The Cottage at Glass Beach

by Heather Barbieri

  “No,” Nora said. “My father didn’t put much stock in the occult. And my mother?”

  “She looked for signs. She liked the drama, the mystery.”

  “I wish I could remember.”

  “Perhaps you know more than you realize. The subconscious is key,” Maire said. “It’s most active in dreams. I had a dream he came to us. Our visitor. I have an active dream life, don’t you?”

  “Mostly nightmares, lately.” And from childhood too, a recurring dream of being on the ocean, struggling to keep her head above water, the waves frothing, pulling her mother away; dreams in which she feels as if she’s drowning, the last gulps of air squeezed out of her lungs, before she manages to save herself at the last minute. She always saved herself. Her mother’s fate unknown. “And did your dream reveal exactly who he is?” Nora asked.

  “No.” She shrugged. “He told me himself. His name is Owen Kavanagh. He could remember that much at least, after I got him down to the fishing shack. We have a long tradition of aiding the shipwrecked on the island. It goes back to the time of the founding. When we were out there on the rocks last night, did you feel the pull of the past?”

  More than she’d like to admit. More than she understood.

  “I’m not about to break with tradition now.” Maire tamped the soil down firmly. “Besides, if we don’t like him”—she smiled as she flicked a weed into a bucket—“we can always pitch him back into the sea.”

  The girls stole over to the rocks near the fishing shack. The clapboards of the one-room structure had bleached gray, the shingles gap-toothed along the fringes, the door slightly off its hinges. It didn’t look as if it could withstand the violent storms that battered the island many months of the year, and yet it had.

  “I’m glad we’re not staying here,” Ella said. “It makes the cottage look like the Plaza.” They’d gone to New York and stayed there for her tenth birthday. She’d loved the Eloise books then. She wasn’t that girl anymore, too old for such stories. She gravitated to serious books now, with darker themes, reading far beyond grade level.

  “It’s not so bad . . .” Annie’s voice trailed off. Even she had trouble finding something kind to say about the place. “Are those bones?” She indicated a pile of spined ribs, whitened by the sun, near the southeast corner, with a shaky finger.

  “Fish bones, silly. It’s a fishing shack, remember?”

  “Are they from ancient times?”

  “I doubt it. They’d have turned to dust by now if they were.”

  “I don’t want to turn to dust.”

  “Everyone does, eventually.”

  “What about our grandmother? Do you think she turned to dust? It’s weird no one knows what happened to her.”

  “Maybe she left. People do sometimes.”

  Like their father. They didn’t say his name, but it hung in the air between them. How Annie kept setting a place for him at the table at home, thinking he’d show up. How Ella would find herself listening for the slam of his car door, the sinking disappointment every time she realized it was only Mr. Livingston, next door, arriving home from work, home, to his family. How she’d watched for her father from the stage of her final school play—she’d had the lead in Alice in Wonderland—another chair left unfilled, row D, number 3. Her mother sitting in seat number 2 at every performance, her face tight from smiling encouragingly, smiling enough for both of them, when really it only made it all the more apparent he wasn’t there.

  “Let’s look inside,” Annie said.

  “We don’t know where he is. This needs to be a covert operation.”

  There were no windows on the sides of the structure, only on the front, its back set into the surrounding rock, as if it sprang from the earth itself. The girls crept closer, their knees stained green, and ducked down behind a tangle of nets and floats, the plastic worn and cracked. The stoop was swept clean of sand. He must have intended to stay for a while.

  The seals barked from the beach below. Ella put a finger to her lips. “Look. There he is.”

  He was swimming in the cove, the seals with him. He was an excellent swimmer, clearly at ease in the water, unafraid of the animals.

  “Does he have any clothes on?” Annie asked.

  “I can’t tell,” Ella said. “I’m not sure if I want to.”

  Annie stood taller, to get a better look.

  “Get down!” Ella warned.

  He turned, the water swirling at his waist, eyes seeming to meet theirs across the expanse, though he was too far away to say for certain.

  Annie took another peek. “He’s heading for shore. Do you think he’s mad at us for spying on him?”

  “Run!” Ella said, not wanting to find out.

  They scrambled back to Glass Beach, crouching and darting through the grass. Their beach. Theirs. They would say they’d been there the whole time. They would say—

  “Is he following us?” Annie gasped.

  Ella looked over her shoulder, nearly tripping over a stone. “I don’t see him. I think we’re in the clear.”

  “That doesn’t mean he isn’t there. He might be hiding, like we were.”

  “He’s a grown-up. He doesn’t have to hide.” She paused, thinking of her father, who seemed to be hiding quite a lot lately—from the reporters, even from them. Too many questions he didn’t want to answer. Why are you leaving? Where are you going? Is it true? What they’re saying? Why can’t you tell me? Why can’t you stay? Do you love her more than us? His eyes shiny with tears before he turned away abruptly, the car gliding into the night.

  “We’re not going to get in trouble, are we?”

  “No,” Ella said, though she didn’t know for sure. “We didn’t do anything. It’s not as if there was a No Trespassing sign. The shack is Aunt Maire’s. She’s didn’t tell us we couldn’t go there.”

  “Just because someone doesn’t say so specifically doesn’t mean—”

  “Stop worrying. Let’s check on the boat, okay?” Ella said.

  Annie brightened. The coracle was her favorite subject. She climbed in, ready to navigate imaginary seas. “Today we’re traveling along the horn of Africa.”

  “Better set a new course. We don’t want to risk being taken by pirates.”

  “I am a pirate.”

  “You weren’t yesterday.”

  “Well, I am now. Look out. Cannons!” She held fast against the onslaught.

  “It’s not the same as being on the water,” Ella said. “It would be better if we had paddles, if we could go out there.” The ocean shimmered.

  “We could ask Mama to get paddles at Scanlon’s. Or maybe Aunt Maire has some.”

  “If we told them, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it? They wouldn’t let us go on the water. At least Mama wouldn’t. She’d want to come along.”

  They heard footsteps. “Hide!” Ella whispered.

  They lay flat and held their breath.

  Too late. The shipwrecked man peered down at them. “Permission to come aboard,” he said. He wore a pair of baggy shorts and a T-shirt that didn’t suit him, from the shack, perhaps. The material stuck to his back, his skin still wet. A piece of seaweed clung to his neck.

  “Granted.” Annie scooted over to make room.

  “Denied.” Ella frowned. “There isn’t room.” He was a stranger, and a strange one at that. “I’m the captain.”

  “You run a tight ship.”

  “I have to.” Somebody had to keep an eye on things.

  “You’re well suited to the job.”

  Was he making fun of her? She couldn’t tell.

  “My name is Owen Kavanagh,” he said. “We haven’t been formally introduced.”

  “You remembered your name.”

  “I did, and little else.”

  “I’m Annie, and this is my sister, Ella.”

  “Thank you for helping me last night.”

  “Are you feeling better?” Annie asked.

  “My head still hurts a bit.”r />
  “And yet you’re up and about.” Ella regarded him closely. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “I am. It’s hard to stay down in such a beautiful place as this. I’m about to go fishing; it’s one of the best spots.” He indicated the rocks.

  “You can tell already?” Annie asked.

  “I have a sense for these things,” he replied. “You heading out?”

  “We don’t have any paddles,” Annie said.

  “There are a couple at the fishing shack. I could get them for you, if you want,” he offered.

  Ella hesitated. She didn’t want him to do her any favors, but the temptation was too great. “Okay,” she said, grudgingly.

  “You have experience?”

  “Of course,” Ella replied, as if there were any question. “We’re McGanns, aren’t we?” She thought of how she’d canoed at Camp Miniwaka last summer. Her team won first place in the race between the docks. She had a badge at home to prove it. She would have been there this summer too, if she were still friends with Sophie, and her mother hadn’t decided to go to Burke’s Island.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are.”

  They busied themselves, drawing maps of the oceans and continents in the sand, the routes they would travel, across the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Coral Sea. Owen returned a short time later with paddles and two faded orange life jackets Maire and their grandmother might have worn when they were girls. “You sure your mother won’t mind?”

  “We do this all the time.” Ella pinched Annie’s arm, so she wouldn’t disagree. “She was going to get us paddles anyway. This will save her the trouble.”

  “You’d best stay in the cove,” he said, dragging the boat to the tide line, holding the sides while they climbed in, the water pleasantly cool that afternoon. “The currents in the channel can be strong.” He pushed them off.

  The land fell away. They were weightless, free. “Hooray! We’re part of the ocean!” Annie exclaimed.

  Ella plunged her oar into the water, the paddle gliding backward, cutting through the waves like a knife.

  Annie wasn’t paddling. She gazed around her, awestruck.

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “No one,” she said quickly. “We’re floating. We’re really floating!”

  “Yeah, and we’re going to end up beached if you don’t do your job. I ought to fire you.”

  “You can’t fire me. I’m your sister.”

  “Want to bet?” Ella said. “Paddle harder, will you? On my count.”

  “Why does it have to be your count?”

  “Listen for once,” she said. “It’s about working together, having the same rhythm.”

  “Does that mean I get a promotion?”

  “To what?”

  “Second in command.”

  “Show me you’re ready. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.”

  They paddled back and forth across the cove, zigzagging at first, then straightening. Ella scooped up a palm-size jellyfish and threw it at Annie. “Got you!” She seemed disappointed when Annie didn’t get upset.

  Annie liked the jellyfish. She liked most of the sea creatures she’d met. She reached for another jelly. Ella ducked, but Annie bided her time. The back of Ella’s head made a nice target. She knew Ella didn’t like getting things in her hair, especially slightly slimy things. The jellies didn’t bother Annie. This type had no stingers, nothing to cause harm.

  Ella turned forward to see where they were going, casting glances over her shoulder. “I know what you’re up to.”

  No, you don’t. Not everything. Annie dropped a small stone she’d been carrying in her pocket over the side. Let Ella think it was the jellyfish, that she’d disarmed herself. Her sister relaxed then, and when she did, Annie lobbed the jelly at her head. It clung for a moment, then slid into the water with a plop.

  “Ugh!” Ella swiped at her hair, frantic. “Is there anything there?”

  Annie smothered a laugh. It was funny to see Ella so worked up.

  “I’ll get you back. I swear I will.”

  “Look,” Annie said. A porpoise leaped at the mouth of the cove, its body making a perfect arc over the water. Another followed, then another. Annie counted four in all, the same number as their family, or their family, as it used to be.

  Ella directed them to a sunken rock shelf, teeming with anemones, starfish, crabs, and fish. “It’s an undersea garden.”

  Another eel lived there. Mr. Eel, Annie called him. She gave many of the creatures names. Anabelle, the largest anemone, waved her lovely pale green tentacles in the current. Carleton, the crab, liked to snap his claws like castanets; he was the size of a salad plate and had a bright red shell with a distinctive blotch on the top like a spin-art design. Stella, the sea star, had bristly skin the color of purple grape juice.

  The girls paddled for the better part of an hour, until their arms were burning and their palms were scored with calluses. Owen watched over them from the rocks, casting lines and reeling in the catch. He moved with an easy rhythm, in time with the waves, as if he sensed the ocean’s every move, the fish within it too. Ella acted like he wasn’t there. Annie waved to him once, but really, she focused on the ocean itself, all of them working its surface, sounding its depths, in their own ways.

  “I can’t go any farther,” Annie said at last. “My arms feel like noodles.”

  “Maybe the sea monster will make spaghetti of you.”

  Annie splashed at her with a paddle. “I wouldn’t taste very good.”

  Ella splashed her back. “Let’s race to the beach.”

  “Race what?”

  “The sea serpent. Didn’t you see it?”

  Annie looked behind them in alarm, before she realized Ella was teasing again. But it was fun to paddle as hard as they could and feel the waves rise up beneath them, carrying them home. All too soon, the coracle plowed into the beach and they were on land again. They pulled the boat from the water and collapsed on the shore, spent and utterly content for the first time in weeks, making sand angels, tracing shapes in the clouds, gazing up into the depths of the blue, blue sky.

  Chapter Seven

  Every July for as long as Maire could remember, her family had picked wild blueberries that grew in the island’s meadows. She gathered the buckets they’d need for the expedition—the fruit was early this year—and she had promised Nora and the girls she’d introduce them to the tradition. They’d have a picnic on the boulders once they were done. She couldn’t have asked for better weather, not a cloud in the sky. Nothing tasted as good as the wild berries; the others tasted bland by comparison. She liked them best in pie, each slice a piece of heaven, made with her mother’s crust.

  Maeve had hated picking, finding it tedious work, and made excuses to be elsewhere as soon as she could, but Maire didn’t mind. She loved being in the fields, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face, the smell of ripening fruit making her mouth water. She’d worn an apron to protect her clothes from stains, boots on her feet. She liked the sound of the berries pinging into the coffee cans her father had rigged with string handles, sneaking a handful of berries when her mother wasn’t looking. You’re like me, Maire. You have a practical nature.

  She didn’t necessarily want to be that way—competent, average. She was pretty, not beautiful. Intelligent, not brilliant. Quiet, not lively. She wasn’t Maeve. She could never be.

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” she’d asked as Maeve dashed out the door. Maeve was thirteen that year, a year of change, when she suddenly began to care more about her appearance, styling her hair, applying makeup on the sly.

  “I’m meeting Brenna in town.” In other words, swanning up and down the street, hoping to catch the attention of the boys.

  “What about Maggie?” Maire asked.

  She and Maeve had been best friends for years.

  “What about her? Save me a slice of pie, will you?”

  “When will you be back?”

  She didn’t reply. She hopped
on her bike and pedaled past the mailbox, onto the road that promised better things.

  Maire remained behind at the point. Her mother said she was too young to go into Portakinney on her own. And so she stayed where she was.

  Where she still was, all those years later.

  She sighed. She’d spent far too much time dwelling on the past lately. She might not be able to remember where she put her keys, but she had remarkable recall when it came to the details of her childhood. Perhaps that’s what happened as one got older, entering into a time of reflection and regret.

  Nora and the girls came up the steps. They wore hats, jeans, and tees, Ella’s from a Taylor Swift concert, Annie’s with Mickey Mouse, Nora’s the B-52’s.

  Maire distributed some of Joe’s cotton work shirts. “You might want to toss these on to protect your arms. The bushes don’t have thorns, but the twigs can scratch, and there are brambles about.”

  “How long is this going to take?” Ella asked, clearly lacking enthusiasm.

  “It depends how fast you pick,” Maire said.

  “I’m a good picker,” Annie said.

  “Of your nose,” Ella said.

  “I am not!”

  “Manners,” Nora said.

  “Oh, we don’t stand on ceremony around here,” Maire assured her, “in case you hadn’t noticed.” She put on one of Joe’s caps.

  They decided to walk. The fields were only half a mile away, and they could always go back and harvest more berries later. There was no need to resort to freezing yet.

  There was no traffic on the road. There rarely was, no matter the time of day. The next house was a half mile in the other direction.

  “It’s so quiet here,” Ella said. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

  That’s what Maeve had said. “We’re stuck on this little island, when there’s so much out there.”

  “Then leave,” Maire had said, though she didn’t mean it.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Maeve wouldn’t say.

  I don’t mind. I’m used to it,” Maire said now.

  “Have you ever been to the city? To Boston?”

  “Once,” she said. “A long time ago.” She and Joe had visited for a weekend. They’d seen Faneuil Hall. So much traffic, lights, noise. She didn’t have the best time. She’d had too much on her mind.