Anxious Hearts Page 3

  “Not always,” I say.

  When he looked at me today, it was like I knew him again. His eyes were familiar, and I remembered their deep-sea light, luminescent like the lantern fish that rise to the surface of the ocean at night.

  What did he mean when he said he was sorry?

  “Speaking of Paul, have you heard?” Louise is still talking.

  “Hm?” I’m distracted.

  “I’m not really supposed to tell anyone about this, but my dad says he was taken to the hospital in Bangor last night. He has to stay there for a couple of days for all these tests. Of course, being the town meathead, all Dad is worried about is that the Franktown High Mariners will lose their top scorer for the season. But supposedly it’s sérieux. Cancer maybe.”

  “So what?” I say. As soon as I say it, I hear it, and I know it sounds wrong. I meant so what about the hockey team, not so what about Paul.

  “Wow, harsh,” Louise says. “He could die, Eva.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “I meant—” I stall again, and say, “That’s awful.”

  Suddenly Gabe materializes out of the fog. I don’t even see him until I practically bump into him. It’s that foggy. Thick, gooey fog that forms droplets on your face if you walk too fast through it. A real pea-souper, Ada would call it, so thick you can feel it in your mouth.

  “Oops,” I say to Gabe. “Didn’t see you.”

  He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me. He blinks, and little wisps of fog waft across his eyelids like clouds across a landscape.

  “How is your brother?” Louise says to Gabe.

  Gabe smiles stiffly at Louise and nods his head, then reaches out and grabs my arm. “Come with me. I want to show you something,” he says. “OK?”

  “She’s busy,” Louise says, carefully prying his fingers from my arm. “Tell Paul we said hi. Come on, Eva.” Louise grabs the cuff of my oversized fisherman’s sweater, the one that I wear almost every single day, the one that used to be Da’s until he got a new one and gave it to me, but only because I asked for it, like, seventy-five times. She quickens her pace, pulling me along like a toddler tripping behind an impatient babysitter. “Eva, we have to go,” she says commandingly.

  Gabe starts trotting along with us, just a step behind me and gaining. “Please,” he says. “Come.”

  “Hey, Eva!” comes another voice from the fog. “Eva!”

  It’s John Baptiste. He could be ten feet away or a hundred yards, I can’t tell. I don’t answer him, I just keep shuffling along with Louise, with Gabe at my heels.

  Gabe walks faster. “Please,” he says. Then he whispers, so only I can hear it and not Louise. “Evangeline.”

  Then he stops cold. Louise and I take three more steps, far enough so that when I shake my sleeve free of Louise’s grasp and turn around, nearly all of Gabe is obscured by the fog, except for his outstretched hand, smooth and lithe and steady and strong, probably from all that writing. It’s beautiful.

  “It’s OK, Louise,” I say, leaning toward the hand. “I’ll see you later.”

  Louise shakes her head, muttering something I can’t hear, and steps away, into the fog. I turn around to watch her sneakers disappear. “Au revoir,” she says as she slips out of sight.

  I step forward, toward Gabe’s hand. “So,” I say, stopping after one step. “What do you want to show me?”

  Gabe doesn’t answer. He takes my wrist in his fingers and starts walking, pulling me along behind him.

  “Are you OK?” I say.

  No answer.

  “Let go,” I say. “I can walk.” But Gabe just grips my hand tighter, slicing a path through the fog just wide enough for us both. “Where are we going?”

  “Harbor,” he says.

  When it’s this foggy, most people walk along slowly, looking down at the ground to make sure they don’t trip or step in dog crap or something. But Gabe is moving fast. I’m practically double-stepping to keep up with him. “I haven’t been to the harbor with you since—” I stop.

  “That was a long time ago,” Gabe says, and starts walking faster.

  We walk all the way through the four blocks of “downtown” Franktown and out onto the single dock that juts into Franktown Harbor.

  I know when we reach the dock only because I hear the Manan River, which is really more like a stream, trickling into the harbor from its outlet just a few yards away. I feel the slats of the dock creaking beneath our footsteps—his strong and certain, mine shuffling and wary. But I can’t see the end of the dock, or how high the water is.

  “Down or up,” he says, and I know he’s asking whether I want to climb down and straddle one of the crossbeams under the dock like we used to do before everything changed, or stay on top of the dock, where things are safer. I say, “Up.”

  “Up,” Gabe repeats, and I can hear his disappointment and already I wish I’d chosen “down.”

  We feel for the edge of the dock with our feet and sit at the very tip. Gabe sheds his Converse sneakers and dangles his feet over the edge. “Take your shoes off,” he says. I do, and I dangle my feet over the edge, too, right next to Gabe’s.

  I try to forget that I don’t know him anymore. I pretend not to wonder what he’s thinking. Instead I wonder about how far away the water is from my feet. Not that it matters, because the tide changes fast. Wherever it is now isn’t where it will be next time I check.

  “I know what today is,” Gabe says. “I know what it means.” He’s talking about my mother.

  And now I know that no one else but Gabe understands me, no one else in the whole town, no matter how much they want to, not my father, not Ada, not Louise. No one. Only Gabe. My motherless best friend.

  Gabe puts his arm around my neck and locks his strong hands across my chest, drawing my head to his shoulder and my arm to his lap. His grip is not sad like Da’s, not clumsy. Gabe holds me tighter than that. I can hear, or maybe feel, the deep, slow thumping of his heart. I close my eyes and breathe, feeling the sea mist coat my lungs with salt air.

  He sweeps my hair away from my eyes with his strong fingers and buries his eyes into mine. “Cry, Evangeline,” he says. “Cry today.”

  And I do. I cry.

  I cry, hard at first, then softer with short, baby-girl sobs, Gabe’s hand resting on my cheek. I have always imagined what it would feel like to cry and not have to explain why. Now I know. It feels like home.

  When I am finished crying, I wipe my eyes and realize that the fog has begun to thin. It is still day, and I can see the harbor dories, bright yellow and blue and red, bobbing in the gray-green waves. It is nearing high tide. One dory, a white one, catches a flash of sun and reflects it back to us, illuminating Gabe’s face like a spotlight. I see from the tear tracks that he has been crying, too, even though he never made a sound. He held me against his steady heart, and cried with me, never shaking, never shifting, moving only to breathe.

  “You know, you’re going to flunk Mr. Denis’s class if you don’t start paying attention to those old stories he makes us read,” I say, sniffling and pretending to laugh.

  “I don’t care,” he says, stroking my hair and looking out to sea. “I don’t like the old stories anyway. They don’t have anything to do with us. I’d rather write my own.”

  Gabriel

  EULALIE’S CANTER WAS SHARP, JARRING GABRIEL’S spine, and he wished he’d taken the time to strap on her saddle when he’d left home that morning instead of taking her out bareback. He clicked his tongue and she slowed to a walk.

  Gabriel untied his moccasins and lashed them to Eulalie’s bridle, then jumped down into the muck. It was cold, bracingly so, but he relished the feeling of the wet sea mud on his feet.

  Within steps his soles went pins-and-needles numb, the same way they had so many years ago when he, like all the village children, was sent down at low tide to dig for clams during the harvest weeks. Whoever dug up the most clams got to keep his entire sackful. The rest were divided equally among the
village households. When the time came to tally, Gabriel always had the most clams, except when he secretly filled Evangeline’s sack to make certain she would win. He did this even though his angry father would punish him every time he fell short, sending him back into the harbor, sometimes after dark, sometimes in the path of the tide, to bring up more clams. Gabriel’s feet froze on those nights. Once, when Gabriel returned home with a full bucket, his bare feet were stiff, ice-blue in the candlelight. “My son,” cried Monsieur Lajeunesse, and he rubbed prickly warmth back into them. “My son, forgive me,” he pleaded. “I have pushed you too hard.” But Gabriel wasn’t listening to his father’s apology. He was thinking only of Evangeline, and how she’d have plenty of clams to share with her father that night. The next week, when Gabriel again returned home after moonrise with a bucket of clams and bloodless, frozen feet, Monsieur Lajeunesse did not rub them. His father said coldly, “Only after you have cleaned the clams may you sit by the fire.” That night, Gabriel’s feet froze deeply, and it was many days before he walked again.

  Gabriel tugged at Eulalie’s reins, nudging her toward the dock. The tide was on its way back now, and they didn’t have much time.

  A sudden glint of light from beyond piney St. Isabel Island pierced his eyes. Gabriel started and stared. The light was gone as quickly as it had flashed, and Gabriel saw nothing. He frowned. The sun was too low to strike a wave with such brightness, such precision. Gabriel squinted out to sea. Could it have been a glint from one of the temporary low-tide pools? A reflection off the pink granite rocks at the base of St. Isabel? Gabriel’s mind raced for an explanation.

  Another glint, even sharper this time. No. This was no pool-glisten, no rock. This glint was needlelike, precise, not accidental, and it was aimed directly at the darse.

  Another flash.

  A ship? It couldn’t be. There were no ships in Glosekap Bay. He patted Eulalie, who snorted at the oncoming tide. Gabriel shushed her and focused his gaze. Eulalie shook her neck. Another glint. And another. The source of the light was moving, slowly, across Glosekap.

  So it was a ship. It had to be. Gabriel drew a breath and held it. A ship. Just outside the darse.

  Heaven, not now.

  Gabriel’s heart sped and his eyes darted back and forth across the bay. Ships were mythic, nearly unknown in Cadia, as none of the Cadian settlements had the money or power to build them. Gabriel’s world was all dories and whaleboats and sometimes, when the alewives ran, Ab’naki canoes from the east. Unthreatening boats. Not weapons. Not ships.

  Gabriel rubbed his eyes. Perhaps it was an illusion, perhaps a monster. Please, anything but a ship. He tensed his jaw and squinted, setting off a quiet rumble in his temple. Please, do not let this be the day Basil foretold.

  Another glint emerged from behind St. Isabel. Then two at once. Two ships? It couldn’t be. No.

  Eulalie snorted. “Quiet,” Gabriel scolded.

  Another glint. And another. Soon there were four glints of light, flashing simultaneously in the harbor.

  Mesmerized, terrified, Gabriel felt his eyes glaze over and stomach sink in realization: After so many years, the New Colony ships had returned.

  “No!” he shouted. His heartbeat grew loud in his ear. Fast, driving, pounding rhythms.

  The frigid water lapped at the cold muck just ahead of Gabriel’s feet, but Gabriel was flushed, sweating, desperate to banish this vision, and did not move. This could not be. Not before tomorrow. No. Gabriel forced breath back into his lungs, slowly. Eulalie snorted again.

  Gabriel silenced her and turned his gaze to the becs, to the highlands above the bay. There, rising over the ocean’s rocky caverns, was Evangeline’s bec, and above it, a column of smoke from her chimney. Any other day it would have warmed Gabriel to see the sight. But not today. He looked back at the ships, then up at the bec, then back to the ships, to and fro in speechless panic. Could they see the smoke, too?

  Gabriel had to tell his father. He needed Basil, or someone, to see the ships, to make this real, or banish it from his mind.

  “Come, Eulalie,” Gabriel said sternly, leaping onto the mare and pointing her toward the river’s mouth. “Run, Eulalie. Run,” he whispered.

  Hearts leaping, they sped together, past the harbor, over the hill and into the fruitful valley, where the village of Pré-du-sel huddled, blissfully glowing under the alabaster steeple of the church and the towering chimney of Basil Lajeunesse’s village smithy, unaware of the predators at the head of the tide-swept darse.

  eva

  It’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” Louise says from behind her sunglasses. She picks at her black nail polish. I realize that I’ve never seen Louise with fresh nail polish. She must start picking at it as soon as it dries. “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”

  “Shut up,” I say. “I see you every day.”

  I lean against the slow, misty breeze oozing up Commercial Street from the sea. It was sunny today, mostly. Indian summer, everyone calls it, but Mr. Denis says we’re supposed to call it Second Summer to be culturally sensitive. Ada still calls it Summer of All Saints, which I guess is what the old-timers say.

  “The sun feels good,” I say. “It hasn’t been sunny for a month.”

  “Franktown sucks,” says Louise, pointing at a weathered row of town houses. “Regardes.”

  Louise is right. The sun is a mixed blessing around here. It just shows all of Franktown’s cracks. There isn’t a building around, house or store or gas station or barn, without peeling paint and weeds. Half the houses are for sale. The biggest thing in town is a propane tower with our zip code painted on it: 04647.

  “Anyway, you know what I mean,” Louise says. “You’ve, like, disappeared. What’s your story?”

  I don’t answer, even though I know what she wants to hear about. I’ve been pretty quiet the last few days. I’ve got a lot on my mind, I guess.

  “Fine, I’ll do the talking,” says Louise. “I don’t get the Gabe thing. All he does is mope around and scribble in that stupid notebook. And why can’t he get a haircut? His father is the richest man in Washington County.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. Rough translation: Drop it.

  “I just don’t get the appeal,” Louise says. “I mean, he’s so, I don’t know, morose. What’s he got to be so mopey about? I don’t even see how he’s related to the rest of his family.” She picks off another chunk of polish. “He should take grooming lessons from his brother. Personality lessons, aussi.”

  “Gabe’s not Paul,” I say.

  “No kidding,” Louise says. “You could do so much better, Eva. John Baptiste has been all over you for months. And he is looking très hot lately.”

  I roll my eyes. Louise can’t fathom how anyone could ever resist the gorgeous, wealthy John Baptiste. He’s supposedly Franktown’s most desirable catch. Which is exactly why I don’t like him.

  “And he has a nice car,” she says. “And he doesn’t carry a stupid notebook around everywhere he goes.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t know how to write,” I say.

  “Seriously, Eva,” Louise says. “Do you really like this guy? Because this is going to take some getting used to.”

  I don’t know how to answer without making her upset, and I really don’t want to talk about it, because Louise wouldn’t get it anyway—that Gabe understands me, sees me, that ever since my mother’s birthday, all I’ve thought about is the way his deep breaths and slow heartbeat sounded against my ears while I cried on the docks against his shoulder. I just say: “He’s different.”

  “Understatement,” Louise says. She goes back to picking her nails.

  “I’ll see you,” I say. “Let’s hang out, maybe this weekend?”

  “Wait, don’t tell me. You’re blowing me off again,” Louise says, or more like scoffs. “Quel choc.” She pulls the hoodstrings of her sweatshirt straight down with a jerk and disappears into the hood. She heads up the hill toward the tiny Frankt
own library, where we used to go every day after school, supposedly to do homework but really to read magazines. “Hey, by the way, did Gabe tell you about Paul?”

  “What about Paul?” I say.

  “My father says Paul needs a bone marrow transplant. They’re looking for a donor.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I thought Gabe would have talked to you about it. Brothers usually make good donors.”

  I don’t say anything. Gabe hasn’t said a word about his brother to me. I’ve been wondering, but I haven’t asked.

  “Anyway, bye,” Louise says. She turns and steps away.

  “Bye,” I say. I watch her walk up the hill for a few minutes. And then I turn toward the harbor and walk toward the dock, where Gabe has promised to meet me.

  Gabriel

  THE POWERFUL ARMS OF BASIL THE BLACKSMITH rippled as he grasped the hammer with heavy, elbow-length leather gloves and slammed it onto the anvil with a tremendous clang.

  “Do you hear me?” he said. “I don’t believe you.” Clang. Basil wore a black leather apron that glimmered in the glow of the fire under the great iron-and-cedar forge that sat in the center of the dirt floor. The forge lorded over the ember-lit shop, its radiant heat causing sweat to drain from Basil’s brow. Shadows cast in four directions took the shapes of anvils, clamps, rods, and Basil’s broad shoulders.

  “But Father, I saw,” Gabriel protested from the doorway. “Four ships. I have no doubt.”

  “Quiet!” Basil shouted. “There are no ships. You are wrong.” Basil slammed the hammer down again with a terrible clank that Gabriel felt in his teeth. “You’re supposed to be working out on the dikes, searching for breaches and protecting your village. The tide is unrelenting, Gabriel, and the threats, the real threats, are many.”