You got some paint there on your shoe.
The smear of blood from where I’d kicked Robert’s friend wasn’t the exact same shade as the flake of dried pigment. But it was close enough.
I threw the fragment and the paper towel into the wastebasket, ran into the kitchen. Toby was filling a gallon jug from the tap.
“Listen,” I said. “After you finish your work at this other island—are you coming back here? Or heading straight over to Burnt Harbor?”
“Depends on the weather. Probably I’ll be back. Unless it really comes down, in which case I’ll drop anchor over at Tolba and stay in Lucien’s house. Why?”
“Maybe I could ride out with you to the island. Then later, if you do go over to Burnt Harbor, you can drop me off. If not, I’ll just come back here with you.”
“You really want to get out of here, don’t you? Okay. I guess, if you don’t mind getting cold and wet. I just thought you might want to take a nap or something. You looked pretty whipped, to tell you the truth.”
“If I fall asleep now, I’ll never wake up.”
“Don’t want that.” He picked up the jug and headed for the door. “You got much to carry?”
“No.” I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Just this. My camera.”
“Good. You can help bring some things down. Then we won’t have to make two trips.”
He gathered a canvas bag of extra clothing, a toolbox, two water jugs. He stopped by the door and pulled on a parka.
“Cold out there.” He eyed my leather jacket and cowboy boots. “You’re not going to be warm enough.”
“I still have your sweater.” I unzipped my jacket to show him, and the sweater rode up, exposing my stomach.
“That a tattoo?” He stooped to peer at the scroll of words entwined with a scar. “‘Too tough to die.’”
He gave me an odd look. “Looks like you earned that.”
I didn’t reply. I thought of a girl walking toward a car beneath a broken streetlamp; of another girl walking down a darkened pier where a boat drifted, its engine cut and running lights switched off.
“Did it hurt?” asked Toby softly.
“It all hurts,” I said and turned away.
For a moment he was quiet.
“Here,” he said. “Take this—”
He opened a cupboard and tossed me a blaze orange watchcap. “You lose ninety percent of your body heat through your head. Not that it’ll do you much good if you go overboard.”
He picked up the toolbox and the canvas bag, gestured at the gallon jugs. “Can you handle those?”
I pulled on the watchcap and picked up the jugs. “Yeah.”
“What about this?”
He reached into the shadows and grabbed a wooden pole about six feet long, tipped with a lethal-looking bronze spike that had a hook like a talon welded to it. He hefted it, eyed it measuringly, then handed it to me.
“What is it? A harpoon?”
“Boat hook. For grabbing stuff that falls overboard. Among other things. Like if we run into your friends again outside. You know how to use a boat hook, don’t you? You just put your lips together, and—”
He mimed smashing someone. “Run like hell. Come on.”
I followed him outside. I tightened my grip on the boat hook, but the alley was empty.
“We’ll go this way.” Toby headed around the corner. “Shorter walk.”
It also avoided that sorry little main drag. A small crowd had gathered at the far end of the beach. I recognized Everett Moss and a few of the other men I’d seen when I first arrived, but not the guys I’d encountered by the Chandlery. Two black dogs played on the rocky beach. There were more boats in the harbor, including a Marine Patrol vessel.
“Guess that’s how they’ll get Aphrodite back to shore,” said Toby.
We headed toward the pier. No one seemed to have noticed us yet. They stood in a tight group, heads bent. Now and then someone looked across the reach to the mainland. “’Less they’re waiting for an ambulance boat or something.”
The sky had grown darker and more ominous. Clouds and sea were the same charred gray. A cold wind seemed to blow from everywhere at once. The black dogs were the same color as the clots of kelp they snapped at. The gulls were like white holes in the sky. Everything seemed to be part of one thing here, even the men in their slate blue coveralls and dun-colored coats and blaze orange vests: They were all like pieces that had broken off from the island but could be made to fit again, if you knew which jagged part went where.
I used the boat hook like a walking stick and tried not to lag behind Toby. A dog spied us and ran across the shingle, barking. The men all turned. I half expected someone to shout at us—at me—but they said nothing. Their silence unnerved me, but after a minute they turned away again.
Toby waited for me on the pier. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
He held out a hand, steering me up the granite steps, and we walked to the dinghy. I felt exposed and went as fast as I could, my boots skidding on the slick surface. We reached the dinghy and climbed in. Toby rowed to where the Northern Sky was moored, climbed up on deck, and set down his things. I handed him what I’d brought, and he helped me on board.
“You get this stuff stowed below while I tie up the dinghy. Those water jugs go under the sink down in the galley. The rest of that stuff, just put it so we don’t trip on it.”
I started for the companionway then paused.
“I might want to take some pictures out here. You going to let me use my camera this time?”
Toby loosened a line from a cleat. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
“How come you had a problem with it yesterday?”
“I wasn’t sure yet whether or not you were going to be a problem.”
I felt oddly pleased and gave him a wry smile. He looked at me. “You still don’t have a mirror, do you?”
“Nope.” I stared back, then asked, “The mirror game. Suze told me that was something Denny used to do with everyone.”
He said nothing.
“What was it?” I prodded. “Was it something about that girl? Hannah?”
“No.” He sighed. “It really was a game. We’d get really stoned, then you’d just stare into the mirror until your face started to look all weird, like it was melting or something. The way if you repeat the same word over and over, it starts to sound funny? Like that. It was silly. But then Denny started to do some other stuff. He was reading a lot about primitive religions; he started making up these rituals. That was pretty silly too, at first. But then it just started to get bizarre. He started believing in the stuff he’d made up. He’d force people to do things—look at yourself in the mirror for an hour, three hours. He did it once for a whole day. All day, all night. It—”
He shook icy rain from his parka and shivered. “I was with him. I did it too—stared at myself in this big mirror. Every time I started to nod off he’d poke me. After a while he stopped, but he wasn’t asleep. He just sat there and stared at himself, and then he started whispering to himself. Just kept saying the same thing over and over. Like Chinese water torture.” He glanced at me. “That was when I knew I’d had enough. I got the hell out of there and got a job at Rankin’s Hardware for a few months, just to kind of normalize myself. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t stand it now, seeing myself in a mirror.”
He stared at the sky and shook his head, as though remembering.
“What was he saying?” I asked.
“‘I see you.’” He shielded his eyes from the rain. “‘I see you, I see you. I see you.’ That was all.”
Abruptly he turned and clapped my shoulder. “Go on now. You better get that stuff below.”
I climbed down the companionway and stowed the boat hook and water jugs and my bag. Toby joined me a few minutes later.