Only Don had been out to Martha Quinn’s island, sailed around it and walked on it, and had seen nothing but blasted dirt and blackened skeletons. He had heard ol’ Martha on the radio—several times—talking about the pizza parlor and the one-room schoolhouse and the town library, but the place she was describing had not existed for months. Had been leveled.
If Martha Quinn’s Island wasn’t a refuge, then it was a trap, but Don couldn’t see how to keep them from walking into it. He had vague notions of hovering close to the bay, and maybe—maybe—sailing in under cover of dark when Harper and company were close to Machias, trying to intercept them, warn them. But then, in the last couple days, people had stopped broadcasting about them and he hadn’t known where they were or what was happening. He had been anchored near the ruin of Martha Quinn’s island when he saw the Phoenix sink from the clouds like fackin’ Lucifer falling from heaven. Don said he wasn’t sure if he had been led here, or chased here.
Harper only distantly heard this last part. She felt her insides were being turned inside out.
“What’s happening?” Don Lewiston asked. “The fack is happenin’? Oh shit. Oh shit, don’t tell me.”
“Breathe, Harper!” Renée cried. “In and out. Baby coming. All done in a minute.”
Allie was between her legs. Somehow Harper’s sweatpants had come off and from the waist down she was wet and naked to the day.
“I see his head!” Allie shouted. “Oh, holy fuck! Keep pushing, bitch! You’re doing it! You’re making this shit happen, right now.”
Nick ran and hid his face in Don Lewiston’s stomach. Harper shut her eyes and pushed, felt she was shoving her intestines out onto the deck. She could smell a sharp, briny tang that might’ve been the sea or might’ve been placenta. When she opened her eyes for a moment, she saw the Phoenix again, now no larger than an ostrich, floating on the peaceful water beside the boat, wings drawn against its sides. He watched her with calm, knowing, humorous eyes of fire, a burning slick of oil on the sea.
She pushed. Something gave. She was torn open, her crotch a ragged seam of flame that made her sob with pain and deliverance.
The baby waved fat arms and squalled. Her head made Harper think of a misshapen coconut, slicked with blood: a dense thatch of brown hair, smoothed down to a lumpy skull. A fatty red cord dangled from her stomach, coiling on the deck and winding back into Harper herself.
It was a girl, of course. Allie put the child in her arms. Allie was shaking all over, and not from the cold.
The boat rocked at ease and the baby rocked in her arms. In a voice pitched just above a whisper, Harper sang a few lines of “Romeo and Juliet” to her daughter. The infant opened her eyes and looked at her with irises that were bright, shining rings of gold, the Dragonscale already deep inside her, wound right around the core. Harper was pleased. Now she didn’t have to give her up. All she had to do now was sing to her.
Sunlight glinted off the steely blue edges of the waves. When Harper looked for the Phoenix, there was nothing left except a few tongues of flame flapping off the water. Sparks and flakes of ash drifted in the still, cool air, pattering down into Harper’s hair, onto her arms. Some of the feathers of ash fell on her daughter, a smear of it across the little girl’s forehead. Harper bent forward and kissed her there.
“What will you name her, Harper?” Renée asked. Renée’s teeth were clicking together. She was shivering, but her eyes were shining with tears, with laughter.
Harper rubbed her thumb on her daughter’s forehead, spreading a little of the ash around. She hoped some of John was in it. She hoped he was all over her, all over both of them, keeping them still. She felt he was.
“Ash,” Harper said softly.
“Ashley?” Allie asked. “That’s a good name.”
“Yes,” Harper said. “It is. Ashley. Ashley Rookwood.”
Renée was telling Don about Machias, about their final boat ride and the men who shot John.
Don wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “They’ll be after us. But maybe not for a while. We could have a twelve-hour head start on ’em. We might like to use that time to make ourselves scarce.”
“Where?” Allie asked.
Don had sunk down on one knee to be next to Harper. He slipped a hand out of his pocket with a small knife in it, unfolded the blade, shot her a questioning glance. She nodded. He made a loop with the umbilical cord and sawed through it in two strokes. A weak gout of blood and amniotic fluid pumped over his knuckles.
“An Tra,” he said.
“Gesundheit,” Renée told him.
One corner of his mouth turned up in a weary smile. “It’s on Inisheer. Heard about that on the BBC World Service. I’n pull in about thirty different nations on a good clear night. Inisheer is an island off Ireland, An Tra is the town. Eight thousand sick. Full support of the gov’nment.”
“Another island,” Allie said. “How do we know that’s not bullshit, too?”
“We don’t,” Don said. “And this boat ain’t equipped for a transatlantic sail. We’d be damn lucky to make it. Damn lucky. But it’s the best I got.”
Allie nodded, turned her head, squinted into the rising sun. “Well. I guess we don’t have anything else to do today.”
For herself, Harper felt no alarm it all. She was sore, but content. Those fat clouds were breaking up, and the sky to the east was an almost perfect, serene shade of blue. She thought it seemed a nice enough day for a sail, and she recalled that John’s mother had been Irish. She had always wanted to see Ireland.
Nick had crouched down on his knees to be next to her. He looked at the baby with a sweet, plain curiosity and then moved his hands, writing on the air. Harper smiled and nodded, and then bent close and put her nose to Ashley’s.
“Hey. Your big brother has something to say to you,” Harper told her. “He says hello. He says it’s a pleasure to meet you and welcome to Earth. He says get ready to have some fun, little girl, because it’s a big bright morning, and this is where the story begins.”
BEGUN ON DECEMBER 30TH, 2010
COMPLETED ON OCTOBER 9TH, 2014
JOE HILL, EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Credits
“Jungleland” by Bruce Springsteen, copyright © 1975 by Bruce Springsteen, renewed © 2003 by Bruce Springsteen (Global Music Rights). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
“Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. Words and music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman © 1963 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
“Romeo and Juliet.” Words and music by Mark Knopfler. Copyright © 1980 Straitjacket Songs Limited. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Coroporation.
“Candle on the Water” from Walt Disney’s Pete’s Dragon. Words and music by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn © 1976 Walt Disney Music Company and Wonderland Music Company, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Excerpt from Fahrenheit 451 © 1953, renewed 1981 by Ray Bradbury, reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
Excerpt from The Ministry of Fear © 1943, renewed 1971 by Graham Greene, reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House.
CODA
“What if There was Just a Bit More Story?” by Joe Hill. Copyright © 2016 by Joe Hill. Because there is. A boy saw it first, a serious little boy of six named Caius, who was walking home with his mother. He tugged her hand and said, “Look at the falling star, mama,” and pointed. The woman, Elaina, held up, shaded her eyes against the bright of the day, peered out to the southeast and saw: a trim white boat, sail swollen full, the stylized image of a red crab stamped upon it. At first glance it seemed it was pursued by a red blast of flame, a comet-flare that rose and swooped and dove. As the craft clipped swiftly through the water, though, Elaina saw it was not running from a ball of fire at all, but was instead accompanied by a great blazing bird. That falcon of flame was using its heat to drive hot air into the sail, speeding the boat to a giddy, almost dangerous clip. Elaina spied a woman with yellow hair, standing on the pulpit at the tip of the bow. The faraway woman raised a hand in greeting, a hand that glowed as if it wore a glove of pure light. Caius waved in return, his own hand blazing up like a torch, green ribbons of flame trailing from his fingertips. “No one loves a show-off, Caius,” Elaina warned him, but her smile suggested she didn’t mean it.