“My mother left the Dunnsmouth dock in a charter boat,” I said. “The police said it went down about fifteen miles out.”
“Fifteen miles, eh?” Professor Freytag’s finger hovered over the map. His finger drifted slowly from Dunnsmouth, like a boat heading out to sea, and then pointed at a blank spot in the middle of the map. “Perhaps about there, if they went due east.”
“I don’t see any islands out there,” I said.
“No, not a one.”
“Are there, I don’t know, coral reefs or something?” I thought of the story problem from geometry class. “Big granite rocks? Sand bars?”
“Close in to the bay we have sharp rocks indeed. But not out there, my boy. At least according to this map.” He raised his eyebrows. “Why? Is there a mystery afoot?”
“That’s why I came here,” I said. “You like riddles, right?”
“You’ve come to the right man!”
I showed him the note I found on the porch last night. The librarian refused to take it. “Open it, please.”
I unfolded it. He leaned back, squinting through those grimy glasses.
“‘She’s still alive,’” he read. “Ah! And you want to know who this ‘she’ is.”
“I know that. It’s my mother. It’s the second part. Where do I find an albatross?”
He straightened his glasses. “Why, around the neck of the old sailor, I suppose.” He turned and strode down one of the rows of shelves.
“What sailor?” I asked, and hurried after him.
The professor suddenly stopped, turned back, then reversed himself again. He pointed at a shelf at waist height. “Grab that one, my boy. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’”
The book was very thin, almost a pamphlet. I opened it and saw a narrow column of text. “It’s a poem.”
“A beautiful poem of death and rebirth,” the librarian said. He sounded elated.
“I don’t think the note is about a poem.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “A note can be about anything. A poem, even more so. They’re practically equivalent.”
“Okay, but—”
“You’ll thank me later,” Professor Freytag said. “Now, if you’ll kindly shut the door on your way out? I have important work to do, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”
This seemed like a strange attitude for a librarian to take. Then again, it was no stranger than anything else in this school. I did as the professor asked and closed the door behind me, then made my way back to the pool. I’d just reached the staircase when a deep voice stopped me.
“Mr. Harrison. What are you doing here?”
I froze, and turned. Principal Montooth stepped out of the shadow of a doorway.
“Just going back to class,” I said.
Montooth said nothing.
“Physical Education,” I said. “Swimming. With Coach Shug?”
“I know your course schedule,” he said. “I meant, why are you here at all? You know that you’re excused from classes during your … family emergency.”
“I guess I needed to do something,” I said. “Just sitting there … I was going crazy.”
He looked at the book in my hand, and his eyes narrowed. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t checked the book out. Professor Freytag had just let me take it.
“I better get back,” I said.
“Just a moment,” he said. He took a step closer and put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Is there any word on your mother?”
“Nothing yet,” I said. I kept “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” down by my side.
“No updates from the Coast Guard?”
“No sir. We’re just … waiting.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Waiting is always the most difficult part.” He released me and said, “If you need anything, my door is always open.”
“Sure,” I said. “Of course.”
“But let’s avoid running around the school unsupervised,” he said. His smile seemed forced. “It’s easy to get lost here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I could feel him watching me until I disappeared around the turn in the stairs.
* * *
I spent the rest of the day sneaking quick reads of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It was weird stuff. I’m good with language, but there were so many words I’d never heard before. Like right at the beginning of the poem, an old sailor (the ancient mariner himself) grabs a guy before he can go to a wedding:
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship,” quoth he.
“Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!”
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.
Who says “eftsoons”?
I started reading the poem again from the beginning on my way home from school. It made more sense on the second try, but I was no closer to figuring out if it had anything to do with the note.
A voice said, “Hey there, Harrison.”
I looked up from the book. Saleem sat behind the wheel of his taxi, the window down. He was parked in front of the Standard Grocery.
I walked over to the car. “Delivering food again?” I asked.
“Sort of. I’m waiting for somebody to finish shopping. What are you so engrossed in?”
I showed him the book. “Ever read it?”
“Nope, sorry. Is it any good?”
“It’s crazy,” I said. “This ship is stranded in Antarctica, surrounded by icebergs. Then they’re saved when this albatross leads them through the ice to warmer waters. And the main guy, the ancient mariner, just shoots the albatross with his crossbow.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! He just shoots it, for no good reason.”
“Maybe he was hungry.”
“Maybe. But then he doesn’t eat it. As punishment, he wears the bird around his neck for the rest of the voyage. Then they meet Death, or maybe some spirit woman who rides around with Death, and everybody dies.”
“That’s what you get when you hang out with Death,” Saleem said.
“Everybody dies but the mariner. Then the crew turns into zombies and steers the ship home. The mariner then has to spend the rest of his life going around telling everybody his story.”
“That’s wicked homework, dude.”
“It’s not homework. I just thought the poem would help me figure something out. Somebody, uh, told me to look for an albatross.”
An elderly woman walked out of the grocery story carrying two full paper bags. Saleem hopped out of the car to help her.
“Good luck finding one,” he said. “At least you’re by the sea.”
“Yeah, I was just down at the—” Before I could say “docks” it came to me.
“Albatross” was a name. I began to run.
9
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread …
… Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The bay was more deserted than this morning. It was afternoon, and the lobster boats were evidently still out to sea. The buildings near the water seemed empty. At the pier, a few sailboats bobbed in their berths, no crews or passengers in sight.
So. The pier. The wooden structure stretched over the dark water, and I could almost hear it creaking, giving way.
I told myself I was being ridiculous. I’d already walked all the way out to the shack and had made it back unharmed. It wasn’t like being out on a boat. It wasn’t like being in the water at all. A pier was practically an extension of the land, right?
I took a deep breath and started walking. As I mounted the pier I kept my eyes straight ahead like a tightrope walker.
I finally reached the wooden shack. The slate board hung on the wall as before. I ran my finger down the list of boats with berths here. The Huginn, Hal Jonsson’s boat, was crossed out, but its name was still visible. Other slots were more thoroughly erased. The one name I was looking for wasn’t vi
sible.
Where was the Albatross?
The entrance to the shack was a heavy metal door plastered with old tobacco ads and flyers for used watercraft. The door complained as I pushed through. Inside, the shack looked like a tree fort nailed together by clumsy children. No line was straight, no timber true. The wooden shelves, crammed with dusty dry goods and fishing tackle, tilted at drunken angles. The warped floorboards buckled and gaped. Even the roof beams seemed out of kilter, like a drawing in which the perspective lines were drawn wrong.
Non-Euclidean geometry, I thought.
The walls swam with dead fish. Stuffed, mounted, sprayed in wax, in all sizes, from tiny gray creatures with spiny backs, to fat glossy beasts with jagged-toothed mouths, to long-tailed sharks trying to twist themselves from their wooden mounts. Threshers. An awful lot of threshers. Each creature seemed surprised, gasping for oxygen in this unmoving sea.
From the back of the room came a snort. I moved in that direction, weaving past a steel rack of propane tanks; an ice cream cooler with a smeared glass top through which I could see Styrofoam containers that I was positive didn’t contain ice cream; a pegboard taller than me bristling with rusting fish hooks and drably painted lures; and a huge wooden crate filled with rope, below a sign in black marker that said HAND TIED NETS.
Set into the walls at the far corner of the shack were four small rhomboid windows, too grimy to admit much of the afternoon light. Below the windows was an L-shaped counter and a large, old-fashioned cash register. A man sat slumped against the counter, head on his arms, snoring.
I stood for half a minute, unsure if I should wake him up. He was a large man, or perhaps a small man wearing a great many clothes. At least three layers of shirts were visible, and above those he wore a black cable-knit sweater, a multi-pocketed vest, a thick jacket, and a hooded raincoat. Under the hood he wore at least two wool caps. If the man ever needed medical treatment the doctors would have to hire archeologists.
Finally I said, “Excuse me?”
The man didn’t move. If it wasn’t for the snoring I would have taken him for dead.
After another thirty seconds I reached out and poked him in the arm.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for a boat.”
The man snorted, then coughed. But still he didn’t open his eyes.
“I said, I’m looking for—”
His head jerked up. His black-and-gray beard appeared to be leaping from his face like a startled cat. “I heard you the first time!” he said.
He looked left, then right. He rubbed his fingers across his mouth. His hands were covered in fingerless gloves, and the fingers themselves were almost black, insulated by a layer of oil and soot. Finally he said, “What are you looking for?”
“A boat,” I said.
“Ocean’s full of ’em,” he said. He reached for a tin can and spit into it.
“The Albatross,” I said.
He squinted at me, reached out for the tin can again. “Never heard of it.”
He was lying; I was sure of it. So I decided to lie myself.
“It was on the slate outside,” I said. “But it’s been erased.”
The man worked his lips as if he were about to say something, then seemed to change his mind.
I said, “What I want to know is, where is it now?”
The man trembled like a diesel engine cranking up, suddenly angry. “Get out of here!”
“Just tell me where it is and I’ll leave.”
A sharp pain like a dagger of ice cut into my right leg. I almost yelped. “Phantom pain” is an oxymoron.
“That’s right, Chilly Bob,” said a voice behind me. “Answer the boy’s question and he’ll leave.”
I pivoted on my meat leg. A man leaned against the wall. His head was bowed, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat that hid his face. A coat hung to his knees. The material of the hat and coat gleamed like the skin of a seal. I hadn’t heard the door open, but I was sure he hadn’t been there when I walked in.
He still hadn’t looked up. He was carving something—a hunk of pale stone, or perhaps bone—using a thin, curving knife that tapered to an invisible point. His hands were skinny and claw-like, with yellowing nails.
The man behind the counter—Chilly Bob—seemed to deflate. “I told him,” he said. “I told him. Never heard of it.”
The man in the broad hat continued to flick at the stone in his hands. Scritch. Scritch.
“I swear,” Bob said.
“Hmm,” the stranger said. His voice seemed to lick at the air. “Then I guess the boy’s hit a bit of a wall.”
My chest tightened. I turned away from the two men and walked toward the front door, trying to ignore the pain in my leg. At every moment I could feel them behind me. I tensed, waiting for the carver to stop me.
But no. I reached the door, and then I was outside. The sky had dimmed, but there was still an hour of sunlight left. I fastened my eyes on the shore and walked quickly away.
* * *
I didn’t look back until I reached the gravel parking lot. There was no sign of Chilly Bob, or the man with the knife. The steely cold in my leg had subsided. I started uphill toward town, and then heard the putt-putt of a boat motor. A small orange outboard chugged away from the end of the pier. In it was a bulky figure that could only have been Chilly Bob. The boat crossed the bay, heading for a group of large, box-like buildings huddled near the water.
I jogged along the access road that circled the bay, trying to keep the boat in sight, but it slipped behind one of the buildings … and didn’t appear on the other side. On the wall of the building, in big faded letters, it said J. RUCK’S MARINE ENGINEERING.
What would have made that fat man get out from behind the counter as soon as I’d left the shack?
A steep paved driveway ran from the road down to the buildings at the water’s edge. I jogged down the slope, and slowed when I reached J. Ruck’s. The building’s walls were aluminum, the bolts weeping rust. There were no doors or windows on this side.
The driveway ended about five feet from the water, with only a short cement parking block to stop runaway cars. The last of the afternoon light painted the bay with burning orange; the shore on this side of the bay was already in deep shadow. I needed to get home—but not just yet.
Stone stairs led down to my right, to the front of J. Ruck’s. I couldn’t hear Chilly Bob’s engine. The only sounds were the slap of the waves. I walked carefully down the stairs, listening at each step for voices.
At the bottom of the stairs I pressed against the wall of the building, thinking, Maybe this was a mistake. When the sun fell behind the hill, the light would go out like a door slamming closed and I’d be left wandering around in the dark.
I leaned out to get a look at the bay side of the building. It was like an airplane hangar for boats, with a wide doorway almost twenty feet high open to the water. Its corrugated metal door was pulled a quarter of the way down, like a drooping eyelid. I could see only a few feet inside the building, but from the interior came an angry shout that sounded like Bob.
I edged closer to the doorway, then peeked inside. It was a boat mechanic’s garage, with an open rectangle of water in the floor. Bob’s orange outboard floated there, empty.
On the dry side of the garage, a yacht or fishing boat sat up on lifts. It seemed abnormally large—but then, boats always did seem bigger out of the water. It had to be over sixty feet long, with a big main cabin, and a high bridge above it. Rails curved around the bow. The bottom half of the craft, from the deck rails down, was covered in a gray tarp.
No one was in the room. But in the middle of the back wall was a door, ajar, and a well-lit room behind it. Bob’s barking voice came from in there. I couldn’t make out the words. I edged around the water bay, then made my way toward the door.
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Chilly Bob said. “The Scrimshander showed up soon as that boy did.”
Whoa. They were talking about m
e.
A voice murmured in reply, and Bob said, “If the boy knows, then who else does? You got to get on that phone and get him to take it out of here.”
I reached the doorway, then slowly slid my head sideways until one eye was just barely around the frame. Bob stood ten feet away. His back was to the door, and his bulk prevented me from seeing who he was talking to.
The unseen man—J. Ruck, maybe?—said something else that I couldn’t catch. Then Bob said, “That’s his problem, ain’t it? If those Uxton cops show up, it’s not the Congregation that hangs—we do.”
The men kept arguing. I looked at the tarp-covered boat on the other side of the garage.
I had to know.
I made sure Bob was still blocking the door, then slipped across the wedge of open light. I tried to move quietly, and had to step carefully over hoses and electrical cords strewn across the cement. The space was crowded with tool chests on rollers and canisters marked with hazardous material stickers.
Several overlapping tarps covered the ship from the deck to the bottom of the hull. The name of the boat would be on the bow, or at the very back of the ship. Bow first, I decided.
I found a gap between two tarps near the front of the ship and started rolling the canvas back. It was clear where the waterline usually was. Above the line, the hull was painted white, but below it was caked with barnacles and dark grime that could have been old algae. I kept pushing the tarp back, then stopped in surprise.
A large ragged hole had been punched through the hull, just above the waterline. The hole was perhaps three feet long and almost two feet high. Above the hole, in black paint, was the name of the ship: ALBATROSS.
“Now, that’s a shame,” a voice said behind me.
I spun about, but the spear of icy pain in my leg told me who it was. The man in the wide-brimmed hat. The one Chilly Bob called the Scrimshander.
He wasn’t looking at me. He was gazing at the chunk of white bone in his claw-like hand, and scratching at it with the tip of his long knife.
“You know what killed the cat?” the Scrimshander asked.
I couldn’t make my throat work. I couldn’t move.
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