“Heaven and all its holy angels defend thee,” said Captain Hurd.
“What do you think we should do?” said Meryl Lee.
“Why would you think you could do anything?” said Captain Hurd.
“Because someone should,” she said.
He looked at her. “Where were you thirty years ago when I needed you?”
“What happened thirty years ago?”
Captain Hurd bent down over Matt and hauled up the wound rope. Then he turned back to Meryl Lee. “Nora MacKnockater fired me,” he said.
“Fired you? Why did she fire you?”
“Because it’s impossible to have someone you love be your boss, too. So who’s up for a quick sail around the bay?” he said.
“Someone you love?” said Heidi.
“Nora MacKnockater is not resigning as headmistress of St. Elene’s because she’s intimidated by the board of trustees. So, are you coming aboard?”
They did.
Later, Meryl Lee wondered what it meant that Matt Coffin never spoke a word the whole time he steered them around the still waters of the inner islands.
* * *
On Monday, Mrs. Saunders asked Meryl Lee to wait after class for a moment, and when all the other girls had left, Mrs. Saunders said, “I wonder if you would care to walk around the commons,” and they put their coats on and went out into air so cold, it was brittle.
Meryl Lee wondered if she was in trouble again.
“I think winter is my favorite season,” Mrs. Saunders said. “My father was a great believer in cold, clean air. He said it made for healthy lungs.”
Meryl Lee waited.
“And how lovely the campus looks, covered in snow.”
Meryl Lee waited.
“I understand you’ve been leaving the school grounds without permission, but I didn’t ask you to come for a walk about that. If Mrs. Connolly knew, however . . .”
“She knows,” said Meryl Lee.
Mrs. Saunders nodded. “Few things escape Mrs. Connolly. Not even clandestine sea voyages.” She looked at Meryl Lee meaningfully.
Meryl Lee nodded.
They passed by Putnam Library, its white clapboards so bright with the snow and sunlight that Mrs. Saunders and Meryl Lee put their hands over their eyes.
“I wanted to tell you how impressed I have been by your rapid growth as a student and as a young, mature woman, Miss Kowalski. It has been a delight to witness it.”
Meryl Lee was a little bit surprised. “Thank you, Mrs. Saunders.”
“And I am not the only one to notice. The headmistress speaks very highly of you. She looks for great things from you. So do we all.”
“Dr. MacKnockater won’t be headmistress next year.”
“Perhaps not.”
“I don’t think the new headmistress will speak so highly of me.”
“Some things are beyond our control, Miss Kowalski—and that is true both for you and for the new headmistress. But if Dr. MacKnockater is accurate in her assessment of your Accomplishment, you are likely to be surprised.”
“Mrs. Saunders, what Accomplishment?”
Mrs. Saunders smiled—which didn’t happen all that often. Then she looked over at Newell Chapel. “Won’t the daffodils be lovely in the spring?”
Twenty-Five
Matt had learned: Never go back. Never, ever go back.
There could be someone watching for you. And that someone was not someone you wanted to find you.
Never, never, ever go back.
He was spending more and more time with Captain Hurd these days, as if staying off the land meant that only God could see him—God and Captain Hurd. But not Leonidas Shug. And not the guys from the Alley. Most mornings, he was on board Affliction even before Captain Hurd came down to the docks. Matt would stay there until the early January dusk, winding ropes, cleaning the bait buckets, stacking and restacking the traps, until he about drove Captain Hurd crazy, and at the day’s end the Captain would clamber up onto the dock and stomp off, yelling back to Matt about checking the bowline one more time before he left.
And once it was full dark, Matt would head up toward home, where Mrs. MacKnockater would be watching from the window, and where, when he came in, the wood stove warmth of the house clasped him.
Then he would almost gasp at the thought of leaving and wonder if he could ever, ever go.
Mrs. MacKnockater would send him upstairs to wash off the fishy smell, but he would stop by the wood stove to add a stick or two and check the draft, and by the time he came back down, she would have the table set for supper, and a candle lit, and a cup of chowder on his plate, and a casserole steaming in the center of the table. And they would talk about the book they were reading—Matt had tried Kidnapped but thought it was boring, and Dracula but thought it was dumb, and he’d finally settled on Oliver Twist, which he couldn’t stop reading—and then about Matt’s day on the water and Mrs. MacKnockater’s at St. Elene’s, and sometimes Captain Hurd would come by and grumble about the chowder but he’d eat it all anyway, and the night would end with Captain Hurd whomping Matt at checkers and then, sometimes, Mrs. MacKnockater whomping Matt at chess, and then Matt would go upstairs and work at Oliver Twist and think about how he never wanted to leave again.
Because you can never, ever go back.
This was not something, however, that Lieutenant Minot seemed to understand.
One night in the middle of January, he came between checkers and chess. He sat down on the rocking chair, across the coffee table from Matt and Mrs. MacKnockater. He asked how they all were. They were all fine. He asked if Matt’s back had healed, and Matt stood, turned, pulled up his shirt, and showed him. It was fine. Lieutenant Minot had heard that Mrs. MacKnockater intended to retire at the end of the school year and he asked what she would do after that. She told him she’d be fine.
Then Lieutenant Minot took three photographs out of his pocket. He put the first down on the coffee table in front of them.
“Matt,” he asked, “do you recognize this boy?”
Matt shook his head. He didn’t.
“How about this one?”
“Nope. Why?”
“How about this one?”—and he laid Georgie’s picture on the checkerboard.
Maybe you can’t go back. But maybe what was back there can catch up to you.
Matt felt everything in him stop.
It was a young Georgie, younger than when Matt had known him. But there was so much that was exactly the same. His crooked smile, that one crooked tooth, the crooked way he stood.
“I thought you might know one of them,” said Lieutenant Minot.
The way he stood with his left leg straight, his right always bent a little—as if it were a little too long. The squint of his eyes in the sun. The curl of his hair at the sides. The hook of his thumbs in his belt.
Matt shook his head. “I don’t,” he said.
Lieutenant Minot gathered up the first two pictures and put them in his pocket. “I told you, Matt—I’m good at this job. These pictures, they’re all boys named George. They all went missing at different times somewhere near New York City.”
“I’m from New Bedford.”
“Like I said, they’re all from New York. Like you are. No, don’t lie. The accent always gives New Yorkers away, like they’re wearing a label. So, tell me about Georgie.”
“I don’t know him.”
“In this photo he’s nine years old. He used to live in New Jersey. That’s Asbury Park in the background. Sometime after this photo, his father and mother separated, and his father took Georgie up to New York City and disappeared for a while. Then the father was killed in crossfire six or eight months later, so Georgie was probably left on his own. But no one knows where he went after that.”
“Like I said, I—”
“Sounds like someone else’s story, too.”
Matt looked at him.
“I think you can help us with Georgie’s.”
“I can�
��t.” Matt was starting to shake a little.
“His mother is still looking for him.”
“I said—”
“Matt, his mother is still looking for him. You can imagine what that’s like. I think you can help me give her some closure.”
Matt looked at the photograph again. He picked it up.
Georgie.
The Alley.
He felt it all come back to him, back to him, back to him like a returning tide. He felt the breath leave his body, come back, leave, come back, leave.
“Matthew,” said Mrs. MacKnockater quietly.
The Alley.
“She should stop looking,” Matt whispered.
He breathed again, and then he looked at Mrs. MacKnockater. What had he done?
Lieutenant Minot sat back. “Tell me.”
“It’s all right,” said Mrs. MacKnockater. “Matthew, it’s all right.” She took his hand. “It’s all right.”
And Matt turned to Lieutenant Minot, and he hated him. But he told him about the Big Guy, and the Small Guy. He told him about the Alley.
“Everything,” said Lieutenant Minot. “Tell me everything.”
So Matt told him about Leonidas Shug.
The wood stove didn’t seem so warm anymore, and when the lieutenant left that night, not even Mrs. MacKnockater’s ample self wrapped around him could stop Matt from shaking.
Twenty-Six
After she got back to St. Elene’s, Meryl Lee went to Putnam Library every day to read the papers about Vietnam.
Assaults against American positions by rocket attacks.
Mines.
Operation Rolling Thunder finishing up, with eight hundred and nineteen American pilots dead or missing.
Operation Dewey Canyon just beginning. Who knew how many American pilots this time?
After she began to feel the Blank hovering at the doors of Putnam, Meryl Lee stopped reading about Vietnam.
* * *
In Chapel a few days later, Dr. MacKnockater told the students of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls that they must resolve to define for themselves what they should become Accomplished in. They should not become Accomplished in something someone else wanted them to become Accomplished in, but in something that came from their truest selves. It was the Resolution to define their Accomplishment that mattered, she said. Not the skill, not even the Accomplishment itself—the decision.
Dr. MacKnockater’s searchlight gaze lit up Meryl Lee four times during that Chapel.
So Meryl Lee decided to ask around, because if Dr. MacKnockater knew what her Accomplishment was, then maybe someone else did too—someone who would tell her.
When Meryl Lee asked Coach Rowlandson what she thought she should become Accomplished in, Coach Rowlandson said, “Probably not field hockey. I’m hoping soccer.”
When Meryl Lee asked Mrs. Kellogg what she thought she should become Accomplished in, Mrs. Kellogg said, “You might think of public oration.”
Meryl Lee considered this. “Wouldn’t you need to have something that you really, really wanted to oration about?” she said.
Mrs. Kellogg looked at her. “Maybe I was wrong,” she said.
Mrs. Wyss said a lady should always be Accomplished in household management. Meryl Lee pointed out that Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, probably did not count this as her greatest Accomplishment. Mrs. Wyss pointed out that Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was beheaded. Twice.
She had a point.
Mrs. Mott said she herself had recently decided, given events in her Tea and Biscuit Conversations, to become Accomplished in the art of self-defense. Meryl Lee thought she was only kidding.
Later, she wasn’t so sure.
When Meryl Lee asked Mrs. Hibbard what she thought she should become Accomplished in, Mrs. Hibbard considered for a while and then said, “Knitting.”
“Knitting?” Meryl Lee said.
Mrs. Hibbard said, “What could be better than making useful things out of yarn? And you can never go wrong knitting for someone else.”
Meryl Lee did not ask Mrs. Connolly what she thought she might become Accomplished in.
When Meryl Lee saw Dr. MacKnockater in Greater Hoxne Hall a few days later, she said her Chapel talk had been inspiring. “I’m glad you found it to be so,” Dr. MacKnockater said. “I understand from some of the teachers that you have been making inquiries about Accomplishment.”
“It would save me a lot of time if you would just tell me,” said Meryl Lee.
“Patience, Miss Kowalski. You shall find out for yourself, or I shall tell you at the end of the school year—those are the only alternatives.”
Just like a teacher. Or like Glinda, the Good Witch of the South—who, after all, could have just told Dorothy about the stupid shoes before she ever stepped foot on the yellow brick road.
But she didn’t.
* * *
On Friday afternoon, Meryl Lee went over to Putnam Library and Mrs. Hibbard pulled out a bag of bright yellow yarn and taught Meryl Lee how to knit a scarf. Knitting did not take long to learn. Maybe this is it, thought Meryl Lee—and it did seem a good thing to know how to do, since it was really a cold January and knitting a scarf was probably more useful than needlepoint—even if Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, wouldn’t agree.
And after all, what would Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, put her scarf around?
But still, Meryl Lee wondered what Dr. MacKnockater would tell her at the end of the school year.
* * *
That weekend, Alethea did not come to St. Elene’s, and Bettye had to work alone, and she was a wreck—but not because of working alone. Jonathan had finally written. She showed the letter to Meryl Lee. It began with “Do not let the Old Man read this.” Meryl Lee could understand why. It was awful. Two of Jonathan’s platoon were killed by land mines the third day after they landed. Killed. Another had his leg blown off three days later. The blood had blown into Jonathan’s face, along with the kneecap.
Meryl Lee asked if Bettye knew where Jonathan was and she said he couldn’t tell her where he was but it was where there was a lot of fighting. And probably land mines. She said her father couldn’t watch the Evening News with Walter Cronkite anymore, since he kept looking for Jonathan in the pictures from Vietnam. “He’s terrified he’s going to see him on a stretcher,” Bettye said. “Or worse.”
Meryl Lee started to cry.
She hardly knew Bettye’s brother. But she was crying anyway. And the Blank . . .
The Blank stayed on the edge of her vision, a white blur that promised it would slide across her whole vision if she let it.
And when she was all alone and she thought of Jonathan, and Holling, it almost, almost did.
On Sunday night after Evening Meal, under a covering darkness, Meryl Lee met Bettye and together they went down to the shore to watch the early stars. Heidi didn’t go, since Mr. Wheelock had said she was skating on the thin ice of Lake Catastrophe in algebra, and so she stayed behind to work word problems and break pencils in two. And Marian said that she was going to work on her essay for Mrs. Connolly since, you know. So just Meryl Lee and Bettye walked down to the shore, using the path behind Netley and scooting quickly past the Main Gate.
At the side of the ocean, Meryl Lee and Bettye watched the tide slide out, the waves gentle, hardly rustling the pebbles that sloshed back and forth, back and forth. In the east, the first stars began to promise their light. A few snowflakes slid down.
Everything was soft and quiet. The air, the light, the snow. Bettye took Meryl Lee’s hand and smiled at her. “Jonathan is going to be all right, isn’t he?”
And there was the Blank. Right there. Oh, right there!
And here is what happened next: Meryl Lee turned her back to the Blank. She hugged Bettye Buckminster, and they held together for a long time above the gently sounding waves.
* * *
Later that night, Meryl Lee—who really was becoming an Accomplished knitter with Mrs. Hibbard’s help—pull
ed out her scarf to show Heidi and Marian. She was knitting it from the bags of bright yellow yarn that, she explained, Mrs. Hibbard had bought for three cents a skein because the store figured no one would ever buy yarn brighter than any naturally occurring color.
When Meryl Lee brought out the scarf, Heidi and Marian cowered behind upraised arms.
“The light, it burns!” they cried. “Mercy, mercy!”
Heidi thought this was hysterically funny.
“Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, never begged for mercy,” Meryl Lee said.
“And she was beheaded,” said Marian.
“It’s for Jonathan,” said Meryl Lee.
“Jonathan is in Vietnam,” said Heidi.
“So?”
“Vietnam is tropical,” said Marian.
“You never know,” said Meryl Lee.
So Heidi put on dark glasses, and Meryl Lee knitted.
That day, she did nine inches.
Maybe she really could become an Accomplished knitter.
* * *
On the third Monday of January, Mrs. Mott’s Tea and Biscuit Conversation did not go well. Meryl Lee did not think she was responsible.
When Mrs. Mott announced at the Tea and Biscuit Conversation that Spiro Agnew was coming to visit St. Elene’s, Ashley said, “Isn’t it great that we have a vice president who wants to finally wipe out all the commies?”
“Let’s move on,” said Mrs. Mott.
When Mrs. Mott asked Meryl Lee for her current event, she said, “Thank you, Mrs. Mott. I would like to discuss the opportunities for peace in Vietnam.”
Ashley said, “You must be a commie too.”
And before Mrs. Mott could say, “Let’s move on,” again, Meryl Lee had replied to Ashley.
Meryl Lee was sure that she was not responsible all by herself for what happened next, and she certainly was not the first one to stand in a huff and to spill her tea and to speculate on the patriotism or lack thereof of certain people like Meryl Lee and like some members of the faculty.
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