Riptide

Chapter 34

The long point of ochre-colored land called Burnt Head lay south of town, jutting out into the sea like a giant's gnarled finger. On the far side of this promontory, the cliff tumbled wooded and wild down to the bay known as Squeaker's Cove. Countless millions of mussel shells, rubbing against each other in the brittle surf, had given the deserted spot its name. The wooded paths and hollows that lay in the shadow of the lighthouse had become known as Squeaker's Glen. The name had a double meaning for students at Stormhaven High School; the glen also functioned as the local lovers' lane, and virginity had been lost there on more than one occasion.

Twenty-odd years before, Malin Hatch had himself been one of those fumbling virgins. Now he found himself strolling the wooded paths again, uncertain what impulse had brought him to this spot. He had recognized the handwriting on the sheets hidden in the wardrobe as his grandfather's. Unable to bring himself to read them right away, he'd left the house intent on strolling down along the waterfront. But his feet had taken him back of the town, skirting the meadows around Fort Blacklock, and angling at last toward the lighthouse and Squeaker's Cove.

He veered off onto a rutted path, a thin pencil line of black dropping through the thick growth. After several yards, the path opened into a small glade. On three sides, the rocky escarpment of Burnt Head rose steeply, covered in moss and creepers. On the fourth side, dense foliage blocked any view of the water, though the strange whispering of the mussel shells in the surf betrayed the nearness of the coast. Dim bars of light striped diagonally through the tree cover, highlighting ragged patches of grass. Despite himself, Hatch smiled as Emily Dickinson came unbidden to mind. "'There's a certain Slant of light,'" he murmured,

Winter Afternoons—

Which oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes—

He looked around the secluded glade as the memories came charging back. Of one May afternoon in particular, full of nervous roving hands and short, tentative gasps. The newness of it, the exotic sense of venturing into adult territory, had been intoxicating. He shook the memory away, surprised at how the thought of something that had happened so long ago could still be so arousing. That had been six months before his mother packed them off to Boston. Claire, more than anyone, had accepted his moods; accepted all the baggage that had come with being Malin Hatch, the boy who'd lost the better part of his family.

Ican't believe the place is still here, he thought to himself. His eyes caught a crumpled beer can peeping from beneath a rock; still here, and still apparently used for the same purposes.

He sat down on the fragrant grass. A beautiful late summer afternoon, and he had the glen all to himself.

No, not quite to himself. Hatch became aware of a rustling on the path behind him. He turned suddenly, and to his surprise saw Claire step out into the glade.

She stopped dead as she saw him, then flushed deeply. She was wearing a summery, low-cut print dress, and her long golden hair was gathered in a French braid that reached down her freckled back. She hesitated a moment, then stepped forward resolutely.

"Hello again," Hatch said, jumping to his feet. "Nice day to bump into you." He tried to make his tone light and easy. He wondered if he should shake her hand or kiss her cheek, and in the period of hesitation realized the time for doing either had already passed.

She smiled briefly and nodded.

"How was your dinner?" he asked. The question sounded inane even as it left his lips.

"Fine."

There was an awkward pause.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I must be intruding on your privacy." She turned to go.

"Wait!" he cried, louder than he'd intended. "I mean, you don't have to go. I was just out wandering. Besides, I'd like to catch up."

Claire looked around a little nervously. "You know how small towns are. If anyone were to find us here, they'd think—"

"Nobody's going to find us," he said. "This is Squeaker's Glen, remember?" He sat down again and patted the ground next to him.

She came forward and smoothed her dress with the self-conscious gesture he remembered.

"Funny we should meet here, of all places," he said.

She nodded. "I remember the time you put oak leaves over your ears and stood on that stone over there, quoting the whole of 'Lycidas.'"

Hatch was tempted to mention a few other things he remembered. "And now that I'm an old bonecutter, I throw medical metaphors in with the obscure poetry."

"What's it been, twenty-five years?" she asked.

"Just about." He paused for an awkward moment. "So what have you been doing all this time?"

"You know. Graduated from high school, planned to go to Orono and attend U Maine, but met Woody instead. Got married. No kids." She shrugged and took a seat on a nearby rock, hugging her knees. "That's about it."

"No kids?" Hatch asked. Even in high school, Claire had talked of her desire for children.

"No," she said matter-of-factly. "Low sperm count."

There was a silence. And then Hatch—to his own horror, and for some reason he couldn't begin to understand—felt an irresistible wave of mirth sweep over him at the incongruous turn the stumbling conversation had taken. He snorted involuntarily, then burst out laughing and continued laughing until his chest hurt and tears started. Dimly, he realized that Claire was laughing as hard as he was.

"Oh, Lord," she said, wiping her eyes at last, "what a relief it is to just laugh. Especially over this. Malin, you can't imagine what a terribly forbidden subject this is at home. Low sperm count." And they broke once again into choking peals of laughter.

As the laughter fell away, it seemed as if the years and the awkwardness fell with it. Hatch regaled her with stories of medical school, gruesome pranks they played in human anatomy class, and his adventures in Suriname and Sierra Leone, while she told him the various fates of their common friends. Almost all of them had moved to Bangor, Portland, or Manchester.

At last, she fell silent. "I have a confession, Malin," she said. "This meeting wasn't a complete accident."

Hatch nodded.

"You see, I saw you walking past Fort Blacklock, and . . . well, I took a wild guess where you were headed."

"Not so wild, it turns out."

She looked at him. "I wanted to apologize. I mean, I don't share Woody's feelings about what you're doing here. I know you're not in it for the money, and I wanted you to hear that from me. I hope you succeed."

"No need to apologize." He paused. "Tell me how you ended up marrying him."

She sighed and averted her eyes. "Must I?"

"You must."

"Oh, Malin, I was so ... I don't know. You left, and you never wrote. No, no," she went on quickly, "I'm not blaming you. I know I stopped going out with you before then."

"That's right. For Richard Moe, star quarterback. How is old Dick?"

"I don't know. I broke up with him three weeks after you left Stormhaven. I never cared for him much, anyway. I was mad at you, more than anything else. There was this part of you I could never reach, this hard place you kept from me. You had left Stormhaven long before you really left, if you know what I mean. It got to me after a while." She shrugged. "I kept hoping you'd come after me. But then one day, you and your mother were gone."

"Yup. Off to Boston. I guess I was a pretty gloomy kid."

"After you left, it was all the same old guys in Stormhaven. God, they were so boring. I was all set to go to college. And then this young minister came. He'd been to Woodstock, been tear-gassed at the '68 Chicago convention. He seemed so fiery and sincere. He'd inherited millions, you know—margarine—and he gave it all to the poor, every penny. Malin, I wish you'd known him then. He was so different. Full of passion for the big causes, a man who really believed he could change the world. He was so intense. I couldn't believe that he could have any interest in me. And you know, he never talked God to me. He just tried to live by His example. I still remember how he couldn't bear the thought of being the reason I didn't get my degree. He insisted I go to the Community College. He's the only man I've ever met who would never tell a lie, no matter how much the truth might hurt."

"So what happened?"

Claire sighed and dropped her chin onto her knees. "I'm not sure, exactly. Over the years, he seemed to shrink somehow. Small towns can be deadly, Malin, especially for someone like Woody. You know how it is. Stormhaven is its own little world. Nobody cared about politics here, nobody cared about nuclear proliferation, about starving children in Biafra. I begged Woody to leave, but he's so stubborn. He'd come here to change this little town, and he wasn't going to leave until he did. Oh, people tolerated him, and looked on all his causes and fund-raisers with a kind of amusement. Nobody even got mad about his liberal politics. They just ignored it. That was the worst for him—being politely ignored. He became more and more—" She paused, thinking. "I don't know how to say it, exactly. Rigid and moralistic. Even at home. He never learned to lighten up. And having no sense of humor made it harder."

"Well, Maine humor can take some getting used to," Hatch said as charitably as he could.

"No, Malin, I mean it literally. Woody never laughs. He never finds anything funny. He just doesn't get it. I don't know if it's something in his background, or his genes, or what. We don't talk about it. Maybe that's one reason he's so ardent, so unmoving in the things he believes in." She hesitated. "And now he has something to believe in, all right. With this crusade against your treasure hunt, it's like he has a new cause. Something he thinks Stormhaven will care about."

"What is it about the dig, anyway?" Hatch asked. "Or is it the dig? Does he know about us?"

She turned to look at him. "Of course he knows about us. A long time ago, he demanded honesty, so I told him everything. Wasn't all that much to tell." She gave a short laugh.

Serves me right for asking, Hatch thought. "Well, he'd better start looking for another cause. We're almost done."

"Really? How can you be sure?"

"The crew historian made a discovery this morning. He learned that Macallan, the guy who built the Water Pit, designed it as a kind of cathedral spire."

Claire frowned. "A spire? There's no spire on the island."

"No, no, I mean an upside-down spire. It sounded crazy to me, too. But when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. He was explaining it to me." It felt good to talk. And Hatch somehow knew that he could trust Claire to keep a confidence. "See, Red Ned Ockham wanted this Macallan to build something that would keep his treasure safe until he came back to retrieve it."

"Retrieve it how?"

"Through a secret back door. But Macallan had other ideas. In revenge for being kidnapped, he designed the Pit so that nobody, not even Red Ned, could get at the treasure. He made sure that if Red Ned ever tried, he'd be killed. Of course, Red Ned died before he could return to claim his hoard, and the Pit has resisted attack ever since. But we're using technologies Macallan never dreamed of. And now that the Pit is drained of water, we've been able to figure out exactly what he built. Macallan designed churches. And you know how churches have a complex internal and external buttressing to keep them from falling down, right? Well, Macallan just inverted the whole scheme, and used it as the supports for his Pit during its construction. Then he secretly removed the most important supports as the Pit was filled in. None of the pirates would have guessed anything was wrong. When Ockham returned, he'd have rebuilt his cofferdam, sealed his flood tunnels and pumped out the Pit, if necessary. But when he tried to actually retrieve the treasure, the whole Pit would have collapsed on him. That was Ockham's trap. But, by re-creating the cathedral braces, we can stabilize the Pit, extract the treasure without fear."

"That's incredible," she said.

"Yes, it is."

"Then why aren't you more excited?"

Hatch paused. "Is it that obvious?" he laughed quietly. "Despite everything that's happened, I guess there are times when I still feel a little ambivalent about the whole project. Gold, or the lure of gold, does strange things to people. I'm no exception. I keep telling myself this is all about finding out what happened to Johnny. I'd planned to put my share into a foundation in his memory. But every now and then I catch myself thinking about what I could do with all that money."

"That's only natural, Malin."

"Maybe. But that doesn't make me feel any better about it. Your Reverend gave all his away, remember?" He sighed. "Maybe he's a little bit right about me, after all. Anyway, he doesn't seem to have caused much damage with his opposition."

"You're wrong about that." Claire looked at him. "You know about the sermon last Sunday?"

"I heard something about it."

"He read a passage out of Revelation. It had a huge effect on the fishermen. And did you hear he brought out the Curse Stone?"

Hatch frowned. "No."

"He said the treasure was worth two billion. That you'd lied, telling him it was worth much less. Did you lie to him, Malin?"

"I—" Hatch stopped, uncertain of whether to feel more angry at Clay or at himself. "I guess I got defensive, the way he cornered me at the lobster festival like that. So, yes, I lowballed the number. I didn't want to arm him with more information than necessary."

"Well, he's armed now. The haul is down this year, and in the minds of the fishermen he's linked that to the dig. He really was able to split the town over this one. He's finally found the issue he's been looking for these twenty years."

"Claire, the haul is down every year. They've been overfishing and overlobstering for half a century."

"You know that, and I know that. But now they've got something to blame it on. Malin, they're planning some kind of protest."

Hatch looked at her.

"I don't know the details. But I've never seen Woody so charged up, not since we were first married. It's all come together over the last day or two. He's gotten the fishermen and lobster-men together, and they're planning something big."

"Can you find out more?"

Claire fell silent, looking at the ground. "I've told you this much," she said after a moment. "Don't ask me to spy on my husband."

"I'm sorry," Hatch said. "I didn't mean that. You know that's the last thing I'd want."

Suddenly, Claire hid her face in her hands. "You don't under- understand," she cried. "Oh, Malin, if only I could. . ." Her shoulders sagged as she began to sob.

Gently, Malin pulled her head to his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm acting like such a child."

"Shhh," Malin whispered quietly, patting her shoulders. As her sobs died away, he smelled the fresh apple scent of her hair, felt the moistness of her breath through his shirt. Her cheek was smooth against his and as she mumbled something indistinct he felt the hot trickle of a tear touch his lips. His tongue came forward to it. As she turned toward him he pulled his head back just enough to let his lips graze hers. He kissed her lightly, feeling the smooth line of her lips, sensing the looseness in her jaw. He kissed her again, tentatively, then a little harder. And then, suddenly, their mouths were locked together and her hands were tangled in his hair. The strange noise of the surf, the warmth of the glade, seemed to recede into nothingness. The world was instantly bounded by themselves. His heart raced as he slid his tongue into her mouth and she sucked on it. Her hands were clutching his shoulder blades now, digging into his shirt. Dimly, he was aware that, as kids, they had never kissed with this kind of abandon. Or was it just that we didn't know how? He leaned toward her hungrily, one hand gently teasing the fine hairs of her neck while the other slid almost involuntarily down the curve of her blouse, to her waist, to her loosening knees. A moan escaped her lips as her legs parted. He felt the narrow line of sweat that creased the inside of her knee. The apple-heavy air became tinged with a scent of musk.

Suddenly she pulled away from him. "No, Malin," she said huskily, clambering to her feet and brushing at her dress.

"Claire—" he began, reaching out one hand. But she had already turned away.

He watched her stumble back up the path, disappearing almost immediately into the green fastness of the glen. His heart was pounding, and an uncomfortable mixture of lust, guilt, and adrenaline coursed through his veins. An affair with the minister's wife: Stormhaven would never tolerate it. He'd just done one of the stupidest things he had ever managed to do in his life. It was a mistake, a foolish lapse of judgment—yet as he rose to his feet and moved slowly down a different path, he found his hot imagination turning to what would have happened if she had not pulled herself away.