Alias Hook
Page 36
Was it me?
My fingers stray to the billowy, cloud-soft upper fronds of the pink feather sticking out of the book. In a strange way it soothes me to touch it, yet it also fills me with a yearning I cannot name. What can it mean? Why is it here? Gingerly, I open the book on my lap to the marked place; as I set the feather aside, I notice the nether tip of the shaft has been savaged to a crude point. There is nothing exceptional in the text of the passage it marks, Satan maundering on about some injustice or other. But the margins round the text of each page are wide, and in the far margin of the left-hand page, something is scrawled at right angles to the text. I tilt the book sideways, muster my spectacles out of my shirt pocket, and squint at it, a few words scribbled in a thin, rusty-looking ink. One is a name. The others are so poorly limned, I must sound them out aloud like a schoolboy to divine their meaning.
No sooner have I spoken them than something stirs within me, incipient life shaking off primordial ooze, a longing beyond words, an urgency that will not be denied. I am a madman to follow it. I will perish, somehow, if I do not.
* * *
I’ve climbed to the quay again, heading back toward town, as jittery as a lad, with no clear idea where I intend to go. The parish church, perhaps? The Hall of Records? Surely, if anyone in Hugh Town knew me before, they’d have come forth by now.
The usual afternoon activity teems along the quay; fishermen, dockworkers, a few early passengers for the steamer. Mr. Guy from the bakeshop going home to his dinner. Mrs. Islington from Trescoe, who comes to the school now and then to read the children stories. I nod to Miss Patchett, on her way to work at the public house. I’m passing them all by when I remember something Alfie said to me not long ago, about Mrs. Islington. She told his class she’d been coming to Scilly since she was their age.
Perhaps I needn’t go as far as the parish church, at least not yet.
She stands near the railing, gazing out at the boats in St. Mary’s Pool. Close by is a bench for those awaiting the steamer, but she does not use it, cradling an armload of storybooks on her hip. I come up to the railing alongside her, and she turns her head, nods. We have passed each other before along this quay.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Islington, but I’m told you have a long history in Scilly,” I venture. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
Her mouth tilts up briefly, a prelude to a smile not yet ready to appear. “Fire away.”
“Do you know of anyone around here named Stella?”
She makes a mischievous mouth. “Only me.”
My heart quickens, and I turn away in some confusion, gaze off down the quay, out past the masts of fishing boats in the harbor, toward the dark speck that is the distant steamship chugging toward St. Mary’s. Yet the words I spoke moments ago, in the cabin of my sloop, bubble out of me before my brain can intercede.
“I believe we’re on this journey together.”
She studies me, face carefully polite, as if my remark were not utter nonsense; I’m not even going anywhere. “Well,” she begins, “assuming the steamer ever…” But the rest of her words trail away as something shifts in her expression; her eyes become tender, wistful. Sad, perhaps. I don’t mean to sadden her.
“Sorry, I don’t know where that came from,” I apologize quickly. “You must think me a raving Bedlamite. I promise you, it’s not my usual habit to accost strangers in the street.” Embarrassed, I start to turn away.
“No! No, wait!” she laughs. “On the contrary, I’m delighted to make the acquaintance of anyone who knows what a ‘Bedlamite’ is!” She shifts her books into the crook of her left arm, thrusts out her right hand. “Stella Islington,” she says formally.
I smile back cautiously. “James Benjamin.” I put out my left hand; undaunted, she slides her fingers under mine, briefly grips my hand. Something vast, terrible, wonderful yawns open inside me for a heartbeat, then subsides.
“See? We are strangers no more.” There is her smile, as ripe as the promise of its prelude.
The far-off steamer blows its whistle, and a few more people wander down the quay in response. Thieving gulls scree in expectation over a fishing smack heading for the beach. Clerks and shopgirls and customers are bustling in and out of quayside storefronts. The air smells of salt and fish, the pervasive honey of the narcissus that grows in such profusion here, the metallic scent of incipient spring rain. And we stand transfixed, myself and this woman I scarcely know, with her impudent smile and sea green in her eyes.
“Do you believe in folie à deux, Mrs. Islington?” I hazard.
Her smile broadens. “Absobloodylutely!”
It makes me exceedingly merry. I can’t think why.
Acknowledgments
As always, thanks to James for keeping me on course through all the raging storms and terrible calms of a writer’s life.
Thanks to Mike Jensen and Steve Jensen, constant readers.
Thanks to my parents, Art Jensen and Barbara Bader Jensen, for making sure I grew up in a house full of books.
Thanks to Christopher Cevasco, the first one to see something good in Hook.
Big, big thanks to Anna Torborg and Emma Barnes at Snowbooks, for falling in love with this book and midwifing it into print.
Major thanks to Pete Wolverton and Anne Brewer at Thomas Dunne Books, for being such a pleasure to work with.
Thanks to Lia Matera, head cheerleader, for tireless enthusiasm against all odds.
And special thanks to Broos, who kept telling me, “Hurry up and write the blamed thing so I can read it!”
About the Author
LISA JENSEN is a veteran film critic and newspaper columnist from Santa Cruz, California. Her reviews and articles have appeared in Cinefantastique, Take One, and the Los Angeles Times. She has reviewed film on numerous area TV and radio stations. Her film and book reviews appeared regularly in Paradox Magazine. She also reviewed books for the San Francisco Chronicle for thirteen years, where her specialty was historical fiction and women’s fiction. Lisa lives in Santa Cruz with her husband, artist James Aschbacher, and their two cats.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
ALIAS HOOK. Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Jensen. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover photographs: branches, roses, woman, ship, and wave © Shutterstock.com; Captain Hook © Arcangel Images
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Jensen, Lisa, 1952–
Alias Hook / Lisa Jensen.
pp. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-04215-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-3971-7 (e-book)
1. Pirates—Fiction. 2. Imaginary creatures—Fiction. 3. Fairy tales—Fiction. 1. Title.
PS3610.E57A66 2014
813'.6—dc23
2014008906
e-ISBN 9781466839717
Originally published in Great Britain by Snowbooks
First U.S. Edition: July 2014
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