I couldn’t even be relieved. It was a miracle that the Jenn-a-Lo was floating. Impossible. Magic.
Gripped by an unholy cold, I folded into myself. I wasn’t giving Grey credit for saving the boat. He didn’t get credit for pulling me out of the water, either. He had to go into a box in my head. Clamped down and locked down, because the things that happened on Jackson’s Rock couldn’t come into this world. My real world.
The one where we rolled into Machias under a perfect sky. The leaves were almost finished shifting—some still green, but most a vibrant orange against blue. Yellow and white Victorians lined one side, blue and grey Cape Cods the other. The highway turned into Court Street.
The court building was a red brick box, capped with a white bell tower. Didn’t seem right that it wasn’t all marble. Sporting columns instead of narrow windows; it should have looked like a place of judgment. Close enough, since it could have been a church, from the look of it.
Now that he had to slow to park, Daddy’s laughter died. Mom sat stiffly, shaking her purse like she was panning for gold instead of her lipstick. In the back seat, I kept my split-lipped mouth shut. After midnight in the Great South Channel wasn’t so cold, or so almost-quiet, as it was in that car.
I wanted to run. Just fling open the door and tear off. Past the perfect little park across the way. Through the blazing trees, down the asphalt streets. If I kept going, if I ran long enough, I’d find the ocean again. I could throw myself into it. Drown like I was supposed to the night before.
Instead, I folded my coat over my arm and followed my parents inside.
Two seconds before I stepped up in front of the judge, I met Mr. Farnham, a lawyer I didn’t know I had. Mom gave me a hug and pushed me in the lawyer’s direction. I wavered. Hanging like dew on a line, suspended.
Even though the courtroom was claustrophobic—I could hear two ladies in the back row whispering—I felt so alone. I think Mom knew; she looked like she was sorry, but she slipped her arm through Daddy’s and led him to the back of the gallery anyway.
I sat in the front row with Mr. Farnham and stared at the empty jury box. Everything was planned, I was given up to it. But there was telling my head what was going to happen, and then there was convincing my bones.
Sometimes, people walked into the ocean on purpose, weighted themselves down, even. But I guarantee, their flesh fought it in the end. All of a sudden, my life was a case number. The things I’d agreed to do tasted like poison. I longed to spit them out. Raise my voice. Change my mind.
“One-twelve dash CV dash twelve dash WLF,” the bailiff read. She looked like she’d had to put a book down just when she’d gotten to a good part.
Mr. Farnham stood and hustled me to my feet too.
Bored and wanting to be elsewhere, it was written on the bailiff’s face. It dripped through her voice when she read the complaint against me. Not charges, because it wasn’t a crime anymore, gear molestation. The complaint. The bailiff’s gun belt hung low, jingling a little when she handed the file over to the judge.
Over the folder, the judge raised a brow at me. My black-and-blue face didn’t match the navy blue dress my mother had picked out for court.
It didn’t match me, either. It felt like a straitjacket, rough and binding. My dress shoes pinched. I wasn’t handcuffed, but I kept my arms folded behind my back. Was I supposed to try to look sorry? Penitent? I probably wasn’t supposed to grimace when the judge talked at my lawyer.
Mr. Farnham, all shave bumps and ghostly green eyes, nudged me. He smelled expensive, like the country club Bailey waited at last summer. Just one scent, and my head was full of old men and silk ties. Of places Bailey and I had seen together. Of Levi pressing his crooked teeth into an apple to make a jack-o’-lantern smile in red flesh.
Memories stirred and twisted: kissing Seth Archambault in my mama’s kitchen, stories about the October storm that Mom and Dad missed because of their wedding. The first time I earned a hundred-dollar bill; learning to plot strings into the GPS.
Dixon names carved into the newel post at school, a hundred years ago. Eighty, sixty, forty, twenty—and mine, fresh and new.
“Willa,” the lawyer said. He turned to whisper behind my ear. “The judge asked if you’re entering a plea. Now you say, ‘Yes, your honor.’ Then she’ll ask what you plead.”
I stepped off a ledge. “Guilty,” I said.
It was hard to tell if the judge cared that I went out of order. Flipping papers, she barely looked up at me. “Am I to take it to mean that you would like to admit liability?”
Voices exploded behind me. I recognized my father’s baritone in them, and turned. His face was red, and he whispered furiously to my mother. A few people around them murmured. I saw their lips moving, but couldn’t make out a word.
The judge didn’t shush them. She talked over them. “Mr. Farnham, Miss Dixon?”
Rattled, my lawyer looked back to my parents before addressing the judge again. “Yes, ma’am, that is, we are . . .”
“You understand that by admitting liability, you’ll forfeit your right to an appeal. That your fishing license will be suspended for three years. That you will be responsible for all fines levied against you.”
Daddy dropped an F-bomb, standing up and raising his voice. I don’t know what he was going to say. The judge cut him off, regal and unruffled. “You can wait outside, sir.”
“Your honor,” Daddy said between gritted teeth.
“Escort yourself or be escorted,” the judge replied.
My mother stood with him and put a hand on his elbow. It shocked me when he wrenched away from her touch. They’d raised their voices over the years. One memorable Thanksgiving, Daddy even threw his baseball hat. But I’d never seen him pull away from her, not once. Stalking outside, Daddy threw a last, ugly look back. I didn’t know who it was for exactly.
All I knew was that it wasn’t for me.
SIXTEEN
Grey
What’s most curious is that I have no idea where to start. The room she left behind should be full of clues.
I sit on the foot of the bed and ponder it like a puzzle. The family pictures are a lie. The brother is dead, one silver light in a jar that counts toward my tally. The boat is her father’s. The oars belong to no vessel; the witch balls are empty magic.
Willa doesn’t believe in magic. She accepts that I exist and disdains it at the same time. Now she disdains me; in this very room she believed the worst of me. I want her to take my place; my hands tremble to cover hers, and I want to breathe this curse into her mouth, feel my life come back on the warmth of her lips.
But willingly! Knowingly! I’m a creature, but not a beast. She doesn’t know the difference. I admit, I’m wounded, the smallest part. I put a ripple in her still pond. She put a pea beneath my mattress.
Slipping back on my elbows, I melt into her bed. It smells of her, but only faintly. Not enough to start that pang in my chest again. I stare into the net of her canopy. Bleached shells and sand dollars dot the lines, oceanic constellations to replace the stars. Everything is the sea: her photos, her memories—but I don’t think it signifies the same things to us.
My father’s boat was a hateful thing to me. Cutting ice is nearly as exciting as eating oatmeal. Our path varied only by the season—to Maine in the winter, to Nova Scotia in the summer. The cold and the slick pervaded the ship. I was never warm or dry, except in my thoughts.