A young boy wearing a heavy blue pea coat walked along the northern point of Little Seal Island. It was Saturday, there was no school. He dashed from one rock to the next, finding the priceless treasures the tide had left for him. Blue sea-glass, two links of flaking rust-covered chain, an orange jonah crab shell. He brought the shell to the water's edge and carefully placed a purple-grey periwinkle inside. He set it adrift on the outgoing tide, sending the little mollusk on a voyage that would surely take it to strange and distant ports.

Twenty yards down the shore he saw a glimpse of white, an object resting near a piece of driftwood, partially obscured by a knot of seaweed. His crab-shell schooner forgotten, he ran to investigate. It was a quarter-inch thick section of pages from a book, sodden and heavy, without a cover. He carefully pried the pages apart to reveal antiquated hand-drawn black-and-white illustrations of whales- Rights, Finbacks, Blues and Humpbacks. He was indifferent. He closed the pages and flung them spinning into the sea.

* * * * * *

At grey dawn on Sunday, cold spikes of rain fell. The tiny concentric patterns were quickly overwhelmed and lost in the wind-whipped ripples of the sea. Barren November oaks and birches bent, creaking, while brethren spruces held fast, stoic against the relentless gnawing wind. Tireless waves lapped at the shore of Little Seal, slowly, silently rounding the stones, working them against one another; the eons-long chore of turning harsh broken granite shoreline to pebbles, finally to soft white sand.

His feet clad in rubber-soled clamming boots, Russ MacDonald forced the dull point of his shovel into the unyielding granite-laced earth again, wincing as the steel met rock and sent another shock through his limbs. He paused, leaning on his shovel and looking to the sky, feeling the icy drops stinging like the blackflies of summer. The rain washed him, cathartic, cleaning salty tears from the weather-worn creases of his face. 18 years a fisherman, primarily lobstering, the wages of his labor showed more readily in his countenance than in his net worth. Deep lines on his cheeks and brow, raw, knobby fingers and the dull, persistent ache of his back were the toll the ocean exacted in exchange for his livelihood. Russ looked as though he'd seen the better part of his fifth decade. He was 36.

He extracted the stone, a softball sized chunk of basalt, and hurled it vengefully down the rise toward the gunmetal green-grey waves in fruitless retribution. The sea was nonplussed; it threw back a knot of shining burnt-umber kelp and olive-drab bladder-wrack and left it on the shore. No remorse. This boundless living organism he both loved and cursed was heartless; indifferent to the anguish it had so casually visited on all of his days from now until his end.

Russ plunged the spade again; again he met resistance. This time, a tree root. Over his shoulder, a warm yellow light winked through the pines, glowing from his kitchen. The table there was piled with plates and dishes of food the islanders had bestowed on him in accordance with custom. Casseroles. Cakes. Pies. Roast chickens. Baskets heaped with hard-to-find fresh fruits. It was easily more than he could eat in a fortnight, perhaps even a month. Conspicuously absent from this cornucopia was anything from the sea. No fish. No mussels, clams or scallops. No crabs or lobsters. This, perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by design: the product of a collective conscious avoidance of any unnecessary reminders.

Spade to earth again, 4 x 7 x 6. Too much work for one man, let alone a broken man, but Russ was driven and had steadfastly refused all offers of help. He was unconvinced by his fellow islanders when they told him it would be madness to undertake this himself. He could forsee little chance of laboring at anything meaningful in his near or distant future; he would do this alone, accompanied only by his grief. He would do this for her. He sought to replace his gaping sense of loss and emotional despair with purely physical pain, but only found himself suffocating under the enormous weight of both. Blisters broke on his hands. He raised another shovelful of red-brown soil and stone while Althea waited, silent, in silk and roses and darkness.

He hadn't been there when it happened. His vision of how the sea had stolen her played again and again in his mind, along with the horrible nagging questions; those bright, dull knives jabbing at him, twisting within, cruelly eviscerating.

* * * * * *

A trip to the main was routine; at least a bi-weekly journey in winter and more frequent in warm weather. L'Etoile (The Star) was small, she held 5 passengers plus cargo. Her burden had been light on Friday- only two and her captain -and she steamed faithfully, weaving carefully through the handful of tiny pine-crested islands that lay between Little Seal and the main. The bay had been uncharacteristically calm and L'Etoile's wake lay behind her like twin silver ribbons racing to the shorelines. Terns and gulls circled, avian beggars hovering nearly motionless in the ice-blue fall sky.

The little red and white boat was an old trawler, stripped of her rigging and adapted to renewed service as a ferry. She held effortlessly to the deep water of the channel and arrived at the port of Squeaker Cove on the main less than an hour after her departure from Little Seal. It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Grey plumes of wood-smoke rose from chimneys at 45 degrees; the wind was gaining strength. Althea disembarked, stepping carefully from the gunnel to the twenty-foot-square wooden float that rode the tides, attached by a hinged ramp to the pier proper. It was an hour from low water; the ramp was steep. She ascended quickly, glancing down at the sun-bleached shells and barnacle encrusted stones littering the muddy shoreline. She smelled pungent detritus, an unpleasant stench to tourists, the scent of home to those who live on the sea's edge.

L'Etoile would depart for the return trip to Little Seal in 90 minutes and her Captain, known for neither his patience nor his courtesy, admonished Althea to be prompt. Darkness came swiftly and early in November and while travel on the bay after dark was possible, it was thought unwise. Treacherous shoals and ledges lay inches below the surface throughout the bay and the captains knew them by name- Potato Rock, Cat's Paw, Morris's Mistake, The Millstone. After dusk, distances became unclear and hazy, difficult to judge. Points of triangulation were lost in cold black shadow. Lighthouses warned only of island shores and the rocks near the channels lay anonymous and obscured; silent predators, unbetrayed.

Althea walked briskly up the hill to the town of Squeaker Cove, a picturesque seacoast village with a dozen stores on Seaside Avenue and forty-odd houses nestled comfortably into the hillsides beyond, its well-protected harbor punctuated with white-hulled boats and brightly colored lobster buoys. This was formerly a fishing village but the cannery had burned two years previous, leaving more than half the residents without work. Some had gradually migrated to points southward, to warmer climes and what they hoped would be more stable opportunities in the fisheries down the coast. At the war's end, many of those returning from tours of duty in the South Pacific found their livelihood in ashes and had struck out for the burgeoning suburbs of New York and Boston to work at the construction of the new housing developments there.

Although a number of fishermen remained, the community was in the throes of re-inventing itself as a tourist town, replete with summer rentals, gift shops and restaurants. The one great obstacle they had yet to overcome was the lingering smell of the cannery, which had seemingly permeated the very earth on which the town was built. Every hill and tree, every shingle and clapboard of every house still held the odor of salted herring and mackerel: The Smelliest Place on Earth! Having made hundreds of trips here over the course of her lifetime, the lingering odor of the fishing industry was lost on Althea, as was the postcard-quaintness of the town.

A hand-lettered sign at the roadside welcomed her, gleefully proclaiming Squeaker Cove "An Undiscovered Paradise, A True Gem of Downeast Maine." She smiled and laughed quietly to herself and hurried along on her way.

Althea was a quiet woman. She genuinely liked people but was not one to make friends easily. She was quick and bright- to a fault, some said -and remarkably self-determined in an era when women were not necessarily admired for being so. Her exterior was calm and reserved but fiery passion lived deep inside her, surfacing only in the company of those she knew well and trusted. She lived a thoughtful life; she dedicated herself wholly to her pursuits and was fiercely devoted to Russ, reveling in his happiness, striving to please him and fully expecting (and receiving) the same in return. She was young and strong and pretty, embarking on the twenty-sixth winter of her life, and her twenty-sixth on Little Seal.

She strode with purpose, and in some haste. She had several stops to make and did not want to miss the return trip of L'Etoile lest she be stranded at Squeaker Cove until morning. A night's lodging would be easy enough to acquire, but in five years of marriage she had not spent a single night without the comfort of Russ's strong arms around her and the prospect of sleeping without him was more disconcerting to her than she cared to admit, even to herself.

She stopped first at the drug store and made several purchases of items unavailable on Little Seal, with its one tiny and perpetually understocked general store. She paused briefly and glanced through a rack of magazines, thumbing through the pages of the local weekly newspaper, The Squeaker Cove Register. An advertisment caught her eye:

Sightseeing Tours! Travel aboard the beautiful Albatross to the outer reaches of Penobscot Bay. See Humpback Whales in all their Natural Splendor! Puffin Tours also available, enquire..." Althea thought of the whale bones.

A humpback carcass had washed up on the eastern shore of Little Seal in the mid 1920s when Russ was a boy. The sea was omnipresent in his life on this small island, affecting nearly every aspect of it. He was well acquainted with many of the creatures that inhabited these cold waters and was fascinated by his discovery of the dead whale. He visited the carcass at intervals, watching the progress of its decay over time, aided by scavengers, wind and water. Once the remaining bones were sufficiently cleaned and bleached, he carefully brought a few of them back home; several huge vertabrae weighing 30 pounds apiece adorned the front of their house, two upright four-and-a-half foot long whale ribs marked the beginning of the short walkway leading to their house. His great interest in all things natural remained with him into adulthood although opportunites for beach-and-rock combing became somewhat fewer and farther between.

Seeing the whale-watching ad, Althea thought of those ornamental bones and was reminded that Russ had been looking for a copy of Whales of the North Atlantic, an exhaustive study for its day, now long out of print. She made a mental note to stop at the used bookstore on her way back to the pier, time permitting.

She worked quickly and methodically, finishing her important errands with time to spare for a stop at the bookstore and perhaps even a cup of tea to brace herself against the chill of the impending trip back across the bay.

The heavy wooden door creaked loudly on its hinges as she entered. A copper cowbell redundantly signalled her arrival to the store's owner, a grey haired gentleman with a fisherman's beard. He sat in a creaking wooden rocker near the counter, puffing furiously at an unlit pipe and seeming half-buried under an array of thick woolen sweaters. No less than eight cats were perched or lazily sprawled in various places about the store. One sat on the counter and paused from his hygiene ritual to eye her with curiosity and concern. He jumped and ran as she approached. Althea supressed a grin as she thought to herself, "Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs."

"Ayup, it's a cold one today, what can I do for you?" the proprietor said, smiling, revealing a dearth of teeth. Those that remained were tinted with a rich yellowish cast. Althea said "Oh, I don't suppose there's much chance you'll have it, I was here looking just a few weeks ago. It's a book about whales; it's been out of print for years." The old man scrunched his eyebrows, deeping the already considerable furrow there. "Hmmm. Well, we had some new stock come in, came from a school library up to the Quoddy Loop, when they closed down for good. Most of it's been set out, have a look at the back corner there, see what you turn up."

Althea thanked him, turned and walked past shelf upon shelf of books, past cats who were disinterested and paid her little mind. She turned the corner and began running her finger down the worn spines of books about wildlife, birds, marine life, biology, geology, ...until suddenly she stopped. The title was barely legible, the gold leaf nearly worn away, but it was there. She was ecstatic; Russ had wanted this book for so long! She would bring it home to him, a nice little surprise, something to brighten his day. She paid for the book and thanked the old man again, then she left the shop, clutching it carefully under her arm.

She had forgotten to ask the time. Anxious, she quickened her pace as she walked back to the pier. Her long auburn hair whipped in the still-freshening wind. Jade-green eyes watering, crystalline breath escaped her in small white clouds. At her back the sun was low and blinding, advancing quickly on the distant hills of the horizon. She stepped from the gravel pavement onto the silvery wooden planking of the pier. All around her, ruddy fisherman in dirty yellow oilskins worked at unloading the day's catch: blue-green lobsters, bay scallops and big deep-water cod. Dories, pea-pods and rust-stained lobster boats lay at their moorings, all pointing out the northeast, riding the swells. Beyond the relative calm of the harbor, foam-crested whitecaps rose and fell in three foot seas.

L'Etoile's captain called to her, "Best get underway, Althea. We're losin' daylight and they've called advisories for the mid-coast tonight. Looks like the first nor'easter of the season." The boat was now laden with lumber and quarried chimney-stone for a new house going up on the south end of Little Seal. She drew nearly a foot more than she did under a normal load; a spare eight inches of freeboard remained between the frigid sea and the gunnels. Althea settled onto a low bench in the wheelhouse and bundled herself tightly within her coat, Russ's book still tucked beneath her arm. The cabin was not heated, but would keep the wind at bay for the journey. She was the only passenger returning to the island.

The captain cast off and carefully maneuvered L'Etoile through the maze of fishing boats. He turned southwest, then opened her up full-bore once they were safely in the channel. The wind was behind them. The bow rose and fell, chasing the waves, cutting savagely through them. Althea stood and looked through the dirty window, back at Squeaker Cove as it drew slowly away, obscured now in shadow and haze. Waves raced at the transom, overtaking them as L'Etoile plowed on, wallowing, then advancing, then wallowing again. Each wave threatened to come aboard, rising to the gunnels. The bilge pump chugged and sputtered, barely keeping up with the incoming flow of seawater. Althea was mildly alarmed and looked forward, hoping for a comforting glimpse of the lights on Little Seal. There were none to be seen; they hadn't even rounded Sawyer's Isle yet. They were less than halfway home.

"Ed?" she called, addressing the captain, "...are we ok? This is a little rough!" The Captain looked at her and she could see the apprehension in his eyes. "I'll tell ya, hon- the reports didn't say anything about it coming this early. We'll get a break as soon as we pass Sawyer's and get on the lee side of the breakwater. Getting there's the hard part. Too late to come about and make for the harbor, she'll swamp us."

The wind was still increasing, howling louder and louder as they steamed farther out into the bay. 500 yards ahead, the calmer sea beyond the Sawyer's Isle breakwater seemed an unattainable goal- it may as well have been miles, eternities away. L'Etoile steamed on doggedly, plowing through the heavy sea, her bow plunging into each swell. The water was now coming in faster than the bilge pump could expel it and their peril could no longer be denied. The Captain reached for the ship-to-shore's microphone. "SOS CQ DE WZLH. SS L'ETOILE AT 0945 GMT VESSEL FOUNDERING, POSITION 44:02:52.458N 68:37:50.736W. OVER." The radio responded with nothing more than loud crackles of static.

A series of three tall waves bore down on them, higher and stronger than their predecessors. The first pounded hard against L'Etoile's transom and splashed dramatically in the sky before falling heavily on the quarried stone piled on the afterdeck. The engine faltered momentarily, then caught again. They surged forward. The captain struggled to keep his heading, but the little boat had turned slighty askew, now running at a perilous angle to the driving sea. Althea watched in horror as the second wave came at them with a murderous fury, curling, pouring in over the washboard, swamping the little boat and drowning the engine. The bilge pump gasped, exhaled a cloud of black smoke, and stopped. L'Etoile foundered at the capricious whim of the sea. They were 200 yards off the northern point of Sawyer's Isle. The wires sang as the wind screamed through them. The hollow between the waves momentarily revealed the saw-toothed northernmost ridge of The Cowpen, a squarish arrangement of several underwater shoals and ledges. The rocks were directly to L'Etoile's starboard, a mere ten feet away. The boat had been pushed out of the channel.

The third wave loomed, then fell on them. L'Etoile was lifted briefly, then thrown down to the hungry rocks like a child's toy discarded in a tantrum. Her keel was shattered first; her back broke as the stone bit angrily into her hull, ripping her apart. Althea's screams were lost on the howling wind as she was violently ejected from the wheelhouse and hurled into the arctic cold of the sea that now filled the afterdeck. She managed a handhold on a transom cleat before she was washed overboard, but the afterdeck crunched and scraped, sliding off the rock to be quickly pulled under by the weight of her cargo. Althea released her grip before she was pulled under and struggled to keep her head up, trying for the shore. Hypothermic paralysis gripped her in seconds, piercing her muscles with steely claws. A heavy timber struck the back of her head and left a deep cut; warm blood poured into the cold sea. She drew a deep, gasping breath and held it as her motionless form disappeared beneath the frenzied surface.

In her fading consciousness she thought of Russ; of the warm glow of their fireplace at home casting yellow light across them as they lay entwined before it. She fought against the inevitable, finally exhaling, waiting, holding out as long as she could. She tried in vain to force her muscles to function, to propel her back to the air, but the frigid water had them locked in its grip. She gasped and drew stinging salt water into her lungs, filling them, starving them.

Her lifeless body drifted slowly down in a spread-armed spiral, like a dying angel, finally coming to rest on the seabed, her white fingers barely a foot from the now waterlogged old copy of Whales of the North Atlantic.

* * * * * *

When Althea returned to the island for the last time, the day was bright and clear. She was delivered from the town landing to her carefully prepared grave by horse-drawn cart. Since island vehicles tended toward the utilitarian and were not well-suited to such a somber task, Augustus Webb's flatbed cart was draped in black cloth for the occaision; his old work horse meticulously bathed and curry-combed. A cloying blanket of hothouse flowers cascaded around the polished mahogany casket, its brass fittings sparkling brightly in the morning sun.

The entire population of the island- 35 people, all told -were present as Althea was laid to rest. Attired in their Sunday finery, they listened attentively as the island minister delivered the eulogy in deep dulcet tones. Only Althea's mother wept openly; her father and brother had shed their tears for her in private. Russ declined to speak, fearing that his stoic facade might crumble in an embarrassing public display of emotion. His suffering was far greater than he was willing to admit, and he outwardly portrayed what he felt was an adequate level of sorrow, carefully repressing what he truly felt: the complete and utter destruction of his spirit. He was genuinely touched by the outpouring of heartfelt sympathy from his friends and neighbors, effusive as it was, and he patiently accepted their condolences while secretly wishing he could be left alone with his sorrow.

In the coming months the island watched with deepening concern as Russ continued to draw ever farther in upon himself. He had always been among the more gregarious of islanders, the first to lend a hand when assistance was needed, be it with the construction of a new dock or boathouse or something as simple as offering a ride to the island grocery. He and Althea had always been in attendance at every island function from town meetings to the island talent show, where they would add a soulfully rendered Irish or Scottish folk song to the offerings with Russ on guitar and Althea's sweet lilting voice misting the eyes of the audience. Since Althea's passing, he was rarely seen in the town and on those occaisions he hardly spoke a word. His presence at the Sunday service was missed; he had never been terribly religious but always attended the service anyway, mostly out of a sense of obligation to lend his support to that island institution. He felt it was expected.

The deer rifle hung on the wall of the shack where Russ kept his gear, located on the north shore of the cove, adjacent to his dock. A swarm of dust motes buzzed lazily through the fog-muted late-winter sun filtering through the oil-and-smoke-yellowed windows as he entered. He looked at the clutter strewn about the oaken workbench, at the old, unused handlines and coils of potwarp on the walls. A blackened gob adorned the rusted cod-hook attached to one of the handlines; a clam once upon a time, he supposed. He had never used any of them; they were the relics of his ancestry: his father, his uncles, grand and great-grandfathers who had established and held the family's fishing territories in the waters near to Little Seal for more than a century. This shed held the trappings of their collective lives as fishermen.

A stack of spruce logs lay on the floor in one corner; some destined for the woodstove on cold winter mornings, some bound for service in the sea, their ends rounded with a sharp axe and tails attached for visibility in the thick-of-fog. Russ picked up a partially carved buoy from the top of the stack and lay it on the bench, took his axe quickly to the oilstone and then finished the buoy with sure-handed strokes of the glinting blade. Curved chips exploded from the point of the buoy as it took shape, the smell of sweet wood sap enriching the stale air of the shed. A squeaking brace-and-bit augered a hole in the base, the tail fitted and secured with three swift blows of a mallet.

Russ pried the lids from two cans of paint, one red and one yellow, easily identified by the cascade of thick drips obscuring the name of a paint company in New York City. He'd never seen New York City, but he felt fairly certain he wouldn't have found it to his liking. He painted the newly carved buoy in his father's colors, dropping the brushes carelessly to the sawdusted floor as he finished with each. Thinking of his father, gone three years to cancer, and now the loss of his beloved Althea, he left the buoy on the bench. He pocketed a box of .38 caliber cartridges from a shelf by the door, snatched the deer rifle from its place on the wall and exited the shed.

Russ walked slowly around the cove from the northern shore to the south, pausing at the head to look at the century-old house in which he and Althea had shared a brief but joyous part of their lives. The flood of memories descended on him with fierce and sudden violence, touching the very core of his being. He pulled his eyes from the house and continued down the well-trodden path, remembering the patches of Goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace and purple Asters that bloomed here in summer, the pastoral serenity of their presence given over to winter's whites, browns and greys.

Russ made his way out to the point of the cove and continued southward on the rocky shore, walking carelessly, heedless of the treacherous footing there. He gazed out to the narrows between Little Seal and Dark Island to the east, the morning fog allowing only the arching hump-backed silhoutte of the uninhabited island to come to his eyes. This place, too, held memories of his life with Althea, now all too painful to recall but forcing themselves on him without mercy. The first season they worked together on his boat, Althea had hauled a trap holding a 17 pound lobster here. Being the sole inhabitants of this side of the island, they would sometimes walk this shore together to a sheltered spot between two tall outcroppings of rock for an afternoon's lovemaking, the sea breeze caressing them as they held one another so tightly, bathed in summer's light.

Russ sat heavily on a rounded stone and lay the rifle across his lap. He thrust a weathered hand into the pocket of his coat, fumbled briefly and brought out a single golden-bronze cartridge. He chambered the bullet and breathed a deep sigh, undecided as to whether the weight of his sorrow was lifting from him or crushing him. He told himself it no longer mattered; this plague of despair would leave him now, finally, irreversably. He placed the stock of the rifle between his feet and brought the barrel to his open mouth, his thumb curled around the trigger.

A gull wheeled and cried, startling him. He felt the cold steel between his windburned lips and began silently counting backwards from five as he gazed at the sea, at the exposed ebbing-tide shore, at the gently lifting fog.

Five. The ebbing tide drew a wave back into itself, exposing a silky-smooth stone laden with a hundred glistening periwinkles and limpets.

Four. The wave returned, the white noise of its ascent upon the shore soothing his ears, bringing an eerie calm.

Three. The sound of a lobsterboat's engine, barely audible through the haze of distance. Billy's boat, he thought; her labored chugging was unmistakeable to him. Although it was much too early in the season for anyone to be catching much, he hoped Billy would have a good day on the water.

Two. A gust of wind sent shimmering ripples across the deep water of the narrows, making the lobster buoys scattered among the ledges bob up and down, pointing their tails to the sky. Among them were a few of his and Althea's, left behind from the previous season, painted in bright red and yellow, the colors he inherited from his father.

One. Russ leaned forward slightly, the barrel of the rifle clattering painfully against his teeth. He closed his eyes and began tightening his thumb's grip on the trigger, slowly, gently squeezing. A low and ethereal wail, lamenting and barely perceptible, rose from the depths of the cold sea to meet his ears. He felt the trigger advance another sixteenth of an inch. A towering blast of white water erupted before him, the riotous cacophony of the spray falling back to the sea jarring his eyes open once more.

The humpback's tail was still exposed; Russ, mesmerized by this rare and intimate glimpse of one of the sea's largest and most graceful creatures, watched as the enormous flukes slapped mightily on the surface, sending huge columns of water splashing to the sky. The thunder subsided and the whale rose for another roll on the surface, barely 20 yards in front of him. This time, its massive head emerged calmly and quietly, only a slight lapping of the waves as its eye broke the water. It seemed to pause, staring with weary sadness directly at this pathetic figure huddled on the shore with the barrel of a rifle clenched between his teeth. The whale rolled lazily back to the depths, its length seeming endless to Russ as it arced so exquisitely before his tired eyes. At last the tail slipped silently away, bidding him farewell.

Russ looked down the barrel of the rifle at his thumb still applying perilous, near-lethal pressure on the trigger. He eased his grip, stood and walked to the water's edge, now holding the rifle at his side. He felt the waves lapping at his boots as he hurled the gun into the ocean.

He turned to walk back to his home, to their home by the sea. There were many preparations to be made for the coming lobstering season; he still had traps to mend and potwarp to tar, and Billy already had a jump on him. He watched his footfalls carefully as he strode back upshore, northward, in the direction of home. These rocks were treacherous and an injury from a fall now would put him even farther behind schedule. He marveled anew at the shapes, colors and textures of the stones on the shore until one in particular caught his eye. It was striated and oddly porous, the predominant color was white. He reached for it and felt its lightness in his hand. Not a stone at all, not a remnant of the prehistoric glacial and volcanic activity that brought Little Seal Island into existence. It was a whale bone.

Russ veered off the path and made his way up the steep ridge to the small iron-fenced plot where his father and now his wife lay for eternity; a beautiful and tranquil spot overlooking the place they both loved most in all the world. He approached the stone that marked Althea's grave and looked again at the inscription: "Death is not the extinguishing of a candle. It is putting out the light because the dawn has come."

Russ lay the whale bone carefully against her headstone, smiled through wet eyes and said, "It'll be a rough season without you, hon. Not to worry, I'll do you proud."

* * * * * *

The summer of 1985 was typically idyllic on Little Seal. Even with the advent of tourists and summer residents, life on the tiny island rolled steadily along with a gentle rhythm by virtue of its remoteness.

A summer boy of nine walked hurriedly along the shore of the cove, skippingly blithely from stone to stone, heedless of his mother's admonitions to please be careful. To his left he saw a tall ridge overlooking the cove and began to scamper up for a view of the bay. Arriving winded at the top, he paused, surprised to see a figure standing just inside the rusted iron fence surrounding a small, unkempt graveyard. It was a silver-haired man, stooped and ancient, wearing fisherman's boots and faded dungarees splattered here and there with drops of red and yellow paint. The boy watched through the trees as the old man knelt, placed a single red rose on one of the graves and spoke softly for a moment before rising again and slowly ambling off in the opposite direction.

The boy entered the cemetary and approached the grave. The stone was grown over with grey and orange lichens, but he could make out the name: Althea Marie. He knelt for a closer inspection of the stone, being careful not to disturb the flower the elderly man had placed there. He leaned forward, placing one hand on the ground. He felt something out of place, an odd-textured rock nestled deep within the soft grass. He parted the green stems and saw the whale bone, chipped and half-buried in the soil. He knew what it was. He quickly clambered back down the ridge to find his mother, to show her this new and wonderful treasure from the sea.