As if to answer, the monster opened its mouth, but no words came out, only a sound that began with an infant’s urgency and slowly loudened to a long drawn-out wail that resounded and echoed off the rocks and the dream house and sang out to the wide expanse of the sea. A human cry, born out of ancient suffering, turned inside out and full of unspeakable grief and longing.
The boys backed away from the creature, and when the waves struck his legs Nick recoiled from the shock of the frigid water. He heard Jack Peter cry out like a bird. Torn between surrender to the monster to end that tormenting pain and the desire to escape, Nick went deeper. A wave broke over his legs and crashed against his back, soaking him through his heavy coat and pulling him away from shore. As he sank, Nick felt the hands wrap around his waist and force him under.
The water stung like the prick of a thousand needles. The monster cried out in pain, the skin on its shoulders blackening and its hair turning to ash. Flames burst on its limbs, yet it kept marching toward them. Without warning they were going under. Nick had no chance for even a mouthful of air, and he found himself plunged in darkness, trying not to swallow water. The weight of his clothes made him sink quickly, with Jack Peter at his side, dragging and pushing him to the bottom. He fought the pressure on his chest, grappled and pulled at Jack Peter’s hands, fighting to be free. The waves, too, gripped and buffeted them, churning the silt and shells, and in the muck he felt as though he was being erased from the page, torn from the outside world.
*
Holly nearly crumpled to the ground in pain from the cold pressure boring into her skull. The boys had made footprints in the snow, and she followed a pair to the top of the hill. Slipping through the heavy wet snow, she climbed to the crest, the whole ocean spread out before her. Below, one of the boys cried out loudly from the shore. She searched desperately for any sight of them among the rocks or along the sandy shore. Her shouts thinned to a whisper in the blinding whiteness. When she saw a flash of red boots in the water and the navy blue of a child’s coat, she ran toward it, the beating in her head finally stilled, her heart exploding with what was in front of her.
They might be dead, she thought, by the time she reached them, but Holly flew to the tideline. She plunged into the water, anesthetized by its iciness, thrashing to the spot where she had last seen her son and diving underwater again and again in desperation. Breathless, she rose from the waves and saw at once Jack in a dead man’s float. She cried out his name and seized him by the coat, turned him over on his back, and towed him to the beach. On the edge of the sand, she rested, catching her breath. Black with soot, Tim had arrived and fished out Nick’s heavy wet body from the sea, but Holly was barely aware of anything else. They were alone in the quiet of the day, and she cradled her son in her arms, my boy, my boy, until the water streamed from his mouth, and his heart stirred.
vii.
The little girl with no hair smiled at him across the room, and Jack Peter returned her beatific grin with a smile of his own. When he noticed that his mother was watching, he bowed his head, blushing. Other people wandered in and out of the visitors’ lounge—a tired man rubbing the small of his back as he paced; two nurses on a coffee break; an older couple, the husband pushing his wife in her wheelchair and bending to offer some quiet comfort. The Keenans waited for some word, any word at all, now back at the hospital for another long day. Both boys had gone in to the emergency room after they had been pulled from the icy Atlantic. Jack Peter had been treated for mild hypothermia and shock, but Nicholas had not regained consciousness since the drowning. They had seen him once in the ICU, hooked up to a respirator and lying still on his back, a birdlike thing impossible to bear. Father Bolden and Miss Tiramaku had come for a visit and to say a few prayers, but his parents did not pray. They could only stare at the floor as the words were spoken.
Getting Nick’s parents off the cruise ship in the Caribbean had proved difficult, and then their flight from Miami to Portland had been postponed because of the blizzard. Texts and phone calls never suffice, and Holly and Tim agreed to keep vigil until the Wellers arrived. A small plastic Christmas tree sat on a table in the corner of the room, and on the walls were cutout decorations: Santa and his sleigh, sprigs of balsam, a blue and white menorah. Holly was grateful that the piped-in music had been changed from Christmas songs to some indecipherable pop mush playing softly in the background. Tim was giving the day’s newspaper a third read, and Jack passed the time, thankfully, without drawing. His fingers danced across the screen of her smart phone as he played another mindless game with fanatical desire.
The door swung open and Dr. Ogundipe entered, the same young Nigerian woman who had treated Jack earlier. When she found them, she tugged at the stethoscope around her neck as she approached. “Mr. and Mrs. Keenan…”