Night Objects

1: Before

Chapter: "1: Before"

Lenny Winter insists she did not kill that boy, though she wished him dead dozens of times, hundreds even. She looks back to the summer before she turned fifteen, the summer she learned brightwork, and the first time she tried and failed to view the Virgo A galaxy.

That April, her mother and stepfather Yip sit her down. When school lets out in June, they will leave Miami. Her mother's pay as a community college sociology adjunct does not stretch far; Yip, medically discharged from the army after a traumatic brain injury, receives a small disability check. They have decided to pack everything into a U-Haul and drive across the country to live on a small houseboat. Yip grew up sailing on Boston Harbor and has never forgotten the feeling of falling asleep rocked by waves. Her mother tries to sell the idea with astronomy: the high school up there has a joint program with the community college, and there is a boarding school nearby, Blanchard, with its own observatory and a famous alumna who served on the Kepler exoplanets mission. Lenny has few friends in Miami anyway. She has wanted to be an astronomer for as long as she can remember. When her mother promises new friends, mountains, rock climbing, and stars she has never seen, Lenny considers what Carl Sagan would do. She tells her parents she would love to move to the Pacific Northwest.

The journey takes them through the Florida-Georgia swampland, New Mexico's khaki scrub and turquoise sky, a freak late spring blizzard in Montana, and finally into the thick, fresh, gray salt air of the northwest. They arrive in Port Angeles, reachable only by Highway 101. Downtown is two streets parallel to the water, many businesses closed, but there are people around. Then a cross street reveals a mountain range, comically lovely with vicious peaks and purple-white snow, and Lenny's throat tightens as if she had not been breathing. Yip names it: Hurricane Ridge, the Olympic Mountains. They continue to Marine Drive, past a gas station, another coffee hut, and two hangars painted with boats. The marina's parking lot is quiet, with a closed diner and a dozen cars. Sailboats sit on slings of wood and cinder blocks around the lot, looming over them like land-wrecked storks.

The visibility is outstanding. On the night they arrive, Lenny sits on the top deck and swims through a thick soup of starlight and indigo. Dusk does not fall until nearly eleven. She had known there were billions of stars, but she had not believed it until Port Angeles. She is expected to help refurbish their new home, a forty-foot Pearson houseboat built in 1975, bought cheap at an estate sale after rotting for two years in Seattle. She has a small berth below the galley with a narrow bunk, cubbyholes, and two portholes. The boat originally came with the name Piece of Ship, alongside neighbors like Elvira's Sandal and Snaggletooth. They try renaming her Pilot's Boy, then Swan Maiden, and finally settle on Goodnight Moon.

Two weeks after arrival, a man named John Spaulding comes to measure for galley counters. It is the first truly warm day of summer, the sky a powdery azurite that Lenny's grandmother would have called the blue that kills the heart. John Spaulding has gnarled, crusted hands, a baseball cap with a small pigtail, and a dog named Watchee panting in the heat. He offers Lenny five dollars a rail to learn brightwork, sanding and varnishing all the wooden rails and odds and ends on the boat. She accepts, adds "sir," and he tells her to just call him John Spaulding. Yip comes down the pier and calls her Pushkin, his nickname for her, a joke about her mixed Russian and African heritage that distinguishes her from the real Pushkin, whose father stuck around. John Spaulding returns in his skiff with a girl in black jeans, a black hoodie, thick eyeliner, and Coke-bottle glasses: his niece Sara, forced to come meet Lenny. Sara mutters "fuck off" at her uncle, plants herself on the pier with her back to everyone, and makes clear she would rather not help Lenny get settled in at school. Lenny decides she survived Miami with few friends and can do the same here, but she acknowledges that none of them knew then how the summer would take an irrevocable turn.

The brightwork is hard. Goodnight Moon's railings are beautiful but covered in gummy varnish, paint, and black scars. John Spaulding gives Lenny a heat gun and a flat sharp spatula to strip the old finish, then attacks the railing himself while Kansas wails on a transistor radio. Lenny works up the courage on the second afternoon to ask why he lived in Neah Bay. He says he was young, drunk, and a jackass who wanted to live somewhere more rural. Sara has said almost nothing at dinner the previous evening, only asking for salad and answering school questions with dry one-liners before telling Lenny's mother her biryani is the best fried rice she's ever had and leaving without goodbye. Sara shares a ketch with John Spaulding, and Lenny can see its rusting mizzen mast from the galley window.

Later, over lunch, Lenny's mother tells her Sara was nervous, not rude. Lenny is skeptical. Her mother worries about Lenny fitting in as she prepares to start her new job. Lenny mentions a movie at six and suggests Sara might want to join, and her mother smiles her soft, rabbit smile, teasing that Lenny might be using Sara as an excuse to get out of dinner, since the family rule is that they always eat together.

July goes by. Lenny scrapes, sands, and varnishes, learning the smell of the wood. She and Sara develop a loosely conceived companionship: watching TV on the top deck a couple nights a week in awkward silence, stealing beers from John Spaulding's fridge, and getting a little tipsy in the women's restrooms at the top of the dock. Life would likely have continued that way, settling into Port Angeles and starting school, had Lenny not decided in August to attempt to view the Virgo A galaxy. Looking back from more than a decade later, she lies in bed cataloging the bad decisions of that year and tries to convince herself that things might have turned out the same even if she had been sent to Blanchard earlier, even if she had never met Henry and Sloan and Vikram. But probably not.

On August 18, two months after arriving, Lenny asks her mother at breakfast if she wants to go stargazing that evening to see Virgo A, a galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center. Yip pulls the telescope from storage. Lenny sees it as their new life, and she only has to reach out and take it.

They paddle out in Yip's red kayak, Lenny's mother steering. They had planned to leave before sunset, but she lay down after dinner with a headache. The evening feels powdery and half-real. They head to a cove called End of the World Beach, named for its position on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where Reddit says the lights of Victoria, Canada, are impossible to see. Perfect viewing conditions. Lenny feels happy to be fifteen. Her mother mentions she first tried to view Virgo A when she was only a few years older, and begins explaining the Messier objects: Charles Messier, the comet hunter, made a list of 110 objects that turned out to be nebulae, clusters, and galaxies. When she was an undergrad, her fellow students treated a Messier marathon like a date, observing objects and making out behind bushes until dawn. She suggests they stage one in the spring, working their way from west to east through the night to see all 110 objects. Her tone is highly technical with a hint of supplicant, the same tone she uses to explain sociology. She says Virgo A was one of the first objects Messier identified, so tonight will give Lenny practice.

They reach the cove after an hour and pull the kayak to shore. Lenny spreads out a blanket while her mother unpacks the telescope, a thermos of coffee, and peanut butter sandwiches. Lenny points out the Pleiades, already out. Her mother squints and says she is getting old, rubbing her eyes and then her temples. Time moves strangely. Lenny's vision adjusts to the dark, and she begins to see ripples in the sky like the ones Van Gogh painted. She falls into her usual hush, a tunnel vision blocking everything else out. An hour or two passes. She asks her mother if she wants a turn at the telescope. Her mother half-opens her eyes, says "What?" then blinks, and struggles to her feet, tripping over Lenny's. She says they should go, they should go back home. Lenny starts to ask, "What—"

Lenny's mother says they should go back home. She doesn't feel well, but Virgo A is about to become visible, and Lenny begs for just another half hour. Her mother doesn't answer. She screws the top back on the thermos and places it in the backpack with exaggerated care, as if she'd forgotten how bags work and is reading from a manual. Lenny,

4: After

Back in the diner, Yip cries, but the tears are controlled ones. The narrator does not begrudge him this; they have not been able to cry since their mother's death. What bothers them is that Yip is performing for the guests, for them. Their mother often reminded them: He's introverted, kitty cat. He has a hard time being himself around other people. It's not you.

Throughout the shiva, the narrator catches Yip watching them with a strange expression. When Yip notices the narrator looking, he grimaces reassuringly and gives a thumbs-up. The narrator still has not brought up the CPS thing, but they want to read those gestures as confirmation of Yip's commitment: You and me, kid. Guilt about their mother's death lingers, along with the omnipresent fear that Sara is right, that the narrator will be sent away. Still, it is a nice thought: the narrator and Yip, against the world. Even a decade later, the narrator finds it difficult to remember that wounded feeling, and how wrong they were.

Seven months later

Seven months after their mother dies and the narrator is sent to Blanchard, they find themselves back in the ocean before dawn, next to another corpse. It is shameful to say that they considered dying, but this is a story about the truth. Terrified, gagging on frigid saltwater, kicking against the bottomless darkness, they think: why bother? Easier, no doubt, to put their head under the water and stay put. They are delirious. It feels like Clue, or one of those PSAT word problems: Lenny, Sara, Vikram, Nico, Sloan, and Henry board a boat before the sun sets. How many are alive when the sun rises?

The narrator swims to shore. Even after the events of the previous forty-eight hours, they do not want to die. Their feet hit the sand and they wade through the shallows. They have lost a shoe, perhaps it flew off when they were thrown into the water. They sit down on the beach, waterlogged, hair in their face, spasming with cold, lungs attempting to turn themselves inside out. A siren screams in the distance. Their left arm aches. When they try to move it, the hurt sharpens to an eye-watering peak.

Fifteen feet out, the ocean churns lacy white surf. The corpse bobs merrily atop the water, mangled body parts appearing and disappearing: a hand, a thigh, a groin. A crushed-melon head, leaking gray matter like cantaloupe seeds into the ocean.

5: Before

Chapter: "5: Before"

In Port Angeles, school begins in early September. Lenny waits for Yip to mention registration or the first day of classes, but this is the silly reasoning of a child. Yip has been thinking about it very carefully. She is about to be sent away, to a place that feels like the end of the earth. For the week between her mother's shiva and the beginning of the school year, she exists in lovely ignorance.

She obsessively applies coat after coat of varnish to every square inch of wood on Goodnight Moon, the boat where they live. She and Sara watch Survivor and Game of Thrones. They sit on the top deck and lazily construct plans for Sara's escape from Port Angeles: she'll hitchhike to Olympia, get a job as a dishwasher or a Subway sign spinner, afford a place with six housemates. They eat dinner together more often than not. Yip stays out late, leaving to fill propane tanks or pick up supplies for John Spaulding, sometimes not coming home until long after dinner. Lenny won't admit it, even to herself, but she is relieved.

Sara is prickly, like a fresh-cut board of pine. Approach her from the wrong direction and you end up with a splinter jammed in the fleshy ball of your thumb. Strangely, this, along with the chain-smoking, the procyonic eyeliner, the self-administered cartilage piercings, makes her seem fragile, as though she is trying to project a callousness she doesn't truthfully possess. It makes Lenny feel close to her. It makes her realize how far she is drifting from Yip. Lenny has been on edge since Sara mentioned CPS. Her conversations with Yip are rote. He seems preoccupied, perhaps with finances. Her mother's burial expenses aren't cheap. Yip's disability isn't enough to support a family. Maybe he needs to cut expenses. Maybe he's gearing up to get rid of her.

She has her answer by the end of August. Yip comes home early, while she is eating dinner. "Hello, Lenny." He blinks, as if unsure what else to say. Lenny could cry. He hasn't called her Pushkin since before her mother's death. Each time he speaks her name, it feels like losing her all over again. She juts her chin toward the pot of hamburger soup. He serves himself a bowl, and it all feels deceptively comfortable. The clenching in her chest, her constant companion for two weeks, dissipates.

"School starts next week." "Well, yes," she says. "I know." Yip puts down his spoon. "How would you feel about going away to school?"

Even as Lenny goes still, Yip grows animated, more so than she's seen in weeks. He pulls a brochure from his pocket and sets it in front of her. The Blanchard School, it reads, under a picture of a castle-like building peering from behind massive evergreens. And he just happened to be carrying it. She opens the brochure. A blond girl has her arm thrown around a boy with Ken doll hair; they have the flat-gummed, plastic smiles of expensive orthodontics. The school is among the top fifteen in the country. Everything about the brochure, from the quality of the pictures to the weight of the paper, telegraphs wealth.

Yip explains it's a boarding school a few hours away on Salish Island. "I thought it'd be good for you to get away from Port Angeles. Start fresh." He wants her out there by the beginning of next week, for the first day of classes. He never forgot about school. It's been his plan to send her away this whole time. He tells her her mother always wanted to go to boarding school, that she hoped one day they'd be able to afford to send her.

Lenny bites the inside of her cheek, trying not to cry, then picks up her spoon and concentrates on cutting each bite of congealed ground beef into the smallest piece possible. "Lenny?" Before her mother died, he only called her Lenny when things were serious. When she was in trouble. She answers sullenly. Yip puts up his hands. "Listen. You're already registered. Your scholarship went through. The deposit's been paid. It's nonrefundable." The silence is too big. Yip's spoon scrapes against his bowl with excruciating volume. He tries to explain: "Look, kid. Your mother..." His voice breaks. "The boarding school thing, I know she'd want that for you. She would want you to graduate from a top school, even if she isn't here to see it." He hesitates, passes a hand over his face. The next words are so quiet she wonders if they're meant for him: "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Lenny thinks of how her mother was also Yip's wife, and how their souls had been drawn together and then thrust apart by some force greater than his understanding. She can't grasp the magnitude of his loss any more than he can grasp hers. Still, she wants to ask why she can't stay on the boat with Yip. But of course she knows why. Yip might insist it's in honor of her mother. Lenny knows better. Boarding school is a punishment. She still hasn't told him that she pushed her mother at the End of the World, or yelled at her, but it was her idea to go out there. They both know that. The guilt makes up her mind. "Okay," she says. The ripples in Yip's brow smooth.

That night she cannot sleep. She spends hours on Blanchard's website, studying campus maps, the course catalog, the endless candid student photos. The school's approach to education tends toward the antique: English courses on John Donne, a Latin requirement for freshmen, and the architecture and extracurriculars match, with fencing, archery, cricket, and, bizarrely, co-ed polo. She closes the browser page feeling less prepared than before. It's all very casual, being sent away to school in less than a week, with little fanfare from Yip. Her mother's death has catapulted her into a murky world that moves river fast.

Departure

The morning she leaves for Blanchard, Lenny wakes at six a.m. The moorings chime, protesting the unusually chilly September wind. She lies in her humid cabin, the light growing slowly stronger. After about thirty minutes, rose gold dawn creeps through her porthole, and Yip's footsteps fall softly on the galley floor above as he moves back and forth: lighting the gas stove, piling kindling into the tiny iron and brass fireplace, grinding coffee, frying ham, clicking on the radio, a Canadian public radio host's caramel voice fading into Québécoise jazz. Lenny is hungry. But if she gets out of bed, the day will begin. Maybe if she stays wrapped in her blankets, she won't have to leave. Yip has said she can come visit over the winter holidays. Visit, like once she steps off the boat, it will no longer be her home.

The galley floor creaks. "Up and at 'em, Pushkin." At the sound of her nickname, her muscles release a fraction of their tension. She dresses and goes upstairs to the galley table. Yip sets a plate in front of her. He hasn't cooked in weeks, not since before her mother died. Perhaps he regrets strong-arming her. Though she's had several days to prepare for departure, they've barely spoken. Yip sits across from her with a cup of coffee and asks if she's all packed and ready to go. "No." She cringes at the defensive snap of her voice. Yip doesn't seem to notice. He says John Spaulding will want to say goodbye, and goes outside.

Lenny swallows very hard. She will not cry. Through the window she sees Yip on the dock, talking with John Spaulding, and the sound of their lighthearted conversation hammers at her chest. It is difficult to breathe. She aches. Why does he not want her?

She goes below and pulls a duffel bag from under her bunk. There is no school dress code, a relief; Blanchard doesn't believe in stunting the creativity of its students with something so prescriptive as a uniform. She tumbles in jeans, Carhartts, T-shirts, sweaters, a flannel, socks, underwear, phone charger, and after some hesitation, Berto, the ragged stuffed bear she's had since childhood. From her cubbyhole she retrieves the cheap telescope she and her mother painstakingly selected years prior, the one they brought to the End of the World. She wants to do something symbolic, hug it to her, try to absorb the story of her mother into her body. Instead, feeling raw and foolish, she presses her lips against the telescope, then returns it to the cubbyhole. Then she zips up the duffel and stands for a moment in the tiny cabin. It is ludicrous, that this boat should feel like home after only three months. She hadn't felt this kind of longing for Miami. She closes her eyes against the dank air, the emptiness, the unwanted solitude. With relief that feels like shame, hot tears slide down her face. This will always be the last place she heard her mother's laughter.

She wants

8: Before

Chapter: "8: Before"

The dream dissolves, and Alena falls into the gargoyle's arms, dropping through blackness until there is nothing left.

Then she is on the beach, soaked, shivering, badly concussed, waiting for paramedics. Her hearing is muffled, her palms embedded with tiny shells. A dead crab lies on the sand. She cannot move her arm without pain. Broken, the paramedic says. The speedboat's nose is buried in rocks. Three police officers wade toward a pale form floating on the waves. Nico sits several yards away, head buried in his knees, shoulders moving. Maybe he is crying.

An officer reports the body is mangled badly, head and torso almost chewed up. The officers pull the body onto the beach. Alena feels near comatose, wants to scream. Nico ignores her, slumped, devastated. She wishes she could sit beside him. She still loathes this memory. The boat crash changed everything between them.

At the hospital

A nurse tries to help Alena out of her wet clothing, but it is all too much. Fatigue and terror smash into her and she weeps. All my fault, all my fault, all my fault. They give her something to calm down, and she does not remember much after that.

Ms. Marks's class

Ms. Marks, Blanchard's European history teacher, is angular as a paper crane with a cutting manner. Because Alena missed the first day of class, she must stand in front of the room while Ms. Marks asks for a partner for the essay project. Nico raises his hand and says she can work with him and Vikram.

They move to a wide table. Ms. Marks lectures, and the class answers readily. A dry joke about Martin Luther sails over Alena's head; she lacks easy familiarity with the Reformation. In Miami, it had been enough to memorize facts and regurgitate them on tests.

After the lecture, Alena walks with Vikram and Nico to study hall. Vikram is distractible, and Nico has to threaten him back into studying. Nico moves deliberately, his things stacked in neat piles. Vikram tells Alena that Nico is always trying to impress everyone, that his older sister is some ridiculous humanitarian lawyer, so he feels he has something to prove.

Nico jokes about his family prioritizing education, warning Alena to watch out for Vikram and not let him peer pressure her into skipping study hall and doing drugs in the woods. It feels good to be in on the joke. Alena does not belong at Blanchard, but Nico and Vikram don't seem to care.

At five, students begin leaving. Both boys pack up. The door is shut; Alena is on one side, they on the other. Nico glances at her with eyebrows quirked in frustration, pauses as if to say something, then shrugs on his backpack and follows Vikram out.

Alena isn't hungry. She skips supper and runs through the rain to Lummi, where Sloan has already left for the ceramics studio. She lies in bed, fully dressed, listening to the thunderstorm. She retrieves Berto, her stuffed animal, from her backpack and clutches him.

Her phone buzzes: a message from Sara asking how school is. Alena types, "It's chill I guess," then writes a message about Nico and Vikram and deletes it. She sends instead that some people are nice but it's kinda cliquey. Sara replies with emojis. Alena says, "But without the charismatic cult leader."

Another flash of lightning. There is an abrupt movement beyond the window. Nico and Vikram emerge from the trees, soaked, glancing around furtively, before hurrying along the path to the dining hall.

Darla's office

Darla, the school psychiatrist, has an office on the edge of campus in a clearing ringed by fifty-foot pines. During their first meeting, Darla tears up behind pink-framed glasses. She tells Alena, "I know that you want to be okay, hon, but it's okay to not be okay."

Darla mentions that Alena's stepfather told her about the night terrors. Alena wonders when she spoke to Yip. Darla says Alena's pain is valid and that she's there with her in it. Reddish anxiety lurches through Alena's chest.

Darla says she hears Alena loves astronomy. Alena mutters, "Not anymore." Asked what she's interested in, Alena says brightwork. Woodwork on a boat. Darla mentions that Dr. Hesse said Alena doesn't want to take physics anymore, but the physics program is wonderful and they even have a Lunt telescope. Then Darla sets aside her notebook and says she understands this is a difficult time, but Alena's school records show lots of potential and they want her to feel supported. The warmth in her voice hides another note, one that signals danger. Years later, Alena understands: a hand of mercy has been extended, but it holds a dagger. They are giving her a chance, and she cannot fuck this up.

Darla says independent study is typically reserved for seniors, but they can make a strong case for Alena, perhaps incorporating her other interests. Woodworking, for instance, requires engineering and physics skills. Alena knows little about wood except the varnish that lies atop it. Darla encourages her to seize the opportunity. Only in college will Alena learn this is untrue. Darla has left the crucial second half unsaid: not for someone like you.

Alena agrees. Darla beams and says one more thing: medication to help her sleep. Dr. Hesse and her stepfather agree it's for the best. Alena insists she's sleeping fine, but betrayal slinks in. Outside the window, a group of girls walks with arms linked: Olivia Fisher, Fern Dilley-Joy, Sloan leading, cackling, heads tipped back to the sky. There is a wholesomeness within them that will never belong to Alena. She hates it. Darla insists she fill the prescription that day. Alena leaves.

Darla is overbearing, Alena thinks, but kind, the only person who has asked what she wanted since her mother died. She fills the prescription. The pills have a stiff, serious name, and she shoves the bottle into the bottom of her backpack.

She has been at Blanchard less than a week and is hanging on by her fingernails. Being "gifted" at an underfunded public school in Miami-Dade County means something very different from what it means here. She feels years behind her classmates.

Old Man Hall

Alena hears Vikram and Nico before she sees them. She remembers: the film society is holding a screening required for Ms. Marks's class. But Nico and Vikram are coming up the path from the dorms, and she has thirty seconds before they are upon her. She cringes, remembering how they shut her out at the end of study hall.

Vikram says, in Spanish, that he wants a pretty girl, and a pretty boy too. Nico mocks his Spanish. They trade jabs: "Drama queen." "Homophobe." "Menace."

Frantic, Alena surveys the path. The only escape is a trail ending at Old Man Hall, the Arts Center. She enters the quiet building and goes upstairs to the phone booths. She uses a rotary phone to call Yip. No answer. A text arrives: Yip is in a meeting, will call her back.

The motion-sensor light clicks off. In the darkness of the hallway, something flickers, then a face materializes in the hazy distance. Another figure appears, then another. Their features are unintelligible. As the line of people draws closer, Alena understands: each wears a wrestling mask of shiny, brightly colored material, a pointed blue cap, and a long cape. There are seven of them, marching two by two.

The masks are ridiculous, those pointed elfin hats. But the faceless, choreographed silence is spellbinding, grotesque. They snake across the balcony toward the staircase, chanting in one voice, "Ad astra per aspera." The final row passes: a single person, tall and sure-footed. Then the figure faces her vestibule. Alena freezes. The masked figure hesitates, seeming as startled as she is, though not nervous, curious perhaps. Only the glass separates them. If she were a different person, she would open the door, rip the mask off and reveal their face. She remembers Rainsford in The Most Dangerous Game: the world is made of two classes, the hunters and the huntees. Which of them is the rabbit, and which the fox? She straightens her shoulders. The vestibule light clicks on. The figure hurries toward the staircase.

By the time Alena shakes off the shock and stumbles out, there is no sign of the group. She rummages through her memory of the first day of school. Blue something, Blue Hats? Vikram called the secret society members that. Nico was dismissive. Alena can see why: there is something sexy about a secret society operating on Blanchard's grounds, with catchphrases, uniforms, a secret roster.

She shivers. The eyes of the last person, the one who saw her, are brilliant, gleaming, intelligently predatory. The look feels like a challenge: are you fox or rabbit? Was it Sloan? Sloan is not beautiful or kind, two things Alena thought girls needed to