The Cottage at Glass Beach

by Heather Barbieri

  “Gran, someone is here to see you.” Alison touched Maggie’s shoulder.

  Maggie looked up at her, eyes clouded with suspicion. “Who are you?”

  “It’s Alison, Gran.”

  Maggie stared at her, uncomprehending, before turning back to the window with a dismissive grunt.

  “Sometimes it’s like this,” Alison told Nora matter-of-factly. “Don’t take it personally. I’ll give it another try.” She touched Maggie’s shoulder again. “Gran, you have a visitor.”

  “Hello, Maggie.” Nora took a deep breath and stepped forward. She pulled a box from her purse. Inside was the corsage.

  Maggie squinted at her for a moment, then widened her eyes. “You’ve come to see me,” Maggie said. “You never come to see me.”

  “I have a present for you.” Nora handed her the box.

  “A present?” She cradled it in her palm.

  “Something that should have been given to you a long time ago,” Nora explained.

  Maggie opened the package.

  “For me,” Maggie said, eyes brimming with tears. “For me.”

  The Scanlons invited her to stay for dinner, but she’d told Polly she’d be back in time for her to return to town for her bridge night. She promised to visit with the girls another time. Even the sky seemed particularly benevolent that evening as she drove down-island, washed, as it was, with a warm glow. Swallows swooped ahead, as if leading the way. The boats steamed into the harbor after a long day’s work, beeping their horns in greeting, the lights of Portakinney flicking on as dusk approached.

  She zoomed along the cliffs, the windows down, wind in her hair, the tang of salt, as always, in the air. She passed the turnoff to the church and the berry fields, then, eventually, Cliff House. She felt a pang of sadness at the thought of her aunt, no longer there.

  She parked next to Polly’s red mail van. Inside, she found her and the girls wrapping up an intense game of gin rummy. “Ella is quite the card shark,” Polly said as Ella lay down her cards in triumph yet again.

  “One more round?” Ella asked.

  “Not on your life. I hope I have better luck with bridge tonight.” She played in a league in town. Maire did too, or used to. “I’ll have to scoot, or I’ll be late.” She promised to teach Ella how to play another day.

  Nora walked Polly to her car.

  “How did it go?” Polly asked.

  “Better than I expected.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. The past can’t be undone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to make things better.”

  “Thank you for watching the girls.”

  “Any time. Don’t hesitate to ask. They’re lovely. I hope you’ll consider me an honorary auntie,” she said, biting her lip, perhaps thinking of Maire.

  “Always.” Nora gave her a hug. “Good luck tonight.”

  “I’ll need it. It’s not the same without Maire.” She’d had to find another partner, but no one could take Maire’s place.

  Polly had made a pot of chicken soup and biscuits for dinner. Nora was grateful for the extra help. She was exhausted after the long afternoon and didn’t feel like cooking. She dished up the food and motioned the girls to the table. “Soup’s on.”

  “What’s the green stuff?” Ella asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “Seaweed, probably. It’s good for you,” Annie said.

  “It’s kale,” Nora said, “from Maire’s garden. You don’t mind kale.”

  “I mind a lot of things.”

  “Where did you go again?” Annie asked Nora.

  “To try to straighten things out with Maggie Scanlon.”

  “Did you?”

  “I think so.”

  “What about straightening things out with Dad?” Ella asked.

  Not that again. Nora made an effort to keep her voice even. “We’re working on it.”

  “It doesn’t seem like it.”

  Walk away, Nora told herself. She didn’t want to argue with Ella. She got up from the table.

  “Where are you going?” Ella asked.

  “To get a sweater. I’m cold.” A headache pulsed at her temples. Then she spotted the suitcase—Ella’s case, fully packed, outside the bedroom door. She hadn’t noticed it before. “What’s this?” she asked.

  “For when we’re going,” Ella said. “We are going, aren’t we?”

  “We’re not going anywhere. By the time I come out of this room, I expect to see that bag—and its contents—back where they belong.”

  “Where they belong, huh? That would be in Boston.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Nora slammed the bedroom door. She hadn’t meant to. Well, maybe she had. She sat down in front of the mirror. She’d looked different, transformed, when Owen was there. Because she’d been desired. Because she’d been seen. Now she looked tense and dull. Make your own happiness, she admonished herself. Keep it together.

  And she had been happy. There, on the island. With or without Owen, whoever he was, whatever he was. Surely, it wasn’t possible . . .

  She’d caught her mother sitting there, like this, when she thought no one was looking, a haunted expression on her face.

  “Is something wrong, Mama?” she’d asked.

  What had been the nature of Maeve’s unhappiness? Nora couldn’t be sure.

  She opened the door. She’d heard movement outside. The case was still there, taunting her. “El, I told you—” When she turned to confront her, she saw pages curling in the fireplace: the separation papers, too late to save them from the flames. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Now you’ll have to go back to Boston.”

  “No, I won’t. I don’t need your father’s papers. I’ll be filing my own.” She paused, letting the news sink in. “You, however, are going to go straight to your room.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The book of fairy tales fell to the floor, waking Annie in the middle of the night. She’d been reading it under the bedcovers and had fallen asleep. An imprint from one of the embossed letters was tattooed on her hand, a Gothic A, from where she had pressed her weight against it, dreaming. She traced the shape with her fingers. It was as if the book had begun to spell her name. As she reached down to retrieve the collection, she saw Ella climbing out the window. Their eyes met, a telegraphed question in the silence. Are you coming? Annie put on her coat and boots. She brought Siggy too. He’d already been left behind once.

  As they entered the darkened world outside the cottage, moonlight shone on the water in a long, glimmering streak, lighting the way. Down the path they went, to the beach, always to the beach.

  Ella tugged the coracle across the sand. “Are you still the first mate?”

  “Yes. Why are you moving the boat?”

  “Because we’re going home.”

  “But you’ve hardly packed anything.”

  “We need to travel light. Mom will bring the rest, once she comes to Boston.”

  Annie got in. What else could she do? She wished Ronan were there, so that she could say good-bye. Or had he already moved on, like Owen, the two of them together at last? In any case, she couldn’t let Ella go alone. Ella didn’t know the ocean like she did. They paddled to the mouth of the cove. The seals were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they were sleeping; perhaps they’d left for better fishing grounds. She and Ella had never been out this far before, not alone. The porch light of the cottage was growing smaller by the second. “Did you leave a note?” she asked.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “So she won’t worry. She’s going to worry.”

  “She doesn’t care about us. She only cares about herself.”

  “That’s not true.”

  The boat seemed to move of its own volition, the waves taking control.

  “You have to paddle harder,” Ella said. “Veer left. South.”

  “To the horse platitudes?”

  Ella laughed. “It’s horse latitudes. You should consider getting a
degree in malapropisms when you go to college.”

  “Maybe I will,” Annie said with a touch of pride. “I brought this.” She handed her the compass.

  “You little thief,” Ella said with admiration. “Well done.”

  Onward they went, into the night. Annie didn’t know how much time had elapsed. It passed slowly in the channel, the currents holding them back. It was as if the island didn’t want to let them go. Ella said they couldn’t give up—no matter how much their hands blistered and their arms ached. She’d told Annie what they’d do when they made landfall in Boston: borrow a sailor’s or dockworker’s phone, call their father’s number, and tell him to come get them. He would be surprised and proud of their accomplishment. He would see how much they loved him, the lengths to which they’d go. He would take them out to dinner, Chinese, their favorite, and they would read their fortunes, which would predict only good things, and they would say whatever they wanted and have the worst table manners ever, because their mother wouldn’t be there to correct them.

  “What about Mama?” Annie asked.

  “What about her?”

  The water turned black and viscous as oil, muttering to itself as it slapped at the boat, slaps that rocked them sideways, the waves rising.

  “A storm is coming,” Annie said. “Remember what Reilly said? That the sea is unpredictable. The weather can change in an instant. You can smell it on the wind.”

  “The only thing I smell is you.”

  A wave came out of nowhere, swamping the boat. “Bail!” Ella cried. They used two plastic buckets in which Maire had once gathered honey, to no avail. The coracle climbed up the side of a wave, crested, slid down another, each more precipitous than the last. The waves rose higher. A sea serpent, Annie thought, lashing its tail. The roar grew louder; they could barely hear each other.

  “We have to meet the waves head-on, otherwise we’ll capsize,” Ella shouted.

  The ocean altered its tactics, coming at them with sneaker waves, rogues, front- and broadside assaults, and then a spiral. Annie felt it first. “We’re going down the drain,” she said.

  “No!”

  “The sea’s not listening. It gets to decide.” Annie almost liked that her sister wasn’t going to get her way for once, that there was something bigger than her, than all of them. Than their father and mother and the difficulties they’d been through. The whirlpool pulled the girls into a canyon of water. She wondered where it would end. How long she would be able to watch before it engulfed them. It was the most magnificent thing she had ever seen, a city of water, towers all around. She blew on the shell, as Ronan had told her. It was the only thing she could do. Someday had arrived.

  A chute opened up ahead, sending them into the air, the coracle flipping. Ella screamed as they hit the water, blackness all around. Up. Which way was up? If Annie had gills, she could live there, beneath the waves; she could make the ocean her home. Then she felt, rather than heard, the boat come down overhead, and she swam toward it, that dark shape against the darker night. She surfaced, sputtering, one hand on the rope. Ella. Where was Ella? She glimpsed the orange life jacket, her sister floating. She pulled her toward the upside-down boat, slapped her hard across the face. “Wake up! Wake up!” Ella didn’t stir. She put her face next to hers. Yes, she was alive. She was breathing.

  Ella blinked and stared about her with uncomprehending eyes. “Where’s the boat?”

  “Here. It’s upside down. You have to hold on to the side.” There were two rings on the front, for the rope, once used to tie it up.

  “We’ll get hypothermia. The water’s cold. We won’t last.”

  “Remember the story we read with Mama, about the man whose boat sank, and he floated in the ocean for days? He stayed warm by the power of his thoughts, like the monks in Tibet, who meditate in the snow.” Her teacher, Ms. Kelly, had told the class about them.

  “The time for playing pretend is over. Don’t you understand? We could die.” Ella’s teeth chattered.

  “Do you feel that?”

  “I can’t feel anything. I’m going numb.”

  “It’s the current. It’s carrying us somewhere. Fast.”

  “That somewhere better be land. I’m sleepy. I’m taking a nap.”

  “No. Stay awake. You have to stay awake.” Annie shook her.

  Ella closed her eyes, the waves rocking, rocking.

  How would their story end? It was as if they were within the pages of the book of fairy tales, living the very words they’d been reading. Would their mother pick up the collection and find them there—the scene illustrated in color plates? The old-fashioned words describing their ordeal, telling how Annie was doing her best to be brave and strong, though she was only seven? Especially in the sea that dwarfed anyone and anything that dared sail upon it.

  They hadn’t asked permission. Was that the problem? Ella should have known better than to trespass upon the waves.

  “I’m sorry,” Annie whispered. “We should have asked first. We didn’t mean any harm. Please protect us. You have it within your power to keep us safe.”

  She was tired, so tired. She fought against sleep, eyelids fluttering, open, closed, the sea a seesaw, sea-saw. She smiled at the pun. She’d have to tell Ella . . .

  It was as if she were sliding under the waves.

  Stay awake, she told herself.

  Someone had to. Someone had to watch over them, to make sure nothing bad happened. To keep the sea monsters at bay—she knew they were out there, gnashing their teeth, sharpening their claws. How could they not be, when two small girls had entered their territory? Two small girls, seasoned quite nicely by the salt of the sea.

  But there were good creatures too, weren’t there? The good and the bad and the in-between, in the ocean, as on land. If there was anything Annie had learned in the past few weeks, it was that—in Boston and here on the island too.

  Stay—

  Then she too lost consciousness, the ocean claiming her at last.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It began with a speck, a grain of sand, on Nora’s arm. She brushed at her skin, whole parts of her sloughing away—fingers, hands, limbs. She was losing shape and form, disintegrating, a woman made of sand. She tried to scream, but she had no mouth, no voice. The wind carried her away. She was borne skyward over the ocean, scattering across the beach, the waves. There would be nothing left of her. The girls, playing far below, out of reach—

  She opened her eyes with a start. Eyes gritty from sleep, as if filled with the sand from her dreams. She rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Her eyes were red and puffy. She reached for the glycerin drops in the medicine cabinet. There, that was better, though the raw feeling remained.

  It was uncharacteristically quiet in the cottage that morning. The girls, early risers, were generally up by then, playing, plotting, arguing. Though Ella had started to sleep in, as adolescents often did. Nora felt daunted at the prospect of a teenage Ella, the challenges that next stage would bring. Joys too. There would be joys, if she had anything to do with it.

  She puttered in the kitchen. The fridge and pantry held ingredients for coffeecake—frozen blueberries from Maire’s freezer, buttermilk, eggs, flour. She poured and mixed, a meditative quality to her movements. She would begin the day from this centered, nurturing place. The scent of baking filled the cottage. She glanced at the clock: 10:30 a.m. She’d take a peek, check on them, as she had when they were babies. She turned the knob, winced at the click—she didn’t want to wake them if they were still resting. She smiled as she pictured Ella, sprawled with her face half in the pillow, Annie with her hands folded over her chest, like Snow White. Their faces peaceful, innocent in sleep.

  Instead, there was the open window, the empty beds. They must already be adventuring. It was kind of them to let her sleep; even Ella, demanding Ella, had her considerate moments. The coffeecake would be ready soon. She set out to call them to breakfast. Or maybe they’d already had cereal? No, t
here were no bowls in the sink or on the drain board. It didn’t appear they’d eaten anything that morning—which was the first detail that gave her pause. A pause in which the scene gradually went still. Everything was in its place—the path, the trees, the beach, the house—except the girls weren’t there. Nora tried to be logical. Where would they have gone? She checked the woods, the meadow, Maire’s. She hardly felt the ground beneath her feet, the wind in her face, the absence of sensation, of her daughters, intensifying. She looped through another field, down along the bluff to the beach.

  No girls.

  No coracle either.

  The sea lapped at the shore, delicate and knowing as a cat. The sea that went on and on as far as the eye could see, not a boat, not a person in sight.

  She ran to Reilly Neale’s, falling and skinning her knee, rising, running again. She couldn’t feel her legs beneath her. She beat on his door with both fists. “Mr. Neale? Mr. Neale, are you there?”

  He shuffled to the door, the dog barking. He wore a moth-eaten sweater, his hair a white-wisped nest, as if he’d just run his hands through it or gotten out of bed.

  “Have you seen them? Have you seen the girls?” she asked.

  “No, I—” He tugged at the sleeves of his holey cardigan.

  “The coracle is gone.”

  He seemed to understand the source of her panic now. “The tide might have taken it,” he said. “When did they go?”

  “I’m not sure. Sometime during the night?” She’d slept hard, dreamless, for once.

  “During the storm?”

  “Storm?”

  “Didn’t you hear it? Wasn’t as bad as some—winter brings far worse—but rough enough for this time of year. The quick and dirty type. No time to be on the water, especially for the young, though there’s no saying they took the coracle in the first place. The sea came high up the beach yesterday. There’s been a surge lately.”