I looked through the salt-sprayed window of the atrium at the furious water and wondered if I dared to look for my brother, I could retrieve the memories that were slowly fading.
Olivia didn’t let go of my hand as we left the atrium and headed down the boardwalk. “I’m sure your quilt is every bit as powerful as Toby’s box,” she said.
“It’s just a quilt.”
“It’s better than magic. It’s real.”
“I always thought of my quilting as some sort of map or time line,” I said, my voice trying to outdo the wind and crashing surf. “Toby ruined that.”
“No. I’m sure you’re wrong. We’re going to find some new memory of your brother that will bring the old ones back.”
Since the day Max swam off, I’d always turned away from the water. But now, I knew I needed to face it. And maybe if I understood what remarkable force called him off, I would know how to find him before he swam further from my mind. I’m not sure how Olivia understood this. When I asked, she simply told me that she’d learned it from my description of my quilt.
To the far left of the horizon, a vertical funnel of storm clouds rose. It arched over the sea and the land until it disappeared into the city at our backs. As the black clouds started to move toward us, the wind kicked up the sand in stripes. Waves of sand crashed from the beach onto the boardwalk. I looked at the furious water. The ocean was devouring the beach—the waves curling across the shore in the same direction as the thrashing pennants flying from the hotel’s domes. I couldn’t imagine Max forsaking land for such a forbidding climate.
Across from us on the boardwalk a long, two-story covered pier ran straight over the sand, and then out over the sea, before forking into two cupolas. We started down it, but as we prepared to cross the border of sand and sea, I stopped. In the distance, a pair of kite surfers were being swept into the air by the wind. Once airborne, they twisted and flipped, before crashing back into the ocean. The sea nipped and growled at their feet. It tore and gnashed against the rocks and poles on the pier’s underbelly.
“You see,” Olivia said, leading me into the pier, “you’ll be safe from the water.”
I looked out to the point where the water melted into the sky. Like Bermuda, where the turquoise water was sewn to the turquoise sky, the North Sea was joined to the somber Dutch heavens. We arrived at the end of the pier and stepped out onto a ledge. At that moment, the thunder cracked, shaking the pier. I watched the kite surfers running for cover.
“Okay,” Olivia said, “let’s see what charmed your brother.”
I tried to listen to the call of the water above the screaming wind. I watched the waves merge and crash, duplicating and reduplicating into dozens of patterns. The color of the water changed from dark to light as the waves approached the pier. I wondered what it felt like to be wrapped in the arms of the stormy sea. I was sure that Max knew how to submit to the water’s power.
I gripped the handrail and forced myself to look deeper into the water, searching for his slippery shadow. I took a deep breath and let the wind tangle my hair. Soon I grew accustomed to the arrhythmic chomp and swirl of the waves. And for the first time, I could see the possibilities of the ocean. Like my quilt, it was a breathing creature, evolving before my eyes.
Within the tumultuous waves, I now saw patterns of foam and undertow. I was able to tease out a variety of shades from what I thought was a uniform gray. I knew that each of these shades would sing to Max the way my fabrics sang to me. I imagined him weaving his way between them, summoned by their songs to explore deeper parts of the ocean.
I closed my eyes as the memories of Max came back, rushing like the return of the ghost rabbits. I leaned forward, letting the spray brush over my face and the salt sting my eyes. Then I felt Olivia take me by the waist and lead me back into the covered pier.
“You see,” she said.
I nodded. We sat on a bench, and I took out my quilt. The Max figures had all established themselves in their places, all except for the one that told the story of my tumbling through the ice. This figure and the details of that day were gone for good.
“Let’s go,” Olivia said.
“No, I’m not ready. I want to get closer to the water.”
We left the shelter of the pier and walked back to the beach. We crossed the sand and came as close to the water as we could without being struck by the pounding surf. I pulled Olivia to the ground and wrapped the quilt around our shoulders, protecting us from the flying sand and sea and wind. Olivia uncorked a bottle of wine, and while we drank, I listened for the first time to the songs Max loved.
“So what are you going to do?”
“About Toby?”
She nodded.
“The magicians were wrong when they told him he conjured me to his side.” I watched the foamy tip of a wave crawl toward our toes. “I’m sure we were meant to meet that day, but it wasn’t solely his doing. Toby needs to understand that not everything he touches is magic.” I dropped my head. “I miss him, but even when we are together, I feel lonely. I’d rather be alone.”
Olivia inched closer to me.
“Toby and Max think they are incapable of loving me, or anyone, as much they love something else. I watched for years as my brother slipped away until the day he
