Glimmering

Hourly they grew closer to New York. Alongshore unbroken darkness, save where fires leapt upon distant hillsides or burned within windowed towers. Snow and freezing rain that made the sails brittle as ice. The occasional terrifying surge of power through the grid, horizontal lightning that ripped through hamlets and towns and cities, erupting sometimes as flame from atop high-rises, or roaring from radio towers and airport beacons before it all collapsed once more into the endless bacchanal night, the great serpent stirring and then falling back into uneasy sleep. New Haven’s breakwaters, flooded now, a channel buoy still blinking from the tip of a skeleton tower. Ships black and huge as islands, freighters or cruise ships or factory ships, that seemed immobile, unmovable, in the lavender dusk but were gone before the rippling red false dawn. It was these that unsettled Martin most; but they sailed on, past bell buoys tolling unseen beneath the remains of bridges and ferry landings. Drowned mansions. Defunct factories rising from webs of girders and shattered gantries. The art deco splendor of an amusement park, the roller coaster’s spine rising like a dream of dragons from emerald water.

And Trip gazing upon it all unperturbed, unmoved. Unknowing? wondered Martin. But could not bring himself to ask, could not bear to think what answer he might receive: that the boy had seen it all before, that the drowned kingdoms were not new to him, or strange; that the scoured ruins of the earth belonged to Trip more than they had ever belonged to Martin.

One night they anchored in mid-channel. After a makeshift meal of spongy fried potatoes and the last of Diana’s rosemary they sat on deck, facing shore and watching the sky convulse above them, a slowly turning wheel of purple and indigo and a bruised red that was almost black. Martin had Mrs. Grose’s farewell bottle of brandy beside him, and every now and then poured a jot into an enameled mug. He poured some for Trip as well. The boy didn’t drink it; he balanced the cup on his lap, every now and then raising it to his face to sniff it warily. The air felt dank and viscous. It wasn’t hot, but Martin still broke into a sweat.

Maybe that was the brandy, he thought, or just fatigue. He took another sip from his mug, and winced. A strange indefinable smell hung in the air, like burning dust or gunpowder. In the distance a silvery flare leapt from a high promontory, as though something there had exploded soundlessly.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

He nestled the mug against his chest and glanced at Trip. “What?”

“The sky.” Trip’s voice was subdued. He stuck his chin out to indicate the lurid tableau above them. “It’s not getting better. It’s getting worse.”

Martin looked up. He shrugged, feeling a sliver of cold where the heavy night air nosed down his shirt. “Is it? I guess I can’t tell, anymore. Maybe we’re just getting closer to the city—you know, more houses, more lights…”

“No.” Trip raised the mug to his lips and took a sizable mouthful. “Ugh—!”

Martin laughed. “It’s not beer. You’re supposed to savor it—”

Trip swallowed and took a cautious sip. “Okay.” He grimaced.

Martin leaned back, gazing into the sky. “How much worse could it get?” he said. “Diana was talking about those space stations they’re sending up at the end of the month—I mean, joint Japanese/American technology, how can we lose?”

Trip shook his head. “I don’t know.” His eyes in the infernal light seemed translucent. “It’s like it really is the Rapture…”

“The Rapture?” Martin stared at him. “You mean the end of the world? You think this is the end of the world?”

Trip nodded. “The Last Days. That’s what John Drinkwater used to say. My choir director,” he added at Martin’s quizzical look. “And my grandmother—”

He took another sip of brandy. “—she totally believed in all that stuff. If she could see me now—”

Trip traced the outline of the cross branded on his forehead. “Man, if she could see me, she’d definitely think this was it. The end of the world. The end of the fucking world.”

Martin listened, fearful lest the boy stop: it was the most he’d heard Trip say of himself since he’d found him on the beach at Mars Hill. Beneath them the Wendameen rocked gently. Finally he asked, “Is that—is that what you believe?”

Trip gazed upward. Streamers of gold spun from the ominous spiral, slid down to disappear behind that far-off promontory where something burned, smoke like dark thumbprints against the lurid sky. After a moment he shook his head.

“I don’t know. I guess. Or no—no, maybe I don’t.” He frowned. “I mean, if I really thought that, probably I wouldn’t be doing this—”

He opened his hands, cradling the mug of brandy. “I mean, I wouldn’t be letting you take me to New York,” he said. “To look for her. If I really thought it was the end, I guess I wouldn’t care.”

Martin looked away. Because Martin did think it was the end—for him, at least—and somehow that didn’t stop him from caring at all.