THERE WAS A BLUR OF stars and rain.
There was time to think of the outrage of it all: that she should tumble to her death like the sea captain’s bride when she was the good one! The Shevvingtons, who deserved a watery grave, would live on.
There was time to think of the horror of her very own lungs filling with water instead of air. Would it hurt? Or would she merely cease to be?
She slanted between the sea and the sky, pummeled with rain, assaulted with noise. Her toes curled on the shingles, trying to hang on. Below her, the sea screamed and taunted. It tossed feathers of sea foam on her bare legs.
She screamed, throwing her hands out, tilting herself backward, trying to lie down, trying —
But there was nothing there.
Her feet reached into space, gravity yanked her body after them, and her hands held only air.
Christina landed immediately. Even her feet were surprised, and both her ankles turned in, having assumed, in a muscle and bone way, that they would never again hold up her body. She was standing on the sill formed by the odd little dormer of Anya’s bedroom.
Her tears of terror blended with the rain, as if she were one with the clouds.
Below her the roof formed a very slanted passage away from the sea cliffs, toward the street. She crawled onto the shingles, trying not to think of the waiting arms of the waves below. The roof sloped more steeply than Breakneck Hill. There had to be a window she could get in. She caught the edge of a shutter and clung to it, trying to get away from the sea. It was the window of the Shevvingtons’ bedroom. She could see their shadows.
She thought of the sea captain’s bride. Had she tried to catch herself, too? She thought of Anya. Was this Anya’s route — or had the Shevvingtons let her out, knowing Anya’s state of mind?
Christina crawled forward, slithering closer and closer to the grim edge. The rain caught on the shingles and glittered like diamonds that would never be strung on necklaces. Don’t slow down, she told herself. If you stop to think about what you’re doing, you’ll panic.
Below her was the nearly flat roof of the kitchen stoop. Christina inched down the wet shingles, clung for a moment to the gutters, dangled her feet as far as she could, and let go.
She could not even hear the thud of her own feet landing. The sound of the storm had drowned the sound of her crash.
Anya, wait for me! Christina thought. Her chest hurt from the desperate thudding of her own heart.
One more jump to go. Down into the back alley. But this last jump would be the worst; pavement was hard, unforgiving. The ocean might call, Float in me. The earth made no such promises. Break your bones on me, said the earth.
She jumped, landing knees first in a puddle full of sodden leaves. Her knees were skinned and bleeding. Her insides felt jarred loose. She stared up at Schooner Inne. She could not believe the height she had come down. She saw the Shevvingtons rushing from window to window, trying to figure out where Christina was now.
“I got down,” she whispered. “I’m off the roof, Anya. I’m coming, just wait for me.” Her knees buckled and left her in the puddle. She had to crawl. Like a whipped puppy she pulled herself forward, crying uselessly into the wind. “Anya, Anya, don’t do anything!”
Every light in Schooner Inne went on.
It’s not enough they won’t help, Christina thought, they’re going to come out and stop me! Oh, I hate them! How I hate them!
Christina hauled herself up, ran out the alley, and down the black steepness of Breakneck Hill.
How fast I’m going! she thought. I’ve never run so fast in my life.
It was like flying. She did not even seem to be using her feet. She was windblown, like a seabird in the air currents.
This is how the boy on his bike felt, she thought. It was worth it to him. He was happy when he —
When he broke his neck.
Christina grabbed the fence, tearing her fingers on the thin, harsh metal. She slowed herself with her hands, braking with her palms.
Then she forced herself to walk. She counted her steps, making her feet land hard and flat. One hand was bleeding. She wrapped it in —
Oh, no, thought Christina. I’m wearing my nightshirt.
It was an XXXL barn-red T-shirt on which her mother had embroidered Christina’s name in silver thread.
I look like a Christmas card. If they see me wearing a T-shirt and absolutely nothing else on a cold Maine October night, they’ll lock me up. I’ll be Val’s roommate.
Singing Bridge was empty, no cars hummed over its metal treads.
She was too late. Anya had gone to the sea.
Sobbing, Christina rushed to the edge of the cliffs.
Candle Cove, too, looked like a Christmas card. Waves curled in shepherd’s crooks, layers of white sea foam icing on green cakes. There, climbing down to the ledge where the honeymooners had picnicked, was Anya, clad all in white.
Anya glanced up and waved as sweetly as if they were at a school soccer game, cheering goals. “I heard you call,” said Anya, happily, who could not have heard anything above the roar of the elements. “I heard you say to wait for you. I’m so glad we’re going together, Christina.” Anya’s face was invisible, clouded by the black hair that frothed in the wind, glittering with diamonds of night mist.
Christina knelt by the terrible wet cliffs, and the shepherd’s crooks of water tried to hook her body and drag her into the final fold. I have already climbed down a house! thought Christina. I can’t face these rocks. I can’t fight the sea again.
Anya took Christina’s hand, light as air, and pulled her down. Over a sea-slippery ledge they went, and down to the next one, the waves crashing over their knees.
“No, Anya,” Christina cried. “I figured something out. One evil attracts another. Each terrible thing makes space for another terrible thing. Terrible things and terrible people warm to each other. But we can defeat the Shevvingtons. I know we can, Anya. Stop going toward the sea, Anya.”
Anya smiled. “We’ll go together, Chrissie. They did that a lot in the olden days, you know.”
“Did what?”
“Went back to the sea.” Anya turned her face up to the storm.
“We didn’t come from the sea,” Christina pointed out. “We came from the island.”
Anya shook her head. “We’re not going that far.” She pulled Christina with her.
The wind blew Frankie’s cap off Christina’s head and tossed it skywards. It spun in circles like a maddened scarlet bird and flew through the sky toward land. Christina screamed, and tried to reach it, but it was no use.
Anya nodded. “There is no magic stronger than the sea,” she said to Christina. Anya had far more strength than Christina did. No matter how hard Christina pulled at her to go back up, Anya could pull harder to go down. This seemed odd to Christina, since it was Anya who was the tern.
If I were granite, thought Christina, I would be heavy enough to hold her.
She had nothing: no talisman, no quilt, no cap, no arguments.
And no strength.
She was sapped.
“Blake needs you,” Christina told Anya. Even as she spoke, she thought, If only Blake could need me! Even as the water covered her thighs and the terrible steps they were taking were hidden beneath the waves, she saw his catalog Maine clothes and his windblown hair, and heard his warm voice, and wished that just once more, she could have his hand over hers. But Blake does need me, she thought. To save Anya.
Sea foam spun over them. Anya caught it in her hands, like lace to be measured for a wedding gown.
“Blake loves you!” Christina cried. “I don’t have the quilt and I don’t have the cap and I don’t have the strength of granite, but I still have love. Come on, Anya, we’re leaving the sea behind. It won’t take us. Now or ever. It has all the dead it needs.” She gripped Anya’s hand with both of hers and lunged into the wind.
Anya fought.
The sea curled around Christina’s bare feet. The seaweed clinging to the rocks was brown slick. The barnacles tore her flesh.
“Anya, we have to go back up,” shrieked Christina. “We’ll die here! We don’t want to die, we don’t even want to catch cold!”
“Die?” said Anya, surprised.
“What did you think would happen under water?”
“I am of the sea.”
“So am I, but mostly I’m of the island. Climb, Anya, climb!”
Christina looked back at Anya to smile at her, give her courage, but she saw only what Blake had seen: a wall of black water coming to get her. The sea was a mathematician. The sea kept count. They were the island princesses, marked out for sacrifice.
“Well, I’m not coming!” Christina Romney screamed. The wave hit her as hard as a boxer, filling her face and mouth with sea water. She spat it out. Gripping Anya, dragging her up, Christina stretched for the torn metal fence. She needed another hand; she could not hold onto Anya, and to the rocks, and to her own life, all at the same time.
The next wave knocked them back, down toward the honeymooner’s ledge. Amidst the colors of darkness and storm she seemed to see a glitter of gold and silver, as if the ribbons from Dolly’s package still danced on the waves.
My hair. Silver and gold.
Anya was right after all: the sea did follow me. It does want me.
Christina sobbed. Her fingers lost their tenuous grip. Anya, who had never tried anyway, slid feet-first into the sea.
Christina tried to shout at Anya, but her mouth filled with salt water.
“It’s no use,” said Anya, saying good-bye to the world.
“It is so!” said Christina. “Now I’m mad. Now I’ve had enough. Get up, Anya Rothrock! Don’t you fade into that water like some dumb honeymooner. Don’t you slip down like some stupid kid on a bike. Get up, Anya Rothrock!”
Rage propelled Christina forward, up over the rocks, up over the fence, into the sodden street.
The only place in town that was open all night was the laundromat.
It was warm in there.
In a lifetime of swimming, diving, and boats, Christina had never been so wet. She was wet from her skin to her bone marrow. Her tri-colored hair ran like a river. She shuddered over and over, remembering the roofs and the rocks. Where did I get the strength to do that? she thought.
In the black glass of the laundromat door she saw her reflection: a small child. A seventh-grader. Nobody impressive.
Anya held out her hands to the warmth of the tumbling dryers and whispered, “Did we win, Chrissie? Did we defeat the sea?”
Where evil is, it multiplies, Christina thought. But goodness also multiplies.
“It wasn’t the sea that was the enemy,” said Christina. “The sea is just there, Anya. It never changes.” Christina rummaged among the neat, still toasty-warm stacks of folded clothing Anya had left behind. She pulled on a pair of Anya’s jeans, turning up the cuffs several times to shorten them.
The fogged-up door of the laundromat opened.
The Shevvingtons stood there. They were wearing yellow mackinaws. They dripped their own ocean of water onto the floor.
Anya was toweling her hair dry. She looked up vaguely. “Oh, hi there,” said Anya, sounding sane, although rather forgetful. “Isn’t it awful out?”
The Shevvingtons aren’t actually murderers, Christina thought. They spill no blood, stop no hearts. Instead they cut away pride, they cut away purpose. So Val’s body, or Anya’s body, goes on — while the girl inside flickers and goes out.
Candle Cove.
I thought “candle” referred to the tide and the sea.
Perhaps it means the people who live by the edge: fragile flames struggling not to be blown out.
But I am not fragile. I was not blown out.
I saved Anya. Look at her, worrying about her hair like a normal person.
Christina had a tremendous sense of her power. Like granite she was: stone and rock. Her small body did not seem like something from the seventh grade. More like something cut from the quarries of the islands of Maine.
Christina drew herself up. She flaunted her power before the Shevvingtons. They seemed to nod, almost to bow, their yellow mackinaws bending in the middle, as if they had become her puppets. Now she, Christina, would pull the strings.
“Is your car here?” said Christina to the Shevvingtons. She was almost laughing. The principal and the teacher were nothing. Tall, yes. In charge, no. “Pull it up in front,” ordered Christina. ‘Take us home. When we get there fix us something hot to eat. Make hot chocolate for Anya.”
She was obeyed.
They did not argue with her.
I have won, Christina Romney exulted. She tossed her silver-and-gold hair like banners of triumph, and she swaggered out of the laundromat, leading Anya by the hand.
She was only a seventh-grader. She knew nothing. She did not know that people do not surrender power so easily. She forgot the secret plans she had seen them make over her head during supper.
She did not see how docile Anya was. That toweling her hair dry was the most that Anya could achieve; that Anya took Christina’s hand because Anya did not know where to go on her own. That Anya was alive … but emptied.
Christina thought she had won.