Chapter 6: No Vessel

Liv's POV

I work the ferry landing store on weekends, and on Saturday the wind took the whole Rosario Strait and threw it at the island.

The store is a shed with a counter, a coffee urn and a rack of postcards.

It sits on the landing where the Anacortes ferry ties up, and it sells hot chocolate to people who are about to be seasick.

I stood behind the counter in a wet apron and my father's old rain jacket.

At two o'clock the ferry came in rolling, with spray going over her bow, and the ramp banged down.

Freya blew in through the door ahead of the passengers with a rolled paper under her arm.

"I have the log," she said.

"It's for Marine Records.

"The harbour master lets you read it if you ask nicely and bring cookies."

"You brought cookies?"

"I brought your mother's lefse, from Wednesday.

"It was in the dirt for a day, and I washed it, and I'm not ashamed."

I laughed in spite of myself.

She spread the photocopy on my counter between the postcards and the napkins.

It was a long ruled page of handwriting, in the thin blue ink of a harbour book, with each night's entries in a column.

"Look at this," she said.

"I picked last November, because I wanted a night with a storm.

"It's the date they gave for the accident, the one in the Narrows.

"The one that killed Dr. Reinholt's brother."

I went still.

The coffee urn gurgled.

"The harbour log for the night," Freya read, her finger under the line, "says: Wind south-east, gale, 40 knots.

"Visibility nil.

"No vessel in the channel."

"No vessel," I said.

"That's what it says," Freya said.

"I thought it was funny, because they said it was a boat strike.

"How do you get a boat strike with no boat?"

I didn't answer her.

I was looking at the date.

It was the second week of November.