Our Lady of the Harbour

by Charles de Lint

  She should just go home, she thought, but she’d promised Lucia and she couldn’t help but be sympathetic toward Katrina. She’d just stay a little while, that was all.

  It was just going on nightfall when she reached Lucia’s street. She paused at the corner as she saw a small familiar figure step from the stoop of Lucia’s building and head off the other way down the street. She almost called Katrina by name, but something stopped her. Curiosity got the better of her and she kept still, following along behind instead.

  It was easy to keep track of her—Katrina’s cloud of gold hair caught the light of every streetlamp she passed under and seemed to reflect a burnished glow up into the night. She led Amy down to MacNeil Street, turning west once she reached it. Her stride was both purposeful and wearied, but always graceful.

  Poor kid, Amy thought.

  More than once she started to hurry to catch up with Katrina, but then her curiosity would rise to the fore and she’d tell herself to be patient just a little longer. Since Katrina didn’t know anyone in Newford—according to Lucia she didn’t even know the city—Amy couldn’t figure out where Katrina might be going.

  Where MacNeil ended at Lee Street, Katrina crossed over and went down to the bank of the Kickaha River. She followed the riverbank southward, pausing only when she came near the Gracie Street Bridge. There the fenced-off ruins of the old L & B sawmill reared up in the darkness, ill-lit, drowning the riverbank with its shadow. It took up enough room that a person walking along the river by its chain-link fence would be almost invisible from any of the more peopled areas roundabout. Even across the river there were only empty warehouses.

  Amy started to hurry again, struck by the sudden fear that Katrina meant to do herself harm. The river ran quicker here, rapiding over a descending shelf of broken stone slabs from where an old railway bridge had collapsed a few years ago. The city had cleared a channel through the debris, but that just made the river run more quickly through the narrower course. More than one person had drowned on this stretch of water—and not always by accident.

  Matt’s not worth it, she wanted to tell Katrina. Nobody’s worth it.

  Before she could reach Katrina, she came to an abrupt halt again. She stifled a cough that reared up in her throat and leaned against a fence post, suddenly dizzy. But it wasn’t the escalating onset of a flu bug that had made her stop. Rather, it was what she had spied, bobbing in the swift-moving water.

  The light was bad, just a diffused glow from the streets a block or so over, but it was enough for her to make out four white shapes in the dark water. They each seemed as slender and graceful as Katrina, with the same spun gold hair, except theirs was cut short to their skulls, highlighting the foxlike shape of their features. They probably had, Amy thought, the same blue eyes, too.

  What were they doing there?

  Another wave of dizziness came over her. She slid down the side of the fence pole until she was crouched on the ground. She remembered thinking that this way she wouldn’t have as far to fall if she fainted. Clutching the pole for support, she looked back to the river.

  Katrina had moved closer to the shore and was holding her arms out to the women. As their shapes moved closer, Amy’s heartbeat drummed into overtime for she realized that they had no legs. They were propelling themselves through the water with scaled fish tails. There was no mistaking the shape of them as the long tail fins broke the surface of the water.

  Mermaids, Amy thought, no longer able to breathe. They were mermaids.

  It wasn’t possible. How could it be possible?

  And what did it make Katrina?

  The sight of them blurred. For a moment she was looking through a veil, then it was like looking through a double-paned window at an angle, images all duplicated and laid over each other.

  She blinked hard. She started to lift her hand to rub at her eyes, but she was suddenly so weak it was all she could do to just crouch beside the pole and not tumble over into the weeds.

  The women in the river drew closer as Katrina stepped to the very edge of the water. Katrina lifted her hair, then let it drop in a clouding fall. She pointed at the women.

  “Cut away and gone,” one of the women said.

  “All gone.”

  “We gave it to Maraghreen.”

  “For you, sister.”

  “We traded, gold for silver.”

  Amy pressed her face against the pole as the mermaids spoke. Through her dizziness, their voices seemed preternaturally enhanced. They chorused, one beginning where another ended, words molten, bell-like, sweet as honey, and so very, very pure.

  “She gave us this.”

  The foremost of the women in the river reached up out of the water. Something glimmered silver and bright in her hand. A knife.

  “Pierce his heart.”

  “Bathe in his blood.”

  “Your legs will grow together once more.”

  “You’ll come back to us.”

  “Oh, sister.”

  Katrina went down on her knees at the water’s edge. She took the knife from the mermaid’s hand and laid it gingerly on her lap.

  “He doesn’t love you.”

  “He will never love you.”

  The women all drew close. They reached out of the water, stroking Katrina’s arms and her face with gentling hands.

  “You must do it—before the first dawn light follows tomorrow night.”

  “Or foam you’ll be.”

  “Sister, please.”

  “Return to those who love you.”

  Katrina bowed her head, making no response. One by one the women dove into the river deeps and were gone. From her hiding place, Amy tried to rise—she knew Katrina would be coming back soon, coming back this way, and she didn’t want to be caught—but she couldn’t manage it, even with the help of the pole beside her. Then Katrina stepped away from the river and walked toward her, the knife held gingerly in one hand.

  As their gazes met, another wave of dizziness rose in Amy, this one a tsunami, and in its wake she felt the ground tremble underfoot, but it was only herself, tumbling into the dirt and weeds. She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her away.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon when Amy awoke on the sofa in Lucia’s loft. Her surroundings and the wrong angle of the afternoon light left her disoriented and confused, but no longer feeling sick. It must have been one of those 24-hour viruses, she thought as she swung her legs to the floor, then leaned back against the sofa’s cushions.

  Lucia looked up from the magazine she was reading at the kitchen table. Laying it down she walked over and joined Amy on the sofa.

  “I was très surprised to find you sleeping here when I got in last night,” she said. “Katrina said you got sick, so she put you to bed on the sofa and slept on the floor herself. How’re you feeling now, ma chérie?”

  Amy worked through what Lucia had just said. None of it quite jibed with her own muddled memory of the previous evening.

  “Okay…I guess,” she said finally. She looked around the loft. “Where’s Katrina?”

  “She borrowed the bus money from me and went to Hartnett’s Point after all. True love wins over all, n’est-ce pas?”

  Amy thought of mermaids swimming in the Kickaha River, of Katrina kneeling by the water, of the silver knife.

  “Oh shit,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I…”

  Amy didn’t know what to say. What she’d seen hadn’t made any sense. She’d been sick, dizzy, probably delirious. But it had seemed so real.

  Pierce his heart…bathe in his blood…

  She shook her head. None of it could have happened. There were no such things as mermaids. But what if there were? What if Katrina was carrying that silver knife as she made her way to Matt’s gig? What if she did just what those…mermaids had told her…?

  You must do it—before the first dawn light that follows tomorrow night….

  What if—
/>
  Or foam you’ll be….

  —it was real?

  She bent down and looked for her shoes, found them pressed up against one of the coffee table’s crate supports. She put them on and rose from the sofa.

  “I’ve got to go,” she told Lucia.

  “Go where? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have time to explain. I’ll tell you later.”

  Lucia followed her across the loft to the door. “Amy, you’re acting really weird.”

  “I’m fine,” Amy said. “Honest.”

  Though she still didn’t feel quite normal. She was weak and didn’t want to look in a mirror for fear of seeing the white ghost of her own face looking back at her. But she didn’t feel that she had any choice.

  If what she’d seen last night had been real….

  Lucia shook her head uncertainly. “Are you sure you’re—”

  Amy paused long enough to give her friend a quick peck on the cheek, then she was out the door.

  * * *

  Borrowing a car was easy. Her brother Pete had two and was used to her sudden requests for transportational needs, relieved that he wasn’t required to provide a chauffeur service along with it. She was on the road by seven, tooling west along the old lakeside highway in a gas-guzzling Chev, stopping for a meal at a truck stop that marked the halfway point and arriving at Hartnett’s Point just as Matt would be starting his first set.

  She pulled in beside his VW van—a positive antique by now, she liked to tease him—and parked. The building that housed Murphy’s Bar where Matt had his gig was a ramshackle affair, log walls here in back, plaster on cement walls in front. The bar sat on the edge of the point from which the village got its name, with a long pier out behind the building, running into the lake. The water around the pier was thick with moored boats.

  She went around front to where the neon sign spelling the name of the bar crackled and spat an orange glow and stepped inside to the familiar sound of Matt singing Leon Rosselson’s “World Turned Upside Down.” The audience, surprisingly enough for a backwoods establishment such as this, was actually paying attention to the music. Amy thought that only a third of them were probably even aware of the socialist message the song espoused.

  The patrons were evenly divided between the back-to-the-earth hippies who tended organic farms west of the village, all jeans and unbleached cotton, long hair and flower-print dresses; the locals who’d grown up in the area and would probably die here, heavier drinkers, also in jeans, but tending toward flannel shirts and baseball caps, T-shirts and work boots; and then those cottagers who hadn’t yet closed their places up for the year, a hodge-podge of golf shirts and cotton blends, short skirts and, yes, even one dark blue captain’s cap, complete with braided rope trim.

  She shaded her eyes and looked for Katrina, but didn’t spot her. After a few moments, she got herself a beer from the bar and found a corner table to sit at, which she shared with a pair of earth-mothers and a tall, skinny man with drooping eyes and hair longer than that of either of his companions, pulled back into a ponytail that fell to his waist. They made introductions all around, then settled back into their chairs to listen to the music.

  As Matt’s set wound on, Amy began to wonder just exactly what she was doing here. Even closing her eyes and concentrating, she could barely call up last night’s fantastic images with any sort of clarity. What if the whole thing had just been a delirium? What if she’d made her way to Lucia’s apartment only to pass out on the sofa and have dreamt it all?

  Matt stopped by the table when he ended his set.

  “What brings you up here, Scallan?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Just thought I’d check out how you do without the rest of us to keep you honest.”

  A touch of humour crinkled around his eyes. “So what’s the verdict?”

  “You’re doing good.” She introduced him to her companions, then asked, “Do you want to get a little air?”

  He nodded and let her lead the way outside. They leaned against the back of somebody’s Bronco up and looked down the length of one of the village’s two streets. This one cut north and south, from the bush down to the lake. The other was merely the highway as it cut through the village.

  “So have you seen Katrina?” Amy asked.

  Matt nodded. “Yeah, we walked around the Market for a while yesterday afternoon.”

  “You mean, she’s not up here?”

  “Not so’s I know.”

  Amy sighed. So much for her worries. But if Katrina hadn’t borrowed the money from Lucia to come up here, then where had she gone?

  “Why are you so concerned about Katrina?” Matt asked.

  Amy started to make up some excuse, but then thought, screw it. One of them might as well be up front.

  “I’m just worried about her.”

  Matt nodded. He kicked at the gravel underfoot, but didn’t say anything.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” Amy said.

  “You’re right. It’s not.” There was no rancor in Matt’s voice. Just a kind of weariness.

  “It’s just that—”

  “Look,” he said, turning to Amy, “she seems nice, that’s all. I think maybe we started out on the wrong foot, but I’m trying to fix that. For now, I just want to be her friend. If something else comes up later, okay. But I want to take it as it comes. Slowly. Is that so wrong?”

  Amy shook her head. And then it struck her. For the first time that they weren’t on stage together or working out an arrangement, Matt actually seemed to focus on her. To listen to what she was saying and answer honestly. Protective walls maybe were not completely down, but there was a little breach in them.

  “I think she loves you,” Amy said.

  Matt sighed. “It’s kind of early for that, don’t you think? I think it’s more a kind of infatuation. She’ll probably grow out of it just as fast as she fell into it.”

  “I don’t know about that. Seems to me that if you’re going to be at all fair, you’d be just a little bit more—”

  “Don’t talk to me about responsibility,” Matt said, breaking in. “Just because someone falls in love with you, it doesn’t mean you owe them anything. I’ve got no control over how other people feel about me—”

  That’s where you’re wrong, Amy thought. If you’d just act more human, more like this…

  “—and I’m sure not going to run my life by their feelings and schedules. I’m not trying to sound self-centered, I’m just trying to…I don’t know. Protect my privacy.”

  “But if you don’t give a little, how will you ever know what you might be missing?”

  “Giving too much, too fast—that just leaves you open to being hurt.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, shit,” Matt said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got another set to do.” He pushed away from the Bronco. “Look, I’m sorry if I don’t measure up to how people want me to be, but this is just the way I am.”

  Why didn’t you open yourself up even this much while we were going out together? Amy wanted to ask. But all she did was nod and say, “I know.”

  “Are you coming in?”

  She shook her head. “Not right away.”

  “Well, I’ve got—”

  “I know.” She waved him off. “Break a leg or whatever.”

  Once he’d gone inside, he moved away from the Bronco and crossed the parking lot, gravel crunching underfoot until she reached the grass verge. She followed it around to the lawn by the side of the building and down to the lakefront. There she stood listening to the vague sound of Matt’s voice and guitar as it carried through an open window. She looked at all the boats clustered around the pier. A splash drew her attention to the far end of the wooden walkway where a figure sat with its back to the shore having just thrown something into the lake.

  Amy had one of those moments of utter clarity. She knew immediately that it was Katrina sitting there, feet dangling in the water, long hair
clouding down her back, knew as well that it was the silver knife she’d thrown into the lake. Amy could almost see it, turning end on slow end as it sank in the water.

  She hesitated for the space of a few long breaths, gaze tracking the surface of the lake for Katrina’s sisters, then she slowly made her way down to the pier. Katrina turned at the sound of Amy’s shoes on the wooden slats of the walkway. She nodded once, then looked back out over the lake.

  Amy sat beside her. She hesitated again, then put her arm comfortingly around Katrina’s small shoulders. They sat like that for a long time. The water lapped against the pilings below them. An owl called out from the woods to their left, a long mournful sound. A truck pulled into the bar’s parking lot. Car doors slammed, voices rose in laughter, then disappeared into the bar.

  Katrina stirred beside Amy. She began to move her hands, but Amy shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  Katrina mimed steering, both hands raised up in front of her, fingers closed around an invisible steering wheel.

  Amy nodded. “I drove up in my brother’s car.”

  Katrina pointed to herself then to Amy and again mimed turning a steering wheel.

  “You want me to drive you somewhere?”

  Katrina nodded.

  Amy looked back toward the bar. “What about Matt?”

  Katrina shook her head. She put her hands together, eyes eloquent where her voice was silent. Please.

  Amy looked at her for a long moment before she nodded. “Sure. I can give you a lift. Is there someplace specific you want to go?”

  Katrina merely rose to her feet and started back down the pier toward shore. Once they were in the Chev, she pointed to the glove department.

  “Go ahead,” Amy said.

  As she started the car, Katrina pulled out a handful of roadmaps. She sorted through them until she came to one that showed the whole north shore of the lake. She unfolded it and laid it on the dashboard between them and pointed to a spot west of Newford. Amy looked more closely. The place where Katrina had her finger was where the Dulfer River emptied into the lake. The tip of her small finger was placed directly on the lakeside campgrounds of the State Park there.