slowly trudged toward him?
He’s only a boy,
I told myself. A simple truth, and one so obvious that it scarcely needed any mention. What else would he be? What was I so afraid of?
I approached him, stepping along the walkway as long as I could, and then only tiptoeing off the planks and onto the sand. I made a show of wanting to keep my shoes clean. It was only a show, but it allowed me to keep some distance—and it kept meoff the rocks. I’m not as young as I once was, and I no longer cared to scamper along the boulders like some schoolchild. And this was one more thing I told myself, for show.
“Matthew?” I called.
I stood facing him, my feet half in the wet-packed sand, my toes jostling against the polished pebbles that collected up against the spot where the ocean ended. The wind came up fierce, whipping my coat and nearly stealing my hat. I held the coat shut with one hand and held my hat in place with the other, and I called out again, in case the wind had carried away my first attempt.
“Matthew?” I said it more loudly this time.
He stopped scanning the cracks between the rocks and allowed himself to slide down the slippery, shining-dark slope of a boulder the size of a pony; but he didn’t meet my eyes and he didn’t approach. He only stood there, waiting for heaven knew what, swaying against the buffeting wind.
“Matthew,” I tried again. “Dear lad, would you come over here for a moment, off the beach? I was wondering if . . . if I could talk to you. I wanted to . . . to ask you . . .”
He lifted his head to look at me, almost; but there was that tilt—that alarming, off-kilter tilt that kept his attention always to the open ocean beyond the rocks.
My brain scavenged frantically for logical, reasonable things to say about Matthew. I wondered if he didn’t have some kind of ear problem. He might’ve had an infection, or a fluid buildup, or some other kind of ailment residing therein, that seemed to so harshly alter his equilibrium.
“Matthew?”
He nodded, which seemed an odd response—as if he were confirming that yes, he was in fact Matthew. Ridiculous. Ofcourse I knew that. And he knew I knew it. What peculiar behavior was this, between two citizens who’d been acquainted for better than fifteen years?
“Matthew, could you come here, please?”
If someone had held me at gunpoint, I could not have explained why I was so reluctant to venture any farther onto the sand. I wriggled my toes inside my shoes, and the pebbles banked around the edges of the leather soles. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to venture any closer to the rushing, rumbling waves beyond the rocks.
Matthew only looked at me, or through me—past me, like he was looking hard at something just behind me. So effective was this gaze that I looked back to make sure I wasn’t blocking his view of something more interesting. But no. There was nothing behind me but the usual piers, shopfronts, passersby, and preening white gulls.
When I had finished double-checking and once I’d made myself certain that Matthew was, more or less, looking at
me
—I met his eyes again.
I shuddered. I took half a step’s retreat that almost sent me falling over the edge of the walkway planks, and I corrected myself in time to keep from harm. But I flailed. And when I had restored my body’s balance I clutched my coat more tightly across my chest. I released my hat, trusting it to remain affixed—or not caring if it abandoned me.
The young man was giving me that look, and it was a blinkless look that stared but saw nothing, and I’d seen it before. I knew that mindless set of the eyes and then, as the awkward moment stretched itself out long between us, I knew the cast of his skin. I thought of eggs, peeled and pickled in a pantry jar. Iimagined sourdough beginning to turn too sour; I pondered the waterlogged flesh of the drowned.
And I remembered Abigail Borden.
The similarity shocked me, though the boy was clearly
He’s only a boy,
I told myself. A simple truth, and one so obvious that it scarcely needed any mention. What else would he be? What was I so afraid of?
I approached him, stepping along the walkway as long as I could, and then only tiptoeing off the planks and onto the sand. I made a show of wanting to keep my shoes clean. It was only a show, but it allowed me to keep some distance—and it kept meoff the rocks. I’m not as young as I once was, and I no longer cared to scamper along the boulders like some schoolchild. And this was one more thing I told myself, for show.
“Matthew?” I called.
I stood facing him, my feet half in the wet-packed sand, my toes jostling against the polished pebbles that collected up against the spot where the ocean ended. The wind came up fierce, whipping my coat and nearly stealing my hat. I held the coat shut with one hand and held my hat in place with the other, and I called out again, in case the wind had carried away my first attempt.
“Matthew?” I said it more loudly this time.
He stopped scanning the cracks between the rocks and allowed himself to slide down the slippery, shining-dark slope of a boulder the size of a pony; but he didn’t meet my eyes and he didn’t approach. He only stood there, waiting for heaven knew what, swaying against the buffeting wind.
“Matthew,” I tried again. “Dear lad, would you come over here for a moment, off the beach? I was wondering if . . . if I could talk to you. I wanted to . . . to ask you . . .”
He lifted his head to look at me, almost; but there was that tilt—that alarming, off-kilter tilt that kept his attention always to the open ocean beyond the rocks.
My brain scavenged frantically for logical, reasonable things to say about Matthew. I wondered if he didn’t have some kind of ear problem. He might’ve had an infection, or a fluid buildup, or some other kind of ailment residing therein, that seemed to so harshly alter his equilibrium.
“Matthew?”
He nodded, which seemed an odd response—as if he were confirming that yes, he was in fact Matthew. Ridiculous. Ofcourse I knew that. And he knew I knew it. What peculiar behavior was this, between two citizens who’d been acquainted for better than fifteen years?
“Matthew, could you come here, please?”
If someone had held me at gunpoint, I could not have explained why I was so reluctant to venture any farther onto the sand. I wriggled my toes inside my shoes, and the pebbles banked around the edges of the leather soles. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to venture any closer to the rushing, rumbling waves beyond the rocks.
Matthew only looked at me, or through me—past me, like he was looking hard at something just behind me. So effective was this gaze that I looked back to make sure I wasn’t blocking his view of something more interesting. But no. There was nothing behind me but the usual piers, shopfronts, passersby, and preening white gulls.
When I had finished double-checking and once I’d made myself certain that Matthew was, more or less, looking at
me
—I met his eyes again.
I shuddered. I took half a step’s retreat that almost sent me falling over the edge of the walkway planks, and I corrected myself in time to keep from harm. But I flailed. And when I had restored my body’s balance I clutched my coat more tightly across my chest. I released my hat, trusting it to remain affixed—or not caring if it abandoned me.
The young man was giving me that look, and it was a blinkless look that stared but saw nothing, and I’d seen it before. I knew that mindless set of the eyes and then, as the awkward moment stretched itself out long between us, I knew the cast of his skin. I thought of eggs, peeled and pickled in a pantry jar. Iimagined sourdough beginning to turn too sour; I pondered the waterlogged flesh of the drowned.
And I remembered Abigail Borden.
The similarity shocked me, though the boy was clearly
Similar Books
