Heartbeat of the Marru

By Calli Mulligan

Abby, Seth, and Frances are teenagers bound by a shared tragedy—a deadly act of environmental protest in their coastal community of Scallop Bay. All three are searching for resolution to their grief. Eighteen months after the bombing that claimed her parents, her grandmother, and her sight, Abby makes an astonishing discovery on the beach—a giant Wandering Albatross has come ashore. How did this Antarctic bird that depends upon strong wind for flight cross the windless equatorial doldrums into the north Pacific? Is his presence merely the freshest augury of a global environment in crisis? What is the mysterious rock, pulsing with the mysterious heartbeat, that accompanies the bird?

 

Over the course of the summer, Abby, Seth, and Frances are drawn into dreamtime visitations with Haumanu the philosophical albatross, Ushesh the extinct short-faced megafauna bear, Poox the Great Auk, Tangakka the extinct Australian python and gatekeeper in the dreamtime, and many more. The friends discover the existence of four magical rocks which are able to traverse the boundary between earthly life and the unconscious dreamtime, and learn of the unprecedented theft of one of the rocks. In their quest to recover the rock, Abby, Seth, and Frances learn the story behind the terrorist act that killed their family members.

 

Using a wide cast of colorful animal and human characters, original animal mythologies, and dream visions, Heartbeat of the Marru is a story of young people struggling to create hope and myth amidst Earth's accelerating ecological crisis, a story of the healing magic that can come to us when we welcome the unconscious mysteries of Nature into our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Golden Marru Books
• Release date: Nov 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215067413

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

FOREBODING

Standing atop the eastern hills and gazing out over the bay, Laurence studied the distant beam of the lighthouse slowly sweeping through the disintegrating remnants of the storm. The intensity of the light fluctuated as it traversed the cloud fragments, and seemed to mirror the strange, sporadic flickering in Laurence’s heart as he descended into the woods and felt the cold night air became an intoxicating fusion of ocean salt with the mists of laurel, eucalyptus, and evergreen created by the heavy rains. He had scouted this route for weeks, measured and memorized every step along the south bank of the creek that flowed down the hills into the bay, yet Laurence felt increasingly unsteady on his feet, disoriented by the sweet beckoning in his soul, the happy childhood memory of a long walk through a coastal forest.

Laurence hadn’t planned for this mysterious upwelling, and was too far and too long estranged from such feelings to welcome them. Bewildered, he leaned against an old oak tree and pleaded for the sardonic, ruthless voice of the inner taskmaster that now ruled his life. The cruel tyrant could easily dismiss these uncanny feelings, but the memory beckoned with equal urgency, as if it were offering Laurence the chance to avoid crossing a fatal divide. The memory knew something that he did not, but after many minutes of struggle the sardonic taskmaster finally banished the softening from Laurence’s heart and drove him forward. He had done this many times before … No alternative remained to save this piece of earth.

He continued downhill, soon reaching the point where the creek curled northward around a small grove of tall redwoods. His two partners, each half his forty years, arrived within minutes. They silently shook hands, then slipped into the construction site through a gap in the chain link fence. The security guard would not return for an hour, but the three needed only thirty minutes to bury the wires and explosives in the sodden earth around three of the six luxury home foundations in the hillside development. They slipped back through the fence and left in different directions.

Halfway back up the hill, Laurence paused and took the stolen rock—a lustrous midnight blue stone with countless tiny flecks of gold—out of his pocket. The rock was a fool, he thought, like anyone who had ever trusted him. A sinister smirk engulfed Laurence’s face for a moment, but then the rock began to glow with a golden, sparkling light. It had tried to deter him before with its luminous power, but never with this intensity. The memory suddenly returned, and Laurence froze with fear, sensing that the rock was offering him one final chance. Trembling, he took out his phone and pressed the number.

CHAPTER 2

DARKNESS

The Cook’s Brook was busy for a night in the last week of December. The afternoon had brought the first respite from the torrential rains and hurricane winds that had come ashore over Scallop Bay for a fortnight, and people were eager to venture out. Abby was sitting with her parents and grandmother at their favorite table in the restaurant, contemplating dessert, when everyone heard what sounded like a clap of thunder and felt a sharp rumbling wave traveling down from the hill above the restaurant. Another stronger shaking followed within seconds.

Abby was sampling a first forkful of the apple walnut cake she was sharing with her mother when she suddenly felt spooked by the uncanny, dissociated sensation of a train fast approaching, a feeling she had once experienced immediately before an earthquake. For a second Abby felt as if she were floating, but before she could voice her premonition a huge branch of a tree crashed through the window and struck her in the face, throwing her backwards out of her seat and across the room. Abby heard her mother and grandmother screaming and her father shouting her name before she fell unconscious upon the floor.

When she returned to a dizzy consciousness Abby’s eyes and head were throbbing. She could not see well, and when she involuntarily tried to blink the pain in her left eye was excruciating. Very slowly, from the little that she could make out of her surroundings through the darkness and her blurred vision, Abby felt sure that she was lying in the center of the dining room with her left arm and leg pinned under heavy debris and her right arm and leg dangling over a precipice created by a large gash in the floor. With her free arm she pulled away a branch partially covering her face and felt its short evergreen leaves and tiny cones; Abby knew she had been struck by a redwood tree. Looking down into the basement, she saw the body of a woman lying under a fallen beam at the bottom of a staircase.

At first Abby heard no sounds other than a shifting and oozing of muddy earth that made the floor upon which she was lying feel as if it were about to collapse into the basement. She didn’t know that half a hillside of trees, concrete fragments, and earth saturated from two weeks of rain had broken loose and swept down Oak Knoll Road, plowing through the restaurant and two other buildings before coming to a stop. Gradually, however, Abby heard the croaking of countless frogs outside the building, near the river that flowed down through the hills behind the restaurant. During four years of desiccating drought the frogs had fallen silent, but now they seemed to be a choir of multitudes. Were they celebrating the return of the rain, or were they as confused as Abby was feeling?

As the night progressed, the aching stiffness in Abby’s pinned leg and arm became ever increasing pain. But it was the psychic pain that felt the most unbearable—the tormenting thought that this ordeal of physical suffering would not be occurring if she hadn’t begged to eat at the Cook’s Brook. Hoping that the woman she saw lying in the basement was her mother or grandmother, Abby called repeatedly for them, then began to cry when she received no response, but the tears only magnified the horrible pain in her eyes. Then she began to see intensely vivid images floating up from the basement and filling the entire room, images of creatures speaking in the voices of the frantic rescue effort outside—giant frogs croaking the low, repetitive thud of a helicopter overhead, grasshoppers angrily buzzing the sounds of chainsaws, reptilian monsters wailing the sounds of sirens. The movement of the floor as the rescue proceeded was caused by the giant snakes hovering before Abby. The images became more real than any possibility that she would be released from the agonizing physical pain she was feeling.

Finally, the delirium of frightening phantasms coalesced into a unified vision, and Abby saw the woman lying at the bottom of the staircase begin to float upward. Like a rosebud unfurling under a warm sun, a beatific smile slowly illuminated the woman’s face as she hovered in front of Abby and waved at her. Slowly, Abby realized that the woman was her mother Mira. Was this her moment of rescue, or only an apparition? A door appeared on the opposite wall, and her mother floated toward it. As the door opened on its own, Abby was overwhelmed by an intense saffron light that felt both warm and terrifying; she could see her mother’s form only in silhouette as Mira turned at the threshold to face her daughter.

For a moment the light softened, allowing Abby to see her mother’s face clearly, which still bore the same expression of radiant contentment. Mira cupped her hands together and stretched them out toward Abby in a prayerful gesture, then suddenly everything went dark again, and a small sphere of brilliant ruby light appeared in Abby’s mother’s hands. The sphere offered the promise of eternal comfort and security, if only Abby could touch it, but she could not reach across the room.

The glowing sphere grew in size and intensity as it passed through every shade of red, purple, and blue before suddenly becoming a blinding white light that enveloped and consumed Abby’s mother. Abby could no longer discern the light’s center; it was everywhere, like a burning, devouring predator that was hunting for someone to dissolve within its fearsome energy. Abby closed her eyes and frantically flailed her free arm, trying to work herself free from the rubble, but then began to sense a shadow within the light.

Opening her eyes, she saw a sphere of shimmering olive green light that slowly unfolded into a huge, serpentine form that undulated toward Abby. The snake’s eyes seemed as benevolent as Mira’s smile, but its flicking forked tongue was terrifying. Abby wanted to trust the snake, but couldn’t. Momma, please come back! Abby continued calling for her mother until everything dissolved into a shadowless, absolute darkness. Within that dark new universe, the nightmare that would haunt Abby long after her rescue was constellated.

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Abby had come to spend the holidays with her maternal grandparents in their small house on the southern shore of Scallop Bay, so named by early European settlers when they discovered the rich source of scallops in the tidal flats. By the time Abby arrived with her parents the powerful storms had been unremitting for a week. Early in the afternoon of December 29th, however, the sky finally began to clear, allowing the family to take a long walk southwest to the lighthouse. The exercise felt wonderful, as did the sight of a spectacular rainbow over the hills on the way back.

Scallop Bay ran twelve miles north to south and five miles east to west. A small river flowed over the high coastal hills to the east and bisected the town of Merifield, helping to create the rich landscape of wetlands and salt marshes that extended for a mile to the south of town. When the moon was full it illuminated the top of the coastal ridge from behind before rising above it and peering down upon the bay, making the water sparkle with a golden light.

The bay’s southern coastline had wide, sandy beaches that curled northward into a high, narrow peninsular finger, at the tip of which resided the historic lighthouse; a hundred yards offshore was a rocky islet that was a nesting colony for many seabirds. The northern shore of the bay was rocky, with deep water that was less affected by the tides and a coastline that curled modestly southward into a thin fingertip of land.

All of the land within twenty miles of the bay had centuries earlier comprised a single enormous colonial land grant. When the land was finally divided up for auction, the vast majority of parcels were purchased by one man, Cyrus Silber, who had made a fortune running supplies to silver mines in the mountains far to the east. Cyrus and his wife Kate built a house atop the eastern hills and began a legacy of philanthropy that still echoed throughout the region. The firmly to the left political climate of the bay had not shifted for over a century, and traced its origins directly back to the Silbers. Cyrus and Kate leased and sold many plots of their land at reasonable prices to homesteaders, particularly some of the farmland to the north of the bay. The descendants of a few of these original families still resided on these small farms. The Silbers built the first schoolhouse just north of the river, which was now home to the Merifield historical society and museum, and founded a school of higher learning over the hills which became the community college in the city of Webster.

When an epidemic of cholera swept through the ramshackle hovels that housed most of the fishermen at the wharf, the Silbers built a new harbor with small houses for families whose lives were tied to the sea. They erected a beautiful monument bearing the names of those lost at sea, and began a garment and tailoring cooperative to employ the widows of the lost fishermen. The large monument, and some of the original harbor buildings, still remained at the north end of Merifield harbor, as did the marble statues of Cyrus and Kate—installed by the grateful, loving bay community after their deaths—which stood at the edge of the large, grassy park that bore their name.

The Silbers' two sons and their descendants continued the family tradition of philanthropy, donating land for public parks and working hard to clean up the toxic pollution left behind by the silver mines, yet despite their extreme generosity, the Silber fortune ramified and grew through the years. It was widely agreed, however, that in the person of great great grandson Lyle, who now controlled most of the financial legacy, something had gone genetically awry in the Silber family. Lyle rarely appeared or spoke in public, and was regarded as a silent, cunning perpetrator of community evil. His most scrutinized public utterances were two episodes of abusive shouting at his wife, who by all accounts was a kind and self-effacing woman. More than anyone, Lyle Silber began the process of gentrification in the north bay, buying up parcels and replacing existing homes with huge luxury houses. Lyle was locked in perpetual litigation with environmental groups, the city of Merifield, the county, and many cousins who worked hard to thwart his destructive efforts—he was as intensely reviled as his forbearers had been beloved.

Lyle Silber also owned the lumberyard located immediately south of the lighthouse. Every day huge logging trucks rumbled along Lighthouse Point Road, past Abby’s grandparents’ house, to and from the sawmill. The city had succeeded in limiting the number of trucks per day, but the noise disturbance they created was a constant reminder to Abby’s grandfather of the maleficent spirit of Lyle Silber. In the vast pantheon of Lyle’s financial holdings the sawmill was an historical artifact worth pennies. As his father had been planning to close it before his death, the consensus was that Lyle kept it going solely to spite the community.

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After returning to the house from the long walk to the lighthouse, Abby’s family began talking of dinner. A trip to the grocery store or a restaurant would be necessary, and Abby began lobbying hard to eat at the Cook’s Brook, the nearby restaurant owned by close friends of her grandparents, because she had a lifelong friendship with the son of the restaurant’s chef. Abby pleaded with all of the polite girlish charm that always made her father smile, and the decision was finally made to eat out. Josiah was feeling too comfortable to go out again, so his wife Lani promised to bring home dinner for him.

The Cook’s Brook was located two miles to the north in a lovely old Victorian style building that was perfectly situated within the network of hiking trails that wound around Scallop Bay to attract many hungry hikers who stopped for lunch during the summer tourist season. The restaurant had a west facing side porch and outdoor dining area with a bay view while the rear of the restaurant looked out upon a copse of adolescent oak trees that stretched for about twenty yards toward the bank of the river that flowed down through the hills. These oak trees had doubtless been planted thirty years earlier by hard working scrub jays who had harvested their acorns from the majestic old matriarchal oak a hundred yards downhill. Like others of its kind, this huge oak tree was prodigal in its offerings of acorns, producing many more than the jays could ever eat, so these birds were the primary agents for propagating the coastal oak woodlands.

The old oak matron had since died in one sense and been reborn in another—as an acorn storage tree for a large community of woodpeckers. No one knew exactly when the woodpeckers’ engineering reached its epic proportions—scientists from the community college estimated the total number of acorns at eleven thousand—but when it was finally appreciated the city made a small park around the granary tree. It was both the scale and the precision of the birds’ industry that was awe inspiring, with each acorn fitting snugly into a hole exactly drilled to accommodate it. The woodpeckers and their granary tree had achieved great notoriety through countless magazine and newspaper articles, and were a source of great community pride.

The bucolic community of birds, art galleries, and small businesses on the quiet, steeply ascending cul-de-sac of Oak Knoll Road was profoundly altered six months before Abby’s holiday visit by the start of construction of a luxury home development on the hillside immediately above the restaurant. In what would later be seen as a prophetic coincidence, Lyle Silber announced his plans for the Oak Knoll development on the same day that a hiker captured a photo of a mountain lion dragging a deer north across the river. It was the first sighting of a mountain lion in years, and the image created a deep, resonant human outrage, an opposition to Lyle Silber more vehement than any previously seen, but in the end no one was able to stop the development. When construction finally began, crowds of angry citizens—some dressed as mountain lions—came to the top of the road and set up tents. The protestors included Lyle’s teenage daughter, who camped out in a tree until her father had her forcibly removed. By December the protests had died down and concrete foundations for six of the luxury homes had been completed.

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Alone at home after his family left for the restaurant, Abby’s grandfather Josiah had settled in on the sofa to read, yet despite the relaxing long walk on the beach he felt anxious and unable to concentrate on his book. Josiah heard and felt the strange rumble to the northeast and thought there had been a small earthquake, but then he heard sirens coming from the center of town and stopping near the entrance to Lighthouse Point Road. He tried to tell himself that he was worrying unnecessarily, that the physical anxiety had not been a real premonition, but when he still heard sirens thirty minutes later, he went out to his car.

The closer Josiah got to the river and the bottom of Oak Knoll Road, the more chaotic his emotions became. He was prevented from turning onto the street by police—there had been a mudslide, they said. Josiah hurriedly parked the car at the side of the road and got out, scarcely noticing that he was standing in ankle deep mud. He tried to articulate that his family was in the restaurant, but his voice faltered. Eventually police led Josiah through the mud to a bench in the acorn granary tree park. Somehow, like a little island in a vast river, the old oak tree was still standing. Even in the dark, Josiah could see the devastation at the top of the hill. The cool, salty offshore wind that was rapidly dispersing the storm’s clouds was now heavy with the concentrated vapors of diesel exhaust from idling fire engines, making Josiah feel as if he were choking. His hands began trembling uncontrollably as someone put a warm blanket around his shoulders and took off his wet shoes, but he did not feel warm.

The long night of desolation and waiting became a series of fragmentary and jumbled memory images for Josiah. As he sat huddled on the bench, listening to the sounds of chainsaws, bulldozers, and men shouting instructions to one another, he heard the cackling cries of acorn woodpeckers, a sound he had never before heard in darkness. Then he began to hear frogs croaking near the river—not one or two frogs but many, more than he had ever heard in his life. This strange congregation of amphibians made Josiah feel calm amidst the frenetic commotion, as though he were in a dream and floating above the scene as a mere observer rather than as a suffering participant in it. The wet weather the past fortnight had been so favorable to the affairs of these creatures, Josiah thought, and now their creek bed was choked with mud. Were the frogs calling for their loved ones? Were they and the woodpeckers protesting this grotesque human invasion of their world?

At five o’clock the next morning, the bodies of Josiah’s wife, daughter, and son-in-law were pulled from the wreckage of the restaurant. At seven o’clock, Abby was finally rescued and put into an ambulance with her grandfather. It felt like another lifetime of anxious waiting before doctors came with news of Abby’s condition—the cuts on her face and hands would heal, but her eyes would not. Abby was blind.

Ten people died that night in the Cook’s Brook. Because of the loud rumblings felt minutes before the mudslide, because no seismic events had been recorded that night, an investigation was launched into the cause of the disaster, and it quickly reached a conclusion. Residues of explosives were found at the construction site and on many of the concrete fragments washed down the hill. The disaster had been criminal rather than natural, an act of property sabotage and environmental terrorism turned horribly tragic.

CHAPTER 3

LIGHT

Abby coped well at first with the losses she had suffered, patiently allowing Josiah’s younger sister Fae, who had come from Seattle with her husband Reed, to help with the daily tasks of life. Within a week the deep bruises in her leg had healed enough that she could walk on the beach with Fae and Reed, and Abby quickly regained her physical strength, but she shared her psychic and spiritual agony with no one. The nightmare images of her mother rising from the basement of the restaurant and dissolving into the terrifying, blinding white light visited her frequently. If only she hadn’t begged to eat out that night ... It was all her fault.

Abby’s inner suffering was only intensified by her grandfather, who sank into a nearly catatonic state after the mudslide. While Abby enjoyed chatting with Josiah’s close friend Doug Lewis—a wildlife biologist who worked for the park service—during his daily visits with his wife Shirley, Josiah himself usually didn’t appear. He stayed in bed until at least noon, ate and spoke very little, sometimes never got dressed, and never left the house. When Abby asked her grandfather to read to her, or to accompany her on a walk, he always mumbled that he was too tired, his voice sounding hollow and completely disconnected from the serene philosophical reticence it had always conveyed. Abby didn’t need her sight to tell her that the gentle boyish sparkle in her grandfather’s eyes was no longer there. Into the frightening emptiness of Josiah’s voice Abby projected the only thing that seemed logical—her belief that her own immature behavior was wholly responsible for this family tragedy. Surely her grandfather must believe this, too, she thought.

Does Grampa hate me, Aunt Fae? Does he think it was all my fault? Abby finally blurted one morning. Fae knew that Abby was blessed with both a strong connection to the inner life and a natural extroversion that enabled her to get along easily with people. She transitioned easily between the solitary joys of reading a book or wandering alone through the woods and the companionship of friends and family. Abby also possessed a remarkable patient imperturbability; she had never dwelled for long on her defeats, and gratefully celebrated the moments of serendipitous good fortune that came to her. But it was clear to Fae that Abby’s inner equanimity had been overwhelmed by the tragedy of the mudslide.

Fae also understood that her brother’s relationship with the inner world was far deeper and more complicated than Abby’s. She knew the tenacity and even ferocity of Josiah’s introversion, that it had taken him a lifetime to understand his sensitive physiology and temperament and to strike a healthy balance between the demands of the outer world and the needs of the inner. Fae knew that no visual detail, no subtlety of mood, voice, or facial expression ever escaped Josiah’s notice or failed to affect him deeply. It had taken Fae a very long time to understand her brother’s sometimes hostile irritation with the uncomprehending outer world when it encroached too deeply upon the inner connection. She knew that their parents’ uncomprehending view of Josiah’s unusual temperament had created great suffering for him early in life until he went to college and found solace in computer programming and in the companionship of Lani, who fell in love with the mystery of Josiah’s introversion. Yet even Lani, early in their marriage, had often experienced the feeling of being exiled and excluded from her husband’s deepest interior. Fae understood all this, and feared that this time Josiah would never emerge from the inner fortress that held him.

Abby, however, was too young to understand her grandfather’s affliction in any way other than her overwhelming feelings of responsibility. Three weeks after the mudslide the tormenting inner burden of self reproach, the frustration of her blindness, and the haunting nightmare became too much—Abby’s patience erupted into terrible anger. Hearing the wind and rain outside, Abby felt the strong desire to curl up on the sofa with a book she had received for Christmas. She did not want to have the book read to her by Fae or Reed, she did not want to listen to it on a recorded tape, she wanted the silent, imaginative experience of reading it herself.

The inability to fulfill this simple longing seized Abby like a black tornado. Her parents and grandmother were gone, her grandfather seemed figuratively dead, lost in an arid, emotionally detached landscape that Abby could not enter, and she would never have the experience of silently reading again. Abby remembered her father coming home from work and eagerly asking her what she had been reading; she remembered all the stories he had read to her when she was very young—the myths and fables of miscreant gods, heroic humans, and magical animals. Her father had smiled so lovingly at her during that last dinner at the restaurant ... Now he was dead, and it was all her fault.

Abby picked up a stack of magazines from the coffee table and flung them across the room toward the kitchen. When Fae and Reed tried to calm her, Abby threw punches. The anger began coming daily—it was slippery and shapeshifting, sometimes seizing Abby instantly and unexpectedly, other times insidiously creeping in upon her most relaxed moments. The rage planted the most negative and hateful thoughts in her mind—that Fae and Reed were really odious, duplicitous people who had never liked her and who were caring for her only as a kindness to Josiah. Surely if she could see their faces she would be able to read therein the true character of these people.

Having felt herself on the cusp of adulthood before the mudslide, Abby now felt like she was reverting to early childhood. When Fae and Reed cleared away all valuable objects from tables and counters, Abby resorted to throwing food. Sometimes she threw haphazardly against walls or the floor, but her most frequent target was Fae. When Fae made a cake for Abby’s thirteenth birthday, she refused to participate in any celebration; Fae absorbed the spiteful, heinous words with no anger of her own.

Abby soon came to hate the angry monster that had overtaken her existence. She hated how sick the attacks made her feel, and the anguish of shame that followed every episode—the horrible feeling that no amount of apology could ever repair the damage to her relationships with Fae and Reed. Abby saw the specious nature of the hostile, angry thoughts, and gradually noticed that it was really the same thoughts time after time. Worst of all, she sensed that Josiah was afraid of the dramatic change in her behavior; he began cloistering himself even more tightly in his bedroom, emerging only at night after Abby had gone to bed.

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One morning at breakfast, with uncommon sternness in his voice, Reed told Abby that a great surprise would presently be arriving and that her presence outside would be expected. At the appointed hour Abby was led by Fae through the door at the northwest corner of the kitchen as a large, unfamiliar vehicle pulled into the driveway. She couldn’t see the thick mist over the whole of the bay, but felt the still and peaceful air it imparted to the morning. The sounds of hoofed feet treading carefully across the gravel driveway were Abby’s first clue to the mystery. She heard a soft neighing, and then caught a brief waft of the unmistakably earthy, slightly ammoniacal, wonderful scent of horse.

Abby felt her open mouth involuntarily becoming a smile—she felt inwardly rapturous over this event—but after a few seconds, afraid that Fae would detect her happiness, she stifled the grin. With tremendous self-destructive effort she maintained her outwardly sullen state, refusing to cross the driveway into the barn to meet the new horse. That night at dinner she picked at her food and refused all offers of pistachio ice cream, but spoke no awful words. One night earlier Abby had thrown a piece of food and left the table for her room, but on this night she stayed put, shredding her paper napkin onto the floor and feeling like she was five years old. Abby heard Fae and Reed eating their ice cream in nervous silence, bracing for an assault of rage, but it never came.

Uncle Reed, can I ride him tomorrow? Abby finally blurted, the words expelled with such violent rapidity that they seemed to trip over each other as they fled, as if shot out of Abby’s mouth by a truly heroic diversion of inner energy.

We can go out whenever you like, Reed said. I’ve gotten special permission from the city to take the horse on the beach, just for you ... But he’s actually a she, Abby. Her name is Peggy.

Abby felt euphoric; she felt her face trying to smile, but her demons effectively thwarted the expression. It doesn’t matter, she retorted angrily, depositing the last shreds of her napkin on the floor and retreating to her room, knowing it was obvious to everyone that it mattered very much.

The next morning dawned with the same still and tranquil mist in the air. Half giddy and half pouting, Abby went out to the barn with Reed and finally met Peggy, feeding her an apple and quickly discerning that Peggy was a tall and muscular equine with a calm and unflappable disposition. She was exceedingly gentle, unfazed by sudden noises or motions. Abby soon learned that Peggy preferred walking to trotting, consumed her food with the cultivated slowness and relish of a gourmand, and generally carried out her life in a serene and deliberate fashion. Reed had chosen well, knowing that he would forever be teased about selecting the equine equivalent of his own six and a half foot, two-hundred pound, oversized physique.

They walked for only an hour on the beach that first day, but the transformation that Peggy effected within Abby was almost immediate—the horse hooked a healing energy and rapidly dragged it to the surface. Abby found herself laughing at Reed’s silly jokes and allowing Fae to fuss over her hair and clothes. She began helping to set the table, quickly becoming expert at placing the plates and silverware, and accepted another attempt at celebrating her thirteenth birthday.

As she rode and cared for Peggy every day, Abby began to feel the possibility of new happiness in her life. She discovered that massaging the top of Peggy’s shoulders was deeply soothing to the horse, causing her to lower her head and close her eyes as though in deep meditation. Abby would have given almost anything to be able to see this wondrous animal, to take in the gorgeous rich chestnut red of Peggy’s coat, her pure white muzzle, or to gaze into Peggy’s dark, deep, compassionate eyes. But although she would experience intense grief, and the shedding of some tears, the energy that had flowed so torrentially into destructive anger was now able to find more constructive expression.

For several days, Josiah evinced no reaction to Peggy’s arrival or to Abby’s startling transformation, but then one morning he stunned everyone by appearing at breakfast fully dressed and announcing that he wanted to take Abby and the horse out by himself. As Josiah had hardly stepped outside since the mudslide, Reed agreed with anxious reluctance. Abby and her grandfather were gone for hours that day, returning just as a heavy rain began falling and as a frantic Reed was heading out to look for them. These long outings continued for ten days. When he was not out with Abby, Josiah kept to his room and spoke no more than usual, but the knapsack that Fae filled with food every morning came back empty every afternoon, and Abby reported that her grandfather did briefly read to her from the book Fae included in the lunch-pack.

The cathartic shift finally came on what would have been the birthday of Abby’s grandmother Lani. Even the weather that morning seemed momentous, the sky being heavily overcast with thick, darkly glaucous clouds and the perfectly still air hovering just below freezing. Abby felt the small cloud of steam Peggy’s warm breath created. The tide in the bay was fully high, and the air was so calm that the surface of the water was utterly tranquil. Apart from the cries of the gulls and the intermittent pulsing of the sounding buoy, the only sound came from Peggy’s rhythmic breathing as Josiah and Abby headed south along the beach toward the lighthouse. They had gone about a mile when Josiah pulled Peggy to a stop and tugged on Abby’s arm.

Abby, it’s snowing, he said, with a little boy’s wonder in his voice. Can you feel it? Abby took off her gloves, held her hands in the air, and felt the flakes landing and melting on her palm.

The snow began falling heavily enough that Abby could feel it on her face, but it was not the only mysterious occurrence that morning. As they resumed their walk, Abby heard what sounded at first like the breathing of an approaching jogger. Gradually she realized the sound was coming from the bay. Grampa, I think there’s something in the water ... I can hear it.

Josiah walked around Peggy’s head and immediately saw what Abby had heard—about twenty yards from shore a small group of dolphins was swimming with a playful sea lion. He stood mesmerized as he watched the porpoises noiselessly rising above the surface of the water and releasing light puffs of breath before descending again, sending gentle cascading ripples shimmering across the glassy bay. Josiah thought that he had never seen anything quite so beautiful as the sight of the snow falling upon the backs of these creatures as they briefly revealed themselves.

The sea lion surfaced within the group and stared directly at Josiah—its deep, playful, pinniped eyes full of curiosity, wonder, and the imperative forward momentum of life, so exactly like what Abby’s eyes had been. Dolphins had once been occasional visitors to the protected waters of Scallop Bay, but like so many other creatures their habits had changed with the warming climate; they had not been seen in the bay for years. Snow had always been a rare event in the bay’s Mediterranean climate, yet here it was on this, Lani’s birthday. The uncanny conjunction of these events shifted the oppressive, dark grief that had settled in Josiah’s soul, allowing a particle of light to enter and illuminate the anguish that was threatening to destroy him. For a fleeting moment he felt that his wife and daughter were among the dolphins, watching over him, beseeching him to be happy in their absence.

Grampa, what is it? What’s there? Abby heard her grandfather blowing his nose, then sniffling, then sobbing. She swung her right leg over Peggy’s back, slid onto the sand, and made her way around Peggy’s head to where Josiah was standing. Abby felt her grandfather’s whole body trembling.

Abby, I’m so sorry ... Josiah sputtered, gripping Abby’s hand so tightly that she felt scared and began crying herself.

Why, Grampa? What’s wrong?

I haven’t helped you at all these past couple of months ... I’ve really wanted to die ... I feel so selfish now ... I’m so sorry.

It’s alright, Grampa ... You don’t need to be sorry. Abby stood holding her grandfather’s hand until his tears began to ebb.

Sweetie, there are dolphins in the water, and a sea lion. It feels like they’re speaking to us, like we’re listening to Mother Nature breathing. Josiah put his arm around Abby and they stood listening to the dolphins’ quiet puffs of exhalation.

You know, Josiah said after a long while. When Fae and I were your age and we’d come here to stay with our grandparents for the summer ... Well, our grandmother—she was very religious … Whenever we’d complain about something she’d always tell us that god never sends anyone more troubles than they can bear. I’ve thought about her a lot these past couple of months.

Do you think that’s true, Grampa—that god never sends you more than you can take? Abby asked.

For the first time since the mudslide, Abby heard her grandfather laugh. Well, if it is, I think the gods might’ve missed a square root or dropped a decimal point in calculating my fortitude … I think they made a big overestimation ... But no, sweetie, I think the universe is quite a bit more complicated than that.

Peggy suddenly snorted and shook her head, sending frozen droplets of her breath across Abby’s face, as if she, too, appreciated the humor. Josiah laughed again. Abby, I’m beginning to think this horse is a magical deity.

From that day forward, Josiah’s appetite improved dramatically and he began spending more time in the kitchen and living room. The overwhelming grief that had nearly annihilated him began to feel bearable. The aspects of Abby’s appearance that were uncanny reflections of her grandmother Lani—her dark eyes, the subtle widow’s peak in her black hair, the dimple in her chin, even Abby’s hand gestures when she spoke—had caused Josiah intense pain for weeks, but now the presence of Lani within Abby became a source of nourishing wonderment. Josiah carved Peggy’s name into an old piece of pine and mounted it on her stall door, and as he watched the astonishing rapport between Abby and the horse, he saw what a life-saving decision his brother-in-law had made in bringing Peggy into the family.

Unbeknownst to anyone else in the house, Fae’s initial experience of Peggy was emphatically non-therapeutic, for one reason that she had never anticipated—the intensity of the horse smell. If the fragrance of Peggy was a priceless perfume to Abby, it was at the outset an overwhelming scourge to Fae’s exhausted nervous system. Not the familiar smells of the bay, nor the aroma of any savory dish she cooked, nor her fragrant soaps in the bathroom could erase the smell of horse, which seemed to permeate everything. Seeing the remarkable effects of Peggy upon Josiah and Abby, Fae bore her suffering silently and stoically; nobody made much at first out of her laundering all horse contaminated clothing every evening. She continued the extra nightly laundry until her body finally succumbed to the hugeness and futility of the obsession. Fae developed pneumonia, and was bedridden for days.

A literature major in college, Fae had been a lover of books and words since she was a young girl. After marrying Reed and having two sons she found it hard to pursue her desire to write, but when her children started school she began penning short pieces about local issues and community life for her newspaper. Her articles were popular and Fae became a regular contributor for many years; when the job became a casualty of the electronic age she switched to writing a blog, and maintained her devoted audience. The mudslide created an abrupt and prolonged separation from the daily creative task of writing, and Fae was reminded anew how vital the work was to her physical and psychological well being.

Aunt Fae, is it because of me that you got sick? Abby asked when Fae was back on her feet after a week of convalescence. Is it because I’ve been so mean to you? Will you ever forgive me?

I’ve already forgiven you, Abby. Sometimes the intensity of the anger we feel toward someone is really a reflection of the intensity of the love we feel. My feelings were hurt, but I was very worried about you, worried that you were falling into an angry state that you might never get out of.

Fae, whenever I think about that night I start sweating and feeling so scared, like something awful is going to happen, but I don’t even know what. Sometimes in the nightmare I feel like the giant snake is trying to rescue me, but then it feels like the bright light is trying to punish me or kill me. If I hadn’t begged to go to the restaurant that night, they wouldn’t have died ... And I’d still be able to see.

Abby, listen to me. All these thoughts of blaming yourself, of absolute responsibility—they’re very seductive. They can seem like the truth, the only possible reality, but they’re not. The real truth that will endure is your own innate goodness and compassion. Your memories of that night will always be with you, but when you can feel compassion for yourself, Abby, you’ll always find great joy in your memories of your parents and your Gramma.

One night, after she had fully regained her strength, Fae peeled two carrots and ventured out to the barn, beginning what would become an almost nightly therapeutic communion with Peggy. She scarcely noticed the equine aroma that had so possessed her, and was thoroughly surprised when Reed and Josiah unveiled the project they had undertaken during Fae’s illness—they had built a wall in the barn workshop, converting the north end of the room into a handsome writing nook with a desk, a swiveling hardwood chair, and a carved Do Not Disturb sign for the door. The solar panels on the barn’s roof provided electricity and heat in the winter, and Peggy the muse was always just outside the door.

Late that night Josiah came into Abby’s room and placed a small porcelain jar in her hands. See if you can figure out what’s inside, he said.

Abby carefully removed the lid of the jar and felt the contents. It feels sort of like hair, she said, feeling puzzled.

It is. It’s your mother’s hair ... Lani saved this from the first time we cut Mira’s hair when she was a baby. It’s still so soft and fine, just like yours. Josiah spoke so softly and wistfully that Abby feared he was about to cry, but after a long pause he recovered and fastened a necklace around her neck. I had some acrylic pendants made for you. Each one’s a different shape. This one is a red heart, and then there’s a blue butterfly, a yellow flower, and a green triangle. Each one has a tiny bit of your mother’s hair inside.

Abby fell asleep happily and quickly, only to be startled awake by the sound of Josiah’s voice. Abby’s heart was pounding so furiously she thought that something terrible was happening. What’s wrong, Grampa. What time is it?

I’m sorry to scare you. Nothing’s wrong. It’s about three. There’s something exciting outside ... I want you to come and hear. Josiah wrapped Abby in a blanket and led her out the back door to the picnic table. The air was cold and damp