The She Read online

  I turned my gaze back to the floor. That's about what I would have expected someone to say.

  "Why'd you go to him?" She took the leap of assumption, and I figured, Okay, why not just tell the truth?

  "I don't know."

  "What do you mean, you don't know? You must have felt there was something he could do for you."

  "Grey, I didn't even have a reason to go to West Hook, okay? I just ... felt it, felt like if I didn't go, I'd go crazy." I stood up and wandered a few steps aimlessly. "I'm just that type of person. I feel things, and I do them. I drive my brother crazy sometimes. He's got to have a reason for everything. I just have to have a feeling."

  She said nothing but watched me in a way that made me think she might not laugh.

  "I guess I was looking for something, just like you are, only Bloody Mary is out of my league. She runs that tattoo place, and I do remember having one thought that if I went to her she might get under my skin somehow. I'd walk out with some multicolored snake on my chest that I wanted like a hole in the head."

  She cracked up a little, and I ignored it.

  "Edwin Church ... I don't know. I went to visit my old house, which Opa hasn't had the heart to sell yet. And when I was standing in there, I just knew I was going to take a ride out to Sassafras to visit him. He's not dramatic like Bloody Mary, but there's that whole business with his hands."

  "What about his hands?"

  There were a few choice pieces of gossip in West Hook that only the natives knew, and I wondered if this could be one of them.

  "I'd only heard tell of one person he'd ever done this for, and I was a little kid when I heard it. So I wasn't even sure it was true." I let my breath out, shutting my eyes, because as much as I'd gotten from him, it was still embarrassing to try to share it. "But he claps his hands, rubs them together and sticks them up to your temples. Like this."

  I stuck that fleshy, thumb-knuckle part of my palms up to my temples and pressed, shut my eyes. "He said it's something he learned when he was a POW. It's karate, or mystical, or something. He doesn't explain it very well himself. He just does it, and then ... you can see things."

  Before she could start in on me, I collapsed in the chair again and blathered. "See, that's why I'm saying it wouldn't be any help to you, Grey. If you're more into going to libraries or something, talk to my brother. He knows better libraries than Philly Free, and he's kept up his seaman's license, if you can believe that. I'll bet there's a lot of information about the sea he would know how to get ... if he wanted to."

  "Did you tell him about Edwin Church?"

  "No way. He lives in a ... a 'closed system,' as he calls it. Nothing exists but the physical universe and what we learn from each other: He would think Edwin Church is as ridiculous as Bloody Mary, and he would kill me if he knew I'd gone. He would say all I did was replace one superstition with another. I replaced a sea hag with some other higgly-piggly horseshit Edwin Church stumbled on in Vietnam. But if it's undertows and eardrums you're interested in, Emmett's got a lot of professor friends at Drexel—"

  She put a hand up. "I'm more interested in results than information. You're a sane, normal, and functioning person again."

  "Yeah."

  She looked at me in a way that surprised me. Kind of like she was looking behind my eyes, the way I do to other people. Like she was seeing stuff there.

  "You don't believe it was higgly-piggly. You believe whatever he got you to see, and however he got you to see it, it is totally true."

  I didn't say anything.

  "Why are you holding back on me?"

  I shifted around and sighed. "For one thing, Edwin Church is a very, very weird guy. He's probably had more education than my brother and Aunt Mel put together and yet ... he told me he actually does believe in some dark force out over the water: I don't think he'd call it a giant hag, maybe something less Bloody Mary-ish and slightly more socially acceptable. Maybe it's like a force of darkness that has no form but has the power to waylay a ship. He said he was very respectful of the tales seamen tell, and beyond that, he wasn't really clean You could go to him and not get any relief—not if you're looking for the same type of answers that a library could give you. It just so happened ... my feelings about going there were right for me."

  "So he stuck his hands up to your head and then what?"

  "No, first he kind of talked me into this hypnotic trance, same as a shrink would, probably. And then he did that thing with his hands. I was able to see my parents going down in the sea. I was scared to death I would see something like what's in that book of yours. But I didn't. I didn't see anything unexplainable like that."

  "What was it?" She leaned up a little.

  "It was about the biggest fucking wave I've ever seen in my life."

  "A wave."

  I could hear her insides trying not to be skeptical. I shifted around again.

  "Look, I know the closest tidal wave ever recorded on the Atlantic was across the ocean in the Netherlands. I know it would have taken a hell of a lot more wind, sleet, and rain to create a storm wave big enough to roll the Goliath. I know the oceanographers would laugh. But that's what it was."

  "I think that's great you sound so sure," she said, but her voice was forced. Not that I could blame her for thinking maybe I belonged in here with her. If you're going to believe in visions, why not just believe in The She? What the hell's the difference? I really didn't know.

  But I hurried on. "I believe it, not just because of how I felt when I was seeing it. He did that trance thing to me twice. The second time, he covered my eyes with this bandanna he had around his neck. He said, 'If you're seeing that your parents' boat was rolled, let's find out if you can see where.' He spun me a bunch of times, told me to walk. I took about six very dizzy steps. Small shack. I was afraid to go farther for fear of ending up on my face, tripping over the furniture. He told me to stick out my finger anywhere and try to touch something. He put his hands back on my head like that and started breathing out really hard. I reached out toward the left, where I kind of thought his lamp was. He said, 'That's where the sea struck and rolled them.' Then he pulled the bandanna off, and I looked. I was nowhere near the lamp. He has this map on his wall that's about six feet long by four feet high. It's one of those huge maps of the world, where Asia looks like a kid's cutout."

  "Where were you pointing?"

  I didn't mind answering at that point. It was the part that would be most hard to argue with. "Of all the places in the world, ninety-five miles southeast of Atlantic City. That's right about eleven miles from where my folks were when they talked to me and Emmett on the ship-to-shore."

  "Holy shit," she whispered, then put her fingers to her mouth without really thinking about it.

  Jupe had hopped down off the chair; and even though I'd promised the receptionist I'd keep him off the floor; I had forgotten. Now he'd made rabbit poop about halfway across the room. I grabbed a Kleenex, used it to toss the rabbit poop into the wastebasket, scooped him up, and sat down to find Grey staring at me. I looked away.

  "Are you ... um ... going to your grandfather's for the holiday?"

  I could sense the next question looming as if she'd already asked it. So I skipped the first one and went right to it. "No way am I going to Sassafras. I swore to my brother that I would leave the whole business with my parents alone from here on in. At this point, that would definitely include steering clear of Edwin Church."

  She was quiet for a moment, though I could feel some scheme still baking. Finally, she said, "Evan, starting Friday, I'm entitled to a two-day leave. Take me on Friday, and I'll not only put Soundra on my list, but I'll move her up to second. Right after you." A smile lit, and after a moment it left again. "If maybe she could quit bragging about her bionic skiing, as if she didn't get enough attention, hopping around like a kangaroo, waiting for that thingamabob to get made."

  "Prosthesis." I got up and put on my coat. "How'd you like to spend a day and a night over the si
de of a cliff with a broken leg? That was a horrible climbing accident."

  "I know! I know! Shit. I cannot believe that passed out of my mouth. Do you think maybe I'm possessed?"

  I watched her press her palms to her eyeballs and felt ripped up. Totally cutting remarks from girls like her sent me sprawling backward sometimes. Yet her sincere desire to do better drew my hand to her head. I rubbed the back of her hair, but I was thinking, If she ever improves, it's gonna take ten years. "All good things take time, Grey. I think you'll be okay."

  Which wasn't saying that I would take her to Sassafras. I had promised Emmett I wouldn't get involved in her problems.

  "I can tell you how to get there in an outboard from the rental place in West Hook."

  "An outboard?" She dropped her hands, confused. "Forgive me for keeping my love of boating to the normal months. Isn't it freezing this time of year?"

  I felt strangely outside of myself, like at one point in my life I could have seen myself pointing at her and laughing and calling her "one of those stupid summer people."

  "No colder than it is standing in the middle of a field. Just don't fall in."

  I left, listening to her whisper evil shit, that I was some sort of heartless bastard. That was fine. The truth was, I had my peace about how my parents died and about what kind of creatures were real in our universe and what kinds were imaginary. But it all felt kind of shaky. The slightest thing could shake my truth away from me, make me start wondering again if dark forces could rip a kid's parents away and leave no evidence of themselves for anyone but the dead. Then I would just have to live with that. My intuition was telling me that this Thanksgiving trip to East Hook could leave me feeling something less than thankful.

  And even though he had been the person who had helped me, I figured Edwin Church had something to do with my fears. The man was a walking contradiction, one I'd known about because at one time he had been a good friend of my grandfather's.

  Like Opa, he supposedly had a lot of money. Yet he'd been living in this two-room hut on Sassafras, living off the fish, blue crabs, and clams he caught, since before I was born. He called all that education his "Bloody Mary," meaning, I think, the island witch, not the beverage. He spoke like an educated man, yet he said "I don't know" more than any person I'd ever met. He seemed to know as much about oceanography as any of the experts at the Coast Guard station, and yet there was the legend about his hands, which I now knew to be true. I had asked him, right before he did it to me, "What is this, Vietnamese mysticism or something?" and his answer had been, "I don't know."

  His mumbled sentences, evasive tone, and words that came clearly, like "dark forces over the deep," rang through my head. I figured Edwin Church could shake a person up more than he could help him, depending on the circumstances. Because, basically, there was no way to predict what he was going to say or think. He didn't seem to have a particular definition of what was actual about our universe, except "I don't know." I wasn't going back. Evidence feels shaky when it comes without proof.

  FIVE

  Opa had sent a limo for us Thanksgiving morning, being he was always leery of losing more family to holiday traffic. The limo had not thrilled Aunt Mel and Emmett, who mumbled all the way over the Ben Franklin Bridge about "capitalist excesses." I liked riding with my feet up, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the little TV, and felt it was some payback for having to spend a long weekend seasick, eating Japanese leftovers.

  Actually, Aunt Mel made me feel a little better when I said that, explaining that a catering service run by Japanese people didn't mean that we would be eating Japanese food on Thanksgiving. She said that families in East Hook frequently hired people of eastern descent to serve them on Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas because they celebrated different holidays. Opa had said they could cook anything to perfection.

  "Knowing Dad, I'm sure they can," she said, rolling her eyes with merry affection for Opa. "Though service for four would suffice, I'm sure there will be enough to feed an army."

  "Maybe you can take a few heaping mounds to the shelter with you tomorrow," Emmett said cheerfully, to make her feel better: His cheeriness probably came from the fact that he had been into the wine cabinet already, and I could see how he planned to deal with East Hook—by applying numbness.

  They had planned it so we would get there just before the meal was served at two, because Aunt Mel didn't want to stand around for hours looking at the big-screen TV and hearing about Opa's latest ship models. She helped out in a soup kitchen the Friday after Thanksgiving every year, so she planned to go back that night. But Emmett and I had no excuse to desert Opa before Saturday at the earliest.

  We put our bags in the bedrooms when we got there, then came into the dining room, and I watched Emmett and Aunt Mel exchange glances again as they looked over this spread.

  Personally, I thought Opa was a sweetheart when it came to family celebrations. If I couldn't have the Hyatt as usual, there was nothing lacking in the buffet being prepared. Four Japanese men and a lady dressed in white jackets were coming in and out of the kitchen, making the place smell incredible. There was a turkey, a whole plate of lobster tails cooked in a yellow sauce, a ham, and a number of side dishes.

  As much as Emmett and Aunt Mel disapproved of "Opa's extravagances," rarely did a cross word pass between them. He was a sweet old guy who never told them how to live their lives, and Aunt Mel once said of it, "Love covers a myriad of plausibility structures." He hugged Emmett and me, kissed Aunt Mel, and there isn't too much bad you can say about a guy who is so happy to see you that he rolls out the red carpet.

  The meal wasn't quite ready, so I tried to find a seat in the family room that didn't have the big view of the water, The house was built up high on a huge bulkhead, and like most houses on the harbor in East Hook, the majority of the rooms were on the second and third floors, just in case there was a flood. This second floor view from one picture window in the family room went all the way up the harbor about fifteen hundred yards to the sea, and the view from the other was straight across the harbor featuring the craggy old drawbridge leading into West Hook and the endless dunes leading to the lagoon and the small town. West Hook was older more rugged. The only rich people over there were summer people.

  It was another gray day—gray sky, gray water—and the wind was causing whitecaps and ridges to bob up everywhere you looked. It could easily make you seasick.

  I finally pulled a chair in front of the window and sat with my back to it while Opa poured glasses of wine. He poured me a Coke, and I sat there listening to them talk about his diabetes problems while I fought this retarded urge to keep looking over my shoulder.

  When the meal was ready, Emmett and I both moved nonchalandy for the one seat at the table that faced the wall instead of the whitecaps, and when we realized we were racing each other; we sped up a little. Emmett tried to pull it away from me, but I gave him a pleading glance and muttered, "You're older, come on." So he asked the server for another glass of wine, and we both tried to keep Opa from hearing us cackle over our neurotic reaction to his house.

  It was a buffet and we were supposed to serve ourselves, but ancient family traditions came wafting back to me as Opa went and stood behind his chain We stood behind ours, though I couldn't believe he would say a grace on this crew. He never did it in the Hyatt, but he always had at celebrations held here, before my parents passed away.

  At least he had the good manners to ask, "Is it all right for an old man to say grace around here? Or do I have to give a toast?"

  "Whatever makes you happy, Dad," Aunt Mel said in her usual nice way. He thanked God for his beautiful daughter; most excellent grandsons, freedom, a great feast, in the name of the Father; the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Aunt Mel was even decent enough to bless herself, and when they noticed Emmett didn't, Aunt Mel said, "Sorry, Dad. I think I've created a monster."

  Emmett held up his glass as we laughed a little. "A toast ... to my aunt fo
r her great intellect, to my grandfather for his great fortitude, and to my brother for his most excellent heart and soul. Great Scott! I'm feeling like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz! Here, here!"

  Opa had an ornery twinkle in his eye, and I hoped he didn't plan to start some sort of capitalist debate with Emmett and Aunt Mel. He loved doing it, but I could never see the point. They all loved each other a lot, and the only thing that ever came of those conversations was that they'd all end up laughing.

  I took more lobster than turkey, and the food was delicious enough that we all ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Opa called the waiter over.

  "There's a paper bag in the hall closet. Would you get it for me, please?"

  "Dad, you're not bearing gifts, are you?" Aunt Mel cast him a worried look. "Because you know how we feel about Thanksgiving and gifts—"

  "Actually, no. I remembered you had asked me not to. It's nothing, really. Just something I don't want to forget to give Evan."

  They went back to eating until the server brought a brown bag to Opa. It was a small one. He pulled out a wool glove and set it in front of me, patting it. I had a heart attack, or close to it.

  "Looked like an expensive one. I'm hoping you still have the mate. I stopped by to share a brandy with Mr. Church about a month ago, and he gave it to me. He said you had left it."

  I remembered my trip back from Sassafras last November, with only one glove and the icy wind biting my knuckles as I steered the little outboard across the bay. I didn't know whether to kill Opa or not. He wasn't trying to hurt me. He and Mr. Church had been fishing buddies back before Mr. Church moved out to Sassafras. Opa never said a bad word against the man, only things like, "He won't come over here, because he can't reciprocate. Unless I feel like sitting on a crate and swatting greenheads over a toast, I don't get to see him. Which I still do occasionally ... for Edwin."