The Cottage at Glass Beach

by Heather Barbieri

  “It’s not quiet here, not really,” Annie said. “There are all sorts of sounds: the bees, the birds, the trees, the ocean, the grass, the animals—”

  “You talking. Blah, blah, blah,” Ella said.

  Nora shook her head at her and whispered, “Stop.”

  “This way.” Maire turned onto a wooded path, the shade cool.

  The ground was carpeted with moss. Annie ran her hands over a patch, exclaiming in delight as she leaned down and rubbed her cheek over its softness.

  “There might be bugs,” Ella warned.

  “I don’t care. It’s like velvet.”

  “It’s just moss.”

  “Not any old moss. Island moss.”

  “As if that makes a difference.”

  “It does. I keep telling you, things are different here, but you don’t listen.”

  “They’re different here, all right.”

  They were, though not as Ella supposed. Even now, the island could surprise Maire. Life could surprise her, with its twists and turns.

  The path wound through the pines. A squirrel scrambled up a trunk, chattering from a bough, another answering a short distance away. A warning or a territorial dispute. Annie stopped to watch, entranced, before falling into step behind her sister again, occasionally treading on her heels.

  “Watch where you’re going, will you?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

  Words Maire herself had said to Maeve, time and again, when she broke her lipstick or stained her favorite shirt or followed her without being invited. “Mae-Mae,” she’d cry when she was little, stranded behind the gate in the yard. “Is that your little sister?” Maeve’s friends would ask. “No,” she’d say.

  The path opened onto the field, the blueberry bushes scattered among the grass and boulders. The place had changed little since Maire was young. “Here we are.” Some of the fruit hadn’t ripened yet, the berries green and pink.

  They fanned out, Nora and Maire working in the same area, Ella striding off on her own, Annie close behind. “Find your own bush,” Ella said.

  Annie stuck out her tongue and settled nearby.

  Ella saw her reach for a pink berry. “Only the blue ones. Those won’t taste good.”

  Annie ate it anyway, just to spite her, making a face at the sharp taste of the unripe fruit.

  “Told you.”

  “I like them that way.”

  “Sure you do.”

  Soon the field rang with the patter of berries dropping into the buckets Maire had fashioned from cans, just like her father’s. It was a sound like rain on a tin roof. In the distance, she heard the rumble of the sea—it was always there, the island not large enough to escape it. She was glad for that. The waves, whether near or far, made her feel as if she were part of something greater than herself.

  “How many do you have?” Annie asked a short time later, clearly keen to outperform her sister.

  “I don’t know.” Ella wiped her brow. “Thirty? They’re small. It’s hard to tell.”

  “I have fifty.”

  “Is that counting leaves?”

  Annie wasn’t the cleanest of berry pickers.

  “No.” She stood on tiptoe to reach the higher branches, upending her bucket. “Oh,” she cried. “I spilled them.”

  “I told you to be careful.”

  “I know. I know.” Her lower lip trembled.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t cry. You can have some of mine.” Ella reluctantly poured half her berries into Annie’s container.

  They worked happily until noon, even Ella getting into a groove. “How much do we need for a pie?” she asked.

  “We almost have enough,” Maire said, inspecting the buckets.

  “Can we make it this afternoon?”

  “Of course.” She could think of nothing better.

  Nora had fallen silent. She was staring across the field, gripping the handle of her bucket tightly, her face pale.

  Maire followed her gaze. Maggie Scanlon was standing there, a shadow beneath the pines. She felt a chill seeing her like that, so still, an unnerving intensity in her eyes.

  The insects in the meadow whined louder, a shrill, almost piercing sound cutting through the quiet morning.

  Maggie didn’t move. She stood motionless, watching.

  Maire waved, a neighborly gesture to break the spell.

  Maggie didn’t respond. She stepped back into the shadows and vanished from sight.

  The girls hadn’t noticed, crouched behind a tall clump of bushes. It was just as well.

  “What did she want?” Nora asked softly.

  “She was probably just out for her daily constitutional,” Maire said, not very convincingly. “We’re an island of walkers, you know, myself included.” Though she too found Maggie’s unexpected appearance strange, very strange indeed.

  After lunch the girls and Nora cleaned the berries in the cottage kitchen, picking off stray stems and leaves, while Maire mixed the pastry according to her mother’s recipe.

  “Can we roll out the dough?” Annie asked.

  “Yes,” Maire said. “You can use leaf-shaped cookie cutters to make a design if you want to.”

  While Nora sweetened the fruit, the girls wielded the rolling pin. If the thickness of the crust wasn’t quite as uniform as usual, it was of little consequence to Maire. It was their pie, after all—their first island pie.

  “Careful,” Ella warned her sister as they flopped the lower crust in the pan. “You don’t want to put a hole in it.”

  “I won’t.” Annie turned back to the counter. “Look. I made a dough person.” She held up paper-doll cutout she’d shaped from a scrap of crust. “Can we put her on the pie?”

  “Absolutely,” Maire said.

  “I’ll make three others. We can be a pie family.”

  “A fabulous idea. I’ve never had a pie family before,” Maire said.

  Nora poured in the filling. “This looks delicious.” She licked the juice from her fingers. If she was still shaken from the encounter with Maggie, she didn’t show it, but then, she was good at hiding her feelings.

  “Now for the top,” Maire said.

  The girls flipped the other circle over the filling. They worked together to crimp the edge. Maire cut a slit in the top and Annie and Ella arranged the cutouts they’d made, so that the figures were holding hands. Maire smiled. “It’s darling. Really, it is.”

  Annie clapped her hands, sending little clouds of flour into the air, Ella too. “Flour power!” Annie cried.

  “Outside with that, you two.” Nora shooed them onto the deck. “We’ll call you when the pie’s ready.” She began wiping down the counters with a sponge. “Sorry about the mess.”

  “A happy mess. It comes with the territory.” Maire caught her looking out the window, brow creased.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Maggie’s not there.”

  “I don’t want to be paranoid, but that was odd, wasn’t it, seeing her there? She isn’t following me, is she?”

  “She has a tendency to wander sometimes. It’s nothing personal.”

  “It seems like it is.”

  A car horn blasted from the driveway, startling them. But it was only Polly, delivering the mail. She came in the side door, a circular and a copy of Gardens Illustrated in hand. “No bills today, you’ll be happy to know. I smell something delicious,” she said. “Blueberry pie? I don’t suppose you could spare a piece.” She turned to Nora. “Maire makes the best pies on the island. The best everything, for that matter. She’s quite the chef. I can barely boil water.”

  “Have a seat,” Maire said. “It will be coming out of the oven any minute. Your timing couldn’t be better.”

  Both for the pie, and for the distraction.

  Chapter Eight

  Days passed. Annie had begun to wonder if she’d see Ronan again. She took to exploring the shoreline at dawn, when the mist rose from the sea, as if it were part of a dream. No one else was
out at that hour, except for Owen Kavanagh, fishing or swimming in the distance. He’d nod or wave, but they were rarely close enough to speak. He tended to venture into more dangerous areas, farther out on the rocks and surf than she dared go.

  This morning the tide was low enough to walk among the tide pools. “Hello, fish,” she said. “Hello, anemones.” They were her friends too. She slipped between the rocks at the end of the beach, the sand between exposed at low tide. She liked to hide. She’d hidden in the garden at home many times. The laurel hedge, filled with nesting birds, provided the best cover. She had a fort inside, perfect for her and perhaps a close friend. Not Ella—she was too big and bossy; the birds didn’t like her tone of voice, so Annie stopped inviting her early on. She’d been in the hedge when she overheard her father talking to someone on his cell phone, under the guise of feeding carp in the pond, a can of fish food in hand. He stood near an azalea bush, a stray napkin and spent balloon (which had read “Cunningham for AG” before it popped) lying beneath it from the fund-raising party her parents had had a few days before, the weather being fine enough for the guests to spill outside. He spoke softly, with the same hushed tones she used when confiding in her best friend, Katie. “Do you have secrets too, Daddy?” she’d asked, startling him as she emerged from the hedge and followed him into the house. “Just business, Annie-pan,” he said briskly. “I didn’t realize you were there.”

  She felt a chill there on Glass Beach, in the shade of the rocks, and flitted out into the sun again. I’m a butterfly. She could transform herself. She could make anything new.

  “Hi, Annie.” Ronan stepped lightly along the lip of a pool. She’d never seen anyone with such perfect balance.

  “Where have you been?” She’d been hoping to see him, and now there he was.

  “Away, fishing. You haven’t told anyone about me, have you?”

  “No. I never break a promise.”

  “Good. I knew I could trust you. I have something for you.” He handed her a shell—plain, white, flawless. It was threaded on a piece of braided sea grass. “Go ahead. Blow on it.”

  She did. “It doesn’t make a sound.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Just because you can’t hear it, doesn’t mean someone else can’t. Keep it. You might need it someday.”

  “When?”

  “It’s not someday yet. When it is, you’ll know.”

  She slipped the necklace over her head. She liked how it smelled of the sea, that he’d made it for her.

  “Do you want to swim?”

  “I’m not supposed to swim alone.”

  “You aren’t alone. You’re with me. We won’t go far. There’s something I want to show you.”

  “We still haven’t gone out in my boat. I have paddles now.”

  “This will be better. You’ll see.” He took her hand. The warmth from his skin spread through her body. “Still cold?”

  She laughed and shook her head.

  They ran through the shallows, water splashing behind them, spray iridescent in the sunlight, and dove in. The salt stung Annie’s eyes, but she didn’t close them. She wanted to see where Ronan was taking her. She’d never known anyone who swam as well as he did, not even her mother. She mirrored his movements as best she could. They surfaced at intervals, to draw breath, before submerging once again.

  Ronan treaded water, cocking his head. “They’re coming. Listen.” He tugged her beneath the waves. She caught her breath, fast, before going under. Then she heard it: a basslike sound, like a muffled horn, deep, sonorous, followed by higher whistles—a symphony of the sea.

  “What was that?” she asked after they surfaced again, gasping. She’d never held her breath so long. “It was beautiful.”

  “The whales, singing.” He paused, noticing how breathless she was. “You’re tired. We’d better go back.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know.” He guided her to shore and sat by her side, drawing symbols in the sand.

  “What do those mean?” She gestured to the marks, a series of curves and lines, as if in code.

  “It’s a special language,” he said. “Maybe I’ll teach you sometime.”

  “Would you write my name?”

  He scratched loops and dashes that looked like sparrow’s wings or fish scales.

  “It’s pretty. I want to write my name like that, always.”

  He shook his head. “It’s between us—for the beach only.”

  “For the beach only,” she agreed.

  “So you’re here with your family?” he asked.

  “My sister and mom.”

  “And your dad?”

  “He’s coming, I think. Actually, I don’t know. He hasn’t been around much lately.” She sighed.

  He nodded, as if he knew exactly what she meant. “Things are always changing,” he said, studying the waves. “Sometimes in ways we don’t want them to.”

  They fell silent. Ronan was easy to be with. She could have spent hours with him, hours and hours.

  He got up abruptly and crouched down behind a pile of driftwood. He seemed to sense things before she did.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, wondering if she should hide too.

  “Someone’s there.”

  She looked in the direction he indicated. It was Owen Kavanagh, casting a net from one of the outcrops. “It’s just Owen. He comes from the ocean, like you. Do you know him?”

  Ronan didn’t answer. He slipped away through a slit in the rocks without another word.

  Maire met Annie on the path that meandered down the bluff. She was on her way to gather seaweed and shellfish, a basket on her arm. She’d glimpsed the boy before he’d dashed away. “I see you’ve made a new friend.”

  “Friend? There was nobody but me.” Annie toed the sand. She wouldn’t meet Maire’s eyes. She was obviously hiding something.

  There was a pile of beachcombed findings at her feet—periwinkles, clamshells, sea glass, a perfectly spherical granite stone. She’d already assembled quite a collection at the cottage. She’d shown it to Maire on many occasions. “You’ve found more treasures.”

  “There’s something new every day. You never know what you’ll find.” Her gaze darted in the direction the boy had gone.

  “A visitor too?” Maire gestured to the footprints the waves hadn’t quite had a chance to erase.

  Annie bit her lip. “No one is supposed to know, especially Ella. She gets so bossy. I don’t think Ronan would like her very much.” Annie covered her mouth. “Oh, no. I shouldn’t have said his name. And I was doing so well, too.”

  “It’s all right. Is he a summer visitor, like you?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. All I know is that he’s my friend. He likes to play. Ella doesn’t, not always. That’s what happens when you get older, doesn’t it? I won’t let it happen to me.”

  Maire smiled. It was such a gift to have children at Cliff House again. She’d forgotten what it was like—their discoveries, their small joys, seeing possibility in everything. “Well, we’ll keep it between the two of us for now, shall we?” She supposed there wasn’t any harm. Perhaps Nora already knew. She kept such a close eye on the girls.

  “Are you good at keeping secrets?” Annie asked.

  Maire drew her fingers across her lips. Yes, she was. Too good.

  “Some secrets are bad, aren’t they?” Annie mused, perhaps thinking of her father.

  “This one isn’t. At least, I don’t think it is. I’m glad you made a new friend.”

  “I am too. We’re making lots of friends on Burke’s Island—Polly, Alison, Owen, Reilly—”

  “You’ve met Reilly?” She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. He walked the bluffs frequently, though he didn’t travel far beyond the point anymore, unless it was for Sunday mass. He sat in the same pew as Maire, third row, left, a small statue of Saint Rita, patron saint of impossible causes, in the niche nearby, candles burning at her feet.

  “Yes. And Patch. I c
an’t forget Patch.”

  Maire and Joe had had a dog too, a chocolate lab named Diggity, who went down with his master. She hadn’t had the heart to get another, not knowing what the future would bring. “He’s a sweetie, isn’t he?”

  “It’s nice to get to know someone my own age,” Annie said, speaking of Ronan again.

  “Yes, I’m sure it is.” Ella was the only one who hadn’t formed a new friendship on the island, but then again, there weren’t any other children near the point.

  “Where are you going?” Annie asked.

  “To harvest seaweed. Some types are good in salads, others for the garden. The vegetables are particularly fond of it. Would you like to help?”

  “Yes.” She took Maire’s hand, looking up at her trustingly. “I’m glad we came here, Aunt Maire.”

  “I am too.”

  Owen likes to fish, doesn’t he?” Annie asked later after they returned to Cliff House. Maire had had her younger niece all to herself that morning. Nora had gone into town to run errands, and Ella remained at the cabin, engrossed in her book, Mockingjay being her latest selection. Maire and Annie were in the garden, laying the seaweed out to dry. Once it was ready, they’d spread it on the beds to nourish the roots of the plants. “He’s always on the rocks, catching something.”

  “It’s what he loves to do,” Maire said. She shaded her eyes. There he was, coming up the path. He seemed to be getting along better now. At first, he’d been tentative in his movements, as if he didn’t trust his feet to support him. “Hello, there. We were just talking about you.”

  “My ears are burning.” He presented her with a batch of smelt.

  “My favorite, ever since I was a little girl. I’d catch them with my dad. We were the only ones who liked them.” Maire cherished those times with her father. He taught her about the ocean. The sailor’s superstitions: Never sail on Friday. Never whistle aboard a boat unless it’s to summon a fair breeze, when becalmed. The rules of navigation.

  “Me too.”

  “We were just finishing up here.” Maire rose to her feet, dusting off the knees of her jeans. “Why don’t you come in for a cup of tea?”