We roar away and Seraphina’s ranting and raving about the salt water, and seals and the podcaster and her mother, all of us from the shore and the sea.
“Could you slow down, Seraphina?”
“I can’t go slow. We have to get there.” She presses her foot on the gas and goes faster.
“No, I mean can you speak more slowly. It’s hard for me to follow you. You’re speaking on fast-forward and you’re yelling.”
“Oh Holy Mother Mercy, it talks. Praise be. Who would have ever thought that you’d speak. All that time. It must have been the salt water cure. The teas. You know, I always thought those potions and brews didn’t work, but now I see they were supposed to make us buoyant, to help us weather the shit-storm of life, until we could reunite.”
I don’t point out to her that the salt water cure in the Bay of Fundy with my sore hand, and sleeping in wet clothes, almost killed me. Seraphina doesn’t need to know that, and right now she wouldn’t listen. She’s holding forth and speaking so quickly I give up trying to follow.
We soar into Lupin Cove, down the hill and over the road by the east wharf. She pulls right into the path, driving until the mirrors on either side of the truck are jammed in the trees, so no one will see her vehicle.
The cottage is locked and there is a board nailed over the broken window. The key is in the old metal cough-drop tin though. Inside, I catch my breath. It smells of salt water and soot. The sofa must still be wet, without a fire to warm the place up, from our wet clothes. I touch the armchairs. They’re damp, but it could just be the coldness of the cottage in September, that there is nothing left of my time here with Dianne.
Then I hear her voice in my head. Hurry, hurry, Stella.
And then Cynthia: This is what you need to keep safe. They’ll come back. They never go away. Someone survived. They’ll come looking. They know I have them.
Isaiah taking it from Cynthia.
The box. That handmade wooden box.
On the knick-knack shelf. Above where Dianne sat on the red sofa. Every object has a story.
I step up. My stomach is a bit sore but I push through and take it down. Seraphina is watching out the window. She leaps, almost flies across the room, like a unicorn, and steadies me. She sits me down in the rocking chair and I hold the box.
“And?”
I look at her. I look at the box.
“What do we do now, Stella? You said you knew.”
I rock. Dianne. I touch the necklace and pull it out from underneath my green hospital gown. I take it off and twist, twist, twist. A silver key.
“Wow!” Seraphina screams.
“Be quiet, be quiet.”
“Sorry,” she whispers.
I turn the key. In the box are four old film canisters.
The Purple Hour.
Princess of the Western Ocean.
Now
Seraphina has been gone for hours. I know this because the sun has slipped over in the sky and started to lower. She left to take the film to Mal and Grace. She was convinced that if I went too, they might make me stay. Seraphina said, You are the one who knows. That I’m safer here by the sea than anywhere else. What it is I know, I have no idea, and she doesn’t seem to know either. Seraphina thinks I’m a holy relic. So I wait for her here. Seraphina says she has called the mother of Mal, the young podcaster asking questions, that she’s in danger too.
If there is anyone who can help us, it is Grace. There is no one else left who would believe me, especially believe Seraphina. But with a bad feeling in my stomach, I realize this is probably too much for even Grace to believe, that her kindness and goodwill and open-mindedness have limits too. And Seraphina could be completely delusional by now. She might have tossed the film out the window. But Mal knows. Mal believes.
Seagulls fly overhead, squawking. It’s very cold inside. The surf rolls on the rocks. I’m a nervous mess, wringing my hands, wishing for medication, wishing for the return of my hazy mind, full of gaps and holes. And wishing I could stop the tears. I walk over the path to see if Seraphina might be parked back at her house by the bridge, or if she parked near me but got distracted. Anything can happen to her when she’s in a manic phase. It’s easy for her to go off track.
But what I see is a black car, an ominous black car. And I think of Fred and his devotion to John Wick, and I’m blubbering, wishing that John Wick would come and save me, that he would burn down New York and all the horrible men there. Then car doors open, and it’s David Jessome and someone else, someone younger, with a mustache. They see me before I can duck back onto the trail. I run to the cottage and lock the door. But I know I’m not safe here anymore. I go back out and there they are.
“Stella, Stella, just calm down. Do you remember me? From Mountain Top? Eugene sent me. He asked me to come and find you. You took off from the hospital. You can’t be doing that at Mountain Top because there’s nowhere to go but the woods.”
He
