I couldn’t fathom why Mother and Father hadn’t done that. Why they let the police fade away in their inquiries without so much as a mention of the “doctor.” I suppose it was the length of time. More than four years had passed between Father’s cure and Jimmy’s disappearance, and there was only my word that I’d seen the doctor on the beach that day. Maybe they thought the police would dismiss that as coincidence or the overactive imagination of a teenage girl. Or maybe Mother hadn’t wanted to admit how much of her jewelry had disappeared into the hands of a woman claiming to sell a magic compass and a binding spell.
“We’ll find him,” I said firmly. “We’ll bring Jimmy home.”
Five
Seal Beach, California
August 1923
A glint of something silver half-buried in the sand caught my eye. I reached down and plucked up a small triangle of paper.
“What have you got there?” Mother asked.
There was nothing written or drawn on the silver side. I turned the paper over and read the printing.
“It’s part of a railway ticket,” I said.
“To where?” Mother said.
The paper was torn but I could read the destination. “Chicago.”
Mother sighed. “I was hoping for a sign. I was hoping the ticket would tell us where to go next.”
“You don’t think the sea goblin would go to Chicago?”
Mother shook her head. “I suppose he could. He could take human form and ride a train, but why would he? So far all his torments for us have been ocean-based. I don’t think we’re meant to chase off across country.”
I didn’t think that, either. To be honest, it wasn’t really a thought so much as a feeling—I felt that the gremhahn was tied to the sea. Felt it so strongly that even though I wasn’t the type to go strictly on intuition, I knew we were meant to stay on the coast.
“So, today?” I said.
Mother glanced at the compass.
“Time for us to go,” she said. “We’ll fetch our bags and check out of the hotel.”
“And head where?”
“Home,” she said.
I stared at her, my eyes wide.
She shrugged. “The compass says the goblin is far from us now. It doesn’t say where he is, of course, but I feel he’s gone back where we began.”
“You feel it?” I said, skeptical, even though I’d just felt something so strongly that I believed it completely.
She half-laughed. “I know. It’s not like me to go on intuition alone. But—“ She hesitated a moment. “I trust the magic.”
There was a sentence that would have made me laugh out loud not too long ago. Now I simply nodded.
Mother ruffled my hair. “We’ll take the train. No more walking for a while. So, back to the hotel for our things.”
“And change?” I said, eyeing her trousers. Dresses and gloves were more appropriate for the train.
“And change,” Mother said.
At the Pacific Electric Railway ticket counter, Mother smiled at the counter man and clicked open her coin purse. “Two tickets to Hermosa Beach, please.”
“Are you really sure about going all the way back home?” I said quietly, doubt now dissolving my belief in Mother’s intuition. “What if we go too far and miss him?”
She took the tickets and we walked toward the platform.
“Remember, I can tell how near or far we are from him by the color of the compass face. I’ll check all the time we’re on the train. If we go too far, we’ll get off and go the other way. But the magic tells me to go home.”
The train pulled into the station and we got on board with our traveling bags. There were few people on board, and we found two seats in a section we had to ourselves. Mother and I both removed our hats and settled in for the ride.
As the train pulled out of the station, I stared out the window and sighed. I needed to believe that the goblin had shown himself to us that day on the beach. To believe he’d taken my brother. That the finder woman was looking out for us, and the seals were our friends. I needed to believe we’d get Jimmy back and would all be one family again.
When we came into Long Beach, Mother took out her compass and checked it. “Still farther on,” she said.
As the train pulled out again, I said, “Do you miss Papa?”
Her lower lip trembled a moment and she swallowed hard. “I miss the man I married. I miss the man who fathered you and James, giving me the greatest gifts of my life.”
I heard the “but” coming.
“I don’t,” she said, “miss the creature who hit me and left us.”
She took my hand gently in her own. “Do you miss him?”
I nodded. “I do. Not every day anymore, but often. I missed him long before he left us.”
Mother nodded. She knew what I meant—that after Father recovered from the flu, he was never really the same, a difference that grew and grew until he was the angry, screaming man who’d hit Mother and left us at the beach when he went back home. My friend Moira, who lived on our block, had written, saying Father had a new lady friend. I told her I didn’t want to hear anything more about it, and she’d not mentioned it again. When he came to visit and bring Mother her money, I pretended I didn’t know.
“Did you ever think,” I began, then stopped. “Did you ever think it wasn’t the flu that changed Father, it was the doctor?”
Mother tightened her hold on my hand. “I’m sure of it. And it drives me even more to find the goblin and give him what he deserves.”
A cold shiver ran through me at her words. I thought of the large carpet bag she’d carried on this journey, how Mother took it aside when she needed to open it, and never let me see what was inside.
I thought about it a long time, while small towns, wild land, and cultivated fields passed by, and realized that Mother not only wanted to find Jimmy, she hoped that somehow defeating the goblin would restore her husband as well.
When we couldn’t see the ocean, Mother would check her compass obsessively, sometimes shaking it—I presumed because she’d lost the reading. Finally, with a deep huff, she’d shove the thing back into her handbag.
“Mama,” I said carefully, wondering if this was the right time to broach my future. “I think I’d like to go to college next year.”
Mother’s face lit up, but before she could respond a couple came down the aisle and sat in the seats facing us. They were about Mother’s and Father’s age, I guessed, and well dressed, though there was something just a little off about them. I couldn’t say what—maybe it was the big hemp sack bulging with shapes of who-knew-what inside that the woman lugged up onto the seat next to her, or the way they sat with us when there were other open seats all around, or the way the woman immediately caught my eye and smiled like she knew me.
“Going far?” the man asked, looking straight at Mother.
“San Pedro,” Mother said, which was several stops away, but at least it was westerly. I wondered why she hadn’t said our true destination.
“We’ve been in Tijuana,” the woman said. “George likes the horse races.”
Mother nodded politely. She didn’t like gambling of any sort—except, weren’t we taking a gamble now, trusting the finder woman and the magical compass?
“Won big, too,” George said.
“Do you often go to Mexico?” I asked, also being polite. Both of my parents had drilled manners into my head.
George looked at his companion. “Marlys here loves it down there. She strolls on the playa—that’s beach in Spanish—while I go to the races.” He smiled at his wife and then shot a glance at the large sack next to her. “And she loves to shop.”
Something was moving in the bag, wriggling inside it. I stared and then glanced up at the couple. Marlys smiled, opened the sack, and drew out a small brown dog with big bulging eyes.
“I call him Pepe,” she said. “He was running around on the street. I caught him and put him in the sack, to contain him.” Sh
e smiled again, stroking the little dog in her lap. “Anything that needs catching and containing, a big burlap sack will usually do the trick.”
The train slowed, coming into a station.
“Well, here’s us,” George said, and stood.
Marlys didn’t put the dog back in the sack. Instead she pushed the bag to George, who picked it up, while Marlys continued to pet the dog in her arms. The two made their way down the aisle and out the door without another word to us. I peered through the window and spotted them on the platform. Marlys gave a tiny wave in my direction and then they were gone.
“Mama,” I said as the train began to move again. “What if we put the gremhahn in a sack? Would that be a good way to control him and make him do what we want?”
I could see Mother thinking.
“Yes,” she said. “I think a large sack would quite do the job.” She patted my hand. “That’s a very good idea, Cassie.”
I grinned inside myself, happy to have contributed something more than companionship on this quest.
*
“Come on,” Mother said when the train pulled into Wilmington.
On the platform, she faced west, took out her compass and frowned.
“We’re not close at all, according to this.”
Mother stood tall and looked around, trying to see over and through the crowd of people on the platform. “Where do you suppose the taxi stand is?”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said. “I see it. Over there. You see?”
She started off and I trailed after her.
The driver took our bags and stowed them away, asking, “Where to, ladies?”
“What I need,” Mother said to the driver, “is to buy a large burlap sack. Do you know where I can do that?”
The driver stroked his chin. “A big one? Like for a three-legged race?”
“Exactly.” Mother seemed to seize on the idea. “We’re on the planning committee for the church picnic. The sack race is always so much fun, but over the years the sacks—well, they do wear out eventually.”
I kept my eyes straight ahead. We attended very serious-minded churches—one by the beach and one near the big house—both selected by Father because the congregational makeup was good for his business. I’d never been to a church picnic in my life.
“You’re in luck,” the driver said. “My wife is on the committee here at Saint Pat’s. I know exactly where to get some.”
“What good fortune we came to your cab,” Mother said, and gave him her most gracious smile.
The driver pulled away from the curb. Mother leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I don’t know what got into me. I never lie like that. Must be the fairies’ influence.” Then she winked.
*
Back on the train, Mother was serious again. The big burlap sack we’d bought was rolled tight and tucked into her carpetbag. She kept the compass out all the time now and checked it every few minutes, turning her body always to the west. I could feel the anxious energy pouring off her like waves of steam.
“Are we close?” I asked, my voice low even though no one was sitting near us. I kept glancing around, half expecting to see George and Marlys suddenly appear again.
Mother drew her lips into a tight line, then heaved a loud sigh. “I think we’re going right back home. I think that’s where he is. Right back where he stole my baby.”
I turned my gaze to the window and beyond. The sun was moving west. By the time we pulled into our station, it would be sinking toward the sea, the sky alight with pinks and oranges, blues and gold. If Mother’s compass said the gremhahn was near, she’d likely hunt him in the dark. I hoped for a bright moon and no clouds.
We stepped off the Red Car at the station where Hermosa and Santa Fe Avenues met. We would walk the few blocks to our house from here. The fresh air and the act of walking would help clear my head, I hoped. Chasing the gremhahn just to wind up back where we started had exhausted me. But Mother was having none of it. She checked the compass again, stomped her foot the barest bit and said, “Right.” The next thing I knew, she had marched into the Berth Hotel at Tenth Street and the Strand, dropped her bag by the check-in counter and slipped Jack Masters, who was manning the desk, a quarter to watch our things. Then she marched back out onto the Strand with the big burlap sack stuffed inside her carpetbag.
The light was beginning to fade. I swallowed hard. I had some trepidation about chasing after something in the dark.
“Mother,” I said, grabbing her arm. “I’ve had a terrible thought.”
She gave me her full attention, probably as much because I’d called her Mother, which I hardly ever did, as the idea of my terrible thought.
I dropped my voice low, so the end-of-the-day tourists dragging their beach umbrellas, buckets, shovels, and tired children past us back to wherever they would sleep that night wouldn’t hear my words. “The gremhahn can change shape, look like whoever or whatever he wants, right? How will we recognize him? He might look like the doctor or the fisherman, but he might not. I suppose he could look like anyone—a young man on the beach, or a small child, or an old man or woman.”
Or a flock of angry seagulls, I thought, but didn’t say.
“The compass will tell us,” she whispered back. “And I have a secret finder as well. One I haven’t told you about. It only works when we’re close.” Mother opened her carpetbag and pulled out a small white box. She carefully lifted the lid and showed me what was inside—a wide silver ring with an amethyst the size of the tip of my finger set in it. “I’ll wear the ring. The stone will glow brighter the closer we come to our quarry.”
I swallowed. Our quarry. I wondered again what Mother had in her carpetbag that she wouldn’t let me see.
I’d worn a pair of black T-strap pumps with short heels on the train. As I bent to slip them off, I caught sight of some people I knew from school, likely down to the beach for the day, standing in front of the bowling alley. One of the girls, Cynthia, from my American history class, caught my eye and gave a small wave.
She must think I’m crazy, I thought, in my white lace traveling dress and no stockings, slipping off my shoes right by the sand, my mother doing the same.
Mother put the ring onto her finger, squared her shoulders and marched onto the beach. I glanced back at Cynthia and the others, gave a little shrug, and followed Mother.
Six
Hermosa Beach, California
August 1923
There were fewer and fewer people on the beach as we drew closer to the water. Mother kept her eyes on the compass and made minute changes in her direction based on what she saw there. We walked toward a group of young people, my age or thereabouts, but no one I knew. I hoped the gremhahn wasn’t hiding as one of them. I didn’t like the idea of my mother attacking and stuffing someone my age into a burlap bag. Though, of course, the sea goblin wasn’t my age at all. Did creatures of that sort even have age?
I was relieved when Mother glanced at her ring and walked right past them. I felt their eyes on us, their raised eyebrows and curiosity as we passed them, us in our traveling dresses, our shoes in our hands, Mother’s head bent over the compass. She headed toward a barefoot man in his early thirties, I guessed, with dishwater hair and sharp features. He wore loose trousers and a light-blue open-collar Danton shirt. He stood alone on the shore, staring out to the water.
I heard a commotion behind us and turned to see the group we’d just passed packing up and leaving. In moments, it would be only the man and us, as far as I could see up and down the beach. I looked over my shoulder at the Strand. People there could see us now if they paid attention, but we’d disappear from view once we reached the tide line beyond the dunes.
Mother looked up from her compass, consulted the ring, and put her finger to her lips to warn me to be stealthy. She quietly opened her carpetbag and withdrew the big burlap sack, spreading open the top. She reached in again and handed me a long length of rope, which I
’d not seen before. The waves were growing raucous as the tide came in. I didn’t think the man heard us at all as we snuck up behind him. But he heard Mother’s yell as she leapt for him. He started to turn, likely to run, but she was fast, so fast I couldn’t believe it. She threw the bag over him and her arms around him.
“Quick,” she said to me, and I stretched the rope around the bag—which wasn’t easy since the goblin was struggling inside and cursing like a sailor. Mother had her arms around him and I had to thread the rope between her and the sack, but I managed it, pulled the knot as tight as I could, and then knotted the rope again.
“More at the feet,” she said, still holding on to the squirming gremhahn in the bag.
Mother intoned the binding spell while I wrapped the rope around his feet. I tied that off with a double knot as well. Only then did Mother let go, and the sack, with the sea goblin in it, fell over onto the sand.
Mother fell on him, her eyes wide and crazy in the hazy evening light.
“Give me back my son,” she screamed, while hitting the gremhahn all around his head and shoulders with her fist. Hitting him hard. Harder than I would have thought her capable.
She broke off for a moment and glanced at me. “Get the steel bar in my carpetbag.”
My heart pounded. So that’s what she had in her bag, what she’d planned all along to use on the gremhahn. My hands shook as I pulled it from her bag, not sure I wanted to be part of beating someone. No, not someone, some thing. A thing that had changed my father for the worse and stolen my brother.
The Girl with Stars in her Hair Page 5