Howl

c h a p t e r o n e

PRESENT

Nina Lane awoke to the sound of howling.

Slipping underneath the dark line of the horizon, the blue moon had disappeared. Where the sun should have been, a wall of storm clouds stewed instead. A fishing boat—blue, cracked, peeling, fondly named Ms. Darcy—rocked with the choppy waves, jarring its occupant out of a dream she wouldn't remember. As it had ripped through the jagged rocks surrounding the cove and buffeted the boat, the wind howled something lonely, and fierce. Still holding onto those few moments of grogginess, Nina wondered if there were dogs close by.

Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes, and realized that there wouldn't be dogs roaming the beach this early. Especially not with a storm brewing over the horizon. Her head throbbed. What time was it?

Nina quickly took inspection of her surroundings. Besides the constant lurching, the boat hadn't changed from when she'd sprawled out across the busted leather seats what seemed like only a few hours ago. Her feet still squelched against the rotted carpeting, stained by fish extremities and the spray of stale Pabst. The paint along the cabin walls still curled with age, the life raft still gleamed a dull yellow. She looked up at the foreboding sky. That certainly hadn't been there before. Struggling to her feet, Nina wobbled to the cabin trying to adjust to her sea legs and to locate the little dash clock her dad kept on top of his maps of the coastline. 5:25, its face read in blue numbers. In the morning?

She must have fallen asleep on the deck, then.

Nina grabbed the jacket sitting on the peg outside the cabin and climbed out of the boat. Her dad owned the four-yard-length of dock nestled in between the tooth-like rock to their right and the short beach to their left. At the end of the landing stood a rickety boathouse, painted the same worn blue as Ms. Darcy. It wasn't strange that she'd fallen asleep to the lull of the ocean and the warmth of the twilight sun. It was strange, however, that her dad hadn't bothered to wake her up at all. He wasn't a man of many convictions, but he believed very strongly in the value of dinnertime. Nina's stomach growled at the thought. Their boathouse, a skeleton of old, creaking wood, seemed to shake with each brutal gust of wind battering the cove. The screen door leading into the house gaped open, its thin frame rapping incessantly against the siding. As she approached the top of the stairs, biting back the lick of hesitation she felt at reaching the last step, a stroke of lightning illuminated her path like a spotlight. She could make out the living room as clear as if it were mid-day: a collection of Oklahoma landscapes, well-used fishing rods, and life jackets adorned the walls. A precariously stacked tower of books stood in the far corner. A book must have toppled over at some point and now laid open on the floor. A journal. Nina stepped through the threshold. There was the sunken plaid couch sitting front and center in the middle of the room, but her father was gone from his usual spot.

Another jab of lightning, this time followed by the drum roll of thunder.

The fallen journal appeared as if it had been tossed there, left parted by pages upon pages of loose-leaf notes, sketches of venation patterns, sticky notes, and blue-inked scribbles. She recognized the handwriting almost immediately: it was her mother's. Nina felt sick. Blaming it on hunger and the rocking of the boat, she moved deeper into the creaking house.

"Dad?" Her voice felt hollow in the empty room. "Where are you?"

His answer was the wind whipping around the stilts of the house, making the old wood groan in discomfort.

Then, a crash sounded from one of the back bedrooms. Nina, automatically fearing the worst, darted forward. Her father's bedroom was the last at the end of the hall, a glossy wood door, marked by decades of shallow scratches. She swung into the room. And there he was, slumped over his desk, cursing at the tiny glass slides that had spilled out across the floor. Nina didn't breathe. The smell of lemon smoke made her eyes burn.