Something Fishy

by Hilary MacLeod

  Now there were fewer places where the wild strawberries grew due to the coastal cottage development, the annual erosion of the capes, the huge farms with their heavy equipment, pesticides and fertilizers, and the changes in weather patterns. More storms, worse storms wreaking destruction along the coastline.

  The cape at The Shores remained a treasure trove of wild Red Island strawberries, and April couldn’t bear to see them wasted. She had sent her six kids to round up the other village kids and mount an assault. She promised their parents she would make the preserves for them, unless they wanted to make their own. Nobody did. They all knew that April’s wild strawberry jam could not be rivaled for taste, tang, and consistency of texture. Besides, it would save them on the light bill. April wasn’t concerned about that. She cooked her jam on the wood range.

  April was shoving containers of various kinds into the children’s hands. Her own kids – all six, including little Alice – and every kid from the village, child or grandchild – was there – the Frasers, the Joudrys, the Roses, the MacLeans – and the MacPhersons, all of whom denied they were related to Jared. April gave each a bowl or plastic container until she ran out – and finally found a use for her slow cooker. Two containers. The ceramic insert and the metal exterior. She handed each to a child, the one child straining under the weight of the ceramic oval. April grabbed it and switched it with a plastic bucket held by a larger child, who frowned when she felt the weight of it.

  “Go now, and hurry,” she said. “Those strawberries won’t last forever.”

  She turned back into the house, where Murdo was slumped, sulking at her treatment of him. She’d better cheer him up.

  She slipped over to him and unbuttoned his shirt. She slid it off. He smiled up at her. Shivered with expectation. He knew just what she was going to do.

  Iron it.

  An unfamiliar sound from outside drew Jamieson’s eyes to the window.

  Children on the cape. But that wasn’t it.

  The superintendent followed her gaze. He moved over to the window.

  “Apparently your enforcement methods aren’t very effective.”

  She held up a hand. The sound was coming from the cape.

  “Shh.”

  “Shh? Shh?”

  “Yes, shh.” What was the noise? There it came again. Was the turbine tower moving? Shifting? Something stuck in the blades. She grabbed the binoculars she kept on a hook by the window. A blue heron, a big bird caught in the blades that were still trying to move, rocking the tower. Was it going to come down?

  Children on the cape. She had to get them off there.

  She rushed to the door. The superintendent followed her.

  “Now wait there a minute…”

  “That may be all we have.” Was the rocking going faster now? Picking up momentum? Jamieson jumped into the Superintendent’s vehicle. Her own was being washed and detailed by Murdo. The Superintendent looked astonished.

  “If you would explain exactly what – ”

  “Get in,” she said. “Get in and drive. Those kids may be in danger. We don’t have time to fart around.”

  “Is that any way to talk to a superior officer?”

  He still didn’t budge, but stood there like an idiot.

  “No, it isn’t, but we can discuss that later.”

  Another grinding sound came from the wind turbine. The children picking the strawberries on the cape were laughing and screaming and running about and paying no attention to the noise from the big machine.

  They were used to its noises.

  Another groan, a whine – a movement?

  “It’s coming down,” said Jamieson. “We have to clear those children out of there.”

  “We?” The Superintendent was backing away.

  “I don’t care what you do. I’m going.” She was about to jump out of the car, but he relented and got in. Ian and Hy were chatting at Ian’s door. She could depend on them. Jamieson yelled out the window.

  “The turbine’s coming down. There are kids on the cape.”

  Ian and Hy jumped into the still-moving police vehicle. Jamieson reached over and turned on the siren as the cruiser sped down the Shore Lane.

  The whoosh, thwarp from the turbine accompanied, metronome-like, the groans and high-pitched squeaks as the tower swayed from side to side, the blades spinning.

  The children were now panicking, screaming, running in every direction, into each other, falling, scraping their knees, and crying. Many were frozen to the spot.

  “Get out of here.”

  Jamieson had jumped out of the police cruiser before the Superintendent braked, and she yelled at some of the older ones. “Take the little ones with you. To the Shore Lane and then keep going. Fast as you can.” She dove onto the cape, hoisted a pair of tots, stumbled back and dumped them on the lane.

  Hy and Ian had each grabbed a couple of kids, and were yelling at others to get off the cape.

  Superintendent Constable was watching from a point well out of danger.

  Villagers were streaming down the lane. Jamieson yelled at the Superintendent, “Keep them back. We’re good. We’re good.” Enough lives were in danger. More people would create chaos that might result in deaths and injuries.

  Nathan squealed to a stop in his makeshift ambulance. He, Lili, and, of all people, Jared MacPherson, kept the anxious mothers and fathers back from the cape. Jared had the usual cigarette dangling from his mouth, and the newfound authority to tell Gladys where to go.

  They couldn’t keep Murdo away. There were six Dewey kids on that cape and he was going to get them off.

  The adults formed a chain of children – Jamieson lifting them, and depositing them, without looking, into whatever open arms appeared before her. Hy. Ian. Murdo. Back and forth they went. Child after sobbing child, they were propelled across the cape to safety.

  The creaking and groaning and grinding had become deafening.

  Murdo was begging a little redheaded girl to come with him. She was rolling on the ground, screaming hysterically with flailing arms and legs, kicking out at Murdo, kicking him in the groin, so he doubled over with pain.

  Jamieson marched over and grabbed the child.

  She looked up. The tower was looming dangerously, getting ready to carve its path through the air and slice through whatever was in the way.

  It was too late to get back to the Shore Lane.

  She was frozen, hypnotized by the blades of the turbine.

  Hy came pounding up and whacked her on the back of the head.

  “Move it, Jamieson. Get your ass in gear.” Hy was dragging six-year-old Arthur Dewey. He’d run back onto the cape after being rescued. He’d been looking for his sister Alice. Murdo was, too, turning around in circles, searching, searching.

  Hy grabbed Jamieson’s arm and shook her.

  “I said, move your ass.”

  She came to.

  “Now. Now. If we’re fast, we can get past the dome, and out of range.”

  The dome. A blackened circle of debris. It had taken humans to bring this scale of destruction and devastation here, to this peaceful place.

  Hy hauled young Arthur into her arms, and grabbed Jamieson’s hand, to keep them both steady. They dashed dangerously close to the edge of the cape, the child whimpering and clinging to them.

  Billy and Madeline had been cutting grass at the Toombs’ place. Hy had stood watching, not knowing what to do – until Madeline spied two little girls trapped in the tall grass on the edge of the cape, unseen by anyone else. She jumped on Billy’s ride-on and urged him to drive down to the cape.

  “There! There!” Madeline pointed at two farm tractors with hay balers sitting idle at the edge of the field.

  Madeline hopped onto one of them. Billy jumped onto the other

  “The girls,” she yelled, o
ver the sound of the rigs starting up. “If we get there in time, we can drive them out. If not, leave the tractors in the way of the tower.”

  Red dust flew up behind them as they gunned the farm tractors and pushed them at a wild speed across the uneven ground, up, up onto the cape, racing for the tall grass, where the girls stood paralyzed, clinging to one another.

  There was no time to drive them out. The shadow of the tower loomed above them.

  “Drop down. Drop down.” Waving a hand wildly, Billy yelled over the noise of the tractor and the turbine, collapsing down onto the cape.

  “Down. Down,” echoed Madeline, and recognizing the girls, called out to them. “Violet. Millie.”

  Hearing their names brought them around. They fell onto the ground, disappearing into the tall grass as the turbine groaned its intent.

  Billy and Madeline stopped the tractors and balers in the path of the tower, dropped to the ground, and rolled over to the girls, shielding them with their bodies.

  Would the tower land on the shore or cape? It swayed this way. That way. This way. Hy and Jamieson had slipped in behind the wreck of the dome. Hy felt as if her chest would burst. Her lungs were burning, starving for air.

  A tiny head popped up halfway across the cape from the crevice that led down to the shore.

  “Jesus, God, no.” Jamieson yanked off her shoes and sped toward the child, shaking off Hy who had grabbed her again.

  “Jamieson. No. You can’t make it.”

  Jamieson knew that she could, even though it had been years since she’d run barefoot, the fleetest woman in competition. She called on all that strength as she sped for the child, four-year-old Alice Dewey.

  Jamieson reached the child and grabbed her. She dropped to the ground, and rolled, still clasping Alice, all the way down the side of the cape to the shore. Above them, the tower was streaking down, creaking, grinding, groaning, holding the blue heron like some trophy in its clutches, the blades still making hiccupping movements, the grinding, whining sound of the tower interplaying with the strangled whoosh, thwarp of the blades.

  It was mesmerizing.

  Jamieson thought about what would happen when it hit the ground.

  “Get clear, get clear,” she yelled, but no one could hear what she was shouting from the shore, nor see the tears streaming down her face as she clung to little Alice. She was praying, praying and shouting into the wind, helpless to do more. She kept it up, even though she knew her voice was drowning in the grinding of the falling tower, until her throat was stripped raw and numb. She was buzzing with adrenalin, shock, and fear.

  Murdo, who had seen Jamieson save Alice, did exactly what she would have done. He had begun to move the villagers and the children up the Shore Lane, children and parents clutching one another, some weeping, all looking back, their eyes on the falling tower.

  It seemed to be moving in slow motion, and Murdo and Hy, Ian and Jamieson, the parents and children on the Shore Lane watched as, second by second, it heaved and came thundering down.

  Shuddering. Hands-over-ears shuddering.

  With terrifying speed, whistling on the wind, growing larger as it grew closer, taller, more frightening, more menacing, it hit the ground, smashing the tractors and the balers, parts flying everywhere.

  Billy and Madeline and the two girls kept still, still until the noise stopped, and they peeked up to see the tractors, pinned down by the turbine tower, but holding it high enough that they had been spared. Madeline shoved Billy’s head down again, and kept the girls from moving.

  It wasn’t over yet. Beyond them, the blades of the turbine spun off and sliced into the air like boomerangs. The tower shuddered one more time and shattered into fractured bits of metal that flew over the cape and onto the shore. A few pieces hit some of the people on the lane, including Gladys, but no one, miraculously, was seriously hurt. A few little cuts, but no major injuries.

  Superintendent Constable was safely in his car, annoyed when a piece of metal struck it, damaging the finish of the hood and driver’s side door.

  There was stunned silence when the rain of debris abated and the tower lay immobile on the ground, parts of itself scattered all around it.

  Dead?

  Alice looked up at Jamieson with her big brown eyes and stretched up both arms. Jamieson’s hair was loose and Alice thought she looked like Snow White. Jamieson took the child in her arms, feeling the warmth of her, the comfort of her sweet-smelling body, and began speaking endearments to her: “There’s a little love. There’s a sweetie-pie.” Alice snuggled right into her chest, her little face up against Jamieson’s neck, softly breathing onto her skin, feeling safety in her arms.

  Jamieson felt her heart skip a beat. No, that wasn’t true. Hearts don’t always skip beats. Sometimes they add them. Little Alice had just added a beat to Jamieson’s heart.

  “Stupid. I was stupid,” muttered Jamieson, as she came back up onto the cape and joined Hy.

  “What?” said Hy. “You saved all these kids. All the kids in the village.”

  They had to pick their way through metal and plastic, large and small, strewn all over the cape. It would be a tough clean-up. Clearing fish off the cape had been a task, but they at least were biodegradable.

  “Should have got them up the lane. Should’ve had them all out of here.”

  “You do what you can do.” Hy dared to put a reassuring hand on Jamieson’s shoulder. There were tears etched on Jamieson’s face. Not something Hy had ever expected to see. Tears wiped to dirty streaks where Jamieson had tried to staunch them.

  Billy and Madeline stumbled over, shaking, with Violet and Millie in tow. Jamieson had spied the two crushed tractors at the edge of the tall grass and figured out what they’d done. She jumped on the pair when they came over with the two girls.

  “That was insane,” she scolded them, mostly from relief. “You…they…could have been killed.”

  “They would have been,” said Madeline. “If we hadn’t done something.”

  Everyone was surprised that Madeline had spoken up, and to Jamieson. When Billy told everyone later – with pride – that Madeline had engineered the rescue, they were “…flummoxed,” said Gus. “Don’t believe I’ve ever been flummoxed in my life, but I am now.”

  “My children. Murdo saved my children.” April Dewey was collecting her six kids, clucking over them, patting their heads, wiping their tears. Watching her, Jamieson understood the term “mother hen.” A dull ache filled her centre. She remembered her own mother wiping away the wounds. Not for long. There was one deep wound she couldn’t heal – the guilt over the fire she’d accidentally started, the one that had killed her parents.

  Hy deposited Alice into her anxious mother’s arms.

  “So did she.” Pointing to Jamieson.

  April flushed.

  “Bless you,” she said to Jamieson.

  “Let’s be thankful that no one got hurt.”

  Except Gladys was being a drama queen over a nick on her hand. Contemptible, thought Hy, considering her own granddaughter, Millie, was one of the two girls Billy Pride had saved. The other was Violet Joudry, the too-precious step-dancing, fiddle-playing granddaughter of Estelle Joudry. Hy vowed she would never be snarky about the girl in the future, who’d shed not one tear, and was busy comforting her own mother, who was a wreck.

  Billy and Madeline were walking around like a pair of zombies, unable to take in what had happened, what they had done. There had been no thanks from Gladys when they brought the children over.

  “Could of been dead,” Gladys insisted to a horrified Olive, who had watched from up at the hall and came scurrying down when it was all over. Gladys wasn’t talking about the children. “That close it came to me. Mebbe I should sue.”

  “Who?” said Hy in an aside to Jamieson.

  It was then that she noticed what Jamieson was
wearing. She started to laugh. Out of control. Fear released in guffaws. Jamieson started to laugh, too.

  Her cream dress was covered in red clay.

  The last time Jamieson wore a dress, it was dirtied and ripped to shreds. She’d answered a call a couple of years back in a bridesmaid’s dress.

  “Are you making a habit of this?”

  “Well, I’m not a nun.”

  Jamieson had made a joke. Another first.

  And the shoes? Left behind the dome.

  “Why’d you take the shoes off?” Hy asked.

  “To run faster. Every second counted. Those wedges would have slowed me down. Besides, I was trained to run barefoot.”

  She stared across the cape.

  Not by the RCMP, thought Hy. There were still things to be learned about Jamieson. Secrets to unlock.

  Jamieson stared across the cape, lost in a memory, her lips barely moving. Hy could hardly hear what she was saying – and what she heard, she could barely believe.

  “Empty-handed I entered the world

  Barefoot I leave it.

  My coming, my going –

  Two simple happenings

  That got entangled.”

  Curiouser and curiouser, like Alice in Wonderland. Was this the Jamieson she knew, running barefoot and quoting Zen poetry? Poetry clearly about death. Hy shivered and Ian came over and put an arm around her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It would be a long time – if ever – before April would forgive herself for sending the children onto the cape. She dug through the debris to reclaim her bowls. Each one was like an accusation. She gathered them up with her guilt, the bowls and the precious strawberries. She couldn’t bring herself to fling them on the ground. That would be waste on top of near-tragedy.