Six months ago, Jess moved to Comber Bay. She read about the shipwreck and was inspired to paint its victims. When Lucy arrived in search of Jess, her graphic paintings gave her nightmares. But that’s not what happened. Lucy’s first dream about the Naiad was two nights ago, at the motel – before she’d seen her sister’s painting. How is that

Salt on Your Tongue: Women and the Sea,

her hair a dark, drifting halo.

A violent tearing, like the rending of time itself.

like one day I’d stopped being a child and hadn’t even noticed.

Over the years, Da’s anger became Mary’s own. She locked her memories of her mother deep inside her heart. It was easier, she learned, to be angry than to be sad.

even sturdier hips. Childbearing hips, you might call them, if you were cruel.

the stench of the prison deck, the yeast and blood and sweat. A female smell. Mary liked to imagine it as a sort of force, a power in and of itself. A protective circle.

She was no longer freakish, no longer stunted. Blooming into herself, at last.