The Storm King(43)

“Fear ripples through the crowd. First a woman screams, then a man pushes. An animal panic takes grip. Consider that this is a crowd wasted on punch and poison, with half of them in high heels. Remember it happens at the end of a pier in a stifling nightclub decorated with elaborate sparkler displays.”

“Mayhem.” Lucy smiled.

“People rush for the exits in the front and the back. The ones who go for the back get stuck among the seats arranged there for the fireworks. In the crush, some are pushed off the boardwalk into the water. Others jump into the lake by their own choice, hoping to swim for shore. Those who make for the promenade have better luck, but they also have more incentive. Some of those sparkler displays had been knocked over in the flight for the doors and set tablecloths and women’s dresses ablaze. The curtains soon follow.” Nate pointed to a charred wall on the far end of the club. The stubs of burned drapes still hung there like shorn hair. “The Lake’s children used to leave sparklers at the barricade, you know. Before they started leaving glow sticks. Anyway, at some point the massive aquarium by the restrooms shatters. This contributes to the chaos, though it also douses a few of the burning women.”

“A party no one’s ever going to forget.”

“Between the fire, the poison, the drownings, and the stampede, over a dozen people die that night, with many more seriously injured. Morton Strong is among the partygoers who make it out of the Night Ship, but he indulged in a bit too much holiday cheer. Most of the poisoned revelers survived, but June’s punch destroys his insides. He doesn’t live through the night.”

“So Just June gets the revenge she wanted,” Lucy said.

“No one’s coming back here after that. The lawsuits bankrupted the entire pier. That was the party that sank the Night Ship. But, in Shakespearean fashion, June’s revenge is achieved only at tremendous personal cost. Though she gave her twin, May, the strictest instructions on how to remain safe throughout the night, May’s a sweet soul who could never turn her back on someone who needed help. When she sees a woman running, dressed in flaming lace, she has to help her. While trying to smother the burning woman’s dress, May is caught in the push for the exits and is trampled to death by the crowd. June finds her on the boardwalk amid thrashing tropical fish from the broken aquarium, soaked to the bone, broken from a hundred stomping feet. June comes undone. She brought down the Night Ship as much for May as she did for herself. Vengeance for a lifetime of indignities. But now she’s responsible for the death of the one person who matters to her. May was her heart. And no one can live without their heart. June’s alone now, with only one route out of the trouble she’s made for herself.”



“The long walk,” Lucy said.

This part of the story always sent a shiver through Nate. Beyond the windows, the lake lapped the headlands like innocence itself.

“She tied herself to one of the boardwalk’s wrought iron benches, then shoved it through a broken railing and into the cold water below,” Nate said. “Something that heavy might have kept her body hidden for a good long while, but the lake—”

“The lake returns what it takes,” Lucy said. Her green eyes flickered toward him. The old adage couldn’t be uttered without recalling the accident of two years ago when Nate had been inexplicably returned by that same cold water.

Those words signaled the end of many of the lake’s stories. For Nate, they marked the beginning of a second life.

“I liked the part you added about the flaming lace,” Lucy said, shutting her journal. “Sometimes imagining the clothes on the rioters is my favorite part.”

“And here I thought it was the body count.” Thinking of the lake had turned Nate’s thoughts toward his family. These days, there was little anger attached to the memory. He’d found ways to exorcise such rage. There was still a sense of absence: an ache he felt sure would never leave him. But this was survivable, especially on a morning like this. In the dawn, there was a sense of something perfect and unbroken about the universe. As if everything was connected through some golden design in which nothing was ever truly lost. In which no one was ever really gone.



“You still with me, McHale?” Lucy asked. She wrapped her arms around him from behind. His skin slid against hers as he turned to face her. Though the lake was still empty, there was something audacious about her nudity.

“Always.” He rested his forehead against her crown of auburn hair. “But we should go. Your mom’ll be up soon.”

“You realize we’re not fooling her, right?” Lucy said. She walked to her clothes and shimmied her underwear up her thighs. “We’re not fooling anyone. I see the way Grams looks at me. She knows I’m the filthy slut tarnishing her beautiful golden grandson.”

Gold doesn’t tarnish, Nate thought. He turned his T-shirt right side out. “It’s not about fooling her. Grams knows I sneak out to be with you, but it’d be more unseemly to do it in the open. What would people say? If anything, lying to Grams and your mom is the best demonstration of our respect for them.”

“Golden boy with a silver tongue.” She shook her hair free of her top. “One day, you’ll get someone into real trouble.”

Nate rolled up the foam mat they’d been lying on and tossed it behind the bar. It settled among the sleeping bags, coolers, lanterns, and alcohol they stored here. They’d never seen a stranger in the year and a half that they’d been coming here, but they were still careful.