North of Nowhere

  “I know,” Sal agreed. “We’ll tell them everything, then?”

  I nodded. “Everything.”

  “And if they don’t believe us?”

  “If they don’t believe us, we haven’t lost anything. But at least we’ll get it off our chests. They’ve been around longer than we have. They might have some ideas about what’s going on.”

  “I doubt it,” Sal said quietly. “I don’t think there’s any explanation for what’s going on.”

  “No, probably not,” I agreed.

  “But whatever it is, it’s too big for us,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  We got up to leave and turned in the direction of the pub. As we did, I walked smack-dab into a man coming toward us.

  “Sorry,” I said automatically.

  He stopped and looked at me. His clothes looked dirty. His eyes were unfocused and wild. Drunk, probably. Then he looked at my coat. I was still wearing Peter’s yellow coat that we’d found inside the boat.

  “I’ve got one of them,” he said, pointing at the coat. Great. A drunk man who found it interesting that he also possessed a coat. Exactly what we needed right then. “Not as nice as that one, though.”

  “That’s lovely,” I said, giving him a thanks-for-the-info-but-we-really-must-be-on-our-way-now kind of smile.

  “Left it on my boat,” he added.

  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about his words made me feel as if something unpleasant had just crept along the back of my neck.

  The feeling multiplied by about a million with his next words.

  “Lost the boat, though, didn’t I?” he said. “Along with my mind, it seems. Slept in a hut last night. No one’d take me home. Looked at me as if I were crazy when I told them where I lived. Laughed at me when I said my boat had disappeared into thin air. But it’s true. Strange, but darned well true as can be.”

  I stared at him. The way he was talking, he sounded like us!

  The man moved away. “Anyway, see you, then,” he said.

  “Wait!” I called before I could stop myself.

  “What are you doing?” Sal hissed. “He’s more crazy than we are! And he’s drunk!”

  “I don’t think he is,” I whispered. “Just bear with me, OK?”

  The man swung around. As he did so, something flashed just above the V-neck of his sweater. A necklace. An anchor pendant. The thing Dee’s dad always wore when he went fishing!

  I was right! I swallowed hard, took a breath, and said, “I think we might have found your boat.”

  “What?” the man said.

  “What?” Sal said.

  “It’s in the first bay around the corner from here,” I went on. “Tied up on a mooring ring. The key is in the usual place.”

  The man took a step closer to me and looked into my eyes. “Are you making fun of me, young lady?”

  I shook my head hard. I wasn’t going to try to explain. He’d definitely think I was making fun of him if I did. “I promise I’m telling the truth,” I said. “Just go.”

  The man looked at me a moment longer, and then he nodded his head. “All right, then,” he said. “I will.” And he turned to leave.

  “Wait!” I called again. I grabbed Dee’s diary from inside my bag and turned to Sal. “Have you got a pen?”

  She rummaged around in her bag before pulling out a ballpoint pen. “I don’t know what you’re —” she began.

  I cut her off. “I’ll explain later.” If I can, I added silently. And then I scribbled a quick note.

  Dee, I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet up. We will one day — I hope. Just look after yourself.

  Love from your friend,

  Mia

  I closed the diary and held it out to the man. “Here, take this with you,” I said.

  He looked at the book and took it from me. And then, without another word, he set off toward the bay where we’d left the boat, and we made our way back to the pub.

  As we arrived at the pub, I realized I was shaking.

  “What will we tell them?” Sal whispered.

  “The truth, as we agreed,” I said, hoping she hadn’t heard the quiver in my voice. “We tell them everything.”

  I pushed the door open and we crept inside. The lounge was almost empty. Three men sat at the bar, drinking pints and talking in gruff voices. A couple was at a table in the window, drinking coffee and eating cookies. How could they sit there calmly doing that while our world had been turned upside down and inside out?

  The pub felt so normal. Suddenly I realized what a mess I must look like in comparison.

  I still had Peter’s oversize fisherman’s coat on. And my hair was all over the place. I’d put it up in a ponytail this morning, but the storm had pulled half of it out, and it had stayed like that ever since. Fixing my hair had hardly been a priority. Sal looked pretty bedraggled too.

  “Let’s go and freshen up a bit,” I said to Sal. “Come up with me, and then we’ll find the others.”

  Sal started to follow me, but we had only gotten halfway across the lounge when the door behind the bar opened and Gran came in.

  She didn’t see us at first. She was looking behind her, calling something over her shoulder as she swung through the door. Then she nodded to the men and took the pint glass one of them was holding out to her. She turned toward the tap at the end of the bar.

  And then she glanced across at us, and froze.

  As she stared, I met her gaze and realized, for the first time ever, that she looked old. Her skin seemed to sag on her cheeks. Her eyes were dark and hollow. Her neck was creased with tiny lines.

  And now, on top of that, her face had turned gray.

  She put down the glass she had just taken from the fisherman, without taking her eyes off me. Then she lifted the flap at the end of the bar and walked toward us.

  Still staring at me, she crossed the lounge and came to stand in front of me. Her eyes were shining and wet. What was going on?

  Gran reached for my arm, feeling the coat I still had on. She touched it as though it were the first time she’d ever seen a yellow fisherman’s coat. Then she reached up and stroked my matted, sodden hair. She smoothed back a strand that had been plastered to my forehead, and in a voice husky with emotion, she said, “It was you.”

  What was she talking about? What was me? Was I in trouble? Did she know about us taking the boat?

  Before I had a chance to think of a reply, she went on, “Was it? Am I right? Tell me it was you,” she said. “Or have I gotten so old, so desperate, and so confused that I really am losing my mind?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe she was losing her mind. I knew that stress could do that to people, and Gran had certainly been stressed for the last week.

  “Gran, I don’t —” I began.

  She put a hand to my lips. “Wait,” she said. “Don’t say anything else.”

  Then she turned and walked away. Flinging the door behind the bar open, she called to Mom, “Take over at the bar for a minute, will you, dear?” and ran upstairs.

  I looked at Sal.

  “What on earth was that about?” she asked.

  “I’ve got no idea.”

  “Do you think someone’s told her about us taking the boat? She wouldn’t report us or anything, would she?”

  “No way. Gran wouldn’t do that.”

  But if she hadn’t gone upstairs to phone the police and tell them about her granddaughter’s antics on a boat she had no permission to use, what was she doing? And what had she meant? Why had she looked at me so strangely? There was something about the way she’d stared at me, and at my coat, touched my hair — it wasn’t normal. In fact, it was so un-normal that everything else could wait.

  “Look, can you wait here for a bit?” I asked Sal. “I need to find out what’s going on.”

  With that, I left Sal in the pub, barged past Mom, who was just coming in, and ran upstairs to talk to Gran.

  I knocked on
her bedroom door. “Gran?” No reply. I pushed open the door. “Gran? Are you in here?” I called as I looked around. Her bedroom was empty.

  Then I heard a noise upstairs. She was in Grandad’s study. What was she doing in there?

  I charged up the stairs and found her kneeling on the floor. She didn’t even look up when I came in. She was rummaging so deeply in a box that her head was practically inside it.

  “Gran?”

  “One second.” She carried on foraging in the box without looking up. “It’s here somewhere, I know it is,” she muttered, lifting out bundles of books and papers and dumping them on the floor beside her as she delved deeper.

  And then she stopped. Lifting out a small cardboard box, she looked at me. “Found it,” she said.

  Then, finally, she met my eyes. “It was the coat,” she said, answering the question I wasn’t asking out loud. “I recognized it. And your hair. You look exactly the same.”

  “The same as what?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t see your face. Not through all that rain.” She laughed softly, staring into the distance as if watching her own memories being replayed. “What if I had?” Then she turned back to me. “But the picture was etched in my mind as if it had been carved there. The wild, wet hair. The coat.” She stopped and shook her head. “Here,” she said. She took the lid off the box and held it out to me.

  The box was filled with cream-colored tissue paper. I looked down at the tissue paper and the box, and I wondered, briefly, what was inside it. What was so important that Gran had charged up here to find it? What was it about this box that had made her eyes sparkle with something I couldn’t possibly define, but I knew I’d never seen before? And what was it that made her hand tremble as she pushed the box into my palms?

  As I took it from her, the room fell away from us. It was as if there were nothing in the world but the two of us. Suddenly I was scared.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Gran held my eyes. “Just open it,” she said softly.

  I pulled the tissue paper away. When I saw what was wrapped inside it, I almost dropped the box.

  It was Dee’s diary.

  I shoved the box back at Gran, pushing it into her hands as though it had burned my fingers. “That’s impossible!” I said.

  It couldn’t be real. I’d only just given it away! Minutes ago!

  Gran took the box back from me and pulled the book out. Maybe it was a copy. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe . . .

  “Read the last entry,” Gran said, passing the book to me.

  I opened it up. As I flipped toward the end, I saw my writing. My words. The words I had written moments earlier, before giving the book to Dee’s dad. But now the ink was faded, as if it had been written years ago.

  The room began to spin.

  I grabbed hold of the chair at Grandad’s desk, pulled it out, and sat down, feeling as wooden as the chair itself.

  “The page after that,” Gran said.

  I turned the page, to see writing that in the last week had become almost as familiar to me as my own.

  Dee’s writing.

  Gosh, I’ve just realized it’s been more than a month since I last wrote. Well, obviously I haven’t felt like writing a diary lately. Life has involved a lot more important things than scribbling my own self-indulgent thoughts and feelings down on paper.

  Things like survival.

  Honestly, those first couple of days, I really thought our time was up. When I think about it now, I can hardly believe what we went through. We spent all those hours clinging to the roof of a house that turned out to be less than a day from total collapse. If Father hadn’t come back when he did. If he hadn’t been as experienced on the sea, and known the tiny nook at the edge of the harbor where he could still moor up the boat . . .

  But he did. That’s all that matters. That and the fact that Mother survived. The doctors told us yesterday that she will almost certainly never walk unaided again. She put on a brave smile, like she always does, and told us she was just happy to be alive. I have to admit, there were a few hours when I doubted if even that would be the case, and so I see her point. But still . . .

  No. I won’t do it. I won’t allow myself feelings of self-pity. I’ll never do it again. It’s time for me to be the strong one now. Father is like a broken man. The home he adored has been washed into the sea. The boat that was his livelihood is up for sale, as he can no longer bring himself to go out in her. And my mother will never walk — and perhaps never laugh — again.

  Now I have to be the one to look after this family. I will do everything I can to get all of us looking forward again.

  There was an advertisement in the newspaper today. The local pub in our new town needs a landlord. Perhaps Father could do it. I’m going to take him the ad later. I’ll help. And Pip will, too.

  Pip. I cannot believe that a month ago, I didn’t know him. Now he is like a second self to me. Between us, I know we can do it. We can get this family back on its feet.

  I have only one regret. One thought that pulls at my heart so hard it pains my chest.

  Mia. She sent me my lovely boy. She directed my father back home. With both of these things, she saved me from death, gave us all another chance at life. And I never had the chance to thank her.

  If I could be granted one wish, it would be simply that — to stand in front of her and say “thank you”

  The diary entry ended there. It was the last one in the book. I didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say. My mind was swimming, crammed full of thoughts, and at the same time as blank as the last pages of Dee’s diary.

  I looked up at Gran.

  Her eyes were shiny and misty. “I’ve got that chance, now, haven’t I?” she whispered. “However impossible it may be, it’s true, isn’t it? I can finally say thank you.”

  And just like that, I knew I couldn’t handle this. Any of it. I had to get out of there.

  I stood up, almost falling over in the process. The room was spinning; I was pretty sure I was going to be sick. “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  And then I turned and ran down the stairs, out to the back of the pub. Flake looked up and wagged his shaggy tail at me as I came into the kitchen.

  Flake. Normal, happy, uncomplicated Flake.

  “I could do with having you around,” I said, and quickly clipped on his leash.

  And then, before anyone could stop us, I unlatched the back door, took Flake, and got the heck away from there. Away from Gran, the pub, the diary, and everything else about my world that had suddenly gone absolutely, totally, impossibly crazy.

  It had started raining. I didn’t care. I didn’t even feel it. I didn’t feel anything.

  I sat on a bench and stared out to sea, Flake leaning gently against my legs as I tried to get my head into some sort of state where I could begin to make sense of my thoughts.

  Where was I supposed to start?

  “Mia.” A voice interrupted my attempt at thinking. I turned to see Sal running toward me.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, coming over to stand in front of me. “What’s up with your gran? Did you tell her?”

  I held up a hand to ward off any more questions. “Which one do you want me to answer first?”

  Sal took a breath. “Just, I thought we were telling our families. Next thing I know, you’ve disappeared, your gran’s disappeared, your mom’s asking where you both are and what’s going on, and I’m standing there opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sal looked at me for a moment, then sat down on the bench next to me. “No. I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you OK? You look awful.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean . . . Jeez, I’m not doing very well here, am I?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not you. It’s —”

  “What? What happened with your gran?” Sal asked again. “Do you want to tell me?”

  Did I? That was a go
od question. Would Sal think we were all crazy if I did? Then again, she’d shared in half the bizarre things that had happened already. Maybe she was the only person I could tell without worrying about what she thought. Maybe she was the only person who could help me figure any of this out.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to tell you.”

  Sal listened while I emptied my brain of everything that was in it. After that, we didn’t say anything for a while. We just sat together, watching the waves come in, lapping against the sand, rocking the boats in the harbor. It all looked so peaceful and calm and gentle — it was such a lie.

  Sal sat back and let out a breath. “Wow,” she said eventually.

  “I know.”

  “So your gran . . .”

  “And Dee . . .”

  Sal turned to me. “They’re . . .”

  She couldn’t say the words. I didn’t blame her. You try it. Think of the craziest thought you could ever have, then imagine saying it out loud to someone as a serious possibility without feeling ridiculous beyond belief.

  It’s not easy, is it?

  I decided to save Sal the effort of trying. “Gran and Dee are the same person,” I said flatly.

  There. I’d done it. I’d said the impossible words that we both knew were somehow true.

  We sat in silence. I felt as though the words were dancing in front of me, bouncing around in the air while I tried to hold on to them and pull them into some sort of recognizable shape. I couldn’t.

  “But there must be — what — fifty years between them,” Sal said eventually.

  “Yep.”

  Wait! She was right! Fifty years. “Sal, the article about Luffsands!”

  “What about it?”

  “It was fifty years old, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Gran turned sixty-three this year. Dee’s thirteen. There are exactly fifty years between them, and the storm happened exactly fifty years ago.”

  “What are you saying?” Sal asked in a whisper.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know . . . but there’s something weird going on.”

  “You think?”

  “No, I mean . . . Look, I feel like a complete idiot saying this out loud, but I’m going to anyway, OK? And you’re not to laugh at me or tell me I’m crazy.”