Wild Blue Wonder

by Carlie Sorosiak

  “Duty calls,” Hana says, leaving me alone with Moby–Gentleman’s Area.

  I crack the spine. It’s Reed’s old copy, so he’s scrawled on the title page Reed Octavius Sawyer. That’s not his real middle name. When I was in seventh grade, the two of us determined that we needed upstanding, serious names, so he chose Octavius and I selected de Beauvoir after the famous feminist who Mom admired—and honestly because it sounded French, and to me, French = seriousness.

  I flip to the first page. Call me Ishmael, it reads, and then something Reed’s underlined: Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul . . . I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

  The bell above the gift-shop door rings—then a gust of frigid air, footsteps squeaking against tile.

  “Nice gig, isn’t it?” Charlie says, and I hate that his voice is so warm and so upbeat and so undeniably happy.

  “I guess so.”

  He pretends to examine a stack of blueberry jam jars left over from our summer sale, one hand in the pocket of his puffer coat. His eyes are brown and soft like a golden retriever’s. “Did Reed tell you I worked here in high school, too?”

  You mean did Reed and I actually engage in conversation? Nope. He and Charlie have been dating for two weeks—and obviously he hasn’t told him that much, if Charlie thinks Reed and I are on speaking terms. “No,” I say, setting down the book.

  “I was a lobster runner. Then I spent a year in Boston, and when I told people my job title, I think they imagined some sort of exercise machine.” He mimes a little lobster on a treadmill. When I don’t laugh, he shifts back and forth in his beat-up hiking boots. “Your brother told me you’re an excellent swimmer.”

  It comes out before I can stop it: “He did?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Said you placed first in the nation in the two-hundred-meter butterfly last year. So, hear me out: I know you’re not swimming anymore, but if you ever want to get back into some sort of athletics, I’m offering Saturday rock-climbing classes that you might really—”

  “That’s okay.” My smile’s tight-lipped. “I’m okay.”

  “You sure? I promise, it’ll be really fun! We do these trust exercises, and it’s a great workout that can be really exhilarating and . . .”

  I’m not even listening anymore, because I know what’s going on. He’s trying to fix me.

  Good luck, dude.

  The bell clinks again and Reed trails in, blond hair still stuffed under that Canucks cap, a red apron tied around his waist. Maybe it’s just his clunky boots, but when he walks, the whole gift shop vibrates. It never used to do that.

  “Hey, stranger,” Charlie says to him, getting a sheepish smile from Reed in return. A real smile. When was the last time I got a real smile from my brother? Sometimes I wonder if the old Reed will ever come back permanently, if that empty-beach calmness will replace all this gruff. Every once in a while, I sense these little pockets of calm. I just wish those moments happened with me. “I was telling your sister about my rock-climbing classes,” Charlie says.

  Suddenly Reed’s peering at the ground, massaging the back of his neck, and the craggy-rock voice has returned. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yep. We’re working out together this Saturday. Right, Quinn?”

  Say what?

  And of course at that moment, Fern glides in, about to grab an ice cream bucket for one of her tables. She’s in her waitress uniform, loose braided and cat eared, and jolts to a halt when she sees Charlie, Reed, and me—all together.

  “Hi!” Charlie says. “You’re Fern, right? I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

  Fern blinks at him, long and slow. “I was just leaving.”

  Reed jumps in: “Fern, don’t give us that—”

  But Charlie presses a hand to Reed’s chest and says, “It’s okay. I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”

  She’s gone a few seconds later.

  Fern can walk out of a room like she’s slamming a door in your face.

  June

  Let Down Your Hair

  Fern wore her hair in a perfect braid—always.

  I used to think it was so strange, how her bubbliness and her joyousness were wrapped up so tight in her rules and her bobby pins and her elastics, triple-tied. How even her ballet teacher said: Hey, loosen up.

  The first Wednesday of camp, she was jittery during breakfast.

  “Someone pass the agave, please,” Hana said, making the gimme motion with her hands. “Can I also just say how much I love that there’s agave? Your family is so hipster.”

  Even though I’d rinsed off at the boathouse, the salt water from my morning swim was still drying on my body—tensing my skin. And I was starving. “How many blueberry pancakes is too many?”

  There were smudges of dirt on Reed’s arms. He’d started a camp-wide initiative to plant more birch trees on the south side of The Hundreds and often woke up early to spread soil. “Twenty pancakes,” he deadpanned.

  Fern and I rolled our eyes. “Eye-roll jinx,” we said at the same time.

  Reed laughed his quiet laugh. “That’s not a thing.”

  “Sure it is,” Fern countered.

  “If you say so.”

  The mess hall was bustling with the tink of forks, the ping of voices off wooden walls. Nana was burning incense in the enormous stone fireplace; Mom was hovering by the buffet, serving glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice; and you, Dylan, were plopping into the chair next to mine, saying, “Sawyer, I have a question.” A Portland Pirates baseball cap squashed down your curls.

  A smile quirked up my lips. “If you say anything about the ceiling, I will steal all your pancakes and eat them really slowly in front of you.”

  Still, you peered up.

  Grandpa Michael fancied himself a Maine Michelangelo—so much so that, in the years before he died, he spent most winters, springs, and autumns on his back, surrounded by scaffolding, creating the Sawyer family’s version of the Sistine Chapel. My seven-year-old self was toothlessly immortalized. And at the beginning of every summer, you liked to point this out: how my near-empty gums were four feet in diameter.

  I looked up, too. And laughed. Couldn’t help it.

  “Hey, Quinn,” Fern said suddenly. “Do you have time to help me with my photos before your swim session?”

  I said sure, cleaning up my plate and following her to the arts-and-crafts cabin next door. Already there were watercolor paintings hanging on the windows with strips of tape, sunshine turning the cabin into a kaleidoscope of color. In the prismatic light, Fern looked like a rainbow. Like a princess. I gently tugged her braid, joking, “Oh, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

  “Rapunzel is the worst,” she said.

  “No. Sleeping Beauty is the worst. She doesn’t do anything.”

  “That’s not her fault.”

  “I didn’t say it was her fault. No one really means to be boring.”

  “True,” Fern said, opening the door to the darkroom, where she turned on the enlarger and positioned a piece of light-sensitive paper beneath its aperture. As she worked, she lifted herself up and down on her toes, moving to an invisible beat; she was a lot like Mom that way—except where Mom’s hippie dance was fluid, Fern’s was precise. Calculated. She was always practicing.

  “Pass me the tongs?” Fern asked, and once I did, she began exposing the paper to the bright light, then dipping it into the first of three watery baths.

  Dylan, it was your face that came to life.

  They were photos of the camp, yes. Of all the counselors, yes. But there you were, front and center—in that photo, in the next and the next, over and over again. And it made sense: You clapped the loudest at Fern’s ballet recitals. You kneed that Cody kid in the nutsack after he broke up with her on the Fourth of July. When she was eleven and fell off her bike, you carried her five miles back home.

  So you love him, too, I should have said. But the secret felt like standing too close to a
raging campfire, and Fern was so happy and so proud of those black-and-white photographs that I just couldn’t break her.

  I said, “These are really great shots, Pea.”

  And she beamed. But moments later: “In front of Dylan . . . could you maybe not call me that anymore?”

  I got it, I really did—she wanted to be mature.

  “Sweet Pea” was a seven-year-old who’d stopped liking peas—previously her favorite. Instead of informing Mom, she hid all the Green Giant cans behind the washing machine. “Sweet Pea” was the little girl who wore bumblebee wings and wouldn’t take them off, even for a bath, until Reed said, They smell like Dumpster cheese.

  Now her lipstick was getting thicker, but you were still treating her that way, Dylan: as sweet little Pea, as bumblebee girl.

  And she wanted more.

  November

  She Doesn’t Need a Flashlight

  After she stomps off at Leo’s, I don’t see my sister again until she sneaks back through our bedroom window. It’s two in the morning, and Indigo’s talking about sea butterflies on The Sunshine Hypothesis—how sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you’ll spot a huge pod of them, fluttering on the ocean surface like colossal angel wings.

  Seriously, they’re stunning. Imagine the night sky—all those stars. It’s similar. And this also goes to show you, never underestimate the power of small things. Although they’re microscopic, if we measured all the sea butterflies on Earth, we’d find that their mass would be greater than that of every whale, every fish, every living thing in the ocean put together. How wonderful is that?

  I turn down the volume as Fern says, “Crap.” Her leg’s halfway through the window, her boot dripping slush on the carpet. A frozen chill charges toward me—and I think it’s half the weather, half my sister. “You’re awake.”

  Now would be a good time to tell her that I always wait up, even when all the lights are off and she thinks I’m sleeping. She’s been sneaking out a lot for the past two months, returning closer and closer to dawn. I heard a few girls in my gym class talking about it: Fern has some much-older friends at a campground near the Wiggly Bridge (so named because it shivers in the wind), and they drink and get high and kayak along Winship River like idiots. Once or twice I’ve caught her in a too-light coat, smoking cigarettes on our front porch. Before this, her idea of rebellion was wearing her days-of-the-week underwear out of order. I want to shake the old Fern back into her.

  “One of these days,” I say, “I’m going to tell Mom.”

  She shrugs off her jacket and rolls her shoulders, as if she’s gearing up to slug me. “No, you won’t.”

  And maybe she’s right. Tattling—even for the right reasons—would only dig me further into the trenches.

  “You never used to sneak out,” I mumble to myself. Or smoke. Or drink. Or act like Cerberus the three-headed dog, with all its teeth and bite. You used to ballet-skip everywhere and giggle at everything and jump up on the sink when I said lava. I pull my quilt to my chin, raise my voice a little louder: “I just hope you’re being . . . you know . . . safe.”

  She cocks her head to the side like a bird. “Safe? That’s ironic.” With that, she slides into bed and disappears angrily into the sheets.

  Well, good night to you, too.

  I lie there silently, a billon thoughts buzzing like fireflies in my head.

  And when I hear Fern’s breath deepen—dramatic hums that let me know she’s entered a REM cycle—I get to work: creeping out of bed, throwing on the Antarctica parka and some boots, and unlatching the front door as soundlessly as I can. Time to go fix something. Fix something, finally.

  Outside it’s foggy, tendrils of haze crawling along the ground like vines. Even though the birch trees are whispering to each other, it feels empty. Beautiful, but empty. I miss the summer—the chaos of voices in the mess hall, sunshine against emerald grass, and fullness. Now the only moving things aren’t living at all: icicles on the ropes course swaying with wind, haloed mist swirling above the wildflower meadow, and vague, shadowy shapes on the Yoga and Meditation Cabin’s porch. When I pass, they drift back and forth like splinters of moonlight, dispersing in the air as squid ink does in water.

  I shiver all the way to the barn and flick on my phone’s flashlight. The doors moan as I open and close them. Jesus. This is terrifying. The dead giants are all covered and silent, but it’s as if one ounce of dark magic will raise them up again.

  Squeaks from above my head.

  Bats.

  I peel the covering off the Chris-Craft again, set my phone down—glow still illuminating the space—and start rummaging through Nana Eden’s woodworking bench, just to the left. Don’t let the whole knitting/crafty persona fool you: she’s a real wiz with woodworking, as talented as Grandpa was, and growing up we had a steady stream of people trailing in and out of the barn, asking, “Hey, Eden, mind taking a look to see if you can fix this?” I’m not sure if I’ve inherited the woodworking gene. Never really tested it, because: splinters. One spike under my thumbnail put me off it for years.

  According to the websites I’ve bookmarked, the first things I need are an electric sander, a face mask, and a heavy-duty extension cord.

  Great. Easy peasy.

  In no time, I’ve plugged in the sander and whirred it awake—the rough grrrr sound vibrating through my bones—and I’ve just about touched sandpaper to the wood hull when the barn doors fly open again. I jump. Turn off the sander.

  Just the wind, just the wind.

  Or ghosts.

  Or—

  “Cookie,” Nana says, blinking at me with exaggerated flicks of her lashes, no fewer than three knitting needles in her hair. With her flashlight and white, fluffy robe—which looks like she rolled down a mountain of dandelions—she practically glows in the dark. In her right hand is a thermos of something steamy and hot. “I think you and I need to have a little chat.”

  “You scared the crap out of me,” I say, shivery and breathless.

  “Not literally, I hope.”

  “What? No, I—”

  She gestures with her flashlight between the Chris-Craft and me. “These sorts of things don’t escape my notice, Cookie, no matter how old and decrepit I am.”

  “How did I wake you? I was so quiet.”

  She thrusts the thermos into my hands. “Wasn’t asleep. Late-night knitting. Now drink this.”

  I sniff the thermos, heart rate slowing. “Um . . . this isn’t Mom’s hot chocolate, is it?” Instead of velvety sweetness, Mom’s has the intense taste of carob and dandelion root; it could strip all the barnacles off this boat—no sanding required.

  “Find out for yourself.”

  “God, it’s like Russian roulette.” I didn’t realize how cold my hands were—the heat from the container almost stings. Tentatively, I take a sip, and the flavor’s everything I want it to be. Rich warmth coats the back of my throat. “Thanks.”

  “Do yourself a favor and don’t thank me yet.” She surveys the boat, then squares her shoulders, making herself as tall as possible—so, just about up to my neck. “I want in.”

  “In what?”

  Taking the thermos from me, she swigs a gulp and swishes it around like mouthwash. “The boat restoration. You are restoring it, right?”

  How does she know everything? I crack my knuckles, a nervous habit. If I say no, she’ll know I’m lying, but if I say yes, she’ll want to talk about it—how this won’t help or will help, how I can fix the Chris-Craft and take to the sea and still not find what I’m looking for.

  “You sure this can’t wait until spring?” she asks, taking my silence as a yes.

  “I’m sure.”

  “It’s wicked cold out there on the water.”

  “I know, Nana.”

  “I’m guessing that it’s not just about the boat? I’m guessing you want to find Wessie?”

  “Don’t call it that.”

  A combination of Winship and “Nessie,” à la Loch Ness monster
fame, the image of “Wessie” is a town staple. On the WELCOME TO WINSHIP sign, a dragon-like creature pokes its head out from the second O, batting its doe eyes with long lashes. Since the early eighties, the Winship Gazette has reported every alleged Wessie sighting by locals and tourists alike, sixteen in total. One testimony is from the girl who used to babysit us, Jenny Pitcher. I’ll never forget what she said: “You know a monster when you see one.”

  To me, the cutesy name trivializes it.

  “Okay, I understand,” Nana says. “But what’re you planning to do, exactly? Kill it?”

  I blink at her. “No. Just . . .” See what a monster looks like, face-to-face. Prove that it’s real, because it has to be. It absolutely has to be. “You know . . . you don’t have to be a part of this.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Really, I can do it by myself.”

  She lays out her response simply, like she’s setting the table for tea. “My mother used to tell me that sometimes when a woman’s in darkness, she doesn’t need a goddamn flashlight. She needs another woman to stand in the dark by her side.”

  Oh.

  “I just want to be here for you, Quinn. Your parents, too. We all just want to be here.”

  Usually Nana looks at me like I’m still a little kid in a Sailor Moon T-shirt with too many Band-Aids on my knees, like she could braid my hair and I’d let her tie a purple ribbon at the end (even if I ripped it out later). But tonight’s different: she called me a woman. Is it possible to feel like a kid and an adult at the same time?

  My voice breaks. “Nana, I—”

  “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay.” Her hands are simultaneously callused and soft—paradox palms—and she cups the sides of my face. “When you’re ready to talk, we’ll talk. Since we’re already out here, whatdaya say we tackle some dry rot, hmm? Next time, I’ll make us something stronger than hot chocolate.”

  She runs her fingers through my short hair.