The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

  Low sand hills rolled north and south, as far as the eye could see, facing the open Atlantic. The dunes were wind-sculpted, tufted with dry beach grass. A low, steady wind blew off the sea, rustling the grass and whistling into the thicket. Following a narrow path over the lowest dune, they crouched down.

  Mickey saw the owl right away. It sat on the beach, above the tide line, in the lee of an enormous driftwood log. Her heart kicked over—it was just a few feet from where she and Jenna had seen it the other day. One hand on her mother’s shoulder, she pointed with her cast. Her mother turned her head, scanned the dunes, saw the owl—Mickey could tell by the wild delight that crossed her face.

  They sat very still, watched without saying a word. They stared at the snowy owl, a round white mass of glossy feathers with a sharp, dark beak. Every so often the breeze would lift the feathers along the owl’s wings, making them ripple. Each time, Mickey’s heart clutched, as she anticipated the bird taking flight. It was almost dusk, the time owls began to hunt.

  How many times had Mickey and her mother taken nature walks together—looking for warblers in the woods each spring, climbing Lovecraft Hill every fall to gaze up for migrating raptors? Mickey tried to breathe as quietly as she could, feeling the chilly air on her cheeks and lips. She nestled closer to her mother, both of them crouched down as low as they could get, so the wind wouldn’t carry their scent to the owl.

  Gazing out over the sea, she saw the moon rising from the waves. Enormous and glimmering, it looked like an almost-round peach. Gesturing to her mother, she whispered, “Look…”

  “Just a few more days,” her mother whispered back.

  “Wish on…” Mickey started to say, but stopped herself. She knew that most people wished on the first star, but she had always wished on the moon. It had started when she was little, and she and her family would take walks on moonlit nights. Mickey had always looked up at the moon, felt it smiling down on them, keeping her family together.

  It was too late for that, so why bother wishing anymore? Mickey turned back to the owl, narrowed her eyes and concentrated.

  “What were you about to say?” her mother asked.

  “Nothing,” Mickey said.

  “I think I know.”

  “It’s nothing, Mom.”

  “Wish on the moon,” her mother said, putting her arm around Mickey’s shoulders. “Go ahead, Mickey…wish.”

  Mickey closed her eyes tight. She thought of her father, so far away that he might as well have been in another life. The biggest shock in the world had been the divorce—learning that a family that had lived together for so long, had loved each other through hurricanes, blizzards, sunsets, moonrises, summers, winters, the chicken pox, the flu, headaches, spring concerts, fender benders, fallen trees, the death of grandparents, and so many other life-shaking things, could just cease to exist. Mickey and her mother were still together, but her father had moved to another world.

  “Wish, Mickey,” her mother whispered. “Anything you want…”

  Mickey closed her eyes tight. She knew her mother probably expected her to wish her father would stop drinking, or would come home, but tonight Mickey felt something shift in her chest, as if her heart had just broken in a new way. She took her mother’s hand, and when she opened her eyes and saw the snowy owl so brave and still, its white feathers glowing in the rising moonlight, she whispered, “I wish we could see the fly-out.”

  And her wish came true.

  Ten minutes later, they watched as the snowy owl swiveled its head, looking all around; its yellow eyes glowed like stars. It shifted position, ruffled its feathers, shook its shoulders as if preparing for a great feat. Mickey knew that the owl was waking up after a long day’s sleep, that its nocturnal rhythms were pulling it into night.

  The owl flapped once, twice, and, on enormous white wings, soared straight over Mickey and her mother. Mickey caught sight of those terrible gold eyes, that wicked beak, its killing talons—she felt the rush of air from its flapping wings, moving over her like a cold cloak, and she jumped to her feet to watch the owl disappear over the pine trees.

  “Did you see that?” she gasped.

  “How wonderful,” her mother said, standing at her side.

  “The most incredible thing I’ve ever seen!” Mickey said.

  And when she turned to look into her mother’s eyes, she saw that two other people were standing there as well—had emerged from their own separate hiding places along the beach: Ranger O’Casey had come out of the old abandoned duck blind, just this side of the thicket, and Shane West had jumped up from behind the dune. They each stood there, completely still, watching the trees for the owl.

  After a few minutes, they all noticed each other. It was almost funny, a little awkward, that they would all wind up at the same secret place, watching for the owl to begin its night hunt. When Mickey looked up to see what her mother thought about it, she saw her staring straight at Ranger O’Casey—and he was staring back.

  Mickey blinked and looked away. Her stomach growled. She was hungry, and she knew the beach picnic would taste so good. She felt like asking her mother if they could invite Shane and the ranger to join them, but her mother was gazing again with such rapture at the sky where the snowy owl had been, Mickey just turned toward the low pine forest, waiting for it to emerge once more.

  5

  At school, Mickey kept her eyes open for Shane West. But the morning passed without seeing him in the hall or classrooms, or even while she was getting lunch—she scanned the noisy and crowded cafeteria as she pushed her tray along the metal rails with her good hand.

  “Who are you looking for?” Jenna asked when they reached their table and Mickey was still looking.

  “That kid,” Mickey said. “Shane. The one who was there at the beach when I fell off my bike.”

  “Shane West?” Tripp Livingston asked. “Surfer-slacker-loser? He’s suspended.”

  “For what?” Mickey asked.

  “He’s a criminal,” Tripp said. “He got caught screwing with the wrong guy, and now he has to pay for it.” He laughed, shaking his head, looking across the table at Josh Landry. “I wouldn’t want to mess with your dad.”

  “Yeah,” Josh Landry said. “You’re right about that.”

  “What did he do?” Isabella Janus asked.

  “Nothing. He just thought about doing something, and my dad pressed charges,” Josh said. “He’s out of school for the rest of the week, and they’re making him do community service. My father wasn’t about to let him skate.”

  Mickey ate her sandwich, not saying anything. She knew that Josh’s father was a famous golf course and real estate mogul. They had lived in San Diego until last year, when the family had moved to Rhode Island. Mr. Landry had tried to buy a lot of land near Kingston, with the idea of building a new country club and fancy houses. When that fell through, he’d gotten interested in the U-boat. Mickey knew all this because every time Mr. Landry did something, he seemed to call the local paper. She knew that the heavy equipment parked by the beach belonged to him—she just wasn’t sure exactly why he was involved with a project concerning a U-boat that had sunk so long ago.

  “What’s your father doing that for?” Mickey asked.

  The whole table looked at her as if she’d asked something terrible. It made her nervous—even Jenna seemed horrified. Josh was the richest kid in school. He lived in a mansion on the water, and famous people who golfed visited—Mr. Landry had his picture taken with Tiger Woods just last week; it had run on the front page of the sports section.

  “Doing? Other than teaching a little shit criminal a lesson? What’s the problem?”

  “Nothing,” Mickey said. “Except Shane didn’t actually do anything. He was…just trying to make a point, that the U-boat should be allowed to stay at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “What good’s it doing there?” Josh asked. “Besides, it’s a fucking German U-boat. We’re Americans, get it?”

  “Yeah, my gr
andfather fought in World War II,” Tripp said. “He’d be the first to say ‘good riddance’ to that thing. They were here to bomb our coastline!”

  “It’s part of our history,” Mickey said, looking at Jenna for help.

  “That’s true,” Jenna agreed.

  Last year, Mickey and Jenna had made care packages for soldiers overseas. They’d also attended the peace rally in Providence. Mickey cared about the world so much, every person and creature, and sometimes it seemed that Jenna was the only other person who got it. If the U-boat left, people might forget how horrible war was. She looked at Jenna, hoping for solidarity, but Jenna laughed.

  “Part of our history fighting Germans,” Jenna said. “Nazis right here on our shores!”

  “Damn straight,” Tripp said.

  “Besides,” Josh said to Mickey, his voice soft and his eyes looking as if they wanted to melt her, “it’s just an old wreck covered with barnacles, snagging fishing nets, attracting sharks. All those surfers who claim it creates a great surf break? They’ll thank us when it’s gone and the sharks leave the area. Bad news: there won’t be any big waves. Good news: there won’t be any fins either.”

  “I hate sharks,” Jenna said, giving a pretend shiver. “They’re so scary.”

  Scary? Mickey tried not to react. She felt sad her best friend was acting this way, all damsel-in-distress in front of her boyfriend, who just happened to be Josh’s best friend.

  “What do you mean, ‘when it’s gone’?” Mickey asked. There’d been rumors, but suddenly this sounded real. “You’re talking about a U-boat—it’s not going anywhere. The periscope and hardware, maybe, but not the submarine itself…”

  Josh chuckled. He was small and compact, and he wore clothes that looked as if they belonged in a magazine: designer jeans that didn’t come from anywhere in Rhode Island, a blue shirt with an Italian name across the back.

  “Whoa, dude,” Tripp said. “What’s going on?”

  “No comment,” Josh said.

  Jenna giggled. “You sound just like your father when that golf course thing was happening, and the papers kept trying to get him to talk. Every time I read the front page, there was Mr. Landry saying ‘No comment.’ ”

  “You learn to say it,” Josh said, “when you live a high-profile life.”

  Mickey wanted to gag, but she had to find out what he had meant, so she asked again. “You said ‘when it’s gone.’ Do you mean your father really plans to take it away?”

  “Which part of ‘No comment’ don’t you understand?” Isabella asked.

  “Look, Mickey,” Josh said, his gaze softening again. “This is going to be huge. The whole world will be watching. I want you to come down to the beach, and I’ll make sure you’re on camera.”

  “On camera, woo-hoo!” Jenna said.

  Mickey felt the ground shift beneath her, but she steeled herself to hear what Josh was about to say. “Why will there be a camera?”

  “Because we’re going to raise the dead.”

  “The dead?” Mickey asked.

  “That’s just a saying…. Listen, I shouldn’t be talking about this. My father would kill me. You guys have to swear to keep this secret. An announcement will be made any day, but my father wants to control the way the media handles it.”

  “Okay, we swear,” Tripp said. “Now tell.”

  “My father’s going to raise the U-boat,” Josh said.

  “I thought that was just a story,” Mickey said, her skin prickling.

  “No. It’s the truth. We leaked some stuff to the press, to get a reaction. Mostly, it seems as if people don’t care. We didn’t want the natives getting restless before, but now I can tell you for sure. My dad has access to heavy equipment you can’t believe. There’s this crane he’s bringing over from France—it works on the Chunnel…the tunnel that goes under the English Channel. Man, this crane would take up an entire city block in New York. And he’s bringing it to Rhode Island.”

  “How’s he getting it here?” Tripp asked.

  Josh smiled. “One of his divisions is a shipping line. So, by freighter, then by barge. I mean, this barge will be so big—to hold the crane—you’ll think Block Island has somehow floated into the harbor. My father’s company can do anything.”

  “And what’s he going to do with the really big crane?” Mickey asked, thinking he sounded like a brat, bragging that his toys were bigger than anyone else’s.

  “He’s going to haul the U-boat up and out.”

  “Cool, man,” Tripp said, and Jenna smiled. Mickey felt hollow inside.

  “He’s going to televise the whole thing, and when he’s finished, he’s going to take the rusty old wreck to Cape Cod and turn it into a museum. There’s one like it in Chicago, and one in England—U-boats open to the public—but nothing here on the East Coast. He says it’ll be the biggest tourist attraction since the Intrepid, in New York City,” Josh said.

  “What’s the Intrepid?” Jenna asked.

  “A big fucking aircraft carrier where you charge admission and let corporations throw huge parties.”

  “He can’t disturb it,” Mickey whispered, feeling the others staring at her. “Not the U-boat.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” she began. Because it’s ours; because it’s here; because your father doesn’t understand why it matters so much. Those were Mickey’s thoughts, but she couldn’t say any of them out loud.

  “Who cares about it, anyway? This is America—it’s not as if the sub was one of ours,” Josh said. He had bright golden-brown eyes and short curly hair, a smile that curved up just at the outside corners; his look should have been cute, but Mickey saw a shadow of meanness, right behind his eyes and smile.

  “Yeah,” Tripp said. “Good riddance to it. Hey—let’s go down to the beach and have a send-off party. Our navy sank it, and now Josh’s dad is going to raise it. Party on the beach Saturday night?”

  “Definitely,” Josh said. “We have to get into shape for Washington—that trip will be one big party.”

  “I’m in,” Jenna said.

  “Me too,” Isabella said.

  They all looked at Mickey. She cradled her broken wrist and thought of the snowy owl. It was roosting right on the beach that fronted the sea where the U-boat had gone down. She closed her eyes, thinking of how the party would disturb the owl, hoping maybe the bird would have flown north by Saturday. If it hadn’t, she had to be there to protect it.

  “Mickey?” Josh asked, looking straight into her eyes.

  “Sure,” she said, holding her arms close so her friends wouldn’t see she was shaking. “I’ll be there.”

  Operation Drumbeat began after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when German U-boats were sent across the Atlantic to attack American ships. Admiral Karl Dönitz had been planning this assault for years, turning his sea wolves loose on the east coast. His U-boats were manned by expert, veteran crews, patrolling the eastern seaboard from Cape Hatteras to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. During the first two weeks alone, five U-boats sank twenty merchant ships, giving the United States a hint of the massacre Dönitz had planned.

  Tim O’Casey had volumes of history books and journals on the subject, and he sat at his desk reading one now, trying to figure out the best way to deal with what was going on. He knew that Cole Landry had U-823 in his entrepreneurial sights, with a plan that seemed a combination of Raise the Titanic! and “U-Boat Theme Park.” Landry had set up a foundation to raise money to fund the project, and his board was a who’s who of retired senators, current members of Congress, and U.S. naval officers.

  As ranger of the Salt Marsh Refuge, Tim’s duties included protecting all wildlife along the barrier beach. But he also held himself accountable for other aspects of the beach, including the reefs and rock formations, the salt marsh itself, the intertidal zone, and the several shipwrecks just offshore—U-823 first among them. He and Frank had dived on the U-boat countless times.

  He h
ad a pen and legal pad out, carefully making notes to aid in his presentation, and was so distracted, he didn’t even see the car pull into the parking lot. He heard footsteps on the porch and looked up—totally shocked to see Neve Halloran coming through the door.

  “Hello,” he said, pushing his chair back, standing up. She looked hesitant, mistrustful—but as beautiful as ever, with translucent skin and dusky blue eyes. She wore jeans and a thin navy parka over a sage green cashmere sweater, a camera case slung over her shoulder. He was fifty-five, and although she had to be about ten years younger, her bright eyes and enthusiastic spirit made her seem like a college kid.

  “Hi,” she said, glancing at the paperwork. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “You’re not, I promise,” he said. “It’s a relief to see you.”

  “A relief?” she asked.

  “Yes—I was drowning in textbooks,” he said, but that wasn’t what he’d meant. And as he stared at her now, he wanted to tell her that he knew he’d said the wrong thing again when he’d brought the book to Mickey; he wanted to explain everything to her. Yet he found himself unable to go into it—he was trapped in a memory of last night, gazing at her across the beach, both of them watching for the owl. Their eyes had locked and held, and in that moment, he’d felt something for her that went beyond explanations or apologies. “What brings you here?” he asked.

  “I closed the gallery for an hour,” she said, “to come down and try to get some pictures of the snowy owl—but it seems to have relocated.”

  “Really?” he said. “You looked by the log? Just beyond the jetty?”

  “Where we saw it last night,” she said, nodding. A few seconds passed, and in the silence, Tim sensed her remembering the moment as he was: twilight, soft red sky, silver stars just starting to emerge, the rugged old jetty, the owl taking flight. “I saw you there. But the owl’s gone now.”