Provocation

  PROVOCATION

  A RECOMPENSE PREQUEL

  by Michelle Isenhoff

  Provocation. Copyright © 2017 by Michelle Isenhoff. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover image by Steven Novak of www.novakillustration.com.

  Edited by Amy Nemecek.

  Candle Star Press

  www.michelleisenhoff.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  A single light burned in the window of a cabin set a hundred paces back from a rugged stretch of coastline. The night lay deep and dreaming. Tendrils of fog shredded themselves on the twisted branches of bayberries that grew thickly along one side of the yard while ocean surf pounded the rocks below. Hardwoods hemmed in the rear, but no other buildings crowded the muted clearing. The cabin sat alone.

  Inside the window, a woman wrapped a woolen shawl about her shoulders and eased herself onto a kitchen chair with a creak of her knees. Stoop-shouldered and gray, she’d seen fewer than sixty winters, yet anyone looking on might have mistaken her for seventy. She tugged a journal from her apron pocket, set it beside a chipped teacup that released a wispy fragrance of chamomile, and opened to the first page.

  Grasping a pen with arthritic fingers, the woman began to write:

  Dearest One,

  It is uncanny how events play off each other, smashing into one another like a row of tiles set on end, each propelling the next into motion. When the tumbling sequence ends in some unexpected happiness, how quick we are to credit God for leading us to that moment despite all odds. But when tragedy strikes, we spend years looking back, wondering if one tiny altered detail might have caused life to veer off on a different course. It’s possible to lose oneself in a never-ending game of “What if…?”

  I should know.

  For thirty-nine years, I have regretted the part I played in toppling that first tile. I’ve suffered guilt. I’ve attempted to make amends. But once they shatter, nothing can set those tiles back in place.

  Had I known that mild June night would be the last time I ever saw my sister, I would have done so many things differently…

  ONE

  I awoke this morning with a strong sense of expectancy.

  I don’t know what caused it, exactly. Maybe the hush outside my window in the wee hours before dawn, a total absence of noise. At Granddad’s, the sighing of waves upon the shore sounds like the breath of another person in the room. It’s a constant companion. When that familiar rhythm falls silent, it’s almost like a loved one has gone away.

  Maybe my anticipation comes from knowing that today was the last time I’ll ever wake Ruby for school. But that doesn’t fully account for it either. Because I watched my sister walk across the stage and receive her diploma an hour ago, and I’m still holding my breath. Still checking behind me like whatever I’m waiting for hasn’t caught up to me yet.

  Then again, maybe it’s just my nerves. One can never get away from talk of the disappearances anymore. I hear about them in the store, at church, during my shift at the cannery. The unexplainable vanishing of thousands of people has the whole country in a panic. Still, nobody’s gone missing in Tidbury. And the odds that anything sinister will visit our tiny coastal community are minute. I probably have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.

  The present moment holds enough real danger for me to worry about, however. After the ceremony, Ruby and her friend Georgina invited me to walk out to the lighthouse ruins with them. Now I am squinting up at the sky and choking on terror as I watch my sister scale the outside of the tower. “Don’t you fall to your death on your graduation night!” I shout up to her.

  Foolish girl.

  Ruby throws a leg over the top railing and grins down at me. “Come on up! It’s easy.”

  “You’re crazy, Ruby Parnell!” I call back. “I’m taking the stairs.”

  “You can’t, Opal. You have to scale the outside. It’s tradition.”

  “It doesn’t apply to me. I didn’t just graduate.”

  “You’re two years overdue. Come on!”

  “No, thank you.”

  Georgina pushes past me. “I’ll do it.”

  Georgina’s parents grew up with mine, so our families spent a lot of time together—Ruby and Georgina and me and Billy. But when those two girls pair up, common sense usually flies out the window. This is the reason I didn’t catch a ride with my next door neighbors and accompany my grandfather home after the ceremony. Tonight, half the graduating class will straggle out to the end of the promontory and make the crazy climb up the ruins. I tagged along mostly to see that Ruby and Georgina don’t any take unnecessary risks.

  A lot of good it’s doing.

  Georgina’s already halfway up, finding plenty of holds among the broken and missing bricks. My heart thumps each time she stretches for a fresh grip or shifts her weight to a new position, but within minutes, she’s climbing over the railing beside Ruby. Gulping down my relief, I duck inside the old building, jog up the circular stairway, and emerge through the hatch at the top of the tower.

  The electric bulb was removed from the lantern room and the glass knocked out long ago. The building is a remnant of North America’s glory days, before a movement to save the earth curbed the population so sharply that it left too few people to maintain our infrastructure. Before the war that scrambled our borders and caused a famine that depleted us further. A generation and a half later, we still haven’t fully recovered. But the view from the top of the lighthouse ruins hasn’t changed in a century.

  I emerge onto the walkway and lean my elbows against the still-sturdy railing beside my sister. Here at the tip of the northern promontory, the azure waters of Tidbury Bay merge with the Atlantic and stretch out endlessly to the darkening horizon. At the moment, it seems to me a picture of destiny. A representation of the vast unknown. I can’t help a shudder as another burst of apprehension pulses through my limbs.

  “So, what are the two of you going to do now that you’re both free of academia?” I ask my companions.

  Ruby sighs in exasperation. “You’ve brought this up a dozen times already, Opal, and I haven’t changed my mind.”

  I have asked her about it recently. I don’t mean to nag, but she’s not taking her future very seriously. “You’re far too bright to waste your life,” I argue. “With your grades, you could succeed at anything you choose.”

  “I’ve told you, I’m done with school. There’s a whole world I want to see. Things I want to do while I’m still young enough to enjoy them. I can attend university later.”

  I’ve always thought my sister was born with too much spirit for Tidbury. Vivacious is the word that comes to mind. She’s always laughing. Always pushing the limits. Always taking up the latest dare. She lives life faster than I do and with far more zest, but sometimes she forgets the more practical aspects. Money, for instance. And regular meals.

  My father used to say that Ruby and I are like two weights on a scale, that we balance each other out, but I think I’m the leash that ties her to the ground. I know Ruby loves me and Granddad, but she’ll never be happy living in our small town. The only thing holding her here now is Billy Wildon, Georgina’s older brother.

  I shut down the pang of jealously that rises with the thought. I’ve almost become accustomed to their pairing.

  Almost.

  “The university would only be for four years,” I try again. But I might as well be talking to the swallows darting around the building’s contours, catching bugs for their evening meal. She�
��ll never buckle down and do it.

  “If you’re so keen on college, why don’t you go?” she asks, pushing off the rail with a huff and abandoning me for the other side of the tower.

  I sigh. Like that’s ever going to happen. Not even if I were as intellectually gifted as she is. Since our parents died, I’ve been the glue holding our family together. I work the job that keeps us fed and clothed. I care for our aging grandfather. I’m the steady one. The reliable one. Someone like me can’t afford large dreams.

  “What about you?” I say, turning to Georgina. “What will you do?”

  “A year of cosmetology school, then Gilbert and I will marry.”

  “Has he asked you already?”

  “No.” She smirks. “But he will.”

  Everyone in town knows it’s only a matter of time. Gilbert Sweeny graduated with me. He’s the mayor’s son, handsome and arrogant, with enough ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps but not enough talent to carry him beyond Tidbury. Georgina’s loved him for ages.

  I walk around the back of the lighthouse and stop beside my sister. The view from this side overlooks town, nestled in the elbow of the cove. Tidbury isn’t much—a church, the school, a few ballfields, the wharf, and Main Street with its string of shops. Most of the townsmen fish for a living. Hardy, resilient men who battle it out with the elements every day. It’s not an easy existence, where wind and water and ice dictate the rhythm of our lives for so much of the year, but it’s quiet and familiar. I am content.

  I only wish Ruby could be.

  Lights are beginning to blink on, outlining the grid of neighborhoods. Behind town, a high ridge of land lies black against the sunset, and to the south, I can almost see Grandfather’s cabin around the far promontory. I set my elbows on the railing and direct a more neutral question at Ruby. “If you could go anywhere in the world and do anything you wanted, what would it be?”

  “You want me to pick just one thing?” Her skin is tinged pink in the twilight. “You’re thinking too small, Opal. I want to travel. I want to take Billy with me and do it all. Mountain climbing, safari, the Outback, the tundra. Everything.”

  She’s not being practical again. Billy owns a fishing trawler with his father here in town. He’s as tied to Tidbury as I am. As much a part of it as the sand, the trees, and the water.

  Georgina has come around to our side of the tower. “Oh look!” she interrupts. “Who is that?”

  I can see the dusky silhouettes of five individuals strolling up the promontory road. They’re young. I can tell by the way they stop and start and push each other around. More kids come to climb the lighthouse.

  Georgina squeals as she recognizes her classmates and calls out their names. I endure another agonizing few moments as I watch them each scale the wall, then they’re beside us—two boys and three girls. I recognize faces, but I don’t know any of them well. I’ve never been one to make friends easily.

  “We’re going for burgers at Carter’s,” of the girls says, naming a popular restaurant in the next town. “Afterward, we’re heading to the theater for the 9:30 showing of Sea Invaders. Why don’t you guys come with us?”

  Ruby turns to me, and I can tell by the pleading in her eyes that she really wants to.

  “You two go ahead,” I say, handing Ruby the car keys. “I wouldn’t mind a walk along the beach anyway.”

  “Opal, you can’t,” Ruby protests. “What about the disappearances?”

  They’re never far from anyone’s mind. While Tidbury hasn’t lost anyone, a few kids have gone missing from the surrounding communities. I push back another surge of foreboding. “I’ll be fine,” I say. “This is Tidbury. The end of the earth.”

  “Let me bring you home and I’ll catch up to the others,” Ruby counters.

  That would be the sensible thing. And it’s what I would insist on if our situations were reversed. But now that I’ve said it, I really do want to walk home. I love the seashore at night. “I’ll take Dad’s handgun,” I tell her.

  When I started driving, my father made sure I could change a tire and fire the pistol he always kept locked in the glove box. When he died, neither Ruby nor I ever removed it.

  Ruby still looks uncertain.

  “I’ll be perfectly safe,” I tell her. “Go on. It’s your graduation night.”

  When her friends begin to plead with her, she finally gives in.

  I walk with the group to the head of the promontory. Their laughter and silly antics remind me how far removed I have become from such a scene since I took the job at the fish cannery. To be honest, I am quite ready to leave the lot of them by the time we reach the parking lot.

  Ruby unlocks the car. I take out the gun and a flashlight and check to make sure both are in working order, then I shoo her away. “Have a good time,” I tell her. “I’ll see you when you get home.”

  She flashes me a grin before she and Georgina drive off after the others. I breathe a sigh of relief. I do enjoy my solitude.

  I mosey down to the wharf where oceangoing ships tie up. The highway system is still intact, but it’s in poor shape. The last time I drove to Odessa, the city an hour away, I nearly broke an axle. Since the war, the shopkeepers have found it more economical and reliable to ship by sea. As recently as last year, I still heard a good deal of grumbling against President Dempsey for not pouring enough funds and manpower into maintaining the roads, even though the problem is far, far older than his administration. It predates the war and the formation of the North American Republic. Lately, however, people have forgotten all about the highways. Now the president is taking flak for not being able to stop the disappearances.

  I tuck the pistol into my belt and move down the beach. I pass the marina where the fishing boats tie up in the afternoon. They’ll head out to sea again long before sunup. Beneath the marina lights, I notice the Wildons’ blue and white trawler. I pause, letting myself remember the one time Billy took me out on it.

  Mr. Wildon had given him the keys on his eighteenth birthday, a symbol of the partnership they would share as soon as Billy graduated. Billy invited me and two of our high school friends for a Saturday picnic on one of the offshore islands. It was exhilarating, that early taste of freedom. I remember how tanned and toned Billy looked from the afternoons of labor he put in at the docks. And how proud he was of that trawler, of the upcoming partnership. At the time, I thought I would fit somewhere into that future. But that was before…

  Abruptly, I turn and move on.

  As I drift away from the center of town, I remove my shoes and let the sand sift between my toes. It’s still warm from the heat of the day, though the waves that lap at my feet are winter-cold. August will roll around before the water heats enough for me to swim in, and even then I find it barely tolerable. But the chill doesn’t bother everyone. I see a pair of swimmers twenty yards out. And just ahead of me, three small children shiver beneath overlarge towels while their mother gathers the detritus of an afternoon at the seashore.

  I cross the bridge that spans the mouth of the cannery’s tidal reservoir. The water that flows in and out of the channel twice a day generates the electricity that runs the facility as well as much of the town. A powerful smell of fish lingers all about the premises, causing me to quicken my pace. I spend enough hours breathing in that odor. Shortly beyond the cannery, I run out of beach. Here the shoreline changes to jumbled rock. I don my shoes and flick on my flashlight. It’s a mile and a half home by the dirt road that runs along the edge of the cove, servicing the houses on the outskirts of town. The curve of the shoreline meanders a bit farther, but I’m in no hurry.

  When I reach the southern promontory, its rocks swept clean by ocean currents, I glance back at the cove before it slips out of sight behind me. The darkness has deepened. Except for the lights that mark the businesses still open on Main Street, the sleepy village is putting itself to bed. Most of the town wakes before sunrise. The lights in the windows of the neighborhoods wink out one by one. I
n another hour or two, Main Street will close down, and the town will look as vacant as the shoreline behind me.

  Almost as vacant.

  I catch the blur of movement out of the corner of my eye. A hundred yards away, a figure moves across the rocks I have just passed over. The disquiet that has plagued me all day immediately amps up into alarm. I turn off my light and slip in front of a boulder so my silhouette isn’t visible against sky. I watch, the gun now heavy in my hand. From this distance, I can’t tell if the figure is a man or a woman, but it moves slowly, absently. I force myself to relax. I am overreacting. It’s a beachcomber like myself, most likely, out for an evening stroll.

  I turn my light back on and resume my course, but I keep the pistol in hand. This time I’m certain it’s the disappearances that have put me on edge. They started five months ago, slowly at first, then more and more often. Most of the victims have been young women, though plenty of boys have vanished too—all high school age. I haven’t known any of them personally, but it’s unsettling. How can people just vanish into thin air?

  All kinds of wild speculations circulate in private conversations and on the info-net. They range from aliens and cyborgs to terrorist organizations and foreign powers. People are outraged at the utter lack of progress in understanding and halting the tragedies. Violent protests break out regularly in the cities where so many have been lost. I am convinced that someone somewhere knows something. But no information has been made public. And that has me just as concerned as the disappearances.

  I glance behind. The shadowy figure has closed the distance by half. I can see now it’s a man from the broad set of his shoulders, but he’s still too far away to recognize. And judging by how much ground he made up, he’s not strolling anymore. My stomach gives a frightened lurch and I pick up my own pace.

  The coast makes for a difficult passage in the darkness. The rocky surface lies uneven and treacherous, and the shadows shift with the movement of my light. After another few minutes, I turn around again. Even walking steadily, I have not outdistanced my pursuer. He has drawn nearer. Only forty yards now separate us.