Beyond the Bright Sea: Chapters 29–40

“Coming about,” he said, and we ducked our heads and shifted to the starboard bench as the boom swung across and we tacked past the last of the land.

A single sailor, slumped in the stern, tipped his cap wearily as we sailed past.

We waved back, glad to see no other craft in the harbor. Gladder, still, when the rain tapered off again the minute we pulled up on the beach and tied the skiff to a post.

It hurt me to know that children had frolicked on this island just days ago.

“I want to do this myself,” I said, a quiver of fear in my voice.

When we met them, midway across the open ground, the officers were as surprised to see us as we were to see them.

“We took that picture of him to New Bedford, to the pawnbroker and all along the waterfront. And this morning someone came and told us they'd seen him just yesterday, heading out in a skiff, most likely the one he stole from the gamekeeper. We figure he heard we were asking about him. Maybe he’s finally running. So the precincts all along the coast are watching for him, but we’re covering our own ground.”

We all looked around at the pocked moor, the hundreds of dirt hills, the mist hanging like still smoke above the ravaged ground.

We listened for a while to the rain having its own conversation with the sea, the wind chiming in when it had something to say.

Mouse chose a long silver chain as big around as my finger to drag into a corner and wrestle into submission.

In the almost darkness, I couldn’t see much, but I could feel the cold smoothness of the gold ingots, the pictures pressed into the coins, the perfect facets of the gemstones.

In the almost darkness, I couldn’t see much, but I could feel the cold smoothness of the gold ingots, the pictures pressed into the coins, the perfect facets of the gemstones.

And I would have told him about this keepsake long before that. Explained why it was important.

And then I went off toward Cuttyhunk, prepared, if I saw anyone, to say that I was taking quahogs to Miss Maggie for her supper.

So up to a hilltop I trudged each day, and the heavy heat of summer made me glad for the bigger winds I found there.

Nearly everyone believed that a baby was resting in that ground. A leper baby. And who would want to meddle with such a grave?

“Couldn’t we have waited for a calmer day?” I groused as we sailed to the next pot in the string.

But it was a warm, still night, and he was a clumsy lout, and we were on an island so small and familiar that we knew he was there as soon as he beached his skiff.

I imagined him finding that tin, prying it open, spilling its treasure onto our table and figuring all that it would buy him.

Now, I had much more than before, but I felt most keenly the things I didn’t have, especially the parents I’d never known and the brother I did not yet know.

I was stricken, too, by the thought that Mr. Kendall might have found the bit of treasure I’d kept back for myself.

We were all three jittery and grim, just hours past a terrible night; but the day was fair, we were together, and Mr. Kendall was caught and jailed where he couldn’t hurt us.

“And the answer is no, she’s not. Nor has been for weeks, stuck in dry dock in Portland after a run-in with a shoal. But home soon, I expect.”

But he shook his head no. “Bad enough we two have to see it,” he said. “You’ll just get in a lather.”

Snatched from their own beds, the lifesavers had by now scrambled for their boats and launched them into the heavy surf, oars churning against the waves, harder and harder until they reached the men drowning in the storm or clinging to their listing ship, its mast snapped short, its sails in tatters.

As I watched, the surfmen lifted the first of them from the boat—a tourniquet on his thigh, his clothes bloody despite the rain and sea—and carried him to a cart waiting on the lane to the village.

She probed gently through his hair until she found where he’d been hurt.

But the wind answered with its customary howl, which I could not translate, the rain was busy with its endless plunge, and the clouds were in a hurry to be somewhere else.

After they left, I pulled on a clean nightshirt and spent a few minutes looking at Jason—no, Osh was right—at the sailor, the lantern light gilding his face, and then in the mirror and then at him again.

Before I could shove the bolt home again, the door slammed against me, knocking me to the floor, and Mr. Kendall barged through, the rain and wind with him, as if he were made of storm.

But I knew they were inside, bound and gagged, hurt maybe, and now I was the one to make haste until we were both almost running.

But I stayed where I was, whimpering and cringing, while he paced and growled below me, jumping up to snatch at my ankles, but falling short.

I hit the ground and rolled straight onto my feet running, running, across the yard and into the house, slamming the door and shooting the bolt as he lumbered after me, bellowing, and threw himself against the door, pounding on it, raging.

“It’s just me,” I said. “It’s just me.” But they bleated and wailed as I grabbed a coil of rope and ran for the door and across the windy yard to where Mr. Kendall lay on his belly beneath the hornbeam tree.

At the word police, Mr. Kendall thrashed harder and screamed wordlessly into the gag.

“They won’t be able to cross for a while. Until then, we’ll put him with the sheep,” Osh said as he tied the end of the rope around the pommel of Clover’s saddle.

But up I went, branch after branch, until I reached the bundle of gold and jewels still tied tightly to the tree trunk, all of it hidden by the crow’s nest that had held fledgling birds not so long before.

I imagined Nurse Evelyn and Dr. Eastman, opening the heavy package I might send, reading the letter inside.
And Jason at the helm of his own ship, a crow on its pennant.

He studied the letter and the few legible words that remained.

I thought Osh might start talking about wild-goose chases or the perils of the wider world, but he surprised me.