Saundra Mitchell: Mistwalker

Leaning over the rail, Zoe grinned down at me. “I got something good today.”

“What’s that?” I asked, already climbing aboard.

Lamps illuminated the cabin. Everything inside gleamed, dark wood polished to a sheen. From the stern, I could make out the galley and the table. The rest of Zoe’s floating condo required an invitation.

“I’ve been pulling traps for damn near thirty years,” she said, opening a cooler on deck. She reached inside, hefting a lobster out with her bare hands. Its claws were already banded, so the worst it could do was wriggle at her. “And I’ve never seen one of these.”

In the dimming dusk, it was hard to make out what kind of wonder she had. The lobster was kinda big, but nothing special.

Then Zoe dipped him into the light that spilled from the cabin. A spark of excitement raced through me. He was blue. Not kinda sorta, if you squint at a green lobster, you might see some bluish spots. No, this was a deep shade, halfway to navy. Midnight freckles and powder blue joints, even his eyes were a hazy shade of midnight.

“Hot damn, Zoe, that’s something else.”

“Isn’t it?”

More than a little irritated—he’d probably been passed around to half of Broken Tooth by now—Old Blue the lobster curled his tail under. Flailing his claws, he wanted to pinch me. He just couldn’t. I trailed a finger down his segmented tail and hefted him in my hand. He was eight pounds, easy.

“You taking him back?” I asked.

Nodding, Zoe leaned against the rail. “Yeah. He’s bigger than legal, but I wouldn’t have kept him anyway.”

She didn’t have to explain. Lobsters like these, we shared them. Took pictures, handed them around. Then we gave them back to the ocean. It balanced things; it reminded the water gods and the universe that we appreciated all of it. That we weren’t so greedy to keep every last creature we pulled in our traps.

And it meant somebody else might find him later. Nobody knew how old a lobster could get. In fact, left alone, they might live forever. Every year, they shed their shells and grew a new one. Nothing limited how big they could grow.

Up in Nova Scotia, they found one that weighed forty-four pounds. Forget losing a finger to a lobster—that thing could break arms with its claws.

So if we gave back the big ones, the blue ones, the ones that were special, there was a little bit of immortality attached to it. In two days, or two hundred years, somebody else might haul it up. Take pictures, pass it around. Past to present, lobsterman to lobsterman.

I watched Zoe put Old Blue back in the cooler. “You see Dad and Seth out there today?”

“This morning,” she said. Straightening, she dried her hands on her jeans. Nodding toward the cabin, she invited me inside. “Past the Rock, heading on out. You want some coffee?”

Back home, the house sat empty. Mom was at work, and Daddy was still out. There was nothing in that house but unnatural quiet, so I took a cup of Zoe’s coffee, and another one after it. Just to stay on the water a little longer.

Just to be close to the sea.

Someone out there is thinking about me.

I feel it, as surely as I feel the wrought-iron stairs shake beneath me. It’s a quickening, a bright silver sting that plays along my skin. It bites, it taunts. I measure my breath and hurry downstairs in spite of it. Or because of it. I don’t know anymore.

The brick walls around me weep, exhausted from keeping the elements outside, but it’s only fair. I’m exhausted too. I hold off a great deal more than wind and salt spray.

As ever, the table is set with linens and silver. As ever, the candles are lit. My prison is an elegant one. I don’t remember when that started to matter.

When I was alive, I hated shaving each morning. I hated vests and breakfast jackets, cuff links, tie tacks, looking presentable. Now they’re ritual. Acts I perform as if I could walk back into my world at any moment. And I can’t. I never will.

Not even if she is thinking about me.

Sinking into my chair, I tell myself very firmly: stop wondering about her. Her thoughts aren’t formed. They aren’t real yet. She’s not a possibility; this is not the end. And if I’ve learned one lesson in one hundred years, it is this: anticipation is poison.

So, instead, I consider the wrapped box at my place. It, too, is elegant—gold board, gold ribbon, a sprig of juniper berries for color. There’s a clockwork movement inside, the heart of a music box.

If I assemble it correctly, it’ll play the “Maple Leaf Rag.” Carved lovers will spin around each other; silk maple leaves will wave. A merry addition to my collection.

I put the gift aside. And between blinks, my plate fills with salt cod and cream. This is my least favorite breakfast, and it’s my fault I’m having it. Some girl and her unborn wishes distracted me, so I forgot to want baked apples and oatmeal. Or broiled tomatoes on toast. Or anything, really—birthday cake and shaved ice, cherries jubilee, Irish coffee and hot peppers.

Tomorrow, the gift box will have silk leaves in it, and galvanized casing nails so I can finish my music box. The day after, four new books on any subject, none of which matter, as long as I haven’t read them before. They’ll appear on my plate, then make way for my breakfast. This will happen again at noon and at five. Lunch and dinner.

They’re regular as the clock I built, a mechanical sun chasing the moon across its face. It never slows. It never stops. I hear it toll every hour of every day as it marks the minutes to the next meal, the next box filled with nearly anything I desire.

And it doesn’t matter that, lately, I let those boxes pile up in my study, unopened. Nor does it matter that I take one bite and wish my plates away. Sighing, I unfold my napkin and consider my silverware an enemy.

In the end, I’m afraid, it’s a curse to get everything you want.

Since she was caught up worrying about the SAT instead of paying attention, Bailey stepped on the back of my shoe again. I stopped in the middle of the walk. As I expected, she kept going and crashed into me.

All betrayed, she asked, “What?” like I’d pulled a gun and rolled her for her iPhone.

“We’re not sitting the test until May,” I told her.

“But I have to be ready by then. You don’t just waltz into the Ivies, Willa. I have to think about it now.” Bailey waved her hands. “I don’t even have a subject. I need one for apps, and you know I suck at essays. I don’t get along with them, Willa! I choke!”

I stepped to the side so she could walk with me to school. “Write about lobstering. Or growing up all quaint and whatever. Hell, write about being the only lesbian in a fishing village!”

“I’m not the only one,” she said.

“Cait lives in Milbridge,” I replied.

Folding a stick of gum into her mouth, Bailey shook her head. “It’s not interesting. Dear Harvard, I’m unique and not a soul is bothered. Boo hoo hoo. Love, Bailey.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You’re not applying to Harvard.”

“That’s not the point!”

With a huff, Bailey picked up the pace. I gladly followed, because we were both going to be late the way we were dawdling. It’s not like it was a long walk. The Vandenbrook School was our town school. K through 12 went there, to this Victorian mansion perched on a hill.

Mom said when she and Dad went to Vandenbrook, they had to climb uneven granite stairs set into the dirt. Talk about a mess of fun in the winter. Sometimes it would get so cold, the earth would spit one out like a baby tooth.