Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology

by Ramona DeFelice Long

  “I really did enjoy my time with you those years ago. I thought the ring lost and you too young to remember. I am sorry.” He raised the gun to my chest level.

  I watched for the muscle tension in his face right before he pulled the trigger. Instead his face drained of blood.

  “It cannot be.”

  I turned to look, but kept the gun in the corner of my eye. A woman walked along the beach towards us. She had a flowing navy dress, a wide brimmed hat, dark glasses and white flip-flops. I knew if I could see her toes, they would be painted pink.

  She reached us in quick long strides as if she floated across the sand.

  The man stepped back. The back of his legs hit the chair edge. He fumbled to brace himself on the top of the chair with his free hand. A quick movement and a flash of navy. The man crumpled onto the sand. His one leg under him and the other out to the side. The metal tines of the abandoned pitchfork dug into his side.

  Thirty years ago. During the last week of summer. The week before we would return to Athens. I raked the beach. But, the sea distracted me. The smell of the salt tickled my nose. I edged to the sea. I wanted to savor it, to fix it in my memory to hold over the long months that we lived in Athens. The waves lapped onto the shore creating a frothy edge. Each wave made a gentle slap, slap. I dug my toes into the warm wet sand. A breeze ruffled my hair. A wave hit my legs. At my feet the sea deposited a single white flip-flop. Its rhinestones and plastic flowers gleamed in the water. It hugged my ankle like a snake about to slither up my leg. I kicked it away.

  The Sight took me. One does not throw a gift of the gods back in their face. I would regret it if I did not act. I dropped the rake and jumped into the water. I dove under and kicked hard. I broke the surface for air. My lungs protested the shallow breaths I took. My heart raced and my stomach tumbled, but I forced myself out and around the tip. The rocks that sat as hungry sentinels around the tip waited, churning the waves that would ensnare and pull one below. I dove down praying that my parents would see me again. A fishing net rested at the edge of the drop-off. I laced my fingers into the net, feeling something soft inside, and pulled. The net came apart. Something came at me. I screamed, swallowing water and kicked hard to reach the surface. In thirty years I have never forgotten. The dead eyes open and the surrounding skin sickly white.

  “Gia ti mana mou,” Zoi pulled the pitchfork out and then struck it deep into his flesh again. “For my mother.”

  “Zoi, enough.”

  I pulled her away, waved her to go. I picked up the gun from the sand and reached back and threw it far into the sea. Hoping the sea kept this secret.

  I sat on his lounge chair and pulled out a cigarette from his pack. I lit it with my father’s old flip lighter. It still had the marks on it from his accident. I took a long drag, filling my lungs, and blew it out slowly, savouring every sensation. How many years had I stopped? It felt like yesterday and my fingers itched to pull another out and smoke my way through the pack. Gods, like an addict, no matter the years in between my body still hungering for the taste and sensations of nicotine.

  “I found her. There’s a ledge before the drop.” I took a drag and pointed to the spot near the cliff.

  “But I saw a body being taken away.”

  I waved my cigarette hand. “The sea has many bodies. Poseidon demands his tributes. An old woman tangled in a fishing net. A young body thrown near an old one. I released them both.” I crossed myself. “Now that crone’s eyes I will never forget.” I waved my hand again. “My parents got the American woman to our house. The local doctor owed my father a favour. Good man he was, he never betrayed her. Or us. When we left for Athens, she came with us. My parents said I was in shock at finding the body and they needed to get me away. No one was surprised that we left in the dead of night.”

  His fingers slipped holding his side between the tines of the pitchfork embedded deep in his gut. His shirt stained and seeping further. The sand beneath him turned red from pink.

  “Z—Zoi,” he coughed.

  “Daughter. My mother says that’s why she survived. A woman fighting for the life of her child. But if I hadn’t found her when I did.…” I waved my hand again. “The gods intervened. Perhaps Poseidon didn’t want her after all.”

  He smiled though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Where is she?”

  “She died in childbirth. My parents raised Zoi like a daughter.”

  He coughed. Blood stained his hand to the wrist.

  “You shouldn’t have to suffer. I can make it end now.”

  He stared me in the eye. His power fading, it didn’t go into my soul.

  “I’d rather die by your hand than any other.”

  I crossed myself and didn’t have the heart to tell him, that Zoi and perhaps her mother had really killed him.

  “I’ve always known that you would be connected to my death.” He coughed. “I just didn’t know about Zoi.”

  “Women are like that, they show up when you least expect them. I’ll be right back.” I heaved myself up. Weary with the burden now on my shoulders. A burden placed there years ago by a fickle fate, mira. We Greeks pour our sweat and blood onto this rocky land fit only for goats, our mother Ellas. Our hard scrabble life nurtured pathos. We know tragedy with our mother’s milk so we created drama to tell our sorrows. But we Greeks also created democracy, philosophy and science and fed the greatest creation, the Western World. I laughed. The same story recited to us as children as it was to our parents and our parents’ parents. The greatness of the Greeks, their passion and their sea. This sea. My eyes hovered over it as a lover does his beloved. The sea would cleanse the sand and make my father’s beach pure again.

  I turned away and retraced the path to the kafenio. Zoi sat crying into my mother’s shoulder. My mother looked at me then crossed herself. In the storage room in the back, I moved empty casks of beer and crates with empty bottles for return to the distillery. Hidden away where I had placed it with my father years ago, was an old box. I opened it. Inside lay an old fishing net, and a white flip-flop. I grabbed my grandfather’s sickle that we used to cut away the weeds and a length of rope.

  I pulled out the pitchfork and threw it aside. I stood over him with the sickle. “Tell me truthfully, you are her father. What you said earlier was about you.”

  “Don’t tell Zoi. Please.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes. He closed his then arched his head exposing his neck. A swift deep cut to the artery, just like the chickens when I was a boy in the yard of my grandfather’s house. Quick and painless, my grandfather swore. I hoped that it was true today.

  I placed the chain with the ring around his neck. I set the flip-flop on his chest, rolled his body in the net and wrapped the rope around, leaving an end loose.

  I rolled his body into the sea. Then pushed it in front of me like the tugboats in the harbor. I kicked hard in the water. My arms occupied with maneuvering his body, my mind considered that now Poseidon’s tribute was restored, the tally even. I rounded the tip of the preemptory. I let the swirling water suck his body down to the ledge. I dove in after. I found the stones that had weighted her body back then, now covered with algae and other sea life. I stuffed them in the net and tucked in the loose end. I crossed myself and said a prayer. Truth be told, more for my soul than his. Or perhaps more for Zoi. I pushed his body over the drop-off.

  When I reached shore, the sun was setting. The deep burnt orange colour told of dust storms from Africa. Something glinted in the surf. The white flip-flop tossed in the waves. I crossed myself and hoped I never incurred a woman’s wrath. Or that Poseidon required my body to balance his tallies.

  NETTED, by K B Inglee

  New Castle County, Delaware, July 1752

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the tangled mass of string on the table.

  “Good morning to you, too, Hannah Prospect.”

  I glanced at Silas Cobb and set the basket of fresh vegetables next to the string.

&nb
sp; “You know that Phineas Beck was found dead in his fishing boat this morning?” he asked.

  “Yes, it’s all they were talking about at the market.”

  Constable Cobb lived with his mother in the house next to ours. He and I had been friends since childhood. Now as we were of marriageable age, he was courting a girl in New Castle and I found a young man from church interesting.

  “This net was found in his boat. His wife says it isn’t his. I’m thinking this fish net could tell us…what happened.”

  The pause led me to believe that Silas suspected it was no accident. “You think someone killed him?”

  He nodded, as though unwilling to say the words.

  “Tell me,” I said as I moved the basket off the table and spread the net. “How does his wife know it isn’t his?”

  Silas pointed to a mend near the bottom of the net. “She says she does all his mending and that isn’t her work.”

  The net was neatly done, each strand between the knots being the same length. The knots were even, each tied with the same tension. The mend, of a different cord, was poorly done, with uneven measurements and knots of different tensions.

  I pointed to one of the knots and said, “See the way the cord passes over the knot from right to left? Most people tie their nets with the cross in the other direction. The knots in the mend, though poorly done, are tied correctly.”

  “That’s not much help. I thought you might have something useful to tell me.”

  I was surprised how his words stung. He had somehow expected more of me than I had given¸ though he had asked me nothing. I would have said our relationship had not changed. If that were so, why was I so bothered? I had nothing to prove to this man.

  I turned my attention back to the net. “Give me more details. Do you know what killed him? Why do you think he was murdered?”

  “Beck was found in the bottom of his boat. Mrs. Beck said he went out early this morning to catch enough fish for the family dinner and a few extra to sell. His boat had drifted down river as far as the hook, so he must have stopped rowing less than an hour earlier. He was still warm. He had been hit with something long and thin that left a mark from temple to chin. There had been a lot of blood but the men who found him washed most of it away before they towed his boat to shore.”

  “Could he have been hit with an oar?” I asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Why do you think he didn’t just fall and hit his head on the gunwale?”

  “Besides the net not being his, the mark on his head…well, it looked like it was made by something other than the side of a boat. Besides, even though they had cleaned up most of the blood, it was clear where it had been and there was no trace anywhere he might have hit his head, the sides or the seats. Like you say, an oar.”

  Cobb looked at me for some time before he spoke again. “We took the body to his wife. They are preparing it for burial now. Do you think you could go take a look at it and see what you think?”

  Why was he asking me to do this? I was not a particular friend of the Beck family, though it would be my duty as a member of the congregation to do so. Much against my better judgment, I assented. It could have nothing to do with the slight smile that played at the corners of his mouth or his sparkling blue eyes.

  It was a short walk from anywhere to anywhere in our village. Some seven hundred people huddled along the shore of the Delaware River not too many miles south of New Castle. No one was ever murdered here. Until now our biggest problem had been the issue of separation from the rest of Pennsylvania, to become our own colony of Delaware.

  Our main income was from farming and fishing. The land here was too flat to allow for water power. A few windmills ran a mill or two, and reminded us that the colony had once been Dutch. In spite of our size, we had a tendency to stick with our own. The Becks were of the lower sort who scrabbled daily to feed their family and make a coin or two on the side. We Prospects and the Cobbs were of the better sort. My father served in the county government, and provided for our family by teaching and practicing law. Cobb had been constable for several years now, and his father had been mayor until his death last year.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Beck sat by the front window of her small home surrounded by her children and the neighbor women. They all seemed glad I had come.

  Mrs. Beck stood and took my hand. “How kind of you to visit. We’ve laid Phineas out in the chamber. Except for the wound on his head, he looks to be sleeping peacefully.”

  “I hope he has indeed found that peace. May I pay my respects?”

  “I’ll take you in,” said Mrs. Hooper, a woman I knew from church who turned out to be the next door neighbor. “You stay put, Maude.”

  The bed chamber was tiny and crammed with boxes and barrels. The bed was of good manufacture and was properly appointed. Mr. Beck lay on the bed washed and dressed in his finest night clothes. Ha’pennies rested on his closed eyes. The wound that Cobb had described to me was hidden by the cloth under his chin, tied at the top of his head to keep his mouth from falling open. His hands were crossed across his breast and the cuff of his night shirt had pulled back to reveal a bruise around his right wrist, as though someone had grabbed him and held on for dear life. His murderer, perhaps.

  I left the bed chamber and shut the door behind me. “What will you do now, Mrs. Beck?” I asked.

  “My oldest son still lives with us and makes a good living from our peach orchard half a mile from here. He sends dried peaches and the jam I make all the way to Wilmington. We will do well enough. Phineas was my dear friend.” She paused to raise her handkerchief to catch a tear, but went on. “I will miss him, but I will not starve.”

  As she spoke, I glanced around the room. It was comfortable and inviting, though not lavish. The fire cheered and a tea kettle hung from the crane. No one offered me a cup of tea.

  The mantle was decorated with a small bunch of flowers in a horn cup set on a doily of hand made netting. Closer look at the netting showed me that the knot was left handed like the net Cobb had left on his table. The net was even and the knots uniform but the backwards knots caused the net to twist a bit and resist lying flat. The result was a pleasing ruffle. Nice on the mantle but not so nice for fishing.

  It occurred to me that I might find the net maker by walking along the waterfront at dusk when the men hung their nets to dry.

  * * * *

  I found Silas Cobb, as I expected, in the blacksmith shop. All the news of the town passed through that shop daily, and people who cared made it a point to show up.

  “How is your mother, Silas?” I asked, more to get him away from the other men than to find an answer. I hoped she would be well soon, since I found shopping, even once a week, an onerous chore.

  He stepped away from the others to talk to me. “What did you find at Beck’s?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Beck didn’t make the mend in the net, but she has a doily on the mantle with the same backward knot. Why would someone leave their net in Beck’s boat? We have only her word that it isn’t his net.”

  He shrugged. “I have talked to everyone who had a boat out this morning and they all deny any involvement.”

  “Did you expect them to tell you they were the murderer? Who found him?”

  “Ralph Hooper and William Tate. They were out on the river early, saw the boat in the distance and rowed up and towed it back here.”

  “That’s odd. If the boat drifted down river I would expect someone from further south to have found it.”

  Silas stroked his chin, a mannerism that his father used when he was in deep thought. I remained silent until he spoke again.

  “This whole affair is very odd.”

  I told him of my plan to look at the drying nets.

  “Miss Hannah Prospect, would you walk with me along the shore later this afternoon? I would be very glad of your company.” This sounded like he might be asking to court me until he added, “Then you can tell me how you know so much about
knotting fishnets.”

  * * * *

  Silas called at my door when the sun was several hand-breadths from the horizon, well before the time we had agreed to.

  “I found out some things of interest this afternoon. Did you know Beck owned several acres of land west of here?” he asked.

  “Yes, his son tends a peach orchard there. The family does well from it.”

  “How could a man like Beck afford to buy the land?”

  “Perhaps he inherited it,” I said.

  “No, Beck’s parents were poorer than most of the people here. Not much good at anything. He must have been a frugal man because he passed on the house which he owned free and clear, but not much else.”

  “Did you check into the land records?”

  “Not yet. I haven’t had time to ride to New Castle.”

  He stopped in the middle of the street and turned to face me. “The knots?”

  I laughed. “My sister and I had the notion to run away to be pirates. We practiced knots so we would be acceptable. No pirates ever landed here to take us away.”

  “That was a good thing.” His smile dazzled me.

  “Yes. The reason I know how to do it and how not to do it is because I was so poor at it that I couldn’t make any two knots look alike. I might have done the mend, but not the original net.”

  “Did you?” he asked. There was a current of seriousness below the teasing tone.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry, but I had to ask.” Was he teasing me?

  I nodded and started walking toward the river.

  Nets were hung everywhere, some to dry, some to be repaired. It looked like everyone in the village had been out fishing today. Jacob Riss sat on an upturned wooden bucket working on a net. He threw the shuttle quickly and surely. His net was neat and even, the spaces between the knots larger than the net on the Cobb’s table.