Fog

  Don’t call me Chrissie, thought Christina. Only my very very very best friends may call me Chrissie. And then only sometimes.

  “We’re going to go on up to bed, now.” Mrs. Shevvington took Christina’s book bag as if taking custody of a child. She smiled, her teeth round and yellow like a row on a corncob. “With lots of good sleep, we’ll behave ever so much better in the morning, won’t we, Chrissie?”

  Christina stumbled up the stairs.

  Each tread caught her foot, and she banged her shins. There was a spider in the shower, and she could not find her favorite nightgown.

  She could not imagine morning. Science — where the teacher had said how the island children were always so good! Math — history — what was she going to do?

  Christina pulled the quilt over her head, and in the dark nest of her body and the sheets she tried to stay calm. The math was all review; she could do it in ten minutes during homeroom. The social studies she could read instead of having lunch. The science — well, she would just have to wing it. But English — Mrs. Shevvington had assigned them to write a short poem.

  Christina hated writing.

  Reading was fine; she could read anything and love it. But it did not work in the other direction for Christina.

  How Christina loved paper! Fresh, new, first-day-of-school paper. Narrow lines or wide lines, spiral notebooks or three-ringed, arithmetic paper or construction. Blank paper was beautiful with its calm, clean look. But once she touched it messy thumbprints appeared, and violent black slashes where she had meant to cross a T. It wrinkled from the pressure of her clenched hand around the pen, and it tore at the wrinkles by the time she finished.

  Blank paper — so nice when she bought it — such agony when she used it.

  And writing her own poem?

  I need a month just to think of a topic, thought Christina. She thought if she began crying she would never stop; she would be like the tide, and the salt water of her tears would cycle and recycle, endlessly ripping her back and forth.

  Anya slipped into the new bedroom. Christina was so glad to see her. The girls hugged and did not let go. It was not like hugging at all, but like leaning. “What happened, anyway?” said Anya.

  “I don’t know,” said Christina. They both knew they were talking about the window, and the burning fog, and the Shevvingtons.

  “I couldn’t do my homework,” said Anya. “I couldn’t understand any of it. The pages just sat there looking at me. Christina, I’m going to fail my senior year, I can feel it. And I can’t give a speech. I can’t ever give a speech. I can’t bear the thought of people staring at me and listening to me and analyzing my words and grading my talk. I’ll lose my voice. I’ll lose my mind!”

  “Hush,” said Christina. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Listen to the sea. It sounds like a coffin being dragged over broken glass.”

  It does, thought Christina. Like the sea captain’s bride. And of course there was broken glass. She jumped straight through the window.

  Anya said, “Sleep in my room. I don’t want to be alone in there.”

  You’re not alone in there, thought Christina. The poster of the sea and the huffing are in there with you.

  She shivered.

  Surely Anya would not try to get out the window again. It had been the illusion of fire — she really had been trying to save the islanders — she had not been trying to jump like the sea captain’s bride.

  They went into the other bedroom. Anya undressed. She had a lovely body, as white as her face, as untouched by the sun as if Anya had been raised a mushroom. “So what should I do about Blake?” asked Anya.

  Christina had forgotten Blake. She had forgotten that anybody but her might have problems. “I don’t know.”

  “I have to see him. I’ll die if I don’t see him.”

  She said this with such certainty that Christina thought, Anya will die if she doesn’t see him. We will all die. That is why we are here. To die. That is why there are no other guests. There must be no witnesses.

  Anya put on a nightshirt — a huge man’s shirt, with the tails reaching her knees. She was so thin within it, she seemed not to exist from the throat to the knees.

  Christina said, “But what was the worst thing? The thing you were going to tell me before you saw the burning fog.”

  Anya said, “I don’t remember. What could be worse than not being able to date Blake?”

  Mrs. Shevvington came up to check. She made Christina go back to her room. Alone.

  Christina lay in bed listening to the surf, waiting for everybody else to go to sleep. She had a flashlight. Semper paratis. Always prepared, that’s me, just like the Coast Guard motto says, Christina thought. We island girls are prepared to survive.

  Christina slid out of bed and stealthily opened the lid of her trunk, fishing among the sweaters and jeans until her fingers found the thin metal tube. She slid the narrow knob of the torch. The batteries were good. Christina tiptoed into Anya’s room and got pencil and paper out of her book bag, since Mrs. Shevvington had confiscated Christina’s. She took Anya’s chemistry book for a writing surface and tiptoed back to her room. She nearly missed her footing at the top of the stairs and fell down them. In the dark green room Christina curled under the quilt and worked grimly on her poem. Version after version — stupid line after stupid line.

  Finally she had something. She got a pen out of Anya’s purse and made a final copy.

  It was so messy she had to make a second final copy. I’m done, she thought, almost weeping from exhaustion and relief.

  She re-read the poem by flashlight.

  if I were a sea gull

  I wouldn’t have to stick around.

  if people argued — I would fly off, swerve, wheel, dip, scream.

  a thousand wings of company if I have friends

  two strong wings of my own

  if I don’t.

  She liked it.

  It was island strong.

  Christina folded the good paper carefully and stuck it in her purse. She put Anya’s belongings back exactly as she had found them. She didn’t stuff the crushed versions in the wastebasket; Mrs. Shevvington might find them and use them for evidence. She stuck them back down in her trunk, under the Icelandic sweater. She slid the flashlight under her pillow. You never knew.

  She collapsed in bed, comforting herself with the feel of the seams on her mother’s quilt under her fingertips.

  The huffing began again.

  Christina’s heart jolted.

  “Ffffff,” the room said.

  It’s the tide, she told herself. I already went through this once today, and it’s the tide. She lay in bed trembling.

  Her eyes burned from staring into the dark.

  She identified the separate sounds of wind and waves and a distant motor — car, not boat. Her hands tightened around the flashlight, as if she might need it for a weapon, as well as to end the dark.

  “Fffffffff.”

  She got out of bed.

  The huffing slithered around her nightgown and tumbled through her hair and penetrated her ears like a snake, crawling in, slithering in.

  “Fffffff.”

  It was not the tide. It was in the house.

  In the hall a faint light came from the boys’ room. Their door was open, their window shades were up. They slept deeply and breathed evenly. The open stairs yawned at Christina’s feet and the delicate banisters around the balcony were thin as carved toothpicks.

  “Ffffffff.”

  She turned on the flash. Some of the banisters stood straight in front of her, and others grew long and thin, and their shadows fluttered like moths. She swung the flash toward them, and they stood still while the doors to the boys’ room and the bathroom vanished. She turned to light those places, and the shadows behind her moved forward and grew fat.

  She could not move fast enough. The shadows ate her feet.

  The sea captain’s house looked down and up at her, expo
sed in her circle of light; the house all safe in its dark.

  “Ffffffff.”

  Christina walked into the jaws of the whispering sound.

  It’s not the Cove blowing out the candles, she thought, it’s here, in this house, somebody having an eternal birthday, never getting the wish right, the candles lighting back up like evil magic tricks.

  “Ffffffff.”

  She climbed the open stairs into the cupola.

  The stairs were very steep, and had only treads, not risers, so when she flashed the light at her feet, she could see through the stairs, down to the floors below. The shadow of herself was huge, like a flowing Arab robe. She climbed up and up, too many steps, far higher than the ceiling was high, like a cartoon creature climbing beyond the building into the sky.

  In the moonlight the cupola glittered. She flicked the flashlight upwards and the glass turned black, reflecting her like a mirror.

  She looked up, and left, and down, and right, flashing her torch, searching the shadows. The huffing was screaming at her now, “FFFFFFFF. FFFFFFFFF. FFFFFFFFF!!!”

  The ghost of the sea captain’s bride stood white, frozen by a winter sea, framed by glass, whispering, “Ffffffff. Fffffffff. Fffffffffff.”

  Chapter 8

  CHRISTINA WOKE UP SLOWLY. Her muscles seemed to awaken before her mind, the waking up traveling down her limbs, out her arms to her hands, and finally arriving at her fingers, which hurt; they were cramped.

  She opened her eyes.

  She was in Anya’s bedroom, lying on the bare mattress Mrs. Shevvington had stripped the night before. Anya was in her own bed, covers on the floor in a tangle. Wet salty air filled the room. The girls were holding hands between the beds.

  Actually, it was Anya’s hand holding Christina’s. Her fingers were tight as death.

  “Anya?” whispered Christina.

  Anya woke up even more slowly than Christina. Her white face was smudged, as if by bruises or oil. The beautiful hair was lank and flat, the eyes dull.

  “Anya?” whispered Christina again.

  “I had the most terrible nightmare,” said Anya. She began crying. She made no sound, nor did her eyes or chin quiver; tears spilled like brooks running into the sea. “Chrissie, you needed me. You were fighting the fingers of the dead.”

  Morning sun lay dazzling upon the sea, breaking through the window glass like a fist.

  “What happened?” said Christina. Dimly she remembered the ghost.

  “I don’t know. The fingers had you, they were pulling you! I stopped them.” Anya began shuddering. Her eyes did not seem to see past the iris. She was holding Christina’s hand so hard Christina thought the bones might crack.

  All memory returned. Christina was disgusted with herself. “That’s not what happened, Anya. You were sleepwalking in your nightshirt. You scared me. You went right up the cupola stairs, and you were talking to the tide. You’ve got to get a grip on yourself.” One by one she pried Anya’s fingers loose. She tried to joke. “You’ve got a grip on me right now instead.”

  When Christina peeled her away, Anya’s eyes stayed on her empty hand, and she held the hand up to her face to stare at it, the fingers who no longer had friends.

  Christina got off the mattress and walked slowly toward the bedroom windows. There was seaweed on the glass. Forty feet above the cliff. Sixty feet above high tide. And seaweed had appeared on the window?

  I won’t look down, she told herself. I might see the wet suit. I won’t look out, either. I might see the burning fog. I’ll just look at the window pane. And then Christina’s fingers iced where Anya had clenched them.

  The seaweed was on the inside of the window.

  Christina lifted her index finger to touch the seaweed. The seaweed was still green and wet.

  “Thousands of fishermen have lost their lives in that ocean,” said Anya. “And children. And people on vacation. And sailors. And immigrants.”

  How could it be wet? thought Christina. High tide was hours ago. But even the highest tide of my life wasn’t high enough to spray this window with seaweed.

  In its time the ocean had yanked down oil rigs and lighthouses, thrown great ships to the bottom, tossed tiny dories onto rocky shoals. So it could hurl a wisp of seaweed in such a way that it landed on the inside of a window.

  Anya was drawing dead children and sailors in the air with her hands. “And swallowed the salt water,” she said dreamily, “and filled their lungs with ocean, and gagged their final convulsions.” She sounded as if she had watched.

  “And they’re still here,” she whispered, getting up, crossing to the window, and leaning way out to stare into the ocean.

  “What do you mean, still there?” said Christina sharply. Haven’t we said all this before? she thought. How often will we say this now?

  Anya smiled madly. “Their shadows still swim. Fight the tide and fling seaweed. How do you think that green seaweed got stuck to the window way up here?”

  Christina swallowed. “Uh — the high winds — extra high tides — ”

  “Don’t be foolish. If a wave had touched the top of the house it would have swept away the shutters, it would have been a gale to tear off the town docks.”

  Christina looked away from the window. Looking at Anya was unbearable. She looked at the poster.

  Quiet water. No whitecaps. No shadows beneath the raging sea. Just peaceful blue waves.

  It was not the same poster the souvenir woman had thrust into her hands.

  “The fingers of the dead put that seaweed there,” said Anya. “Sea fingers.”

  How normal they all were at breakfast.

  They had toast today, and bacon and fried eggs. Orange juice in tiny glasses with pineapples printed on them.

  Michael talked of soccer practice, and Benj discussed his first project in woodworking.

  Not the same poster. How could that be? What could be happening? What power of the sea had made Anya sleepwalk, singing to the tide in the tide’s words?

  Anya looked down at her plate fairly often, but seemed not to recognize anything on it. She held her fork but did not use it. Mrs. Shevvington said nothing about the rules of sound eating. Christina ate her own breakfast without talking. She stripped the fat off her bacon, which left her with a tiny strip of lean hardly big enough to chew. She ate the toast dry. Perhaps with her allowance she would buy her own jam. Strawberry, the only kind Christina liked. She would hide it between her knees and spread it on her toast while Mrs. Shevvington was pouring herself a second cup of coffee.

  I do not believe in fingers of the sea, Christina decided. Anya and I both had nightmares, probably about school. I’m afraid of the seventh grade, and she’s afraid of public speaking. It has to be the same poster, I just didn’t focus. Today I will be granite again.

  Mrs. Shevvington was wearing a cranberry red suit this morning. It was the exact same cut and material as yesterday’s royal blue suit. Christina wondered if the woman had a whole rainbow of them — gold and purple and black suits, which would follow one after another, all with the same white blouse. “How are you feeling this morning?” said Mrs. Shevvington to Christina. She bared her corncob teeth.

  “I’m very well, thank you,” said Christina, peppering her egg.

  “And you, Anya?” said Mrs. Shevvington. “How are you?”

  Anya was clearly unwell. But Michael and Benj were already filling one of the two sinks with hot water and squirting dishwashing liquid under the flow of the tap. They did not notice that Anya neither heard nor answered the question.

  “Any more trouble with the windows?” said Mrs. Shevvington, still smiling.

  Trouble with the windows. Anya trying to step through them had been the trouble. Christina had forgotten all about that. Now she remembered Mr. Shevvington implying that she had pushed Anya. It’s been one nightmare after another, Christina thought. Pretty soon I won’t be able to keep track of them all.

  Christina cleared the breakfast table, handing Michae
l the plates and glasses.

  Anya simply stood there, looking disconnected from her own body. Her clothing did not match. She had on an ugly print blouse in faded grey and brown, with a yellow skirt and red shoes. “Did you look in the mirror?” said Christina.

  “No,” said Anya. “But I looked in the poster.”

  The fingers in the poster. Were they Anya’s fingers of the sea? Had they come to collect?

  Had they already collected Anya?

  English class was very quiet.

  Christina sat behind Vicki and Gretch, and Jonah sat behind her.

  One by one, they were forced to walk to the front of the class and read aloud their poems.

  Two of the boys could hardly get up there, they were so nervous. The first boy plowed into two student desks and the wastebasket on his way to the front, and whacked his elbow on the blackboard. There is no pain quite so awful as elbow pain; he moaned before starting his poem. “No sound effects, Robbie,” said Mrs. Shevvington. “Merely the poem.”

  The boy had written about the beauty of his mother’s smile when he got home every afternoon.

  Christina was touched.

  Her mother, too, had a welcome-home smile.

  Mrs. Shevvington said, “How sweet, Robbie. Immature, however. I am afraid immaturity runs in the family.”

  Robbie flushed scarlet and tripped going back to his seat.

  His mother’s smile is ruined for him, thought Christina. Every day this year when he gets home from school and she flings open the door and smiles at him, he’ll blush and get mad and avoid her.

  She wondered what Mrs. Shevvington had meant about immaturity running in the family, and why she had said such a rude thing.

  The second boy rhymed very carefully. To make sure the class followed the meter, he spoke in a singsong. His poem was about summer traffic.

  Summer traffic, he recited.