by Janice Clark
Meantime, the six men were becoming impatient. Their contracts with Erastus called for berths on the Misistuck, contracts to be fulfilled as soon as she returned to port. The agreements included a generous lay, enough gold to keep each man and his family—for a few of the men had wives and children waiting at home—comfortable for many years. But through three seasons no such ship appeared and no rumor of any, until a New Bedford brig finally passed with the news that the Misistuck had passed them six months earlier, not homeward bound but headed for the Azores, on the far side of the world.
In warm summer, the men all left, leaving behind six swollen brides in the cottages. In the seventh cottage the abandoned bride abided, intact.
At the beginning of the ninth month, the brides were moved to the main house. Since the third-floor nursery was not yet finished, all were installed in the room at the back of the first floor, that same room where all the Rathbone boys had swung in hammocks, watched over by the worn wives. Five more beds were moved into the room, and all were spread with newly loomed linens from Mouse Island. By the first bed, Conch and Crab were stationed, dressed in clean white cooks’ slops. Though the room, like all the others, was always clean and shipshape, Conch and Crab, excited about the new life on its way, had redoubled their efforts. The floors were swabbed and holystoned twice daily; the brides were offered every comfort, pressed with offers of fresh banty-hen eggs, of new white bread and warm milk.
As the time drew near, the brides’ attendants timed their contractions and tried to hold off those whose birth pangs didn’t coincide with the striking of the bell at noon. Bemus assisted, distracting one bride with a soothing chantey, calming another with sips of rum-laced tea. The team stood by ready to haul the line. When each squalling head breached its mother’s thighs, Conch hauled and heaved, then Crab neatly cut the cord and tied it in a square knot and duly noted down the time in the log. The brides all gave birth in a wave within two hours of one another, between one and three bells in the first dogwatch, on the last day of the year.
When they were finished, a weary Conch and Crab opened the door and beckoned to Erastus, who had been waiting outside throughout the last watch. He walked slowly into the room, his heart racing, his hopes high for this infusion of new blood into tired Rathbone veins. He had long waited for this moment: the birth of a new generation of strong sons, sons who would reestablish the Rathbones’ mastery of the sperm and of the sea.
Conch and Crab stood aside, avoiding his eye. Erastus stepped close to the hammock in which the six infants lay, swabbed and swaddled. The infants did display a closer relationship to the sea than any Rathbone had in three generations, but not in the way that Erastus had hoped for. They looked as though they would have been more at home in the fluid with which they arrived than breathing the air. They gasped at each breath. Their limbs and features showed no symmetry, as though viewed through a fathom of water. They resembled more a spill of shell-less shellfish in a net than human infants. One boy’s flipper-like arms, waving feebly, might have served him well in the sea. The skin of one infant girl sparkled, scaly, and from her spine rose a vestigial fin.
Erastus stared at the hammock, now swaying in a breeze. His fingers fumbled at his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper; he opened it to look at the list of names he had chosen. He refolded it, put it back in his pocket, and left the room.
Conch and Crab fussed and fretted over the infants while the mothers, exhausted by their labor, lay sleeping. They fought over how to fold the diapers, deftly changing them in pinless fashion, plying the babies with bottles and tucking them snugly into their hammock. But in the same order in which they came into the world, within minutes of one another and on the same day they arrived, the babies all departed. Fourth-Oar and Bemus, whispering, returned them to the sea.
The carpenters were sent away. The unfinished third floor remained unfinished, lifting its white columns against the sky. The cottages were torn down. The brides, emptied, sailed back to the island in the west, to the caves and to the birds that had bred there each spring, birds with long red legs, with white plumage and glossy black throats.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WEDDING WALK
{in which Mama and Papa measure no miles}
1841
THE MINISTER STOOD in the crow’s nest of the Argo, one hand clutching the rail, the other pressing his Bible to his breast. Three sturdy men, Benadam’s friends, hoisted him there, placing his feet on the rope rungs, pushing him from behind. From time to time he dipped a hand in his frock-coat pocket to trade his Bible for a handkerchief to mop his brow, keeping one hand always on the railing and his eyes on some distant point of the horizon to avoid looking down.
The crow’s nest was decorated with swags of sea bladder, studded here and there with rosy starfish. A thick garland of braided seaweed spiraled around the mainmast. From each strand of rigging, bow to stern, flew all the cutter’s pennants, gaily flapping.
The minister opened his Bible, smoothing its damp pages with a shaking hand. He coughed and shifted his feet, and began to read, directing his voice out into the air.
Verity stood on the yard at the top of the mainmast, her arms wrapped around the thick pillar of pine. She wore a plain white gown of muslin, her hair in a loose braid down her back. Her gown, wet from salt spray, dried quickly in the sun. Below her the main topgallant sail swelled, bellied out and back with each fresh breeze, its white blinding her. She closed her eyes and lay her face against the warm wood of the mast. She heard the ropes creaking. Seabirds dipped and lifted above the ship, calling.
Benadam balanced on the fore-topmast. He wore a red tricorne hat, his old coat of brown twill, new buck breeches, and boots polished to glass. The ship tilted in a sudden sharp gust; he balanced, needing no mast or line to stay him; he grinned and held his arms out to Verity.
She laughed and let go of the mainmast. She began to walk along the yard; it was wide enough, and if she began to lose her balance she had only to put out her hand to find a rope, there were so many. She kicked her slippers into the sea and tightrope-walked her way out. Her arms tilted back and forth, themselves yardarms, trying to balance; she didn’t, wouldn’t grasp a line. She moved easily, as though she were born to it.
The minister cleared his throat and began to read. Verity didn’t look into the distance, didn’t see the prismatic spout of a whale that was just passing out of view over the horizon. She saw only Benadam, and he only her, between them the distance of a few strides, the length of a yardarm, between them only a stretch of wood, no distance at all.
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CHAPTER TWENTY
THE LITTLE SAILOR
{in which unpleasant memories rise to the surface}
CIRCE’S CAVE WAS only a low jag of rock in the smooth sea when I next looked back, and Captain Avery’s dinghy had long since disappeared. The sky had deeply settled with cloud by midday, and a good following breeze had sprung up. I judged that I was no more than half a day’s sail from Naiwayonk.
When the last glimpse of Circe’s cove had disappeared, I took Mordecai’s journal from his bag and unfolded the chart. The wind picked up its edges and rattled them against the bench. I smoothed the pages and held them flat against the wood. There were Moses and his wives; under them, the long row of sons, with my little portraits of Bow-Oar, Second-Oar, and Third-Oar, each next to his golden wife; then all of their sons, crowded into the boat on which they sailed away, and the roughly sketched faces of Claudia, Julia, and Sophia.
I could fill out the fourth row now: Verity and Erastus; Conch and Crab (Larboard and Starboard); and all the shell girls. I didn’t know how to arrange the names, though. Was Claudia the mother of Verity and Erastus, and so my grandmother, or was Julia? Did Sophia join with a cousin or an uncle to produce Abalone? Were Coral and Cowrie twins, or only born at the same time to two of the sisters? Who were their fathers? Next to Coral’s long white face I added a stilt,
its head tucked under a wing.
The thread of Captain Avery’s story disappeared when Mama and Papa ran away together. Only Mama knew the rest.
I was grateful for the tasks of navigation, for the many small corrections my course required. I didn’t want to think any more of Mama, or of my brother, or of any other Rathbone.
It was past midday; the sun had begun its slow descent in a sky thick with cloud. The air was chill but not yet cold, and the sea rose and fell in low smooth swells beneath my hull. As the hours passed, I regretted not asking the captain for more water; his little flask was long empty. I was thirsty, and tired, and struggled to concentrate on keeping to a true path along the coast, far enough away to avoid submerged rocks, close enough to avoid my little craft getting swept out to sea by strong currents.
I must have let my attention wander for some time. I rubbed my eyes and was surprised to find that the sail was slack and the boat scarcely moving, the sun far lower in the sky than when I had last noticed. The coast might have only been veiled by the thin drizzle now falling, but I felt that it was far away. I looked over the side and all around and saw that I was becalmed in a sea of weed that stretched as far as I could see on all sides. Mordecai had once told me of a vast region of floating algae in the middle of the Atlantic, but I was certain it was at least a thousand miles farther east. When explorers bent on the New World had entered that region, after many months afloat, they had thought themselves nearly at landfall and become excited, only to suffer disappointment when they realized they were only halfway across the ocean. Abandoned ships were said to be trapped here and there among the weeds, from a distance seemingly skimming along, when in fact their decks had dried to dust and their hulls rotted. Or they hung suspended under the surface of the sea, caught in the weeds, never sinking to the bottom.
Though my rudder was not tangled, the sea beneath me seemed itself to have slowed. The wind had died entirely. I secured the tiller with a stout line so that I would stay somewhat on course if the wind revived, and leaned over the side.
Long fronds of sea palm waved among delicate sea lettuce and crusted coralline and other varieties unknown to me. In the still air I could hear the air bladders of algae popping. If it were not for the shallow breath of the sea, its slow rise and fall betraying what lay under the skin of green, I might have been tempted to step over the side as onto a meadow.
Crow had finally shaken off the spell of Circe’s cove and now flew low over the weeds, snapping here and there at sinuous black lines that drew themselves along the surface. When one came near the boat I could see that it was a great black eel coiling slowly along. Shimmering jellyfish quivered and pulsed among the weeds, clear moon jellyfish and pinks, and the bloated crests of the man-of-war bobbed above the algae. I recognized a colony of rare obelia by their trailing green tentacles, and thought how pleased Mordecai would have been at my erudition. I reached farther over the rim and tried to part the weeds with my hands. What water I could see was of a pale clear green, light-veined. The weeds were studded with fish, trapped and straining to free themselves or floating motionlessly, caught in final positions of struggle. Besides common haddock and halibut there were fish not native to those waters, brilliantly colored, with frothy fins. Flotsam and jetsam traveled with the weed: a long cuffed boot, on which a sleeping turtle perched; a crushed crate; the stave of a barrel.
I reached and pried the stave from a mat of sea moss. Its wood was soft and nearly rotten, sodden black, its slight curve like the rib bones of the sperm that Mama carved. I hung over the side and stirred the water with the stave. Below the thick layer of weeds, I could see only green. I tried to think about what Mordecai had said about the game with the barrels. I was no longer thirsty, but my head felt as though it might float away. As I stirred the water I felt the woven bracelet bite tight on my wrist. The air around me went black and cold. I twisted the bracelet and stared down.
• •
I move down a dark corridor, running my hand along a thick rope bolted to the wall. The ceiling is low and crossed by heavy beams. Little windows with bars of iron pierce one stout wall; outside, a red sun falls into the sea. Along the other wall runs a row of cupboards. I open the door to each as I walk and feel what’s inside with my hands: neatly coiled rope in this one, boxed nails and brass fittings there, and bolts of stiff cloth. I reach the room at the end of the hall. The door is low and has a rope pull. A big knot forms the handle. It smells dank and cool inside. It’s dark, only the iron bands of the barrels that fill the room in neat rows gleam in thin light from the hall.
I know he is in here, my cousin, hiding. If I find him before sunset, he has promised me a surprise. I walk slowly along the row of barrels, lifting a lid here and there, careful to make small sounds as I go, so that he’ll know I’m searching. I turn back, and open and close the door as though I’m leaving, but I stay inside. I stand motionless against the wall and wait. There are small rustlings among the barrels; a rat winds through and disappears. Then a faint sound from the back of the third row. I move as silently as I can down the line, push aside each lid and peer into each barrel.
The first two are empty but each tells me what it held. The lid of the first feels sticky; the smell of soured molasses wafts up. To the staves of the second, small soft feathers cling. The lid of the third will not yield; as I struggle with it a pale cloud rises from the fourth barrel and Mordecai unfolds, smiling, holding out to me a little figure: a sailor made of metal, missing only one leg.
• •
I’m in the room with the barrels again. A dusky sea of blue stretches before me, the skirt of Mama’s gown. On it great dark roses bloom all the way around. She stands with her back to me, doesn’t know I’m there, crouching between two barrels behind her, peering through the gap, my face close to her skirt. Her skirt smells wrong. The roses are not flowers but huge blooms of mildew; she must have sewed her skirt from the bolts of indigo stored too long in the cupboards.
Mama is breathing in long ragged breaths. There’s another smell and something leaking on the floor. She holds something heavy in her arms, she’s putting it in one of the barrels. She sways back and forth. Something drags between her legs. Something white drags behind her.
Now something blocks my view—Mordecai’s there, putting his arms around me, pressing my face tight against his chest.
• •
I jolted back from the rim of the boat. My braids, which had been trailing over the side during my reverie, had come undone: My loosened hair whipped back, spraying water over my face and soaking my gown. Something not water moved in the mass of my wet hair; I put up a reluctant hand and pulled away a long wriggling strand, the color of flesh: a ribbon worm. Shuddering, I tried to fling it away, but it was tangled in my hair, so long that no matter how much I pulled it wouldn’t end. Crow was suddenly there. He gripped the worm firmly in his beak and flew backward until, with a loud, unwholesome snap, the worm broke free of my hair. Crow, already glutted on black eel, flung it into the floating weed.
I tried to shake away what I had just seen and felt. I was still dizzy, and tired, but even so, I knew that what I had just experienced were not foggy imaginings but memories long pressed down.
The leaking smell came again and my stomach heaved. I remembered it now, the room on the bottom floor with the barrels, where Mordecai and I had played when I was a little girl. I hadn’t been near it for years. I seldom went to that part of the house; it had made me uneasy to walk along that line of rooms with their empty beds, long before the man in blue chased me there. Now I wondered if my unease had come more from that room than from anything else. I leaned over the side and splashed cold water over my face until my head stopped swimming and my stomach steadied.
I stood up, my arm around the mast, and took a deep breath of cold air. The bowl of the sky was pricked now with stars and bluing down to meet the sea, the shore a long curve of dark between. A shore I recognized. There was the western point, and beyond it Naiwayonk.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A BED IN A BARREL
{in which Mercy returns to remember}
THE ARC OF the bay broadened as I approached, and at its back, at the farthest point, a light flared. I wiped my eyes and wondered for a moment if I had strayed into Hepzibah’s time. Was that light, pulsing and ever brighter, coming from the cauldrons in the sheds? Had the fires been lit after so long? I scanned the long curve of beach out to the point; the great hulks were dark and silent as ever. The light was coming from the widow’s walk, far brighter than any that had burned there before. I thought at first that the walk itself was burning, but no, there were no flames, only the light. The dome burned bright as a lantern held up by a dark hand.
I squinted to see the house beneath the glare and remembered how, when Mordecai and I had sailed out of the Stark Archipelago, I had looked back toward the Stark house through the trees and seen Roderick standing at a high window, staring out after me.
I turned my smack in to the bay and was carried forward in the making tide. She moved so fast that I had to furl the sail and man the tiller to keep her from broaching to and overturning in the rush of water. Though roiling beneath, the surface of the sea was calm, and from the dark water all around me I now heard splashing and other, smaller sounds: a whistling on my starboard side, a bark on the larboard. Straining my eyes, I could just discern darker shapes moving in the water around me. I leapt out and ran the smack onto the sand, halfway along the shore between the house and the western point. Crow clung to my shoulder, hunched and sullen.
The dark shapes that had accompanied my boat had come ashore with me, and the beach was thick with them, limned by the light from the widow’s walk, some of them moving, some still. Cautiously approaching the nearest, I recognized the glistening form of a dolphin, chirping faintly. I ran my hand along its smooth side and found it up to its flippers in sand; it had plowed a deep furrow and was stuck there, gasping. Besides the dolphin I could make out an exhausted manatee wedged between two rocks. I tried to help the dolphin get back to the sea, but though I pushed with all my strength it wouldn’t budge nor would the manatee stir. I grasped a brace of twitching haddock and flung them into the surf; they struggled back to shore and lay wheezing on the sand.