The Stronghold

Gone to sea

By Kara

Merie Crewe stood at the edge of the sand, watching the waves march back to the sea as the tide retreated for the day. Tiny daring wavelets broke farther and farther from her feet, as the sea eluded her once again. Kneeling down in the wet sand, her knees made squelching sounds as they sank into the watery mud. She reached out, the sea running through her fingers like silk. Dribbling salty mud, she touched her wet hands to her face, breasts, and the rough ridges that ran from the last rib to her hip on each side of her abdomen. She sat crouched there until the tide had gone out, then ducked her body quickly under the cold water, washing the mud from her pale skin.

With reluctance, she pulled herself away from the water’s edge and stepped back into the soft flannel robe that huddled behind her on the dune. Wrapping herself up and tying the sandy-gold hair out her face, she walked up the sand to the small house that sat by itself on the beach.

Her daughter Lanna stood at the back door, blue eyes scanning the beach. Lanna reached up out of habit to push a stray red curl out of her face, a gesture that Merie recognized as her own.

“Looking for something?”

Lanna’s fine red curls brushed at her cheeks as she turned to look at her mother. “Dad was just wondering where you were, that’s all.”

“Did John think that I had disappeared?” Merie tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Unfortunately, from the way Lanna physically backed away, she knew she had failed.

“I’m sorry, Mama.” Lanna seldom used that baby-name, having outgrown “Mama” and “Daddy” at n early age. When Merie thought about it, it had happened fifteen years before, right after Marina and Shell disappeared.

She caught herself, carefully turning her thoughts back to more trivial manners like Sunday morning breakfast, and how she would entice Lanna’s boyfriend James into coming for dinner that night. It was always easiest to cope when she turned her thoughts away from dangerous topics. Memories were best kept locked away, along with the part of her that belonged to the sea.

Merie smiled at her daughter, trying to find the words to apologize. Somehow, they never seemed adequate. As hard as she tried, there never seemed to be enough love for her daughter, just as there seemed to be far too many apologies for Merie’s inadequacy as a mother. It was only luck that Lanna had been a pliant child, eager to please. Perhaps too eager, when Merie thought about it. But then, perhaps she and John hadn’t given enough to their youngest daughter.

Entering the house, Merie found her husband standing at the stove, focusing his attention on the pan of scrambled eggs before him. This was a change from the weekday routine, when John rose before dawn to do one last check on his boats before they were sent out on the day’s tours around the harbor. With his day beginning before the rest of the island woke up, and hers ending sometimes late into the evening, it was a small miracle that they had an occasional meal together. Sunday breakfasts were sacred. John sulked for the rest of the week should she dare to miss one.

“Scrambled okay?” John didn’t look up from his eggs as he skillfully flipped them over the open flame.

It took Merie a minute to answer. “You remembered.” It had been a long time since he’d made eggs for her. Perhaps it was Lanna’s being home from college that brought him out of his normally silent state. The laughing man she’d married thirty-three years ago had disappeared with the breakfasts he used to bring to her in bed every Sunday morning. The husband she’d loved and sacrificed everything for had gone to sea with her daughters, leaving only John’s shadow behind.

The familiar signs of rage took over John’s face. His hazel eyes narrowed, thick red eyebrows furrowing deep into his lined brown forehead until they joined together. Merie stared back at him, trying to keep her face as blank as possible. She had cultivated that serene look, perfecting it over the past fifteen years. She thought of the sea, placid on a summer’s day, showing no sign of the storms that rippled beneath its benign blue surface.

“Dad, would you like some coffee?” Lanna too had come to recognize the danger signs over the years. Always the peacemaker, Merie stepped back from her husband as their daughter shoved a cup into his hand. His face smoothed out, and he ran a hand through his red hair. Merie noticed that the hair that slipped through his callused fingers had silvered, almost overnight. It was somewhat of a comfort to know that she wasn’t the only one being touched by age and time. If only time could smooth out as easily as it wrinkled something up.

“I was thinking of asking James over for dinner tonight.” Merie watched John’s brown face carefully, again drowning her emotions in the sea’s calm. Thoughts of storms subsiding into soft waves that caressed the shore slowly washed her resentment away.

Her daughter’s face relaxed as the topic turned to something non-threatening. “I know they had a good catch of halibut yesterday, Dad. He could bring some over, and Mom could make that stew that you like.”

Merie covered a sigh as John’s interest was diverted. He wasn’t a bad husband when he was sober. Sometimes she could still see traces of the man she had fallen in love with at the mature age of nineteen. At fifty-four, he was still a good-looking man, for all his wind-weathered features. Hard work repairing the four boats he used for the tours had kept his slim build as tight as the Iowa farm boy’s had been years ago, when he had gotten his look at the Pacific Ocean and immediately fallen in love.

It was just the nights he visited the Sailor’s Locker in town that there was trouble. Cross Island was so small that it afforded very few amusements for any restless inhabitant. Barely twenty miles long and ten miles from eastern to western shore at its widest, there was only room for those born to the sea. Many left the island, though not all went to the mainland. Only those with the sea in their blood seemed to have the endurance to stay.

Taking the plate that Lanna held out for her, Merie sat at the table, her eyes straying as they always did to the ocean that could be seen from all four windows in the kitchen. She knew why she didn’t leave the island. She would die if she lived out of sight and sound of the sea. When she watched John keeping his evening vigil, staring out at the blue-gray waters beyond Emerald Cove, she knew why he stayed as well. It was the chance that his little girls might rise out of the sea, like Venus in her shell.

Lanna was the puzzle to Merie. At twenty-two, the youngest Crewe daughter had just finished a bachelors in English at Grinnell College in Iowa. Merie had never seen John happier than when Lanna had told them about her decision to go to college in her father’s home state. But with the memory of John’s happiness also came the remembrance of the night Lanna called with her decision to return to the Island. It had taken all the strength Merie could muster, and every happy reminder of the love she and John had shared to keep her from throwing herself back into the sea.

“Mom. Mama.”

Merie should her head, and realized that Lanna was staring at her. “I’m sorry, Lanni. I guess I just lost myself again. “ She smiled, trying to wrap her daughter in the same comforting wave of sea that always placated herself.

“You always lose yourself. When are you going to come back to us?” Lanna’s attempt to smile wasn’t lost on Merie. With all her heart, she wished that there was some small thing she could do for her daughter—anything that would make up for the lack of caresses of the past.

“I always find my way back, Lanni. It just takes me a while sometimes.” The slight frown wrinkle on Lanna’s forehead smoothed out, so Merie’s motherly gesture had worked this time.

John said nothing, seeming to have retreated back into the place he always did during quiet times. Merie noticed the wistful look that Lanna had as she looked at her father. Maybe it would have been better if Lanna hadn’t come back, if she had stayed in Iowa where the only waves were the soft rise and fall of prairie, and the sea of wheat and corn was as far from the undulating surface of the ocean as one could get.

After breakfast, Merie tried hard to focus on the day ahead of her. At noon, she was due to open up the small curio shop she ran in Two Harbors. Miranda Jansen was bringing over a new shipment of postcards later that afternoon, and Merie wondered if there was enough money in the till to pay for two batches. The hand-drawn postcards sold well as souvenirs for the mainlanders. Miranda Jansen had a knack for capturing every mood of the sea with her colored pencils. It was sometimes hard for Merie to tear herself away from the pictures. Each one reminded her of the live she’d lived before she’d married John, the life she’d given up in the heady rush of first love.

John headed out to the harbor at eleven, walking the short two miles to town. Lanna took the family’s golf cart to get groceries for the following week, leaving Merie alone in the house. Not that the house seemed less empty when her husband or daughter were home. No matter how full the house was, nothing was able to keep Merie’s attention there. As hard as she tried, her eyes always strayed to one of the many windows that overlooked Emerald Bay, and her beloved sea.

The kitchen clock proclaiming the half hour brought her out of her reverie. She unfolded her long legs, stretched and stood, her slender fingers combing back the fine gold hairs that had slipped out of the clip high on her head. For a moment, she wondered if anyone would notice that “Crewe’s Treasure Chest” remained unopened for the day. Miranda would, and Miranda would tell her husband, who worked as a skipper on one of John’s boats. And that would only mean trouble tonight if John caught her daydreaming again. At least she was luckier than some of the Island women. John never hit in his sulks.

Business that day was slow. It was too late in the fall season for there to be the hordes of tourists who flocked to the Island in warmer weather. It had been a good day though. One of Miranda’s paintings sold to a young couple from Santa Monica. And two small children had bought most of the shells Lanna had gathered on the beach the weekend before.

None of the postcards had sold yet. There had been one particularly striking one out of the bunch that Miranda had brought, a picture of a small figure swimming in the waves. It could have been a dolphin, or one of the small island children who took to water as naturally as fish. It reminded Merie of her oldest daughters, and how they had slipped away from her as quietly as a tide wearing away at the shore. It could have been one of them, swimming out in the very waves Merie had given up.

When she got home that night, Lanna had already started the fish simmering in the pot on the stove. James sat at the table, carefully mixing the light cream sauce that Lanna would later add to the fish. It felt fitting to Merie that Lanna had fallen in love with the boy who had pushed her off the Two Harbors dock when they had been small. The gray-eyed boy had grown into a serious young man with silky brown hair falling to his shoulders, and the long, lean look all islanders had. Too many generations of close breeding had produced a typical body-shape for any child of the Island. The tendency was toward long, flexible limbs, and soft, fine hair that often hung like a tangle of seaweed down Islander backs. The old families often bore children with ridges like the ones that striped Merie’s abdomen. No one knew the exact origin of the slits. Most mainland doctors thought of it as a mutation that came about because of the inevitable inbreeding that occurred on isolated islands.

James smiled at her, his strong fisherman’s hands steadily beating the cream sauce. “The Euphoria had a better catch than expected yesterday. The imps were at the nets on the other boats.”

“Dolphins.” Merie noticed that John didn’t bother to look up from his paper.

“These are the first dolphins I’ve seen with red hair, sir.” Though he was almost family, Merie wondered at the intelligence of James’ audacity. He knew better, so Merie refrained from curbing the young man’s retort. It was Lanna’s job to keep James from such outbursts.

This time Merie noticed that John looked over his paper, shooting glares at James. “Dolphins.” This would be his last word on the subject.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Lanna shrug at James from the stove.

“Is dinner almost ready?” Now Merie thought of the games the harbor seals played, waving flippers at boats full of tourists, barking whenever a fisherman rang his ship’s bell. She tried to immerse herself in that capricious mood, but failed.

“Almost, Mom.” The look that Lanna gave Merie was grateful. Merie forgot sometimes that Lanna too felt the same restraints that she felt, living with sulks and rages that could last for days. If John were more harmful, or ever raised a hand to wife or daughter, Merie would’ve sent Lanna to her mainland relatives and found another island to hide upon. But the only pain John ever managed to inflict was emotional, and Merie knew it wasn’t deliberate. It was just his way.

Dinner proceeded without mishap. James told Lanna about the previous week’s catch on the Euphoria, and how much the Delphic Inn had paid for each pound of fish. Merie tried to listen in politeness to the guest, but as usual, her mind wandered from what was in front of her, to what lay within. The sea’s call was stronger than usual. She could hear the echo of waves pounding with each beat of her heart. It was an unbending will and a promise to John that had kept her from returning to the sea all these years. Sometimes she wondered if she would be strong enough to hold to it, for Lanna’s sake.

For all Lanna’s love of the sea, Merie wondered sometimes if her daughter felt the same pang when she was high up on the island, out of reach of the sound and smell of the breakers. The sea’s hold had so completely captured Merie that she could no longer even take a horse up to Haven Lake at the center of the Island, or ride to the Preserve to see the bison. Merie wished as much as John that Lanna would be the Crewe to break the sea’s hold. But she was also glad that her daughter wasn’t as entranced by the sea as her other two babies had been. John wasn’t willing to give up a third daughter to the sea.

Lying beside her husband at night was easier than dealing with him in the daylight. Some of their passion in lovemaking had been lost with his laughter, but she knew he still loved her very much. It was hard to ignore that love when she thought of leaving him. One of the greatest problems of their marriage was that she understood his storms. Like the sea, his depths were unfathomable. And like the sea, he could rage without control, though not without reason.

Any man who had suffered the loss of two children as well as not being able to leave the very same ocean that had taken away those daughters was bound to suffer. And those who lived with that man were bound to suffer as well. It was especially hard to forget this when he turned to her on nights with this one, and became the man she had left the sea for. During that act of passion, his hands and mouth worshipped her body and soul, with the same amount of love as they had at age twenty. But as deep as his love was for her, she could never return it to the same depth. The sea’s call would always be stronger.

And she knew that in the attic room above them, the two young lovers briefly joined in the same erotic passion. Perhaps James and Lanna would keep the love and passion of their youth. It would be easier for them, because James had gone to sea while Lanna had attended college. James knew what he was giving up, and Lanna had no desire to know the world she couldn’t see. Merie could only remember and try to forget what she had given up.

The phone rang early Monday afternoon, shattering Merie’s enchantment as the one customer in the store sifted through the box of sea-glass. Merie reached for the receiver automatically, still shaken by the sudden interruption.

“Merie?”

James never called in the middle of the day. He should be out on the boats, not calling.

“Something’s wrong.” Something heavy sat deep in Merie’s stomach, weighing her down as the sea never did.

“Lanna…Lanna was found on the beach…I guess she was swimming…”

Merie tried to open her mouth, but her lips wouldn’t form the words to ask the question she had to ask.

“I don’t know how it happened.” A pause. “Y’know that Lanna swims like a fish.” Another pause. “She was rescued by a girl…”

But was her baby okay--the little Lanni that she never seemed to have time for, the only daughter she had left? Still the words wouldn’t come.

“The girl has red hair.”

That itself wasn’t that uncommon on the island. Most people tended to have brown or black hair, but the occasional redhead or blonde like herself was not unknown.

“Her name is Erin.”

Stories that James had told of the granddaughter Merie would never see stormed with the fury of the sea in a hurricane.

“I’ll be home as soon as I can.” Merie hung up, managed to give some apology to the customer, and ran down the path without knowing how she managed to do it.

The front door of the house was thrown open, a drooping James leaning against the doorframe. “John nearly wrecked the Pride sailing in to the harbor. Will Jansen said he nearly jumped overboard and swam to shore when he heard the news.”

Merie looked up the stairs before heading into the house. “But is Lanna okay?”

James nodded, soft brown bangs hiding his gray eyes.

Merie took the stairs two at a time, carefully dodging the bump in the runner that covered the wooden staircase on the landing between floors. Hurrying up a second, darker set of stairs, she tried to calm herself and keep from rushing as fast as the undertow into her daughter’s room.

Seated at the foot of the bed was a young girl of twelve years, enveloped in Lanna’s old terrycloth robe. Merie met the girl’s sea-blue eyes with chagrin, willing herself not to remember the red-haired, blue eyed daughter who had given birth to this child.

“Erin.”

The young girl met her grandmother’s gaze. “Mother said it was time for me to come to you. I wanted to know what life was like here.”

Merie looked from her granddaughter, to the pale form wrapped in blankets that laid in the bed. Lanna’s face wore a storm of quiet fury, unconsciously mimicking the same furrowed brows and tight mouth her father’s sulks brought on.

“They didn’t disappear, Mama.”

“Not the way that your father told you, no.”

“What happened?” From the hurt look in her daughter’s eyes, Merie knew how much this question had cost Lanna.

“They went to sea.”

James moved to sit beside Lanna on the bed, and Merie noticed how unconsciously her daughter leaned into James for comfort.

“I promised your father I wouldn’t tell you.” Merie tried to look away from Lanna’s hurt gaze, but the blue eyes were as entrancing as the sea. “It’s always been tradition to let the children find their own way to the sea. We just never thought that Marina and Shell would go at once.”

Emerald Harbor children still occasionally went to sea, but the neighbors were always careful to cover it up. Stories circulated of these children visiting family on the mainland, or going away to study, as James’ family had said. It was rare that the disappearance of a Cross Island child made it into either newspapers or onto local television stations. It just wasn’t talked about, the same way that the ridges were never talked about. Some things were best left unsaid.

“Someone had named us selks ages ago. The Gaels created legends about us, saying that we took the shape of seals and lived both in the sea and on land as we chose. We were human once, but when the dolphin ancestors returned to the sea, so did we, all those thousands of years ago. But we adapted better, with legs lengthening, and children retaining their embryonic gills for longer and longer. We simply returned to where we’d come from, and remained there to reproduce.”

Lanna was silent for a long time. Her forehead was creased in the same way that John’s would when he was considering something big. Merie saw her daughter’s eyes flick from Erin to James and meeting her mother’s once again before Lanna spoke.

“So it’s my turn?” Lanna had been so young when her sisters left, only seven years old. Merie had listened to her youngest daughter cry herself to sleep night after night, wanting to cradle her daughter and rock her as a wave would, but longing to leave it all behind held her back.

She tried her hardest to keep her voice calm, again opened her mouth and found that no words would come. She nodded.

“You gave up the sea for Dad?”

Again, only a nod in response, trying to hide years of bitterness, years of resentment, years of regretting a rash promise and the part of her that was human enough to love.

This time, Lanna’s voice was softer. “And you can’t go back.”

“The sea doesn’t take back what she has forsaken.”

“ Just like she doesn’t give back what she’s taken away.” John’s voice echoed in the hallway behind Merie. She looked back at her husband, and recognized a regret on his face that she never thought she’d see.

She watched him smile at Erin, a tenderness softening the tense lines about his face, relaxing the creases in his forehead that only sleep and sex could erase. And then he turned to look at Merie, his hazel eyes seeing her for the first time in many years.

“I’m sorry.”

“So Erin is here to stay?” Lanna’s voice brought Merie back to the present.

“Until she makes her choice. Just as you’re free to choose.”

Lanna was quiet for a moment. With a gentle touch that surprised Merie, Lanna traced James’ lips with a gentle finger. With that gesture, Merie knew Lanna’s decision.

“You don’t know what you’re giving up, Lanni. You’ve never felt water’s embrace cradling you, or the booming of a whale’s song. You’ve never seen moonlight dancing beyond the breakers—“ Merie’s voice trailed off, knowing it was useless.

“Mama.” Lanna’s eyes met Merie’s again. “Mama, go back in my place.” Salty tears stung Merie’s eyes as ocean’s salt never would. “Once you leave, your choice is made. The sea won’t let me back. The sea doesn’t bargain.” Merie watched a slow smile form at her daughter’s lips. “Mama, have you ever asked?”

She stared out at the waves, the wind whipping at the old flannel robe that clung to her still-lithe figure. She turned to look back at the four standing below the house.

“Are you sure, Lanna?”

Lanna smiled. “Go. It’s what you want.”

Merie looked to her husband, the man she had been willing to give up the world for. “I’m sorry.” The catch in her voice carried a lifetime of apologies, a lifetime of regrets.

John met his wife’s look with more life in his smile than Merie had seen in a long time. “You gave me more than thirty years. I think it’s time you went back where you belong.”

She kissed him one last time, promising in that kiss to sing him into the waves when it was time for her to join him again when their lives ended. “Take care of my little girl, James.” She touched the young man’s cheek.

James met her eyes with understanding of her choice.

With a last kiss for Lanna, she turned, shedding the robe. Standing at the water’s edge, she felt the wavelets splash against her knees, drawing her into the sea.

“Mom!” Lanna’s voice held her back for a moment. “What will we tell the customers?”

Merie looked back with a dolphin’s eternal grin. “Tell them I’ve gone to sea.” And with a flash of brown leg and dolphin grace, she sank into the lover’s embrace of the sea.

The End

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