Resurrection Bay

Three hours later, about twenty-five percent of the boat had thrown up due to the rough waves and the weather was quickly worsening. I was down thirty dollars in my bet with Clark of how many wedding guests would get sick in the first half of the tour. We’d just finished serving lunch. I’d stolen myself away from the galley for a short break to scarf down the marinated chicken wrap that Clark had “artistically designed” – his words – for the lunch hour.

We’d seen the typical sea otters off the shores of the Fox islands, the puffins, as they plumed their feathers and dived into the cold, Alaskan waters for their lunch. But we’d had a rare sighting of the local pod of Orcas, which drew all the attention from the bride and groom, whom the wedding guests had been consistently clapping for and demanding a kiss from every twenty minutes. I was feeling a bit nauseated myself, but I felt like it was equal measures the size of the waves rocking the boat and having to witness the couple mack on each other fifteen times today.

Before we could even reach Cape Aialik, which was at the tip of the Aialik Peninsula, the captain decided to turn the boat around and head back to shore before we were caught in the storm. Just before the couple had the chance to connect at another chanting of “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” the announcement came over the loudspeaker that due to reports from boats further out than we were, they’d warned the weather was getting incrementally worse and to turn back before we didn’t have that option any longer.

I wasn’t upset I’d be getting off this boat earlier than normal, but I was bummed we wouldn’t be seeing most of the glaciers in the Kenai Fjords National Park. The view was something else. It was why I had taken this job. There was something about seeing these glaciers that made you feel so small, in such a beautiful way. At least I’d have another opportunity to see them next weekend for my shift – these tourists wouldn’t get the same chance. Though the captain did his best to keep us close enough to shore on the way back into the Bay to see a glacier from a distance.

As we slowly came back into Resurrection Bay, I was prepping the galley to close up early. The last of the “booze cruise” guests – those that were still standing, anyway – decided to get in the last of their fun and ordered one last beer each. I was truly shocked by the amount of alcohol they could all consume on a highly charged vessel rocking between seven-foot waves.

Jonah had not returned to the galley, nor had I seen him drink any of the multitude of alcoholic drinks ordered by the groomsmen. He’d fleetingly walked by me in the galley about an hour or so before we turned back to the shore, but he’d still been clutching the cup of coffee I’d given him hours before. I warned myself not to get attached to that moment, if you could even call it that. But I couldn’t help looking past the crowd, searching for his face. I knew it was silly. Especially when he had women like that ballerina to contend with.

I focused my mind on other things. Returning to shore was always a bit hectic. Cleaning up the boat and prepping it for the next day, and the next crew. I stole myself to the back of the kitchen and used Clark to help me since he’d already cleaned the kitchen spotless. When I came back out to the galley to close out the register, there were only a few stragglers. The seasick ones that required an escort off the boat. Jonah was nowhere in sight. I let myself feel the pang of disappointment, but it passed, and I moved on. No use in daydreaming about a handsome stranger ten times out of my league.

“You wanna grab a bite tonight?” Clark asked as he came out of the kitchen, zipping up his rain jacket. “I need to shower off that chum bucket smell, but then I’m all yours. I’m telling you, that disgusting grease trap is going to be the death of my dating life.”

“Only if we can go to The Cookery,” I said, my mouth already watering. “I’m craving their lobster mac and cheese.”

I grabbed my bag and rain jacket out of the cupboard behind the bar, and Clark and I descended the ramp off the boat arm-in-arm beneath his umbrella. We waved goodbye to the rest of the crew and our friends still cleaning the boat, knowing we’d likely see more than a few of them at the Cookery in a few hours. There were only so many good restaurants in town, particularly those that locals actually liked to go to.

Clark gave me a ride home, dropping me off at my place so we could meet up later. I waved goodbye as he pulled out onto the long drive. My dad’s truck was gone. He spent most of his weekend days volunteering with the local tribe, the Qutekcak. I always had a hard time pronouncing it on the fly and sounded it out in my head, K’toocheck.

When my dad had moved up here while I was still in college, he’d bought this property that abuts Cottonwood creek. I loved it here in the summer the most. Deer would pass through in the mornings and evenings and come to say hello; salmon would be spawning just outside my cabin. I had a little porch that looked right above the creek. Most mornings I’d sit out there with my coffee. I could watch the salmon for hours.

Because the property was so big, most of the time my dad and I didn’t even really see each other come and go. I made it a point to have dinner with him most nights of the week, since we’d missed out on so many years when I went to college, and he moved here. The cabin he’d built was originally to rent out in the summer for tourists. It was far enough away from the main house that it was fairly private. My dad had been more than happy to stop renting it and remodeled the place for me when I told him I was coming.

It was a decent size though, and I had a small living area that connected to a kitchen, it even had a dishwasher; a bathroom which connected to a separate bedroom. It had a full washer and dryer that had been built as an add-on to the back of the cabin when I decided to stay permanently. I’d made it homey, some art on the walls that I’d kept with me for the last ten years, art my mother had made. I noticed my father hadn’t kept anything of hers after she left, not that he should have. Nonetheless, I’d always wanted something to remember her by, even if he didn’t.

I had a couple hours to kill before I met up with Clark for dinner at the Cookery. Considering our boat tour was supposed to last until four in the afternoon and it was only nearing two o’clock, I decided to get some much-needed chores out of the way, saving my shower for after I’d done all the sweaty work around my little cabin.

Planning to meet Clark around 5:45, I checked the clock at 5 and resolved to start getting ready, hopping into a shower. Once I was standing there beneath the burning hot water, I lingered a bit longer than I should have. Water rolling over my skin, it flushed under the heat. I don’t know what it was about a scalding hot shower that made me so comfortable in my own skin. I often reveled in that feeling. In a moment, I saw a flash of ice-cold blue eyes, the kind that pierce your soul, and the heat I was basking in turned to a cool simmer. I couldn’t get Jonah’s intense gaze out of my head. Knock it off, I shook my head to get out of the trance he had put me in.

I shut off the shower, wrapped myself in a towel and got ready to meet up with Clark. I tried not to spend any more time thinking about anyone else as I got ready. I just turned the volume up on my Bluetooth speaker, listening to my new favorite Foo Fighters song. Clark thought I was insane for liking their new album, Dream Widow. I threw on a pair of jeans, a grey t-shirt, and my Chelsea rain boots. My wavy brown hair, which never really settled between wanting to be straight or wavy once it dried, would just have to dry naturally in this wet weather today. I didn’t care enough to do anything to it, considering I was just meeting up with Clark, and the only people we’d be likely to see are the rest of the crew from the boat earlier today and other locals.

I met Clark outside The Cookery and we walked in together. It was more crowded than usual when we arrived, but Clark spotted a table in the back, far enough away from the cute bartender he’d currently been flirting with, to maintain his mystique. We settled in, shaking off the rain. The Cookery was one of the first places I had worked when I arrived in Seward. I knew from experience that to get the best service, one had to actually approach the bar and get your drinks in hand, otherwise the green waitstaff would never get around to it with all the food orders they were running. There was high-turnaround here. Sometimes I almost felt bad for leaving Kevin, the owner, with just a few servers fresh out of the high school, but I’d needed to make more money, and so took up the bartending gig with the Shake & Stir and the boat tour company.

“Order me the lobster mac, ok? I’ll go get the drinks. Your usual?” I said, standing up.

“Yes, please – a Matanuska Moose.” It was Alaska’s version of a Moscow mule.

“You know, you could just go talk to this guy in person.” I pretended to sit back in my seat, giving Clark the opportunity to go get the drinks from the cute bartender instead.

With a sly smile, Clark simply shook his head. “No, thank you, I am biting my time.”

“Fine, but next round you are plucking up the courage to get them yourself!” I turned around and walked back to where the bar was. I noticed from the name tag on his shirt, the bartender’s name was Danny; I realized Clark hadn’t told me that yet. We simply kept referring to him as “the cute bartender”.

“What can I get ya, hon?” He asked, as he held a bottle of simple syrup and a bottle of rum in both hands and poured them in perfect measurements into what was clearly a mojito. We had very eclectic tastes here in Alaska.

“I’ll take the Tiehacker IPA, and a Matanuska Moose.”

“Sure thing.” Danny said, with a smile. I watched him finish the drinks he had been making, before starting on Clark’s Matanuska moose. He was fast and knew his drinks. That was promising.

I hadn’t really noticed that anyone had walked in behind me, as the restaurant had only been getting fuller in the five or so minutes since Clark and I arrived. My heart skipped a beat when I heard his voice, husky and low, and just behind my ear.

“Which one is for you, the beer, or the mule?” I turned around to see Jonah standing behind me, a smirk pulling up the corner of his mouth. He was taking off his rain jacket and he stood there, all six feet of him, and looked so… Alaskan. He just looked rugged in, none other than, a dark flannel, jeans, and boots. His hair was dark and messy with rain drops glistening in it. He made me completely lose my train of thought.

“Oh, um, the beer.” I said after finding my words.

“I thought so.” He said, still with that smile on his face. “I’ll take the IPA, as well.” He didn’t pull up one of the bar stools, which could only mean he wasn’t staying at the bar himself, most likely.

“Are you – I mean, did you come – Um, are you meeting people here?” I asked, tripping over every start to my question so it didn’t sound like a line.

“Yeah, I have some friends in a booth in the back.” Danny, the bartender, then placed both beers and the Matanuska Moose in front of us, gave us our bills to pay and started making another set of drinks. We each laid cash on the bar and picked up our drinks. Through the racks of liquor bottles behind the bar, you could see into the restaurant at all the tables. Jonah lifted up his beer to his friends who had just spotted him and started calling him over.

“Great,” I said, mine and Clark’s drinks in hand, “well, have fun. It was nice to see you again.” I turned to go back to my own table.

“Wait,” Jonah had his beer in hand too and stepped towards me, his proximity making the cold beer in my hands slip just slightly. “I never caught your name earlier today. It was a shame we had to turn around so early, but I didn’t see you in the galley when we were all getting off the boat.”

He noticed that I was gone? I felt my brain getting fuzzier as I thought about the fact that he had noticed I wasn’t around at the end of the boat tour. That he had been looking for me.

“Yeah, the captain is pretty superstitious when it comes to bad weather out on the water. I think he didn’t want any of the out-of-towners getting caught by the Tizheruk.” Jonah raised an eyebrow, clearly not familiar with the creature. “It’s a local legend – a sea snake, thing. Oh, the name’s Emilie. It’s Emilie. But people call me Em.”

Jonah laughed, “It’s very nice to meet you, Em. I’m Jonah.” Since I didn’t have a hand available, he clinked his beer against mine, gave me that corner smile that just pulled up at his eyes – those piercing blue eyes – and walked to his table of friends. I stood motionless for less than thirty seconds, but long enough to realize I was too old to be so stunned by a man’s presence. I walked quickly back to my table where Clark, slack-jawed, was barely containing his enthusiasm at having just watched my entire encounter with Jonah.

I set his mule down in front of him and took a very large swig of my beer.

“Um, what the hell was that I just saw?” Clark, still open-mouthed, looked quickly over to Jonah’s table which was directly across from us on the other side of the room.

“He… well, he wanted to know my name,” Clark squealed – literally, “and he said that he’d looked for me at the end of the boat tour.” I peered at Clark over the rim of my glass as I swallowed more beer, hiding my blushing cheeks.

“Girl, I fucking told you he noticed you!” Clark practically slammed his copper mug on the table with excitement. “Oh my god, you’ll have such beautiful babies.” He said in a sing-song voice.

“Oh stop it!” I laughed though, and Clark laughed too. It felt good to just mess around, and to feel, for a minute, happy.

“I put the food order in – and yes, before you ask, I did order the artichoke dip. I can’t help it!” Clark cheers-ed my beer with his mug and we both took another drink.

Clark noticed the change first. The bell above the door to the entrance of the restaurant rang, alerting the rest of the restaurant that more people had just walked in.

“It’s your dad, Em.” Clark said. “He doesn’t look too good.”

I turned around to see him and two of his friends, tribal members, walk in and take the last available booth at the front of the restaurant, in the window. I hadn’t told him that the boat tour ended early today or that Clark and I were at the Cookery getting dinner and drinks. He usually didn’t have service out on the reservation. Watching the three of them take their seats, I did notice that something was off about them. Their faces were grave, and my dad looked more stressed out than I’d seen him in a long time.

Clark and I got up and headed to their table. They were talking in low, hushed voices. “Dad?” I asked, “is everything ok?”

He looked up at me then, and I could tell he tried to change his demeanor, but it was too late. He looked around the crowded restaurant, as if making sure no one else was paying attention to them. He took a deep breath and slid over in the booth so I could take a seat next to him. Clark grabbed a chair from a table and sat down.

“A kid is missing – ” my dad started.

“He was taken,” interjected Sam. Sitting across from us were two tribal elders, Sam Nelson and Pete Waska, who had been friends of my dad’s since he moved here. They seemed particularly upset.

“What do you mean?” Clark spoke up, since it seemed neither my dad nor Sam were going to continue. “Like, a kidnapping?”

“Well, we don’t know yet. We’ve been searching for him all day.” I could see worry lines etched in dad’s face as he used one of his hands to scrub down his cheeks.

“So, he could just be lost? When did someone notice the boy was missing?” I asked, looking around the table.

“Late last night.” Sam replied.

“It was the Qalupalik,” Pete finally said. I could almost hear my dad rolling his eyes. While respectful of all the local Alaska native’s beliefs and traditions, my father was a skeptic, and I knew he had already tried to rationalize whatever the tribe was trying to say about this missing boy.

“I’m sorry, the what-now?” Clark asked, completely lost.

Pete was the one who responded. “The Qalupalik is a sea-witch. She’s half woman, half sea creature. She was the creature in our nightmares as kids. She has skin as wet and slimy as fish, with almost a blue-green hue like the waters. Her hair is long and green, so she blends in with the seaweed. She’ll lure children to the shores with her song – they say only the innocent can hear her. The legend says that she used to be a woman, who lost her child at sea; that she dove into the waters after her baby and never came back out. Now she’ll grab our children from the beach and take them to the depths of the ocean to be part of her family. She steals our children from these parts who do not listen to their elders. Instead, she takes them in as her own, to replace the one she lost, and the children are never seen or heard from again. Some say, she has even lured men from the sea. If you hear her song – run.”

I looked at Clark, who seemed equally chilled at Pete’s story, but it seemed just that – a story. A sea-witch? There was no way.

A sudden clatter in the restaurant brought the cacophony of noise back to my ears, and I realized it had seemed to become deafeningly silent when Pete told his story. But I looked around the crowded restaurant, and all seemed perfectly normal, except what was being discussed at our table. When I looked over at Jonah’s table, I was surprised to lock eyes with him, as he looked at me with distinct concern. I couldn’t tell if my face matched it, but I quickly looked back to my father and his friends.

“So, a mermaid, then. Or, sorry, a siren?” Clark asked incredulously.

“There’s no such thing as a sea-witch, or sirens, or whatever.” My dad said, as he raised his hands in self-defense when Pete and Sam gave him a look. “I’m sorry! Look, there’s probably a reasonable explanation for where he’s gone.

“Remember when Robby Kemeroff went missing last summer?” He continued. “He’d gone on a hike, by himself, took a wrong turn and ended up walking for two days. But he found his way back. Jack isn’t much younger than Robby. We’ll find him.” My dad sounded so sure of himself. I almost wanted to believe him too. But I could tell from the looks on Pete and Sam’s faces that they were more convinced of their theory about the sea-witch.

“Anyway, we’re just getting a quick bite to eat, and then we’re heading back out to search for a while before it gets dark.”

“Luckily, that won’t be for a while,” Pete said. Just then, their food arrived, and I realized ours must have been delivered to our table as well.

“Well, don’t stay out searching too late. I’ll see you back at home, dad?” He just nodded, looking longingly at his burger and fries. Pete and Sam started digging into their food as well, so Clark and I got up and started walking back to our table, where our food was indeed waiting, getting cold.

That night, as I tried to get some sleep, I tossed and turned. My dreams were interrupted by cold, freezing blue water and the unmistakable green of hair and seaweed wrapping around my body and pulling me under the waves. I could still hear the hum of a distant song in my head when I awoke the next morning.