Esther Hollow's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

The book was still open in Jen's hands when they reached the shore. Two names glowed near the bottom of the page. Esther did not know either one. Guessing which one belonged to the bones at the lighthouse could send them wrong. The dark water waited. Jen held the plant close and read the names aloud, and her voice cracked on the second one. "That one," said a rough voice behind them. Esther turned. A man stood at the edge of the grass, work gloves on his hands, a red flannel shirt open over a stained shirt. He carried a rusted gas can and set it down slow. Esther had drifted this shore for eleven years and never seen him. He looked at the plant in Jen's hands, then at the empty air beside her, and squinted. "You can't see me," Esther said. "No," the man said. "But I feel the cold when the dead stand close. I'm Jack. I ran the pumps here the night the water came." He nodded at the book. "Read me those names again." Jen read them. Jack's jaw tightened at the first. He shook his head. "That first one wasn't at the lighthouse," Jack said. "That was a man from the far end of town. Drowned in his own cellar. The second name—" He stopped. His gloved hand went to his mouth. "The second was a woman who kept a dog kennel by the water. She went out in the flood to reach her animals. Two dogs. Two cats. Nobody found her. They found her boat past the rocks, near the light." Esther went still. The dogs in the crate. The cats that followed for eleven years. Not Esther's animals. Hers. "That's her," Esther said. "The second name. That's who the bones belong to." Jen's finger pressed the page under the second name. She looked at Jack. "You're sure." "I pulled her boat in myself," Jack said. "I never forgot it." He picked up the gas can. "I still come to check the old pumps. Habit." He looked toward the water. "Whatever you're doing out there—do it right." He walked back into the dark. The cold left the air where he had stood. Esther faced the water. The doubt was gone. One name, one grave, one soul on those rocks. The dogs Esther had freed were not Esther's to free at all. They belonged to the woman in the second name, the woman waiting at the lighthouse with her drowned animals and her glowing bones. "We cross to her," Esther said. Jen lifted the plant. Its green light spread across the black surface. Esther stepped onto the water beside her, and for the first time it held them both. They moved toward the lighthouse, toward the one name that had a face now, and the bones that had waited eleven years to be known.