Our Homesick Songs Page 8

  Molly sat down on the floor, pushed her hand against her eyes.

  Martha sat down next to her. She reached over and took Molly’s other hand. It was wet and warm from the wax and the steam. For a while she didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything, just sat like that. The floor was dusty; there were two dead flies in the corner, against the wall. She wanted to look at Molly, at her sister, but couldn’t, couldn’t stop looking at the flies. We’ll go see her, she said. We will. I know a way. We’ll go. She’ll wait for us.

  •  •  •

  Martha rocked her weight from one foot to the next. There was something in her boot, something poking up under the ball of her foot, but she didn’t want to bend down and be in an awkward position when Mrs. Connor came to the door, so, instead of trying to get it out, she was looking for a way of balancing so no weight was on that part of that foot. It was sharp, whatever it was. Urchin shell, maybe. She’d never been to Little Running before. Had to ask Nuala the paperboy which house to go to and how to get there.

  Yes! Yes, sorry, hello! Hello? Martha could hear Mrs. Connor, calling from the kitchen before stamping out, toward the already propped-open screen door. She pushed it open further with her foot and wiped her hands on her apron. I’m sorry, she said, noticing Martha notice them. I’m jarring meat. Her hands and arms all the way up to the elbow were stained bright red.

  Martha rowed back home ten minutes later with a jar of new seal meat and the promise that Aidan would come see her in five days, when he was back on land.

  Just be careful, Mrs. Connor had said, handing her the jar. Just be careful with him, OK?

  •  •  •

  Martha sat on her front step and worked on a net. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want to meet Aidan in the house, didn’t want to bring him in there yet. The wind was indecisive and bad-tempered and kept blowing the end of her twine the wrong way. It made new knots where she didn’t want them. From the steps she could almost see down to the water, and, normally, would be able to hear anything like a boat being pulled up or boots on rocks, but today the wind was too erratic, too disordered to hear anything but it. She squinted toward the water like Meredith had taught them as children, but, as always, that just made her vision fuzzier, not better, so that the first thing she saw of Aidan was just a blot of green. She widened her eyes properly to see his green coat and navy toque. She stood up, waited. He walked a little closer, saw her and smiled. She did too, exhaling. She didn’t realize until then that she had been holding her breath, didn’t realize that she mostly didn’t expect him to come at all.

  Hello, Martha,

  Pardon?

  Hello . . . Martha?

  Hello?

  Pardon?

  PARDON?

  The wind was louder than they were.

  HELLO, MARTHA MURPHY.

  OH, HELLO, AIDAN. HELLO, AIDAN CONNOR.

  Her hair was in its usual braid and the unfastened ends of it blew toward her mouth when she spoke and she had to spit them away. Aidan’s hair was mostly under his toque, but a few of the front bits blew out in wisps, the wind straightening the curls. Martha reached up to him and brushed them away, aside. She could feel the gentle stubble of salt on his brow.

  I’M GLAD YOU CAME, she said, turning and leading him up the stairs. PLEASE, COME IN.

  •  •  •

  Martha shut the kitchen door behind them. She knew Molly was upstairs, was listening.

  It’s further than Gander. A lot further.

  Yes, I know.

  It must be a hundred miles, at least.

  A hundred and fifty nautical miles.

  Our boat could never make that.

  The Grass Widow can. Mine can.

  And Molly, what about her? Molly will have to come too.

  That’s fine, there’s space.

  You’ll miss a lot of work.

  You will too. Anyway, we can fish on the way back.

  And I guess I can make nets on-boat. I can do that almost anywhere.

  Of course. Tomorrow, then. Let’s head off tomorrow, first thing, so long as the wind dies.

  Do you think it will?

  I think it will. He still had his coat and toque on. It was warm in the kitchen, verging on uncomfortable, but he kept them on.

  OK, said Martha. Me too. I think it will too.

  I’ll come a half hour before sunrise.

  We’ll be here.

  OK.

  OK.

  He stood to go, stepped toward her. She stepped back.

  Thank you, she said.

  Always, he said.

  Pardon?

  Anytime, he said. He stepped away, toward the door. Anytime.

  •  •  •

  Before going to bed that night, Molly and Martha gathered their things. Raincoats and clean socks and underwear and an extra bra and warm sweater each for the two of them and for Meredith. Three dark berry tarts and three hard tack breads and three dried fish and three large jars of water for them and for Aidan. And he will bring things too, said Martha. He said he would, so this is just in case.

  Molly nodded, pushing the toes down and in on a pair of balled socks. They were Meredith’s; Molly had them in an almost perfect sphere. It’s nice of him to take us, she said.

  It is, said Martha.

  And for you two to bring me along.

  Of course, said Martha. She stopped tightening the jar lids, looked up. Of course we’re bringing you along, Molly. That’s the whole point. For us to go. Both of us. Of course.

  OK. I just thought that maybe you might want—

  No.

  OK. She stuck her fingers down and into the socks.

  Molly, said Martha. No.

  OK.

  On the tops of the piles they put Martha’s needle and card and twine, Molly’s score book and pencil, and, unwrapped from tea towels behind the broken cupboard door where their sister thought nobody knew she hid it, Meredith’s splitting knife.

  •  •  •

  Aidan arrived half an hour before sunrise. Martha and Molly were waiting on their front step.

  READY? he called up to them.

  READY, Martha called back.

  Ready, said Molly, more to herself than anyone else, reaching over to pick up her pack.

  The morning was calm and still enough for the predawn birds to be easy high up and across the dust-blue sky.

  •  •  •

  Martha and Molly and Aidan took turns rowing and sleeping and talking and netting and fishing and eating and writing and drinking, careful, aware that they might need to make what supplies they had stretch out over days if it didn’t rain. But it did rain, and they pulled up their hoods and put out their jars, lids hanging open, to catch all they could.

  You’ve taken this boat out this long before? asked Martha.

  She was rowing and Molly was sleeping and Aidan was checking the compass.

  Sure, all the time. Whenever it’s my shift. Which is most of the time, in the seasons, said Aidan. He squinted at the place in the clouds where he imagined the sun should be.

  For days? said Martha. And nights? In a row?

  Of course. That’s how you get the fish in.

  They don’t spoil?

  Only sometimes. Rarely. We keep them in seawater and dry on board. See? He pointed behind where Molly was curled against a pile of net, to a ladderlike structure. Wood on wood.

  It’s different in Big Running. We dry on the flakes. We all come back to the stages at the end of each day. Everyone does.

  Every day? said Aidan.

  Every day, said Martha.

  You all must get pretty sick of each other, hey?

  Martha stopped rowing.

  No, I mean, I just mean, it’s nice to be away. To miss people.

  It’s also nice to be together.

  Yes, yes, of course it is, I just meant—

  I just wanted to be sure it was safe, said Martha. I’ve never been on this
kind of boat before.

  The Grass Widow is safe, said Aidan. I’ve worked hard on this one. It’s safe. It has to be.

  •  •  •

  And each sunset, the jellyfish would congregate and float all around their boat like loose, orange clouds and Martha would lean over toward them and tell everyone’s fortune from the patterns.

  Aidan was rowing and Martha was sleeping and, even though it was dark now, Molly was writing in her notebook.

  What are you writing?

  Music. Violin music.

  Aidan stretched out his neck to see over onto the page while still rowing. It was covered in shapes. Each with a number inside. Circles, triangles, squares and diamonds of all different sizes.

  I’ve never seen proper music-writing before, he said.

  Oh, neither have I. This is just a way I made up to do it. Each shape is one of my strings and the numbers are a finger and the size is duration.

  What about there? There it says small circle seven. But you don’t have seven fingers.

  That’s for if I want to go higher. That’s where my seventh finger would be if I had seven fingers. Or more. It’s all pretty easy, when you think about it.

  I guess so, said Aidan. He rowed and they were silent for a while. Then he said, Hey, Molly?

  Yeah?

  Could you write out something that already exists? Like, if I sang something?

  Sure.

  Like,

  The water is wide,

  he sang,

  I can’t cross over

  quiet and low so as not to wake Martha.

  OK, said Molly. Yes, I can do that. But you have to go slowly.

  The

  water

  sang Aidan.

  Good, said Molly. Got it.

  is

  wide.

  Good, said Molly. Good, good. Got it.

  He sang a bit more, and she wrote out a bit more, and the same again, and again, and again, the song a duet with the rhythm of his rowing.

  Aidan sang and Molly transcribed and Martha slipped in and out of dreams of mermaids until the fog pulled in tight and dense, wetting Molly’s paper and making it hard for her to see her pencil. Well, said Molly, closing the notebook and tucking it up against her chest, under her waterproof jacket, I’ve got most of it I think. I think I can figure out the rest from there.

  For a while the oars against the water were the only sound. Molly was sitting so still Aidan thought she had fallen asleep like her sister. Until,

  Is it true? she said.

  Molly, I thought you were asleep.

  Is it true, Aidan?

  Is what true?

  That all Connors are cheats. Is it true?

  They said that in Big Running?

  Yes, said Molly.

  They say it in Little Running, too. I just thought. I hoped . . .

  It doesn’t matter if it’s not true. Right?

  To some people it does.

  That doesn’t count. Overall it doesn’t matter unless it’s true, right? So . . . is it?

  I . . . No, Molly. I don’t think it is. I don’t think it has to be.

  Me neither. She smiled and closed her eyes and went to sleep for real.

  •  •  •

  And sometimes the water was blue, more blue than sky, and sometimes it was dark and green and thick, and sometimes it was hardly any color, changing and moving and pushing and pulling like breath.

  •  •  •

  Aidan was sleeping and Molly was rowing and Martha was washing her hair with bucketfuls of salt water from over the side. It was cold but good, like waking up over and over and over again.

  You know, said Molly, sometimes I forget about Meredith. I forget where we’re going or that we’re going anywhere, that this isn’t just normal life. Sometimes I forget her.

  A lot?

  No, just sometimes.

  We’re almost there.

  Are we?

  I think so.

  First came the lightning, when they were all asleep.

  Martha woke first. Something is broken, was her first thought.

  Then the thunder, rolling out like slow motion, and she remembered where she was, who she was with, and that she wasn’t meant to be sleeping at all.

  First the lightning, then the thunder, then the wind and the waves, the waves and the wind and the night-white water, all of which were the same, all one, pushing and reaching and pulling and pressing in on them, on every side, wind, waves, water, everything wet and loud and black and white, deep night, then light, then night, then light, and everyone was awake now, Aidan’s mouth moving like talking but just the sound of the wind and the waves and the water, just a moving mouth, only visible when the light hit, then gone again, his arms up and grabbing things, something, a snake, a rope, just a rope, Martha stepping out, toward him, black-white, the wind grabbing her hair, punching her back, deep, heavy against her gut, and something, something else, on her arm, pulling her back, a hand in unison with the wind, pulling her, sudden, and she fell back, away from Aidan and back inside and the hatch banged shut. No, said Molly’s mouth, in lightning flashes, full of the sound of wind. No.

  They watched Aidan through the small rain-streaked window, slow motion in the black and white. Martha counted to a hundred under her breath. If she could get to a hundred and back down again he would be safe. Her hand balled into a tight fist.

  Aidan pushed through the hatch, all wet and wind, at ninety-eight. That’s it, he said, and they could hear him. I think that’s it now. I think that’s the worst of it over.

  You could have died, said Martha.

  No, said Aidan. I’m safe.

  Sometimes the mermaids save people, said Molly.

  Sometimes they don’t, said Martha.

  •  •  •

  By the time the sun rose, the water was as calm as if it were frozen. It shone orange-pink all around them for miles and miles and miles.

  Martha and Aidan made a list of what they’d lost. Two water-gathering jars, two packets of hard biscuits, one oar, one pair of mittens, one rope, the compass.

  Do you know where we are? asked Martha.

  She was whispering. Molly was only ten feet or so away, picking up fish that had been tossed into the boat by the storm. If they weren’t moving she threw them back into the sea; if they were, she put them in a bucket of cold water, for later.

  Yes, whispered Aidan. Kind of.

  Kind of?

  Well, not exactly. Not like before, but . . . we know the sun is east, and the north star is north.

  Aidan, I—

  Please don’t worry,

  Aidan, she said.

  We are, we are moving.

  And—

  It will be OK, I know, just . . .

  She put a hand to her face. Row away from the sun in the morning and away from the star at night, she said.

  Yes.

  Just that.

  Just that. He stepped in, carefully took her hand away from her eyes, held it.

  •  •  •

  Look at this one! Molly came up beside them, her bucket swimming with confused and crowded fish, one of them gleaming bright green all down its back.

  Deep water, said Aidan. Deep-water fish.

  •  •  •

  They aligned against the sun. Aidan found and dusted off the emergency oar, to replace the one they’d lost, and rowed hard and long. Much longer than his turn, almost until sunset.

  They could usually feel the morning sun, guess at it through the cloud and fog by the gradient of gray in the sky, by the just-there extra warmth on their faces. But night was harder. If the clouds thinned and the fog lifted they could find the north star and point themselves away, but if not, if the clouds stayed dense and the fog stayed heavy, then the stars were invisible and any way could be the right way and every way could be the wrong way and they would squint and point at real or imagined flecks of light in the white-dark and turn them
selves around again and again.

  It was misting but not raining and after a while their remaining gathering jar stood thirsty-empty. The mist and fog condensed around its sides and in the ridges of its top and they would take turns licking it off. They breathed with their mouths open, drinking what they could through mist, through fog.

  •  •  •

  It was night, half-clear, and Martha was rowing. Molly and Aidan were asleep. Molly with her collar pulled up high and her hat pulled down low, and Aidan sat up like he could have been awake, like he could have been in church. Everyone was sleeping more now. But Martha was awake and was rowing through white ribbons of night mist, everything quieter than seemed possible. She was listening to the quiet when her oar, her left oar, slowed in the water, like it had suddenly become thicker, heavier. And then her right oar too, so she had to push her full body weight up and back to pull through each stroke, like fingers through wind-tangled hair. She stopped, balancing the oars down into their resting places, and leaned out to look over the edge of the boat, into the now-heavy water. Oh, she said. Oh, oh, oh.

  She blinked, squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them again and saw the same thing. Things. Hundreds and hundreds, thousands, more than her eyes could count, all around the boat and leading on, out, jellyfish. Glowing and bright like the stars had fallen down into the sea, like she was in the middle of a new and important constellation. Orange, green, blue, each one pulsed in time with the others. One big heart, thought Martha. Like one big heart.

  And they were in a line. The clouds of jellyfish weren’t random, they formed a line, a trail, two boats wide and endless boats long, leading away, a different direction to where The Grass Widow was going, to where Martha was rowing. Orange, green, blue. Orange, green, blue. Martha breathed up and down with them. OK, she said. OK. She took up the oars and pushed carefully through the glowing water, turning the boat around, pointing it down the glowing, beating trail.

  She didn’t have to row after that, the pulse of the jellyfish pushed them swell by swell down their path. Martha fell asleep to the silent song of it.

  When Martha woke, the jellyfish were gone and the water was pitch-dark again. Instead, there were little points of orange-white light higher up, between the water and the stars. Hundreds of them, stretching through the mist. The boat was headed straight toward them.