Beyond the Bright Sea: Chapters 4–9

by Lauren Wolk
As a baby, Crow was discovered in a boat adrift at sea and raised on an isolated island off of Cape Cod. When twelve-year-old Crow spots a fire on a nearby island, once the home of a leper colony, she begins to investigate her own past.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Chapter 3, Chapters 4–9, Chapters 10–16, Chapters 17–28, Chapters 29–40
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. calico
    having patches colored differently and usually brightly
    I’d always figured it was because I was little. With a name like Crow. And so different from them, besides, like the calico lobsters that turned up in traps very rarely and always with great to-do.
  2. utter
    express audibly
    “No,” Osh said, before Miss Maggie could utter another word.
  3. susceptible
    yielding readily to or capable of undergoing a process
    I turned to Miss Maggie. She hesitated. And then she nodded, too. “That is true,” she said. “Some people start off more susceptible. More...vulnerable. Weaker.”
  4. scoff
    laugh at with contempt and derision
    “They won’t see how fine she is,” he said. “Or if they do, they’ll start to think she should be somewhere better than here, with someone other than me.”
    At which Miss Maggie had scoffed. “As if there were such a place, or such a person,” she said.
  5. reluctantly
    with a certain degree of unwillingness
    So one day that fall, when the sky was the color of forget-me-nots and the sea wanted to play, I reluctantly crossed over to Cuttyhunk with Miss Maggie and followed her up the steps of the schoolhouse, through the door, and straight into the kind of confusion that opened my eyes wide, and then made me want to shut them again, even if I couldn’t.
  6. leprosy
    communicable disease characterized by wasting of body parts
    “What’s a leper?” I said as we turned toward home.
    “Someone with leprosy,” she said, stomping down the lane toward the bass stands and, beyond them, Osh, waiting for our return.
  7. heather
    a low purple-flowered plant grown in the northern hemisphere
    She stopped suddenly and sat me down in a patch of heather along the lane.
  8. gruff
    blunt and unfriendly or stern
    “Whose wishes?” I asked.
    “Your mother’s,” she said gruffly, and then refused to say another word about it.
  9. castaway
    a person who is rejected (from society or home)
    I knew that Osh was as much a castaway as I was, though he himself had done the casting.
  10. tender
    physically untoughened
    And I learned to shear by practicing on the lambs. Their pink and tender skin taught me how to be more careful than I’d ever been.
  11. farfetched
    highly imaginative but unlikely
    “A bird keeper on Penikese?” I said. That sounded pretty farfetched to me. “What kind of keeping do birds need?”
  12. sanitize
    make sterile by cleaning
    “Oh, I’m sure he is. They had to go all the way to Maine before they could find someone willing to take the job. But they sanitized the hospital, and it’s been years, for pity’s sake.”
  13. pennant
    a flag that usually tapers and is longer than it is wide
    The wind, like the sea, was an always kind of thing, but on the hilltops it was even stronger than below, and I felt like a mast as I braced myself up there, my hair like a pennant.
  14. barnacle
    marine crustacean with feathery food-catching appendages
    I carried with me a small spyglass I’d found in the sand. It had a little fog inside it and there were barnacle prints glued onto the glass, but I could still see more with it than without.
  15. amiss
    not functioning properly
    “Something amiss?” she said when she reached the top.
  16. dither
    be undecided or uncertain
    “I walked down to the bass stands and watched as he crossed the bay and sailed straight up to your island without a lick of dithering. Just...there he was, pulling his skiff up on the beach below where your cottage is now...."
  17. haunch
    the upper thigh and back of the hip in human beings
    She stopped and sat back on her haunches.
  18. twine
    spin, wind, or twist together
    I eased the shoots out of the earth and gently combed their roots apart.
    “Sorry,” I said to the peppers, which seemed content to have been twined.
  19. mutton
    meat from a mature domestic sheep
    Osh didn’t say anything else all morning, but when he brought bowls of mutton stew to the garden for our lunch, he said, “Tomorrow we can go out there.”
  20. prospect
    belief about the future
    But I was also relieved at the prospect of Osh in my boat.
  21. baffled
    perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements
    He sighed. Ran his hands through his hair. “And then? If you found out where you came from?”
    “Then I’d know,” I said, baffled by how upset he was.
  22. scuttle
    move about or proceed hurriedly
    I handed the paper back and scuttled under my blanket.
  23. mare
    an adult female horse
    “Go on home,” she told her mare, Cinders, who was so gentle and smart that Miss Maggie could ride bareback and then turn her loose to meander home.
  24. meander
    move or cause to move in a winding or curving course
    “Go on home,” she told her mare, Cinders, who was so gentle and smart that Miss Maggie could ride bareback and then turn her loose to meander home.
  25. stern
    the rear part of a ship
    Instead, he sat in the stern, his hand on the tiller, while Miss Maggie and I perched across from each other, ducking under the boom when Osh came about, otherwise enjoying the wind and the spray.
  26. sleek
    having a smooth, gleaming surface reflecting light
    A pair of dolphins traveled along with us for a bit, sleek and smiling, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything as beautiful.
  27. tandem
    one behind the other
    When this pair cut away for open water, they leaped in tandem, again and again, like colts in a blue meadow.
  28. bluff
    a high steep bank
    The near shore, all rocks below a bluff, gave us no good place to land, so we sailed around to the harbor where it was easier.
  29. remnant
    a small part remaining after the main part no longer exists
    Along that coast there was a skiff tied up at a pier and the remnants of ruined buildings—cellar holes and such—and when we climbed up from the beach we could see knee-high stone walls that straggled across the moors like old scars.
  30. straggle
    go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way
    Along that coast there was a skiff tied up at a pier and the remnants of ruined buildings—cellar holes and such—and when we climbed up from the beach we could see knee-high stone walls that straggled across the moors like old scars.
  31. moor
    open land with peaty soil covered with heather and moss
    Along that coast there was a skiff tied up at a pier and the remnants of ruined buildings—cellar holes and such—and when we climbed up from the beach we could see knee-high stone walls that straggled across the moors like old scars.
  32. yield
    give or supply
    It was a tough thing that didn’t want to go with me, but I pinched off a number of new blooms and tucked them in my pockets. They wouldn’t yield much, but sometimes Osh painted a single yellow flower in a pale green marsh, and it was all the better for being just one.
  33. hobble
    hamper the action or progress of
    Instead, I found myself hobbled by a soft spot that buried my right foot.
  34. dubiously
    in a doubtful manner
    “Sand will do that to the ground,” she said, though dubiously.
  35. abashed
    feeling or caused to feel uneasy and self-conscious
    She looked a little abashed.
Created on Sun Jan 27 20:47:51 EST 2019 (updated Wed Jan 30 14:23:10 EST 2019)

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