Tidepool

by Nicole Willson

  They both sped up as they passed Mrs. Oliver’s mansion again. Sorrow half expected the woman to come running out and try to drag them back into the house.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, Charlie spoke up.

  “Strange folks, those Olivers, eh? The boy’s a bizarre one, but I’m not sure the woman’s much better.”

  “I’m astonished she let us leave,” Sorrow said, half laughing, trying to find some humor in their situation. “I was expecting her to brick us up in a wall.”

  “Why would a woman with that kind of money stay in a pit like this? Maybe no other town will let those two hang around.”

  Sorrow snickered, even though none of this was at all funny. “I think perhaps you should cross Tidepool off your list of places to develop.”

  “Don’t worry, Sally. If we get out of here alive, I’m never setting foot in the place again. They don’t want us here, and I don’t want to be here. Everyone will be happy once we’re gone.”

  “I told you not to call me Sally,” Sorrow said, feeling lightheaded and silly. Perhaps the wine and lack of food were going to her head.

  “What can I do? I told you, the name Sorrow doesn’t suit you one bit.” Charlie stopped walking and looked at her. “One could call Mrs. Oliver something like that, perhaps. But not you. Don’t know what your father could have been thinking, giving you a name like that. It’s gloomy, and you’re anything but.”

  He sounded terribly earnest, and Sorrow blushed as he took one of her hands.

  “I’m very glad you showed up, Charlie,” she said, feeling slightly emboldened from the wine. “I’m not sure I would have been able to hold on to my mind here if you hadn’t come.”

  “We’re going to find out what happened to Hal. We are,” he said, looking into her eyes earnestly and squeezing her hand. “And I believe he’s out there, perfectly fine. But … perhaps when we’re both home, I could call on you more often? I’ve not enjoyed much about this Tidepool trip, but I have enjoyed the time with you.”

  Sorrow tried very hard not to dissolve into giggles. She’d always thought Charlie Sherman was quite attractive. It had never once dawned on her that Charlie might be thinking the same thing about her.

  “I’d like that, Charlie. Very much.” They stood on Water Street and stared at each other for a moment, smiling.

  “I reckon we should be heading back,” Charlie said finally. “I don’t suppose Naomi Cooper might have some lunch available. Quentin’s little joke turned my stomach at the time, but I’m hungry now.”

  Sorrow, still thinking of the gaping and bloody wound in Quentin’s neck, couldn’t fathom the idea of eating.

  “Charlie, was Tidepool like this the last time you were here?”

  “Good lord, no. The people here seemed a little close-minded and wary of strangers, but no, it wasn’t like this at all. I’d have written the place off at once if I’d known what they had in store for us this time around.”

  They parted back at Cooper’s. Balt and Naomi both emerged from the tavern when Charlie and Sorrow entered the inn. Sorrow wondered if she was imagining that both Coopers looked rather surprised to see them; they glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.

  “Say there, Mrs. Cooper. Is it too late to get some lunch?” Charlie asked.

  “Lunch? But I thought you were eating with Mrs. Oliver.”

  “Oh, we did. But I’ve still got a bit of an appetite. I’m a growing boy, you know.”

  He slapped his belly, and Sorrow was surprised to hear Naomi laugh at that as she headed upstairs. She hadn’t known either Cooper was capable of laughing.

  And as Sorrow climbed the stairs to her room and thought about their situation, she had never felt less like laughter. She closed the door to her room and lay on the bed, still fully dressed. She wanted to cry, or to get up again and kick things. Maybe both at once.

  Not only had the lunch with Mrs. Oliver been the stuff of nightmares, but Sorrow was no closer to knowing what had happened to Hal. And Mrs. Oliver knew something about it; Sorrow had no doubt about that after overhearing her odd conversation with Balt Cooper.

  She couldn’t get information from anyone about her brother, and yet she couldn’t leave Tidepool. That idiotic little marshal had seen to it. She’d never felt so helpless, and she hated it. Tidepool pressed in on her from all sides; she was hemmed in by the ocean and the dunes and woods that surrounded the town. She couldn’t get a horse and buggy to take the one road leading out of the place, and fleeing on foot seemed impractical and unwise.

  She briefly thought of swimming for it. She’d have to reach another beach eventually, wouldn’t she? The idea, as ridiculous as it was, held a faint appeal.

  But she wanted to ask Mrs. Oliver what she’d been talking about when she’d mentioned “the Lords Below” to Balt. And there was that sign at the cemetery. How were these things all connected?

  She rubbed her forehead. She’d been completely thrown off her game from the start of the luncheon when they’d come across Quentin in his ghastly state. And what on earth had that been about? Forget about the fact that his bloody neck wound looked horribly real. Who would pull such a prank?

  What if it wasn’t a prank? What if…

  The madness of this town was getting to her. Sorrow got up and started pacing the tiny room, trying to clear her head.

  As much as she didn’t want to see that dreadful mansion ever again, she still wanted to confront Mrs. Oliver.

  And while Sorrow could wait until that woman arrived at the tavern tonight and then descend on her looking for answers, she didn’t want to. She suspected Mrs. Oliver would be unlikely to say anything of use while surrounded by other people.

  Perhaps she’d continue to say nothing of use while in her home. But Sorrow had to try. If she was being forced to stay in this damnable place until someone else decided she could leave, the people of Tidepool could start giving her real answers about her brother.

  Sorrow brushed her hair and pondered the idea for a few more moments, wondering what, if anything, she should tell Charlie.

  He’d never want to go back to Mrs. Oliver’s house, she knew. And he’d likely try to talk her out of it. She wasn’t even sure she’d want him to come along anyhow. She’d come to find that Charlie had a way of making her head spin, scattering whatever ideas she had, disrupting everything.

  And it is his fault I’m still here. As much as she enjoyed him, she hadn’t forgotten that.

  That settled it, then. She needed to confront Mrs. Oliver, and she needed to do it without Charlie to confuse things.

  Resigned to her plan, she rearranged her hair, smoothed her clothing, and walked downstairs very carefully, trying to avoid making the stairs creak.

  Charlie’s voice rang out from the tavern, regaling someone with tales of Baltimore. She held her breath and slipped past the open tavern entrance as quickly as possible, hoping nobody would see her or call out her name. She glimpsed Charlie and noted that he was sitting with his back to the windows that overlooked the street, and she thanked God for that small favor.

  Outside, she moved up Water Street as quickly as possible, avoiding the glances of passersby. The day had gone gray and gloomy again. It already seemed like years ago that she had noticed the sunlight sparkling on the Atlantic, and even longer still that she had seen the body of the mutilated fisherman on the beach.

  She climbed the steep hill until she was at Mrs. Oliver’s house again. She stared up at the looming mansion for a moment, steeling her nerve, and then walked up the steps to the front entrance.

  Somehow, she wasn’t even the least bit surprised to notice that the iron door knocker was in the shape of a leering gargoyle head. Its tongue poked out of its grinning, toothy mouth as if it had just told some sort of wonderfully filthy joke.

  Of course the Olivers would want something grotesque like that to be the first thing a visitor to their home saw. Of course they would.

  She raised the knocker and rapped three times. Th
e noise echoed on the porch. Nobody answered her knock.

  She rapped three more times. Still no response.

  A terrible idea occurred to her, and once she caught hold of it, she couldn’t let it go: What if she were to go in Mrs. Oliver’s house and explore on her own?

  What on earth do you think you’ll find, Sorrow? she asked herself. Henry, imprisoned somewhere? A signed confession? The idea was ridiculous. And quite possibly dangerous.

  And yet, once it occurred to her, she couldn’t leave without giving it a try. She turned the knob, holding her breath. It gave no resistance, and she slipped inside.

  “Hello?” she called. If Mrs. Oliver caught her right now, she could still pass this off as a casual visit.

  “Mrs. Oliver? Quentin?”

  Still no response. The house smelled of the same salty, fishy odor that the rest of Tidepool did. She wondered if the natives were so used to it that it no longer struck them as unpleasant; she couldn’t imagine ever getting used to such a pervasive reek.

  She crept through the foyer, stopping at the painting of the cruelly handsome man that dominated the entryway. He glared down at Sorrow with his bone-chilling expression. She leaned over and read the plate at the bottom of the frame.

  SIMEON OLIVER

  1799-1851

  A forebear of Mrs. Oliver’s late husband, then. His heavy dark brows and black suit made him look like an old-fashioned undertaker, Sorrow thought. But he had the dark, pitiless eyes of a shark. Much like Mrs. Oliver’s.

  The parlor showed no signs of the ghastly scene that had greeted Sorrow and Charlie earlier in the day. The room looked completely ordinary, although somewhat dusty in the dim lamplight. She spotted more cobwebs up in the high corners of the room. Heavy wooden furniture sat around a worn red oriental rug. Another painting, this one of a young girl and a younger boy, hung over the red velvet sofa. The boy sat in a wooden armchair. The girl stood over him, a hand placed protectively on his shoulder.

  The girl’s face reminded Sorrow of Mrs. Oliver, and she moved closer to read the date in the lower right corner of the portrait.

  1827.

  More ancestors then, ancestors who looked strangely familiar. Sorrow looked more closely at the children.

  And she shuddered. Those large dark eyes, pitiless in the girl and sad in the boy, must be a family trait, she thought. It was uncanny how much Mrs. Oliver and her brother resembled these two children. The boy even had Quentin’s downturned eyes.

  Uncanny and rather eerie. Cold fingers began to pluck at the back of Sorrow’s neck. The more she stared at the painting, the more certain she felt that she was looking at Mrs. Oliver and Quentin as children.

  But that simply couldn’t be. These people would be far too old, and almost certainly no longer alive by now.

  “Are you looking for something, Miss Hamilton?”

  Ada Oliver’s ice cold voice nearly stopped Sorrow’s heart.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MRS. OLIVER’S DAUGHTER

  “Mrs. Oliver,” Sorrow said, trying to keep a quaver out of her voice. “I was looking for you.”

  “And you have found me.” The woman’s expression could have frozen water. “Are you in the habit of creeping around people’s homes uninvited?”

  “I called out for someone when I entered.”

  “And when you received no response, you felt free to enter my home and begin snooping. Is that how things are done back in Baltimore?”

  Think, Sorrow. Think.

  “This is a very important matter, Mrs. Oliver. I did not want to leave here without speaking to you.”

  Mrs. Oliver looked unmoved. “And what might that important matter be?”

  Sorrow drew a deep breath and steeled herself.

  “I think you know what happened to my brother.”

  “I have already told you that I do not, Miss Hamilton.”

  “I don’t believe you. I heard what you were saying to Balt Cooper. About ‘the Lords Below.’”

  And now she’d done it. It was out. Perhaps Mrs. Oliver raised one eyebrow slightly, but she had no further visible reaction to Sorrow’s accusation.

  “People in Tidepool come up with strange stories to pass the time.”

  Sorrow sighed. “That’s not an answer, Mrs. Oliver, and I don’t believe you and Mr. Cooper were just telling stories to each other. Do you know what happened to Henry, or don’t you? You can tell me, or you can explain it to the detectives my father will be sending here.”

  Mrs. Oliver’s upper lip curled into a sneer.

  “There are things going on in this town that outsiders will never understand. I believe you have been told before that pursuing this issue is very unwise.”

  The implied threat sparked hot anger in Sorrow’s chest. “I’m looking for my brother, Mrs. Oliver, and I won’t stop just because you say so. I had no mother, and Hal has been the world to me throughout my life. And causing harm to a visitor to your town and expecting it to go unnoticed strikes me as very unwise.”

  Something in Mrs. Oliver’s gaze wavered for just a second. It looked like concern. She almost seemed human, Sorrow thought.

  But then it was as if something closed itself up behind the woman’s dark eyes.

  “You have been warned,” Mrs. Oliver said finally. “Do you truly want to know what happened to your brother here? Does he mean that much to you?”

  “For god’s sake, yes. That’s what I’ve been asking for since I got here.”

  “And you pursue this of your own free will?”

  “Yes,” Sorrow snapped again. “Who else’s will do you think I’d be following here? Stop wasting time and tell me what happened.”

  “Very well. I assure you that I did not kill him,” Mrs. Oliver said. “For the rest of it, I have something I must show you.”

  “Fine. Let’s see it.” Sorrow’s body tingled all over. Despite the brave tone she took, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what Mrs. Oliver was about to show her. What if it was whatever was left of her brother?

  No. She had to stop thinking like that. Her head began to spin again.

  “Come with me.” Mrs. Oliver turned and walked out of the parlor, and Sorrow followed. They passed the kitchen, which Sorrow noted looked barren and barely used. Mrs. Oliver stopped and opened the door to her cellar.

  “Go in there, please. That is where you’ll find the answers to where your brother has gone.”

  “You first,” Sorrow said.

  “I cannot accompany you down there.”

  “That’s silly. It’s your house. Why can’t you go down?”

  Mrs. Oliver jabbed a finger at the stairs. “Miss Hamilton, if you go in the cellar, you will learn what became of your brother. If you do not, I cannot help you any further. The answer to your question is down there, for you alone to discover.”

  Sorrow was no idiot, and she knew. She knew that going into that cellar was madness. She knew it was entirely possible Mrs. Oliver would trap her down there and allow her to starve to death. She knew there was no good, intelligent, or sane reason to do this frightening woman’s bidding.

  But she couldn’t bear not knowing what had happened to Henry, and that decided her. She’d face whatever was down there when it came. She was more determined than Mrs. Oliver, or anyone else in Tidepool, could ever suspect. She had stolen away from Father and her home to get here, after all.

  Sorrow walked into the cellar, easing her way down the rickety staircase and trailing a hand along the damp wall. As soon as she had descended the dim cellar steps, the door slammed shut behind her. Just as she had expected.

  A tiny sliver of light came into the cellar from a window that was too far up for Sorrow to access if need be. But the rest of the cellar was terribly dark. And dank. And that stench of rotting fish was becoming overpowering.

  Sorrow took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to not let the panic take her.

  “Well?” she called up, in case Mrs. Oliver lurked at the door. “I’m waiting,
Mrs. Oliver. What information shall I find down here?” She hoped that sounded sufficiently un-intimidated.

  This is ridiculous, she told herself. She began feeling around the walls, trying to locate a lamp. Or something she could use as a tool, or even a weapon. She felt nothing but damp wood beneath her trailing fingers.

  And then she froze for a moment. She was certain she had heard someone breathing.

  “Hello?” she called out. No response. She could hear only her own beating heart as it began to speed up.

  “Hal? Are you here?” Her voice quavered now.

  And then there was a splashing sound nearby, as if someone were emerging from a bathtub. Was the basement someone’s living space? But who would bathe in complete darkness?

  Somewhere in the cellar, a door creaked open. Sorrow bit her lip to stifle a shriek.

  “Who’s there?”

  And now she heard it clearly: ragged, peculiar breathing that didn’t sound as if it came from a human being. And then footsteps, wet and squelchy like moist feet on a dry floor after a rain. Shish-shish. Shish-shish.

  “Hal?” Sorrow said again. “Is that you? Who’s there?” She began fumbling around in the dark, trailing her fingertips along the wall and trying to find the cellar steps. The jagged breathing drew closer, and that dead fish smell grew oppressive enough to make Sorrow want to be sick on the cellar floor.

  Sorrow stumbled over something in the heavy darkness and landed on her hands and knees with a shriek, and the wet footsteps sped up.

  As she struggled to her feet, something grabbed her left arm.

  “No! Let me go!” She lashed out and struck at what held her, but the person simply pulled her closer.

  “Hal?”

  And then the person spoke quietly as the squelchy footsteps came within inches of Sorrow.

  “Lucy! Go back to your room. Now.”

  Quentin had her. She could see the outline of the hand he held up to…something. A shadowed shape loomed directly in front of them, and that thing was the source of the ragged breathing. And then its head seemed to unhinge itself as it hissed.

  “Go, Lucy. Leave her alone!”