Not eyes, thought Wheelwright. Something else. Some object loosed from a sunken vessel. Buoys perhaps? Yes, buoys.
Then the buoys blinked.
Wheelwright rose to his feet and filled his lungs, prepared to let loose a scream he hoped would attract the galleon’s attention. But his voice never escaped his open mouth. Darkness enshrouded him and closed above him. Tepid, rank air greeted him as he realized that God, angry at his disrespect had sent the devil himself to eat him alive.
A quick jolt from beneath knocked him from the boat, and he landed on a firm, yet soft surface. The beast suddenly lifted its head and drew Wheelwright deeper into its throat. Flesh wrapped around him, and he felt himself being pushed down…down toward the creature’s gullet, where a slow and torturous death awaited.
Two days later, Wheelwright woke to a blinding light. Heaven or hell? As his senses returned, he became aware of a burning sensation beneath him and sweltering hot humid air stinging his skin. Hell, he thought. But the smell was not one would expect of hell, it was more like lilacs and ocean air.
He sat up and found himself on a beach. He was still dressed in his black doublet and breeches, though the cloth looked more like rags than proper attire. His skin was sickly pale and wrinkled, but otherwise he felt fine. He didn’t recognize the shoreline, but it was most definitely the New World. The maple trees lining the beach told him that much.
Looking down, Wheelwright saw a single word etched in the sand.
Exeter.
A flash of thoughts and memories came to him. His entire ordeal, the last two days and nights, crowded his mind. Had it really happened? Another look at his puffy white flesh confirmed it. But no one must know what he’d endured. It was safer that way. And he had a mission to complete. God had revealed that much to him. He had no concept of the ends, but his savings gave him the means.
Positive he was once again in God’s good graces, he took a deep breath and sighed, allowing the smell of salty sand, lilac and leaf laden earth to calm his frantic mind. He smiled as the scent of his new home filled him with hope. Though he longed to see God’s plans laid out before him, he felt confident that his acts, conceived of and willed by God, would have positive results for all men. God’s dramatic action over the past two days could only mean that the end result would be beyond the most vivid imaginings of Wheelwright’s feeble mind.
Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter,
New Hampshire, 1639
Whereas it hath pleased the Lord to move the Heart of our dread Sovereign Charles, by the Grace of God King amp;c., to grant Licence and Libertye to sundry of his subjects to plant themselves in the Westerlle parts of America, we his loyal Subjects, Brethren of the Church in Exeter, situate and lying upon the River Pascataqua with other Inhabitants there, considering with ourselves the holy Will of God and our own Necessity that we should not live without wholesomne Lawes and Civil Government among us, of which we are altogether destitute, do in the name of Christ and in the sight of God combine ourselves together to erect and set up among us such Government as shall be to our best discerning agreeable to the Will of God, professing ourselves Subjects to our Sovereign Lord King Charles according to the Libertyes of our English Colony of Massachusetts, and binding of ourselves solemnly by the Grace and Help of Christ and in His Name and fear to submit ourselves to such Godly and Christian Lawes as are established in the realm of England to our best Knowledge, and to all other such Lawes which shall upon good grounds be made and enacted among us according to God that we may live quietly and peaceably together in all godliness and honesty. Mo. 8. D. 4. 1639 as attests our Hands.
Signed-John Wheelwright
DESCENT
2
Rye, New Hampshire, 2008
The sea can do many things. It is the womb of all life on the planet. Weather patterns and natural disasters are at the mercy of the mighty blue’s ebb and flow. A food chain that supplies sustenance for most life-forms on the planet begins and ends in the deep. But what Atticus Young had learned in the last two years was that the ocean, for all its might and wonder, could not heal a broken man.
Atticus stood barefoot on a barnacle-encrusted rock, one of many that formed a barrier between ocean and sand. Beyond the sand lay a man-made hump of sand and grass that guarded Route 1A and a row of homes built on the other side of the road, all facing the ocean, from storm waters. Atticus had often wondered if the homes had been erected prior to the high water-blocking sand piles-the ocean view was blocked for all but the tallest homes. But the misfortune of those few Rye residents living with obscured views was not enough to ease his distress.
The barnacles that cut into his rough feet failed to gain his attention.
A flock of frenzied seagulls pecking and squawking over the remnants of a dead skate washed in with the tide couldn’t pull Atticus from his thoughts.
Even the deep blue ocean, which sparkled like the most eloquently carved sapphire, failed to pull his mind from past to present.
“She’s dead,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry, but there was nothing we could do. The cancer was too much…too far…but you knew that already.”
Atticus nodded and looked out the Portsmouth Regional Hospital window, glimpsing the ocean on the horizon. “Are there any papers I need to sign?” His voice was as clinical as the doctor’s.
“No…no, of course not.”
“I can leave then?”
“Well…yes, but…Yes, of course.”
Atticus nodded and left his Maria’s bedside. A single thought echoed in his mind as he walked to the staircase, mindlessly descended two flights of stairs, and entered the main lobby.
My wife is dead.
My wife is dead.
Maria is…
Atticus burst into the men’s room, closed and locked the door behind him, and fell to the floor. His sobs could be heard beyond the reception desk, down the hall, and clear into the cafeteria. Even people in the rooms on the floor above could hear his anguish. That day, seventy-five people heard what it felt like to have a portion of one’s soul extinguished. Few of them could stop their own tears.
As the tears subsided, replaced by a blinding headache, Atticus’s awareness of his surroundings returned. The linoleum floor, pale white and sparkling clean, was cold on his palms. The air freshener, working hard to penetrate his running nose, smelled strongly of apple. The fluorescent light above buzzed gently, casting the room in dull blue. The sterility of it all helped calm his nerves and focus his mind.
Atticus stood on shaky legs, rinsed his face, and blew his nose. He knew that no amount of cold water could erase the redness and swelling his crying had brought to the flesh around his eyes, but it helped clear his mind. As Atticus left the bathroom and avoided the sympathetic eyes of the group gathered in the reception area, he put all his efforts into staying calm and reaching home safely. He couldn’t lose control again, because the hardest aftershock from Maria’s death was yet to come, and it would be his shoulders that carried the burden.
That was two years ago, and ever since, every morning when he woke up alone in bed, it was like being right back in that bathroom, cold and alone.
A sudden roar and a stab of frigidity on his feet finally returned him to the here and now. Atticus looked at his feet and found them covered to the ankles in water. The tide was coming in. As Atticus moved higher onto the rocky shore, he paused by a tide pool. His shadow fell over the ten-inch-deep puddle, shading it from the sun’s glare
