Beyond the Bright Sea

by Lauren Wolk

  “First of all,” she said, “I most certainly did ask you your name. When you came here, I called over to you. I called over to you again and again, and you never told me your name.” She paused. “Would you prefer that I call you Osh?”

  “Osh is what Crow calls me.”

  I pushed Mouse gently off my lap and stood up, into the doorway. They both looked at me.

  “Why are you talking about this?” I asked him.

  “I’m beginning to think we should start over again,” he said. “I’ll call you Morgan from now on. And you can call me something else, too. Something better than Osh.”

  And he walked out of the house.

  I looked at Miss Maggie and she at me.

  “His name is Osh,” I said, and I could hear the tears in my throat.

  “I know,” she said, putting her arms around me. “He’ll come around. He’s just . . . well, I don’t know. Maybe lonely for the ways things were.”

  “The way they still are,” I said. “Nothing has changed. He’s still Osh.”

  “But are you still Crow?” she asked. “Or are you Morgan now?”

  “I’m Crow,” I said. “I’m Crow, and he’s Osh.”

  “Then go tell him that,” she said.

  I found him behind the house, at the cistern, filling a pitcher for the house. He looked up, saw me, closed the spigot, and set the pitcher in the sand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, holding out a hand to me.

  I took it, and he pulled me to him for a moment, his other hand in my hair.

  “I don’t understand,” I said into his shirt. “Can I not call you Osh anymore?”

  He turned me loose and took hold of my chin, tipping my head back, looking straight into my face.

  “Always, you can,” he said. “Always, you can. And I am going to call you Crow no matter what.”

  “Well, good,” I said shakily. “Otherwise, I won’t have any name at all.”

  He straightened up. “Not Morgan?”

  “Not Morgan,” I said. I picked up the pitcher in both hands and hugged it to my chest. “The mother who gave me that name is gone. I never knew any other father. You are here,” I said. “You, I know.”

  He nodded once. “Morgan can be your name, too, after Crow.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see.”

  We went around the house and through the door together.

  Miss Maggie was waiting for us in a chair by the fireplace. Her eyes were red.

  “So what am I supposed to call you?” she said to Osh. She sounded more sad than angry, though some of both. “Or would you rather I just went away?”

  I put the pitcher on the table and watched the next part of this strange day. Miss Maggie, forlorn as a cold lamb. Osh, looking like he had a bellyache.

  “No, I would not,” he said.

  “Then tell me what to call you, or I won’t call you anything at all.” She stood up and tried to look fierce.

  After a moment, he said his name. His whole name. Osh was only one part of it. He blurted this out like it had been sitting in the back of his throat for years.

  Miss Maggie looked up at him from under her brows. “Is that your name?” she asked.

  He nodded. He said it again.

  “Why are you telling me now, after all this time?” she asked.

  He looked at his hands, at the floor, at the wall above her head. “My name is important,” he said. “I don’t tell it to just anyone.”

  She glared at him. “So I am not just anyone? Finally?”

  He paused. “You haven’t been just anyone for a long time,” he said.

  “Then why are you only telling me now?” she said, a little red in the face.

  “You didn’t ask,” he said. “Since those first days, you never asked.”

  Miss Maggie made a sound like Mouse did when we pulled ticks off her neck. “Is that what I should call you then?”

  Osh shook his head. “That’s what I used to be. I’m Osh now. And Daniel.”

  I thought Miss Maggie might blow apart like a dandelion head in the wind. “But you just said your name was important to you! You just scolded me for calling you Daniel!”

  “It is important to me, but it’s part of what I used to be. You’re part of what I am now, so Daniel will do.”

  At which Miss Maggie turned as pink and fluttery as a primrose.

  “Why don’t you come sit in the shade while I catch us some lunch,” Osh said.

  At which Miss Maggie took a long breath. She smoothed her hair away from her face and put her hands on her cheeks. “Shade sounds good,” she said.

  “And will you both come back to Penikese with me?” I asked, eager to get that resolved while we were still in the business of sorting things out.

  Osh sighed. “You’re like a dog with a bone,” he said.

  “Of course we will,” Miss Maggie said. “You’re not going anywhere alone this time. We’re going to put this straight, once and for all.”

  In the end, even Osh agreed to that. He seemed calmer, not so sad, now that he’d said some things he’d been holding back. Some of them for a long time.

  Chapter 27

  It rained the next day. And the one after that. A windy rain that stirred up the sea and kept us on the island.

  “Penikese will still be there when we get to it,” Osh said. He always had plenty to do, rain or shine, and didn’t mind a chance to make paints and mend his gear.

  But I was eager for another crossing, mostly to tend the graves where my parents were buried. And to find what they’d left for me.

  I thought I knew where it was, but the rain gave me time to think, so that’s what I did. Until a midday knock startled both of us to our feet.

  It was not a Miss Maggie knock.

  She was with them, though. The two police officers from the mainland. Officers Kelly and Reardon.

  All three wore oilskin ponchos, which they shed and shook out, one by one, before coming into the house. Miss Maggie had come barefoot and her hair was down around her face, both of which were unusual for her, and I wondered at the change.

  The officers wore muck boots, but their trousers were nonetheless dark with seawater. As they stood looking around at our unusual home, puddles formed at their feet.

  Osh said to Miss Maggie, “So you sent your message.”

  “Indeed, I did,” she said. “Did you imagine that I wouldn’t?”

  She turned to the policemen. “This,” she said, her hand on Osh’s shoulder, “is the artist who drew the likeness of the man we saw on Penikese. The same man Crow saw in New Bedford.”

  Officer Kelly flipped open his little notebook and licked the tip of his pencil. “Your name?” he said.

  Osh glared at Miss Maggie. “Daniel,” he said through his teeth, looking away from the policemen.

  “Daniel what?”

  He paused. “Fisher,” he said.

  I was glad the officers weren’t looking at me. Miss Maggie’s eyes, too, grew round for a moment when he said that.

  They turned to me, and Osh sat again among his painting things, facing his easel. “You saw the man again?” Officer Kelly asked me. “In New Bedford?”

  “I did,” I said. “And I know his name, too.”

  That brought them up short, though Officer Reardon smiled as if I’d said something funny. “And are you a young Sherlock Holmes?” he said, bending a little, his hands on his knees.

  I leaned closer and said, “His name is James Kendall. From Carville, Louisiana. Or near there.”

  Officer Reardon straightened up. “And how do you know that?”

  I explained about the letter from Nurse Evelyn. “She used to work on Penikese when it was a leper colony, and I was curious about some of the patients there, so I wrote to her. And she wrote back and
told me some things about that man.”

  Officer Reardon made a face. “Why would she do that?”

  I sighed, worried now that the story was coming out like this, so tangled up that I thought I might trip on it. “Because I asked her some questions about a patient who dug up a necklace on Penikese and gave it to her. And she told Mr. Kendall about that. And he stole it and disappeared. And then we saw a big man on Penikese, with a southern accent, who had dug holes all over the island.”

  Officer Kelly was writing in his notebook. Officer Reardon squinted at me, frowning.

  “That’s quite a story,” he said.

  “And a hard one to follow,” said Officer Kelly. “Where is this letter of yours?”

  I hadn’t thought they’d want it. “It’s my letter,” I said.

  “Yes, but it’s evidence,” he replied, an edge to his voice, “and I’d like to take it with me.”

  I looked at Miss Maggie. She nodded. “If you want to catch him,” she said.

  I looked to Osh for his advice, but he was intent on his work, his back to us.

  I went to the cinnamon box and fetched the letter. Before I gave it to the officers, I took it out of the envelope and kept back the last page, where Nurse Evelyn had answered my words with her own.

  “Here, here,” Officer Reardon said, reaching out his hand. “What’s that about?”

  “It’s private,” I said. “Nothing to do with Mr. Kendall.” I handed him the first page of the letter. “This is the part about him.”

  They both read it silently, looking up at me from time to time.

  When they were done, Officer Kelly tucked it back in the envelope and then inside his notebook. “Well, this should make things somewhat easier,” he said. “Now tell us what happened in New Bedford.”

  I told them the parts that mattered to them, about Mr. Kendall appearing near the dock and then visiting the pawnbroker. “I think he sold a gold locket in there,” I said. “But I don’t know why he looked so angry when he came out.”

  Officer Reardon chuckled. “He likely got a lot less than he wanted for it,” he said.

  “Do you think he stole that necklace, too?”

  They both nodded. “He sounds like a proper thief to me,” Officer Kelly said. “But not a very smart one to stay so close by.” Officer Kelly put away his notebook. “You three be careful now,” he said. “I don’t expect he’s stupid enough to come back to the islands, but I’ve seen plenty of stranger and stupider things in my time.”

  Officer Reardon nodded. “You’d be amazed what people will do when money’s involved,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do about this Mr. Kendall, though I doubt he goes by that name here.” He turned to Osh. “The picture will help.”

  Osh nodded. “Good,” he said, and did not show his face again until they were gone.

  When the officers had left, I imagined them returning to the mainland, writing up a report, telling stories in the pub, spreading the news that the mysterious southerner really had been digging for treasure.

  “Do you think people will come out here now,” I asked Miss Maggie, “looking for whatever Mr. Kendall didn’t find?”

  Osh put down his brush and rubbed the back of his neck. “How do you know he didn’t find it?” he asked.

  Which gave me a start. I was stunned that this possibility hadn’t occurred to me.

  “Well, I guess I don’t,” I said slowly. “I guess I thought he gave up and took off after we saw him out there.”

  “Maybe so,” Osh said. “Maybe not.”

  “Which will do nothing to stop a thousand fools from digging up the rest of the island once they hear what he was after,” Miss Maggie said.

  “You don’t think he really found anything, do you?” I hated the thought that whatever Susanna had kept safe for me was in a pawnshop somewhere.

  “No,” Osh said. “I don’t think he did.”

  “Nor do I,” Miss Maggie said briskly. “But somebody else might be luckier than he was. So we’ll go out there as soon as the weather clears.”

  The others came before the rain stopped.

  Miss Maggie heard about it at the grocery and came straightaway to tell us.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, doing my sums—which was usually what I did on the second day of a long rain—when she arrived, bringing a good deal of wind and wet in with her.

  “One day,” she said. “It took just one day for the first of them to come.” She took off her poncho and hung it by the door. Again, she was barefoot, her feet little and white. “Those police officers must have stood at the top of Nobska Light with a megaphone and shouted about it.”

  Osh didn’t seem concerned. “Crow knows where it is. They don’t.”

  I put down my pencil. “I do?”

  “Don’t you?” he said.

  I thought about the feather on my cheek and the one on the wall of the leper cottage.

  I thought about the two lambs on Penikese.

  About everything Nurse Evelyn had written. And everything she hadn’t.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I do know where it is. And you do, too, don’t you?”

  Osh nodded. “Only one place it could be.”

  “Well?” Miss Maggie said. “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  And we did.

  When we were done, Miss Maggie looked sad.

  “We’ll wait for them to leave, then,” she said. “And when they’re gone, and we have Penikese to ourselves, we’ll go out there again and finish what Susanna started.”

  Chapter 28

  After another day, the rain stopped, but the parade of treasure hunters from the mainland did not. Some of the islanders went over, too, to muck around. When they sailed back to Cuttyhunk, they spoke of whole families over to Penikese from Woods Hole and beyond, the children with their little tin spades, even the mothers in their dresses and bonnets digging a hole or two before laying out picnics on the Penikese bluffs, everyone playing games along the moors afterward before heading home.

  But there were also a few rough, no-nonsense men with proper gear and hard hands who went about their work with no silliness of any kind.

  These were the men I feared—the ones who dug and dug and dug—single-minded and deliberate. If anyone found Susanna’s treasure, it would be one of these unsmiling men.

  I wondered if Mr. Kendall had come back over from New Bedford to dig some more, camouflaged by the crowd of others like him. I wondered if he was out there right now, tearing up that land.

  I listened to all the talk of Penikese—outside the grocery, in the post office yard—and counted the hours until all those strangers tired of the hunt and went away. I wanted fiercely for them to go, but not because of the treasure. These were the same clean people who would never have stepped foot on Penikese otherwise. Certainly not to bring soup to the lepers there. Or blankets. Or prayers when they died. And I waited, impatiently, for them to be gone.

  While I waited, I watched for the Shearwater to sail through our waters again.

  It was too early for her to be back from Portland yet, even if she had not gone on to some other, more distant port. But I watched anyway, my thoughts never far from the sailor who looked like me.

  I spent the mornings at my chores, one eye on the sea, and then, from the top of a drumlin, spent some time looking north, my old spyglass ready.

  I even climbed up Lookout Hill to ask the surfman there if he’d keep an eye out, his long glass far superior to mine, his single job to watch for ships coming through.

  “I’m but one lookout,” he said, not unkindly, “and I’ve but one purpose here. But I’ll try to keep it in mind, and I’ll mention it to the others, but no promises, Crow. Unless she’s in trouble, I’m likely to miss her. Best if you keep watch yourself.”

 
So I did, when I could.

  And I made up my mind that when I did see that old schooner with a long green pennant flying from its mainmast, I would be on the next boat to New Bedford, this time in our own skiff if need be. This time with Osh and Miss Maggie, to meet the schooner when she moored.

  I saw other ships sail through, some of them flying the striped pennant that told pilots to come help them navigate the Graveyard, past Sow and Pigs Reef, and into the deeper safety of Buzzards Bay. But none of them flew a long green pennant.

  The Shearwater was a smallish ship whose captain surely knew these waters well enough to manage on his own. Which meant he might slip past me and across to New Bedford without giving me a chance to chase her into port.

  “No point looking for her so late in the day,” Osh said as we stood on our little beach one evening, Mouse with us in the long twilight, the sky fading to gray, the empty sea surging past. “If she appears now, we can’t follow. I won’t sail out as night comes, even if there were a way to catch her before she moored.”

  He, too, looked out toward Sow and Pigs, but he was not looking for anything. I knew that, for him, the rising moon was all.

  Mouse paid no attention to anything except a mole crab that decided it had lived long enough and tunneled up through the sand directly between her front paws.

  “But if I see her, at least I’ll know she’s come back to New Bedford,” I said.

  “Which wouldn’t help you find your brother,” he said. “Have you ever seen sailors when they reach port?”

  I shook my head.

  “They furl their sails at double-time, then off they go,” he said, “into the city like mice into grain.”

  “I’d still find him,” I said. Though I remembered how, even in daylight, the city had seemed too big. Too confusing.

  “I believe you could,” Osh said, “if anyone could.” And he let me do my waiting and watching without much interference. And he didn’t try again to distract me as the days went by, no old schooner among them.

  On the morning of the ninth day since I’d first seen the Shearwater, the rain came back, and I woke up knowing that Penikese had waited long enough.