Dead in the Water

by Nancy Holder

  “Wow, cool!” someone piped in a shrill little voice behind her. She turned around. Phil van Buren was rising from his chair, and his wife was fishing in her Gucci bag for something.

  A small, thin boy raced past them and stopped inches from the tableau of the Morris. Nose pressed to the oversize bottle, he gestured eagerly to a man who was at that moment stepping across the threshold. His father, probably, and there was something very appealing about him. Very tall, just a little bit out of shape in white pleated pants and a light blue cotton shirt. He had straight dark hair that thinned on top, but at least he’d gotten some gray before he went bald. There was a help-me, puppy-dog air about him, and his tortoiseshell glasses added to it. Clark Kentish. The child was his miniature, with darker hair, and even more fragile. He looked seriously ill.

  “Good God,” the man said slowly, surveying the room.

  “Precisely my reaction,” Ms. van Buren-Hadley announced.

  The boy bobbed from side to side, examining the bottle picture, and flashed a bright grin at Ruth. To the man, he cried, “This is cool! How’d they do it?”

  The man turned to Ruth and shook his head bemusedly. She smiled back at him and picked up a cookie.

  “Hello,” Mr. van Buren said, holding out his hand. “I’m Phil van Buren. This is my wife, Elise.”

  Ruth waited to see if she would add the “Hadley.” She didn’t, only lowered her invisible tiara once as she pulled out a pack of cigarettes with a silver lighter stuffed into the cellophane.

  “John Fielder,” the chestnut-haired man said as he shook with Phil van Buren. “That’s my son, Matty.”

  “Da-ad.” The boy glared at him.

  The man cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon. Matt.”

  The boy—Matt—turned back to the bottle. “How’d they do this?”

  “It’s not a real bottle,” Ms. van Buren-Hadley said sharply as she put a cigarette in her mouth and flicked her lighter. She inhaled slowly, tipped back her head, and blew smoke at the ceiling. The sharp phosphorous odor, the pungent odor of tobacco, traveled on a slender thread toward Ruth.

  “Oh.” Matt was clearly disappointed. Ruth picked up another cookie and walked over to him. She held it out. He took it after checking with his father. “Thanks, ma’am.”

  She beamed. “You’re welcome.” Then she pointed at the picture. “They do make real ships in bottles. I mean, they’re models, but they go into real bottles. Have you ever seen one?”

  He shook his head and took a large bite out of the cookie. Crumbs dotted his face and she almost brushed them off. She had never had any children, though she had wanted them desperately.

  John Fielder came up beside her. She introduced herself and told him to call her Ruth.

  “Can you make those? The ships in the real bottles?” Matt asked her as he stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth. His gaze darted toward the table and the cookie trays.

  “No,” she said. “But I bet you could learn how. Maybe somebody on the ship makes them.”

  “Like Cha-cha!” the boy said eagerly. Good heavens, his wrists were like sticks. His chin must have been a couple of inches wide.

  “Somehow, I don’t think so,” his father drawled. But the child wasn’t listening.

  “He’ll show me. Cool! Can I have another cookie, Dad?”

  John laughed. “Sure.”

  “Mr. Fielder—” Ms. van Buren-Hadley began.

  “My dad’s a doctor,” Matt said. He dove into the cookie plate, gathering two, three, four large ones like a cormorant.

  “Hey, don’t be piggy,” his father admonished.

  “Dr. Fielder, then,” Ms. van Buren-Hadley amended. “Is this”—she held out her arms and pivoted in a semicircle, taking in the room—“what you expected when you paid for this cruise? I mean, really, this thing can barely float!”

  Elise van Buren-Hadley, master mariner, Ruth thought. Her husband looked pleadingly at John Fielder.

  The man shrugged. “Well, I’m not so sure about that. Not floating.”

  “Well, I don’t think I’d bring a child of mine on a boat like this.” She took a drag on her cigarette.

  “It’s probably safer than smoking around one,” he teased. Oh, bravo, Ruth thought. Good for you.

  “My dad hates smoking,” Matt whispered to Ruth, speaking through clumps of half-chewed cookie. “He says people who sell cigarettes should be shot.”

  “Does he,” Ruth replied, amused.

  “Well.” Elise van Buren-Hadley stretched her mouth into a tight, angry line. “Well.”

  Two more people appeared in the doorway: the sexy first officer, Mr. Diaz, and a short woman, an Italian, with a soft, round face, a rather hooked nose, and a black perm Ruth thought was a year or two out-of-date. Her sunglasses were pushed on top of her head and her big brown eyes were heavily made-up. She wore a revealing sundress that showed off a marvelous tan and a hint of cleavage.

  With a hoot, the woman stopped in her tracks and cried, “Holy shit! What the hell is that?” To Mr. Diaz’s obvious discomfort, she burst into laughter and pointed to the bottle picture. Then she caught herself and said, “Oh, Ramón, you didn’t make that, did you?”

  Then she saw Matt and murmured, “Oops.” Matt giggled and glanced up at his father, who was trying not to smile as well. Mr. van Buren looked startled, and Ms. van Buren-Hadley inhaled long and hard, her eyes glittering with dislike.

  “You must be the other passengers,” the woman said, flouncing into the room. New dress, and she felt good in it. Women could always tell about other women and their fashion habits.

  Elise van Buren-Hadley’s eyes narrowed, snakelike. Hiding a smile, Ruth started pouring the newcomer a cup of tea.

  Mr. Diaz cleared his throat. “The guy who made that is dead,” he said. “He was the captain’s son.”

  “Double oops,” the woman said, not very contritely.

  “So you can see,” the man went on, as a smile stretched across his handsome Latin face, “why we’re stuck with it.”

  He winked at Ruth and left the room.

  “I wonder if his son decorated this room, too,” the woman said, surveying it. She shuddered theatrically, opened her mouth to say something to the van Burens, and swung her head toward Dr. Fielder.

  “Donna Almond,” she said. “Hi.”

  Introductions were made all around. She took the tea from Ruth with a cheery thank you and made herself at home on a green sofa, crossing her legs high on the thigh. She looked around again and laughed.

  “I wonder if the captain’s son was shot for all this.”

  “No, baby.” A rear door to the left-hand side of the long table cracked open and what looked to Ruth like an aged street person hung around the edge. The smell of baking wafted out with him. It was the cook.

  “No, baby, he wasn’t shot, he was drowned,” the man told Donna Almond. “I was there. I seen it happen. Bad trip, way down. Worst trip for a human being. Worst trip there is.”

  Something happened to the woman’s face and she set her tea down on the coffee table.

  “Hi, Cha-cha!” Matt chirped.

  “Love, brother. Peace. Cake’s gonna be psychedelically dee-lish.” The shabby man flashed a peace sign and disappeared around the door.

  There was a pause. Elise van Buren-Hadley tamped out her cigarette.

  “I’m going to see the captain,” she said, and rose. Her husband followed her out. Everyone watched them go.

  “Lovely woman,” John Fielder said ironically.

  “Yeah, she’s pretty good-looking,” Matt concurred, and the three adults chuckled. Ruth carried her tea to a chair at right angles with the sofa and sat carefully. Old bones, old lower back problem.

  “It’s a little less than I expected, too,” she said.

  “Mmm.” Donna made a face. “This tea tastes like dishwashing liquid.”

  “I can’t wait to try the cake.” John Fielder joined them, stretching his long legs under the coffee table.
Matt dribbled cookie crumbs in a trail as he walked back to the bottle picture.

  “Me, either,” he said.

  “Well, it’s just us, now,” Ruth said, and a strange feeling ghosted through her, a sense that she had just said something very true. Just the four of them—the doctor, his son, the girl, and she herself—the ship’s fools.

  Beyond the door, the loading continued. Ramón Diaz had explained that the crane jennies were controlled by computer; the operator was there mostly to make sure nothing happened. He told her this as if naturally she was apprehensive about it; and naturally, he, the dashing maritime officer, could put her fears to rest.

  Now, as the cars were bolted onto the runway of the deck, and she sat with her new shipmates, she was surprised to realize she was apprehensive. Not much, maybe just a jot to the right of uneasy. Her fingertips tingled and she jerked like a puppet when something slammed onto the deck and something else creaked. Anticipation, she told herself. Waiting for whatever lay ahead in Hawaii.

  But there was something else. Something that was creeping up the fear barometer, past uneasy, raising the hairs on her neck. Could this be a psychic experience, a real one at long last?

  Listening to her heartbeat, Ruth searched the room for a clue to what had caused this sudden, intense feeling. Scrutinized the people—the man, the woman, the child. No, no bogeymen here. As for the room itself, it was a cross between a fifties’ theme restaurant and a garage sale. And that ship in the bottle—

  That bottle—

  As she looked at it, a tight, clutching sensation worked at her throat. It didn’t make sense that as she sat there in an open room, with open windows and open doors, she should feel so claustrophobic. But that was exactly what the sensation was.

  Her breathing was shallow, her hands numb and cold. She gazed at the bottle since it had seemed to trigger her reaction. It was truly ugly, but not bad enough to give anybody the jig-jags. And those fish, weeping as they swam toward it, glassy eyeballs grouted onto rotted bodies, a most unhappy group.

  A chill at the base of her spine indented her skin. She rose away from the back of her chair, her heart lurching thickly. The air in the room seemed muddy, as if something rippled through it. Ruth shook her head, squinted hard to see if she could detect anything. No one else seemed to notice. Matt had gotten up for more cookies. Donna held her teacup close to her face and frowned at it. The young doctor was doing something to his watch, raising it to his ear.

  Thunder shuddered the floor; another container had been deposited onto the deck.

  “Ms. Hamilton?” Donna said. Ruth blinked. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Ruth murmured, and took a gulp from her cup. She felt woozy, out of kilter. Maybe she needed to lie down.

  A momentary flash of another, larger bottle swallowing up the real Morris shot through her mind. They were imprisoned inside, blithely drinking dishwater, totally unaware …

  She took a deep breath. The image vanished. Swallowing, she let the soapy tea dribble down her throat.

  And thought of her husband.

  And wished—oh, how she wished!—that he were there.

  2

  The Rime

  April 7, 1797,

  in the shipping lanes of the Owhyhee route

  A shroud lay in a launch; blood—both caked and fresh—splattered on the canvas that whipped with the wind and the waves. Sodden and weighted from the hail of rain, the slaps of whitewater, green. Like echoes in a tube, thunder and curses hounded the bier as it clung to the tops of the ocean mountains, hovering there, poised for the deluge, the capsize.

  Within the shroud, Thomas Reade, captain of the Royal Grace, thrashed with fury. His blood-soaked hands clenched into claws that kneaded the canvas, searching for the seams. Blackness, blackness and the filthy wet of an old, worn sheet. His nails ripped from their roots as he struggled to find the opening, frenzied, raging, shouting. The very raindrops sizzled with his rage, and he cursed his treacherous shipmates and promised them:

  I’ll not die, you weaklings, you fish! I’ll have you for my belly timber. I’ll have you for slaves.

  You think you’ve murdered me. But I’ve prayed, prayed to the sea, and she’ll not desert me. I’ve sacrificed to her—given her our little brother, our best—ah, me boyo!

  And she loves me.

  Ay, and she’ll save me.

  And I’ll be back, a thousand times a thousand, to pay you back for this. For them that sails the seas, I’ll come. And they’ll wish they’d never even thought of living, because I’ll drag them down to the bottom of the sea.

  I’ll drag them down, this I swear.

  A thousand times a thousand.

  Six hundred miles from the Owhyee Islands, on the rough Pacific sea.

  3

  The Sea

  According

  to Cha-cha

  “ ‘Alone, alone, all, all alone,

  Alone on a wide, wide sea!’ ”

  John Fielder leaned over the taffrail with his arms spread, the rosy wind blowing his hair. Droplets of water clung to his glasses. Donna didn’t know what the hell he was reciting, but the Morris was alone, alone-alone-alone, a lot, lot alone, on the water. It was almost sundown, and there was just the ocean, the boat, and the darkening sky. Nothing else, for miles and miles and miles. It was very unnerving.

  John turned around and smiled at Donna, Ruth, and Ramon. “That’s from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ ”

  “Cheerful,” Donna drawled. Her sundress whipped around her thighs and she smoothed it down; noticed that he noticed, didn’t mind.

  He looked at her. “Do you know it?”

  She shook her head, a bit embarrassed. He was a doctor, for God’s sake, probably went to school until he was thirty, and her claim to higher education was a couple of business classes (typing and dictation) at Mesa Junior College. She still couldn’t type; she’d been in a panic then, completely freaked out and unable to learn anything. Well, it had been a shock, sailing into the Country Cafe, their restaurant, for the twelve thousandth time, only to discover that her mother was putting it up for sale and moving to Albuquerque to be with Aunt Leslie. Yeah, Mom, and thanks a shitpile; I stick around and sling hash for you while the boys go off to have lives, and now I’m thirty and you’re splitting on me?

  Didn’t even give her part of the proceeds. Loaded up a U-Haul, gave her a kiss, and now she sent Christmas cards and cheap turquoise jewelry. Typing courses, fuck.

  Thank God for the silver-haired police officer—Marcellis, still walked a beat in El Cajon—who suggested the police academy. Well, they sure as hell didn’t teach poetry there. If the Rhyme of the Whatever even was a poem.

  “It’s great,” John said, and Donna realized she’d been drifting out to sea again. Ha ha. “It’s about a man on a sailing ship who shoots an albatross. He’s doomed to sail with a ghost crew and—”

  “Oh,” she cut in, brightening, “I do know it. He’s the Flying Dutchman, right?”

  He paused and cocked his head, as if he were running through the rest of the story. Finally he smiled. “Why yes, I guess it is. I guess it’s the same thing.”

  Triumphant, she gave her shoulders a modest shrug. Not so ignorant after all.

  Below them, the Morris’s propeller geysered up balloons of water, great packets of bubbles that burst apart and sprayed their faces. Gray octopus shapes pulsed below the surface, surprises the sea was keeping to itself.

  “It’s his crew that dies,” Ruth supplied. “The Ancient Mariner is the captain. And there’s a Spirit that propels his ship toward a ghost ship.”

  Donna shifted. “A spirit like a ghost?”

  John nodded. “Yes.”

  “Or a force of nature. Some kind of motivation,” Ruth cut in.

  John’s brows rose above his glasses frames. “I never thought of it that way. But you’re right. It could be simply a force. But didn’t the ship come to him? It found him? And there was a beautiful woman aboard. Death i
n Life? Life in Death? She was the thing that cursed him.”

  “Behind every great man,” Donna said, and drew a chuckle from John. She warmed a bit, though she was growing uneasier by the moment as the sun sank down, down, down toward the rabbit hole of water, water everywhere. The vastness made her feel insignificant.

  And a bit helpless. If there was one thing in the world she hated more than feeling uneducated, it was feeling helpless. Helpless got you squat.

  “And his crew is filled with dead men?” Ramón asked.

  “Yes, he’s the only living person,” Ruth replied. “And he has such a terrible thirst; it’s all he can think of, and—”

  Donna lost track of the conversation as she focused on the drowning sun. Ghost ships, and ghosts. Kids’ stories.

  And ghosts. Before she realized it she was thinking about the little boy. Death spasms, right in front of her. Her stupid ankle. Hell.

  She shook herself and flashed a fake, generalized smile at the others. People who dealt in violence—and death was the ultimate violence—had to learn how to compartmentalize their minds. It had been nearly two years since her first corpse, an old man who died of a heart attack, and she still hadn’t developed the knack. Glenn had quizzed her about her choice of a freighter to Hawaii, if it was too soon to go back into the water, so to speak. Maybe she’d figured she had something to prove. Or to get over. She told him it was none of his business what she did.

  “Yes, it is,” he’d answered breathlessly. “It most certainly is.”

  “And there’s the symbolism of the woman of course,” John was saying.

  Ah, the symbolism of the woman. There always was one, wasn’t there? The woman behind the man, push-push, pull-pull; and so he runs off, leaves his old lady to mind things—Country Cafes, for instance—doesn’t come back. What the Marines needed was a newer, younger wife. So Dad took off way before Mom did. Waited until the kids were grown up, at least. Almost grown up, anyway: Baby Donna had been fifteen. That was pretty good of him, ha.