Bye loo bye loo
Mer child of the sea
Bye loo bye loo
Twixt water and land we be
On land we are both maid and man
Bye loo bye loo
THE HAWLEY HOUSE was quiet. Every servant was out on the lawn watching the fireworks. Hannah had pled illness, and Mrs. Bletchley had sent her to bed, telling her not to worry about the ruined meringues. However, Hannah was anything but ill. She had to get to the water. She knew she could not go out the back way, for everyone was on the lawn looking at the fireworks. She thought it would be better to leave through the French doors by the conservatory and then run directly into the small birch grove. From there she could follow a path to the sea. She had planned to go out later to meet with Stannish, but he would have to wait. Her sister had crossed over.
As she was passing through the conservatory, Hannah caught a glimpse of the harp. It had intrigued her ever since she had come to work for the Hawleys. With its curved golden wood that seemed like a disembodied wing, it had become a kind of musical incarnation of an angel. It was in the music room of the Hawleys’ Boston house on Beacon Hill that she had first met Stannish, when he had come to paint portraits of the Hawley daughters.
Hannah could play the harp, although she had never had lessons. It was similar to how she discovered she could swim. There had been a ferocious storm in Boston, and the roar of the thunder shaking the roof had created a separate vibration that resonated deeply within Hannah as she slept. She had crept downstairs and discovered that those vibrations were emanating from the harp. Almost in a trance, she walked toward the harp and sat down. Like swimming, it was an instinct. She began to play. The cacophony of the storm camouflaged the music for the rest of the sleeping household.
Tonight on her way through the conservatory, the harp beckoned her again. There was no storm. Could the strings be vibrating to the sound of the fireworks? I can’t stop now, she thought. She had to get to the water. But she closed her eyes for a moment and set her hand lightly upon the sound box of the harp, and then slid her hand up to the harmonic arch. No, she thought. These strings were rousing to the vibrations of another harp, other strings from far, far away. A chord had been struck and with it she could almost hear a voice.
Hannah slipped into the water on Seal Point, a cove at the back of Gladrock. It was farther from the spot in the cove where she usually entered, but over one hundred people were now gathered on that shore to watch the fireworks. She had to swim to Egg Rock fast and fetch May.
As she rounded the point, two seals, old companions of hers, slid from the ledges to accompany her. They seemed to sense her urgency this evening and swam quietly by her side, making no attempt to distract her with their usual playful antics.
She dove deep as she swam into the sweeping flare of the Egg Rock Lighthouse. She didn’t want May’s father to see her. She would climb out of the water and then creep under May’s window and flick pebbles against the pane. Normally, they left messages for each other in the cave, but Lucy had crossed over sooner than either one of them had expected. Hannah felt desperate to get to Egg Rock. The distance was long enough as it was and now the tide had changed and was against her, slowing her down even more. But she had only one thought — she and May would soon meet their sister.
High in the lantern room of the lighthouse, May Plum was filling the lamp that flashed the signature signal — two bright bursts of light followed by a ten-second gap.
It was a clear evening, and May wished that Hannah did not have to work, for she could think of nothing lovelier than swimming out to sea to watch the fireworks. The moon was still just a sliver, so the sky jeweled with the embers of the fireworks would be so beautiful. She walked onto the rail that encircled the top of the lighthouse and leaned out into the night in the direction of the booms of the firecrackers. She could swim out alone, she supposed, but it wouldn’t be as much fun. The locket she always wore swung out a bit and she became aware of a peculiar feeling. A kindling from within.
Inside that locket were a few of the tiny tear-drop crystals from the sea chest tucked away in the secret closet. The crystals had been embedded in the blanket in which she had been swaddled as an infant. This sensation of warmth and light had happened only once before. It was right before May had crossed over.
She touched the locket. It was warm. “She’s crossed,” May whispered to herself. She’s crossed and Hannah knows and she’s out there. Coming for me. May tore down the stairs of the lighthouse.
Gar Plum heard her go. But he knew he could do nothing. Every time he heard May leave in the middle of the night, he could only hope she would return. It was inevitable, he thought. Even that young beau from Harvard might not keep her on land. But if this was God’s plan for May … well, what right did he have interfering? There was one thing Edgar Plum was sure of — strange as his beloved daughter might be, she was one of God’s creatures.
THE HAWLEYS’ Fourth of July celebration extended well into the evening, for the croquet match was followed by tea dancing, then a garden supper, and when darkness fell, the fireworks began. Percy Wilgrew stuck to Lucy like flypaper. She could feel the other young ladies glaring at her from the arms of their considerably less distinguished escorts, but at that moment, Lucy would’ve gladly let them have him. All she could think about was Phineas. His words from the time they had first kissed came back to her. “I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again,” a prophecy that she had caused to come true.
She felt there was no one at the party she could truly talk to, and there seemed to be no potted palms to hide behind. She had looked around for Gus after the croquet game, but he seemed to have vanished. Most likely he had planned a rendezvous with Anna Green. It was a bittersweet thought, for though she was pleased for Gus, she envied him.
Lucy had finally attached herself to Muffy Forbes and Muffy’s young brother, Arthur, who was about thirteen and was a fun, lively sort. But then her mother had come over to drag her off to meet some Van Wyck or other. Finally, feigning illness, Lucy found her father.
“But the fireworks, my dear?”
“No, Father, I really can’t stay. I’m … I’m afraid I might be sick.” At first she thought she was lying, but a wave of nausea swept over her.
“I’ll get you home, dear. Let’s not disturb your mother.”
In the drive of the Hawley estate was a line of small carriages that had conveyed many of the guests to the festivities.
Petey Beal, who had helped the Snows move into the cottage, was sitting on the seat of the first one.
“Hello, Petey. Lucy is feeling a bit faint. Could you give us a lift back to the cottage?”
“You bet, Reverend Snow.”
Just then, there was the boom and crackle of the first of the fireworks. A tracery of blue embers embroidered the night.
“Father, you stay. It will be so beautiful. I’ll be fine once I get home.”
“I’ll take care of her, Reverend, don’t you worry.”
“Are you sure, Lucy? You don’t want me to come?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Lucy sank back into the seat as Petey tapped the horse with the whip, and the wheels creaked.
As they pulled away from the party, Lucy felt the nausea begin to recede. She was heading toward home — her real home. The drive took only ten minutes.
“You sure you don’t want me to take you down the path, Miss Snow?” Petey asked.
“I’m sure, Petey. I feel better already. Please go along. I’m sure you want to see the fireworks. I can still hear them.”
“You’ll have a good view from here as well I think, miss.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Pleasure, miss.”
Lucy did not even go back into the cottage. She had to return to the water. She climbed down the cliff, tore off the dress and, in her petticoats, waded into the sea.
When she had first plunged into the water, she had not headed toward the cave but st
raight out to sea because she felt the need to get as far away as possible from everything to do with land. The Duke of Hair Oil, as she now thought of him. Her mother, who had obviously embellished beyond reason their connection with Aunt Prissy, and her father and what were now his ceaseless discourses on rank, nobility, and titles of the English aristocracy. It all revolted her. She was so disgusted and so angry she did not realize how far she had swum from land.
But now she made her way back to the cave and, swimming into it, hoped against hope she would find them there. A million questions streamed through her mind. Who were they? Surely if she had seen them in the village or at one of the parties, she might have sensed who they were. But perhaps they lived all the time in the sea. Was this possible?
The cave was unusually dark as she swam in. The new moon was already too high to light it, but she suddenly saw an incandescent flickering at the end. She blinked. Two girls sat on the ledge, their radiant tails half in the water. One girl’s tail was a deep rose and amber with waves of green. The other’s tail was shades of violet and gold. The three of them looked at one another for several seconds as if what they saw was not quite real but a vision. Finally, one spoke in a hushed voice.
“We’ve been waiting!” she said.
Lucy looked from one girl’s face to the other. It was as if she were looking in a mirror and seeing an image so very similar yet not really identical. She swam up to them slowly. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Your sisters,” the girl with the amber tail answered.
The other girl reached out her hand. Lucy touched it tentatively, as if expecting her to vanish.
“My sisters?” She thought of that seminal image — the apples in a crate at a market. They picked me but not these two? They must have been together at some time, but for how long? Why was it only now after all these years they were meeting? And what destiny had brought them together now?
And yet, even in the swirl of questions, one thought burst forward. How could these dazzling creatures be her sisters? They seemed so free. Free of all the things of land that plagued her, all the artifices, the duplicities, the ridiculous encrustations of “tribal life.” “I — I,” she stammered. “I don’t even know your names.”
“I’m May,” said the one with the violet-hued tail.
“And I’m Hannah. I saw you today at the Hawleys’.”
The weight of this statement almost knocked Lucy’s breath from her.
“You did. But I didn’t see you.” She couldn’t believe she’d walked by her own sister only hours earlier.
“I’m a servant.” Hannah smiled wryly. “We tend to be invisible. But the moment I saw you, I knew who you were and that you had crossed over at last.”
“Is that what you call it?” Both girls nodded. “But where do we come from? How did this happen?”
May inhaled deeply. “It’s a long story, and we don’t know all the answers.”
The two girls took turns telling her how they’d discovered they were mer. Lucy was transfixed. For the first time, she realized that deep down inside she had always felt a sense of desolation, otherness, that went beyond her inability to make small talk at parties. But now that sensation began to ebb just as the tide.
They were sisters, but they differed in slight ways. Hannah definitely had the reddest hair, and Lucy herself had the palest. May’s eyes were green but with flecks of gold and what seemed almost turquoise. Hannah’s face was more rounded, May’s a bit sharper. May had the thick downeast accent of the island people, but Hannah spoke with no trace of any accent. Lucy learned that Hannah came only in the summer, for she was a servant for the Hawleys in Boston in the winter. She had started out as a scullery girl but rose quickly through the ranks and had even accompanied the family on their annual sojourn to Paris.
May’s life by contrast seemed endlessly dreary to Lucy. She lived on Egg Rock. She was the daughter of the lighthouse keeper and his invalid wife, who was something of a terror.
She told Lucy how she had first spied her when the steamer the Elizabeth M. Prouty had entered the passage between Egg Rock and Bar Harbor.
“That’s how she spotted me, too!” Hannah said. “And she had to wait all last summer for me to cross.”
“So you were the first, May?”
“Yes. I was the first.”
“How did you figure it out?” Something in May’s face made Lucy wonder if her sister’s transformation had been a bit more trying than her own.
“I was drawn like you and Hannah were, but my father would never let me even dip a toe into the water. You see, he was the one who found me.”
“How?”
“Drifting in a sea chest.” May closed her eyes for a moment as if she were trying to reach back in time to those first days in her life, to the sensation of the waves and the moment Gar had plucked her from the chest and wrapped her in his foul-weather gear.
“A sea chest?”
“From a shipwreck. The wreck of the HMS Resolute.”
And then May began to tell her about the secret little closet where she had discovered the chest and the letters exchanged between Gar Plum and the Revenue Cutter Service.
Then May and Hannah told her about the big swim they’d made the previous summer to the wreck of the HMS Resolute off the Nantucket Shoals.
Lucy did not speak for almost an entire minute when they had finished their story. Finally, she said, “You say that the figurehead is that of our mother?”
Her sisters both nodded gravely.
“Her face is just like ours,” Hannah said. “I mean I know we all look a bit different. But there is no denying the face of this woman.”
“She’s our mum,” May said.
Hannah pressed her lips together firmly and shook her head slightly up and down. “No doubt about it!”
Mum, thought Lucy. She savored its sound. It was such an intimate word, possessing a cozy resonance. She had never called her mother Mum, just Mother. She wondered for the first time if she had even as a baby called her Mama.
“Mum.” She repeated the word softly, as if she were tasting it. She had to press her lips together twice to say it. “Mum,” she repeated for a third time. A smile lit her face. “When can we go? How long does it take?”
“We can do it in a night of hard swimming,” Hannah said. “May knows all about currents.”
“Yes, there is one off Grand Manan. It’s very powerful. We can catch it on the way south and west, and then catch the counter one coming back. They flow strong this time of year.”
“I want to go. I want to go now. You say the figurehead looks like us? You can tell she really was our mother, our true mother?” She turned her head to study her two sisters’ faces.
“It’s too late right now to go. We’d need a bit more time than what is left until morning.”
“Can you figure out something to tell your parents?” Hannah said.
“Oh, dear.” Lucy gasped and she suddenly felt sorry that she had called the figurehead her true mother. “I’ll — I’ll — I’ll think of something. But I’d better get back now.”
ETTIE STOOD ON THE EDGE of the cove in a light drizzle. It had begun to rain shortly after the fireworks had finished. The moon had slipped away to another world … another world, she thought. Her pink-and-white-striped organdy dress hung limply around her ankles. There was no wind. The water was stippled with the rain, but she soon saw a kindling beneath the surface. It’s her, she thought. How many times had she crouched behind the spruce to watch for Hannah’s return? But the time for hiding was over. The time for truth had arrived. She would not divulge Hannah’s secret. She would only tell her that she knew. She could not live a life of lies with Hannah.
Hannah broke through the water. She gasped when she saw Ettie and immediately ducked back down.
“Don’t!” Ettie snapped. She marched right into the water, not bothering to take off her shoes. The hem of her skirt floated out around her.
“Look at your dress,
Ettie!”
“Look at your tail!” Ettie’s starry gray eyes widened.
She stood mesmerized, watching the flukes of Hannah’s tail swaying back and forth in the water. The scales were so beautiful. She had never seen anything as beautiful.
“We can’t stay here. Walk to the end of the point. I’ll meet you there,” Hannah said.
“All right,” Ettie whispered.
It took less than three minutes to walk to the point at the end of the cove. When Ettie arrived, Hannah was already there.
“So when did you find out?” Hannah asked.
“Last summer just before the hurricane.”
“You haven’t told anybody?”
Ettie’s face darkened. “Of course not. What do you take me for?” Her bottom lip began to tremble. “You’re my best friend.”
“Oh, Ettie!” Hannah moaned and reached to embrace her. Ettie was surprised how warm Hannah felt. The water was freezing cold, yet Hannah felt as if she had just stepped out of a warm tub, not Frenchman’s Bay.
They were both crying now. Ettie’s nose was running and she wiped it on her sleeve. “And I am your best friend,” Hannah said.
Ettie pushed back and looked at her hard. “Are you sure, Hannah?” Ettie had an imperious little nose, even when it was runny, that could on occasion make her look very severe and vastly older than her years.
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