The Book of Speculation: A Novel

The water is frigid, like April rather than July, and the first step strikes out cold. But even in the water the box feels hot like flame. Clawed feet swarm, and crab shells slow my walk to a shuffle. They circle, churning sand, tails switching and whipping my heels. As my bad foot moves forward they begin pushing, urging me along. Sharp feet pinch on my pant leg and the crabs begin to climb, clinging like a child to its parent, hanging on as if at any moment I might run. I dust off one and another grabs on.

As when taking out the anchors, I have to move slowly. With each step crabs grip higher, weighing me down. As the water reaches my chest, they’ve managed to dig into my shirt. I squeeze the box tight to my side. Now. Air out. A quick breath out that sucks in the stomach. Diaphragm up, like a tight drum. Navel to spine. One. Two. Three. Then in, quick breath, spread each rib. The trick is to breathe wide and not let go. The trick is to breathe like you’re thirsty. A crab loses its grip, falls to the sandy bottom. I am under.

Simon.

My mother’s voice lives in the waves as it always has, as though she never left. Each step is heavy, aching. The light from above fades, lost in the seaweed and the growing horde of crabs. If I look up I can see faint rays spiraling through the salt. I have to get farther out. I can’t chance they’ll wash up. A sharp tail pricks under my arm, tapping at the box. I pass a bicycle half buried in sand and rock, encased in barnacles and covered with crabs, now part of the Sound. My stomach flutters. A hiccup of air escapes. I walk.

A clawed leg digs at my neck then burrows into my hair. Skin crawls, electric. Stop. Hit it away. It scuttles down my back, clicking over others. More hooking, clawing. Twitch. Shake them off.

Simon, she whispers. Hush. Hush, I have work to do.

More scratching, pricking. The weight. Another hiccup. Pull them off. The box drops. One moment, falling slow to the ground, lid open. Cards scatter, drifting. Horseshoe crabs swarm the box. Prince Ivan clawed. Firebird drowned. A hiccup. More air gone. I reach for it, but my arms won’t lift. Horseshoe crabs hang on my sleeves. Back up my neck they pile on. The Tower floats, then is flicked away by a crab. I kick. Scuffle them away. The bad ankle rolls. I fall, sag, to the bottom. Crabs move in. Ah, god. A thousand legs, a hundred tails. Onto my stomach, my rib cage, shoving me back. I look up. A beam of light, weak, clouded with algae and brine.

Simon. Sweetly, she says it, calling me home. I can hear her tell me I’m a good son, can feel the eggshells of that last morning beneath my fingernails.

My legs will not lift. My chest won’t rise. More breath is pushed away under the weight. On the shore they might look for me. My fingers brush something smooth. A card. A small thing, simple. Water and salt will eat the ink, wipe away its face. Good. Burning was too quick. A slow curse demands slow breaking. The orange will bleed into the Sound. The oil from our fingers will wash away and the paper will soften and dissolve into the sand, into the water’s mouth. As the cards break away, so will we.

Octopi for good luck. That’s fine. They’ll pull the trailer along to Ohio. Enola will lean an arm out the window, her hand flying over the wind. His family will be wide and warm.

I have saved her.

There is a woman with my sister’s eyes, and hair long and black like ink—my mother, but not—a silent man beside her—then the mermaid girls, the diving queens, the fortune-tellers and magician’s assistants, a sea of black-haired women with odd eyes, chests made wide for swimming and breath-holding, with laughs that sound like shattering plates. There are little girl hands, and scraped legs that I bandaged, knobby knees on my shoulders when I carried her down a cliff, the girl who left me because she wanted to live.

Ah, and now among the black hair and breath-holding, the fortunes and drowning, a single long red braid. Beside me, a pair of freckled hands digs into the beach with mine, French conjugations, cursing my family when I could not, the sweetest taste at the base of the neck, the curve of an arm reaching to the top of a library shelf. A life lived beside mine. I have not been alone. I can feel her now. I was never alone.

There. The last air. The crash of water around me. I am drowned, but it feels like being lifted—the sky’s hands on me, pulled up from the sea as I am swallowed by it. Light. Brine. And here, a voice.

You are home.

The fingers on my wrists are hot, almost burning. Though it might be the fire from skin being cold. There’s a tear in the black, a pinprick of light. It stabs deeper than the touch.

My name in a thousand voices.

A sharp electric snap, frigid. Bright.

Gagging.

Breath.

A soft voice. Two voices. Far back, distant smudges moving closer. My back hurts, itches, can’t get warm. Louder. My name again. Two sounds, a hiss and a mumble. One voice now.

Simon.

My lungs, my guts, pushing out water—not coughing but turning—outside in and inside out, forcing me dry. Dry. Dry, just once I want to be dry. There are arms around my back, pounding my shoulders, beating my spine, clutching and holding. They’re wet. Soaking.

A patch of skin worn hard and smooth by a fishing rod.