The Blossoming: The Third book in The Green Man Series

by Sharon Brubaker

  “I don’t like this! I don’t like this!” she cried as she clung to him.

  He chuckled. “It’s just a little storm,” he told her, holding her more tightly.

  “But, you were scared too, weren’t you?” she asked.

  “Some. I haven’t done this in a long time,” he reminded her again.

  “I know,” she said, “but, I think you are doing a damn, good job, keeping us safe in this storm!”

  “Thank you,” he said, kissing her on the top of her head. “Now, I just need to get us home safely. I think the storm is letting up.”

  He had changed into dry clothes and it was just spitting a little bit of rain.

  “I’m going to try this again,” he called to Sylvia. “It’s clearing!”

  She went above and indeed the clouds were rolling away almost as quickly as they had come. Behind the gray, rolling clouds, clear blue sky and puffy clouds adorned the sky. It was as if the storm had not existed over that part of the bay.

  “You’d better start the phone calls and texts,” he said. “We’re not going to make it home tonight. I’d like to head to Still Pond again if we can get there by dark.”

  “Okay,” Sylvia agreed. She called her mom and explained what had happened, assuring her they were safe and that no other storms seemed to be in the area.

  “It was an anomaly,” she assured her mother. “We’ve had a great weekend. We just need to extend it by a day. We’re hoping to anchor at Still Pond again, and head home in the morning.”

  After hanging up with her mother, she texted Carol, letting her know she wouldn’t be into work in the morning. She texted Mr. Carter what had happened as well.

  There were fewer power boats on the water since the passing storm. The day wended its way towards evening. The water was still choppy for a while, due to the change in the storm front. But, the wind had dropped. It was very, very slow going using the motor, against the tide and the choppiness left by the storm. They bounced along instead of gliding, slamming the waves instead of riding with them. The sun was going down behind them quickly. Sylvia had made them sandwiches and brought them up to Owen as twilight began to fall.

  Chapter 20

  Dum spiro spero. (While I breathe I hope.)

  -- Lindsay clan Family motto (Scotland)

  “I don’t think we’re going to make Still Pond this evening,” he told her. “We’re close, but I don’t want to travel in complete darkness. I’m not familiar with the bay anymore and have a lot of relearning to do.”

  As twilight descended, he scoured the charts. They had just passed Fairlee Creek and darkness was falling fast. Clouds began to gather in the West, blotting out their usual treat of an incredible sunset. Sylvia just hoped that the storm would not return. She voiced her fears to Owen and he told her they would find another protected cove.

  “There are a couple of places we can anchor at Worton Creek,” he told her. I don’t think anyone would care.”

  “Fine with me,” Sylvia said. “I’m looking forward to a quiet night.”

  They motored into Worton Creek. Owen had talked about making it to Tim’s Creek as there was a marina they might be able to slip into for the night. But, when they looked up the information, a website was no longer available, nor did the cell number listed work.

  “Well, that tells me its likely empty,” Owen told her. “Let’s still try to make it there.”

  It was getting quite dark and boats don’t have headlights like on a car. Owen had her walk to the bow of the boat with a large, search light. She heard him swear softly.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “The damn masthead light is out,” Owen grumbled. “Once we’re below, no one can see that we’re here,” he told her.

  “Do you think anyone will be motoring about in the middle of the night?” Sylvia asked incredulously.

  “No,” Owen replied, “but, it’s something we need to get repaired as soon as possible.”

  “I think that’s the marina ahead,” Sylvia told him.

  The shoreline was completely dark and they could just make out pilings and older docks.

  “I don’t want to go much closer,” Owen told her. “I don’t know how long this marina has been abandoned. I know there are a couple of other marinas up the creek, but I don’t want to take a chance motoring completely in the dark. We’re tired and I don’t want to do anything stupid.”

  “Sounds good,” she said.

  Owen dropped the anchor. They went below. Owen poured drinks for each of them, and the settled on the couch.

  “What a day! You know, you didn’t have to give me all of these crazy sailing scenarios in one weekend,” she told Owen accusingly.

  “Honey, this was nothing. But, we’re out of the woods. I’m pretty sure that storm is not coming our way. We can relax, sleep and head home in the morning,” Owen assured her.

  “I’ve really enjoyed this weekend, but I’m going to be really happy to see our house,” she told Owen. “Percy, our bed and our deck seem like a cozy dream right now.”

  “Well, scoot into the berth and you can dream about it tonight and see it tomorrow,” Owen told her.

  They settled in for the night, holding each other. They both slept dreamlessly and deeply until an odd sound woke them both, startling them from sleep.

  “What the hell?” Owen said, propping himself up on one elbow.

  “Sounds like a car or a boat,” Sylvia said sleepily. “What time is it?” she asked Owen.

  Owen looked at his watch before answering, “Just after four thirty,” he told her.

  “Maybe it’s fisherman heading out to check their crab pots,” Sylvia said dreamily. “Didn’t we pass some of those?”

  “Yes,” Owen agreed, “but, with the masthead light out, they won’t be able to see us,” he said worriedly. “You stay below and I’ll go up and take a look around.”

  Sylvia drifted into a half-sleep state as she heard Owen’s steps head up to the cockpit. Then she heard his voice question, “What the hell?” again with an odd note in his voice.

  “What’s wrong?” she called up to him.

  There was no answer. She thought she heard him pulling on something. It was as if something was rubbing on the outside of the boat opposite from their berth. Was it the anchor? What was he doing? Thinking he likely did not hear her, she grabbed her robe and went through the hatch.

  “Owen!” she started to call, “What are you…”

  He interrupted her with a stage whisper of panic, “Get below! Now, Sylvia!”

  “What?” she said more to herself than to Owen.

  It was then that she noticed activity at the old marina. Red flashlights were bouncing in the darkness. There was a boat pulled up to the pier. It was a large power boat that looked like it could go fast. In the weak light that was the beginning of dawn, things seemed hazy. Sylvia had a difficult time seeing anything clearly. She squinted in the almost darkness. The red lights bounced from the boat and up the pier as if people were carrying something. In the dim light, it looked like boxes. She could hear the men on the shore grunting, so she thought they must be relatively substantial. Sylvia could hear the boat’s motor going and saw the lights going back and forth, and back and forth. They seemed to be going to a building that was up a small hill. She thought she could see a long, low roof. She could smell something odd. What was going on?

  Dawn was beginning. The sky was starting to lighten behind the trees on the shoreline. Owen had pulled up the anchor and was now crawling as best as he could on his belly, back to the cockpit.

  “Sylvia!” Owen cried again, not so quiet this time, but ordering her, “get below!”

  That was when all hell broke loose. She heard the sound of a loud ‘crack’ in the air. She jumped at the noise. There was a second crack and something hit the side of the boat, just below the gunwale. She could hear the splintering of fiberglass. Another crack and Owen made a loud, indescribable sound, something like a moan and a cry of
pain all rolled into one. She saw red spreading at his left shoulder. It suddenly dawned on her that Owen had just been shot! The boat had been hit too.

  “Start the boat!” Owen yelled. “Quick, Sylvia!”

  He groaned in pain, as he made his way to the cockpit. He sort of fell into the cockpit and slumped down in a heap near the helm.

  “Stay down and get us out of here!” he told her.

  Sylvia didn’t really know what to do. She turned on the boat and took the helm to steer the boat up the creek. Was this a good idea? From the charts she knew there were marinas ahead. Maybe she could get help there. Her cell phone and Owen’s cell phone were below. She couldn’t take the time to go below to get them. Owen was holding his shoulder, trying to staunch the blood. He looked very pale and woozy from the pain. Sylvia knew she couldn’t scream aloud, only inside her head. A couple of more shots rang out, and thankfully, the powerboat sped away, out to the bay and to open water. She tried to focus on the water ahead. Fear of running aground loomed in her mind.

  Sylvia thought of the Green Man and wondered why he wasn’t there to rescue them. She panicked, but in the back of her mind, she remembered him saying a few weeks ago, that he couldn’t come to her if she needed him on the water. Had that been a premonition or a warning? She didn’t know.

  Inside her head, she could hear him say to her, “Steady on. It will be all right.” She heard his voice! She glanced at the shoreline. In the light beyond the leaves of the trees, it looked like a face. A green, leafy face created by branches, trees and the light of the burgeoning dawn. She kept on, confident that it would be all right.

  The early morning light helped Sylvia see more clearly. She could see boats up ahead and floating docks. She headed that way. She could see someone standing on the bow of their boat, with a foot propped up on what looked like a railing, a cup of something steaming in his hand. Owen had called it something, something that had to do with a church. It was the bow pulpit, she remembered. This fact astonished her as she couldn’t even begin to think at the moment.

  She headed for the man with the coffee cup yelling “help!” as loudly as she could. She must have shouted it two or three times. He finally heard her.

  Startled, the man looked up. Sylvia relayed to Owen what she was seeing. He gave her instructions for slowing down the boat.

  “Try not to hit another vessel,” Owen groaned. He coughed and more blood seeped from the wound. He was breathing oddly as if he could not get enough air. He told her gasping, “Go into neutral. Let me know when the RPMs go down to zero.”

  His voice was weaker, and Sylvia did as she was told. Owen’s voice was barely a whisper when he told her to go in reverse. The ‘True Love’ groaned and bounced on the water. It frightened her.

  “It’s okay that it’s bouncing,” he told her weakly, glancing up at her face.

  They floated near the other sailboat. Very near. Now, Sylvia was close enough to the man to see him.

  “My fiancé has been shot!” she yelled at the man, “Please, please help me! Call 911!”

  The man pulled out his cell phone and dialed something, and talked to someone. Owen was slumped over. There was more blood on his back. His breathing was becoming more labored. She didn’t know what to do. Tears were streaming down her face. She knew she couldn’t leave the helm until the boat was secure. The man somehow had pulled their boat over to his and secured it to his before he came on board. He was tan, tall, and bearded. Sylvia guessed him to be in his late thirties or early forties.

  “I called 911,” he told Sylvia. “What happened?”

  In a shaky voice, she explained the sequence of events a short time ago.

  “I’m Mike, by the way. I heard the shots,” he told her. “I thought there were some kids or someone hunting out of season. Let me help him. It looks like he has a collapsed lung. I need to move him so he doesn’t drown in his own blood.”

  Sylvia looked at the man in horror. By this time, Sylvia was on her knees checking out Owen. She tore at the thin cotton of her robe and balled it up and pressed it to the wound that was weeping blood. She tore off more of her robe and put it on his back. Owen was groaning in pain by this time. The man moved him, and another horrible sound came from Owen’s lips.

  The man was calm. He told Owen he would be all right and to hang on.

  Flashing red and blue lights were coming down the road towards the marina. The man quickly navigated hopping between the boats, went down the pier to greet the emergency personnel and the police. Owen was barely conscious. He was very, very pale when they put him on the stretcher, and carefully took him from boat to boat, and to the pier. Moans of pain escaped his lips with each bump and jostle. Sylvia felt she couldn’t move. This was a nightmare and she was hoping she would wake up any second and find herself nestled in Owen’s arms. Mike had put out some sort of bumper between the boats and tied their boats together. Mike’s deep voice broke her trance. He suggested she might want to change before they went to the hospital. She looked at herself in her skimpy nightgown and torn robe. Horrified, she hurriedly threw on the first clothes she could grab from the cupboard. She pulled on shorts and a t-shirt quickly, grabbed her purse, cell phone and thrust her feet into flip-flops. Mike was going to stay with the boat, but the police told him he needed to come along until all the statements could be given. He went reluctantly. The police guided them to the back of one of the squad cars and they followed the ambulance.

  “Where are we going?” Sylvia asked faintly.

  “The hospital in Chestertown,” the cop told her.

  They hurtled down the road, following the ambulance, swiftly and silently, with lights blazing. The back of the squad car was creepy to her. There were no door handles. It smelled funny. She had ridden in the front of a police car with Joe, but she had never been in the back. Even with air conditioning, the vinyl seats were sticky. She introduced herself to their rescuer and thanked him for coming to her aid.

  Mike told her he was a family man who chartered boats for a living. His first aid experience, he told her, came from teaching boy scouts. Sylvia told him this was her first sail. This had been their maiden voyage on their new boat. Her voice cracked when she said this.

  The ambulance and police car continued to drive swiftly through the low, flat country of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Farm fields full of corn and sunflowers grew almost up to the road. The sky was brightening with the dawn and the sun shone. To Sylvia, it was a dark sun. Sylvia and Mike were silent for the rest of the ride to the hospital. Sylvia looked out anxiously as they left the farm fields and civilization encroached upon the flatness.

  Sylvia had gone to college in Chestertown. She vaguely knew where the hospital was situated in reference to the campus. It was only a stone’s throw from the main campus. Fortunately, she had never had reason to find the hospital during her four years at Washington College. Occasionally, she had seen an ambulance or two turn down the road towards the hospital. Otherwise, she would not have known of its existence or the close proximity to the college.

  When they arrived at the hospital, another flurry of activity enveloped them. The police officer escorted her into the Emergency Room’s waiting room. It was relatively small with under two dozen chairs. Bright summer sunlight did its best to brighten the sterile waiting room of tile and plastic chairs. Sylvia filled out mountains of paperwork. The police asked her to accompany them to a small room adjacent to the waiting room, just past a couple of vending machines. She talked, and talked and talked to the police. When the police interviews were completed, she went back out to the waiting room, where Mike was sitting, looking rather anxious. He had a charter that evening - a sunset sail. Somehow, he needed to get back to his boat. Somehow, Sylvia realized, she needed to get their boat home. Mike asked if she could call someone. He also asked if one of the cops could take him back to his boat.

  “Of course,” she answered him, shocked when she looked at the actual time. “Oh, my! They’re expecting us home any mi
nute.”

  She pulled out her phone to call her mother. Mary answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Syl!” she greeted. “Are you pulling up to the house soon?” she asked. “Percy and I have been out on the deck, keeping an eye out for you.”

  “Not exactly,” Sylvia said. The shock was beginning to wear off and emotions were threatening to come to the surface.

  “Where are you?” her mother asked.

  “Chestertown,” Sylvia answered.

  “You went up the Chester River? What, are you visiting your alma mater?” her mother semi-joked. “When are you planning to come home?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Sylvia told her mother. “I have a little story to share with you.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” her mother replied.

  “Well…not all of it,” Sylvia agreed.

  Sylvia told her exactly what had happened that morning. Other than a shocked gasp, when Sylvia told her of the gunshots, her mother was silent until Sylvia finished her story.

  “What do you need me to do?” Mary asked.

  “Please call Phil and Anne and let them know what happened. Also, can you call Jon and Marian, and have them go to the Worton Point Marina. Please ask Jon if he would sail the boat home. If you could come to Chestertown to the hospital, we would really appreciate a ride home,” she told her mother.

  A nurse came out and motioned for Sylvia to follow her.

  “I’ve got to run, Mom. See you soon,” she said.

  She motioned for Mike to follow her back. Owen was sitting up in the hospital bed. He seemed slightly groggy. There was a tube coming out of his chest and it was attached to a machine. He seemed to be covered in tubes and wires.

  “Owen!” Sylvia cried, rushing up to his bedside.

  She grabbed his hand and clutched it to her, trying to avoid bumping any tubes. She gave him a kiss.

  “Hi, Syl,” he said weakly.