That’s it, that’s what it was—
Except it isn’t.
At Harry Owen’s elbow there comes, not a touch, but the warm, familiar insinuation of a touch.
Dr. Owen, my mother says, I have come to see what it is you are always tangling up in this mysterious net of yours.
Her golden hair seen in darkness shines like a bright, submerged thing, half seen, rising in a rush to surface in dark waters.
And what about you, Mr. Dell’oro? What have you caught tonight?
N-nothing. We haven’t h-hauled the net yet.
There is fearfulness in him, at her approach. She feels it, draws closer.
Excellent! That means I can watch. I have always watched my Papa at his work, you know. I have helped him with it, too. He tells me I am his only real collaborator—his scientific amanuensis.
Turning from them she leans against the rail, then leans over it toward the water; gazes at the place where the towline disappears. It is a thin, shining gossamer, a spider’s web.
Well—ain’t you going to take up your net?
Commanded, they cannot disobey. Together Leo and Harry take hold of the line, pull. Then pull again.
The net, though, will not come.
I can imagine my mother’s laugh, high and clear and faintly derisive, in the watery darkness.
A further effort on their part, dark pantings at the line. And then it comes, all at once, furiously, dripping black with weed, green with foam, and falls, writhing madly, onto the deck. From among the coils there resonates a fierce, hollow, chopping sound, like the fall of a mallet on a block.
Small things scatter everywhere, shrimps, fishes, snails, angry squids, crabs clinging desperately to knots of bladder as the net twists and thrashes, contorts into a hundred wild figures, writing an alphabet from a dream.
Oh, how my mother enjoys it! She shrieks with laughter, she is filled with delight. And she is the brave one, she the delicate, the golden haired, she with the shawl cascading like foam from around her shoulders bends forward, while Harry Owen and Leo Dell’oro draw back. Bends forward, and reaches down her hand.
Don’t.
This is Hugh Blackstone. His cool, severe observing eye has taken them in and judged them incompetent to cope.
Fetch the oar.
They, though, are paralyzed as at their feet the net turns upon itself in a last violent peristalsis, then disgorges: a great green eel, four or five feet long, jaws snapping, this is the sound they heard, the hollow chop of a mallet on a block.
Fetch the oar.
Still nobody can move but then at last my father does. He runs off up the deck, a glimmering, small figure, they see him struggle with the tarp on the smallboat, trying to lift it up to get at the oars. The eel, though, is quicker; it turns over once, a single sinuous contortion, slides over the side, falls back, there is hardly a splash, it is gone.
In the silence that follows, Harry Owen begins to pick sadly at the remains of his net.
My dear Dr. Owen, was it not magnificent?
My mother is still laughing, flashing her brilliant feathers in the starlight.
Blackstone turns the yellow glare of his bird-eye upon her.
That, madam, could easily have removed your hand.
Then there is that cold, unpleasant smile. It is admirable, is it not, the cold severity of this Hugh Blackstone? I wonder is he imagining my mother’s hand in the eel’s jaws, and smiling at that? Those pale white fingers, the delicate, pink pearlescent nails. Otherwise, at what does he smile? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. My mother has her hand; and in a moment Hugh Blackstone will be back on the bridge, consulting his sextant as if nothing has happened.