by Luanne Rice
“Well, it makes me excited to see ‘the beasts,’ ” Billy said.
I blushed, because he couldn’t possibly feel what I did: that even though the words didn’t rhyme, Laurent had found a way to write poetry. His prose was nothing but.
The book was full of old hand-drawn maps; I spotted the tiny, almost invisible pencil dot and pointed at it.
“My mother made that,” I said. “When I was about six, sitting in her office.”
“Why did she mark that spot?” he asked.
“She was using the book to plan a future expedition with other whale researchers, and she showed me the best place to find and listen to beluga and humpback whales.” I could see her now—barely touching the page with the delicate, retractable, engraved gold Cross pencil my father had given her when she’d completed her master’s degree.
“You’re not supposed to mark up books,” Billy said.
“I know,” I said. “But she did it so lightly. She said it was our secret, no one else would see it.” She’d said it was for Whale Mavens only, showing me the spot she and I would go one day.
“See,” I said to Billy, tracing the map with my finger. “She’s all the way up here on the eastern edge of the Saguenay Fjord, this little section.”
“There’s no town,” Billy said.
“That’s true. You have to hike to it; there are no roads, no way for a car to get in.”
Laurent had written: The fjord is a sixty-mile scar in the earth, gouged by glaciers advancing downstream, leaving striations in the rock, during the Ice Age. The cliffs soar five hundred feet above the water, high and sheer, grooved by glacial movement as if by claws of a giant, and travelled by few Europeans, intrepid souls, trappers who brave the sheer trails down to the water’s edge.
“We’ll have to get to one of those paths by boat,” I said.
“What boat?” Billy asked.
“We’ll figure that out.” I grinned. “Like we’ve figured everything out on the trip so far.”
“Will there be snacks on the boat?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
“Cool, then,” he said. Our stomachs were growling, and the smell of hot dogs and popcorn wafted out of the ferry’s cabin. We just didn’t have the funds for delicious seagoing junk food, so to keep from caving in from starvation we kept scanning the book.
These pages about the rock formations, the sunrise and sunset light reflected off the cliffs, the wild blueberries, and the incredible numbers of whales showing up to feed used to make me love Laurent even more. But now they only made me tingle for Billy, the idea that I’d be seeing all this for the first time with him, that this was our magical expedition. Our arms touched as we hunched over the book, and I totally forgot to be hungry.
The ferry chugged along. The last mist fizzled in the sun, the breaking light turning the river blue instead of gray, and the contours of the far shore came into view. I felt so happy, so excited to be within sight of that land. Glancing at Billy, expecting him to be taking in the nature around us, I felt startled to see him watching me.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head, as if not sure what to say, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.
“You’re staring,” I said.
“Yep.”
“Why?” I asked, my cheeks feeling flushed.
“This is good,” he said.
“That we’re on the boat?” I asked.
“All of it,” he said, still watching me as if, somehow, there was more to see in my eyes than in the scenery.
“All,” I said, his words, and the way he’d said them, shimmering in my mind.
He nodded, slouched down in his seat with his arms folded across his chest, and kept looking at me. I finally turned my head, because it was too much for me to handle. If he could have seen my face he’d have known I was smiling.
We got to the other side with my skin electric from Billy’s strange gaze, from him saying “all of it,” as if that included me. We didn’t spot any whales—maybe because I was too wrapped up in Billy to watch for them.
The ferry docked, bumping back and forth between the pilings, and the vehicles began to drive off. The lobster truck rattled over the ferry’s metal ramp, and the driver waited for us at the far end of the parking lot. I hesitated, dragging my feet as we walked over. What would my father say, knowing that I was even considering getting into a truck with a stranger? My mother was dauntless, but he was a professional worrier.
“My dad would kill me for this,” I told Billy. “He’d think we were about to be kidnapped. Disappeared forever.”
“We could change our minds, not do this,” Billy said.
I hesitated. My dad’s warnings buzzed in my head. Being so depressed, I’d been protected—and I’d stayed small in my life. I’d kept myself, or allowed others to keep me, from spreading my wings, taking risks, courting surprise. Now I thought of how I wanted to be, jumping into life with all I had, and I knew what I had to do.
“No,” I said. “We’ve got to.”
I swallowed hard as we approached the lobster truck. The driver leaned across the seat to open the door for us.
“Sorry, the latch sticks,” he said with a French accent as we climbed into the cab. He wore dark glasses with white frames, his skin was red-brown, and he had a friendly smile with a gap between his front teeth just like mine. But was the smile fake, just to lure us in?
“No problem,” Billy said. He slid in before me, and I knew he’d done that to keep himself between the driver and me, just in case.
“I’m George,” the driver said.
“Billy and Maia,” Billy said.
“You’re not from around here?”
“The States.”
“The States are a big place.”
“Connecticut,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s where I went lobster fishing with my grandfather,” Billy said.
“Ah, good! My grand-père taught me the lobster business,” George said. “How’s the catch down there?”
“Kind of bad in recent years,” Billy said.
“Well, we switched to snow crabs a few years back,” George said. “More demand, better fishery.”
“But there are lobsters on your truck,” I said.
George laughed. “My aunt painted them on the panels a long time ago. We didn’t want to hurt her feelings by redoing them.”
That made me like him, and I felt a little more secure.
“So are you loaded up with snow crabs?” Billy asked.
“Nope,” George said. “I just made a delivery to the other side. I’m going home empty to fill up again. That’s how it works, back and forth.”
“So, if the truck is empty …” Billy began. “Where are we going? And what kind of work will we do?”
“Depends on what stage of the operation you’re most needed,” George said. “It could be you’ll be picking the crabs out of the bins, putting ’em on the conveyor. Or we might ask you to remove the meat from the shells. You’ll help us process the crabs, get ’em ready for market. One thing for sure, we work hard and move fast. Are you ready for that?”
“Definitely,” Billy said.
“Where’s the plant?” I asked.
“Past Tadoussac,” he said, and just hearing the name gave me the best jolt—it was where my mother got her mail, the town closest to her cabin on the cliff.
Driving east, I felt my excitement building. I felt Mom’s presence so strongly, it was almost as if she were in the truck with us. George had the radio on, tuned to a Quebec pop station. All the music was in French, and even that seemed enchanting. I mentally translated as many lyrics as I could. This was learning in action, better than any French class could be.
The truck boarded another ferry, but not just ANY ferry: this one across the Saguenay! The voyage was short, just ten minutes, but looking left I saw all the way up the amazing, fantastic, magnificent fjord—the land of Laurent Cartier! I was here. I could barely hold myse
lf together.
The cliffs rose on either side, disappearing into a point on the northern horizon—the fjord extended that far, way beyond what I could see. In the bright sunshine I could almost imagine seeing mirror-sharp light glinting on windows atop the western cliff—could that be my mother’s cabin?
“This is it,” I said to Billy.
“The fjord?” he asked. “The one?”
“Yes, we’re so close!” I had a brainstorm. “What if we just paid George the money we have left, get out at the dock, and find her?”
“Yeah, we could,” Billy said.
“Wait, what’s that you’re saying?” George asked.
“Well, Maia’s mother lives here. We’d like to pay you for the ride and get out.”
George was silent. He didn’t exactly frown, but he looked troubled.
“Hmm,” he said. “Shoot.”
“Why, what’s wrong?” Billy asked.
“I called my brother after you and I talked in Rivière-du-Loup,” he said. “We’re shorthanded at the plant this time of year. The crab season is just starting up again, and many of our workers are out fishing. We were kind of counting on you helping. We pay real good.”
Billy shook his head. “Sorry, but this is really important to Maia.”
“Okay,” George said, shrugging.
The small ferry pulled closer to Tadoussac. There were docks, whale-watching boats, churches, and an enormous white hotel with a bright red roof. I would know it anywhere. Over the years I had scoured websites and pored through guidebooks, history books, photo books of this area. The Hotel Tadoussac was always featured.
“Hey,” Billy said to me. “How are we going to get in touch with your mom?”
“We’ll call,” I began. But she didn’t have a phone. “We’ll make our way up the fjord. We’ll use Laurent’s book and know the spot when we see it.”
“That’s pretty much wilderness,” George said. “You got a boat?”
“No, but we’ll find someone to give us a ride.”
Both George and Billy were silent, and as my words hung in the air I heard how unlikely that was. We didn’t know anyone here. After paying George, we’d be flat broke. I could hang around the post office waiting for Mom to pick up her mail, but how long would that take?
“Email!” I said. “I can email her from the library.”
“Why don’t you just call or email her from your mobiles?” George asked.
Billy and I exchanged a look. We weren’t about to tell George about the evasive measures that had led to us tossing our phones.
“It’s complicated on her end,” I said. “Besides, uh, Billy and I both lost our cell phones.” Billy raised his eyebrows, as if that was the lamest thing I could have said, which it was.
“You can use mine,” George said, handing me his smartphone.
“You sure?” I asked.
“For you to contact your mother? Of course.”
I hesitated, but then I took it eagerly.
The ferry eased into the slip, sloshing between the big wooden pilings at the Tadoussac dock. Holding George’s phone, I went online and signed into my email account.
During that one moment at the Eliza Hewitt Memorial Library in Maine, I had memorized my mother’s email address: [email protected]. I typed it in, then wrote my message:
MOM! I am here! On the ferry pulling into Tadoussac. Could you email me back, like immediately? It’s a slight emergency. I’ll explain as soon as you write me.
The most love there is,
Maia
I sent it.
Less than a second later the email bounced back with a message:
Undeliverable/Recipient not recognized
“No,” I said out loud.
Billy leaned over to see the screen.
Had I gotten her address wrong? I scrolled back through my received mail till I found hers. My thumbs flew over the keyboard, retyping my message in the reply window, then hitting SEND.
Undeliverable/Recipient not recognized
I can’t lie; I wanted to die. Had Mom changed her email address, deleted her account, knowing I had run away and had no other way to contact her?
George was gunning the engine, impatient to leave, but I had to check one more thing. I looked more slowly through my unread mail and yes—my heart raced to see that there was one more message from her. I opened it and read:
Dearest Maia,
Your dad has emailed me again (and again and again) and so has the lovely Astrid. The emails are quite blaming, and hurtful. Maybe they don’t mean it that way—they are worried about you. But they don’t know you the way I do. They don’t understand how resourceful you are, and how independent. I am shutting this email down for now. Hearing from them serves no point.
You still have my address—the real address. Write me a letter as soon as you get this and let me know how and where you are. Clearly you are on a quest. Don’t forget to rely on those instincts.
Mom
I sighed with relief, still shaking: Yes, letters were how she and I stayed in touch. That hadn’t changed, and she wasn’t hiding from me. I handed the phone back to George and started to open the truck door.
“Maia.” Billy grabbed my wrist, talking quietly. “I read what she wrote.”
“She knows I’m on a quest,” I said. “She must know that means I’m on my way to her.”
“Okay,” Billy said, sounding dubious.
“And we’re here,” I said. “We’ve arrived.”
“But not quite,” he said. “We still have to get up the fjord, and George is right—we don’t have a boat or the money to charter one.”
“You could still work for us,” George said, eavesdropping. “Just a day or two, and you’ll make enough for what you need. I told you, we pay good.”
My heart cracked. We were so close. I knew if we got out of the truck we could walk into town and find the post office. We could hang out there until she came.
But when would she check her mail? How long would Billy and I have to wait?
“Let’s go to work, Maia,” Billy said. “Earn enough to charter the boat. Then we’ll come back.”
“I’ll deliver you here myself,” George said. “I make this trip three times a week.”
Shutting that truck door and watching Tadoussac slip by as we drove past the town might have been the hardest thing I’d ever done. Tears stung my eyes as I stared over my shoulder, watching the cliffs of Saguenay disappear as we picked up speed, heading east.
George had said the plant was east of Tadoussac, but after the second hour of driving, when distance between villages began to seem endless, I got nervous again. How far east? We didn’t know him at all. He could be taking us anywhere—in fact, that’s just what he was doing.
He kept making and receiving calls on his phone, but he spoke French so fast I could barely pick up any words. Sometimes he laughed sometimes he sounded impatient once he sounded tender, as if he was talking to his wife or a child. I held on to that and told myself he had a family, he wouldn’t be the type to hurt us. But my good old reliable stomach began to ache, as if it knew something I didn’t.
Billy shifted in his seat. He was in the middle, with the hump under his feet, and his legs were on my side of the truck. I tried to keep mine as close to the door as possible, but then I’d have to change position, too, and after a while our feet got tangled. He didn’t try to separate them.
I stared at his feet. He wore black high-top Chucks, the white toe scuffed and no longer white. I was wearing my favorite old topsiders, pretty decrepit at this point. My feet looked small next to his. We were entwined at the ankles. I tried to pull one foot away, thinking he’d like more space, but he trapped it between his, foot wrestling instead of arm wrestling. It became a game, our way of amusing ourselves to the point where we started laughing and couldn’t stop.
Our shoulders were bumping, too. He leaned against me, and I pressed into him. I glanced over, saw his green eyes fl
ashing, his wide mouth in a devilish smile. He started up our foot-wrestling match again just as George turned on the blinker and rumbled off the main route. We passed a sign:
MITSHISHU
INNU FIRST NATIONS RESERVE
“Mitshishu …” Billy said out loud.
“It means ‘eagle,’ ” George said. “And our people are Innu. That word means ‘human being.’ Nature gives us our lives. It is our religion.”
The truck bounced down a narrow road and we wound up in the most beautiful parking lot I’ve ever seen. It was right at the edge of a wide blue bay. Five small fishing boats lined the dock, and a rock island rose out of the water in the distance. Seagulls were madly swooping and calling, and I saw why: The boats were unloading huge blue tubs of gigantic, long-legged crabs scrambling to get out.
Beside the dock was a big rectangular building. The sign, painted with the same dancing lobsters as on the truck, said CLAUDE ET FILS PÊCHERIE. A crowd of workers wearing blue paper gowns and caps came out to line up and cheer the catch. The fishermen bowed and pumped their fists into the air.
“This was a very good day,” George said. “There will be a lot of work, so I’m very glad you’re here.”
He led us into the freezing-cold plant, gave us the same blue paper outfits to wear, along with blue paper slippers to go over our shoes and plastic gloves. The paper rustled when we moved.
It felt as if we were in the middle of nowhere, but the equipment was so high-tech and the crabs so huge we could have been in a futuristic movie about crustaceans taking over the earth. Giant stainless-steel conveyor belts curved through the space, which echoed with the noise of engines, compressors, and plastic bins being shifted, with crabs clicking their long claws.
“We are the best, cleanest, most pristine fish-processing plant in Canada,” George said proudly. “Everyone who works here is family. Most of us are actually related, but the ones who aren’t are family anyway.”
