Otherwise, enjoy.
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CHAPTER 2
Stephen
1920
Walking along the street, Stephen could see everything: the tall, tan buildings with their curve-top windows, outlined in black; the buses with their curving staircases leading to their tops; the black cars with their lights that blasted through the smog; the old fabric mill across the road with its cherry-red sign; the hundreds on the street bustling, women in their thick coats, bright-colored dresses, and caps, cheeks rosy, and men in their suits, with classy fedoras perched on their heads.
He smiled and stopped under a streetlamp, not caring about being spotted--not in this part of town.
This was his home.
He shuddered and pulled his coat closer as a breeze went by. His arms went alive with goose bumps but he didn’t care. His eyes shined and he was just happy.
And the best bit of all was the fact Grazia and their beautiful baby girl were only a few blocks over.
With that thought in his head, he started walking again--brisk against the wind’s whistling.
#
In the hallway, Stephen felt his skin crawl. One of the walls was stained with something, he didn’t have a color to even put with it, and a half-eaten meal and a bit of vomit lay in the alcove of a door. Hobos.
His fists clenched. Someday--someday soon--he’d be able to move them. He just had to make some more money first. And stop being forced to gamble in oh-so-special the games by his boss.
He’d never been good at that.
He took a deep breath, regretted it at once, then knocked on his own apartment’s door. He smiled halfheartedly at the half-crooked 46 and waited.
Nothing happened.
He knocked again.
He pounded.
The door opened beneath his hand.
His stomach lurched into his throat. He dashed into the apartment and looked around. Everything...everything was gone. No, no, no. This is not happening. Not happening! He whirled in the center of his living room.
They’d had a couch, a behemoth of a camel-colored thing. They’d had a coffee table--something he’d snatched off the side of the road in the richer streets. They’d had a book shelf, to hold his wife’s books.
From this vantage point, he should see their pots lined up on their stove. See the bed--their bed--through the open bedroom door.
But, no. Nothing.
He put a hand over his mouth. Did they follow me home? His whole body shook. If they’d found them--
He sunk to the floor. What have I done? His vision blurred. If they’d hurt his family, he’d kill them. He touched the gun half tucked in his belt, let his fingers drift over the safety.
Then, in his half-insane state, he noticed something he should have noticed long ago. He sniffed and picked up the note off the concrete floor. A piece of paper, roughly the size of his hand, and torn from something. Blank. He flipped it over. Read it. Read it twice.
She was staying with her mother?
His gut twisted uncomfortably, the remains of his prior anger still flooding his veins. Didn’t she think he could protect her?
You’re the one who thought they’d gotten kidnapped by some enemies of your boss, his brain reminded him.
He snorted and wiped at his eye. Not that he’d been about to cry or anything. He just--didn’t she know better? He was a rum-runner, for chrissake. Of course he’d have kittens. Of course he’d think something horrible happened.
And what happened to their stuff? His eyes narrowed. The note didn’t have an answer for that, no sir.
The jerk in his gut happened again, his skin crawled, and he wished he could afford to get drunk, as per usual. He just dropped his head into his hands, the thought of, too much, resounding.
Guess I’m headed for her mother’s...
#
It turned out, he didn’t have time. One of his boss’s men, some random face he didn’t recognize, grabbed him by the arm and had him down an alley before he even had the chance to protest.
He glowered at the guy and looked him over. He was the owner of a pale-colored buzz cut, a charcoal suit one size too big in the shoulders, and a face that made him think of a placid bull. Ugh.
“What?” he asked. He stood at his full height and was quite satisfied the guy was at least an inch shorter than him.
“Boss wants you to do a job.”
He crossed his arms. “Well, I figured that. Where? When? How? And will it be done by Saturday?”
The guy grinned, a sleazy look. He didn’t say anything idiotic, however. Must know I don’t take kindly to taunts, then. “Off the coast. There’s a big ship coming in from Quebec tonight--at eleven.”
“Quieter,” Stephen said. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What? There ain’t any coppers around here. I looked before I grabbed you. I’m not a total idiot,” the guy said
.
Stephen rolled his eyes. “The walls have eyes--specifically one pair belonging to an old bat of a widow.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Just be there,” the man muttered, before wandering off father down the alley.
Stephen let out a quiet huff, and then walked back out onto the main street. Garbage squelched under his nice shoes and he had the feeling he’d somehow smell like a bloody rat for days.
#
Finding his boss was a simple thing. He caught a cab and went twelve miles--paid the guy, even when he wanted to shove the gun in his face to just get rid of the adrenaline pumping in his veins.
He still couldn’t believe this. Honestly, why would his boss want him--tonight of all nights? He was supposed to be off, with the new guy Tony, another face, just a blazing red-haired Irish one, taking over for him. He’d supposed to have the weekend with his wife, his daughter.
He swore quietly to himself as he continued his two mile walk. He’d go to the shore, the rocky bit of the coast with that familiar half-rotten pier. He’d talk to the guy at his house on the hill. He’d beg and plead and still have to go. He knew that. But he had to protest. He didn’t want to appear soft. Soft people were fired. And then where would he be?
But the prickling sensation hadn’t left him. It was sort of the feeling like after you got shocked, but worse in this bloody, damp cold. He wasn’t sure what to call it. Fear? Paranoia? Unease? Something along those lines.
All he could think of was that note he’d left--written hastily on the back of the note his wife left. Got called to work. Take care of Maura and be safe. Love you.
He wondered if she ever would get it.
#
It didn’t take him long to reach the stone coast; end his stroll outside his boss’s place.
He took note of the cars were parked in the front lot of the supposed grill and he rolled his eyes. Idiot coppers. Couldn’t even figure out the one-and-a-half story building was anything but a place to serve food, even if it did set out the best crab known in the claptrap of a city he’d been born and raised in.
He took a deep breath and knocked at the backdoor.
A goon pulled it open and the smell of seafood, sweat, and burning charcoal hit his nose. “Didn’t know this was an Italian restaurant,” the man commented.
“Shove off.”
#
Ending out shivering and with rain dripping off the cap he’d stolen off some bootlegger kid, off the slick coat he wore, and damping him to the soul through every nook and cranny it could fit hadn’t been his plan. Neither had being on a tiny boat with waves the height of his arm.
But he’d known it was going to happen.
You could only argue with Michael the Rogue, a red-blooded, red-faced man with the slickest hair known to man and the poshest clothes he’d seen on a man, for so long without your face being blasted off. He knew that; accepted it, even.
It didn’t make his day any brighter, obviously.
He trembled and leaned closer to the man beside him, some scar-faced man twenty years his senior. The guy growled and he pressed himself back to the splinter-covered wooden side.
“So...is this...safe?” he asked, hoping for a positive answer.
Another growl.
“You could answer me. We could end up drowned, then what? You’d be getting your judgment when the last minute of your life was spent growling at some poor, dripping wet sod.”
The guy glowered at him.
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, dropping his chin to his knees. He had the intense feeling he was too big for this boat and being forced to be half-bent on himself didn’t help matters. He felt like a whale, actually, and whales weren’t meant to be on boats.
Ugh. He just hated water. The rocking feeling made him ill, the salt water burnt his eyes, and he smelled like fish and Grazia wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole for days.
He really hated Michael as he sat there, in the dark.
He glanced around; trying to find comfort in things he understood. A lantern, swinging wildly on the hull (in the front?). Seats, where three to four guys--their massive coats made it hard to tell how many there were), sat, chatting amiably in some Spanish-related tongue. And then there was grouch, who he was pretty sure won most dart matches and hailed from Russia.
And then Stephen saw the wave. “Oh--”
Next to him, the guy only had a second for his face to lose all blood, before water rushed into Stephen’s mouth, his nose, and the wood underneath him disappeared completely—the guy disappearing with it.
#
He was pretty sure being underwater at night was the worst fate you could suffer. His eyes open and feeling like bacon grease had been poured in them; he couldn’t see a goddam thing. No light from the lantern--not that he expected it, no halo from the moon or whatnot. Nothing. Just darkness.
He held his breath--not that he had a choice with that, either, and swam in the direction he thought was up.
His boots felt like lead weights and it seemed to take forever to do anything. At least he knew he was swimming against gravity. Or he thought he did.
His chest burnt and he closed his eyes.
The sound of water splashing was the best sound he’d heard in years. He sucked in a giant breath, and then choked. And choked some more as he treaded water and looked around. No light. No nothing. His heart started to race and if people were able to sweat in freezing cold, cramp-your-feet and numb-your-hands water, he was doing it.
He was pretty sure he was saying stuff, too. Maybe those prayers his Mama had taught him when he was a kid. Or maybe he was cursing. He couldn’t tell over the dead roar in his brain, or the chatter of his teeth.
Then--praise the Lord--a stick! Or a board. Something broken off the boat. He didn’t give a darn. He paddled over, arms a-aching, and latched onto it. Surprisingly, it seemed to hold his weight better than the boat did. Or maybe that was just because he was completely desperate.
He didn’t give a darn about that, either. With darkness under him and to the sides, the weak light of a moon that looked like a cat’s claw somewhat flooding down, and cold sinking into his bones, why would he?
All he knew was that he needed to get his boots off, or the water would suck him down eventually. And he knew he had to gold on, tight, or the waves, still high, would drown him.
But he couldn’t make a move.
#
When he woke up, he was rather certain he must be dead. The dull aching throb in his legs, arms, and even ears informed him he wasn’t. But that made no sense. The soft earth under him made no sense, either.
He wasn’t about to open his eyes to find out what was going on, either. He was so, so bloody tired.
So he just lay there, thinking that the fact he didn’t smell sulfur was probably a good thing. Brimstone, anyone?
He let out a small grunt and curled in on himself more. Something had moved and the sun was now burning down at him; lighting his eyelids red and yellow and making the water-logged clothes he wore feel horrible.
Wait. Sunlight?
His eyes snapped open. He was, unsurprisingly, blinded. He jerked his hands to his face and covered his eyes, before rolling onto his stomach.
He shivered. He wasn’t cold anymore, but something was gnawing at his insides. Sand was stuck to his arms and clothes and sun was beating down on him. New York had been frigid, icy, and wet the last he knew.
So where was he?
Finally thinking it safe to look around again, he cautiously pulled back his hands. His fingers felt sore and blistered, he noticed. He laid his hands flat on the sand and he looked around; head craning to see.
He could see leaves--lots of them, some ivy, tree trunks, and flowering bushes. He snorted. Not amazingly helpful. Not that it didn’t start the gnawing going faster.
He rolled onto his back, and then sat up. His head swam for a minute, but, with his hands clapped over his ears--not something he’d voluntarily done, he came back not long after.
He was facing an ocean. Brown-green murky water lapped at a white beach, a white beach that was completely without litter. He couldn’t even spot drift wood.
He’d never seen so much white in his life.
He ran his tongue, a muscle that felt a size too large, around his cottony mouth and he looked around once more. Trees, vines, sand, ocean. There were no people, no buildings, no trash--no trash cans, either.
There was nothing.
It felt like the sky had just slammed him into the ground.
#
He hadn’t moved for...he didn’t even know how long. He’d just stared, almost unblinking, at the great expanse of water.
He’d been on islands before. Heck, that’s where many of the stills were; stills owned by hermits who hated humanity and thusly gave them liquor to kill themselves with. But he’d always seen signs of humanity. Trash, mostly. Coal dust and other air-litter, too. Everything was smeared, covered in trash. There were rats. There was an earring some woman lost when rolling around in the sand with her fiancée--and there’d be some old lady who never seemed to move there to tut and say “How racy!”. There were kiddies, or their toys--washed out to sea and brought back in the morn. There were seagulls, shells, and fish carcasses. Fish hooks and net. Kelp and seaweed. That was how things were. But this beach didn’t seem to know that.
Finally, he let out a shaky breath and backed up to one of the trees behind him--an old cedar with branches that stretched out like a hundred arms into the sky. He looked up at said branches and frowned. They were all much too high. Pity. Not that he knew how to climb trees. It wasn’t something you really did in the streets of New York City. Climb fences? Yes. Trees? No.
He shrugged to himself and just brought up his rubbery-feeling legs to his chest.
This must be a private beach. I just need to walk. Go a bit farther. That’s all.
#
Before moving into the main part of the city, he’d once had to walk miles to reach the speakeasies he delivered to. Back then, he’d been younger, fifteen and sixteen, maybe, and his boss hadn’t trusted him with the cabbies, so he’d told him to walk. So he’d walked and walked and walked. If he was being novel, he might have said that same walking was what stretched him out, gotten him to reach the 6’5” he stood at now.
Today felt like those days, two or three years ago and all. And he wasn’t used to it. Moving through the sand, it took hours to just reach the hook of land sticking out of the water. It had seemed so close.
He stared at said piece of land, taking note of the dense pines, thrown about rocks, and the long-legged white bird that was totally ignoring him. His eyes locked on the animal. He was pretty certain he’d never seen something like it before. Going by its yellow-amber eyes and black-tipped, spiky wings he assumed he would have remembered, too. Gave him the creeps, it did.
It was also giving him the evil eye. He thought about making the sign of the cross, and then decided against it. It was a bird, not a demon. God created it.
Of course, God created devils, too, didn’t he?
He shook his head slowly. No need to think of that.
He took a deep breath, breaking the habit of panting he’d picked up walking on the endless, loose sand, and started to walk up the incline. After all, higher ground was good. And who knew what rested on the other side of the inlet? He sure as heck didn’t. There might be a lovely houseboat or a yacht that could take him back to home sweet home, New York, New York.
He could dream, right?
With that burden on his shoulders, he kept his eyes straight ahead and he put a foot up on the first smooth hunk of granite he found. Then he took another step, another, and he just kept on going.
Bloody pine straw. Why does it exist?
///
A/N: Sorry if this chapter wasn't as 'exciting' as the last, or ruddy confusing, but--yes. The next chapter follows this one's timeline, though, to a t. Picks up right after that last thought. Anyway, hope you like Stephen and Luke (and Noah, heh-heh) will be back shortly. More or less. Also, if you notice anything or have any comments about what you think is going to happen, what you think should happen, hate mail-like stuff, etc. feel free to post below. I'd love to hear your thoughts--as long as it is about the piece and not my religious views, my person, or anything along those lines. Basically, no flaming me.
So, thank you ladies and gents and I will have the third chapter up soon. I have it written, but...
