Not What You Seem Page 7

  She shrugs and offers a thin smile. “I don’t know any boats.”

  “Then you should get to know this one. She’s the most beautiful boat you could ever hope to know.” Beautiful, yes. But a weight too. A huge, daunting weight. I have this flash of desire to tell her about it, but I shake it off. I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear my random thoughts. “She’s a recreation of a 19th century French schooner. With a lot of modern details to make tourists happy.”

  “And you…” She looks up at the furled sails. “You like to sail her? I mean, you’re happy? With the b-b-boat.”

  She’s asking me if the Heroine makes me happy? No one asks about me. They ask about her history. If they sail, they ask about how she’s outfitted. They never ask if she makes me happy. Because it’s assumed. I mean, who wouldn’t want to sail her?

  It’s what I’m supposed to want.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Of course.” Even I can hear the pause in my words. The place where I want to say something else, but I’m not entirely sure what it is yet. How can something be both a blessing and a curse? “It’s more like a family legacy.”

  She clutches her clothes so hard that water pools in the bottom of the bag.

  “Legacy,” she repeats.

  “I guess that sounds odd.” I jump off the gunwale and go back to coiling the line, pulling it tight against my elbow and wrist to keep it even.

  “I understand family legacies.” Her eyes flick to the line cutting across my palm and then back to her bag. I don’t get her. It’s like there’s something stuck inside of her—and it comes out for a second, and then disappears. Curious doesn’t even begin to describe it.

  “You have a legacy of your own?” I ask.

  “Not really.” She shakes her head, then sighs. “It’s just that I’ve never liked that word. It’s too big. Like something that’s hard to escape. An echo that keeps coming back.”

  I stop coiling. Hell, I stop doing everything. Breathing. Thinking. The Heroine shifts steadily, as she always does. I usually don’t feel it that much, but in this moment, it’s like we’re rocking on tall ocean waves.

  “What are you trying to escape?” My voice is quiet, and I wonder if I’m asking her or myself.

  “It’s nothing.” Her face pales, and I realize how closely I’m studying her. But I can’t seem to stop. “My mother…” She bites her bottom lip.

  I set the coil on the deck, waiting for her to talk. And trying to focus on her words instead of the way her teeth run over her lip.

  “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  I nod. A perfectly reasonable thing to say. Except something’s not adding up. There’s the instinct I was talking about earlier. I tuck a hand into my pocket, trying not to let my confused thoughts register on my face.

  “Actually, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” she says quickly. “We’re doing a Harborwalk Festival. I was hoping the Heroine could be involved.”

  “Just tell me when.” I smile, glad to see her moved on to something else. She seems easier now. Almost a little excited. “I could give tours. I’ve also got these little handmade sailboats the kids can build and release. Used to do it all the time in Upper Bay. What’s the theme?”

  “Theme?”

  “In Upper Bay they do Lobster Day. There’s the other obvious ones, like blueberries or apples.”

  She bites her bottom lip, her teeth running over it a little.

  “Lewiston does hot air balloons,” I say absently. How many festivals can I come up with? I can probably name a hundred if she’ll keep looking at me like that. “More people seem to come if there’s a theme.”

  She looks up at the rigging. “What about something like kites?”

  “Kites. Like from childhood.” I smile, a hazy memory forming of a bright-red kite. Was that with my mother?

  Her bag of clothes starts to slip, and I step forward, putting a hand under it for her, but she jumps back.

  “I need to go.” The way she says the words with an urgency sets me on edge. Something’s suddenly wrong. I cycle back through the last minute—festivals and kites and childhood. What would have made her uneasy?

  She steps back, leaving a footprint of water on the deck.

  “I’ll walk you,” I offer.

  “No,” she says—fast. Like she didn’t need to think about the answer at all.

  “I don’t think you should walk alone.” Should I be pressing her so hard? But someone should see her home. The sun has fallen behind the hills, and a chill wind is starting to pick up. The temperature is going to fall. “Not with how cold you were. Someone should walk you.”

  “I should go.” She turns toward the ramp to the dock and hurries down—her hair half wild and half wet. Even with how it looks now, I dig that hair. And other things, of course.

  “Wait.” I cross the deck and jump off the edge of the ramp. It’s not hard to catch up with her, but I have to leap over some coiled fishing nets. “Maybe you could text me when you get home? I know it’s odd—but just to make it sure you get home safely.”

  “I lost my phone in the water.” She stops walking, and the wind catches her hair. The red kite. It’s so familiar. Not like the vague feeling that’s a forgotten thought on the tip of my tongue. This feeling has an image. And a name.

  Her eyes are dark and steady on me.

  “Is your name Elly?” I ask.

  11

  Ella

  Run, Elly. Pretend you don’t exist.

  I run. As soon as that name falls from his lips, I turn and I run. He might call after me, I don’t know. He probably does—a man like that with so much earnestness in his blue eyes. He probably calls, but she calls louder.

  Run.

  Up the dock and across the Harborwalk. Past the ticket hut where he was sanding. Past the main street and the bakery, clutching that bag of clothes. Up the stairs that cut into the long sloping hill and to the base of the lighthouse that shoots up to the sky like a rocket waiting to be released. I stumble up the steps toward the lighthouse, my thoughts a twisted knot. Just like a little girl hiding in a closet.

  My foot slips halfway up the stairs, my palms hit the dirt hard, and the bag falls. It stops me for long enough to realize what I’m doing. Running away like a child. I suck in ragged breaths. It’s not from the running. I’m not that out of shape—physically at least. My emotional shape is another thing.

  I brush off the bag. Behind me is the curve of the shops along the Harborwalk, and the Heroine’s tall masts cutting a line up to the sky at the far end. A thick forest of green beyond her as the land arcs out to the ocean.

  What does he remember? Should I go back to try and explain myself? What would I even say?

  Why did he have to come back? I’d isolated myself from everything that happened before. Tucked it into some great abyss and covered it over. Down tight with olive bread and croissants. Fitted out the corners with vanilla lattes and laughing with Renee.

  I’d moved on. Became an adult with an apartment and a life. Safe and careful. Where no one gets hurt and no one has to run. And now I’m acting like a child.

  But the second I close my eyes, I see his. Hear him saying that name. My skin itches, like it’s wrapped too tightly around my muscles and bones. It’s more than just dried saltwater.

  I push up off the steps and walk to the far side of the lighthouse. It was gated long ago because the wooden steps that curl up into darkness are far past renovation. And yet the town has kept it here. Maybe because it holds so many legends—ghost stories and tales of ships lost at sea searching for it. I think it’s even featured on some of the Portage postcards. Proof that this town never forgets.

  That I’ll never forget.

  I’ll never forget Charles handcuffed to that register, no matter how much I try. I’ll never forget the way my mother pushed that wooden box into my hand.

  You’ll be fine, Elly. She sounded so sure of it.

  But I’ve never been fine, not really. Not with al
l these ricocheting thoughts. They were there all along. Dean might bring them out, but it’s not his fault. They were hiding. Waiting.

  I slide to a seat against the back of the lighthouse, set the bag next to me, and wrap my arms around my legs. Just like I sat in that hallway where she left me with a box of syringes and a man handcuffed to a mattress in the next room with numbers written on his arm. A little battery-operated clock sat on the matted carpet next to me, and I stared at it and wished Anthony would come and tell me what to do. That my mother would come and disappear into the room with the man. That I could blink myself away. It didn’t matter where I’d go—away was a good enough destination. I just wanted to disappear.

  But time had kept moving. The clock blinked over 2:15. The time I was supposed to open the door to his room and push a syringe into a man’s arm.

  I couldn’t do it. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that would stop time. But it didn’t. The carpet itched my legs. We’d been staying in the house for a few weeks—no electricity or water. It was always musty and damp. She wouldn’t let us open the windows. Nothing to show we were staying there.

  2:18

  2:32

  Time had felt erratic—numbers caught between flying and lingering. I dug my fingers into the carpet, and the fibers cut under my fingernails.

  2:47

  When I didn’t follow the rules, she’d lock me in a closet for a day or drop me off under an overpass somewhere. Or worse, she’d do it to Anthony even though I’d been the one to glance toward a cop or speak to a stranger. She’d leave Anthony somewhere for the night and take me out for ice cream. And she’d smile and stretch out the time while Anthony was somewhere in the dark—paying for whatever I’d done.

  Maybe that’s where they were while I was counting the minutes. Anthony was paying for something I did. Or maybe I was the one paying for something.

  The rattle of metal had made me still in the hallway, listening to every sound in the dark house, but my breath was the loudest one.

  Nothing. For full minute—nothing. Then he moaned. I’d wrapped my arms around my knees and tried to tuck into myself. What if he escaped? What would she do to us?

  I forced my legs and arms to uncurl, and then I picked up the box and stood. The syringes inside shook, and I tried to keep my hand steady.

  She would hurt Anthony if I didn’t do it. She had us locked together in a kind of knot. Pull one side, and the other side had to move too. What had he done to keep me safe?

  If that’s even what I was.

  3:02

  My feet shuffled forward, the box clutched in my hands. I pushed open the door, and the rattling was so loud in the room. I thought that maybe even someone outside could hear it. What if they did? What if they came?

  I clutched the box and stared down at him as he pulled against those handcuffs. Then the rattling stopped, and he turned. His blue eyes fought to focus on me.

  “Elly?”

  I jumped away from my name, the syringes clattering. “How do you know my name?”

  “Do you remember me?” He licked dry lips. “Charles. You used to play with my boys. You have to help me.” His breath was ragged, cutting off the ends of his words. “Please, Elly.”

  He tried to sit up, but the handcuffs stopped him. Cuts ran down his arms—long straight cuts from elbow to wrist. And little nicks like he’d been pricked. I had never seen one of the men before. Not really. Little glimpses or something overheard. But nothing like this. One had never spoken to me.

  The room was filled with an awful stench. The only window was closed, a smashed-up mini-blind blocking the sunlight.

  “Please, please.” His voice cut out, his cough more like a rattle than a cough. “You have to help me.”

  Nausea turned my stomach. I might vomit right there on the carpet. I stepped back, trying to suck in breaths, but everything felt like it was closing in around me.

  “You can’t leave me here like this.”

  I stared at him, and that’s the moment I realized she had to be stopped. No matter what happened to Anthony and me. All of this had to stop.

  “Okay.” I clutched the box tightly. “I’ll help you.”

  12

  Dean

  That didn’t go as planned. I’m not sure what the plan was, but her sprinting away from me wasn’t part of it. And I’ve got no idea if I shou—

  “What the hell did you say to her?”

  Holy fuck, I step to the side, away from the unexpected voice, and just about off the freaking dock.

  “What the—” Deep breath. My heart is battering the inside of my ribcage even though I recognize my brother’s voice almost immediately. “Where did you come from?”

  He laughs. “Saw you chatting up the girl, and thought I’d stay out of the way. So I took a seat the next slip over.” He drops a worn duffle bag on the dock and steps forward, clasping my shoulder. But I pull him into a hug. Damn, it’s good to see him. Even if he did almost startle the piss out of me.

  After we step back, he nods toward the Harborwalk. He’s got a beanie on, and underneath it, eyes the same color as mine evaluate the situation.

  “Although maybe the interruption would have been better,” he says.

  “Yeah, that didn’t go like I’d imagined.” I run my hands through my hair, and then drop them like she’s not bothering me.

  “You gonna go after her?” Sebastian asks.

  Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do. But should I? She ran from me. She pretty much ran from me the first time we met too. She keeps running. Which makes it obvious that I shouldn’t keep chasing her. But I want to. So damn desperately. Like she’s a gale pulling me forward.

  “Someone should go after her.” He stares in the direction she went, tilting his head.

  Oh, fuck no. I know that look. “Not you.”

  I snag his duffle and turn, haul it up the ramp, and drop it as soon as we’re aboard. It’s his bag, so I’m not sure why I’m carrying it. Other than to pull him away from staring after her. Elly. There’s something achingly familiar about her name. As familiar as a slip knot—I could close my eyes, and my fingers can still do the work. Everything about her is that familiar even though I can’t fully place it.

  Sebastian follows me up the ramp, his attention on me, as if he’s trying to figure something out. “Seriously, man, what the hell did you do to her?”

  “I remembered her name.” Why would remembering her name set her off so much? There’s so much mystery to her. The way she looked at me earlier tucked in my comforter—there was nothing shy or confused about it. It’s like she’s two different people. Or maybe one person stuck inside another. Almost like Russian nesting dolls. I set my hand on the gunwale to keep from raking it in my hair. It’s probably sticking out in every direction. Kind of like Elly’s.

  I remembered more than her name. I remembered her. We were chasing after that red kite. That’s why she’s so familiar. We must have played together as children.

  “Do you remember her?” I ask.

  Sebastian shakes his head. “Should I? Didn’t really see her that clearly with the whole running away thing. Besides I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about things back when.”

  “Yeah.” I try to keep myself still. Something about the day’s events make me keep wanting to move. Or maybe it’s that Elly isn’t anywhere in sight anymore. Now that I can’t see her, I wish I’d gone after her. She’s disappeared somewhere behind the old lighthouse.

  “For fuck’s sake, Dean.” Sebastian laughs. “Are you going to go after her?”

  “No,” I say after a minute. “She’s run from me twice. I can take a hint.”

  Sebastian nods. “Seems like the smart choice.”

  An uneasy silence fills the space between us now that we don’t have Elly to talk about. It’s not there all that often. Usually Sebastian and I pick up wherever we left off. Maybe it’s because I’m so out of sorts, but I don’t think it’s just that.

  He scans the deck an
d then the masts. “You changed the rigging.”

  “I’m surprised you noticed.”

  He grunts out a laugh. “Was that a dig?”

  “Nothing more than an observation, man.” I nod toward the duffle. “You staying here?”

  Sebastian scans the deck again. What is going on with him? It’s like everyone in the world has become a freaking puzzle. I can handle one stunning mystery woman, but I don’t have the desire to play mind games with my brother.

  “Out with it.” I step back a few paces. “Something’s clearly on your mind.”

  He stops scanning and crosses his arms over his chest. “What the hell am I doing here? Actually, scratch that for now. Let’s step back even farther. What the hell are you doing here?”

  I blink at him. I didn’t expect that. “You saw the complaints. Our father can’t run this charter anymore, so—”

  “So sell it, use the money to put that asshole in a cage somewhere, and get back to sailing or whatever you want to be doing.”

  I run a hand over my neck and before I know it, I’ve mirrored his stance: arms crossed over my chest and scowl getting deeper by the second. “You want to sell her?”

  A soft breeze comes from the northeast and wood creaks, the boat shifting subtly. But I can feel every movement, just like Sebastian can.

  He sighs, unfolding his arms. “Look, if you really want to run the charter, then fine. And I’ll come help for the summers. I usually end up crashing with you for most of the good sailing months anyway. But is this really what you want? Running this thing every day and dealing with…” He waves a hand toward the ticket hut. “We got away from him, Dean.”

  I bounce a little, feeling the wood give slightly, not sure whether to be grateful or annoyed with my brother’s ability to nearly read my thoughts. Except he’s missing something.

  “I don’t know if I can sell her,” I admit.

  “She’s just wood and cloth.” His voice is low, and I can’t tell if he really believes that or not. Maybe he does. Like I said, he’s never been that attached to much of anything—always floating from one thing to the next.