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Authors: Lydia Millet
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turtle, with the driftwood message?
Was it their mother talking to them?
It wasn’t her mother’s handwriting, though, and she didn’t think her mother wrote poems; her mother was a scientist. Plus the paper looked old.
Then again, obviously, it had been in her mother’s office….
The man who walks in water . The Pouring Man. It had to be!
And this had to be meant for them.
She would show it to Jax first thing in the morning.
And Max. What about him? She wasn’t sure what he was thinking. She had told him everything; he had listened, but, though he hadn’t made fun of her openly, he made no sign of buying into what she was saying, either. When she was done he had nodded without commenting, turned away from her, and looked out at the other cars passing them.
“ ‘Three must visit the old selkie, interpreter, arbiter and visionary,’ ” she read aloud, softly.
Just then something hit the glass of her window, which was half-open. She almost jumped out of her skin. Slowly, and wishing she wasn’t alone, she got up. She walked over to where the curtains were billowing inward and then, after a long moment of held breath, jerked them apart.
She couldn’t see anything, not even the trees outside, because her eyes were adjusted to the bright, artificial lighting of her room. There was no noise from anywhere, though, and she was still curious, so she decided to dig her pen-sized flashlight out of her desk.
There were a few beads of moisture on the glass where the object had hit, and through the mesh of the screen below she could see a small dark pile of something, lying on the porch roof just beneath her windowsill. Dead leaves, she thought, maybe—but why had they hit the window? There was no wind.
She raised the screen to see them better—she was nervous but felt like she needed to know. She leaned over with the penlight’s beam sharply focused.
It was a cluster of dark-brown packets that looked like seaweed: shiny, black rectangles with thorny-looking ends. She had found pouches like these on the beach many times and knew what they were: skate egg cases that people sometimes called “mermaid’s purses.” Skates were like rays, her mother had taught her—carnivorous rays that slithered over the ocean floor.
So these were just skate eggs, right? A frequent find for beachcombers?
Though you didn’t usually encounter them on the roof. At night. Outside your bedroom window.
Skates didn’t fly, after all.
She reached out to push them away, then jerked her hand back. She remembered what Jax had said: the Pouring Man controlled water, and you had to make sure you didn’t invite him in.
She stuck her head and shoulders out over the window ledge, her elbows on the shingles of the porch roof, and held the penlight over the mass of eggs. Steadily, steadily. Before she even touched them to push them away she should make sure they were what they seemed to be.
For a long moment she held the spot of the penlight in one place, shining into the brown translucence of an egg pouch, and noticed nothing unusual.
Then she saw the squirming.
Inside the pouch, small things squirmed and pulsed. Their movement was rapid … as if they were about to burst out.
And whatever was inside them, she didn’t think it wasn’t baby skates. Unless skates had claws.
In a shudder of revulsion she stretched out her penlight and pushed the egg pouches with it, once, then again. She couldn’t touch it with her own fingers, but she knew she had to get it away. Get rid of it.
She stretched farther and farther onto the roof. The egg pouches didn’t roll down by themselves—the grade of the roof wasn’t steep enough—so she had to keep pushing and prodding them toward the edge. Finally her whole body was outside her bedroom window, with her feet hooked around the inside ledge of the sill, and she was quickly prodding the cluster farther and farther toward the edge. It seemed to be moving more frantically now, like the eggs
Was it their mother talking to them?
It wasn’t her mother’s handwriting, though, and she didn’t think her mother wrote poems; her mother was a scientist. Plus the paper looked old.
Then again, obviously, it had been in her mother’s office….
The man who walks in water . The Pouring Man. It had to be!
And this had to be meant for them.
She would show it to Jax first thing in the morning.
And Max. What about him? She wasn’t sure what he was thinking. She had told him everything; he had listened, but, though he hadn’t made fun of her openly, he made no sign of buying into what she was saying, either. When she was done he had nodded without commenting, turned away from her, and looked out at the other cars passing them.
“ ‘Three must visit the old selkie, interpreter, arbiter and visionary,’ ” she read aloud, softly.
Just then something hit the glass of her window, which was half-open. She almost jumped out of her skin. Slowly, and wishing she wasn’t alone, she got up. She walked over to where the curtains were billowing inward and then, after a long moment of held breath, jerked them apart.
She couldn’t see anything, not even the trees outside, because her eyes were adjusted to the bright, artificial lighting of her room. There was no noise from anywhere, though, and she was still curious, so she decided to dig her pen-sized flashlight out of her desk.
There were a few beads of moisture on the glass where the object had hit, and through the mesh of the screen below she could see a small dark pile of something, lying on the porch roof just beneath her windowsill. Dead leaves, she thought, maybe—but why had they hit the window? There was no wind.
She raised the screen to see them better—she was nervous but felt like she needed to know. She leaned over with the penlight’s beam sharply focused.
It was a cluster of dark-brown packets that looked like seaweed: shiny, black rectangles with thorny-looking ends. She had found pouches like these on the beach many times and knew what they were: skate egg cases that people sometimes called “mermaid’s purses.” Skates were like rays, her mother had taught her—carnivorous rays that slithered over the ocean floor.
So these were just skate eggs, right? A frequent find for beachcombers?
Though you didn’t usually encounter them on the roof. At night. Outside your bedroom window.
Skates didn’t fly, after all.
She reached out to push them away, then jerked her hand back. She remembered what Jax had said: the Pouring Man controlled water, and you had to make sure you didn’t invite him in.
She stuck her head and shoulders out over the window ledge, her elbows on the shingles of the porch roof, and held the penlight over the mass of eggs. Steadily, steadily. Before she even touched them to push them away she should make sure they were what they seemed to be.
For a long moment she held the spot of the penlight in one place, shining into the brown translucence of an egg pouch, and noticed nothing unusual.
Then she saw the squirming.
Inside the pouch, small things squirmed and pulsed. Their movement was rapid … as if they were about to burst out.
And whatever was inside them, she didn’t think it wasn’t baby skates. Unless skates had claws.
In a shudder of revulsion she stretched out her penlight and pushed the egg pouches with it, once, then again. She couldn’t touch it with her own fingers, but she knew she had to get it away. Get rid of it.
She stretched farther and farther onto the roof. The egg pouches didn’t roll down by themselves—the grade of the roof wasn’t steep enough—so she had to keep pushing and prodding them toward the edge. Finally her whole body was outside her bedroom window, with her feet hooked around the inside ledge of the sill, and she was quickly prodding the cluster farther and farther toward the edge. It seemed to be moving more frantically now, like the eggs
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