Synopsis: The night has come and gone, and Port Hawktried has as well. Sèbastienne, waking, rushes outside to look around, to see what this new reality, which now includes her and everyone in Port Hawktried, looks like. Read on!
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Chapter Four
Mr. Behrend’s Dire Predicament
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Chapter Four
Mr. Behrend’s Dire Predicament
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Sheriff Leslie, though wary of doing so, decided that the entire village needed to know what was going on—at least as far as she understood it. With Sèbastienne and Dr. Faust’s help, along with her deputy and Mr. Wallace, the librarian, she went from store to store and home to home, telling everyone that she wanted to meet with the entire village at 7 P.M.
With Dr. Faust’s
stern warning to “keep a steady eye out for anything suspicious,” and going
against her fear that Sèbastienne shouldn’t wander anywhere beyond her line of
sight without someone accompanying her, she sent Sèbastienne to Point Tolylogee
Lighthouse to inform Mister Behrend, the lighthouse-keeper, about the meeting.
Sèbastienne hurried along the road, which, about a mile from the village,
turned into a well-worn trail that rose gradually over the sea until it skirted
the edges of some scary cliffs that dropped several hundred feet to the ocean.
The lighthouse stood
a good sixty feet tall near the edge of the last cliff, one that narrowed to a
point well out into the water. There was the lightkeeper’s house and a yard and
the lighthouse next to it; there was room for a small, tilled field, a large
tool shed and a stable, which stood empty.
Sèbastienne used to
come here all the time before the Shifts. Since they started, she had been here
only twice. The reason was the lighthouse-keeper, Mister Behrend.
Before the Shifts,
he was a quiet, friendly man. He had a wife and twin daughters, both
Sèbastienne’s age, Kamilla and Sigrid, both whom Sèbastienne considered close
friends. His wife, Wanda, was an accomplished pianist and quiltmaker.
All three were
traveling up the coast to visit family when the first Shift happened.
Left alone, Mr.
Behrend had become forlorn and drunken, one rarely seen in the village since,
only appearing to buy food and supplies. It was hit-or-miss talking to him. One
day he would be pleasant—or at least pleasant enough; another he would rage at
whoever dared cross his path. He reeked of liquor, even after all this time,
leading gossiping villagers to speculate that he had kept a huge stash before
the first Shift, or had built a still and was keeping himself drunk that way.
They would furtively watch what he bought in the market to confirm the latter
rumor. The last person to spy on him was screamed at until Sheriff Leslie
arrived to settled him down.
She was a good
choice to see him, she considered. Mr. Behrend had always treated her with
kindness, and was unlikely to turn his random wrath on her.
She stopped a
couple of hundred yards from the lighthouse to take in the surroundings, which
had become quite dramatic from the last Shift.
The cliffs to the
north, well beyond the border, looked as though God had taken a huge ax and cleaved
the seaside mountains in half. They appeared to be at least a thousand feet in
height, most of them dropping sheer to the sea. She tried guessing the distance
to them by the distant, thin, hazy white of the sea as it bashed into them, but
couldn’t guess more accurately than “at least ten miles. Probably ... more?”
They were dark, as
though made of some sort of igneous rock, which lent to their forbidding
presence. A bay separated the lighthouse from the nearest, one lined with
forest almost all the way to the water. The forest ran on to the mountainsides
behind the cliffs, and up them to their tops.
The sight was
inspiring but quite scary, which all Shifts were, which was why folks in Port
Hawktried didn’t bother hurrying out to the borders and gawking, as they did
the first three or four Shifts. The sights were truly overwhelming, the new
reality that came with them always uncertain, the loss of loved ones who
weren’t brought along ever more painful.
She gazed out over
the sea towards the dark cliffs for a time, then began walking once again.
At the front door she hesitated, then knocked.
Mister Behrend
didn’t answer.
She knocked again.
Still no answer.
She walked around
the house, stopping at the thigh-high fence that outlined the back yard, which stopped
at the very edge of the cliff.
“Mister Behrend?”
she called.
No answer save the
distant call of seagulls somewhere down the cliff. A cool, brine-filled breeze
teased her hair.
“Mister Behrend?”
Still nothing.
It was entirely
possible that Mr. Behrend, drunk, wandered past the border last night and as a
result was no longer with them, but in the previous reality. Sèbastienne
decided to check the lighthouse, and so turned around and walked back, going
past the house’s front door to the rock trail leading to it. She glanced
around. The place seemed entirely deserted.
“Mister Behrend?”
She climbed the
steps to the lighthouse door a few moments later and pushed down on the latch.
Locked.
“Mister Behrend?”
Should she wait?
She sat on the stairs and felt the ache in her legs that told her she had had a
very busy day of walking. The pain radiated warmly into her lower back and
shoulders, so she bent forward and stretched. When she straightened, she
decided to try the house one more time, then give up.
At the house, she
knocked once more, this time as hard as she could. Almost at a yell she called
out, “Mister Behrend?”
Nothing.
She gazed with
concern up at the second-floor window. Sighing, she descended the stairs
towards the trail and the village. That’s when she heard the moan.
She stopped.
Was it a moan, or was it just the
late-day breeze catching her ear just so?
“Mister Behrend?”
Another moan. This
time she was sure of it.
“Mister Behrend?”
Where was the moan
coming from?
She turned
frantically in place.
Not the house,
certainly. Which meant not the lighthouse, either, which was too far away.
“Mister Behrend?”
The moan that
followed was much louder. It preceded a barely audible: “Down here,
Sèbastienne. Please help me.”
Ahead and to her
right. From over the lip—of the cliff!
She hurried to it,
slowing in ever-more scared stages the closer she got to the edge. “Mister Behrend?”
“Down here.”
She got to the
edge, her legs shaking, and peered over.
Mr. Behrend had fallen off the cliff!
Extraordinary luck
had saved him. The fall was no more than ten feet to a thin shelf that dropped
straight to the water several hundred feet below.
He gazed up at her.
He was flush against the stone and facing out. His forehead had been gashed and
his pants ripped. He had a white-knuckle grip on a short, frayed stub of root
sticking out just above his head.
There was no way to
reach him!
“Mister Behrend! What happened to you?”
He gazed away,
shaking his head, then gazed back over his shoulder. “I’ve been here since last
night. There is rope in the lighthouse. Will you fetch it, Sèbastienne?”
“The ... the
lighthouse is locked!” she exclaimed, her heart pounding madly not just for his
dire circumstances, but also for her own. She had never allowed herself to get
this close to the cliff-edge before. It was downright terrifying.
“There is an extra
key,” he said. “Go to the stable. On the left back corner of the hay shelf.
It’s there. The rope is in the store room on the right behind the stairs.”
“Got it!” shouted Sèbastienne. “I’ll be right
back!”
She backed up
carefully, then ran full speed for the stable, one she was quite familiar with.
She and Kamilla and Sigrid used to play hide and go seek all the time. It was a
favorite hiding spot. She hopped the fence and hurried to the hay shelf. It was
at chin level, and so difficult to reach all the way to the back corner. But on
the third try she felt metal—the key. Her left hand had taken several splinters
in the attempt, but she didn’t give them any thought. With the fourth try she
grabbed the key and hurried towards the lighthouse.
She pushed the key
into the lock and twisted. The door unlocked with ease. She grabbed the handle
and pushed the door open, hurrying to the store room—another favorite hiding
spot.
The rope was on a
large hook, just as she remembered it. She grabbed it—it was quite
heavy—feeding her arm through the loops and resting them on her shoulder, while
hurrying as fast as she could back to Mr. Behrend. Adrenaline surged through
her.
He had been there
since last night?
In other words, he
had probably misgauged the cliffs (while drunk, perhaps?) on a night when a
Shift occurred!
How he managed to
survive was nothing short of a miracle!
As the edge drew
close, she slowed down. She dropped the rope well before she got there, fearing
that its cumbersomeness might topple her over the edge, and threw an end over. “Got
it?”
“Got it!” he called
back. “Tie the other around the tree at corner of the yard. Okay? Tie it really
tight, Sèbastienne, do you understand?”
She backed away
from the ledge and turned to locate the tree. There it was. It wasn’t a big
tree, maybe twenty feet tall at the most; its trunk looked ... strong enough?
She wasn’t sure.
She grabbed the
other end of the rope after a frantic search and ran for the tree, the rest of
the rope unlooping quickly as she did. Once there, she dropped to her knees and
wrapped it in long loops around the trunk, tying it into one large granny knot.
Scared that if she didn’t do a good enough job, Mr. Behrend was sure to fall to
his death, she gripped it tightly and yanked on it as hard as she could several
times. The tree barely budged.
Running back
towards the cliff, she called out well before she got there, “It’s ready, Mr.
Behrend!”
There was just one
loop left. She watched it straighten away as Mr. Behrend got a firm grip on the
rope. She hurried as fast as her fear allowed to the edge and peered over once
more.
“I’m probably going
to need your help,” he said, gazing up at her. “Grab the rope if you can and
pull when I tell you to. Okay?”
“Yeah! Got it!” she
said, backing up and reaching for the rope.
“Ready?” he called
from over the edge.
“Ready!” she called
back, even though she wasn’t.
The rope abruptly
yanked her down. She slipped and fell to her knees, losing her grip. Earth at
the edge collapsed and fell over in a hiss.
“Are you all right
up there?”
“Yeah!” she lied, frantically
trying to grab it. She couldn’t get her fingers underneath it! “I’m just ...”
Just then a hand
appeared from over the edge. “The rope is fraying against the rock!” he yelled
with terrifying urgency. “Come here, Sèbastienne! Hurry! Lie on your tummy,
hook your feet over the rocks behind you if you can, and give me your hand!”
She was so freaked
out that she couldn’t get closer to the cliff than an arm’s length away. The
sun in the meantime had gone behind the dark cliffs, throwing everything into
shadow that made the moment even scarier. The ocean far below roared softly in
amused indifference.
His hand suddenly appeared
again as more earth gave way; she grabbed it at the same time she hooked her
feet under the rocks almost too far away to do so. He grabbed her wrist; she
grabbed his. She only half-suppressed the scream that escaped her lips.
“How much do you
weigh?” he demanded.
She didn’t know.
Last year she weighed a hundred pounds, so that’s what she told him, stuttering
it out.
He chuckled. “It’ll
take a lot to pull a hundred pounds off, but just in case, think heavy
thoughts, all right? And I’m sorry for this.”
His wrist grabbed
much harder, making her yelp. He yanked, and she came forward several inches,
her toes just hanging on to the rocks as more earth gave way.
Before she could
scream—there was Mr. Behrend’s head! He grabbed even harder, working his way up
her forearm while using the rope in his other hand to pull as well. Earth
hissed angrily as it tumbled over him; and she could see that the rope indeed
was fraying, fraying quickly, fraying well even above his reach, and would
surely snap if he didn’t get up very soon.
With a great heave,
he yanked half his torso over, the rope swinging dangerously as it sloughed
away big chunks of dirt. He let her go, and she got to her knees and offered
her wrists to him again, which he took. But most of his effort now was on reaching
above the fray in the rope. She backed up, and now all but his legs were up.
With one more sustained heave, all of him was up. He quickly rolled over
several times to get away from the edge, his face and arms covered in dirty sweat.
Sèbastienne was utterly exhausted and heaving for air, her dress torn in parts,
her wrists already bruising.
The rope was down
to its final strands in several places.
He released her and
came to his knees, then stood. “You saved my life, Sèbastienne,” he said,
offering her his hand. “Thank you. That rope is old,” he went on, gazing at it.
“I should have replaced it years ago.” He must have thought that funny, because
he chuckled. But there was no mirth in it at all.
She reached up for him when she had recovered
enough to. He gently pulled, supporting her elbow, and she stood. “I honestly
didn’t think I’d make it. That was the longest damn night of my life.”
“I can’t believe that
you ...” she fought for breath “... that you didn’t fall all the way!”
“I caught myself
just as I went over. There were roots at the edge. They tore out just slowly
enough for me to crawl, basically, down the cliff to the ledge. I grabbed rock
as my foot settled on it. I couldn’t see anything, there was fog everywhere,
thick as pea soup. I couldn’t tell if there was enough ledge for my other foot.
I got so fatigued that eventually I just let go. If I was going to fall, then
so be it. Luckily there was enough ledge for both of my feet. I hugged that
rock like my life depended on it, and shivered in the cold. Had you not come
by, I would have died!”
He reached for her
wrist, which was scraped and discolored and ached badly. “Let’s go inside so I
can treat that wrist. It looks like I sprained it.”
He released her and,
stumbling and wheezing, began walking towards the house. She followed, leaving
the frayed rope where it lay.
She tried not to sigh with dismay when she stepped into the
living room. Once a bright and cheery place, it was now dark and totally
disheveled, like a furious imp had invaded and torn everything apart and stolen
the light.
A picture lay
limply over the arm of a chair; in the corner was its shattered frame. The sofa
had a long rip, dirty, mildewing laundry piled high in a corner. The wall
opposite had several holes in it, as though something had tried to punch
through to the other side. The chair below the holes was dusted with white
plaster and discolored by what looked like blood.
He hurried into the
kitchen, where he retrieved a tall glass and filled it with tap water and
gulping it down. Sèbastienne followed him.
The kitchen was in
arguably worse shape than the living room. She took a glance into the sink and
quickly glanced away, her face twisting with disgust, which she hid just as
quickly.
Mister Behrend
glugged two more glassfuls, then glanced uneasily at her. “You must be
thirsty.” He gazed at the glass, then at the sink, then back at her, his face
apologetic if not embarrassed. “Let me clean this. It’s the only reasonably
clean glass in the house.”
She didn’t protest,
despite how desperately filthy everything was. She too was very thirsty.
“Thank you,” she
said.
He turned to the
sink and began washing it. “How does your wrist feel?”
She was so thirsty,
in fact, that the pain of it had almost taken away the pain in her wrist. “It
hurts.”
He visibly hurried
up with the cleaning, filled the glass, and turned to her. “Let me see it.”
She took the glass
with her good hand and brought it to her mouth and drank deeply. The water was
cold and delicious. Mister Behrend, in the meantime, had taken her wrist and
was looking carefully at it.
“Sprained,” he
announced. “But not broken or dislocated. I’ll get it wrapped up.” He saw that
she had drank all the water. “More’s waiting,” he smiled uneasily. “I’ll be
right back.”
With that he left
the kitchen. She was amazed that, after an entire night and day clinging to a
cliff side, that he wasn’t in shock or acting more ... disturbed. Like it
happened all the time.
She went to the tap
and turned it on and filled the glass, which she repeated two more times before
she felt sated.
He returned. “I
left my first-aid bandages in the lighthouse. I’ll be right back.”
Sèbastienne,
waiting, felt a bit of Dr. Faust warm through her just then; and so, without
any more dawdling, got to work cleaning the pots and pans, dishes and
silverware piled up in the sink. She found herself even mumbling disdainfully
like Dr. Faust would, and laughed at herself.
It was foul,
disgusting work. Much of the food that clung to the plates had long since
molded over and smelled so bad that she had a hard time not getting nauseous.
She scrubbed vigorously, setting the cleaned dishes on a reasonably unsoiled
dish towel spread over the countertop that she found hanging off the handle of
the oven. When she finished, she dried them and stacked them neatly, not
knowing where they belonged, and so she left them on the towel.
Mr. Behrend hadn’t
returned.
“Mister Behrend?”
she called out.
He hadn’t returned
from the lighthouse. Surely he had found the first-aid bandages by now!
Something like half an hour had passed—at least!
After a time she
left the kitchen, deciding to go to the lighthouse after dawdling for a time in
the wreckage that was the living room.
“Mister Behrend?”
she called out once she got into the lighthouse. She stood at the bottom of the
spiral stairs that led up to the lens room. “Mister Behrend? Are you all
right?”
Nothing.
She began climbing
the stairs. At the top was the enormous lens, enclosed in strong steel wire. It
hadn’t been lighted since the First Shift.
Mister Behrend sat
on the floor next to a large unopened wooden crate, his head in his hands. He
shook as though he was sobbing.
“Mister Behrend?”
she asked gently, slowly approaching. “Are ... are you okay?”
He sniffled. Not
looking up at her, he cried, “They keep coming! They keep coming! Even when I pray
for them not to; they keep coming! Even when I try to clean up, they keep
coming! Why? Why?”
“I ... I’m sorry
... I don’t understand.” She knelt next to him. “What keeps coming?”
Without moving his
head or opening his eyes, his hand flew out, startling her, and grabbed the lid
of the crate and jerked it open.
Sèbastienne glanced
inside.
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