That woman in black, the one she’d seen in the tavern shortly after her arrival, moved through the crowd. She didn’t have to do much to make way for herself, Sorrow noted; other patrons pushed their chairs out of her path or stepped back so she could pass freely. But while people made sure they weren’t in the woman’s way, nobody spoke to her. Nor did she acknowledge anyone as she passed.
And as Sorrow watched, the woman settled herself into the velvet armchair by the fire. This time, nobody leaned over to admonish her.
Well, then. The woman in black was Mrs. Ada Oliver.
Mrs. Oliver sat in her armchair and gazed at the fire, taking an occasional sip from the glass of red wine Balt brought to her. The other people in the tavern stole quick glances, but nobody other than the Coopers interacted with her. Sorrow confirmed her initial impression that Mrs. Oliver’s black silk dress was far more elaborate than the clothing she had seen on any of the Tidepool locals, but it also struck Sorrow as being somewhat out of fashion. Perhaps by a decade or two, at that. Odd.
As if Mrs. Oliver sensed Sorrow’s gaze, she turned and fixed Sorrow with her dark eyes until the younger woman blushed and turned away. She hadn’t meant to stare, but she couldn’t help but be curious. What was it about Mrs. Oliver that made the rest of Tidepool so deferential?
Chapter Four
MISTER NO NAME
Sorrow expected to get little rest at Cooper’s Inn, and she was unsurprised to be correct. Tavern patrons continued talking, drinking, arguing, and laughing until well after midnight, and the thin walls of Cooper’s did very little to muffle the noise. The kitchen door continued to make its unpleasant high-pitched squeal every time one of the Coopers bustled through it, and Sorrow thought the piercing sound might actually be getting louder as the night progressed. Had nobody ever heard of oiling a damned hinge in this town?
Sorrow, who had trouble sleeping in strange places at the best of times, could not get comfortable in the hard and narrow bed. She tried several different positions; none offered relief. A persistent vision of her spacious and cozy four-poster bed back at home tormented her.
I’ll be back there soon enough, she told herself. Possibly tomorrow night if I can leave after talking to Mrs. Cooper. Facing Father can’t be any worse than spending another night in this dreadful place.
Sorrow slipped out of bed and cracked the window open slightly in the hopes that the rhythmic sounds of the ocean might soothe her. As she settled down on the hard mattress and closed her eyes, she heard voices. Whispers. Murmurs. Low, sibilant sounds that made her think of hissing.
Her pulse quickened as she got up again. She looked out the window but saw nobody on the small, dark sliver of beach visible from her room. Moonlight shimmered off the black ocean as the voices continued.
And then she saw two people passing down the stretch of sand. Both appeared female, and both sported elaborate dark dresses. Although the women’s features were impossible to make out in the darkness, Sorrow had seen only one person in Tidepool in such fancy clothing.
Was Mrs. Ada Oliver always in the habit of taking walks on the beach in the dead of night? And who was her companion?
Sorrow dropped off into an uneasy sleep soon after that, and it seemed like only moments later when the sun rose. Her head felt filled with fog as she laid out her clothing for the day and washed up as best as she could in the small bathroom down the hall from her room. The other five rooms remained completely silent.
Well. All those other guests must be up and about already, Sorrow thought, shaking her head.
Down in the tavern, Naomi sat at a table in front of piles of silverware; only a few other tables were occupied this morning. She glanced up at Sorrow and nodded.
“Something to eat, Miss Hamilton?”
“Yes please, Mrs. Cooper. And perhaps, if you’ve the time now, we can speak about my brother.”
Naomi’s dark eyes shifted left for a moment before she answered. “We’ve got fish, eggs, toast, and bacon. And coffee.”
“Just toast and eggs. And coffee, please.” Especially the coffee, Sorrow thought. She felt wrung out and wrong-footed from her troubled sleep.
Naomi disappeared through the squealing door into the kitchen, and Sorrow’s irritation rose again. She’d wanted to ask about Hal straightaways. She eyed Mrs. Oliver’s precious armchair and thought about sitting in it, as that seemed to be the one sure way to get anyone here to talk to her.
As she settled down in a seat by the window, Balt Cooper walked into the tavern. When he spotted Sorrow at her table, he looked as if he wished to turn around and leave again.
“Good morning, Mr. Cooper,” Sorrow said, trying to keep her tone pleasant.
“Er. Hullo, Miss Hamilton.” Balt’s watery gaze darted around the room, as if he could find some escape from Sorrow if only he looked hard enough.
Why are these people so reluctant to talk about Hal?
“Mr. Cooper, I know my brother stayed here. As a visitor to the town, he would have had nowhere else to stay, correct?”
“Who’s your brother again?” Balt still wouldn’t meet her eyes.
She sighed, no longer trying to maintain an air of patience. “Mr. Henry Hamilton. Of Baltimore.”
“Sorry, Miss. It’s just… we get a lot of folks here.”
“I can see that,” Sorrow said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm as she looked around the near-empty tavern. At that point, Naomi emerged and rescued her dissembling husband.
“I’m sorry, Miss Hamilton,” she said as she put a plate of food and a small pot of coffee in front of Sorrow. “But the truth of the matter is that neither Balt nor I have much to share. Your brother stayed here for two nights and then left us.”
“Did he mention anything about going anywhere else when he left?”
“No, miss,” Naomi said.
“I saw him leave here with Mrs. Ada Oliver one night,” Balt volunteered. Naomi’s eyes widened. “He might have said something to her.”
“Mrs. Oliver?” Sorrow couldn’t imagine her brother wanting much to do with that odd, intimidating woman.
Balt flushed red, looking away from her. “At least I think it was her.”
Sorrow wondered how he could possibly be unsure. Was there anyone else in this town who looked remotely like her? Sorrow thought of the woman she’d seen on the beach with Mrs. Oliver the night before.
“Does Mrs. Oliver have any companions she spends time with?” The question sounded rather awkward, and Naomi and Balt traded strange looks.
“Not really,” he said. “The lady keeps to herself, mostly. There’s her brother she lives with, but he’s a shy one. Doesn’t come out of their house much at all if he can help it.”
“So you were expecting your brother right home when he left Tidepool?” Naomi practically talked over Balt.
“Yes. He never arrived in Baltimore.”
“You sure he didn’t just head over to Ocean City to stay for a bit?” Balt said. “People like it over there.”
“Mr. Cooper, he might well have decided to stop in another town. But he most certainly would not have done so without letting his family know,” Sorrow said, her voice etched in acid. “He’d never want to worry us.”
The Coopers glanced at each other.
“This must be very frustrating for you, miss,” Naomi said, a gentle and placatory tone to her voice. “If I had any information that I thought could help you, I’d gladly give it.”
Something in the way the Coopers wouldn’t meet her eyes told Sorrow she was being lied to. Balt studied the dirty wooden floor of the tavern, and Naomi appeared to find the ship’s wheel on the wall behind Sorrow’s head quite fascinating.
He came to some kind of trouble, she thought. Did somebody rob him? Kill him? Both?
Oh, Hal. Why did you ever come here?
When the Coopers saw that Sorrow had no more questions, they excused themselves and bustled back into the kitchen. Sorrow ate some of the dreadful breakfast of rubber
y eggs and burnt toast, both of which tasted slightly of fish, and drank the bitter coffee.
What to do next? If the rest of the townspeople were as unhelpful as the Coopers, she was wasting time here.
And yet she believed if she could figure out how to find the right person and ask them the right questions, somebody might slip up and tell her something useful.
She decided to head back to the beach. Looking at bodies of water had always helped Sorrow to focus; she had spent many thoughtful hours staring out at the Patapsco while mulling over her problems.
The air outside felt heavy and damp as Sorrow made her way back down to the beach. Gulls cried to each other as the waves rolled in. Fishermen dotted the shoreline again this morning, intent on their work, but another person on the beach captured Sorrow’s attention almost at once.
A young man in a loose white shirt, rumpled brown pants, and heavy glasses with dark frames moved back and forth between the water and a spot he’d made for himself in the sand. He carried empty jars to the ocean, filled them as the tide swept in around the pant cuffs that he had made no effort to roll up, capped the jars, and brought them back to his spot. He’d already amassed quite a collection of ocean water.
Sorrow forgot about the Coopers for a moment as she watched the odd young man. The sea breeze whipped his longish black hair around his face as he darted back and forth on long, thin, almost storklike legs.
She knew she should leave it be, but curiosity got the best of her, as it often did. She stepped off the boardwalk and approached him.
“Excuse me, sir. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing there?”
The young man, who had been kneeling over his jar collection, looked up at her, startled. He was ghastly pale, and Sorrow wondered how he wasn’t red as a lobster from the sun’s bright rays.
“You don’t live here,” he said at once. “I’d know you.”
From any other young man, such a line might well have sounded flirtatious. But Sorrow sensed that the young man didn’t mean it that way. There was nothing coy in the way he looked up at her. He appeared curious, and perhaps even slightly frightened of her.
“No, sir. I’m only visiting. I apologize if I bothered you, but I found myself quite curious about your work. What are the jars of water for?”
The young man stared down at the sand. His white skin turned pink as Sorrow watched.
“They’re for my niece.” He spoke so softly that Sorrow barely heard him, and he wouldn’t meet her eye. It was as if she’d caught him doing something shameful.
“Your niece?”
“The water’s good for her skin.” He continued to blush at the sand.
“Well, that isn’t so odd. Some of the girls I know try all sorts of things on their skin,” Sorrow said, trying to defuse the awkward moment.
The young man glanced up.
“Who are you?” He looked suspicious.
She smiled. “My name is Sorrow Hamilton.” At the sound of her name, the young man’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Yes, I know. I’m afraid it’s a rather sad name. My father had the morbs when he stuck me with it.”
“It’s very dark,” the young man said. “But you look like light.”
And now Sorrow felt her own cheeks growing warm. “Thank you. I think.” She wasn’t entirely sure if he’d meant that as a compliment. He pushed up his glasses and stared at her as if he weren’t sure either. He had the saddest downturned eyes Sorrow had ever seen, and something in her heart shifted slightly.
“I’ve heard your name before,” he said.
“I do hope you’re joking. Surely nobody else would give a child such a depressing name to carry around.”
“Why did you get it, then?”
“My mother died giving birth to me.” Sorrow spoke in a hushed tone. “The name was my father’s idea.” He never wanted me to forget that my birth brought such tragedy with it.
The young man continued staring at Sorrow as the ocean breeze blew his dark hair around. She still couldn’t tell what he was thinking, or what he thought of her.
“I don’t remember my mother,” he said at last.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
“Well, no, of course it isn’t.” The young man left her feeling quite discomfited. “But that’s a sad situation, even so. You lost your mother young as well, then?”
He looked down at the sand, holding a skinny finger to his rather prominent chin. “I think so. It’s been such a long time.”
“I see. Do you have a name?”
He lifted his eyes from the sand and looked at her sideways. “Yes.”
Sorrow waited for a moment, and then laughed.
“People in this town really won’t give any more information than they absolutely have to, will they?”
“They’ve learned it isn’t a good idea. Especially not to outsiders.”
For the first time since meeting the young man, Sorrow’s blood chilled.
“That’s rather impolite, is it not? I thought we were just having a friendly chat.” The young man’s eyes widened. He didn’t appear to know what he’d just said to offend her.
“Well, I won’t trouble you any longer, Mister No Name,” she said, wondering if she sounded playful or snippy and deciding that she didn’t care how he took it. “Good day.”
She turned away from him and strolled down the beach until she was at the water’s edge. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that Mister No Name had resumed collecting his jars of ocean water. For his niece? She wondered what a child could possibly want with that many jars. For that matter, why didn’t the girl just come here herself? Most children enjoyed playing on the beach.
She resolved that she would pack her things this afternoon and then speak to the people at the stables again. Perhaps another one of the stable hands had heard something or recalled seeing Henry on his way out of town.
And once she was done asking about Henry, she would take the buggy back to Ocean City. The sooner, the better. She’d already had more than enough of Tidepool and its odd, evasive people. She knew Winslow Hamilton’s anger awaited her back in Baltimore, but Father would simply have to understand why she had disobeyed him.
She scanned the ocean. Normally, being near water gave Sorrow a feeling of peace. This beach did not. The odors of dead fish and decaying seaweed became nearly overwhelming as she stood by the shore, and the longer she remained there, the stranger she felt. The cool air seemed to grow heavier around her head. And although the fishermen were focused on their catch and the strange young man was quite preoccupied with his water collection project, she still felt as if she were being observed.
Horseflies buzzed around something dark and gelatinous that sat on the wet sand at the water’s edge. Sorrow had no desire to look more closely at the mass. Her eyes swept over decaying fish, rotting driftwood, clumps of seaweed. The dark rocks leading out into the ocean looked like the stumps of blackened teeth jutting up from the water. They were covered in splatters of bird excrement and slimy green moss. Far to her left, she spotted what appeared to be an abandoned boat disintegrating in the sand over by the docks.
Some large object tumbled in the tide, floating towards the shore. An abandoned net lay tangled near the rocks. The beach grew less and less appealing the more she studied it.
She was about to head back to Cooper’s Inn to gather up her belongings and leave the town when her eyes fell on the large object that the tide had finally washed up.
Was that just more random debris? The remains of a bigger fish? She moved closer to get a better look, and when her brain finally realized what her eyes were seeing, she felt dizzy. A clammy sweat washed over her, and she thought she might pass out right there on Tidepool Beach. She held a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.
She was looking down at the bony remains of a human torso. One skeletal arm, still attached, lay extended on the sand, as if it were reaching out to Sorrow for hel
p.
Chapter Five
ALL THAT REMAINS
Sorrow stumbled backwards, nearly tripping in the sand. Her feet felt as if the beach itself were trying to hold her back.
She ran over to the strange young man and his jars of water.
“Excuse me! Where’s the police station?”
The young man’s mouth dropped open.
“Police?”
She tried not to shout. “A marshal. Or a sheriff. Someone in authority, please.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
She took a deep breath, reminding herself that the owner of the bones she had seen was far beyond help, and shouting at strangers would accomplish nothing. “Over there. Human bones.”
The young man looked where Sorrow pointed.
“Are you sure? We get fish bones washing up here all the time.” He rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding her eyes.
“Yes. I studied skeletons and musculature for an art class. That’s a human torso.”
“Oh.” He stared at the spot for a second before looking back at her and pointing to his left. “There’s a small building up on Gull Street. If the marshal is in, that’s where he’ll be.”
“Thank you.” Sorrow ran up the beach towards the boardwalk. As she hurried in the direction he had indicated, she heard him call something else.
“He won’t do anything about it, you know.”
She glanced back at him and decided she didn’t care what he said; she needed to speak to a person with something resembling authority. And after she reported what she’d found, she’d ask this marshal about Henry.
Townspeople stared at her as she searched for the marshal’s office. Sorrow had to make two passes up and down the street before finding the tiny office, which was sandwiched in between a laundry and Swenson’s Sundries. The door was open and a portly man sporting a dark suit and a silver badge sat listlessly behind a desk.
Tidepool Page 4
