by James Bow
The other students were milling around, grey shapes in the fog, looking about in bewilderment. Joe was closest to her. “What the heck —”
Then she heard it. A shush in the trees, a sound that played across the back of her mind. Whispers off the building walls. She couldn’t make out the words. Veronica shuddered. “Stupid fog.”
Rosemary caught sight of Peter, walking on ahead, oblivious to the voices. The fog gathered around him as he reached the school doors, and he vanished from sight.
***
In French class, Peter glowered at his desk.
Rosemary had ignored him. Okay, perhaps she was angry at being woken up in the middle of the night, but to say nothing? To sit somewhere else? That hurt.
I’ve driven her away, he thought. She never felt for me the way I felt for her.
“Peter?” Madame Krug stood pointing to the assignment on the board.
Quietest trip ever on that bus. Not one person bothered to say hello.
“Peter? Are you all right?”
I might as well be invisible, the way people treat me.
“Peter!”
Peter jerked to attention.
“Peter, where are you today, off in some cloud?” the teacher asked. The classroom snickered.
“Sorry,” said Peter.
“Je m’excuse, madame, s’il vous plait, Peter,” said Madame Krug.
Peter coughed. “Je m’excuse, Madame Krug.” He slumped in his seat. It was going to be a long day.
***
Rosemary waited by her locker between classes. Her eyes scanned the passing students.
Around her, people whispered about the fog.
“This is getting creepy,” said Brittney. “First that shipwreck, and now those voices? That’s not the wind playing tricks with us.”
“Sure it is,” said Joe. “What else could it be?”
“Ghosts, of course,” said Benson.
Veronica glowered into her locker. “Shut up, Benson!”
“No, seriously. There’s, like, a ton of shipwrecks around here, right?” Benson went on. “Well, ask yourself: how come?”
“Rocks,” said Brittney.
“But there’s the lighthouse and maps and stuff,” Benson pressed. “There’s gotta be more to it.”
“Like what?” Brittney rolled her eyes. “Magnets?”
“No, sirens. Drawing the sailors onto the rocks.”
“Sirens?” said Joe.
“Yeah, you know, creatures like beautiful women. Sort of sexy water vampires, like the Brides of Dracula?” Benson’s face took on a distant, contented look. Veronica slammed her locker door.
“This is stupid! You’re being stupid!” She stood with her hands on her hips. “It’s just some freaky weather, that’s all!”
Then Rosemary spotted Peter. “Peter!” She waved. “Peter!” When he didn’t answer, she darted towards him and plucked him from the stream. “Peter!”
Behind her, Joe said to Benson, “Sirens would be cool. You think they raised the fog?”
Rosemary pulled Peter out of the others’ earshot. He glared at her. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you!”
“What about?”
“We have to talk, Peter. About the letter —”
“That letter made things perfectly clear, Rosemary.”
“I wasn’t going to send it. I was going to talk to you.”
“Yeah, well, I appreciate the personal touch.”
“What is wrong with you?” she whispered. “Do you want me to say ‘I love you’? Well, I can’t!” She cast a quick glance to make sure the others weren’t eavesdropping. They weren’t. She turned back to Peter. “Not yet. I’ve never felt this way before. I don’t know how I should feel. But I want to find out, if you do.”
She gave Peter what she hoped was an encouraging smile. That changed to a look of astonishment as Peter stared at her, wide-eyed and on the verge of tears.
He turned and walked away with the stride that tried very hard not to be a run. Rosemary backed into her locker door.
Behind her, Veronica had opened her locker again, and was sorting around for a missing textbook. The bell rang.
“C’mon, B,” said Joe. “We’ll be late for practice.”
“Yeah,” said Benson. “See you, Rosemary!” He gave her a wave. Then he tiptoed behind Veronica and whispered in her ear. “See you, Veronica!”
Veronica jerked up with a shriek. The back of her head caught Benson square on the nose.
“Benson!” she yelled. “Don’t do that to me again!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, clutching his nose.
Veronica gathered up her books and stormed off to class.
***
The afternoon just got worse. Everybody was whispering behind his back.
“His marks are dropping,” Hunter replied. “He’s showing less and less interest in class. He’s isolating himself from others.”
They all think I’m a failure.
“Do you want me to say ‘I love you’? Well, I can’t!”
Then, several decibels lower:
“I’ve never felt this way before. I don’t know how I should feel. But I want to find out.”
Peter shook his head, trying to clear it. Rosemary didn’t say that. I wouldn’t be nearly this angry if she had.
“Peter? Look alive, there! You’re up!”
Peter dribbled his basketball. He ran for his lay-up, jumped, missed.
“Good hustle, Peter,” shouted Coach Beckett.
“More focus, next time. Try again.”
Peter faced the basket.
“I don’t want you to change from my friend to my boyfriend, only to have us break up and lose everything.”
The ball hit his toe and skittered to the wall. Where had that thought come from?
“Keep trying, Peter,” shouted Joe. “You’ll get it!”
Peter grabbed the ball, picked up his pace, rounding on the basket …
Rosemary, kissing, tensing, then pushing him away …
The basketball bounced off the rim. Peter swore loudly.
His classmates stared. Coach Beckett scowled.
“Only losers swear, Peter.”
Peter threw down the basketball and stormed off.
“Peter?” Joe started after him.
“Peter? What’s wrong?” Coach Beckett put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, but Peter shook it off and quickened his pace towards the outer doors.
“Peter!”
Fiona was right. Nobody cares about me. I want to go home.
The doors smashed open and he ran into the back field. The fog wrapped him, and he stood in the centre of a white void. Only then did he allow himself to cry.
“Now do you understand?” Fiona’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. He smelled it like the fog.
His gaze hardened. He wiped his face dry and cleared his nose with a sniff. He spoke to the air. “Where do I go from here?”
Fiona stepped into view and took his hands. “Follow me.”
Holding hands, they walked out of the back field. Then they walked briskly across the road and strode down the sidewalk towards downtown Clarksbury. Nobody passed them. By the time they hit the main street, they were running full tilt.
***
Rosemary meandered through the book stacks. Study period — right. No way could she study. Every window she passed was a featureless square of white. She stared out at the fog, remembering the voices, the sound of the shipwreck. And Peter acting so weird.
There was so much on her mind — but the only thing she could look up was shipwrecks. She picked A History of the Bruce Peninsula off the shelf and scanned the index. Shipwrecks.
There were hundreds.
Shipwrecks, maps of, 107. On page 107 a familiar shoreline jumped out at her. Her home, scattered with red crosses. A green square marked Fathom Five National Marine Park. The red crosses, marking shipwrecks, ran up and down the shore. Five were clus
tered around Clarksbury Harbour.
She turned back to the index, scanned down the two columns of tiny type. Shipwrecks, siren legends about, 209.
The USS Lorelei was sailing Lake Huron when the War of 1812 broke out. Trapped in unfriendly waters, the Lorelei ran. The ship’s captain, Glenn Hoskins, raced narrow passages and hid in rocky shallows where the British dared not follow.
Survivors report that the crew began to hear voices, whispering off the cliffs and water.
Rosemary looked out the fog-soaked window. Voices.
A fog rose up around the ship, but Hoskins, as if suicidal, raced the channels blind. His crew mutinied. Hoskins and his officers tricked them into going below decks with the promise of a meeting. Then they nailed the hatch shut. As they finished, the ship struck rock and started to sink. There was no time to pry up the nails.
Rosemary remembered the smash of wood, the snap of ropes, and the plosh of things falling into water. Distant screams.
Hoskins lashed himself to the wheel to go down with his ship, but some of the officers escaped. They surrendered to the British, who conducted a search.
They came upon a patch of water that bubbled as though there was a ship below, leaking air. As they had no way of going underwater to recover the drowned crew, they left the Lorelei in its final resting place. Years later, ships passing the site reported that the water still bubbled. A legend developed that sirens had driven the captain mad.
Rosemary looked at the map. The final resting place of the Lorelei was just outside Clarksbury Harbour.
She shook herself.
Come on. Get real, Rosemary. Peter’s mad about the letter. You don’t have to go all Mulder about it.
There hasn’t been a shipwreck on the Bruce in — the Scully in her flipped through the pages — decades.
Until, of course, yesterday. The voices. The weird noises.
She snapped the book closed.
As she put the book back on the shelf, she caught sight of the ink-blot birthmark on her palm, the only reminder of the adventure that had brought her and Peter together in the first place. She stared at it a moment, and then looked out the window at the fog. Her eyes narrowed.
The bell rang. Rosemary shouldered her knapsack and ran for the buses.
***
When Rosemary got back on the school bus, her eyes tracked to the seat she shared with Peter. She blinked to find it empty. Then she was pushed by the students filing in behind her. Stumbling to the back of the bus, she slid into Peter’s place.
She stared out the fog-shrouded window, barely able to see the passing sidewalks, not listening to the conversations around her, until she heard Peter’s name.
“What was Peter’s problem, today?” asked Benson, who sat two seats down from her. He was talking to Joe. “Just throwing down his ball and running out of the gym? What got into him?”
“Maybe he and Rosemary had a fight.” Veronica shot Rosemary a snide grin.
“Shut up, Veronica,” said Benson.
Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. Coach Beckett shouted all over the back field, but he couldn’t find him. He’s always been a bit of a loner, but that was just strange. Rosemary, do you know what’s going on?”
Rosemary stared at the inquisitive looks of Benson and Joe. They were serious and concerned, completely different from the two boys who used to take special pleasure in pelting her with snowballs.
“I … I don’t know,” she managed, finally. “He’s been having trouble sleeping.”
Joe sighed. “That sucks. Maybe I shouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer when I invite him to the team party.”
Veronica snorted. “At the Homecoming Dance? He wouldn’t go unless Rosemary dragged him!”
Benson and Joe looked at Rosemary. “That’s an idea. You want to drag him?”
Rosemary started to protest, but stopped. “Okay,” she said at last. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Great!” said Joe.
The conversation moved on. Rosemary stared out the window as the bus reached the edge of town. The people they passed were shrouded shadows, almost unrecognizable.
But she recognized Peter when she saw him.
She pressed her face to the window. Peter was on the sidewalk, holding hands with — What on Earth?!
The bus shuddered to a stop. Benson and Veronica got up to get off. Rosemary gathered her things and darted after them, almost knocking Benson over as she leapt to the sidewalk.
“Hey!” Veronica shouted. “Watch it!”
“Rosemary, what’s the matter with you?” said Benson.
Rosemary ran to get behind the bus even as it pulled away.
They were at the crossroads where the 45th Parallel Road ascended the escarpment to Peter and Rosemary’s homes. Peter could barely be seen on the other side of the road, walking with a thickening of the fog. He’d been walking with a person, hadn’t he? Where was he going? He should be turning right to head home, but he was turning left, towards the bay.
“What’s he doing?” said Rosemary. “Peter!”
“What’s going on?” asked Benson. “What about Peter?”
Rosemary ignored them. “He can’t be going to the Point. Not in this fog!”
“What?” said Benson.
Rosemary ran across the road. Benson and Veronica vanished behind her.
***
“Fiona!” Peter gasped. “Slow down! I can’t keep up this pace!”
They were on a dirt track that was changing to a rugged trail that climbed the escarpment. Peter stumbled on the stony, uneven ground.
Fiona giggled. She wouldn’t let go of his hand. She tugged him, playful and insistent. They hadn’t met a single person, on foot or in a car, but he couldn’t think on the strangeness of this while Fiona kept up the pace.
“We must hurry, Peter,” she breathed. “The portal awaits!”
“Portal? What portal?”
The fog veiled all. Peter could barely see where to put his feet on the ground. He could no longer tell where he was in relation to the road, but he could hear the sounds of waves against a rocky shore, and the squeal of seagulls, and he figured they must be approaching Clark’s Point.
The pathway levelled out and they stepped onto a ledge. The rocks of the escarpment rose sheer on his right, topping out ten feet above him. On his left, the ground dropped away to nothing. The ledge curved away in front, making his small patch of land look like the only solid ground in existence. Somewhere beneath the sea of white the waves of Georgian Bay rolled.
He pressed himself against the rocks, stabbed by a pang of vertigo.
Fiona smiled at him. “Don’t be afraid. We’re almost home.”
Peter stared at her. “Where?” He had a sinking sensation the answer was “down there.”
“You shall see.”
She let go of his hand, stepped to the edge of the cliff, threw back her head, and sang.
Fiona’s voice was barely on the edge of human hearing. There was no melody. It was a chord, higher than a piccolo and more beautiful. It made the fog roll back. The water below grew more distinct until it was as though they were standing in the eye of a small hurricane.
Then Fiona leaned forward. For one heart-pounding moment, Peter thought she was falling, but she cast her arms out and jumped into the air. Her body glowed, and then flew apart into a dozen sprites of light that drifted down out of sight.
Then Fiona’s voice rang in his ears. “Now it’s your turn, Peter. Come to the edge.”
Peter leaned out and looked down. The rock wall stretched below him fifty feet. What looked sheer from the ground was full of outcroppings and protrusions of stone from this perspective. Whitecapped waves lapped at a narrow stone beach.
Vertigo tugged at him. He staggered back and gripped the wall as best he could with his hands and his back. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.
But he could hear her voice in his head. “Come,” it whispered. “See, the portal is opening.”
Th
e compulsion to look returned. Keeping a hand on the wall, he leaned out and looked down. In the centre of the small cove, the water was bubbling and frothing, as though there was a ship beneath the waves, leaking air.
“Come home, Peter.”
“Peter!”
Peter whipped around. Rosemary was standing on the ledge with him, her face pale, and the knuckles of her right hand white where she gripped the rocks. She reached out with her left.
Peter fumbled with his words. “Rosemary, how … go away. Leave me —”
Rosemary took a step towards him. “Peter, please, you don’t need to do this!”
“Get out of here,” Peter gasped. “I don’t want you to see me.”
“I’m not leaving without you!”
Peter looked down. His knees wobbled. He pitched back into the wall.
“Rosemary, get out of here!” he yelled. “I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t!”
“She’s calling me, Rosemary! I have to go to her!”
Rosemary shouted over him. “There are people you can talk to. There are other ways you can deal with this! For God’s sake, Peter, don’t jump!”
Fiona’s voice rang in his ears. “Don’t listen to her, Peter!”
Peter gulped air into his lungs. He pushed away from the rock face and straightened up.
“Peter!” Rosemary was crying.
The voice grew dark. “Enough! Come, Peter!”
The vertigo grabbed his legs. He staggered forward, arms cartwheeling. He tilted, beyond his balance, beyond any hope of getting back. He screamed.
Rosemary leapt forward, grabbing at him. She caught his arm. Peter’s stomach lurched as he saw her feet slip on the leaf-covered edge.
“No!”
Peter and Rosemary’s screams echoed as they fell the fifty feet into the water.
