ERIC’S AUNT WAS ALREADY home when he arrived, wringing wet and with his hair whipped across his face.
“Gullstone’s still out,” he told her breathlessly. “He disappeared on the way to Cantrip’s Point and never came back.”
Aunt Opal sighed. “Go sit by the fire,” she said. “I’ll watch for him. You look half blown away.”
She went to stand by the window. Outside, the wind shrieked along the road, bending bushes into crazy, streaming shapes.
“It’s a tempest sent straight from the Season of Storms,” she observed, while Eric peeled off his wet jacket. “The Old Blaster couldn’t wait for his turn to come around, so he’s showing us a bit of his stuff beforetime. It’s nasty of him, all right.”
Eric nodded. The Old Blaster was what people along the coast called bad weather during the Season of Storms. Or rather, they saw the weather’s fury and violence during those months as issuing from a single, brutal personality. The Old Blaster was vengeful, malicious, and uncaring. He wreaked havoc whenever he could, sparing no one, not the smallest child or the weakest old person. He was often tricky and unpredictable. Sometimes he’d lie low for weeks just to drive up the suspense. Then he’d attack full force and scare the daylights out of people.
This storm, appearing from nowhere, certainly had all the earmarks of The Old Blaster, Eric thought, as he put on a dry shirt in a back room of the cottage. He wasn’t sure he really believed, as many in Twickham did, that a powerful old man who lived beyond the horizon was in charge of making life miserable for people. Still, he wasn’t sure he didn’t believe, either, especially when it might make. The Blaster angry to find out he was doubted.
“Any sign of Gully?” he called to his aunt. “He probably can’t fly in this wind. I just hope he can walk.”
“Nothing yet,” she shouted back. “I’ve brewed some hot tea, when you’re ready. I was thinking we ought to go lend a hand at the harbor. They’re trying to haul the boats from the water before dark. It’s rumored the wind will go to hurricane force tonight.
“And your bird’s not the only one who hasn’t come home,” she added, when Eric sat down at the table with his tea mug. “There’s a fishing boat still out.”
She didn’t look around at him. She kept her eyes on the window.
“Whose is it?”
“Granger’s, they say.”
“Granger! Harold Granger? But Mrs. Granger was killed in a riptide just last month. Are Joey and Rachel with him?”
“No one knows about the children.”
Outside, a shutter had come loose. It began to bang against the side of the house, and Eric couldn’t help thinking how sometimes in Twill it seemed that everything was about to fly apart, that it was no good trying to keep things nailed down because the wind got them eventually, or the sea did. And maybe someday, some last evil day, The Old Blaster would tire of his ancient game against them and send one final, horrible blast. Then, everything in Twill would be swept off the land and drowned in the sea forever.
“I hope Rachel and Joey are on the boat,” Eric said bitterly, when he had listened to the shutter a while longer. “Then, whatever happens, at least their whole family will be in it together.”
Aunt Opal glanced around at him. “No one should wish for such a thing,” she replied. “How could anyone wish for such a terrible thing?” She looked at him hard before turning back to the window.
“That is no shutter beating against my house,” she added after several moments.
“What is it?”
“Something with a screech.”
“A screech!”
Eric listened. There amidst the banging and the howl of wind and thrashing of bushes came another noise:
“Qwawk!” And again, “Qwawk, qwawk!”
“It’s Gully,” he screamed. “Open the door! Let him in!”
He leaped to the door and flung it open himself. The big sea gull blew against him, and past, into the cabin on a violent gust of wind.
“Close up before we’re blown to smithereens!” bellowed Aunt Opal. So Eric hurled himself upon the door a second time and, after a struggle, managed to latch it shut.
In the relative calm that followed, both turned their eyes upon Sir Gullstone, who had fallen to the ground like a shot goose the moment the door was closed. Never had they seen such a tangle of feathers, or such a twisting of wing and neck on a living bird. It seemed that the sea gull must be dead, that the pile of pieces on the floor before them could not possibly be brought together to work again.
But then, a yellow bill moved with an impatient thrust. And two arrogant legs poked testily at the ground. Next, a body was hoisted upon them, a pair of lemon eyes blinked open, and the whole contraption began to limp with lordly strides toward the fire’s warmth.
“Oh, Gully,” whispered Eric. “You are perfectly all right!” He heaved a tremendous sigh of relief and ran over to throw his arms around the precious bird.
Aunt Opal, however, turned back to the window with a shake of her head. “We’ll not be going to the harbor after all,” she said grimly. “It’s clear that the wind has grown too strong for us to be of help to anyone now.”
For two days, the storm ravaged and ransacked the coastline of Twill. Then it blew out to sea with such ghastly shrieks and moans that the noise could be heard for hours echoing back across the water.
In its aftermath, the town of Twickham lay stricken under a pallid morning sun. For a long while, no one dared come out of the house The only sound in the streets was the dripping of eaves and, from the beaches below, the growling of still-maddened waves.
When people did come forth at last, they gathered in groups to whisper on salt-spattered corners. They pointed to the doors ripped from hinges and the chimneys toppled from the roofs. They showed one another the smashed windows, the fallen lampposts, the drowned cat bobbing in the sewer.
But there was worse.
“There’s always worse on the coast of Twill,” Mrs. Holly said to Aunt Opal, after they’d met and warily congratulated each other on the road to town. “If you and Eric are going to the weep tonight at Grangers’, would you mind me walking with you? It’s not a time to be alone.”
“No, it isn’t,” replied Aunt Opal. “We’d be glad to pick you up on our way by.” Together, the women looked off across the fields to where Twill’s coast came into view. And though the sea appeared there as the meekest and most charming pool of blue, their faces hardened.
Harold Granger’s fishing boat had never come home. One glance at the rocks off the coast showed the reason. The hull lay crushed on Mad Bull, a ledge that had been the death of many good crews over time, and many strong sailing ships. There was no disgrace in ending there, the Granger children were assured.
They were orphans, now: eight-year-old Rachel, with a pair of braids thicker than her wrists, bowlegged Joey, ten, who wore his fishing cap backwards and liked to kid around. Eric knew them from school. Neither had been with their father on the morning of the storm. For this, the people of Twickham raised thankful eyes to the east, where The Blaster was generally believed to hole up.
“Though why we bother thanking the old tyrant, it’s hard to see,” Aunt Opal remarked, as she, Mrs. Holly, and Eric trudged the muddy road to town that evening. “Everybody knows he would have drowned the children, too, if he could have got them.”
“Hush!” said Mrs. Holly, tucking a dish towel more firmly around the cake she was carrying in a basket. “You never know who’s listening!”
“Has anyone gone to look at the Grangers’ boat?” Eric asked. “Maybe Mr. Granger is still hanging on out there. He was a smart fishcatcher. I can’t believe he isn’t somewhere around.”
“Someone has gone, and he isn’t,” Mrs. Holly replied, drawing a ragged breath. “And please let’s not speak of it anymore.”
In Twill, it was the case that those lost at sea were rarely found, whether because of The Blaster or the treacherous currents offshore. In fact, Mrs. Holly’s husband had disappeared in just this way, not to mention Eric’s parents, and the walkers now fell silent to respect these disturbing memories.
Everyone in town tried to cram themselves into the Grangers’ house that night. When the three arrived, candles were burning five deep in the windows, casting a waxy glow upon clusters of damp faces. It was obvious that the weep, as these all-too-frequent gatherings had come to be called, was already well under way.
They were half funeral rite, half worship ceremony to The Blaster. Guests were welcome to weep whatever way they wished—with happiness for the miracle of their own survival or with sorrow for those gone. And many wept both ways under the nervous flickers of the fish tallow candles, because their feelings were rather confused.
There was also the important matter of the food. Like Mrs. Holly, most families in Twickham had cooked for the Grangers’ weep. Pies, cakes, cookies, casseroles, fish roasts, and oyster stews were piled on every available table and ledge. Eric sniffed the rich smells, but he tasted nothing. Not one guest was eating, nor would anyone touch a scrap, because this was The Blaster’s feast alone. At a later hour, it would be taken out and hurled off the Twickham cliffs into the sea. Here, it was hoped, The Blaster would find it and, after filling his cavernous belly, feel inclined to go away nicely, perhaps to sleep for several weeks, and give the town time to recover.
“Do you sometimes wonder if The Old Blaster really does eat our food?” Eric whispered to Mrs. Holly as she placed her cake carefully among the other offerings. Aunt Opal had dumped off a jar of pickled turnips and gone to talk fish nets in the kitchen. “Do you think all this cooking for him does a bit of good?”
Mrs. Holly silenced him with a ferocious glance.
“You are as bad as your aunt about saying what you shouldn’t!” she hissed. “You’ll be drowned next storm if you keep it up!”
He wasn’t the only one saying things, though. Around them, conversations begun in whispers and sniffs were taking a daring turn. People asked why The Blaster had gone after Harold Granger, of all people, and in the Season of Calm as well. Harold was a fine man. A very talented person. What had he done to deserve such treatment? It was outrageous, people said, and too much to bear. Too much for a town to stand anymore. Too much to go on, yes, too much.
Eric listened to these heated words, but he knew they meant little. People always grew angry at weeps. Nothing ever came of it. When the next day dawned clear, or rainy, or even windy, they dragged out their nets and crab traps again. They climbed on their slim boats and rowed through the rocks to go fishing. Tomorrow would be no different. Even the Granger children would go, brave and solemn eyed, on a neighbor’s boat.
Eric glanced over to where Joey Granger was standing in a throng of weepers. The boy’s face was swollen, and he looked as lost and alone as if he’d been stranded on a desert island. Eric supposed he should go over to him. He should go and say something to make Joey feel better. It was expected in Twill. It was what people had done for him. He didn’t go, though. He felt too disgusted. He turned and pushed through the crowd to the Grangers’ front door. When no one was looking, he let himself out.
“I had to get away from there, Gully,” he told the bird later, as they lay together near the fire. “I couldn’t stand it anymore. There was nothing I could say that would’ve made any difference. Everyone in Twickham gets hit sooner or later. You know it. I know it. We all grew up knowing it. What can anyone do? This is the coast of Twill.”