The Storm King(65)

Nate unfastened the clasps of the chest, and its hinges squealed when he forced it open. Mismatched albums were piled in stacks. Nate immediately recognized a copy of his and Meg’s wedding album and Livvy’s baby book. A sprig of golden hair bound in white satin was fastened inside the front cover of the lace-lined book, and Nate slid his finger over it, its strands too fine to discern.

He still hadn’t told Meg about Grams. He’d justified this with the fact that his phone was dead. But even with a landline within reach, he hesitated. He didn’t know how to explain to his wife that within a day of arriving home, he’d been knocked unconscious, Grams had been put into critical condition, and the Union had exploded.

Anyone would have had a mountain of questions, but Meg was an excellent lawyer and nothing but the truth would have satisfied her. Nate didn’t even know where the truth began.

One perfect April morning he had hit a triple in the last inning.

Johnny pulled up his shirt, and beneath it was a mosaic of pain.

Adam lifted Lucy into the air like she weighed no more than a promise.

He didn’t know where the beginning was because he couldn’t guess what the ending would be. As long as he was in the thick of it, the shape of the story would remain a mystery.

Gabe’s baby book was beneath Livvy’s, and this was a volume he couldn’t bear to open. He moved it aside to find a collection of faded black paper bound by red ribbon. These held mounted, washed-out photographs of his grandmother and grandfather in their younger days. Arm in arm on a beach. Standing proudly outside the Union. Posing in front of a Christmas tree.



Nate closed the album and was about to return it to its place when an envelope fell from its pages. It was a strange color—a shade of red so dark that it could be mistaken for black.

It was addressed in spikes and loops of calligraphy to Mr. & Mrs. Richard McHale of 217 Bonaparte Street. He pulled out the thick stock within the envelope.

Declare Independence at the Night Ship

July 4th, 1964

Above these words was an engraved image of a galleon with its sails ripe with wind and its course set for a full moon of impossible size.

It was an invitation to an event at the Night Ship. Not just any event: This was the Independence Day celebration where, legend had it, Just June had poisoned the revelers and triggered a panic. This had been the party that sank the Night Ship.

The blast of a car horn permeated the rumbling of the storm. Through the window, Nate saw the bleary contours of Tom’s cruiser.

He turned back to the envelope in his hands. Independence Day 1964 was perhaps the most notorious night in the Lake’s history. He had no idea that his grandparents had been invited. Grams had never once mentioned it.

Another blare of sound came from the car parked outside.

Nate stuck the envelope into his raincoat pocket, descended the stairs, grabbed his umbrella, and girded himself to face the hurricane.

“Hi,” he said as he got into the cruiser. The clean, ferocious scent of Medea followed him into the car.



“Hi,” Tom parroted back.

They took Bonaparte Street at a crawl. Nate couldn’t see the Night Ship, but he could sense it. His internal compass had reverted to an old setting in which the ruined pier was magnetic north.

Nate tried and failed to imagine his grandparents at the Night Ship’s final celebration. The ancient pier had played such an outsized role in his formative years that it was easy for him to forget that it had long been an intimate part of the Lake’s life. It had a deep, everyday history beyond its oft-told legends. This was a good reminder to Nate that the Lake’s stories weren’t the same as the truth, that he didn’t know everything, and that he never would.

Next to him, Tom was silent. The wipers pawed uselessly at the windshield. They were the only sound in the car until they reached an intersection that they hydroplaned across. Tom loosed a torrent of swearwords as they spun helplessly across the lanes and then over the curb.

“You okay?” Tom asked once they’d come to a stop.

“Yeah.”

Tom threw them into reverse and took the street again, more slowly this time.

“You’re not dressed,” Nate said. Under his raingear, Tom wore a clean deputy’s uniform but not a suit. For the first time, Nate noticed a sweet smell inside the close air of the car.

“The whole county is literally a disaster area. This saves me the trouble of changing.”

“You’ve been drinking.” Nate knew bourbon when he smelled it. “It’s ten-fifty in the morning.” The Tom Buck he knew did not get sloshed before noon.

“I’ve been up since three. So it’s more like midafternoon.”

“Aren’t you on duty?”

“Please give me a lecture on duty, Nate.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“You live in Manhattan.”



“Slow down.”

“I’m going eight miles an—”

“I want to see the Union. Stop here.”

Tom stopped in the middle of the street. This might have been a problem any other day, but this morning theirs was the only vehicle in sight.

Nate lowered his window to see beyond the streaming glass. He jutted his umbrella into the assault of wind for some cover from the rain.

The fire at the Union had been set only a few hours ago, but a century might have passed from the look of the place. The three-story building was gutted. An accountant and a dentist leased the upper floors, and the windows of their offices gaped like unblinking eyes; their fragments glittered along the flooded street. Streaks of charred brickwork stretched past the two upper floors to the roof. Through the maw of vacant windows, fallen beams impaled the old pub like crossed blades.