The Storm King(9)

Nate spun Livvy a story of cozy jungle adventure, but his thoughts wandered into the dark towers behind him. It had been fourteen years since he’d stepped into the Night Ship, but when he closed his eyes he could see its rusted arches of riveted steel, its moss-stained glass ceiling panels, its promenade tapering into impermeable darkness. He could smell its rot and hear the breath of water lapping against weathered pilings.

Livvy had her usual questions, but they soon faded into murmurs.

“She’s finally out,” Meg whispered into the phone. “Been trying to get her to nap since we got here, so thanks for the assist.”

“How come that never works when I’m there in person?” He listened as Meg extricated herself from the bed without waking Livvy. “How’re your parents?”

“In an uproar. They dug up three old radios. You know, just in case. And you can’t turn a corner without colliding with a pallet of bottled water. Dad spent half the morning rearranging the brickwork off the patio. Don’t ask me why.”

“Well, at least they’re having fun.”

“Time of their lives.”

“And you’re hunkering down until it’s over, right? No driving? No catastrophe tourism?”

“You know me, Doc.”

“That’s why I asked.”

“You be careful, too. Don’t let those ghosts get you.”

Nate laughed, because Meg had meant it as a joke.

She told him about the vacation home of one of their acquaintances on the Outer Banks. Yesterday it had been a three-bedroom cottage, and today it was an array of splintered stilts. As Nate listened, he stole another glance at the Night Ship. The trees had begun to sway, and the lake was curdling with whitecaps. Thunder drummed in the distance. The mountains and forests around the town tossed and shook as if waking from a long slumber.





THE COLD WATERS closed upon her like jaws, and she let them gnaw at her.

Like any beast, the lake had its moods. To strangers, it seemed calm during silver afternoons and welcoming in a summer gloaming, but to understand the lake was to know that its undercurrent was always the same. Below the skin of its waves, the deep water was hunger itself.

That’s why she swam it with such ferocity. Each Daybreaker plied the numbing waters for a reason, and she swam them to be erased. She swam for the lake to devour the girl she’d once been.

Today the whole world felt ravenous. The waves struck rougher. The wind bit harder. The forests quaked under the roiling sky. A hurricane gathered beyond the horizon, and all elements bayed in anticipation.

Every storm recalls another, and this town along the shore had endured so many.

Ahead, the black bulk of the Night Ship speared the pallid water like a toppled colossus. The old pier was abandoned and battered and broken, but in some ways not diminished at all. Because a place like this was more than wood and steel and glass.



She usually gave the edifice of the pier a wide berth, but since the discovery of the body in the headlands, each day had become more uncertain.

Something was wrong.

Something was going to happen.

The lake returns what it takes, and after many years of quiet, the seeds of old sins had floated from its depths to bloom across the shore. As with much of the pain in this town, the Night Ship was the root of this latest trouble. Today, she kicked for where the waves hurled themselves against the pier’s foundations.

Deep in the Night Ship’s undercroft, a young prostitute had given birth to twin girls and was told to snap their necks the moment they were born. Or so the story goes.

During Prohibition, three bootlegger brothers were captured by Old Morton Strong and fed to his tropical fish one piece at a time. Or so the story goes.

A busybody socialite had once threatened ruin upon the nightclub, and so Just June pushed her from the balcony of the Century Room. Or so the story goes.

The Night Ship had many stories.

Some of their endings were yet unknown, even to her.

The current made negotiating the pier’s pilings dangerous. Swimming among the moss-wreathed pillars felt like diving through a sunken temple. She twisted onto her back to watch the black mass of the Night Ship shut out the sky.

Sometimes she pretended she could hear the screams of the dead ride the gusts that whistled through the pier’s undergirding. She couldn’t imagine their howls were any more terrible than their silence.

She didn’t believe in ghosts, but that didn’t mean she could not be haunted.



Once through the pilings, she slid back onto her belly. The Night Ship was no longer above her, but she was always in its shadow.

The first rumors of thunder rolled from behind the mountains.

A storm approached, and she knew it was made of more than wind and rain.





Three

When Nate finished speaking with Mrs. Kapur, he set aside his phone and massaged his eyes with his fingertips. These calls were never easy, and this one had been harder than most. He knew he’d done all he could for Nia, and now it was someone else’s turn to try. But he bristled at his failure to fix her. Cancer was as senseless a scourge as there was. The war against it had good days and bad, and the bad ones felt very bad indeed.

He showered before heading to the Empire. It was good to stand under hot water. He was tense from the phone call, stiff from the bus ride, and filthy from the gutters. Once he was clean, he dressed in a trim blue suit.