“There are still three missing, including a woman.”
My heart clenched. It was not unusual for the wife and sometimes the children of a boat’s owner or captain to travel aboard. I lost sight of Pa long before the sound of the motor was swallowed.
Mother had the men strip, wrapped them in warm wool, and steeped strong black coffee. They sat in shocked silence, their teeth continuing to chatter long after their skin pinked and the hot drink was consumed.
Once the men had been tended to, Mother turned her attention to Emily and me. We had changed into dry clothes and sat with our hands stretched toward the warmth of the fire. But still Emily shivered. Mother took Emily’s face in her hand, her thumb lingering for a moment on the pale cheek until the gray eyes looked up at her and held her own for a very brief moment. Then she sat down and brushed Emily’s hair until it shone like a raven’s feathers.
The story unfolded, pieced together by the men as they found their voices. The Hartnell had lost her engines two miles off Passage Island, a little before twenty-two hundred hours. Monstrous waves broke over the deck, tearing at the hatch covers and flooding the engine room. She was rigged with a mizzenmast, and they hoisted the sail, altering course to tuck in behind Isle Royale, where they could wait out the storm and then head in to Port Arthur for repairs. But the waves became too much and they lost steering around midnight, left to the mercy of the wind, which set them straight onto the rocks off Dreadnaught Island. They launched the lifeboat, and were beginning the process of abandoning ship. The first mate was aboard the raft to assist as the captain’s wife clambered in. Just as they did, a massive wave descended, tearing the boat from the side of the ship and sending their three passengers into the dark grasp of Superior.
I knew enough of the Lake to comprehend their fate. Once someone was in her icy clutch, Superior was not inclined to let go. I could tell by the faces of the men perched on chairs in our humble dwelling, huddled beneath blankets, that they knew the same.
Pa was gone for what felt like hours. The wind continued to howl, easing up slightly only as the sun appeared, its diffuse glow futilely attempting to shed light and warmth on the snow-covered island. He appeared at the door in the early hours of the morning, and wordlessly shook his head.
The men stayed with us for three days. Pa was able to get word to the Coast Guard, and the James Whalen came out to collect them. A salvage boat arrived shortly after that, and the Hartnell was hauled off the rocks and towed to the shipyards in Port Arthur, her hull battered and beaten and twisted.
Emily spent those three days walking the shore. Bits and pieces of the Hartnell’s cargo washed up on the beaches—wooden crates, tins, buoys, and pieces of torn fabric. Heathcliff was never far away, from dawn until dusk, her faithful companion as she paced a pilgrimage, occasionally stopping to turn over a piece of flotsam, searching. I couldn’t understand her obsession, but there was much about Emily I could not understand.
We found her on the fourth day, sitting next to the woman’s body.
Pa stopped when he saw them—Emily so small and fragile, crouched beside the dead woman—and called to me. Emily had removed her red woolen scarf and draped it over the body. One end trailed in the water and moved with the waves, like a living thing, and all I could think about, all either my father or I could think about, was getting Emily away from that cold, bloated form. “Get her the hell outta here, Lizzie. Dammit, take her home.”
I did as I was told, but not before I noticed that none of it made sense. The woman had come ashore on the east side of the island; she lay on the beach beyond where the Lake could have placed her. She should not have come ashore there, not with the direction the wind had been blowing for days. And Emily, dear little Emily, could not have carried nor even dragged the corpse and positioned it as it was. I realized that someone had moved the body. Someone had brought it where they knew it would be found. Someone who knew the wind and waves. Someone who knew that the lightkeeper’s daughter had been wandering the shore, searching. Someone who was able to hide his presence from all of us. Except Emily.
And I knew who it was.
As Emily and I walked away, I looked around me, searching the trees for a glimpse of his dark beard and deerskin coat. Was he watching us even now? I shivered and pulled Emily closer to me.
34
Morgan
I have the journals spread out around me on the bed, following along as Elizabeth speaks. Her memories echo on these pages.
“It was Grayson, wasn’t it?” A few of the pieces are coming together. “The assistant lightkeeper who went missing.”
“Yes,” she replies. “I didn’t know it then. At the time, I thought he was . . . I’m not sure who I thought he was.”
“What happened to Heathcliff?”
“Ah yes. She stopped coming some time in February. I assumed she had moved on, crossed to another island on a causeway of ice in search of a mate. Emily did not appear concerned. It was the way of nature, and while we both enjoyed our time with the fox, she was still very much a wild animal. Sadly, however, that was not the case.
“I accompanied my father to town that winter. We traveled to Port Arthur by dogsled from Silver Islet across frozen Thunder Bay, the looming Giant slumbering beneath a blanket of snow. It was an exciting excursion. While we were there, we stopped in at Sewchuck’s Brokerage, a storefront on Cumberland Street that served the needs of trappers who exchanged pelts in trade for traps and tools and shot. While we were there, a man came in with a bundle of fur and stood in the shadows while Pa completed his business. He was wearing a deer-hide coat and fur cap but had his back to me. I thought I recognized him, but couldn’t think from where. He felt my gaze and turned, looking down at me. His face was hideously scarred, the marks barely obscured by a full black beard, and I stepped closer to Pa. I had seen him before. Only once, but I had seen him, hidden among the trees on a cold winter day, a lone wolf, cast off from his pack.
“At the top of his pile of pelts was that of a fox, darker than most, rich and full. My hand reached out to touch it. I knew without a doubt that it was Heathcliff. Perhaps she had wandered inadvertently into a trap, set to catch lynx or marten, complacent in her tameness. Perhaps. The man’s eyes met mine, briefly, and when he looked away, disappearing into the shadows, I saw in them shame and sorrow. I never forgot those eyes, dark, haunted. And I never told Emily.”
I say nothing for a few minutes. I can tell she’s lost in thought. She’s putting pieces of a puzzle together as much as she’s remembering.