“Friends. I understand your sentiments. But you must trust me when I tell you: That would only be playing into their hands. They’d like nothing better than to arrest every last one of us. Silence our voices. Drop us into a hole where our truth can never be heard by another human being. But they can only do that if we break their law. Oh, they’d like us to try. They want us to step out of line. Because only then can they slap us back down. I beg of you: Don’t give them that chance.”
Moving slowly amongst the people, Mrs. Rutherford has cannily ended up at her car. Her driver starts the engine as she reaches the back door. She turns as she opens it. Facing the crowd. Looking past them to the protesters as well.
“That includes you, demonstrators. Your actions thus far have been not only brave and morally right, but also lawful. Now you must concede the day, knowing you’ve made both a stand and a statement that will have a great and lasting impact. You may not have stopped it, but you have paused a mighty beast in its tracks. And that is no mean feat for a small band of revolutionaries. Be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Just as we...” She gestures broadly. Gathers the assembled mass into her tribe. “...are all so very proud of you.”
With scattered applause, Mrs. Rutherford drops into the car. Closes the door. It starts forward almost immediately. Separating the crowd on its way out of the construction site.
Yes, Ren has to hand it to her: She’s evil. But she’s good.
~
The last protester is shaking. Sweating. Her hands are tight fists. Knocking against her kneecaps every few seconds.
Netty watches the jittery girl closely as she clips away her padlock. Unwashed. Underfed. Strung-out. Most of the protesters seem to be straight-up citizens. How’d they connect with someone who’s so clearly fallen through the cracks?
“You all right? Miss?”
The girl looks up. No girl. A lot older than Netty had guessed based on height and weight. Face lined. Carved out by time. Eyes darting in all directions. Wet with tears.
“Miss?”
“I don’t wanna-- I don’t wanna be here.” Her voice is dried grass and needles.
The next-closest protester jerks his head towards the woman. Hisses. Actually hisses at her.
Startled, she quickly bows her head once more.
Netty moves between her and the reptilian man. Crouches. Blocking him from the woman’s sightline. “Are you... Miss? Are you being forced to take part in this demonstration?”
She shakes her head. Stares down at her candle.
“Are you here against your will?”
“I...”
“Don’t you fuck this up for the rest of us, Ella!” The reptile speaks.
“Ignore him. If you need my help, you just have to ask. I can take you out of here, personally. Make sure you get someplace safe.”
The woman is still for a long moment. Then - almost imperceptibly - nods.
Netty rises. Places a steadying hand on the woman’s shoulder. Addresses the protesters as a unit: “All right, ladies and gentlemen. Your occupation of the Cumberland Channel Bridge has concluded. You are now, by court order, enjoined to remove yourselves from this construction site in an orderly fashion. If you wish to continue your protest, you are free to do so. Outside the fence. Provided you do nothing to restrict the flow of traffic on and off the property.”
She turns to face the assembled lookie-loos. “That applies to you guys, too. Anyone without an actual job on the site or some lawful reason to be here must leave.”
Some of the crowd begins to filter away. Maybe half.
The protesters, on the other hand, show no intention of leaving. Really, they don’t make any move at all. Remaining seated. Staring into their respective candles.
Ren approaches. “You may want to call for backup.”
“If you’d seen my backup, you might think otherwise.” She steps around him. The woman at her feet reaches up. Clutches Netty’s hand with both of hers, rather than lose contact. Netty lets her. “You have until five tomorrow morning. Should you not remove yourselves by this deadline, you will be taken into custody, and--”
“No need for threats, Sheriff.” Denis stands. His chains hang heavy. Jingling against the ground. “We’ll leave right now.”
Netty feels the woman’s quivering grip tighten on her arm. Glances down. Sees her rocking. Shaking her head. Frowning, Netty looks back at Denis. “Great. So... Get going.”
“Oh, we will.” He points to Ren. “Once I’ve spoken to him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Mr. Hunter lifts the ladder. Holds it to the wall of the hole. The spray-painted red band near its top rung is flush with ground level. The ladder doesn’t lie. Once again, they have dug eight feet deep. Once again, they have done so for nothing.
The third hole today. Eight in total. He can feel every last one of them in the small of his back. He groans. Stretches. Looks heavenward. Above, night has fallen hard. Nothing but blackness beyond the frame of PVC pipes. The work lights clamped to it stealing away any night vision he may have had otherwise.
His wife hasn’t noticed yet. Still at work. Shovelling dirt into a nearly full garbage can. She must be tired. At least as achy-sore as he is. But her movements don’t flag. A well-oiled automaton showing no signs of winding down. She’d go all night if nobody stopped her. But somebody has to. Unfortunately, that somebody is him.
Mr. Hunter waits for the shovel’s downward trajectory. Places a hand on her shoulder. She stops. Slumps. Knows what he’s telling her. Has known for a while. Just didn’t want to accept it.
Without looking back at him, she points the shovel up. Towards the ladder. Out of the hole. When he doesn’t budge, she stomps her foot. Points harder.
Oh! He moves his ass. Climbs the ladder. Pulls it out behind himself.
For a moment, she’s calm. Her ribs fill and deflate. Fill. Deflate. Nothing more.
Then... The little woman explodes.
She whirls around in circles. Slashes at the walls with the shovel’s edge. Kicks over the garbage can. Knocks it into the corner with the shovel. Runs. Jumps onto its side. Keeps jumping until the heavy-duty bear-proof rubber cracks. Then, she lifts the cracked shell. Hurls it into the air. Out of the hole. Her husband has to dodge to avoid its sharp broken points. No one to blame but himself: He really should’ve gotten that out of there.
Finally, she swings the shovel up. Over her head. Stretching her body as tall as it can possibly go. Whipping the shovel in a circle above her. Then - battle-axe style - she brings the thing down in the centre of the hole with every ounce of force she can muster. It embeds four inches into the dirt. Only stopping when it hits something solid with a resonating--
CLANG!
Surprised, she releases the handle. It shudders in place. Stays upright. Mrs. Hunter covers her mouth. Backs up a step. Unwilling to believe.
She looks up at her husband. He nods at her. He heard it too. He slides the ladder back into the hole. Leaps past most of its rungs to join her.
He presses his palm against her back. She pulls away. Shakes her head. She can’t do it. So he steps forward. Grabs the shovel. Pulls it free with a grinding shriek. Metal against stone.
Carefully, he digs. Step-pressing the shovel into the earth only until it meets resistance. Lifting the dirt away. Dumping it to one side. He works away from the little woman’s strike-point. Moving outwards until he finds edges. Until the whole thing has been roughly uncovered. A stone tablet. Three feet long. Four feet wide.
His wife drops to her knees next to him. Starts brushing the remaining earth away. Digging dirt from the tablet cracks and crevices with her fingernails. Revealing strange runic characters. Four lines written in an ancient language. Bisected: A crack runs down the centre - where the shovel struck. A few symbols straddle the break, but seem legible enough.
Mrs. Hunter runs her finger along the broken edge. Pauses in the middle. Where the most damage is.
She sits back on her knees. Gazes
at her man. Eyes lit from within with a burning fire. She smiles. It’s unnerving. Predatory. He doesn’t mind. He’s seen this look before. Knows what it means.
She reaches a hand towards him. He takes it.
She rolls back. Into the dirt. Pulls him forward. On top of her. Wrestling him out of his clothes and vice versa.
It’s daylight before they climb out of the hole.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Dawn makes a face. Deadly serious. Snaps a selfie.
She pulls the picture into a photo editor. Next to one she took earlier: The stern woman. Framed on Grampy’s wall. She superimposes herself. Plays with the sizing. The transparency. Makes herself a ghost. Fading in and out of existence.
Nothing syncs up.
Different eyes. Different cheekbones. Different mouth.
Even the similarly long necks... On direct comparison, Dawn’s turns out to be much thinner. So... So much for that.
She shuts down her tablet. Sets it on the bedside table. Disappointed more deeply than anticipated. Doesn’t know why it’s so important to her: To look like somebody. The instant visual connection.
But it is.
Dawn bears a passing resemblance to her mother. Eyes. Face-shape. Hair-type. Not enough for people to point it out, but there are identifiable commonalities.
Self-conscious and introverted, her grandmother refused to be photographed. Died before Dawn’s interest in family connections developed. Her image is clouded in Dawn’s mind by wrinkles and old age. Impossible to erase those elements for a proper comparison.
In all the research into her mother’s family, she’s never been able to point to any one photo and say conclusively: “There. That is where I got my...” Ears. Eyebrows. Lips. Or anything else, for that matter.
Her father has always joked Dawn is better off not looking like him in the slightest. Never realizing how much she wanted exactly that.
She’d hoped that in discovering his side of the family she would fill in these missing physical linkages. That relatives would meet her and immediately call her the spitting image of some long-dead great aunt. Or didn’t she look almost exactly like her second cousin at that age?
No such luck. Whatever collection of genetic blendings had produced her, apparently hard work had been done at a sub-atomic level to eradicate direct similarities to any single source.
And speaking of source material... A personalized tone announces the arrival of a text from her father: Sorry Dawnie. More bridge complications. Don’t wait up.
Sighing, Dawn rolls off the bed. Slides into slippers. Trudges out of the bedroom. Might as well get ready to turn in. Close the place down for the night.
In the main room, she shuts off two lamps. In the kitchenette, clicks off the light over the stove. The porch light, she leaves on for her father to find his way home, but she locks the front--
On the porch: A pair of visitors. Senior citizens Dawn met on arrival at the Talbot Inn. Each sits in an Adirondack chair to either side of the door. Neither moves. Night bugs come and go. Alighting on the pair without being waved away. Moving on only at their leisure.
On their last meeting, they’d helped aim her towards the lighthouse where she’d met her cousin, Aaron. Well... They directed her to another lighthouse entirely, but her mistaken assumption had led her to Aaron’s lighthouse. And - as he died the same night - she would never have had the chance to meet him without their direction.
She owes them a debt of gratitude for that, if nothing else. If they need something, or have just come to chat, she’s more than happy to oblige.
~
The Waxes.
That’s how Dawn’s come to think of them: Bikini and her loving husband Moustache. Dawn almost doesn’t want to know their actual names anymore. Wants to preserve the mystery. Prefers to think of them by their nicknames.
“Hey guys! Long time, no see.” She closes the front door. Waits to see if either will respond while she’s watching. After a silent moment where everyone on the porch seems frozen in place, Dawn passes between their chairs. Plants herself on the top step. Facing away from the old couple.
As soon as she settles, Bikini speaks: “We’re never very far, dear.”
Moustache agrees. “Nowhere on the island is ever very far.”
“I’m starting to see that.” Dawn laughs. “But I’m glad you’re here now. I really needed to say thank you.”
“You owe us nothing.”
She turns to address them. “Are you kidding? Without you, I’d’ve just gone to the library that day. I would never have met Aaron before he...” The full weight of it hits her again. Her cousin. Entering and exiting her life in a blink. “You gave him to me.”
She looks from the man to the woman. Their features unreadable. Black sunglasses impenetrable. Then realizes she’s holding them captive. They won’t respond while she’s looking at them. Never have. “Oh! Sorry.” She turns away.
“It’s our pleasure to find we’ve been of service to you.”
“We’re happy to offer our assistance, whenever you can make use of us.”
“I appreciate it. But I’m not sure how much more help I’ll be looking for, really. It looks like my grandfather already has everything I need to fill in all the blanks on my Family Tree.”
“You’re satisfied to leave it at that, then?” Bikini sounds surprised.
“Well... Yeah.” Dawn frowns. “I haven’t really combed through much of it yet... But there’s definitely more material there than I ever found on my mom’s side.”
“Very well. If that is enough for you.”
“Yes. Congratulations on your great success.”
Dawn doesn’t understand. They sound so disappointed. “What am I missing here, you guys? I’ve started to meet my family members. My grandfather can tell me everything about who-married-who for who knows how far back. My grandma collected photos and documents from everyone on the island, whether we were related to them or not. That’s pretty much everything I came for.”
“Don’t be so certain... There’s always more to be discovered, dear.”
“Your roots go far deeper than your branches reach high.”
“How much you find depends entirely on the depth to which you’re willing to dig.”
“All right! I’m willing!” Dawn shouts out across the property. Into the darkness. “If there’s more, I want to know about it.” She’s not sure what they’re accusing her of, but she doesn’t like it one bit.
The Waxes are silent. Dawn waits. She can wait all night if she has to.
Then, Moustache speaks. “You’re going to need this.”
This? What’s this? Dawn looks back. His hand is extended towards her. She stands. Goes to him. In his open palm: A silver charm on a thin matching chain. A symbol she doesn’t recognize. Fine wire filigree gives it a strange texture of coiling spirals.
From behind her, Bikini speaks. “It belonged to your grandmother.”
“My Grams?” Dawn reaches for the charm. Her fingers graze the skin of Moustache’s palm. Dry. Papery. But warm. She’s surprised to find the Waxes are flesh and blood.
She takes the charm. Almost expects a charge from touching the thing. A jolt of some kind. Nothing comes. It’s just cold. She holds it up to the thin slice of moon. Silver lit by silver. It might’ve been woven from moon-stuff.
“Where did you...?” Dawn looks down at an empty chair. The other’s been vacated, too.
Alone again. No sign of the elderly Waxes anywhere.
Except the charm. She takes it inside. Locks the door behind her.
CHAPTER FORTY
Rock, Paper, Scissors eliminates Burl immediately.
Then, Roscoe and Sylvie throw matches three times before she cuts his paper with her scissors. Thusly, Fate has chosen Roscoe to retrieve the creature’s body from beneath the patrol boat. No one suggests best two out of three.
Assuming the thing is what they think it is, the retrieval cannot be delayed. From what they’ve b
een told by older Circle members: Once dead, these creatures deteriorate quickly. Dissolving into an unrecognizable soup within the day. Even faster, if left exposed to water - a matter of hours. This has always been the standard Circle explanation for their complete lack of physical proof.
As the first to lay eyes on one of them in decades, there is no question that the trio need to actually get a good look at the thing. And, preferably, show its corpse to as many others in the Circle as possible before it’s too late.
So, down Roscoe climbs. Into the water. Down the drop-wall. Careful to avoid its spikes. No inclination to share their enemy’s fate: Impaled on the other side of the wall. Making no movement he can see. No more bubbles. Even the blood cloud has mostly dissipated.
On a strap around his chest: One of the spearguns. Just in case.
Attached to a carabiner on his belt: A corded metal tow-line. He tugs at it occasionally to release more slack from topside. Once the creature’s carcass is free of the spikes, he’ll loop this around it. Then, Burl and Sylvie can earn their keep: Help haul the thing aboard.
Peering through the wall, he tries to figure out its strange anatomy. It’s big. Bigger than he is. Its scarred hide is black. Smooth. The head and torso seem to blend together into one huge shape. As well as long pectoral fins, it has a tall dorsal. And tails. There are very definitely two. Beyond that, he can’t say. The water is murky. Supersaturated with silt. He won’t know anything for sure, until he’s on the other side of the wall. Face-to-face with it.
Roscoe’s never believed. Not really. He’d initially accepted his father’s invitation out of not wanting to let him down. But from the moment he was inducted into the Circle as a teenager, he knew - thought he knew - that what they were telling him couldn’t possibly be true. What’s more, he couldn’t believe they believed it, either.
FROM AWAY ~ BOOK TWO Page 13
