Ghost Sea: A Novel (Dugger/Nello Series) (17 page)

I
remember Nello passing me the bottle, saying sit down, sit down. Then him turning the ketch, working the sails, while Charlie held the wheel. I don’t remember anything else until I awoke on deck.

A sky full of stars hovered over me. We stood so still that the tip of the mast pointed frozen at a star. A moon sat above a wooded hill and, below it, a curved beach glowed in the moonlight with enormous windowless houses, their gables facing the water, ringing the shore. A cloud of sparks shot from a roof and smoke wafted in the night.

I felt no sadness, not even loss, just a hard, deep cold I had never felt before, as if, somewhere deep inside, the fire had gone out.

T
HE HALYARDS HUNG
as if painted on the mist. A timid dawn came without color, lighting up a scrub islet next to us that closed off the cove. The crescent beach curved between rocky points, with dark canoes lying at odd angles in the sand, and the houses of the forlorn village in a line above it. The cove was so still, the reflections so perfect, that the tall carved poles, the skeletal posts of houses, the pilings that supported rough shacks on the shore, all seemed twice as long, twice as delicate.

The cold from inside had overtaken me. I was too numb to move. Why would I? To go where? Do what?

Among the reflections of the cove, something moved. With long limbs like a water bug, it glided over the sea, coming slowly, carefully, until I recognized Nello’s flat hat, and the oars. He rowed to where I lay in the stern, took in the oars, turned, broke into a drunken grin, and, blowing a cloud of rum into the dawn, proclaimed, “She’s alive.”

I
WARMED THROUGH
as if the noonday sun had blasted down on me. I helped Nello out of the skiff, as if he needed it, then went below and started breakfast, as if Charlie had wanted it; woke up Sayami to change his bandage and he cursed me for it. I ran around putting things in order, recoiled lines, refolded sails, scrubbed down the decks, then stood in the cockpit out of breath and the sun hadn’t yet risen.

Nello brought out steaming plates and handed me one. “Your favorite,” he said.

They were the best flapjacks I’d ever had. I chatted away about everything, anything: checking the level of the gas, whipping some lines, retying baggywrinkles, greasing through-hulls, maybe even giving the skiff a coat of paint if we—

“Cappy?” Nello cut in. “We can’t see her for four days.”

I calmed down.

“She’s sick,” he went on gently. “A
pexala
is with her; a shaman. A very good one who can cure anything.”

“But four days,” I objected.

“That’s how it’s done when you lose your soul.”

I must have given him some kind of look, because he reddened and snapped impatiently, “When you have a terrifying fright, you lose your soul and get sick: that’s life. Your soul escapes through your breath. If it can’t get back in, the
pexala
comes to catch it.”

“And if he can’t?”

“It’s worked for eight thousand years, Cappy. Why would it quit today?”

At the edge of the village, against the dark forest, someone hung a red blanket on a line.

KATE

The Shaman

In the night they carry me into a dark house with a fire in the middle of the floor. They lay me naked on a mat beside the flames; I see white eyes in the shadows. I am too weak to move; my chest is so heavy I can only take tiny breaths. A painted face is thrust into mine, with bloodshot eyes among the creases. His jaw trembles as he contorts his naked, painted body, a ring of branches around his neck and a crystal in his hand that throws beams of light into the dark. He writhes, possessed, lunges at me, then lifts me up and at once there is deafening drumming and women’s voices droning an endless “eeeeee.”

He carries me around and around the fire, places me back on the mat, trembles, and then bends so far forward that his head almost touches the ground. He runs his hands slowly down my head and down my sides, then he throws himself beside me and squeezes my head, my breasts, my belly, down. He grunts, his head touching my breast and then his mouth is sucking just below my breasts, until he lifts his head, pulls what looks like a thick, bloody worm from his mouth and throws it, with a cry, into the fire. I’m drenched in sweat; a woman with large naked breasts comes and wipes me dry with something coarse, then throws it into the fire along with some small fish and my pajamas, and they all smoke and fill the house with stench.

The other grabs for something among the flames, then he cries out and jabs it into the base of my skull.

The woman takes off her cedar-bark skirt and lets it catch fire, collecting the ashes in a pot. She stirs in fish-stink oil, then spreads the muck all over me. Many hands pass me four times through a ring of boughs, then hold the ring into the fire and take it flaming out into the night. I’m left on the mat alone with sparks flying through the roof to the stars.

T
he tide had come in, setting some canoes afloat, and stocky forms in blankets or trousers ambled down the steps in the bank, pushed off, and vanished among the rocks and reefs and islets of the shoals.

The village awoke slowly. Smoke rose in patches through the long planks of the roofs as if each house were smoldering; doors slammed and the sound echoed on the waters; kids ran along the wooden walkway before the houses, weaving among teetering carved poles that dwarfed them all; and old men came and sat around the great platform that jutted out over the water on pilings. Women came down to the beach and raised their skirts to pee in the sea. Someone hung laundry on the salal bushes.

I couldn’t sit still, so I untied the skiff and set the oars.

“Don’t go ashore,” Nello said. “Not today.”

I headed for the island. A canoe passed close by me with a man and woman paddling, their reflections so perfect that it looked as if water spirits mimicked their every move. Near the point, an old man gutted fish, spread them flat, held them open with sticks, and hung them on a rack over a smoldering fire.

In front of the houses, the enormous carved poles stood out against the sky. The largest, a long-breasted woman with puffy lips and eyes, reached her arms in a frightening welcome. A life-sized killer whale stood on its upturned head, its tail high, its mouth opened wide. On the biggest house was painted the image of a bird with its wings spread, head raised. Its monstrous head and beak—carved from a single log—burst seaward beyond the walk, its shadow reaching out over the water. The carved figure of a man, set in the bank, held it up. Farther down, a halibut the size of a canoe, harshly carved and painted in black, red, and white, seemed to float in the air, its tail on the edge of the walk, its chin, over the midden, supported by a pole. And where the walls no longer stood and roofs no longer hung, wide-eyed bears and solemn eagles and bent-kneed giants with their paint worn off long ago stood rotting in deep bramble. No longer frightening, the bear paws seemed to reach out for company.

I was at a respectful distance from the shore when the sun came over the forest slope and lit the beach and walk. All at once the village filed out and sat on the great platform or the steps, soaking up the warmth of the sun.

But by noon it had started to rain.

I
T WAS A
misty, drifting rain that settled like a fine frost on the ropes, on our coats, in our hair. We stretched the awning over the cockpit, but the slightest breeze brought the rain in our faces and fogged my binoculars as I surveyed the shore.

Work in the village went on through the rain. Canoes came and were unloaded of stacks of blankets, boxes, and cedar baskets. Fires were started on the beach under the smoke racks near the rocky point and women wrapped in blankets squatted on their haunches, boiling clams before laying them, skewered, over the smoke racks. And the carved giant holding up the bird’s beak was getting a fresh coat of paint.

“It’ll be the biggest potlatch ever,” Nello said. “And probably the last. The police are bound to show up sooner or later.”

T
HE SICK CAME
down to the water’s edge and splashed handfuls of water at the sea. I watched the shore and the village all day but she was nowhere.

Darkness fell slowly in the rain. We ate in silence and drifted away to bed. I lay in my berth listening to the rain dripping from the rigging, and when I heard snoring from the bow and long breaths from the stern, I went out and silently pushed off in the skiff. The shore was dark, only the embers below the smoke racks gave a glow, and threads of light shimmered between house planks. I knelt in the bow and paddled to the point, then, circling through the woods, came into the village from behind. All silent. The houses towered over me. I laid my ear against the planks but heard only snoring. Above me a crack spilled light, so I clambered onto a woodpile and peered in.

The interior was an enormous open space ringed by a double platform like an endless two-tiered stage, each platform chest-high and a couple of strides deep. In the center of a vast dirt floor, big logs flamed, and through the smoke-hole in the roof, the rain misted down among dangling ropes and racks. Across the way, steps led up to the only opening; on either side of it, colossal carved beasts with crazed eyes and sickle-length teeth held up the giant ridgepoles of the roof. On each upper platform stood a tiny, open-fronted house in which, beyond partially drawn curtains, dark forms slept. All was still; there was no sign of her.

The other big houses were pretty well the same except the last one. It was much wider and higher than the rest and the floor was dug deep into the ground, making the roof higher still. And it was empty. The two tiers of platforms were without the little houses, no signs of life apart from an old man sitting by a fire in the middle of the floor, nodding off but shaking himself awake as if he were guarding all that empty space. He must have heard me rustle, because he lifted his head and stared in my direction. I slipped away into the darkness to the shore. The tide was in, so I had to keep to the narrow strip between the midden and the sea, passing the smoldering smoke racks, heading toward the shack of the sick that stood on pilings at the water’s edge. The rain hardened; shells crunched underfoot. A fire’s glow and soft moaning came through the planks. I climbed the steps.

The fire burnt on a thick bed of sand over the floor-boards, and under blankets lay shapes so frail they barely made a ripple. Only one rocked lightly in rhythm with the moaning. The wooden latch was tight with rain and gave a thud as I slipped it, and as I stepped in, a floorboard creaked so loud I expected everyone to jump. From under the first blanket an ancient, cracked foot stuck out; I moved on. The moaning grew. A clump of long, tangled hair stuck out from the next. I reached down to lift a corner but lost my balance and pulled back half of it. A girl lay there: oval face, straight nose, sad eyes, and fleshy lips cracked from fever—closed tight as if holding secrets. She had no fear. I looked at her, pleading for silence, and her eyes softened for a moment before sinking deep and distant again. As I moved on, she grabbed my ankle. The frail hand had surprising strength, but her gaze was so uncertain I couldn’t tell what she wanted. I pulled away and stepped gingerly ahead. It might have been the rain on the roof or the wind in the trees, but the moaning now seemed plainly, clearly to whisper, “Please. Oh, please.” I leaned down. The form under the blanket seemed shapeless. I lifted a corner. As if blown by a blast of air, the blanket flew back and a naked, ash-covered woman—grayer than the dead—bolted upright. Her crazed eyes glared through paste and matted hair, the dark of one eye in the corner near her nose, her mouth open round, forming an ugly hole. “EeseOeese,” she moaned. “Oeeeese.” I ran. Missed the steps, crashed onto the beach, then scuttled through darkness to the skiff.

Can’t be her. Can’t be.

The rain strengthened and clattered on the shells.