman’s Bay. The water was slightly wrinkled from the breeze, and the reflections of stars danced a skittish jig on the surface. She dipped her hand over the side.

  “Whatcha doing, May?”

  “Catching a star,” she said, peering into the water.

  “Me, too!” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. It was so quick she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened until a second or two later.

  “You kissed me!” It didn’t feel bad, but May was not one for surprises. At least not this kind. It felt just a little bit as if he had sneaked up on her. Would Doug Hardy sneak up on Evie that way?

  “I sure did. Want another one?”

  She didn’t say anything but pulled her shawl tighter around her and smiled into the thick wool. Zeeba was wrong. She wasn’t unnatural. That kiss proved that she could be like the girls she saw at the dance. Didn’t it?

  Almost at the same moment she felt a presence surrounding the skiff, then something broke through the water. “Dolphins!” she cried. Two swam right up to the side of the skiff.

  “Well, would ya look at that!” Rudd said. “I’ve never seen them do that—never so close! They’ll come up to bigger boats to play off their bow waves. But Sea Pup isn’t making much of a wave or a wake.”

  May’s heart was racing. She turned around and kneeled so she could look at them eye to eye while resting her chin on the gunwales of the skiff. She put out her hand and stroked the head of the one closest to her. The dolphin rolled slightly to one side. Its dark eye had a joyous gleam. “You like that, don’t you, de-ah,” she whispered.

  “May, what the devil you doing?” Rudd’s voice was tense. She ignored him. “May?”

  She felt the skiff head off course, but the dolphins followed.

  Rudd headed a bit more off the wind. May heard a snap in the canvas. “Rudd, you’re going to jibe this pup if you don’t watch it.”

  “But, May, what are you doing?”

  “I’m patting a dolphin,” she said simply.

  “It ain’t normal.” His hand jittered a bit on the tiller.

  “Maybe I’m not normal,” May whispered to the dolphin.

  “What did you say?” Rudd asked.

  May sighed. “Nothing.”

  He was silent for a while, then he leaned over and touched the locket that hung from her neck.

  “Whatcha keep in that?” he asked.

  She pulled back. “That’s my business.”

  “Maybe someday it’ll be mine. I got a picture of me you could put in it.”

  May didn’t answer.

  They were nearing the dock of Egg Rock. She gave the dolphins each one last pat. She spoke no words, for just her touch seemed to convey her meaning. Again, soon!

  May was about to step onto the dock when Rudd yanked her down onto the seat of the boat and pulled her toward his chest. He kissed her hard on the mouth. It wasn’t a nice kiss, but wet and sloppy. He crushed her against him, but she pushed back and he almost fell overboard. She reached for her bag with the chimney and the book and jumped straight onto the dock, leaving the skiff rocking.

  “What’s wrong with you, girl?” Rudd spat. “I mean, you almost miss a dance to read in the library and then pass up a chance to kiss me?”

  “I’ve got a good helm, remember?”

  In that instant the dreams she had toyed with at the dance, of a life of sweet intimacy with a fisherman husband and their children, dissolved like shreds of fog in a brightening day. It suddenly seemed every bit as stifling as living in the lighthouse, swapping one kind of imprisonment for another. She had played with the idea as a child might play with a new doll for a while, and then seeing in those eyes a terrible emptiness, tossed the doll aside.

  12

  FIRST SELF

  MAY COULD NOT SLEEP. Why had Rudd said that she wasn’t normal when she had reached over the side of the skiff to stroke the dolphin? She thought of those nice women. Of Evie Hardy, expecting her seventh child. Of Susie Eaton. And then she remembered how hard it struck her that she might be different—not just being from far away but separate from the placid life of the village women. “It ain’t normal!” Rudd’s words reverberated in her ears. She knew she had to go upstairs and take the Saint Anthony key and open the small door, then lift the lid on that chestful of darkness. She had to understand what made her different.

  Her hands were trembling as she unlocked the small door in the watch room. The lantern cast some light, but it did not quite reach into the closet, and the sea chest was steeped in shadows. She lifted the lid, and before she could even touch the blanket, that scent from the heart of the sea rolled out, engulfing her. She closed her eyes for a moment and then bent over the edge of the chest. Something sparkled in the frayed threads of the old blanket. It was not the glimmer of her hair. What in the world?

  Scattered into the weave of the blanket and on the bottom of the chest were tiny oval crystals, almost teardrop in shape. They shimmered with a pale iridescence that seemed to glow more intensely with the passing seconds. She picked one up on the tip of her finger and looked at it. A rush of joy surged through her. This, too, is part of me!

  In that moment she knew she would never be sitting with her hands folded placidly over a belly with child, a woman married to a fisherman, anchored in a town on an island. She knew she was from very far away. She opened her locket and put several of the small ovals into it. Then once again she took a pin from her hair and picked out the red filament of her baby hair and added it to the locket. As soon as she closed the locket’s clasp, the most amazing calm crept through her.

  Rudd’s angry words faded away, replaced by another sound—the crash of waves. Except it wasn’t coming from outside the lighthouse. It seemed to flow from the locket. The sea was calling.

  She experienced a feeling of illumination, as if she had absorbed the iridescence of those teardrop-shaped crystals she had tucked in the locket. A glow had been kindled deep within her. She rose up and carefully closed the lid of the chest. And as if in a waking sleep, she locked the door of the small closet, replaced the key behind the carved figure of Saint Anthony, and began to walk down the stairs. She could hear her father’s snoring as she slipped out the front door, and quiet as a ghost, made her way past Bells Two, as they called this cow, the daughter of the original Bells. The cow might have blinked as she saw a radiant wake stream out behind May like a jeweled mist. May, the girl who milked her every morning! But cows do not wonder, and the beast remained dumb and moo-less.

  May made her way to the cliffs. They were not high cliffs, but she knew that beneath them the water was deep. She dropped her shawl, removed the calico jacket, stepped out of her skirt, and stood in her blouse and muslin petticoat. She took off her shoes and stockings. There was a chill in the air, but she didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. As she stood with her toes curled over the very edge of the cliff, she looked down into the swirling waters below. She was suspended between the two oceans, the invisible one of air and the visible one of water.

  She took a deep breath, her last for now from that invisible world, and touched the locket at her throat. If she had any doubts or fears, they vanished at that instant. A world awaited her and she belonged to it. She dove, and for a second or maybe two, she was suspended.

  There seemed to be no impact. She sliced through the water neatly, cradled by the swirling currents. Streams of bubbles flowed about her
, and she spread out her hands toward them. I am catching stars. She laughed and was startled to see that two large bubbles streamed from her mouth, yet she seemed to be breathing fine. She was not aware of swallowing any water at all. She drew her arms back toward her body and was surprised by how strongly she thrust forward in the water. I CAN SWIM! I CAN SWIM! I AM SWIMMING!

  The ocean eddying through her mind was no longer a dream. It was real. She had crossed a border from one world into another. The colorful underwater tapestry was even more brilliant than she had imagined. The seaweed, which at low tide lay on the rocks in ugly tangled clumps that some called witch’s hair, streamed like banners of amber lightning through the deep water. Moonlight and star shine fell into the depths, trimming the liquid night with a filigree of trembling lace.

  Her bursts of speed amazed her. She soon was aware that all this speed was not coming from her arms but … her legs? She gave a powerful kick and found herself racing to the surface, breaking through it into a high arcing leap. The moon and the stars that had quivered in the sea now seemed rock solid and anchored to the sky. Good lord, am I flying to heaven? A slight tingling radiated just beneath her skin, and she was struck by the sense that her legs were no longer legs but had become a tail—glistening and beautiful.

  When she plunged back into the water she rolled onto her back and lifted her tail above the water’s surface, looking at it with amazement. She touched the locket around her neck; the iridescent sparkles that gilded her tail were identical to the flattened crystal ovals she had picked from the frayed blanket. She had lost her legs, and yet she had become whole.

  A moment later the two dolphins she had seen with Rudd swam up to her. They greeted her in a watery language that had no words, but that May understood immediately. It was as if she had discovered a different order of thinking, a new kind of cognition. She heard more clearly, felt every feathery current of the sea, and now seemed to be able to communicate without words. She swam far out with the dolphins, beyond The Bones to the rocks that were marked on the charts as Simon’s Ledge. They were several miles offshore, but May and the dolphins had reached their destination in a short time. And when they arrived, she knew almost instantly why the dolphins had brought her to these ledges. This was where she had left the sea, from the time she was an infant. This was where Edgar Plum had found her, in that sea chest. She looked at the two dolphins and stroked their heads.