Lampfish of Twill

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  He turned his eyes north. Cantrip’s Point reared up in a bristle of ledges. Beyond, the land dropped off into the steep slope that ended at Strangle Point. Just there, at the crest, he spied the old man and his swirling, flapping crew. They were headed straight back to their shack. He was down the rock in an instant, speeding off to follow. The wind veered around and came up at his back, making it easy to run across the wide fields.

  “Wait for me! Wait!” he cried toward the retreating forms. And then, suddenly, not only wind, but sea gulls were at his heels. They were overhead soaring past him and flapping at his shoulders. It was so exhilarating to feel this wing power near him that his strides lengthened. His feet lost the sense of the ground, and he seemed, incredibly, to fly with the birds.

  He was at the crest in a matter of minutes. Below him, Zeke Cantrip descended the slope with an old man’s stiffness. Gulls flew at his elbows, supporting each lurching step. And there was Sir Gullstone, hovering gracefully among the others.

  “Gully!”

  The bird came at once and landed safely on Eric’s arm.

  “You crazy sea gull. You shouldn’t be here. You never do a thing you’re supposed to do!” Eric tried to look severe but was distracted by a pair of nasty gouges on one of the gull’s ankles. “Oh, Gully! How could you!” He had pecked through his rope with a furious beak.

  “Aha! Here you are!” cried the fishcatcher, just then turning around. Though Eric half expected lightning bolts to fly out of his hair, he appeared to be his most ordinary salty self, so much so that Eric wondered if his imagination hadn’t once again gone off the track. There was not a trace of the silent, powerful figure who had stood on the crag gazing down on the hunt.

  “In the nick of time, too,” the fishcatcher went on. “I’m worn to the bone by this morning’s wretched work. Worn fore and aft to the rib and the plank. The old ship’s not fit for such jigging about. Here, lend me a hand, or this hill will be my last!”

  Eric didn’t hesitate this time before going down to join the man who called himself Mr. Cantrip. Whoever he was, he understood the true nature of the lampfish hunt, and that seemed quite enough for the moment. In fact, the rather shocking events of the morning had apparently worn the poor fellow out. He grasped Eric’s shoulder eagerly and kept a firm grip on it all the way down. And though they hobbled toward the very shack that Eric had sworn never to enter again, he was no longer frightened by it. Nor did he mind when Gullstone flew up to mingle again with the rowdy, ranting crew over their heads.

  “Congratulations! Congratulations!” the gulls shrieked over and over, as if Eric required some special welcome.

  “The lampfish that was killed was the one from your tank, wasn’t it?” he asked the old man shyly, when they had walked a while together.

  “Aye, it was.” The fishcatcher nodded. “I’m glad you saw. Nobody else on this coast can tell one lamp from another. Me and my crew launched it early this morning, before the sun rose. We thought it’d get a safe start that way.”

  He shook his white head. “The fish weren’t fit, like I told you before. There was nothing we could do. It was better but not fit, and it swam too close to the surface and got sighted.” He sighed, and looked so thoroughly miserable that Eric’s heart went out to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really and truly, I am. I was sorry the whole time. I couldn’t even lift my spear.”

  “Sorry!” the fìshcatcher barked. He straightened up with a lurch. “There’s no blasted use in being sorry. It’s the way of things on this fearful coast. Each of us takes the risk. And the lampfish of Twill take it double the rest, for they choose to come up when they could live safe below.”

  “What do you mean?” Eric asked. “You’ve said that before. Tell me about the lampfish. What sort of creatures are they?”

  “What sort! Well, let’s see. Creatures like all of us that live under the gun—devilish and warmhearted, dangerous and brave, curious and cautious, nasty and afraid. If you recall that big lamp, the one you had your net out for, ready to capture like a hero single-handed?…” The fìshcatcher coughed a bit behind his hand. “Well, it’s a fine, noble fish that’s been around here for years, for more years than most people have seen on this coast. But it’s murdered its fair share of catchers in that time because they made the mistake of getting too close. Even lamps must look out for themselves in this place.”

  “I guess I was lucky you came along to stop me.”

  “Call it luck if you like. There are larger schemes in motion.”

  “Larger schemes?” Eric stopped and looked up at him. “That’s what you always say. But what does it mean? Who are you anyway? My aunt says Ezekiel Cantrip died years ago. Everyone in Twill thinks your cabin is abandoned. If you’re really Zeke, why are you hiding out? What’s really going on out here at Strangle Point?”

  Was that a smile that flickered across the old man’s face? No, it was a grimace. The fellow was working desperately to get down the hill.

  “What’d you say?” he croaked. “I can’t hear a word over the grinding of my joints.” He might have been telling the truth. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. His jaw was clenched in pain.

  “Never mind,” murmured Eric, lending his shoulder again. “I can wait a little longer to find out, I guess.” Whatever schemes were in motion, one thing was clear. The fishcatcher had no special powers for making his old legs young.

  How the rest of that day passed Eric wasn’t sure, because a warm fog enveloped the fishcatcher’s shack not long after they arrived there. It felt so soft and blanketlike on his skin that a nap seemed the only reasonable response. The morning had tired him more than he’d realized. He sank down on a mound of cut meadow grass and lost sense of the time until the evening shadows began to creep across the ground.

  By then, the fishcatcher had rested his legs and regained his hearty manner. He lit the wood stove in the old shack and produced from somewhere a delicious fish chowder and salt-cracker supper. (Eric kept a nervous eye on the chimney, which belched clouds of smoke and seemed ready to ignite the cabin at any moment.) They shared the food with Gully and the gull crew on the shack’s front step.

  “You’re welcome to stay or go, as you like. But there’ll be nobody waiting at home after this morning’s catch, I’d guess,” Mr. Cantrip said.

  It was quite true. Aunt Opal and Mrs. Holly would be in Twickham that night celebrating the kill. They wouldn’t miss him. Lampfish celebrations were wild affairs that often went on for two or three days. Meanwhile, no one kept particular track of anyone else. Children spent the nights together or slept out on the beaches. Their parents ate and drank and danced on the lantern-lit ledges.

  “I guess I’ll stay,” Eric said. But immediately he felt alarmed to be away from the others. In all his life, he’d never missed a celebration before. His eye jumped to Gullstone, crouched faithfully beside him in the grass. The big gray and white sea gull looked at once so beautiful, and so dearly familiar (“We are both orphans, remember!”), that he knew his real place was wherever the gull might be. Besides, he couldn’t go back to Twickham yet. The memory of the kill was too fresh in his mind.

  “Tell me a little about your travels,” he asked the old man on the front step, where they lingered after supper. “I’d like to take a trip myself, and sooner than I’d thought.”

  But Mr. Cantrip had closed his eyes, and the question dropped unanswered into the evening gloom. After a moment, Gullstone rose and stalked suspiciously around the yard. Then, perhaps feeling unsettled himself by the recent turn of events, he made a large ridiculous hop and landed like a whole feather bed in Eric’s lap.

  “Ooof! Gully! What’s the matter with you?”

  Ten minutes later, they were both gazing rather sleepily at the sky when the fishcatcher stirred beside them.

  “It’s a lampfish night if ever there was one!” he boomed out suddenly, making everyone jump. Several gulls on the roof above them took to the air, squawking. �
�A perfect night!” he went on, getting to his feet with his eyes on Eric. “And I’m taking out my boat if you care to come along.

  “Loose your moorings, young fellow!” he roared, intercepting the boy’s worried glance at Gullstone. “For one bent on being a traveler, you’re as cautious as a cod.”

  There was no way to get out of going after this challenge, though Eric’s good sense sounded every alarm.

  “Would it be all right if I borrowed a piece of that old net rope hanging from your rafters?…”

  “What?” Zeke Cantrip waggled his ear. “Speak up. I can’t hear.”

  “In your shack, that net rope. I need it for my gull.”

  “What?” The old man thundered. “Did you say you need soap?”

  “Rope!”

  “Hope?”

  “Rope!”

  “A wet goat?”

  “Forget it,” Eric muttered, while the impossible old fraud turned away with a smile. He clumped into the cabin and outfitted himself in storm weather gear from head to foot—boots, cape, gloves, and all. Giving Eric a final, triumphant glance, he tied the flaps of a decrepit oilskin hat down firmly over his ears and refused to utter another word.

  11

  THEY SET OUT TWO hours after sunset, when every streak of light was erased from the sky. “You stay here!” Eric told the bird, but of course that was useless. Gullstone followed them the minute their backs were turned. He flew overhead, just out of reach, and along with him went Zeke Cantrip’s crew with a windy rustle of wings. Otherwise, there was no motion to the air, or to the sea either, Eric saw, as they descended the ledges. Above them, the stars glimmered feebly. Offshore, the lampfish had begun to rise. They cast rosy arcs of light up from the water, enough light for Eric to make out the beach’s white sand ahead and the outline of a small dory hauled up on the shore. The sea gull crew was already there when they arrived, perched along the oars and on the wooden seats.

  “Avast, you gullions! We’re shoving off!” bellowed the fishcatcher, not wasting a moment. The fellow was trembling with excitement, Eric discovered when he bent over to help him push the boat off the beach. The gulls flew up with annoyed shrieks. The pair jumped in and shot out into the inky sea.

  There was no question of who would work the boat Zeke Cantrip was into position in a second. Eric saw that for all his awkward lurching on land, at sea he was a master of precision and grace. The oars flashed like two batons in his hands. The dory cut cleanly through the waves. He could turn the boat with a flick of one wrist. He could spin and loop, glide and weave. And when, approaching a dangerous channel between two rocks, he lay one oar aside and proceeded to scull with the other from the stern, Eric was astonished at the speed he achieved. No current could touch him at such a pace. No reef could rear up that he couldn’t slip past. He had twice the skill of the best rowers in Twill.

  “Away, you birds. Mark us the spout!” Zeke Cantrip called to his crew, which flew in the darkness over their heads. So the gulls circled away, and not long after, Eric saw them hovering in a dim cloud in front of them.

  “There it is!” shouted Zeke above the wash of his sculling. “Keep your eye sharp on it, and we’ll not be surprised.”

  “Is Gully with your birds?” Eric cried. “I can’t see where he’s gone!”

  “He’s there. He’s there. You’ve no cause to worry.”

  But Eric did worry. He didn’t like to think of Gullstone flying near the whirlpool. Who knew what evil winds lurked over the place, or what sudden paws of spray might reach up to slap him down. Already the dory was in the grip of some current. Small waves snapped at the bow. The water raced beneath.

  The fishcatcher was not bothering to scull so hard. His oar was no longer necessary to keep the boat in motion. More and more, he held it still and used it as a rudder. They were being carried in a large circle clockwise around the gulls, Eric saw, and at such a speed that wind ruffled his hair on this otherwise perfectly windless night.

  “Ha, ha! We’re in it now! There’s the surge that stirs the blood. Hold on tight, and we’ll steer a bit closer!”

  “Closer!” cried Eric. “I think we’re near enough!”

  The gulls were not more than fifty yards from them by now. Though the water the boat circled was smooth, it was rounded at its center in a most unnatural way, like the water that spun above the Twickham street drains as they emptied the gutters after a heavy rain. This sight was so frightening to Eric that he forgot to notice why he could see it at all. The fishcatcher pointed and gestured toward the spout.

  “Lampfish!” he crowed. “Coming in from all over! Look there, and there. Here’s one at our stern!”

  Suddenly the big fish were everywhere around them. The glow from their enormous bodies illuminated the sea in all directions, and the dory itself was bathed in rosy light. Eric saw Zeke Cantrip’s face take on a rich red color as he leaned over the water to admire the creature floating there. He saw the skin on his own hands flame up as another fish rose in their path. And then, there was something else—a noise.

  At first, it seemed to be the whir of their boat coursing through the sea. They were moving around together in the whirlpool’s current—dory, lampfish, water, and wave. But soon the whir became a drone, and the drone became a hum whose pitch climbed steadily in Eric’s ear.

  The fishcatcher waved to catch his attention. “Don’t look so white. It’s the lampfish,” he yelled. “They mourn tonight. They sing for the lost one.”

  “Why are they here?” Eric screamed back. If he’d dared to let go of the dory’s side, he would have covered his ears. The singing vibrated painfully in his head.

  “To greet the new fish from below. You’ll see it come in a moment or two. The spout reverses and sends it up.

  “What?” yelled Eric. He couldn’t believe his ears.

  Zeke Cantrip laughed at this, and tapped his own ears, knowingly. Then he held up his hand. “Wait!” he howled. “Anytime now. Soon!”

  He was perfectly right. Not more than five minutes later, the whirlpool’s current began to slow. Then it ceased entirely and the dory was released from its grip and began to drift in a more or less aimless pattern. The lampfish near them drifted also, and their humming died away, though they glowed more vividly than ever. Eric took a deep breath and leaned back against the bow.

  “It’s the moon that does it,” the fishcatcher said. His voice echoed over the water, so silent and calm had the ocean now become. “Or rather, it’s her being away.”

  “The moon?”

  “So it is on the coast of Twill. And always has been from who knows what beginning. Have you never seen it? The moon holds sway over the tides and the spouts. And she keeps a tight grasp on them most of the time. But there’s one or two nights during a month when she’s sunk out of sight, and briefly far enough off to give the elements free play. That’s when the lampfish dare to come.”

  “From where?” asked Eric.

  The fishcatcher’s eyes gleamed. “From beneath, like I say. From Underwhirl, as I call it, though it has more ancient names. Look there.”

  Eric looked at the flat ocean around them, turned deep red now by the glowing lampfish, and saw a bubble of current. A small spout of water leaped up from the sea not twenty yards off. It rose higher, and thickened, went higher, and gushed, a pillar of water so large that the spray from it splashed upon the fishcatcher’s dory and doused them thoroughly in their seats.

  Then, at its base, Eric caught sight of a lampfish rising out of the sea. It was shot up into the water spout and sent out to drop neatly into the sea not far from their boat. At this, the other lampfish converged on the newcomer. The piercing hum began again, and the great mass of fish boiled and thrashed like a fiery caldron, and drifted away from them. The ocean darkened under their boat.

  Eric let out his breath. Already the water spout had begun to subside. Though it rose more weakly, it was fascinating to watch. The dark silver gush, now lit only by stars, poured down in a glimmering
veil upon the surface of the sea. And this was no strange sea, but Eric’s own, the sea he looked out on day after day, night after night, the sea that all of Twill lived with and fought with and believed it understood.

  Away in the dark, Twill’s craggy coast appeared only as a dim line upon the dark horizon. A few lights sparkled here and there. Otherwise, there was no sign of the town of Twickham, or the outlying houses, or the many lives being lived under the thatched and rethatched roofs. “Larger schemes,” the fishcatcher had said, and here they certainly were, for this night sea was as remote from Twill as Twill was from it. No one onshore had the least idea of what was happening out here, of what had been happening, Eric thought suddenly, for hundreds, no, probably thousands of years.

  “Why do they come?” he asked the old man, who sat awestruck himself beside Eric in the dory. “The lampfish, I mean.”

  Zeke Cantrip turned with a mischievous grin. “Why, to live!” he exclaimed. His chest heaved suddenly, and a giggle burst from his lips. “It’s hilarious!” he crowed. “They come up to live, when every fish knows what the end must be. To be hunted and hunted and hunted and caught. Hysterical!” he screamed, bending over to hold his side. “Insane!” he shrieked, while Eric shrank against the bow. “Madness, looniness, dementia, death!” He dissolved into helpless giggles.

  The spout had disappeared back into the ocean waters by this time. Eric sensed the rippling of new currents under the dory. Overhead, the sea gull crew reformed and marked a spot not ten yards off. Eric thought he saw Sir Gullstone circling with the others, but without the glow from the lampfish all was dark again and he could not be sure.