DEPARTURE

PROLOGUE: MIM FITZ

Let’s take a look, I said, pointing to a for sale sign. Tate rolled his eyes in mock dismay, but obligingly slowed to pull into the driveway next to a blue and white Exit Realty sign.

We bumped along a track so narrow that spruce and alder branches grazed the car and poked into the open windows. A hundred yards further on, an enormous pile of dead spruce stopped us.

We left the car and had to pick our way around lethally sharp branches, bleached white as bones. When we made out the vestiges of an old driveway, we followed, brushing through thigh high patches of bobbing white daisies and brilliant orange fireweed.

The old cottage popped up suddenly on the horizon. We stopped, mesmerized, gazing at a weathered gray fisherman’s cottage, floating in a meadow of wildflowers that undulated in the ocean winds. Its setting—on a bluff under a shimmering blue sky, facing the dazzle of the open ocean—was magnificent.

Before that fateful moment, we were simply tourists circling the island on the Cabot Trail, planning to spend only a couple of weeks on Cape Breton. The notion of buying a place there never entered our dreams. After we saw the cottage, we couldn’t get it out of our minds. A week later, we astonished ourselves by buying it.

At the time we had no idea what was right next door—the place the locals call the Murder House. We didn’t find out about that until later.

Even after we found out about the Murder House, our cottage drew us back to Cape Breton every July. For the twelve years after that precipitous purchase, Tate and I would load up the car with clothing, hiking and kayaking gear, food, and before we lost them, our two dogs, Lita a gentle Portuguese water dog and Mike a stubborn little schnauzer we inherited from a friend who went into a nursing home. When the car was packed solid, we buckled ourselves in and began the long journey to the cottage, driving up the East Coast of North America, heading about as far north and east as you can drive on this continent without taking a ferry.

In the early years—after many hours on the road—I sometimes pondered the seeming rashness and randomness of our purchase. Yes, the setting was spectacular, but Cape Breton was a long, long way from home.

I came to understand that it was this very remoteness that made it so special. A long drive from one of North America’s great population centers was a pittance to pay for admission to this spectacular island.

Twelve blissful summers at our cottage flew by as we hiked, kayaked, cycled, feasted on lobsters, and tapped our toes to Cape Breton’s fabled fiddle music.

Three years ago, those charmed summers ended. For a long time after Tate died I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to see the cottage again.

1

MIM

For the past week, each morning as I surfaced from sleep, dark, unsettling dreams slithered just out of my grasp, leaving in their wake vague and troubling thoughts about the cottage. Always about the cottage. Throughout the day, fragments of the same disturbing dreams flash on and off. It feels like the cottage is sending me distress signals.

In the past, whenever I experienced this kind of churning disquiet, it invariably turned out to be my subconscious nagging me to face something important I was avoiding. In this case, I have no idea what that something is but it bothers me too much to ignore it. I have to go to the cottage and see.

I had planned to return there in the company of two old friends Tucker and Kevin. Our plan was to leave ten days from now, but I can’t wait until then.

To be honest, right now I am too antsy to embark on a leisurely trip that will include stops at various points of interest along the way. With Tucker... and Kevin. I was surprised that he wanted to join us. His and my friendship has grown awkward.

I decided to leave before they could talk me out of it. I jammed clothes into a duffel, threw it into the back of the Subaru, and roared onto the Washington Beltway at 5:55 in the morning of the first Saturday in July.

It’s a long, long way from Washington, DC where I live to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and it seems longer if you are in a hurry. I drove and drove, watching North America whizz by at sixty-five miles an hour. State lines zoomed past—-Delaware, New Jersey, then six lanes of mad, thundering traffic around New York City. Then Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. In Portland, Maine I collapsed into the first motel I found.

Late Sunday, I crossed the border between Calais, Maine and St. Stephens, New Brunswick into Canada. I pushed on for an hour or so on New Brunswick’s wide-open highways before stopping Sunday night at my favorite motel on the Bay of Fundy.

This time I didn’t feel anywhere near calm enough to relax on the balcony and take in the view. I went to bed early, but lay awake for a long time torn between impatience to get to the cottage and the need to sleep. On Monday morning I awoke later than planned, got a late start, and worried all day about arriving at the cottage after nightfall.

Monday was a blur. I remember that the last audio book, Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets in, ended after a quick burger and fries at the McDonalds in Antigonish, a town a good three hours from my destination.

Even though my pit stops were quick, it was almost five o’clock when I reached the causeway that carries traffic over the Straits of Canso from Nova Scotia onto Cape Breton Island. There were still another two hours to go before I would arrive at the cottage, but I prayed daylight would last until at least eight o’clock.

***

Numb, when I finally, finally reach the Cabot Trail, our road, the landscape and houses that fly by begin to look familiar. Ten miles to go, then three, then one.

Suddenly it’s there: The entrance to our driveway. After so many foreign miles the scene is both alien and intimate. There is the mailbox Tate put up. There is our civic address in reflective numerals. The recycling bin we bought at Canadian Tire in Sydney. These everyday objects summon fiercely poignant memories. I make the turn off the Cabot Trail, swallow a lump in my throat.

The light is fading. Dense vegetation crowds the driveway. The Subaru climbs the gravel road and alders reach out and brush against its sides. Spruce seedlings that have sprouted in the center of the rutted gravel tap a staccato rhythm on the car’s underbody as it labors up and down one hill and then another on a driveway longer than I remember. Too much longer.

Have I taken the wrong spur? After a moment of mounting disquiet, our little cottage pops into view like an afterthought. Small and frail against the endless gray ocean. Instead of relief, my sense of dread spikes.

I park on the grass in front. After all of those miles I can’t make myself get out. Not just yet. I look at the cottage uneasily. It looks the same…and different.

To delay what is inevitable, I move the driver’s seat back to stretch my legs, open the window, breathe in spruce and sea-scented air. I watch the weathered old front porch glow rose in the last rays of the setting sun. As long shadows steal across the grass I remember that here on the east coast of the island, when the sun sinks behind the mountains, night falls quickly.

This isn’t anything like other arrivals. When Tate and I made the trip and we switched drivers every few hours, it took only two days to make the long drive to Cape Breton and we never seemed quite as tired as I feel right now.

After those long hours in the car, we would get out and climb the front steps stiff-legged from sitting. We would go inside to explore rooms that were both remembered and unfamiliar until the strangeness of the place wore off and the floor plan snapped back into place. Then we would begin the business of unloading and unpacking. Turn on the fridge, empty the cooler. Decide to wait until morning to finish unpacking the bags.

We’d step over and around the red plastic cooler and the duffels on the floor and head out to the veranda to take deliberate breaths of cool sea air. Tate would pour us what he called a snort of Grand Marnier. We’d sit in weathered Adirondack chairs and hold hands. We’d watch the moon cast its river of silver light on the ocean and know that we had arrived at last. And then, in utter contentment, we’d crawl into bed.

I sit in the car in a kind of waking dream watching the cottage fade from pale rose to pewter. Something—a sound or a movement, I’m not even sure which—startles me to full consciousness. I am hyper alert with an eerie feeling of being watched. My scalp prickles.

Nerves I tell myself. Exhaustion. Overactive imagination. On this stretch of the Cabot Trail, there are probably fewer than twenty people living in houses that are kilometers apart. The house nearest mine is empty and no one has lived there for thirty-odd years. Everyone calls it the Murder House. It was the site of the most gruesome murder Cape Breton ever witnessed. Not a comforting thought.

Another sound. A footfall. Have to go inside. I try to think that I’m overreacting and that the noise is birds or squirrels. But it sounds like something else. Like someone. A person. I grab my purse, double check that the iPhone is inside, hoist my overnight bag out of the back seat. I leave the duffel behind. I will unload in the morning.

Then I do something I never did before. I click the car locked and, inside, deadbolt the front door.

Once safely inside, I relax a little. I tell myself I feel spooked because I am bushed from the long drive and alone in a place where Tate and I were always together. Things will look different in the morning.

I have only enough mental energy to turn on all of the downstairs lights and take a cursory walk around the main floor. Objects register in memory the way it does when you see a very old photo of yourself. I’m exhausted, I don’t really know what I’m looking for, and I find nothing out of the ordinary.

I undress, sit propped up in bed with my book—Barkskins—and a cup of chamomile tea. Can’t concentrate. I turn off the bedside lamp and lie awake for a long time listening to the old house creak and sigh. Sudden gusts rattle the windows and make the stair treads squeak like someone is climbing them. The night is full of sounds.

2

MARY

The Loonie is a large coin made of gold-coloured nickel. There used to be a one dollar bill, but it was phased out in the 1980s. The coin is called a Loonie because it has a picture of a loon, the national bird of Canada, on it…The Toonie or Twoonie is a distinctive-looking coin made of two different colours of metal. It replaced the old two dollar bill in the mid-nineties. It has a polar bear on it

http://www.thecanadaguide.com

In the gray light of early morning, Mary opened her eyes in a woodshed where she had stopped to rest. She hadn’t meant to, but she fell asleep and slept there all night.

The sun was rising as Mary walked down Kelly’s Mountain on the Trans-Canada highway. She was heading toward Englishtown the place where she has been told there is a ferry that will take her across Saint Ann’s Bay to her destination on the Cabot Trail.

Special Mary was with her, telling her what to do. This was an important mission. There was someone she had to find.

She turned off the Trans-Canada at the sign for the ferry and walked down a long hill through the village of Englishtown. She passed houses and a post office and a cemetery and was almost out of the town before she spotted a boat ahead. It had to be the ferry.

When she arrived at the landing, she wasn’t sure what to do. No one paid her any attention as she walked on board. The wind whipped her dark brown curls as she stood by the railing. She pulled up the hood of her black jacket and watched a blue Toyota wagon bump onto the ferry deck, park, and cut its engine.

The man in the Toyota was the only other passenger on the ferry as it lumbered across the bay. Mary watched the ferryman collect a ticket from the man in the Toyota. She didn’t have a ticket. She approached the ferryman and held out a toonie. He peered down at the two-dollar coin in her outstretched hand and looked at her curiously. He shook his head.

Pedestrians ride free, he said, looking surprised that this is something she doesn’t know.

Mary resumed her place by the railing until the ferry docked on the other side. She waited for the Toyota to disembark, then followed it off the ferry. Two cars were waiting to board. The drivers of both cars—one young and one older woman—turned their heads to gape as she walked past them.

Under her breath, Mary chanted I must continue. I must rise up. I must destroy what keeps me apart from life. I must overcome. This was the last leg of a long journey.

3

MIM

Atlantic Lobster…An icon of Atlantic Canada and New England, this bottom-dwelling species is prolific from Newfoundland south to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina…The size, colour and flavour of Atlantic lobster vary depending on the season, local habitat, water temperature, nutrients, feed and other ecological factors. Just as terroir gives wine its particular character, the natural marine environment—or meroir—of a region imparts unique qualities to local lobster.

Thisfish.info

The first rays of sunshine stream across the water, enter the kitchen window, slide down the hall, and creep across the bed covers. I sit up in bed and instantly recognize this white and pine bedroom, my grandmother’s dresser, the window that is all blue sky and water. The apprehension of last night evaporates in sunlight. For one split second I expect to see Tate asleep beside me.

The morning dazzles. Lobster boats drone on the water. I go to the window and watch boats circle their traps. The distant hum of their motors is reassuring, but I know their presence is transient. Fishing is strictly regulated in Atlantic Canada. Each section of the coast has been assigned a specific season for lobster fishing. Every year on the day lobster season ends—mid-July for this area of coastline—the boats and traps all disappear overnight. Their sudden absence makes the ocean blank and lonely.

At this thought the sense of foreboding comes roaring back. Before I do another thing, I’ve got to find what is causing it. Not only has it not gone away—if anything—the unease is escalating. It’s as if the very walls of the cottage vibrate with a secret.

I begin a long, careful perusal of the rooms, examining everything. I open drawers, peer under furniture. Even as I do this, I somehow know I will not find my answer here.

Nothing is out of order on the first floor. It looks the same as it has always looked—other than needing a good cleaning. After the house has been closed for months, there are always hordes of dead flies speckling the windowsills and mouse droppings in the kitchen drawers. The windows facing the water get so coated with salt trying to see through them is like looking through waxed paper.

Barefoot, I climb the wooden staircase to the second floor. I place each foot square in the middle of the tread to attempt a noiseless ascent. The treads creak anyway. They always do. This cottage is more than a hundred years old. After we bought it from Sadie Farquhar who moved to Baddeck to live with her daughter, all Tate and I did to the upstairs was to replace broken windowpanes, empty out the eaves, and paint the walls a pretty sky blue.

The two bedrooms upstairs are dimly lit by small windows on the north side and smaller ones on the east and west sides of the house. I go to the east side bedroom, feel for the switch, flip it, and the room appears just the way I left it last September—except for the coating of dust on the desk. The bedspread is white and smooth. The pillows might have sagged a bit. Nothing seems out of order.

On my way to the second bedroom, I take a quick glance at the bathroom. Looks fine.

In the second bedroom my eyes dart to the bed. It is unmade—the way a guest might leave it after you tell him or her not to strip the bed, that you’ll do it later. The pillow is flattened and the covers are drawn up loosely to signify someone has slept here, the bed needs changing.

Kevin slept in the other bedroom, didn’t he? He chose that room because it had a desk where he could set up his computer. Might he have slept in both beds? Unlikely.

The notion of that unmade bed chills me. I think back to last September and the spark of an ugly thought flickers, swiftly dims, and vanishes into a disquiet that nags at me like an unpaid bill.

I go downstairs. Check the clock. Pace. Check the clock again. It seems too early to call my friend and neighbor Ona MacInnis.

The troubling vision of that unmade bed won’t go away. I have to do something. Anything.

I go out to the car, unlock it, and retrieve the duffel. I drag it into the bedroom, put socks and underwear into the bureau, and hang up the mismatched jumble of pants and shirts I hurriedly packed. With dismay I realize that I included two pairs of thick socks, but forgot to add my hiking boots. And my rain jacket. And any other shoes but the sandals I am wearing.

The minute my phone displays eight-thirty, I dial Ona’s number. After one ring, she answers.

Mim, are you here? she peals. Fourteen-month-old Davey catches her enthusiasm. I hear squeals in the background.

Yes. Got here last night.

"Come over right now, she commands. I’ll put the coffee on.

After my dismal arrival last night and this unsettling morning, the notion of Ona’s company and shared coffee is so warm and welcoming it makes me