Paula works with five at a time: One in her right hand. Running over the rough plaster. In constant motion. Four more wedged between the fingers of her left. Held in reserve. Ready to switch out at any moment. In the process, the soft crayons get softer. Their pigment spreading everywhere. As much color spent coating her hands and clothes as ever ends up on the wall.
Hard at work since officially joining the sisterhood, Paula has nearly finished illustrating her fourth cell now. One-by-one, relocating her fellow nuns as her canvas expands through the convent. Marching through each of their rooms. Decorating the drab spaces with stick figure adventures. Stories told with clear, simple actions. Emotions rendered with minimalist expressions.
Standing on the cot, now. Reaching into an upper corner. The drawings spreading in all directions. Rarely as straightforward as left-to-right, up-to-down. Unpredictable. Growing organically. The flow indicated within each sequence by arrows. Circles. Squiggles. Any larger sense of chronology unclear. The proper ordering of events often unknown even to Paula herself.
Such is the puzzling nature of Paula’s gift: Some drawings have proven precognitive. Others amount to historical reportage. She doesn’t question. Just draws. Whatever comes to her. The resulting mishmash of past, present, and yet-to-come mirroring the rapid pendulum swings of her own personality.
From the doorway, Mother Agatha watches. Careful. Quiet. Knowing from sad experience how fragile Paula’s trances can be. As disconnected as she may appear, the tiniest sniffle might snap her free. Mid-drawing. With no recollection whatever of what was to come next. Unable to complete the tale.
Following the elder nun’s first interruption, two days had passed before Paula resumed drawing. The sequence she’d been working on? Forever abandoned. Forgotten. A shame as it seemed to deal with crucial events. One stick figure on the verge of its doom. No resolution provided. The thought of it still drives the reverend mother crazy. Nothing more frustrating than an unresolved cliffhanger.
The current series of drawings? A rerun. Material Paula has covered before. On other walls. A sequence they’d already used to strategize. A beach. A stick figure on its knees, holding its own bulbous belly. Encircled by others. Some with white hair: A new detail added to this iteration for the first time. The characters becoming more specific.
A yellow arrow leads to the second image: The same kneeling stick figure splitting open. Smaller arrows arcing from its exposed guts toward the surrounding characters. White worms poking into each. The dead crossed out with red Xes. Two victims with white hair. Too bad. The hope had been to take out a greater percentage of Old Men.
Another arrow leads to an entirely new final panel. Not part of the series before. In it, corpses litter the beach. Two figures remain standing. One carrying a small square. The other, a larger circle filled with cross-hatching. Waves emanate from the circle. Wherever they contact the worms, the worms get Xed out as well.
Mother Agatha is disappointed to see the worms dispatched. Flinching as Paula crosses them out - one after another - until no survivors remain. Cutting short their campaign of terror. The brutal mayhem never to expand beyond the beach.
Hopping down, Paula shoves the cot out of the way. Moves to one of the few blank spots remaining. Switching to a black pastel stub. Holding it to the wall. Tapping... Tapping... Tapping...
The elder nun has seen this before: Paula is stuck. Between premonitions. Nothing coming through but black dots. Perhaps she’s just watching the movie play out in her head. Waiting for the end credits before pouring forth what she’s witnessed in comic strip form. Or maybe she’s having trouble receiving, and this is her interpretation of static. Either way, if ever there was a good time to break in without ruining anything, that time is now.
The floor creaks as Mother Agatha steps into the room. She braces herself when Paula’s tapping stops. Readying for the scream which so often accompanies the young woman’s return to awareness. Mercifully, this is a less traumatic transition.
“Oh.” Paula drops the pastels. Absently glances around the room.
Knowing what’s needed after a session, the older nun passes her a canteen. Admiring the sprawling masterpiece as Paula swigs. “Beautiful work, child. Astonishing.”
“Is it?” Paula wipes her lips. Getting more pastel onto her face than water off. “You think so?” She searches the walls for unfamiliar images. Finds she’s reproduced an earlier episode. “The worms again? Geez, I’m so sorry, Mother Ag--”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sister. You’ve given us a record of the dead, and made clear the worms’ ultimate fate.”
Dubious, the artist scrutinizes her work. “Still... A new story would’ve been better.”
“I don’t question your gifts. You shouldn’t either. In our house, your talent has only ever been a blessing.”
Paula looks away. Suddenly bashful.
Mother Agatha smiles. “I wanted you to know: Another has come to pass.”
“It has!? That’s so awesome!” Paula shifts directly from humble to excited. “And it was right?”
“Naturally.” The elder nun searches for the drawing in question. One Paula had completed the day before. “Ah! Here.” She points to the final image in a sequence: The front of a car. Paused at a penguin crossing. Two white-haired figures in the front seat. Each with an arrow through its skull. Centered in the back: A redhead with a maniacal smile.
“So, she’s okay?”
“Thanks to you.” The images had told them how many of the enemy would be in the car. Clarified where their ambush should be staged. Informed the decision to employ archers. “We all owe you a great debt, Paula.”
“Are you kidding? I owe you! I’m so lucky you guys even let me be here at all. But to be earning my keep? That’s even more of a--”
Mother Agatha holds up a hand. She’s heard Paula’s gratitude rant before. It’s appreciated, but becoming tedious. “Any thoughts on which to expect next?” She can’t always tell, but it never hurts to ask.
Paula becomes serious. Moves to the center of the room. Eyes darting all over. “It is here, I think.” She turns slowly. Frowns. Concentrating. “I know it felt--” Abruptly, she stops. Points. “This. This comes next. Pretty sure.”
“Ah.” Mother Agatha nods. It would’ve been her guess too, if pressed. “And that means you’re about to re-enter the story, doesn’t it?”
Paula nods happily. “I love when I draw me into things.”
“Better go wash up, then. Prepare yourself.”
Excited, Paula hugs her Reverend Mother. Thoughtlessly transferring smears of color onto the woman before rushing out.
Alone with the drawings, Mother Agatha examines the first panel of the sequence in question. Apprehensive. After all, if it means what she imagines it does? The endgame is about to begin.
A boat in water. Surrounded by reeds. A small blonde figure aboard. Dwarfed by the hulking mass behind her. One possessively grasping her shoulders with webbed fingers. Pointing toward criss-cross fencing: A gate. Covering a gap in a large stone wall.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A harsh light shines through the tall marsh rushes. Tracking slowly along the waterfront. Silhouetting cattails as the wind knocks them into one another. In the distance: A motor runs. Unintelligible voices murmel in conversation. Carried across the water from the patrol boat, doing its slow laps around the island. Finished scanning the area, the vessel moves on. Early morning twilight closes behind it. Frogs and katydids resume their song as darkness returns.
Only when their own rowboat begins to move does Dawn dare rise. Curled in the bow. Cautioned to stay low until the patrol had passed. She now lifts her head. Sees the black shape of her new companion seated behind her. Hunched over. Switch-paddling. First to one side of the boat, then the other. Navigating through the rushes. Out into open water.
In a whisper, she tries: “Was--”
“Hush!” His webbed hand flashes. Grabs hold of her face. Covering her mouth. Roughly pi
nching her lips closed. He’ll brook no noise. Warned her beforehand: Voices carry across the water.
More from surprise than anything else, Dawn’s eyes well with tears. For the first time, it occurs to her: Agreeing to this journey may not have been the wisest decision. Still, she’s in it now. Committed. No point in second-guessing.
Though her chin wobbles slightly, she makes no further sound. Only when he’s certain she understands, does her companion release her. Pushing her away. Disgusted with her inability to follow simple commands.
Wiping the back of one wrist across her cheeks, Dawn faces forward. Away from the island. Out to sea.
To starboard: The wall passes. Rising ten feet above the ocean’s surface. Extending far from the waterfront. A manmade promontory of uneven rocks and rubble. Barely held together by crumbling mortar. Salt-stained. Gnawed away by the elements. But still - after all these years - more than enough to keep the seaside town of Adderpool penned in on all sides.
Dragging the paddle, the mutated man slows the rowboat. Rounds the corner of the wall. Redirecting to follow this new plane. Now running parallel to the shoreline.
Away from the marsh, the world has gone quiet. The only noises: Ripples. Swishing. The paddle softly slapping the water. But somewhere ahead: A metallic shriek. Dawn peers along the wall. Seeking out its source. Finds: An enormous iron gate. More rust now than metal. One side firmly secured to the wall. The other hanging at an angle. Straining its hinges. Creaking in the movement of the tide.
Grampy told her: The residents of Adderpool had been corralled onto boats. Sent out to sea. Never to return to Mossley Island. This gate must’ve been their point of departure. Locked tight behind them. Meant to block their way home forever after. Now only partly intact. What remains seemingly no hardship to overcome.
Beyond the gate, the wall has collapsed on itself. Its height dropping - at its lowest - within three feet of the water. Here, the rowboat slows. Dips as its driver rises. He leans out to grab hold of the rocks. Pulling the boat in closer. Scraping against the wall. Held relatively stable, he extends a hand toward Dawn. Pale white fingers linked by thin bands of stretched skin.
Dawn stares a moment before reaching out. He instantly grabs her by the wrist. Pulls her to standing. Guides her up. Onto the broken wall. Releasing her before she’s secured a grip of her own. Frantic, she scratches for hand-holds. Slipping on the wet surfaces. Digging her fingers into any available cracks. Clutching tight to keep from sliding backwards into the ocean.
One cheek pressed against the rock, Dawn looks into the enclosure. A thin white fog rolls across the water. Obscuring the view. In the distance, the town’s dark outline is visible. Nothing more.
Without a sound, her companion has joined her on the wall. Standing on the slick surface with ease. Looping a worn rope around his wrist. Using it to drag the rowboat out of the water. With the slightest exertion he lifts it onto the wall. Pushes it through the space next to Dawn. On the edge, it teeters a moment. Then, tips. Drops. Splashes down on the other side.
Before it’s settled, he leaps into the boat. Perfectly balanced. His misshapen form exercising a nearly impossible grace. Far more tentative - and requiring a great deal more effort - she joins him there. Once both are safely aboard, he resumes paddling. Humming softly to himself. Barely audible. More relaxed inside the wall.
Even so, Dawn remains silent. Opting now to hold her tongue until he tells her otherwise.
~
Once inside its grasp, the fog thickens. Whiting out the world beyond a few feet. As the wall fades from view behind them, the rowboat unmoors from reality. All sense of direction lost in the mist.
Dawn crosses her arms against its chill. Pulls up her collar. To no avail. The fog’s cold touch infiltrates her clothing. Sneaks in through the fabric’s weave. Leaving gooseflesh and chattering teeth in its wake. Sinking into her bones. Behind her, the rowboat’s mutated captain seems unaffected. Focused only on rowing. Moving forward.
Dawn hunches over. Squinting into the haze. Keeping watch for shore. Or anything at all, really. No landmark visible in any direction. Assuming the rowboat is still headed for land. If there’s even such a thing anymore. Who can tell? For all she knows, they’ve been floating in circles. The one certainty is: At no point do they slow. The stroke remains even. Rhythmic. Her pilot’s confidence in his orientation absolute.
On the verge of giving up, Dawn is startled when a rocky outcropping fades into view off the port side. A naturally occurring breakwater reaching out into the bay. Rising nearly as tall as the wall itself. Strangled by creeping vines. The jagged black ivy a malignant veining, crawling across the rocks. Binding them together. Far thicker here than the dark tangles Dawn had seen on her prior trip to Adderpool.
At its nearest end, the peninsula opens into a wide cavern. A mouth, open to the sky. White mist billowing out. Flowing over its lip. Spilling onto the water. Almost volcanic, but cold.
Dawn watches the stony mouth pass. Peering back until it’s lost from view. Hidden by its own icy breath.
~
A bustling dockyard once grew from Adderpool’s waterfront. A collection of slips from which local fishermen launched their small craft each day. What’s left is its skeleton. Half-submerged. Decaying wooden ribbing unable to hold any weight without crumbling into muck. Eaten away by exposure. Sun and seawater biting off chunks in turn.
Between the partially collapsed piers: The remains of the boats left anchored there. Rotting hulls long ago settled onto the seabed. The few masts which endure angling up out of the water in random directions. Slowly tipping gravestones marking each ship’s final resting place. A spiky warning to potential visitors against attempting to dock.
But the creature piloting the rowboat is no tourist. He’s a resident. Guiding his craft easily through the sodden ruins. Along a path he’s kept clear all these years. Scant room between the derelicts to pass, if one knows the route. Halfway along the landing ramp, he hops out. Up to his knees in the drink. Holding the boat stable as Dawn climbs onto the crumbling dock. Barely giving her time to get clear before he drags the craft ashore. Turns it over. Leans it against a bench the elements haven’t yet disintegrated.
The town before them is cloaked in fog. A grey silhouette caving in on itself. The buildings nearest the water slowly being consumed. Suffering from the same disintegration devouring the waterfront. Some reduced to little more than mouldering frames over flooded foundations.
Shivering, Dawn realizes the mutated man’s drooping eyes are upon her. He’s waiting. Expecting something. He swallows. Clears his throat. The effort doesn’t make his voice less of a gurgle when he speaks: “It must all seem... So different.”
Dawn nods. She’s never seen another town like Adderpool. Its state of deterioration even worse when seen from the water than it had been from the wall. “And you live here? Still?”
He blinks. Eyes wet. “I stayed... After.” He lurches toward her. Webbed hands reaching out. “But I... I lost faith.”
Dawn braces herself. Stands her ground. On Burp Beach, she’d thrown him. But here - on his home turf - he seems larger. Stronger. More of a threat, somehow. Looming over her, she’s no longer certain she can take him.
“Augh! I’m so sorry!” He drops to his knees. Wraps his arms around Dawn’s waist. Weeping. “It’s been so long. I gave up hope, Madeline. Thought you’d forgotten. That you’d never return.”
Madeline? Dawn’s mind reels. The name is her answer. Her craziest suspicion confirmed. He’s confused her for the face in the photograph. Her black-and-white identical twin. Wearing the same charm the Waxes passed along to her. The one they’d said belonged to her grandmother. Her father’s mother, she’d assumed at the time. An Islander. Instead, it was now clear the charm had come from her mother’s mother: Madeline Poitras. Someone - so far as Dawn had been aware - with no connection to the island whatsoever.
“You must forgive me.” The deformed man looks up at her. The too-wide sla
sh of his mouth quivering. “Please, Madeline. Forgive me for doubting... Please forgive your poor, foolish father.”
Madeline’s father? But that would make him... Was it even possible? The plague which had struck Adderpool, mutating the townsfolk into what kneels before her now... Had it also indefinitely extended their lives? How else could this strange creature claim to have fathered Dawn’s grandmother? Curiosity burns through Dawn. Overriding every other consideration. She needs to know. Everything. To understand her own origins.
So, tenderly, she places a hand on the shoulder of her long-lost great-grandfather. She smiles down on him. And says, “I forgive you... Father.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sylvie leans over the bed rail. Lays her head on her father’s shoulder.
Not purposely recreating an instance from her childhood. Not consciously. But when she closes her eyes, the memory returns: Sunday evening. In front of the television. Rare one-on-one time with Dad. No Mom. No siblings. Watching a videotaped Movie-of-the-Week. Back when they made those. Falling asleep coiled in his embrace. Waking up much later. Transferred. Tucked into her own bed. Knowing she’d been looked after. Taken care of. That she was safe.
A cough breaks through. Not just disturbing a worried daughter holding onto her injured father... Also interrupting the memory. Stealing her away from the reclaimed moment.
Less than thrilled, Sylvie raises her head. Looks to the door. Groans. “Kindly screw off, Mrs. Donnelly.”
The white-haired woman requires no further invitation. She smiles. Crosses to the hospital bed. Holds a phone toward Sylvie. “Mrs. Rutherford would like a word.”
Sylvie sits back from the bed. “I just gave you five. Feel free to share them. You can probably guess which ones I’d recommend.”
FROM AWAY ~ BOOK FIVE Page 15