Behind her, the rest of our team had come out to witness the final progress of my stepmother.
Yuri wasn’t there, but Joyce was talking into a headset and tapping on an electronic tablet. Our cook Hannah was wiping her hands over and over on a clean apron, and Edgar, who was still for once, had taken the baseball cap off his head and held it over his heart as a sign of respect.
I’d always liked Edgar.
Dad was trying to give me a strong smile, but it wasn’t working. He hadn’t bothered to put the hood up on his raincoat, and his bald head was getting pelted. As the rain dripped off his nose and down his chin, it seemed as if it was taking pieces of his face with it. He was dissolving in front of my eyes.
He was going to need my help.
This wasn’t the first time we’d done this, the two men of the family protecting what was left.
I took his hand in mine. It was time to go.
nine
PIXIE
I am sitting on a log on a beach that is mine and not mine at the same time. It has all the features of Useless Bay but also possibilities that make it foreign.
A man sits next to me.
He has a long face, weather-beaten, and white hair pulled into a ponytail. He seems out of place. He wears a uniform I’m not familiar with, with a navy coat and white pants, worn but in decent repair.
Behind me, I can hear people barking orders I don’t understand. Timbers groan. Something massive is back there, but I can’t see it for the fog.
The keel hit bottom before the anchor did, the man sitting next to me says. He has a British accent. Upper-class.
Captain Vancouver thinks this place is useless, but I don’t.
I recognize this man’s profile from somewhere, a book, a display. He’s someone important. I don’t know how he comes to be sitting here next to me. There must be something about the fog . . .
I love gentle shores, the man says. A wonderful place for children. Much better than Deception Pass to the north. I almost didn’t think we’d make it through those waters.
I know who he is.
Mr. Whidbey? I say.
He doesn’t acknowledge his name, but I know it is him.
Behind us the noise continues of people trying to right the HMS Discovery. I know, without seeing it, that it has sailed into Useless Bay at low tide and that the keel has hit the sand before the anchor and now the ship is tipped to the side.
In front of us, the night is lit up red. Everyone is arrayed in front of me, as if on a stage. No one is moving. There’s Lyudmila’s body on the sand. There’s Henry, sitting, his father wrapped around him. Meredith and Joyce hang back. There’s Frank, prone, and there’s another body next to his. One with long blond hair that can only be mine.
Curious.
I wish I could know you and your brothers better, Marilyn. Alas, there’s little time.
You know me? You know us?
He smiles sadly but does not look at me straight on. He looks at the sea. I think he must’ve spent a life looking at the sea, gauging its moods.
I don’t know how he knows my name or about my brothers, but I have suspicions. All I know is that I trust him. He has a trustworthy profile.
I screwed up, I say. I let Grant get away.
Hush, child, he says. It’s too late for that now. She’s coming.
Who’s coming?
The Sea.
I know he isn’t talking about the rising tide but something else.
At first, I think it’s just bulb kelp rising from the bay, but then a head of human hair emerges lightly and, underneath that, a woman’s face. She has features that arrange themselves into something familiar. Her clothes are tattered, and she walks with a driftwood staff, smooth and whorled, at the top of which rests a whole blue-gray Japanese fishing float.
She is beautiful.
I love her but am afraid of her at the same time. There can be no question that we are in the presence of immense power.
Who is she?
Hush, now, the man repeats.
She comes for Lyudmila first.
The Sea kneels over her empty body and caresses her white face. I can’t tell if the Sea is crying or not, but she is certainly grieving. She whispers one word in Lyudmila’s ear and stands to her full height. With her staff, she touches Lyudmila’s dead heart.
A white light comes from within Lyudmila’s chest. It illuminates the night. And then it floats away on the dark sky and is gone. And I know, somehow, that everything that Lyudmila was was contained in that light, and the body that’s left lying on the beach is nothing but an empty shell.
It is now my turn.
The Sea is halfway down the sand to where my body lies, and I’m not ready for her. I’m not ready to be launched into the night the way Lyudmila was.
I’m trembling. I want the man sitting next to me to keep me safe. I reach for his hand.
Help me, I say. I’m afraid.
I can’t spare you this, Marilyn. I wish I could.
The Sea is closer to my body now. Two paces away. She parts the people around me. They move aside easily. I think: Of course they do. The Sea always gets her way.