The Rattled Bones

by S. M. Parker

  I reach for the throttle, but the rope pulls me hard. My tailbone slams against the slick deck. “Sam!”

  The line chokes my boot. I fumble at the rope, try to separate my leg from the diving trap. My fingers slip on the wet. The rope jerks my leg straight over the edge.

  Sam scurries to me. “Tell me what to do!”

  “Throw the boat in neutral!” I twist, grab at the smooth wet floor. My gloves rake over the slippery deck. My leg hangs off the rail. The boat is too slick, so ready to give me over to the deep.

  The motor calms. The boat stops.

  “Rilla!” I see the black tips of Sam’s boots. His steps are wild, panicked. “Rilla!”

  My hips are wrenched to the edge of the boat. My hands scramble for anything, everything. The trap pulls me harder, my mind racing. There’s no stopping a trap once it’s set to the water.

  “Sam! Help me!”

  “Tell me how!” He pulls my arms. His legs slip out from under him. The trap tugs.

  The boat flashes around me, the sea slamming, my panic rising. If I try to hold on to any part of the boat, I’ll rip my arms from their sockets. I try anyway, but the cage is at home in the sea, and it pulls my hips over the edge. The buoy whips against my back, needing its dive into the water.

  Sam reaches for my slipping, scratching hands.

  “Knife!” I scream. My chest gets dragged over the edge. Sam presses something into my palm. I latch on as I take a deep breath, my last before my body is pulled into the ocean.

  The rope wrenches me toward the sea bottom. Salt water rushes up my nose, down my throat. Choking me. “Rilla!” Sam’s muffled cry reaches me from another world.

  Bubbles rise all around me, rushing over my arms, my head, my hands. My hands. There’s something in my grip. My fingers move over its form. The sharp blade used for chopping chum. I grab rope at my ankle, twisting and fighting the sea. I slice hard and fast through the twine, over and over, but precision is slippery in the dark water and my lungs are too full. I’m out of oxygen. I need to breathe. The knife slips from my grasp. I can’t see the light of the surface anymore. Can’t hear Sam. There are no traces of the sun down here.

  I’m floating now. Free from struggle.

  This is the sea.

  My home.

  Peace visits me, as if the world has gone quiet for a full, beautiful moment and I can, too. If only I rest. Rest. The sea presses at me with her cold, swallowing me and my collapsed chest. I thrash one last time against the deep when I see the lobster trap rising below me. It’s on its way back to the surface, and a voice tells me to hold on.

  The voice starts yelling. Screaming. Don’t go!

  It’s a high voice, a girl’s voice.

  My girl’s voice.

  Two words ripped through the water from some other place, some forgotten time.

  Then another sound reaches me. Another sound that has no business rising in the deep. The sweet soft melody of the lullaby: Come here, come here. My dear, my dear. If you come near you’ll find me here. She’s here with me now. My girl. The lost girl. Under the water with her kelp braids and her song.

  I call to her for help, my last push of stored breath. Bubbles explode around my mouth, my cry distorted, muted by the sea. And then I’m being hauled, my body rising through the layers of water pressing down on me, crushing my lungs, my head. My hair swirls around my face like twisting seaweed. I see myself from a great distance, from some faraway place. I see the girl and me, how we share the same eyes. And something more?

  I’m propelled up through the water inch by inch. The dark ocean layers fade to sea-glass green. Then sun. Its light just above the surface. I reach for its warmth, kicking my legs against the drowning depths.

  My body breaks through the top of the waves and my lungs pull in the beautiful light air. Air. All around me. In me. Someone’s arm is on me, under me, dragging me aboard the boat. This person turns my head, forcing the water to spill out of my mouth. I cough it from my lungs. I purge the salt from my stomach. And everything goes black as the under ocean. In the darkness, I hear the girl singing. If you come near you’ll find me here. My dear, my dear.

  My voice cracks over the words: “Don’t go.”

  And Sam’s voice. “I’m here, Rilla. I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  By the time we reach Fairtide, I’m able to gather the strength to walk to the house. I won’t let Gram see me sea-beaten and broken. Sam offers his arm as I climb off the boat. The arm that dragged me onto the deck, turned me on my side, saved my life. I softly dismiss his hand with the brush of mine. “I can’t worry my gram.”

  “I think that might be an impossible request.” Sam holds his fingers at my lower back, there to catch me if I slip. Again.

  Gram meets us in the middle of the lawn. Worry distorts her face. “What has happened to ya, girl?”

  I force normal into my voice, but the salt has charred my throat. “I had a little accident, but I’m fine now.” My words are deep, scratched things.

  Gram tucks her shoulder under my arm and walks me to the house. Sam follows. My grandmother’s strength is as solid as the granite in the earth. Lasting, resilient. “Tell me where ya hurt. Your head? Do ya think ya have a concussion?”

  “I didn’t hit my head.”

  It feels as if my blood is leaving me, draining out through my feet. I lean on Gram and she lets me. My rock.

  “Sam, tell me what happened.” With every step that Gram takes, me at her side, I grow smaller, lighter, weaker. So weak that maybe if I close my eyes I’ll disappear. Gram squeezes my waist, and I pull myself up, gather my strength for her.

  “She got her foot caught in a line and was pulled overboard.”

  I hear Gram’s heartache escape in a dull breath. And something like a mumbled prayer? “How could ya let that happen, Rilla?”

  “It was an accident.”

  She holds me closer. “An accident or a sign? You’re doing too much. Your head is in too many places.”

  She doesn’t even know the truth of it. “I’m fine, Gram.”

  “You’re as white as flour, and your eyes are swollen with bloodshot. I’d say you’re the picture of not fine.”

  She and Sam walk me up the stairs. Gram at my side, Sam behind us both.

  I fold onto my bed. Gram raises my feet, settles them onto my mattress. She waves Sam to work. “Get that pillow under her head, nice and easy.” Sam does. He’s gentle with my neck, lifting it softly before sliding my pillow to cradle my pounding head. My brain spikes with pain, the sharp stabs of a million headaches. I raise my hand to my forehead, pressing against the ache at my temples, around the back of my skull. “That’ll be the salt water in her system. Go to the kitchen and start a kettle with water, and don’t be slow about it.” Sam scrambles out of the room.

  Gram strips off my soaked leggings and socks. She sits me up, pulls off my tee. I try to raise my arms like it doesn’t hurt, and she slides on a fleece top that feels too heavy and too perfect all at once. She turns me on my side, folds down the covers, rolls me in. Her nursing is smooth and perfected, as if we do this every day. Over the blanket, she runs her hands along my shins, my thighs, my wrists, my arms. She presses her warmth into my bones. “Ya tell me right now if ya need a hospital. If anything feels broken.”

  “I just swallowed a little water. That’s all.”

  “Hmmph.” She glares at my understatement.

  She should. Even now water fills my ears, my nose, my chest. I feel the salt in my pores, in my every battered throb. “I’ll be okay.”

  “I know ya will. I won’t lose ya, Rilla. I can’t lose more.” She looks away, trying to hide the tear at the corner of her eye. She pats my hand. “I’m gonna make ya some tea. We need to wash the salt water out of ya.”

  Tea. Such a normal thing. Gram’s healing. Something I’ve always depended on. “Tea would be good.”

  I close my eyes and the room falls peacefully black. I’m too grateful fo
r the mattress under me. Breathing air. Feeling warm. Gratitude surges in me, building tears that seep out from under my closed lids. They trail down to the pillow, each one a tiny river, so small compared to the sea. Almost insignificant. But not.

  I’m not sure how much time passes before I open my eyes to Sam sitting at my side. He’s pulled my desk chair near the bed. Close, but not too close. “You had us worried there,” I tell him, my voice rough.

  He lets out a deep sound of relief, half laugh, half heavy sigh. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t let it happen again.”

  He shakes his head, a tsk in the movement. “Getting your foot caught in the line is a rookie mistake. You wouldn’t catch me doing that; it’s like Fishing 101.”

  I smile, and even that hurts. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He leans forward, anchors his elbows to his knees. “Seriously, though. Don’t do that again.”

  “Not planning on it.”

  Gram comes in, sets a mug next to my bed. Meadowsweet and chamomile for soothing the ache in my muscles, no different than aspirin would. She tucks a hot-water bottle under my blankets. Its rubber warmth bleeds against my side. “Does that feel all right?”

  “Yes, perfect.”

  “Ya sure ya didn’t hit your head?”

  “Surer than sure.”

  She puts the back of her hand to my forehead as if the sea brought a fever. “I’m going to call Brower, see what he says about all this.” Dr. Brower Walsh is our family doctor, but Gram calls him by his first name since she’s known him since he was knee high to a grasshopper. Her words.

  “He’s gonna tell you I’m fine, Gram. I’m your seal, remember?”

  Gram’s eyes give me a sly smile. “That may be so, but Sam will stay with ya till I hear from Brower myself. And I’ll make soup. Beans and onions. Warm the sea right out of your bones.”

  “That’s exactly what I need.”

  Gram nods to Sam, and an understanding passes between them. She kisses my forehead, pats my arm again. “Ya stay fine until I come back, ya hear?” Her words crack with worry.

  Sam waits a moment after Gram leaves. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t even tell me you’re fine. Even if you are, which I doubt, I’m not going against your grandmother’s orders, so you’re stuck with me. Might as well make me useful.”

  My headache sears the space behind my eyes. “Can you pull down the shades?”

  “Done.” He stands, moves to the window, pulls the blinds and drowns out the sun. He stands at the sill, unmoving.

  “Sam?”

  He turns, his fingers lingering on the sill. “What’s this?”

  I try to sit up but feel bruised everywhere. “Cover that. I don’t want Gram to see.”

  His fingers trace the words: FIND ME. DONT GO!

  “That shirt there.” I point to a tee huddled on my desk. His look of confusion confirms that the words are real. “Please just cover it.”

  He does. When the carving is hidden, I lay my head back down. Just that short outburst drained too much of my energy.

  Sam returns to his seat at my bed. “Did you write that?”

  I shake my head.

  “Who did?”

  A tree branch. The long rattling fingers of the maple outside my window. A girl from the deep, the same girl that haunts the shore. Even in my head this sounds unbelievable. Truly mad. The institutional, all-white mad I’ve feared my whole life. The rocking-in-a-corner mad that is stitched into my DNA. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know who carved words into your windowsill?”

  The heat from my tea carries flowers on its steam. Flowers kissed by bees. Bees exchanging stories.

  “I do know, but it’s kind of wrapped up in one of my private things.”

  “I won’t press, Rilla. But if you need to talk.”

  I nod, knowing that talking to Sam is what I need. He can help me connect the girl—her song, her words, her persistence—to Malaga in the way that they must be connected. What would I have to lose? A sternman? Sam is the safest person to talk to because he won’t be here after the summer; his roots aren’t set down generations deep like the rest of us.

  Gram returns and takes my temp old-school, under the tongue. She packs a second water bottle behind my neck. I close my eyes to this simple medicine, and the room is immediately darker, softer. My bones feel too rattled, but they are remembering their places too, as if settling under my skin as they tuck back into position. I hear my grandmother mumble something to Sam. I hear her leave the room.

  Sam towels the wet strips of my hair, trying to wring the sea from me still. I sit up too quickly, and pain bolts through my head, up my spine. The way it rips through me brings fear, and I’m a child again, needing my father to tell his soothing stories about the seals that live in the sea and slough off their skins to walk as women onshore. Or the first people, the first fishermen—any of the stories he used to tell. I settle back onto my pillow, my head searing. “Sam?”

  “Right here.” He repositions the hot-water bottle behind my neck.

  “Can you tell me a story?”

  “What kind of story?”

  “Any kind. When I was little, my dad told me stories whenever I got hurt, to draw my mind away from the pain.” I need a story now, and maybe it’s just the act of admitting this deep need that brings me calm. My mind begins to drift to the softened place of sleep.

  Sam inches his chair closer, his movements a whisper. “Dragons or real life?”

  “You choose.” The answer sounds like yew-choo; my words hold a mumble in their edges.

  Sam draws a short breath, lets it free. “Once upon a time there was a king. He was a grandfather, a father . . .”

  Grandfather. Father. The words swim together in my head and wash me into blackness. Sleep. A restorative space. I want to hold on to his words. I want to grip at the pieces of his story, but I can’t. The sea is pulling me under again, only this time it promises rest and I’m happy to go.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hattie’s text is waiting for me when I wake: you okay?

  I text back: Fine

  Liar

  Me: ?

  My phone rings immediately. Hattie. She doesn’t even let me get in a “hello” before she starts.

  “Don’t tell me some bullshit about how you’re okay. I saw you last night, and you were about the farthest thing from okay.”

  “You were here?” My brain reaches for this fact but can’t pull it up.

  “Just got home. But you’re kinda proving my point, Rills. You were so out of it you didn’t even know I sat by your bed for a gatrillion hours.”

  “How did y—?”

  “Your gram called me. She was freaking out worried about you.”

  Gram. Of course.

  “You freaked the shit out of me, too. Tell me you’re okay.”

  “I am. I mean, I hurt all over, but I’m okay.”

  “You need to seriously stop stressing. Let your gram take care of you.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you? Because you’ve been going full throttle since your dad passed away, and everyone’s worried about you.”

  “I know, Hatt. I’ll be fine. Having you here the other night helped a ton. It was exactly what I needed.”

  “Then I’m coming over after work today.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “And Sam?”

  “What about him?”

  “Will he be there too?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Is it a totally inappropriate time to tell you I think he’s a hottie?”

  I laugh, which makes my side stich with hurt. “Shut up.”

  “Never.”

  When I get to the kitchen, Gram eyes my uniform. “Ya will not haul today, Rilla Murphy Brae.”

  I cringe at Gram using my middle name. It’s a fine name; it’s Gram’s family name. But it means she’s triple se
rious. I adjust my shirt on my shoulders. My arms are sore with even this slight movement. “I won’t fish. Don’t worry. Couldn’t even if I wanted to.” Yesterday scared me, and I’m smart enough to know not to work the sea when there’s fear in my bones. Still, I need to be on the water again, remind my memory—and my muscles—that I know what I’m doing on the ocean. But I make Gram a promise: “I won’t haul.”

  “Hmph.”

  “I’m gonna check on the boat, make sure everything’s tightened down after yesterday. I might take her for a short spin, but no fishing. I promise.”

  There’s a deep crease in Gram’s eyes, like a line carved itself there last night. Dont go! the line says. “A promise is your word, Rilla. And ya know your word is all you’re worth.”

  I move to Gram, kiss her just above that worried line. I would do anything to take Gram’s worry away. “I give you my word. No hauling. I won’t even say the word ‘lobster’ today.” I smile, trying to ease her concern. “Except for right then, when I said ‘lobster.’ ” I bring my hand to my mouth, cover it. “Okay, now for real. I won’t say it again all day. I will have exactly zero to do with lobsters.”

  Gram nudges her way past me, frustrated but convinced. “Fool girl. You’re lucky I love ya.”

  “I am.” I move to her, give her a deep hug. Even though my muscles scream, I hold my grandmother so tight. “I know how lucky I am.” Luckier than my father, whose heart gave out on the sea, luckier than so many men who’ve been lost to the deep. So lucky to have Gram as a mother and grandmother and so much more.

  Gram pulls away, swats at me. “Go on and get out of the house, then. I’m not foolish enough to think I could stand in your way.”

  I slice off a hunk of fresh bread and make my way to the Rilla Brae. At the dock, I turn and see Gram watching me from the kitchen. I give her a wave, and my muscles chastise me for the chore. I raise my eyes to my bedroom window, see the reaching arm of the ancient maple tree even as I know it wasn’t the tree that knocked at my window. It was the girl.