Chapter 2
“I’m a peanut. C’mon, you get it, right? ’Cause I’m allergic to peanuts?” Art laughed and held his arms out. The brown paper grocery bags that he had taped around his midsection and legs looked more like he was likely to exit this world from a trash compacting accident.
Harper snorted her drink into her nose at his expression. “I can see it now, and to think I was afraid my costume would be too obscure.” She spun around, the octopus models and stuffies that she’d attached to fishing line and hung from her shoulders and arms sailing around her.
“You predict you’ll be eaten by the kraken?” Professor Kallen said with a smile on his face. He had been her advisor for most of her PhD now, and was the one who had recommended her for the Bell project.
“It’s not unlikely. After all, isn’t that the point of all this anyhow?” Harper replied with mock curtness. “And what may I ask is your predicted fate? You look exactly like you do every day.”
Professor Kallen held a glass up in a toast. “I didn’t need a costume to bore everyone, including myself, to death. Salut!”
“Salut!” a chorus of voices yelled in response.
Despite herself, Harper was having fun. The loft was a true Boston miracle, the odds of finding this space and it having affordable rent was an actual miracle.
It was built for parties—exposed beams and pipes, brick walls, factory-high ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling windows that were a beast to clean but gave the space a Jonathon Larson Rent kind of aesthetic.
The room was packed, the bio department and a handful of Carli’s anthropology friends in attendance.
As Carli predicted, there was a fair amount of envy dripping but also trepidation.
Profession Kallen had pulled Harper aside with a look of worry on his face.
“Harper, I know I pushed you into applying for this program. And I know your parents were responsible for the original research that started the project on Bell Island, which makes you a perfect candidate for this. But, are you sure?” He paused, looking for the words.
“I mean, I know you grew up on a tiny island, maybe you’re acclimated for it, but Bell is very isolated, and six months is no joke.
You’ve done your homework on the place, I assume? ”
Harper nodded. “Vestmannaeyjar. That was the tiny island. And yes, I’ve done my research.
And what you don’t know is that my mother was actually a native Bell Islander.
She survived, so will I. Maybe there’s some sort of legacy status that will earn me island street cred.
” Harper grinned and sipped her drink. “Carli is flipping out, so I know it’s haunted, and a place for escapees from all walks of life.
I know it’s super tight-knit and I cannot expect a warm welcome. ”
“To put it lightly.” The professor looked around checking for eavesdroppers.
“I didn’t know your mother grew up there, please pardon my ignorance.
” Harper waved away his stricken expression.
A small wave of relief washed over his face and he continued.
“Read the field reports from the team fifteen years ago, the one whose research you’re picking up. ”
Harper frowned. “I’ve scoured them. I had to for the application.”
“Not the research—I know you’ve probably memorized all the science.
I’m talking the personal notes. They’ll be an addendum to the original field reports.
They’re, um, interesting. The locals were not happy to have researchers on their island, and the skipper for the team, a Florence Manning, I believe her name was, was actually assaulted. ”
Harper sucked her breath in. “Not …”
“No, not that kind of assault, thank God, but roughed up. Evidently the local sailors took aim with a female boat skipper. She left the project early. You should also take a look at the records of the hurricane that knocked the whole project off course. Hurricane Audra. Anyhow, I don’t say this to scare you, but just prepare yourself. ”
Harper had begun to hear her own heart pounding in her ears. “I lost my parents in that hurricane. It did a lot more than just ruin a research project.”
“Of course, I’m so sorry, I don’t mean anything …” He had flushed and looked genuinely horrified.
Harper had waved his apology away. “Please, don’t apologize. And don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”
He’d nodded and wandered off, a glass of gin in his hand.
Harper had taken a shot of something overly sweet with her research assistants, twins who were dressed in matching overalls with matching train tracks painted on the front.
They’d excitedly told Harper they were leaving for a research project on an Omaha farm near a train track, studying soil levels or some such.
Evidently the leading cause of death in this nothing town was death by train.
Harper was beginning to count her blessings.
Hostile villagers sounded better than killer trains.
Harper was standing by the window surveying the room when Carli whispered in her ear. “Don’t hate me.”
“Why would I hate you?” Harper wrapped her arm around her waist. The liquor was in her head; it didn’t take much, but the anxiety balloon that followed her in everyday life was now floating ten feet above her head and she felt light as air.
“I invited her,” Carli whispered, squeezing Harper’s hand.
“And what possessed you to do that?” Harper closed her eyes and the room shifted slightly to the right.
“It was super awkward not to for one, but also if you really aren’t coming back to Boston, you shouldn’t leave it like this.” Carli kissed her cheek, breath smelling of bubblegum and sugar, and disappeared.
And there she was.
Leia.
She had just entered and her short hair was worn natural and close to her skull.
Her skin caught the light from the hanging Edison bulbs, making her a perfect shade of caramel.
Harper caught her breath, she always did when Leia entered a room.
She was wearing a long black dress with blunted syringes hanging from the sleeves.
Boston University School of Medicine done, Leia was due to start her residency in the fall.
They’d have had to break up anyway; Leia would have been assigned somewhere else, and Harper wouldn’t have been able to follow and even if she did, how totally pathetic was that?
And they’d have broken up anyway, Harper repeated to herself as if saying it over and over made it more true.
It was good that Harper did it when she did, even though at the time it had nothing to do with residencies or Bell Island, it was just stupid fear and never knowing if she’d be able to hold it together long enough to be who she wanted to be when they were together.
And now she was here standing in the doorway and Harper was frozen in place, grateful that the rambling monologue was raging only in her head and not coming out of her mouth.
Leia saw her and smiled a mouthful of perfect white teeth.
As she crossed the room, Harper saw looks follow her.
Her team had known about the breakup; they’d put up with Harper slamming cabinet doors until it had subsided into crying because the coffeepot was empty and her chair had been moved.
Now they were grateful that Harper was back to being quiet and moody—in other words, normal.
“Hey.” Leia was standing right there, inches from her, a glass of red wine in her hands. “You predict you will die by octopus attack?”
“Octopus only attack when defending themselves, so I hope to join in their fight for justice.” Harper let herself smile. “And you are afraid that you will be subject to a thousand vaccinations and perish from injection-site swelling.”
“Exactly.” Leia raised her glass and as Harper clinked her cup to her, their fingers lightly touched.
“Glad you came,” Harper said.
“I’m happy for you,” Leia replied, her eyes never breaking contact. She was good at dispelling all the nonsense small talk.
“I’m scared,” Harper said through a lump in her throat.
“That’s okay. What you’re doing is scary.” Leia leaned in until her lips were grazing Harper’s ear. “You are more than you ever give yourself credit for.”
With that, she turned and sauntered off into the crowd. Harper slumped onto the high-backed faux Victorian fainting chaise. “Jesus,” she muttered.
“Nope,” replied Carli, who had appeared from seemingly nowhere. “Just me, but you did good.”
“What was I thinking?” Harper whispered. “She’s perfect.”
“Probably,” Carli said, sitting next to her.
“But she won’t always be, and neither will you.
Personally, I’m hoping for a Before Sunset magical reunion after you return from Bell Island and after the good Dr. Leia becomes the leading thoracic surgeon in Philly, or Maine, or LA, or wherever you meet again. ”
“I’m going to miss the hell out of you.” Harper wrapped her arms around her friend.
“I know.” Carli leaned her head on Harper’s shoulder.
A surge of movement on the other side of the room broke their brief reverie.
“Jesus! What the fuck??” The crowd spilled back, nearly knocking over the table of black bean tortas with black Hungarian peppers. Effectively spooky as promised but far too spicy for Harper’s taste.
“What the actual hell is that?” Art, wrapped in his paper bag peanuts, was staring at something on the window, a small crowd forming behind him.
Harper ran over, catching her balance as she stood.
Stuck to the glass from the outside was an alien creature about the size of a quarter, its gelatinous body pulsing against the glass, impotent stingers hung from its periphery; inside the milky body that seemed to emanate with ghostly light, four opaque pods swelled and deflated in a sort of controlled panic.
Harper opened the sliding door to the small patio as the party stared at her and the creature with amused horror.
Harper regarded the visitor, then called through the open door.
“Get me a towel,” she called, keeping her eyes on the creature.
Someone placed a hand towel from the drink table in her outstretched hand.
Harper could feel the creature struggling for breath, could feel its fear and disorientation.
The eyes on the other side of the glass faded away, the stars overhead went black.
Of all the universe, it was only Harper and this fearful monster.
With borrowed certainty, Harper reached out and, making sure to keep her fingers on the slick jelly of its body, pulled the creature off the glass and onto the towel in her waiting hand.
Its energy changed, it was startled, and she felt a pulse emanate through her body even though the stingers lay dormant on the towel’s surface.
“Craspedacusta sowerbii. Freshwater jellyfish,” she whispered. “Where did you come from? I bet a bird wanted you for their dinner and you wiggled your way out of their beak.”
The crowd had largely gone back to their previous activities, only a few crept closer to peer at the creature in her hand.
“You’re seriously creepy, Harper,” Art said with a hint of admiration in his voice.
“I try.” Harper smiled, staring at the creature. “You know, for a bunch of biologists, I expected a bit less squeamishness.”
“I study herring. Herring. Herring without venom and tentacles,” Art said, leaning closer.
On Harper’s right, Leia’s voice drifted on the air; the creature seemed to ease toward it. “Harper’s always had a way with scary things. Myself included.”
“You were never scary,” Harper said in a hushed tone, mesmerized by the alien in her hand.
“Just ask the lab assistants. I’m terrifying,” Leia replied softly. “Where did he come from?”
“Turtle Pond, but how he became affixed to our window is a mystery,” Harper said.
“It’s nice to see a witch with her familiar.” Leia put a hand on her shoulder and Harper felt her skin melt under the touch. Just like that, she was gone back into the crowd. Harper sometimes wondered if everyone could see Leia or if she had conjured her out of a dream.
Harper navigated the steep steps that led to Stony Brook Park and made her way to the bank of Turtle Pond, where the moon reflected on the surface of the water.
“It’s time to go,” Harper whispered to it as she gently eased the tiny jellyfish into the water. It pulsed with relief and disappeared below the surface.