Page 32 of Currents of Desire

It’s still there.

The gift she left me. The curse.

The low-frequency thrum in the base of my skull hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s gotten louder as the water has settled. I hear the shift of the sandbars. I hear the pressure changes as the tide begins to turn, miles out. I sense the vast, crushing weight of the ocean. It’s a constant, dull roar that overlays the chainsaws and the birds, a reminder that there is a massive, wet world right at my doorstep.

The line is dead.

The ocean is out there, loud and heavy in my chest, but she isn't.

I’ve spent the last week wearing a path into the mudflats, staring at the surf until my vision blurred. I’ve stood at the end of the dock in the freezing dark, talking to the wind like a crazy person. Nothing ever came back.

I leave the hammer on the deck. I can't do this today. The quiet inside the house is too heavy. If I go back in there, I’m just going to stare at the spot on the floorboards where she bled. Or the bathtub. Or the shower.

I wipe the sawdust off my jeans and head for the driveway. The truck is a mud-caked mess, but it runs. And right now, it just needs to get me to a bar.

The drive into town is a navigation of obstacles. Power lines are still being restrung, hanging like black licorice vines over the road. Piles of wet drywall and ruined carpet line the curbs like burial mounds. But the road to the harbor is clear.

I park in front of The Crooked Anchor. The neon sign is buzzing, the ‘O’ in Anchor flickering ominously. It’s the only place in town that never seems to close, regardless of weather or apocalypse.

I push through the heavy wooden door.

The air inside is thick, smelling of stale beer, damp wool, and frying grease. It’s surprisingly busy. Half the town seems to be here, taking a break from the reconstruction. Fishermen in yellow slickers are huddled in booths, and contractors with dust in their hair are shouting over the jukebox. It’s loud, warm, and aggressively human.

I weave through the crowd, keeping my head down. I don’t want to talk about the storm. I don’t want to talk about the damage to my roof. I definitely don’t want to talk about why I’m alone.

I find a stool at the far end of the bar, away from the television blaring the weather report.

The bartender approaches. We call him the Gargoyle, mostly because he looks like he was chiseled out of granite and left to weather in the rain for a century. He’s bald, gray-skinned, and moves with the slow, deliberate momentum of a tectonic plate.

He reaches under the bar, pulls out a bottle of whiskey, and pours three fingers into a chipped glass. He slides it across the polished wood.

“On the house,” he grunts. His voice sounds like gravel crunching under tires.

“Thanks,” I mutter, wrapping my hand around the glass. The cold condensation feels grounding.

The Gargoyle rests his forearms on the bar, ignoring the guy waving a twenty down the counter. He keeps his focus locked on me, his eyes a sickly, jaundiced yellow.

“You look like hell, Ford,” he says.

“Storm was rough,” I deflect, taking a sip. The whiskey burns, a welcome fire in my empty stomach.

“Storm’s been over for a week,” he says. He picks up a rag and starts polishing a spot on the bar that is already clean. “You look like a man waiting for a ghost.”

I freeze, the glass halfway to my mouth. I look up at him. In Deception Point, people know things they shouldn’t. It’s part of the geography.

“Maybe I am,” I admit quietly.

“Ghosts don’t come back,” the Gargoyle says, not unkindly. “Tides do but not ghosts.”

“She wasn’t a ghost,” I say, the bitterness leaking into my voice. “She was… something else.”

“Aye. They usually are around here.” He sighs, a sound like a bellows. “Drink up. It helps with the waiting, until you realize you’re waiting for nothing.”

I stare into the amber liquid. He’s right. I know he’s right. She told me not to wait. She told me the politics of the deep were shifting. She killed a scout. She’s probably miles down in some trench, fighting a war I can’t even comprehend, or she’s dead.

The thought creates a physical pain in my chest, sharp and jagged.

I lift the glass to finish the shot.