The Last True Poets of the Sea

by Julia Drake

  When the hash takes hold, the Daughter flips. The cat needs antibiotics. She tells this to Elio, who says again, the cat’s just a street cat. She insists that the cat needs medicine. The cat is in pain. She calls Elio a terrible pet owner, which at the time is just about the meanest, cruelest thing she can come up with (which, given what you’ve seen of the Daughter, is pretty weak, but also explains just how high she is). At least it is spat with venom and vitriol. Elio stares at the Daughter. The cat mews. The Daughter’s ears ring, she’s been screaming so loud. She wasn’t aware she’d been yelling.

  There is silence. Then Elio starts to laugh.

  In her mind’s eye, the Daughter sees herself from above: a girl yelling about a street cat in a stranger’s apartment in Granada, while her family does not sleep in a hotel a mile away.

  When she gets back to their room, her brother is gone.

  APPARITION

  Seven a.m. on a misty August Saturday, bleary with lack of sleep and lovelust fireworking in my chest and expecting to be greeted with Liv, Liv, Liv, Liv, I at first mistook my brother for an apparition—not of my brother, or even of a ghost, but of myself. Dumbly, I figured that someone had propped a mirror in front of the door, and my own reflection was staring back at me, sandy short hair wacky from a cleaning spree, eyes love-twitchy and sleep-deprived, heart thumping beneath the thin cotton of my Lyric Aquarium T-shirt.

  Then my reflection moved and spoke.

  “You can’t tell Mom and Dad. Are you mad? Don’t be mad.”

  “Sammy?”

  “Hi.” He curled his fingers in a cautious wave, smiling the close-lipped smile he’d been smiling since he’d gotten braces. Nearly two years had passed since I’d gotten a good long look at his teeth.

  “Violet?” he said. “Are you mad?”

  I still wasn’t convinced he was real. When I reached for him, I half expected my hand to pass through his body. But he wasn’t a ghost: Sam was here, on this chilly Maine morning, pressed to me, taller, almost my height now. I hugged him and he smelled like pine trees and sweat and Diet Coke. The wing of his shoulder blade was sharp under my fingers. My brother was here. My brother was here.

  “Ow. Violet. You’re breaking my ribs.”

  I let him go. He looked the same and he looked different: same scuttling green animal eyes, pigeon-toed feet and crunched-up shoulders. But his hair was longer, curling around his ears and the nape of his neck, and his elfin face was fuller. New freckles spattered their way across the bridge of his same rabbit nose.

  “You’re so tall,” I said.

  “I’m only like an inch taller than when you saw me last.”

  “What? That’s impossible. You’re, like, almost my height.”

  “I’m five nine and a half. I was five eight and a half in June.”

  “No, that can’t be true—”

  “They measure us, okay? Every week. At weigh-ins. You probably just didn’t notice before I left.” He pulled his fists inside his hoodie, looking anywhere but at me. My brother was here, all right.

  “Sam, what’s going on? Are you in trouble?”

  “No. Probably. I’m probably in trouble now that I’m here. It doesn’t matter.”

  I was halfway inside the house before I turned around and saw him still there, in the doorway.

  “Sam,” I called, “come on. Come in.”

  “Are you sure? Is Toby there?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure? Were you planning on hanging out in the driveway all morning? Come in.”

  In the kitchen, we stood on opposite sides of the island counter. Sam looked tired beneath the too-bright lights, the skin under his eyes puffy as marshmallows, but he wasn’t flickering like normal. He looked bigger. Stronger.

  “It smells delicious in here,” he said finally.

  “Cupcakes,” I said. “Funfetti.”

  I wanted to hug him again, squeeze him so tight he’d never leave. When he’d run away that night in Spain, he’d taken a cab to the airport. The Guardia Civil found him there, trying to change his ticket home. He just wanted to be, he said, somewhere he knew.

  “Sam, how did you get here?” What was he—a delinquent, a runaway?

  “I took the bus.” Sam could barely manage the subway to school, let alone an unfamiliar bus route across state lines. “It’s not a big deal, Violet. I just bought a bus ticket. My roommate’s covering for me. No one will even notice I’m gone until midmorning. What is all this stuff? Is this for the Lyric? You’re going this weekend, right?”

  He pawed through Liv’s crate. He brought a sleeve of the wet suit to his nose and grimaced, then lifted out the chewed-up flippers. There was a knife on the counter that winked at me. I’d have to Sam-proof the house, hide the blades and the pills. At least until I figured out what the hell I was going to do. At least until we called Mom and Dad.

  I had to call Mom and Dad.

  Sam slipped the flippers over his hands like a sea lion. “Do you think you’ll actually go on a dive? Like, get in the water and swim to the ship?”

  We were only a year apart, but he looked so very young. Something inside me snapped like a twig.

  “Sam. Stop.”

  “Are you mad?” he squeaked, and I knew he was in danger of retreating then, curling into himself, away from me.

  “Sam, it’s okay. Just talk to me. I want to know what you’re doing here.”

  “That place bored me,” Sam said finally. “Not bored like uninteresting. Bored like boring a hole. It was good, at first, and I felt better, and, like, eating feels more normal, so that’s good, but then I was ready to leave. I’m better now, I think.” His voice cracked; it was more gravelly than I remembered.

  “Is that what your doctor said? Why didn’t you just talk to someone? Tell Mom and Dad?”

  “Is that what you would have done?” he said, and he didn’t even let me answer. “Then I got your email. I hadn’t even been checking my email—it’s all, like, dumb school stuff—and then—bam—this email from you—everything just clicked. You sounded so sad. I wanted to be here with you, too. And then I realized I could be. All I had to do was buy a bus ticket.” He shrugged, gazing at his feet. “So here I am.”

  “We’ve got to call home,” I said.

  “No, Vi, please, they’ll freak out.”

  “They’re going to freak out anyway when they notice you’re gone!”

  “You wanted me to come, didn’t you? It’ll be what, a day, tops. You get to have an adventure. I want an adventure, too. I’ve already missed so much—just because”—he shook his head—“I was born with this brain instead of yours.”

  I studied my brother’s pleading, desperate face. I’d wished for him to be here, hadn’t I? Finding the Lyric was about Sam. And now here he was….

  “What bus did you even take?” I asked.

  He lit up.

  “Well, it was three different buses, actually, all these little commuter buses. The first one picked me up behind the bank, the second one picked me up outside a mall, and the third one, that was weird, they just, like, dropped me on the side of the highway, almost. That scared me. But this other guy showed up, and I asked him about Lyric, and he was like, yeah, don’t worry, this’ll get you there.”

  He was still wearing his flipper hands. I loved him so much.

  “Then—get this—I asked him where he was going and he was a lobsterman, it was so cool, and he told me all these stories about being on the fishing boat—he wasn’t creepy, don’t make that face—and then the bus CAME! Like a miracle, and then we sat separately, it wasn’t even a big deal, it wasn’t awkward, but then he handed me his card when we got off the bus and he told me they needed smart people, so, I dunno, maybe I should do that next summer, Violet, stop looking at me like that, I grew up in New York, too, you know, and I know what creepy feels like, probably even better than you.”

  He crossed his arms defensively. I flicked him, hard, right in the center of the r on his Lyric Aquarium T-shirt.


  “Ow,” he said, rubbing his chest with a flipper hand, “what’s wrong with you?”

  Good. Sam was real. He was in there. I hadn’t lost my marbles.

  “The whole trip cost six seventy-five,” he said with pride.

  “We’ve gotta call Mom and Dad.”

  “No, Violet, please—”

  A car crunched in the driveway. Toby.

  “You have to hide.” I grabbed Sam by the wrist and we flew upstairs to my bedroom, spilling flippers on the stairs. We’d barely made it inside, when we heard the front door slam. Toby’s voice echoed through the house: “Violet! Where are you?”

  “In here,” I hissed, pushing Sam into my closet.

  “What are all these fur coats?” he said, pawing at the minks on hangers.

  “Violet!” yelled Toby.

  “I don’t know, Sam, storage, shut up!”

  I swung the door closed just in time. Toby strolled into the room, wild-eyed and sallow-skinned, still wearing his bakery apron.

  “I just got off the phone with your mother,” he said. “You haven’t heard from Sam, have you?”

  Toby was only breaths away from my closet, and the door was swinging open. From where I stood, I could make out the shape of my brother, crouching amid the hanging furs.

  “Sam didn’t show up for breakfast in Vermont. I guess he left a note about catching the bus. To New York. Everyone’s trying to reach him, and we’re calling the people at Greyhound, but—and I don’t want to scare you—but it’s not good, when someone who’s just attempted suicide disappears. He didn’t say anything to you, did he?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Shit,” Toby said, hitting the t hard. I remembered what he’d made me promise in the car that dark morning in front of the aquarium: that if I ever needed his help, I’d tell him. This was the moment he’d meant.

  “Sam’s always disappeared. Remember Spain? He’s a good hider. He was always the last to be found in sardines. I think he’s probably okay. He just doesn’t want to be found.”

  I’d said this to make Toby feel better, but he looked at me piercingly. Did he know I was lying?

  “Look, I have to get back to the bakery, okay? But just keep your phone on. In case he tries to get in touch with you. If you hear from him…”

  “I’ll tell you,” I said.

  “Violet,” he said, “this is really serious.”

  Toby didn’t know. He was petrified. My parents must’ve been beside themselves. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and watched my uncle go.

  There was no way Sam was coming with us to find the ship. I didn’t care how badly he wanted an adventure, or how unfair the world was. Sam would be disappointed, but I’d already disappointed him time and time again. What was one more to add to the big, fat pile?

  I opened the closet doors and switched on the light. Sam was squashed against the hanging fur coats, and he was smiling. A full, openmouthed smile.

  “It’s like Narnia! See, Violet, this is already so much fun!”

  His teeth caught the light, and his silver braces glittered like jewels. He’d taken three buses. He wanted to work on a boat. I could give him the thing he’d only read about.

  “Also, I’m starving, can we eat those cupcakes?”

  Absurd, really, the things that’ll make you change your mind.

  Dear Mom and Dad and Toby,

  We’re safe. Please don’t be mad.

  Sam’s not in New York, but we’re together. We’re going up north and we’ll be back by tomorrow afternoon. I promise we’ll call soon. Sam agrees that we can be grounded for life when we get back. It’s just that right now…

  Right now, we have to go find something. We’re not sure if we’ll find it—it’ll be hard, maybe too hard—but we think that if the two of us look together, with two sets of eyes and two good brains and two adventurers’ hearts—we think that maybe, maybe, we might be able to track that something down.

  We love all three of you a lot. We’re sorry to scare you.

  Love,

  Sam & Violet

  PS—Mom, go easy on Toby. This isn’t his fault.

  PPS—Toby, go easy on yourself. This isn’t your fault.

  PPPS—Did you know that the ocean is full of faults?

  PPPPS—That was a geology pun.

  PPPPPS—I’m sure we’ll all laugh about this someday…she says, fingers crossed.

  VOYAGE OF THE APOGEE

  “You’ve overthinking this,” Sam said. He snatched my pen and scribbled over the stack of PSs, then placed the note on top of the puzzle, where Toby would be sure to see it. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at sneaking out?”

  “I haven’t slept. I’m off my game.”

  “You should always sleep. Do you know what not sleeping does to your brain?” Sam took a huge bite of my cupcake, sprinkling crumbs all over the puzzle and my work. I wondered if there was such a thing as being too okay.

  He reached for the latest printout of the script for Cousteau! “What’s the ‘The Calypso Tango’?”

  “God, don’t read that.” My voice was sharp.

  “Sorry,” Sam said, hands up like a criminal, crossword floating back to the table.

  “Sorry. You can read it.”

  “I won’t read it.” He picked up a piece of the puzzle—the sky—and clicked it in place on the first try. “You were such a good Dorothy,” he said, looking at the puzzle.

  “I was twelve. No one can be good. Except for Yael Dwyer, who remains to this day the best scarecrow I’ve ever seen.”

  “You were the one on Broadway, though,” he said, clicking another piece. “Remember when you took me backstage…”

  “What? No, I didn’t.”

  “Not on Broadway. At school. You took me backstage and we watched the Wicked Witch of the West take off her makeup, and she had an extra set of fake nails, so you put one hand on me, and I put the other on you. That’s what I remember best. Those black nails. I had to turn the pages of books with my palms,” Sam said. “You know I still have your ruby slippers?”

  “You do not.” I needed coffee.

  “In my closet. Mom taught me how to walk in them. They don’t fit anymore, but, I don’t know, they’re pretty, and they make me think of you.” He pointed at the pocket watch, currently serving as a paperweight. I’d taken it off with Liv, and dropped it on the table when she left. “Can I look at that?”

  “Yeah. See if you can get that knot undone. I’m gonna make some coffee.”

  Sam’s face brightened. Good. Once a caffeine fiend, always a caffeine fiend.

  I set up the Mr. Coffee in the kitchen. My stomach felt like gears grinding. The Wreck. We were going. Sam was here. He was better? He looked better. And we were going. I’d had sex with Liv. Liv. Wreck. Liv. Sam. Sex.

  “Why didn’t you sleep?” Sam asked, beside me suddenly.

  “Um.” I assumed he’d heard things at school, but we’d never really spoken about my love life. For the first time, I really wanted to tell him.

  “I was with a girl,” I said finally.

  “Is she hot?”

  “Sam!”

  “Is she?”

  “I can’t believe you just said that!”

  “Why? It’s a good question.” Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Doublemint gum. He stretched it toward me, smiling shyly. “You’ll need this, if you’re dating a babe.”

  I stared at his outstretched hand. “Aren’t you not supposed to chew gum with braces?”

  “You don’t have a monopoly on being a rebel, Violet.”

  The coffeemaker gurgled in agreement. I took a piece of gum and slipped it into my back pocket. “For later,” I said. “You can’t say anything to Liv. She’s like…She’s in the middle of things. Her family situation is complicated. Her parents are…nice…but…”

  “Mom and Dad are really the best, you know?”

  I knew.

  “I think this is the first time you’ve ever told me a re
al secret,” Sam said.

  “We’ll have to build a monument to celebrate,” I said, thinking of the pebbles from Fidelia’s letter. First secrets. A melted stick of gum. Sam’s teeth. Enough and we’d build a secret beach that was just ours, one not even the shipwreck gene would destroy.

  Sam sat on the floor, leaning against the island counter and gripping his ankles. “So there’s Liv. And Orion, you mentioned him in your letter.”

  “And Mariah and Felix.”

  “That’s a lot of friends.

  “Four.” I wasn’t sure if I was agreeing or disagreeing.

  Sam peeled away some loose rubber from his sneaker. “At the Center, there was this group of three girls that’d sneak into town and smoke. The Threebies, they called themselves. They hoarded all the embroidery thread from the rec room so they were the only ones who could make bracelets, and I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but trust me, it was, like, a violation of community, or whatever.”

  I stared at the coffeemaker. I didn’t like where this was going.

  “I told our house coordinator during one of my personal check-ins that I felt a little left out,” Sam said. “Just mentioned it. No big deal. Next thing I knew, she’d called this house meeting about cliques. She kept pronouncing it cleeks, like she was so smart and French. Cleeks are detrimental to our healing, cleeks aren’t part of our community.”

  “Those girls sound like bitches, Sam.”

  “Don’t say bitches, it’s such a mean word,” Sam said. His voice had gotten higher, familiar. I wished he’d go back to being a stranger. “So one of the Threebies, the captain or whatever, raises her hand, and she’s got bracelets from her wrist halfway down to her elbow, and she says she doesn’t see cleeks but friends, and friends are important to the healing process, and then she looks right at me. And everyone else just goes, ‘Yeah, we’re friends,’ and the house coordinator keeps saying, ‘Some people don’t agree,’ and of course everyone knew right away that I was the problem.”

  I left the coffee and curled up next to Sam. The pebbles were gathering in our pockets, heavy, real.