The storm turned an hour’s ride from Point Judith into a two-hour ordeal across the brutal North Atlantic. At one point, everything at a kink, the seas rose higher than the ferry’s uppermost deck, and that’s when he knew he would throw up.
He scrambled for the toilet and barely made it to the sink before the nausea burst. The boat kept breaking against the unruly waves and it was all he could do to hold onto the basin’s steel, not even able to work the faucet to wash it down.
He’d chosen the bathroom because it was closer than the deck’s railing, but also he wasn’t from Block Island and hadn’t wanted to look like a weak outsider among hardy, storm-weathered islanders.
The anxiety was misplaced, he saw, after finally gathering himself into walking shape and stepping out. They were all vomiting. The ferry cabin stank of their hot ejections that mingled across the floor in a slurry of seawater-sick.
Everyone spent the rest of the journey pressing their soiled faces into the crooks of their arms to avoid the stench. As the ferry reached Block Island, the captain announced this unexpected hurricane meant there would be no return ferries for at least forty-eight hours.
His sister waited across the pier, bundled in a coat the color of eggplant, with a fur-lined hood that revealed just her eyes and nose. She hadn’t bothered with an umbrella. His wheeled suitcase provided an anchor for his wobbly legs as he walked to her. They embraced perfunctorily in the lashing weather and she led him to a Toyota Tacoma pickup, brown mud on brown paint.
“Welcome back,” she said, starting the engine, hood still covering her ears.
“Is the funeral still on?”
“Rain or shine, mom’s gone, so yeah.”
Good, he thought, I’m not doing this again.
They drove along Spring Street’s old-timey hotels, all cupolas and gingerbread trim, now stripped of bunting, their wraparound porches empty of tables and chairs, their windows taped over in Xs.
He wished he was staying at one of these places. He’d thought Jen had insisted on their mother’s house out of sentiment, but perhaps she was being practical. Tourist season was months away.
He fished out his phone as she drove out of the island’s only town and turned onto Corn Neck Road. It had been more than twenty years since he’d last visited: summers always, when the beach was bright, the ocean blue, and there wasn’t a shrieking wind that kept pushing the car across the lane. At least now there wasn’t any oncoming traffic to smash. The weaving pickup made it hard to scroll through his messages, which hadn’t refreshed, and he thought he’d get sick again.
“Hope it’s nothing urgent,” Jen said. “Not much reception here.”
“Of course there’s reception,” he said.
“Yeah, Kevin, you’re always right and I must be an idiot.”
“Don’t be like that.” He’d return to town if he had to get a signal. Explaining to Vince why he had to drop the project for a few days hadn’t gone down well. People in Silicon Valley didn’t see why an old person’s passing should upset a product launch only two weeks away. Why endanger everyone’s stock options? Not like it was going to bring back the dead. Kevin found their logic unimpeachable, but he didn’t know how to tell that to Jen.
Block Island was shaped like a teardrop with its heart cut out: the Great Salt Pond opened to the Atlantic on the western side through a channel called Neck Cut, while Corn Neck Road traversed the narrow gap between pond and ocean along the east, connecting the northern apex to the town to the round bulk of the island.
Up here the road ran through the heart of the island’s spade-shaped north, lined by modest wood-frame houses among the hardy bushes and trees, while lanes wound left and right to private places tucked out of sight. Go for three miles, around Sachem Pond, and they’d reach the sandy tip along Cow Cove, marked by North Lighthouse – summers, on a rented moped, fun drive. But Jen turned before that, right, along a narrow road that turned into a muddy track that spattered the pickup a little browner. The trees were dark and dense hardwoods: hickory, birch, pine, their ranks filled in with maritime shrubs. The forest blocked the wind but Jen still had to struggle with handling the pickup as they descended into a darkened bowl.
Ascending the other side, the trail ended at a bluff of tall grass, now matted down and dark in the wet, and a single house of triangular peaks and black attic windows, of weathered wooden slats and eaves, of a chimney’s stub beneath a crush of baleful clouds. Jen parked in front, next to someone’s boxy Kia. “Home sweet home.”
“For you, maybe,” he said, grabbing his suitcase.
The storm was abating, affording him a glance at the angry sea, white lines of surf crashing on the gray beach below. Block Island had a reputation for naval accidents, beached ships, ships crashing on the rocks. For the first time, water pelting his face, wind howling around him, Kev could see why.
They dashed for the narrow porch where she could take her time fumbling for her keys.
“Who’s car is that?”
Jen said, “Uh, oh, that’s Mags. Maggie. Friend of mom’s—oh, hey, Tubby, down, boy!” The black lab was all wet nose and wagging tail. He spotted Kevin—another person to play with!—and lunged. “Guess you two haven’t met.”
He wriggled the dog’s head, as much to pet Tubby as to keep him from jumping all over him. “Mom never lost her taste for labradors.”
“Nope. She had two, but Skinny died a year ago. Tubby, get back here! Jeez, he’s going to track mud inside.”
The interior of the house was strange to him. She had bought it about fifteen years ago, after Dad died. Not to remember her family vacations, but to find solace in the island’s six months of grim isolation. Summers, as the tourists flooded in, his mom would often go to Cambridge to spend time with Jen, or drive down to Philly to visit her sister, now deceased. There was only so much of cheerful Block Island that old Norma Westfield could take.
The downstairs had an entry and stairs, a bookshelf-lined sitting room and a rambling kitchen with a busy table where meals were taken. Windows over the sink overlooked the grasses and, beyond, the ocean and the churning clouds. Blocking the view was the stoop of a big white-haired woman in LL Bean flannels, sleeves rolled up, hands washing dishes.
“So you’re Norma’s son,” the woman said without glancing his way.
“Yes. Hi. I’m Kevin.”
“Kevin the Unbeliever,” the woman said. “That’s what Norma called you.”
“Excuse me?”
Jen said, “How about you settle in first? We’ve put you in the attic. Should be okay up there.”
“Yeah, sure, Jen, but just a sec. You’re Maggie, is that right?”
“That’s what they call me.”
He said, “Should they call you something else?”
She halted her dishwashing and now she turned and he saw nothing but crags around two hard black eyes. She seemed to consider his question, only to hmpf and return to her chore.
He asked Jen, “So what time’s the service tomorrow?”
“Eleven. It’ll be quick. The pastor will say a few words, then Maggie, and then we’ll go for a lunch.”
“Wait, wait, back up,” he said. “Maggie’s speaking?”
“That’s right,” Maggie said.
“Well that’s not right,” he said. “Someone from the family should do that. I’ll say a few words.”
Maggie said, “About the mother you haven’t seen in more than ten years?”
“I’m her son,” he said, “and there isn’t a sell-by date on that.”
“Kevin,” Jen said, “stop it. You can both speak. Sheesh.”
They turned quiet, Jen kneeling to give the dog a belly rub, and he brooded about the invasive woman filling his mother’s kitchen, checking the oven.
He noticed a baseball bat leaning in the corner. “What’s this doing here?”
“That’s mine,” Maggie said.
“You play baseball?”
“It’s for self-defense,” Jen explained.
“Against a burglar?”
“I guess so.”
“What if the guy’s got a gun?”
Jen shrugged, but Maggie said, “I’ll trust a sturdy piece of wood over a gun any night.”
He said, “Think I’ll, uh, take my suitcase up.”
The upstairs had two bedrooms and one bathroom. His mother’s room was cleaned and tidy, a place to go undisturbed. The other room was messy, the bed unmade, old woman’s clothes strewn over a chair and a bureau, more flannel shirts hanging in the open closet. He didn’t see a suitcase; it looked as though Maggie had been here a while. He didn’t know where Jen was but there was a ladder that he pulled down from the hallway ceiling that led to an unfinished attic with a single low window and a bed – a mattress on a riser – for him.
He pulled out his laptop, unplugged the lamp from the one electrical socket he could find and charged the computer, but he couldn’t get a signal. Shit.
He carried the laptop down to the kitchen. Jen leaned against a counter by a kettle. Maggie was putting plates into cabinets. Tubby scrambled to greet him.
“There’s no going online here,” Maggie said.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Dinner’s at six. There’s books and magazines in there.”
“I know the attic’s not much,” Jen said, “but it’s okay, right? I’m in the basement, which isn’t any better.”
“Can you give me a ride back into town? There’s got to be some WiFi.”
A gust shook the house. “It’s going to have to wait till tomorrow,” Jen said. “Sorry.”
“Give me the keys, I can drive myself.”
“Unbeliever, you are here now, and I suggest you accept that.”
“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, “I flew three thousand miles to be here for a private family event, at my mother’s house. Who are you, exactly?”
Jen interjected, “I’ve made some tea, want some?”
Maggie wiped her massive hands on her apron. She wasn’t fat and she wasn’t young. She was old and thick as a hickory tree. “I was Norma’s…special friend.”
He gawped. “Don’t tell me what I think you’re telling me.”
“Kevin, don’t start,” Jen said.
“My mother was not a lesbian,” he said.
Maggie said, “Of course she wasn’t, if it makes you feel better.”
“Well, this is a surprise.”
“Go read a book. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
No TV. What kind of household didn’t have some kind of entertainment setup?
He thought about the product sprint, the team that was even now huddled in the office in Mission Bay, the coding he’d promised to review, the marketing content he had to approve, the thousand little details for the boss’s big stage debut at The Box. He looked at the yellow lamplit spines of books that he’d never read. He looked at the stuffed chair that waited like a prison sentence. Mom, a dyke. With that battleaxe. So what, Maggie wasn’t real family, she shouldn’t be dictating the shots…
He sat on the porch, enduring the freezing rain, turning his phone on every few minutes in vain. The porch faced the muddy track that disappeared into the forest, which grew inkier by the minute, until by the time he was feeling hungry, had faded into a void flecked with the reflection of light from the windows on the rain.
Feeling cold, he climbed to the attic to find a heavier sweater. The lone lamp on the floor provided more shadow than illumination. He glanced out the window at knee level and saw a flickering, bobbing light along the beach. Someone with a flashlight? In this weather?
This would be a great time to be a thief, he reckoned. Be sure to check the locks. When he got downstairs he surveyed the windows.
“What are you doing?” Jen asked him as she set the kitchen table. The silverware gleamed, too fancy for the humble house.
“I saw someone out there,” he said. “Well, I saw a light.”
“Did you, now?” asked Maggie, setting a pot of steaming stew in the middle of the table.
“Yes, Maggie, I did.”
“That’s not a trespasser,” she said. “Anyway, locks won’t keep her out.”
“Keep who out?” Jen asked.
Maggie had opened a bottle of red and she indulged a generous pour into a crystal glass that had the patina of age. “Island memories.”
“Wow, cryptic,” he said.
“There’s beer in the fridge if you prefer that,” Maggie said.
“No, wine’s fine.” He looked at the label and didn’t hide making a face. He poured glasses for himself and Jen.
“That smells amazing,” his sister said, nose over the stew.
“Thank you, Jenny.”
They arranged themselves, Tubby reluctantly following orders to go lay down, while Jen pulled apart a loaf of sourdough. Kevin watched Maggie ladle stew into their bowls and seethed at the presence of this…this stranger. He had come this way to be with his sister, who’d handled most of the service arrangements from Massachusetts. He’d imagined things they might think to say to one another. Not that he came up with much: it sucks, Mom’s dead, love ya, gotta go, bye. But this was his poverty of feeling, and this old witch had no place in it.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been thought a witch,” Maggie said.
He nearly spilled the stew in his spoon. “Gee, Maggie, that’s a terrible thing to say.”
“The world’s a terrible place. Worse than you know, Kevin.”
“Because of island memories?”
“Oh yes,” Maggie said, dipping a wedge of bread into her bowl.
“You want to enlighten us about the lights out there? Regale us with old shanties of shipwrecked sailors, that kind of thing?”
“Kevin,” Jen said, “I think we should share some memories of Mom.”
“The wrackers used to tie lanterns to the tails of donkeys, walk them along the shore at night.”
“Sorry,” he said, “wrackers? What’s a wracker?”
“What locals call wreckers. Salvagers of shipwrecks.”
“Mom always loved these old stories,” Jen said. “I think she must have read all those historical novels two or three times each.”
“Wrackers, okay,” Kevin said, locking gazes with Maggie. “Pray continue. Donkey tails, lanterns.”
“To a ship’s watch, the bobbing lanterns looked like the buoys signaling safe harbor.”
“Let me guess. Stormy night like this…”
“Crash them into the rocks. And the wrackers would come crawling out of the island, out of the mud, down the bluffs, to their little dinghies. The upstanding ones would sail to the schooners and bargain to help rescue the crew or free the ship from the shoal. Others just waited onshore, waiting for the waves to bring them the cargo.”
“You mean without helping the crew?” Jen asked.
“Waiting for them to swim ashore, or drown.”
“Charming,” Kevin said.
“But then there the likes of Old Chrissy,” Maggie said. “She was said to be a big woman, like me. She’d patrol the beach with a giant club, the kind they used to kill seals. Only she’d wait for survivors to wash ashore and bash their skulls in.”
“Jesus Christ,” he blurted.
“The way you take the Lord’s name tells me you’re an unbeliever.”
“This woman murdered the survivors?”
“Wracking was one of the only ways to get things on the island, because all cargo was precious. Stone for building stairs. Coal for heating homes. Silver and glassware for the table, jewelry to sell on the mainland.”
“Still, that’s murder.”
“Yes it is, but wrackers have a rule.”
“Can’t wait to hear this.”
The wind outside hammered on the kitchen windows.
“A wrack is a wrack.”
He repeated the line. “That’s it? That’s the great ancient wisdom of these shrewd islanders?”
Maggie poured herself another glass of wine. “That’s what Old Chrissy told her own son when he happened to wash ashore one night, after many years at sea, looked up at her, and said, ‘Hello, Ma.’”
“She killed him?” Jen asked.
Maggie stared at Kevin as if fascinated. “She surely did. He had become a stranger to her. A foreigner. Not an islander. Not a wracker.”
“Still,” he began, but Maggie cut him off.
“He’d abandoned his ma,” she said, “and got what he deserved.”
The kitchen fell silent. Tubby noticed, perked his ears, but lay his nose back down. The wind howled and he felt the house tremble.
“Let’s talk about Mom,” Jen said.
“Go ahead,” Maggie said.
“Wait a minute,” he snapped. “That story must be more than a hundred years old.”
“More like two” Maggie agreed.
“So what are the lights I saw earlier? People with flashlights waiting on the shore…for a wreck?”
“Not with flashlights. With lanterns tied to donkey tails.”
“Maggie,” he said, chuckling, “there’s no fucking way that is true.”
“Kevin!” his sister admonished.
“There just isn’t,” he said. “You know how I started my day this morning? By getting up, using a smartphone connected to the internet, using satellite geo-positioning to get to the airport, using AI to help get an upgrade, fucking flying in a jet airplane thirty-five thousand feet in the air, over clouds, staring out the window and looking down on Kansas or wherever. That’s the modern world. That’s technology. That’s reality. Nobody goes out into a storm on Block Island with a lantern playing pin the tail on the donkey.”
“Kevin, you’re out of line,” Jen said.
“You forgot something,” Maggie said.
“Gee, did I? Oh yeah, you’re right, I watched a movie with amazing special effects. Maybe they didn’t have those when you were growing up, Mags, but you should try it some time.”
“You forgot to say you thought about Norma. That you felt grief over your mother, whom you haven’t visited for all these years.”
That stopped him. He twirled the crystal glass in his hand. Jen gently gripped his other arm. He slammed the glass down. “You know what? Maybe I did. Maybe that’s all I’ve been thinking about. But it doesn’t matter because it’s none of your goddamn business.”
“You’re right,” Maggie said. “And I don’t care.”
“I think you should get out,” he said. “Go home, Maggie. Leave tomorrow to our family.”
“Kevin,” Jen hissed, “this is her home.”
“What?”
“This is where Maggie lives. She’s lived her for, I don’t know, ten years?”
He hated the triumph he sensed in Maggie’s coal-tinted eyes.
“Then I’ll go. Find a hotel.”
“They’re all closed for winter,” Maggie said.
“Then, since we’re stuck here, how about a wager? Winner decides who speaks at mom’s funeral and who doesn’t. To settle at least one thing.”
Those black eyes danced. “What do you have in mind?”
“Let’s go down to the beach. See for ourselves who’s out there.”
“That could be very dangerous,” Maggie said.
“Yeah,” Jen added, “it’s not safe out there.”
“Dangerous for you,” Maggie said.
“Not for you?” he asked.
“No, not for me. This is my island.”
“Oh, I see. Wow, okay. Intriguing. What do we say, I’ll take my chances?”
“Kevin, don’t—”
“After you, unbeliever. Wager accepted.”
He went to the hall closet and bundled into his coat, a black puffer ski jacket. “Is there a flashlight?”
Jen looked through the kitchen drawers, then went out to the washroom that housed all the domestic bits and pieces. “I can’t find one, so you’re not going out.”
“How convenient,” he said.
“I don’t need a flashlight,” Maggie said. “I know the way.”
“Good! Then I’ll follow you.”
“No, you go first. I’m sure-footed, but slow. And you should see for yourself.”
“Kevin,” Jen said, “this is crazy. You’re being stupid.”
Even Tubby wasn’t excited about humans getting ready to go out. He exuded a look of confused pain.
“You want to come with?” he asked his sister.
“No way.”
He went out the back door and was almost hauled off his feet by the gale. Wooden planks meandered through the high grass to the edge of the bluff. These weren’t the domineering clay bluffs that ringed the south of the island, but they were still a solid presence. The walkway descended in switchbacks that he could barely make out in the darkness.
Below he saw a bobbing yellow light, then another.
Anyone traversing the beach in this weather would have nothing good in mind. He thought of the baseball bat. He should have brought it. But then he remembered that whoever was down there, if they meant trouble, might be armed. He’d rely on his wits. Besides, he didn’t need to approach them or speak with them. Just know they weren’t pirates from some bygone century.
The storm had rendered the steps slippery and he took his time. Even with the railing he nearly fell. He huffed down the steep slope until he’d reached the narrow beach of rocks and pebbles. Here the whitecaps were visible beneath the dreadful blackness and the roar of the waves, enraged by the storm, drowned out the banshee winds.
A pair of lights bobbed nearby. The beach was more treacherous than the stairs and he fell, slamming onto his knees. Pain lurched. He got up, sand covering his palms, hands shaking in the freezing cold. His bowels growled and he thought: that goddamn stew.
Maybe it was the storm, but he felt drenched. His coat, even his inner clothes, became wet and heavy.
Kevin advanced and the lights weaved at about his eye’s level. In this storm, there wasn’t much chance for shadows, but finally the contours of a man’s face bleached into view. Unkempt hair, mangy beard, sallow cheeks and a bony frame, but eyes bright with malice. The man sensed Kevin and turned to look at him, and Kevin saw the man’s hand was outstretched, resting on the back of a donkey.
The lantern was tied with rope around the animal’s hindquarters and bobbed atop its tail.
“I don’t believe it,” Kevin said.
The man grinned. “Found me one!”
“Who are you?” Kevin demanded.
“Ye’ve got some spark in ye,” the man said, drawing a long, terrifying knife. “I don’t mind.”
Kevin turned and ran but the wet pebbles and the dripping of his clothes conspired to send him back to the ground. He rolled on his back, feet kicking to gain purchase. The man rushed him, but then paused, and they both heard the distant calls of Jen: Kevin, Kevin! Come back, Kevin!
The man called over his shoulder, “Take this lad yerself, I’m claiming the girl!”
Kevin cried, “No—Jen! No!” As he arose, the man passed him in a sprint, so fast that the kick to his head came as a shock.
He didn’t know how long he’d been passed out, but it was still night, the rain was still peppering his face, the waves were braying for blood, and he was on the rocky shore, gasping for breath.
The nausea struck and he propped up on an elbow just so he could vomit onto the sand and pebbles.
When it passed, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. The material felt coarse and alien. He paused for even in the darkness he saw the white cuff of a shirt he didn’t own. The water-logged coat was not his puffer but a badly-fitting jacket with brass buttons.
He lolled in confusion and then a vision caught his eye. He looked up at Maggie, the big old woman looming over his head. Her plaids had been replaced by a huge black dress spangled with white lace.
“My ma,” he said, “what did you do to her?”
Maggie grasped the baseball bat with both hands. “I provided for that woman like you never did.” She raised it above her head.
“Wait!” he screeched. “Stop! I’m her son, I was Norma’s son…”
“You know the rule of the island,” she said. “A son is a son but a wrack is a wrack.”