The Rattled Bones(48)

“That’s disappointing,” Sam says when he pulls up an empty trap.

“Can’t think like that on a boat. We call it ‘changing the water.’?”

“Changing the water?”

“Sure, pulling up an empty trap drains it. Then we reset it with new water.”

Sam laughs. “Fisherman’s optimism.”

“Something like that.”

Sam goes to the back of the boat for a new bucket of bait.

My mind is too preoccupied when I take the lobster pot to the rail. I hold my fingers looped through the wire cage and stare out at the deep, its mysteries. I toss the cage to the waves and set the boat in gear.

The boat lurches forward.

The line catches my ankle.

Strangles.

I hop quick, trying to free my leg. The rope yanks at my foot. I squirm, reach my fingers for my ankle. I feel the rope there, the way it twists. I force my thumb underneath its coil, wrench at the twine. The rope only wraps tighter as the cage drags the line to the deep.

I reach for the throttle, but the rope pulls me hard. My tailbone slams against the slick deck. “Sam!”

The line chokes my boot. I fumble at the rope, try to separate my leg from the diving trap. My fingers slip on the wet. The rope jerks my leg straight over the edge.

Sam scurries to me. “Tell me what to do!”

“Throw the boat in neutral!” I twist, grab at the smooth wet floor. My gloves rake over the slippery deck. My leg hangs off the rail. The boat is too slick, so ready to give me over to the deep.

The motor calms. The boat stops.

“Rilla!” I see the black tips of Sam’s boots. His steps are wild, panicked. “Rilla!”

My hips are wrenched to the edge of the boat. My hands scramble for anything, everything. The trap pulls me harder, my mind racing. There’s no stopping a trap once it’s set to the water.

“Sam! Help me!”

“Tell me how!” He pulls my arms. His legs slip out from under him. The trap tugs.

The boat flashes around me, the sea slamming, my panic rising. If I try to hold on to any part of the boat, I’ll rip my arms from their sockets. I try anyway, but the cage is at home in the sea, and it pulls my hips over the edge. The buoy whips against my back, needing its dive into the water.

Sam reaches for my slipping, scratching hands.

“Knife!” I scream. My chest gets dragged over the edge. Sam presses something into my palm. I latch on as I take a deep breath, my last before my body is pulled into the ocean.

The rope wrenches me toward the sea bottom. Salt water rushes up my nose, down my throat. Choking me. “Rilla!” Sam’s muffled cry reaches me from another world.

Bubbles rise all around me, rushing over my arms, my head, my hands. My hands. There’s something in my grip. My fingers move over its form. The sharp blade used for chopping chum. I grab rope at my ankle, twisting and fighting the sea. I slice hard and fast through the twine, over and over, but precision is slippery in the dark water and my lungs are too full. I’m out of oxygen. I need to breathe. The knife slips from my grasp. I can’t see the light of the surface anymore. Can’t hear Sam. There are no traces of the sun down here.

I’m floating now. Free from struggle.

This is the sea.

My home.

Peace visits me, as if the world has gone quiet for a full, beautiful moment and I can, too. If only I rest. Rest. The sea presses at me with her cold, swallowing me and my collapsed chest. I thrash one last time against the deep when I see the lobster trap rising below me. It’s on its way back to the surface, and a voice tells me to hold on.

The voice starts yelling. Screaming. Don’t go!

It’s a high voice, a girl’s voice.

My girl’s voice.

Two words ripped through the water from some other place, some forgotten time.

Then another sound reaches me. Another sound that has no business rising in the deep. The sweet soft melody of the lullaby: Come here, come here. My dear, my dear. If you come near you’ll find me here. She’s here with me now. My girl. The lost girl. Under the water with her kelp braids and her song.

I call to her for help, my last push of stored breath. Bubbles explode around my mouth, my cry distorted, muted by the sea. And then I’m being hauled, my body rising through the layers of water pressing down on me, crushing my lungs, my head. My hair swirls around my face like twisting seaweed. I see myself from a great distance, from some faraway place. I see the girl and me, how we share the same eyes. And something more?

I’m propelled up through the water inch by inch. The dark ocean layers fade to sea-glass green. Then sun. Its light just above the surface. I reach for its warmth, kicking my legs against the drowning depths.

My body breaks through the top of the waves and my lungs pull in the beautiful light air. Air. All around me. In me. Someone’s arm is on me, under me, dragging me aboard the boat. This person turns my head, forcing the water to spill out of my mouth. I cough it from my lungs. I purge the salt from my stomach. And everything goes black as the under ocean. In the darkness, I hear the girl singing. If you come near you’ll find me here. My dear, my dear.

My voice cracks over the words: “Don’t go.”

And Sam’s voice. “I’m here, Rilla. I’m not going anywhere.”

*

By the time we reach Fairtide, I’m able to gather the strength to walk to the house. I won’t let Gram see me sea-beaten and broken. Sam offers his arm as I climb off the boat. The arm that dragged me onto the deck, turned me on my side, saved my life. I softly dismiss his hand with the brush of mine. “I can’t worry my gram.”