The Rare Pearl (Broken Water Series Book 1) Read online

  After her grandmother’s funeral last fall she returned to the university in South Carolina, going through the motions until finals. Home for the Christmas break, she hadn’t resumed classes for her final semester. The lonely holiday took its toll.

  “I’d like to clear out some of my grandparents’ things. It will help me move on…before I go back to school. Even though I’ve lived in this house almost my whole life, it’s hard to believe it’s mine.”

  “What about Boston?”

  Harmony shrugged. “I still have to graduate. My dream of living and working for an architectural firm in the city seems so…I don’t know.” As much as Harmony looked forward to her future metropolitan life, leaving this house, and the Wentworth, still left her with a heaviness she couldn’t dislodge.

  “Eventually you could sell the house—when you’re ready.”

  Hugging her elbows, Harmony frowned. “I could never sell it. I’ve lived here since I was six. They bought this New Englander in 1945 after the war. And Sam, not only did they leave me this mortgage-free house but they left me a sizable trust fund.”

  “Makes sense. You’re their only surviving relative, you should get every asset.”

  “If I someday move to the city, I’ll close it up and use it as a summer place. Besides I loved this town, this area.” Harmony imagined her grandfather, handsome in his sailor suit, meeting her grandmother at a Wentworth-by-the-Sea soiree—merely one family connection to the hotel.

  “There’s no place like home. This break from filming has been revitalizing. Gosh, I’ve spent a lot of time in this kitchen.” Samantha planted her elbows on the table, reminiscing. She chuckled at the memory of Stan coaxing his wife away from washing dishes, clad in her favorite apron, her hands encased in soapy yellow gloves. Unfazed, Stan would waltz her around the table while they did their homework. “So,” Samantha asked, “how are things going with your committee?”

  “Have you read the headlines lately?” Harmony railed. “Henley Properties wants to tear down eighty-five percent of the ‘newer’ section of the Wentworth and build condos. They promise to restore the original building, but we’ve heard this argument before.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe some other company will buy and renovate it.” Samantha said, optimistically.

  “I hope so.”

  They chatted late into the night until Samantha hugged her dearest friend goodnight and walked two houses over to her father’s house.

  Harmony spent some time cleaning the grime off the satchel. She carried it to her grandfather’s study, wondering who it could have belonged to, perhaps a hotel guest or an employee. Entering Stan’s study, she placed it on the bookshelf for safekeeping. Pulling the door closed on her way out, she headed to bed.

  Snuggled under her bedspread, tears filled her eyes. She thought about her grandparents missing out on the events in her future. And how she broke up with her boyfriend five months ago and had gone on two very boring dates since then. She counted on her prospects increasing once she moved to Boston, if-ever it happened. She rolled over, huffing, feeling alone in the world.

  Troublesome thoughts persisted. As for her friends—Samantha travelled the world most of the year and her college friends lived down south. An active member on the Fight-for-the-Preservation-of-Wentworth project, she knew most of the town, but wasn’t close with any of them.

  Her grandparents were gone. Her parents were gone. Her life was in limbo. Don’t feel sorry for yourself! But her loneliness spiked and she cried herself to sleep.

  Harmony was a child, outside on a cold day. Before her stood an outline of a woman in a blue parka, the fur-lined hood secured around her head. The woman bent forward with her arms outstretched. Her gloves wrapped around Harmony’s small mitten-clad hands. Wiggling her fingers inside the thickness of her mittens, Harmony couldn’t make out the woman’s face, but knew it was her mother. The overcast sky seemed to create the same grayed illusion inside the hood, her mother’s face blurred. Mother’s high, young voice instructed her on how to move her skates over the ice. Metal blades scratched across the frozen surface and Harmony swayed as her mother skated backward, guiding her along.

  A horrible, cracking sound filled the air. Harmony felt the panic in her mother’s movements as she tried to shuffle them closer to the river’s edge. More popping and cracking, followed by a bloodcurdling scream rang through the air.

  Solid ice beneath their skates gave way and the two of them plunged, breaking contact in the current. Icy water engulfed Harmony and her jacket became saturated, sinking her like an anchor. She pawed through the air bubbles, searching for her mother—for anyone to save her!

  When the air bubbles vanished she saw a man swim up to her—every detail on his face vivid, unlike the emptiness inside her mother’s hood. His dark eyes watched her and his streaming black hair floated outward like long tentacles. His firm lips turned up in a smile and then he flashed his white teeth. Strangely, no effervesce escaped his mouth or nose. Harmony thought he should be cold; he was bare-chested and only a circle of cloth hung from his hips. He reached for her. Silvery scales, running under his arms, flashed. Another line of scales shimmered along his outer thighs down to his ankles.

  Was he man or fish?

  Desperate, she held out her arms. He merely yanked at her mittens, which floated out of reach. Why didn’t he help her? Her lungs felt tight. She continued to sink and he watched her. He’d let her drown?

  Terrified and angry, her freezing fingers began to tingle painfully and heat surged down her arms.

  Finally he reached for her but at the point of contact, her fingertips, the man jerked in shock as if he’d been electrocuted.

  Strangely, she wanted to get away from him. Kicking her legs and propelling herself upward, she floated inches below the river’s surface, the light above filtering through the darkness. The man made several attempts to grab her, but his expression turned angry when her penetrating energy-filled touches kept him at bay. He bared his teeth in frustration and swam away. That was the horrific moment she noticed the blue parka, with her mother trapped inside, being dragged into obscurity by the man-fish creature.

  The back of her jacket was yanked from above and all went black.

  Twisting in bed, Harmony cried out. All she recalled was being in deep, icy-cold water. Just a bad dream. I’m safe and dry. She rolled, glancing at the time. Samantha will be here soon.

  3

  Samantha dashed out the door thinking about returning to her fast-paced life and her boyfriend. She’d be jetting away in two days and so put aside time this morning to help Harmony sort through her grandparents’ stuff.

  She spied Harmony crossing the yard, heading for the garage. “Morning! Hey, aren’t we cleaning out your grandparents’ bedroom?” Samantha jogged over, arms pumping. “I’m ready for some heavy lifting.” She flexed her muscles.

  “Hiya, Sam. Yeah, I’m just getting some empty boxes.” She waved away Samantha’s antics and rolled the garage door open.

  Entering, Samantha wrinkled her nose at the smell of dust and mildew. Though Stan kept his garage in top-notch condition, it gathered a fair share of leaves and cobwebs in the three years since he’d been gone. While Harmony contemplated what size boxes she needed, Samantha snooped around.

  “What are you going to do with all this stuff? Like this?” Samantha held up a tennis racquet.

  “I used to watch my grandmother play at the Wentworth.”

  “You haven’t started playing, have you?” She rummaged in a nearby tote for a ball.

  Harmony furrowed her brow.

  Samantha raised her eyebrows in challenge and then she launched the ball at her.

  Harmony’s hand went up in defense, deflecting the yellow torpedo. “Ouch.”

  The tennis ball rolled under the tool bench.

  “Aww, come on. Toss it back.” Samantha posed with the racquet, knees bent like a pro. Athletic, she’d challenge anyone at any sport—whether she was good at it or not
, laughing off any inabilities.

  Harmony ignored her and the ball. “Let’s go in and get started.” Abandoning her animated friend, who pretended she scored the winning point in a tournament, Harmony grabbed a couple boxes and walked away.

  “…and the crowd roars!” Samantha bowed to her imaginary fans before tossing the racquet onto a shelf.

  The girls entered the bedroom absorbed in their thoughts. Everything looked the same. Harmony set the boxes on the floor and placed a carton of trash bags on the dresser.

  “I’ve contacted a consignment place in Portsmouth. They’ll take Margaret’s clothes and shoes, and the rest goes into these bags to be donated.”

  Harmony opened a jewelry box on the dresser. “Remember these earrings?”

  The girls lost track of time sorting through the pieces, reminiscing about brooches worn on special occasions and earrings popular throughout the decades.

  “What are you going to do with Margaret’s jewelry? There are some valuable items in here.”

  “I’ll keep it for now. But all I really care about is this.” Harmony regarded a lavender pearl ring hugging her finger. “It was my grandmother’s favorite possession.”

  Samantha remembered the day Margaret gifted it to Harmony after their high school graduation. She’d said, “You are like this rare pearl, Harmony, beautiful and one of a kind.”

  “Did you know Margaret means pearl?”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Also, Pearl was her grandmother’s name.”

  “Huh.” Samantha was admiring emerald earrings when she heard Harmony clear her throat.

  “Sam, I’ve been thinking… Isn’t it strange how both my parents drowned…and my grandparents too? Obviously not all at once, but…” Her brows drew together in contemplation. “My grandfather…a car accident, but his car skidded off a bridge and he was trapped in the river. And now my grandmother drowns offshore in her friend’s boat. Seriously, what are the odds?”

  Samantha shook her head, unable to come up with a reasonable explanation. “It’s weird. I guess it validates your fear of deep water.”

  Harmony slouched, eyes filling with tears, as she scanned the possessions that embodied her loved ones. “This is harder than I thought.”

  At her side in an instant, Samantha hugged her, an old protectiveness coiling in her gut. Kids talked behind Harmony’s back in grade school. A fellow student raised by grandparents because her parents drowned gave the student body something scandalous to talk about.

  “I know. It sucks! But, you’ll get through it. You’re so strong…whether you believe it or not.” She saw Harmony overcome adversity in school and would never forget years ago when some punks tormented a stray dog and Harmony came to its rescue. In the playground after school, three delinquent boys in the girls’ fifth grade class poked sticks at the whining animal. Samantha and her friends were glued to the unfolding, shocking scene.

  “Get away from that dog!” Harmony yelled, approaching the trio.

  “Mind your own business,” the tallest boy said.

  Harmony seethed. Marching over, she stepped between them and the dog, giving them a piece of her mind.

  Samantha gawked, scared for Harmony’s safety. Those boys were bigger and meaner than Harmony, who stood like Wonder Woman, fists on hips, upholding justice and ready to take them on.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Each taunted, snickering.

  When the tall boy reached forward to shove her, Harmony caught his hand in her fist and swiftly twisted his arm around his back, bending him forward.

  “Ahhh, get her off me!” His voice cracked in agony.

  She forced his face close to the mutt. “Would you like a little payback, dog?” The animal sensed an ally and growled at the boy.

  The boys raised their sticks to free their buddy.

  “Get ’em!” She commanded.

  The dog leaped to attack the pair, who dropped their sticks and ran. The dog gave chase. When she shoved the bully with unnatural force, his face landed in the dirt. He scrambled away, rubbing his shoulder, his bottom lip quivering.

  “Cruelty to others will come back to you tenfold. I’ll be watching you!”

  That kid was scared of her throughout the rest of fifth grade, until his family moved out of state. The other two boys were always polite to her. As for the dog, they never saw it again.

  Samantha had been perplexed, but impressed by the physical strength and tenacity her friend displayed. Yeah, her gal was strong and could take care of herself.

  Emotions settled, Samantha rallied, “I’m here to help, so this is what we’re going to do…” She uttered encouragement while they worked diligently over the next couple of hours. Of course she couldn’t resist trying on an outrageous outfit or two to make Harmony laugh.

  ***

  After Samantha’s departure, Harmony continued her decluttering efforts. Open boxes in various states of fullness crowded the house. In the living room, she lifted an old photo album. It originally belonged to Pearl and contained pictures during the time of the famous Russo-Japanese Peace Treaty signed at the Wentworth-by-the-Sea in 1905. Pearl worked at the hotel in those days. Harmony ran her fingers over a picture of her ancestor dressed in her uniform on the sweeping veranda. Eyeing the adjacent page, she studied a photo of the Russian and Japanese delegates, all wearing suits and fashionable mustaches as they posed at the Wentworth’s front door.

  Placing the album back on the coffee table, she padded barefoot down the hall to the closed study door. After grandfather passed, her grandmother kept the door closed to enshrine its scent. Margaret swore it smelled like him in there. The leather chairs, the pipe tobacco, his aftershave— Stanley Parker’s combination scent.

  She slipped inside, closing the door behind her. The room felt stuffy. I should open a window. But the last time she had, his scent dissipated. Inhaling, she believed she could still smell him, but after all this time, it was probably her memory.

  Scanning the shelves, she glanced at the books, photographs, and memorabilia from World War II. She smiled at a picture of her grandparents with her mother, around age five, on the beach having a picnic. The boxy shape of Margaret’s bathing suit dated the photo to the 1950s.

  She lifted the frame beside it, the only photograph her grandparents displayed with her father in it. Gripping either side of it, she studied it in detail. Her dad, Eric, stood in front of a fishing vessel with his arm slung around her mother’s shoulder, his other hand spread across her pregnant belly. Brook wore a halter-style dress and sandals. The picture was faded, but Harmony could see how much she resembled her mom—with the exception of the wavy blond hair she clearly inherited from her dad.

  Stan and Margaret hadn’t approved of the fisherman who worked the docks in Gloucester. They blamed him for luring their daughter away and getting her pregnant. It was the mid-1960s when Brook quit school, gave birth and settled into a tiny apartment near the wharf. Margaret explained the situation to Harmony years later when pubescent curiosity had her asking questions.

  Brook’s drowning devastated all of them. After the heartbreaking loss of his wife, Eric, having no other family, was compelled to let Harmony stay with Brook’s parents. His commercial fishing job kept him away at sea for long periods. It was the best he could do for his little daughter. But within a year of Brook’s death, he too, was lost at sea. The authorities informed the Parkers the company’s boat sank during a storm and all souls were lost. Six-year-old Harmony became a permanent resident in her grandparent’s house.

  She returned the frame to the shiny line that marked its place on the dusty shelf. On a lower ledge was a decorative cardboard box. She lifted the lid and drew out a newspaper clipping.

  TRAGIC DROWNING ON SATURDAY

  A young woman fell through the ice into North River while ice-skating. She was swiftly pulled under and found a day later downstream.

  Harmony stuffed the newspaper back into the box, choosing not to read the ar
ticle again. Instead, she grabbed the satchel and sat at Stan’s desk. Turing the bag in her hands, she examined the stitching. Next, she turned her attention to the tin, it opened with a thook. She lifted out the brittle yellowed paper and examined the crushed leaves inside its folds. Cautiously, she sniffed them. Beyond the stale aroma was something faint…something she didn’t recognize. She set the paper on a letter tray.

  Turning the tin, she noticed a symbol on the bottom, a circle with three wavy lines inside. What does this stand for? Distracted, she set down the tin and picked up her grandfather’s lighter. Mindlessly flicking it, she pondered again how the satchel got into the wall. The lighter wasn’t near the leaves, but suddenly the parched paper ignited and smoldered. In a panic, she smacked her hand against the small flames, but it only stirred the herbs releasing a pungent odor. Smoke wafted up and infiltrated the surrounding air.

  Harmony choked on the fumes.

  Why is this smoking so much?

  The wee flames only kissed the paper’s edges, but the smoke from the smoldering herbs continued to burn her eyes and felt dizzy.

  Surely it will die out on the metal letter tray. Maybe I should open the window after all, or at least the door. Abandoning efforts to put the fire out, she stood. After only one step toward the window, she coughed uncontrollably, gripped by some kind of fit. Her vision blurred with tears as she refocused on the tray. The flames were out, but the herbs still smoked.

  What is that stuff...maybe a drug?

  Harmony wasn’t getting air. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her lungs burned. She staggered around the desk, trying to get to the door, which was closer than the window. She needed to escape!

  What is happening?

  Almost there, she put her hand out to grasp the knob, but she fell flat on the floor. Her perception had been off; she was still several feet away. She felt a wave of nausea before everything went black.