The Coming of the Whirlpool

by Andrew McGahan

  Dow bowed his head, abashed.

  ‘We couldn’t allow that,’ Boiler went on, less harshly. ‘We had to distract their attention. We had to give them someone else to punish.’

  ‘But Nathaniel—’

  ‘Nathaniel was the only choice. Can’t you see that? He’s your guardian; who else could claim to be responsible for your insane actions? He understood the necessity, even though he knew what it would mean.’

  Dow could only stare shamefaced at the bloodied figure in the bow.

  ‘And tell me,’ came Boiler’s question, ‘after all this, what did you discover on that ship anyway? Did you find the magical device you sought? Did you learn the secret of roaming the wide ocean?’

  In his mortification, Dow could not refuse to answer. ‘No. I saw nothing and learned nothing. There was no magic.’

  The innkeeper was pitiless. ‘Of course there wasn’t. The Ship Kings are mortal men like us, not sorcerers, no matter what the drunkards in my inn might say. Whatever tool the Ship Kings use to navigate without stars or sun, it will be exactly that, a tool. A knowledge they keep to themselves. Not spells or visions.’

  Dow hung his head again, remembering the white disk and the needle. So plain, so ordinary in appearance – and yet, and yet . . .

  A thought struck him. ‘That girl,’ he said. ‘Who was she? Do you know? Why do they allow a girl on a ship such as that?’

  But Boiler was watching the sky again. ‘If you truly know so little of the Ship Kings and their ways, then you can pester someone else about it. Let me steer in peace before this wind turns us full over.’

  The wind had indeed risen and the boat was heeling hard. Dow had to steady himself against the gunnels. In the Rip, waters were streaming against the tide; and the clouds had lowered ever further – it was scarcely midday, but the light was failing as if night approached. To the north the Claw stretched dark and swollen, and to the south sheets of rain hung heavily over the sea.

  ‘Tis a southern storm, no mistake,’ muttered Boiler, as much to himself as to Dow. ‘I’ve never seen one come so late, with even summer long gone. And the blood of one of us has been spilled into the sea. An ill omen if ever there was one.’ He glanced blackly at Dow, and shook his head. ‘Folk will seek to draw connection, and there you’ll be. Preserve us all from the Great Ocean’s wrath, that’s all I can say. And from the actions of fools.’

  But the wind only strengthened, and blew on.

  They landed at Stromner beach, then Boiler and Dow carried Nathaniel to his shack and laid him face down upon his cot. Boiler’s wife, Ingrid, was fetched to tend Nathaniel’s back as best she could with salves and raw spirits – but by day’s end it was clear that infection festered in the wounds.

  Outside, as if in accord with the old man’s worsening condition, the southern storm began to rage in earnest. Rain poured down, and the wind built and built throughout the afternoon and into the evening until it was a naked gale. By midnight Nathaniel was tossing and turning in a high fever, and the hut was shuddering as gust after gust lashed torrents across the roof.

  All the while, Dow sat useless in a corner of the room. He knew nothing of medicines or of caring for the sick, and for all that Boiler or Ingrid acknowledged him, he may as well not have been there. But he couldn’t leave. This was his fault. Nathaniel’s wounds should have been his wounds and Nathaniel’s fever should have been his fever. If the only thing he could do was bear witness to the harm he had caused, then he would at least do that.

  But in the pre-dawn hours, as the storm piped and sobbed about the shack, a knock came at the door. It was Boiler’s daughter, Inga, wrapped in foul-weather gear and come to relieve her parents at Nathaniel’s side. Boiler and Ingrid departed into the drenched night, and Dow and Inga were left alone. Dow had always known that he was not much liked by the innkeeper’s daughter; now, as she sat erect by the bed with her narrow back to him, her hostility was outright. Even when Nathaniel began to thrash in delirium, and Dow rose to help hold him down, she only waved him off impatiently.

  ‘Go away,’ she said, using strips of old sheet to bind Nathaniel’s arms and legs to the bed frame. ‘You’re of no use here.’

  Dow retreated, hearing the fullness of her accusation, even though she did not speak it. You have maimed this old man, and imperilled all our lives. You should never have come to Stromner, Dow Amber.

  He fled the room and withdrew to his own, huddled there upon the cold mattress as the wind moaned through cracks in the walls, and water dripped from the ceiling. It was his second night without sleep, and yet sleep would not come. He stared into the darkness, dismay growing in his heart. It was only as the grey dawn came, promising a black day, that oblivion finally claimed him.

  He woke in the late afternoon to find that little had changed. The gale still beat against the shack’s walls, rain still hammered on the roof, and in the main room Nathaniel still rolled and writhed in his fever, hands and feet tied. The only difference was that Inga had been replaced by her mother. For a time Dow sat with Ingrid, staring at the livid red flesh of Nathaniel’s back and smelling the stink of infection, until finally the innkeeper’s wife too sent him away.

  ‘When did you last eat?’ she demanded. ‘Go on, get over to the inn for a hot meal. Starving yourself won’t help anyone.’

  Dow was indeed famished, but reluctance had so far overcome his hunger – reluctance to face the Stromner folk. Inga would not be the only one who had passed judgement on him. But her mother was right. He had to eat. Dow rose, threw on his coat, and went out into the early night.

  The wind clawed at him immediately. It was even worse than it sounded from inside. He trudged off through the mud, hunched low to keep out the rain. All about him the south gale whipped the village like a flail, battening flat every unsheltered thing: trees, grass, and soon perhaps the very buildings.

  Dow’s forebodings deepened. He had seen no lack of bad weather since arriving in Stromner, but this storm seemed altogether more malevolent. Even after blowing for an entire night and day it still felt only newborn, with greater wrath and violence yet to come. And this was on the lee side of the peninsula. What must it be like on the ocean side? There the wind would be driving a furious sea hard onto the beach, the waves piling high upon each other in flood.

  Ah – and there lay the true difference between this storm and all others. Had not Boiler explained it to Dow long ago? The southern gale would be forcing the sea to surge north through the Heads, the waters swelling in the bay, and as long as the gale continued to blow then those waters would be trapped there, unable to escape, the Claw rising higher and higher, until . . .

  But no, Dow would not think of that yet.

  He came to the inn and went through the first door. The vestibule floor was littered with wet boots; most of the villagers must be gathered in the bar, by the look, and they had probably been there most of the day, for there could be no fishing in such weather. Dow removed his own boots and sodden coat and shook the rain from his hair, listening at the second door. The talk within would be of the storm, no doubt, but also of the previous night’s events at Stone Port, and of the wrong done to Nathaniel by the boy from the highlands.

  Dow gathered himself and went in. The bar was indeed full, but a heavy silence fell at his entrance, and the stares that turned his way were cold. The folk of Stromner had never hailed him as their friend perhaps, but they had always been civil; now Dow read a sullen anger in their eyes. You have endangered us. And yet strangely, now that he confronted it, he found that he almost welcomed the scourge of their animosity – it was, after all, no less than his actions deserved. He moved slowly through the crowd, enduring the low mutters that came from some, and from others the abruptly turned away faces.

  At the counter Boiler was waiting, and this was harder, for the innkeeper glared at him with a disappointment that cut Dow deeper than any anger. Even so, he forced himself to stand straight and order a meal. Then he withdrew to an empty table,
to sit with his back to most of the room. He had not ordered any beer.

  For a while the silence held, and he could feel the many eyes upon him, and hear the unspoken accusations. But eventually people returned to their conversations and their drinking. At some later point, Dow supposed, there would be a formal punishment imposed upon him for his crimes, but for the moment it seemed that the village was content to merely shun him.

  Inga brought his meal and slammed it down without comment. He ate quickly, as the wind beat endlessly outside, rattling against the windows.

  ‘Dow Amber. Dow Amber, I say.’

  Dow looked up from his plate. Mother Gale was beckoning to him from her corner, her crow’s voice cutting stridently across the crowd.

  A new silence fell, and for an instant Dow could only stare at her in trepidation. She was bent forward, her face down and her terrible eyes hidden behind her curtain of long hair. One hand rested on her cane – but the other was held out, a single finger curled to summon him.

  ‘Come along, boy, I know you’re finished with your food. Come and sit with Mother Gale – I’ll talk with you, even if these other fools won’t. There’s words we must have, now, while there’s still time.’

  It was the last thing Dow wanted to do, but in the expectant silence he didn’t see how he could refuse. He rose slowly and went to her, and as soon as he was within reach, the old woman threw out an unerring hand and clutched his wrist, pulling him down onto the bench on which she sat, close to her side.

  She rapped her cane on the floor. ‘The rest of you – go back about your own business! I’ll say naught to the lad with you lot listening.’

  She had raised her head to glare sightlessly around the room, and no one could return her stare for long. One by one all the men and women in the bar looked away, and began to murmur among themselves. Only then did Mother Gale turn her white gaze upon Dow.

  He had never been this near to her before. The orbs of her eyes were in fact a milky grey, swirled through with red veins, and quite without pupils. That she was truly blind there could be no doubt, but that didn’t reduce the fierce acuity of her gaze, or lessen the strength of her hand as she clutched at Dow still.

  ‘Tell me now,’ she said in a whisper, leaning forward so that her mouth was close to his ear, ‘what did you see upon the Ship Kings vessel?’

  Dow pulled back as far as he could without wrenching his arm free. ‘Nothing. I saw nothing. I should never have gone.’

  ‘Bah!’ spat Mother Gale. ‘I don’t care that you were caught, or that Nathaniel’s back now bleeds because of you. Only tell me this. Did you truly lay eyes upon the compass, before they found you out?’

  Dow stared in surprise. So she knew the word compass? ‘I saw it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know what it is I saw.’

  ‘Describe it to me!’

  Dow glanced about. The others in the bar had not forgotten them – many faces still glanced darkly their way – but for the moment at least it did not seem that his words would be overheard. He said, ‘It was a white disk with markings around its edge and an iron needle in the centre.’

  The old woman nodded gleefully. ‘Yes, yes, my dead father spoke true, all those years ago. I have repeated to no one until now the full tale that he told me, for it sounded like madness. But he said that there exists a needle that turns about of its own doing, and points always to the north, no matter whether it be day or night, fair or foul. It is indeed the secret of navigation – and you’re the first New Islander to know of it in generations. It’s a sign, I’m sure of it.’

  The old woman’s approval only repulsed Dow. He had learnt no secret – if the needle could turn, he had not seen it do so. But it occurred to him now that Mother Gale might know the answer to a different question.

  ‘There was a girl,’ Dow said, his voice low, ‘on the ship. A girl with a scarred face. The captain asked her for advice . . .’

  Mother Gale had been lost in her own contemplation, now her head snapped up. ‘What? A girl you say?’

  ‘She was no older than me, and yet—’

  The old woman’s hand tightened on Dow’s wrist. ‘Ah. She caught your eye, this girl? Don’t deny it, I hear it in your voice. Well, if you’re drawn to her, then it’s meant to be, but the end is beyond my sight.’

  Dow shook his head, confused. ‘But who is she?’

  Mother Gale glared anew at his stupidity. ‘Her name, of course, I do not know. But she is clearly the ship’s scapegoat.’

  ‘Scapegoat?’

  ‘Aye – but I see that you are ignorant of the custom. Listen then. The Ship Kings, for all their pride and mastery, are a superstitious folk. To guard their ships against mishap, they seek out those of their own people who have been maimed in some accident or other, or perhaps disfigured by disease. Boy or girl, man or woman, it doesn’t matter. They then carry these unfortunates on their vessels as totems of good luck, believing that the presence of one already afflicted by ill luck will protect the ship from ever being afflicted likewise. Scapegoats they call them, and they are highly valued by their crews. Often they are even included in the captain’s councils, for it is also believed that they have been made wise by their misfortunes. This girl you speak of can only be but such a one.’

  Dow nodded, the girl’s scored and scarred face vivid in his memory. A scapegoat, yes, that must be it. And what was more, he knew one thing Mother Gale did not know. Nell. Her name was Nell.

  But the old woman was not done. ‘Strange that you should ask me of scapegoats. Does it not seem to you, Dow Amber, that you have been appointed to a somewhat similar role, here in Stromner?’

  Dow frowned at her. A similar role? How?

  ‘Think upon it,’ Mother Gale urged. ‘Ten years ago the men of this village called a curse down upon their heads, and have sought in vain ever since to lift it. Now they have turned to an outsider – one who bore none of the original blame – and they hope that by their clever designs he will pay the cost for them. They have made you their scapegoat, Dow Amber. Does that seem fair to you? It did not seem fair to me, and so I argued against your coming. I was overruled. But I knew that the men of this village, in summoning you, were invoking a greater fate than they realised, and would one day have to answer for it. Now that time has come.’

  Her voice had risen, and these last words were spoken defiantly to the room at large, for the old woman had turned away from Dow to face her fellow villagers. Once again a silence dropped over the bar, strained and apprehensive, as all waited for Mother Gale to continue. She rapped her cane once more.

  ‘Mark them, Dow Amber. Mark these fearful folk. They are angry with you. They think it was a mistake to ever have brought you to this village, and that you should now be sent home. Indeed, it’s what they intend to do as soon as the weather clears; I’ve heard them whispering about it all day. But the fools don’t realise; they are no longer the masters of these events. It’s too late to send you away. The south storm is here – it began the moment Nathaniel’s blood was spilled into the sea. And with it will come that which all of them fear the most.’

  Dow saw doubt and unease shifting across the faces around the room, and felt a matching uncertainty curl in his own chest. It was nonsense surely, all the old woman’s talk of scapegoats and fate. And yet, Dow remembered the sight of Nathaniel’s blood trickling down the side of the Chloe into the waters of the Claw. He could not deny that the southern gale had begun to blow soon after that. And with that gale would come, whirling in the Rip—

  ‘The maelstrom,’ Mother Gale intoned. ‘You all know it, though none dare say it. Ten years it has been, and more now, since last a storm blew like this and raised the whirlpool between the Heads. No doubt you all hoped never to see it again in your lifetimes, but you will, and at your own doing. For when the maelstrom stole Nathaniel’s blood kin away from him, a bond was forged between he and the whirlpool – now it will come in answer to Nathaniel’s blood being spilled in turn. And how did that blood get spil
led? Why, because of the very boy you hoped would lift the maelstrom’s curse. So you have brought your own doom upon yourselves. I feel it in my bones; if the boy had not come, this storm would not have risen, and the maelstrom would have slept on for another age.’

  Dow felt a hot dread encompass him. The maelstrom; the word he had not been able to utter, even to himself. And the old woman had laid the responsibility for its advent at his feet. He glanced up but saw only stricken faces staring back at him, doubting, wondering, believing, it seemed, the worst . . .

  ‘Steady there now, Mother Gale.’ It was Boiler, clearing his throat as if even he was struggling to wake himself from the old woman’s spell. ‘The south storm blows, it is true, as it did ten years before now, but so far it has blown for but a day, and who knows when it might cease. The last storm blew for three nights before failing, and only then did the great whirlpool rise.’

  Momentary relief flickered on faces about the room, but Mother Gale only shook her head balefully. ‘Aye, Boiler, it has blown for but a day – but it blows far harder than that last storm, and it will blow for longer too. It will be the worst of all such storms; our own actions have summoned it out of its proper time, and so it will rage with double the fury it otherwise might have. And when in the end it fails, the maelstrom that rises will be terrible indeed.’

  Boiler grimaced, but made no answer, and the dread sank into Dow again. Was it true? Were they all of them caught in a chain of cause and effect that could not now be broken, a riddle with no unravelling?

  A plea came from somewhere in the room, a woman’s voice crying, ‘What should we do, Mother Gale?’

  ‘Do?’ The old woman tilted her head back and her iron-grey hair fell in lines across her eyes. ‘There’s nothing you can do, Mary Strand. There’s nothing I can do either. There’s nothing any of us can do – except Dow here. We relinquished our fates to him on the day he arrived, now we must stand by. Whatever doom the storm brings, it is he – and Nathaniel – who will meet it.’