Shallows (Preview)

Village

Emerson flipped through his tattered, leather-bound notebook. Where was that sketch of an alternative way to rig his pulley system? He frowned and rubbed his forehead. The quietness of the workshop enveloped him peacefully. Thinking was usually so smooth and easy in silence like this. His mother wasn't even clattering around the kitchen on the other side of the workshop wall. She had gone outside to hang the washing on the line.

Slowly turning in a circle, he searched the small room for his other notebook. There. On top of a keg of pitch. He opened it and quickly located the sketch. He compared what he'd been tinkering with to the two drawings and thought for a moment.

"The distance between the bracket in here and the bracket in the kitchen..." he glanced up at the hand-sized hole he'd cut in the wall between the two rooms. "I'm going to need more rope."

Snatching up a small pouch of coins and his cap, he ran out of the workshop and into the kitchen, banging the door shut behind him.

He met his mother coming inside with an empty clothes basket. Her slightly-greying hair was windswept from the sea breeze, curls dancing out of the knot she kept it in. The corners of her eyes crinkled, and she smiled at the sight of him.

"I'm finished with the washing now, son," she began. "Oh—! Where are you off to in such a hurry? Will you be back for dinner?"

"Yes, Mum," Emerson said, nodding. "I'll be back in time. I don't have enough rope for the message pulley. I've thought up a new way to rig it, and—well anyway, I'm getting some more rope from the market."

"We have rope in the lean-to if you'd like to use it," his mother said, gesturing vaguely outside.

"I need thinner rope. That stuff is good for use on a fishing boat, but not for my pulley."

"Oh, I see. Any requests for dinner?"

"Naw, anything you make will be great." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Although a boiled egg would be nice. And maybe some of that ham we had yesterday. And—well now I'm getting hungry. I'd better hurry." Emerson leaned down and kissed his mother's cheek before jogging away from the cottage.

He could feel her watching him, so he turned and waved. She smiled and waved back before shutting the door.

There was likely to be a boiled egg and some ham ready by the time he got home again. I have a good mother.

Emerson had mixed feelings about trips to the village market. Though small, it was too noisy and full of people to allow for very good thinking. But—oh—the things he could buy there! Things to eat, things to tinker with, gifts he knew would delight his mother. It was hard to keep from spending all his coin. But when one was not a fisherman in a fishing village, coin could be hard to come by.

Rope, he told himself. Rope, and nothing else. In and out; no fuss.

He made his way to a booth he knew would have an assortment of rope thicknesses and styles. When the portly merchant finished with another customer, he turned toward Emerson with an eyebrow raised.

"I'm looking for some rope," Emerson began. "I'd like something thinner than what they use on the docks—maybe as big around as my finger?"

The merchant shrugged, his bulk causing his neck to all but disappear. "Sure I have that. But if yer looking for rope to hang yourself, I don't see why you'd be picky about the size!" He guffawed loudly.

Emerson knit his eyebrows, confused. "Hang myself—?"

"Well, you're the crazy lad who was standing all toe-to-toe with the cliff this morning, ain't ya? Decided jumping wasn't your—"

Emerson felt his face burning. "I'll see if someone else has what I need," he said quietly and stiffly. People at neighboring booths were staring.

"Kid has always had a death wish," he heard someone murmur.

He forced himself not to bolt from the market; it would only draw more attention to him. And currently that was the last thing he wanted. If only the ground would swallow him up!

Once he safely made it away from the busyness, he paused in a side street and took a steadying breath. He turned his hands over, realizing they were shaking.

Stupid reaction.

Here he was in a side street shaking from embarrassment. And anger at having been embarrassed in front of what must have been the entire village of Chadwick. At being singled out of the crowd as the butt of a ghastly joke.

His feet beat a rhythm on the path back to the cottage.

Always different.

Bookworm.

Not a fisherman.

Nothing like Father.

Lazy tinkerer.

Not tough, not tanned.

Quiet not bold.

And crazy.

It's a good thing they don't know the truth. Better they think I have a death wish than to know I wake up at night thinking the sea will sing to me.

* * *

Next time: Emerson figures out who's behind the rumors...

* * *

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