to persist for a moment longer. “And he never even tried to get her out. And so she drowned. Everyone thought it was an accident, but it wasn’t.”
“Poor Annie!” cried Emma, her voice rising to a wail. “But Dom,” she said, “couldn’t she swim?”
“Don’t you remember Daddy’s pirate bat?” said Dom. “It’s come in handy for all sorts of things.”
Domenica’s stomach was calm now. The story had allowed her mind to move along with the swells of the ocean. She felt nimble. Light as a bird. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, muting her triumph somewhat in deference to her sister’s misery. She rose, rinsed out her mouth at the sink, and washed her face with a pink washcloth. She took one step over her sister to reach the door, then paused. “Don’t ask Mum and Dad about this, Em. It’s a sore point between them. Mum doesn’t like thinking about Annie and everything that happened.”
Emma only nodded, her knees pulled tight to her chest under her turquoise nightie. Domenica left her like that, a small huddle on the floor.
* * *
—
By the next morning, Emma felt compelled to substantiate some part of the horror that her sister had told her.
Eventually, she found it, tucked away in the sail locker between the pantry and her parents’ cabin. The fact that the bat was hidden away seemed to support Domenica’s story. Emma could only imagine that Daddy must feel terrible about what he had done and didn’t want a daily reminder.
She peered at the bat closely to look for traces of blood or damage. Emma knew murder weapons were not always things like daggers and revolvers. She thought through the array of other death-dealing objects that figured in her favourite board game, Clue. The candlestick, the wrench, the lead pipe, the rope. Most of those items could be found aboard Buona Fortuna. But the bat did seem more potent than those precious miniatures. When she tried swinging it, it slipped from her grip and hit the floor of the locker with a loud thud.
“What are you doing in here, chipmunk?” asked a mild voice right behind her, causing Emma to drop the bat again and her mother to step back to avoid its falling weight.
“Playing,” she answered, as the bat clattered to the floor.
“Darling,” her mother said. “Tell me what’s on your mind. What are you worrying about?”
Emma’s eyes widened. She shook her head. Maybe it was best to just blurt it out. Domenica’s story could not be left unchecked. Emma tried to point to the bat, but she felt her movement was exaggerated, her elbow a massive hinge threatening to swing loose. Finally, she cleared her throat.
“Mummy, is our boat haunted by a ghost named Annie? A friend of Daddy’s who drowned?”
Her mother looked at her a moment before replying: “Yes.” Then, “Don’t you want to lend your father a hand in the cockpit? I’m sure he could use your help.”
Then her mother returned to her couch in the salon.
* * *
—
Faye could never understand why she helped to sustain Domenica’s lies. There had been other times when Emma had posed her a seemingly innocuous and random question, usually related to their life in Montauk, and Faye’s unwillingness to expose what she knew must be one of Dom’s fabrications had always resulted in a slip of the tongue, a yes where there should have been a no. Perhaps she only wanted to prolong Emma’s adulation of her sister a little longer. At times, her younger daughter reminded her of an exotic pet removed from its natural habitat. She worried that the girls, especially Emma, had been away from regular life too long.
She could not be certain what transpired between the girls late at night during the rough passages, when she was too focused on helping Harold in the cockpit, or occasionally too ill. But she suspected that Domenica must be trying to relieve her own passionate boredom. And Faye, who loved travelling but had grown to despise the sea, could hardly blame her.
And in this case, it was really only half a lie. Annie was haunting her as surely as any real ghost ever could.
She wondered exactly what Domenica knew or pretended to know about Annie. God forbid Harold had mentioned her to the girls. The online obituary he had been crying over mentioned a vibrant career in curation and art dealing. A bereaved husband, Keelan, and a daughter, Julia, who was the same age as Domenica. Annie’s ashes