“Myra, why is Dog named Dog?”
“That’s what he responds to.”
They were sitting on the grass waiting for the Mermaid Festival’s annual parade.
“Why didn’t you name him?”
“I named him accidentally. He came to my house the first night I spent alone after Bernie died. He wouldn’t come in and mostly stayed outside for three months. I called him Dog the whole time, and now that’s what he answers to.”
“Then what?”
“Then he curled up by the fire one night and started farting and snoring, and he hasn’t stopped since.”
Leo laughed and petted Dog, who was farting and snoring next to them in the grass in the sun. Dog was a good old dog. Myra petted him and said, “Who’s my Mr. Big and Handsome Dog?”
“Mr. Big and Handsome Dog?” Leo’s eyes widened.
“His full name. I use it when he is being particularly noble or particularly handsome.”
That early weekend of August, when the nights were warm and the gardens were red and yellow and riotous, the town celebrated the mermaids with high praise. No matter where one stood in their beliefs regarding the existence of mermaids, for three days in August every resident was not only a mermaid believer but an expert, especially before the tourists. In general Mackerel Sky looked upon tourists like most Maine towns did—as outsiders, a necessary evil, and, during the festival, a much-needed infusion of cash. Mermaid-seeking tourists spilled in and took over every inn and bed-and-breakfast and run-down motel up and down the coast. They ate at the Mermaid’s Tail, walked the Lone Docks, laughed at the Mackerel Sky Punch and Judy show, which had been operated by a Smith now for over one hundred years. Tourists typically didn’t attend Jason’s memorial, a vigil held at sunset the second night of the festival; they wanted the legend of the mermaids, not the reality.
Leo had the best day of his dang life, even though Mrs. Myra said there was a threat of a thunderstorm. He didn’t see any clouds, but he didn’t care anyway because Mrs. Myra gave him ten whole dollars of his own to spend. First he bought himself fried dough with lots of cinnamon and powdered sugar. He also got one for Mrs. Myra because he didn’t want to eat without sharing, but she declined and said it was too sweet for her—and that he should have it! So he had two fried doughs before eleven in the morning. Then the parade came by, the homemade floats pulled by trucks, the marching bands, the clowns, the small car Shriners, the beauty queens in Mustangs and Camaros, the cops and robbers and candy, so, so much candy tossed to the crowd.
Leo had his Tritons baseball cap full of candy by the end. He gave a Tootsie Roll to Myra because that was her favorite, and took some lollipops and a chocolate for himself, and then, because he was big and they were little, gave the rest of his candy to the kids sitting next to him. When Mrs. Myra nodded at him in approval, he felt like an adult.
He wandered the giant white tents with Mrs. Myra. At the games tent he saw arm-wrestling contests and cribbage tournaments, at the theater tent he watched a mermaid dance done by the high school dance club, and he perused the crafts tent housing all the nice old ladies, plus Blade, who was there every year, selling his bone-handled knives. Six dollars left, he decided against another snack and bought Mrs. Myra the prettiest wind chime he could afford, made with wire and sea glass and periwinkle shells. After he gave it to her she bought him an ice cream because he had spent all his money.
They didn’t get back to the house until late afternoon, right when the rain started, and Myra took a nap while Leo and Dog snuggled in the sofa and read from the old red book. He turned the pages and, like always, saw things he had never seen. A new, brief poem appeared, one whose ink shone like it was still wet.
Lupine root to stamen
Dark Pines anchor laymen
Tighten the net right tight
Guard the paths this night
He turned the page and was surprised to see “Until the Moon, Only Then” again. It was in a different place on the page and now had more lines.
Instinct told him to wake Mrs. Myra up from her nap in her rocking chair.
“Miss Myra, my ‘Until the Moon, Only Then’ poem has more words!”
“Does it now? Show me.” Leo led Myra to the book on its stand overlooking the windows overlooking the sea and night sky.
Until the moon, full, drips down
After a bloodstained mackerel sky
Until a brother for a brother, waves round
Until the lines are crossed, wayfarer by
Until a daughter for a son, both of rock, both of wave
Until the twin pearls together return,
Until a mother for a mother, one lost, one saved
Twin hearts to forever burn
Only then will the mad fog dissolve in curls
and her curse recede to the deep
What was barren shall unfurl
What was awakened shall go back to sleep
The dead will rise from their slumber
Then the mermaid shall return to the sea.
She read both poems and looked directly at the boy as the sun set red.
“Do you have this memorized?” she asked with some urgency.
“I mean, mostly? I could memorize the rest?” Leo questioned.
“Good. We need to do something with it, as soon as we can. After dinner. You go practice and I’ll have dinner done quickly.”
Leo had no idea what she was talking about, but she was old, and he was hungry, so he went outside and tossed sticks to Dog, chanting the poem from the book.
“Only then will the mad fog dissolve / and the curse recede to the depths / What was barren shall unfurl…”
He threw the stick long and far, across Myra’s driveway, the twilight melding into night, and Dog chased it, a big goofy grin, tongue lolling.
And when the car swerved up the driveway neither Dog nor the driver saw each other until it was too late.
The stick landed in the grass, an incomplete fetch. Dog landed in the grass next to it, right by the maple tree that Leo hit back in March. Leo ran to his fallen companion and put his hand on his furry chest. It was moving, but rapidly, struggling. Myra rushed out and tenderly stroked his soft ears, whispering soothingly over Dog’s plaintive whines. Leo thought he saw Myra’s hand glow gold for a brief second, and then the gold disappeared from her hand into Dog, but it was through tears and a crazy thought, so he dismissed it.
“Dog’s gonna be okay,” Myra promised Leo, her hand gripping his, a promise that he needed to hear, and she needed to believe.
Then the driver of the car stepped out and puked, and Leo recognized the retchings of his mother.
“I told you I’d be back, brat. Get in the car.”
Poppy, swaying, gripped Leo’s arm and tried to pull him toward the car, her nails splitting his flesh, her fingertips bruising his arm. He fought her off, and then Mrs. Myra came between them, broom in hand.
“Get off my property, Poppy, and don’t come back,” Myra warned, steel in her words and her stance.
Poppy smirked, reached into her purse, and clumsily pulled out a gun.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch. You all are gonna do what I say.” Poppy was drunk, mean drunk, and the pills were coursing through her misfiring system. Leo’s heart leapt into his throat; he was very familiar with this side of his mother; this was the side that terrorized him, that hit him, that abused him. She was off the rails and volatile. Leo realized two things that night: One, that his mother was broken. Whether it was the drugs or her childhood or her brain, she was a broken human, and that had nothing to do with him or who he was.
And the second truth that Leo understood was that his mother would shoot.
Leo carefully stepped in front of Myra, between gun and broomstick, and tried to reason with the shell that was Poppy. He thought he heard Mrs. Myra whispering something as he begged his mother to put the gun down, her eyes red, wild.
Then the sheriff’s car pulled up the drive, and Poppy would have fired, the drugs and anger rushing to a head, but she called out in pain as the hand on the gun snapped back, the bones hideously broken, the weapon thrown out of her fingers.
Leo heard Myra’s broom rap smartly on the ground, and her whispering ceased.
He turned to her then.
“Miss Myra, did you do that?”
The sheriff jumped out of his car and yelled for Poppy to get down on the ground.
She didn’t.
She ran.
She ran the same route Leo ran through the Paths when he was drunk that night he tried to back out of Myra’s barn on the ice and bumped into the maple tree, the same maple tree that now shaded Dog’s broken body.
When the fireworks began, Sheriff Badger, Leo Beale, Myra Kelley, and the ghost of Dog were chasing Poppy Beale to High Cliffs.
Myra spoke softly, strongly:
Lupine root to stamen
Dark Pines anchor laymen
Tighten the net right tight
Guard the paths this night
Leo recognized that poem from the book. Then Leo swore he saw the Path below his feet glow brighter, glow gold, and he heard the great bald eagle Maximus overhead, flying past the moon.
Poppy got to the cliff’s ledge, the end of her mascara, the edge of the world. Poppy knew that they had absolutely killed him. That pin hadn’t fallen yet, but with the bowling ball of her addicted, fritzing brain, it was inevitable.
The pharmacist had just been in the way. Nothing to be done.
But there was a picture of the pharmacist’s cheeky toddler tucked behind the keyboard and under the computer, the shiny surface of which was now splattered with splotches of dark red blood, and the sound of the gunshot and his sawed-off scream played on a vinyl in the ballroom of her mind and skipped and skipped and warped and skipped.
She wanted to throw up again.
She had been at the edge before, but not like this.
This could be so effortless. She could disappear like the great Captain. Like him, they wouldn’t know if she fell or she jumped. She could become legend.
Her skin crawled; her broken hand looked like an octopus, puffy and purple and round in the middle, her fingers hanging off like limp tentacles. She had lost her shoes. She had lost the gun; she couldn’t remember where.
Witch, witch, Myra’s a big bitch, a big witch, they used to taunt in grade school. Witch, witch, Myra’s a big bitch, a big witch, went the chorus in Poppy’s head.
The sky was clear, full of endless stars and the bright thumbprint of moon.
Her heart was beating erratically; she couldn’t stop twitching or grinding her teeth; more, she needed more. She stood at the edge and looked to the billows, where she saw bare-chested and bare-breasted merfolk frolicking. Their diving made her dizzy, brought her closer to the tip of the lip of the land. Her toes over the end let the littlest landslide release from the cliff’s overbite and fly before being engulfed by the sea.
One of the mermaids, her tail iridescent and changing colors like a cuttlefish, began to sing. Poppy heard nothing else.
The Path was glowing gold; Leo was sure of it now. All the little rocks were sparkling, nacre; Manon’s lupines and all the flowers that lined the trail were illuminated from the inside; the glow stretched out to the precipice and as far behind him as the Paths went. He saw his mother up ahead, out of reach. He knew this phase—freaking out, tweaking out Poppy. She lost her mind from all the drugs and the bipolar, which Leo diagnosed online. She was going to fall.
“Boy, say it with me. Lupine root to stamen…” Myra commanded, her arms glowing white from her wrists to her elbows, glowing like the Paths, glowing with the Paths. Leo didn’t hesitate; Myra was his North Star. He joined her in the chant.
“Dark Pines anchor laymen…”
When he joined, the gold grew brighter, and when he looked back, he saw the golden Paths crisscrossing the entire landscape of Mackerel Sky, like a net set over the land, like a retaining wall.
Past the ruins of Burrbank’s house, near the cliff’s edge was the ivy-covered torch. Myra whispered to her broomstick, and the tip caught fire, reflecting in Leo’s wide pupils. She went to the cenotaph, pulled some ivy away, and lit the top.
Sheriff Badger was running to Poppy, calling to Poppy to come away from the edge. A firework exploded.
Poppy tripped at the end of the golden Paths high above the water, one arm reaching for the ocean like the virgin on the rocks in Mackerel Sky’s oldest cemetery.
Then she fell.
The sky flashed green and blue and gold, colorful like a candy factory, when the mermaids wrapped their arms around her and pulled her under, when the sea swallowed her whole.