Professional Documents
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Monstrous Beauty
Monstrous Beauty
Tripp, Bill Rudder, and Kerri Helme (all of Plimoth Plantation), Christine
Cook (Plymouth genealogy), and Adam Cifu (medical); and the editorial
insights of Beth Potter, Sara Crowe, Susan Fine, Kate Hannigan, Linda
Hoffman Kimball, and Carol Fisher Saller
macteenbooks.com
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broader now. Had she already known that? She’d been friends
with him for so long that half the time in her mind’s eye he was a
bony six-year-old, hanging on to a swimming ring for dear life at
the beach, craning his neck to keep the water from splashing his
face, while she recklessly dove under him again and again, just
to unnerve him. He was such a funny little chicken back then, she
thought. She caught her eyes sweeping over his shoulders and his
back again and she forced herself to look away.
She had no business admiring him, or spying on him when he
was with other girls.
She pulled a necklace out of her collar—a rounded gold heart
with softly brushed edges, on a delicate, short chain. She pushed
the heart hard to her lip until the pressure against her tooth
made her wince. She reminded herself of the history of the neck-
lace: her dying mother had bequeathed it to her when she was
only four days old, and her grandmother had given it to her
mother under the same circumstance. According to a story passed
down through the generations, the original owner was Hester’s
great-great-great-grandmother, a woman named Marijn Ontstaan,
who had died of “languishment” or something equally nebulous
less than a week after her own child was born.
What a burden that little heart represented for her family,
Hester thought, dropping it back under her collar: a legacy of
premature death, passed on to innocent new life. It was also a warn-
ing, she had decided years ago, against love and its cozy associates:
sex and marriage. Other people could dare to love—Peter and the
pixie girl, for instance—people who wouldn’t lose everything if
they did.
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She looked back at the two of them. Peter was showing the girl
a specimen of a baleen plate from a whale. From his gestures Hes-
ter knew he was describing the filter-feeding process of the whale
and telling her that the baleen combs were made of keratin, like
fingernails, rather than bone. She had heard him explain it to
tourists a thousand times: wholly approachable, never impatient,
always sharing a sense of discovery with them. But now his head
was so close to the girl’s, they were almost touching. And then
they lingered like that; a beat too long. He was neglecting the other
passengers, wasn’t he? He wasn’t tracking the sprays of the whales
for the captain, as he usually did. The girl brushed her hand over
the baleen sample and then grinned as she ran her fingertips
over his hair, comparing the two. He received her touch without
flinching—maybe even playfully?
Hester needed to lift the weight from her chest. She moved to
the back of the boat, to the other side of the captain’s cabin, away
from them. She looked out across the water and allowed the feel-
ing of longing to wash over her, spill into the crevices of her soul,
and fill her completely.
12
Chapter 2
1872
14
“I’m terribly sorry,” Ezra said. “My head was in the clouds.”
Olaf looked up then. “Mr. Doyle! Poor Mr. Doyle, how are you?
Think nothing of this. A simple mishap. Eleanor reminds me time
and again, there is no sense in weeping over shed milk.”
Ezra bent to help him pick up the sharp pieces. The smell of
something stronger than milk wafted around them.
“I would appreciate your not mentioning my purchase to Elea-
nor,” Olaf murmured as they worked.
“Of course not.”
“She will not tolerate liquor, and I respect her wishes in the
house. But I work hard, Mr. Doyle, I am a good provider—and at
the end of the day if I may not stretch out my legs with a drink
and relax in my own home, I deserve to take it elsewhere, do I not?”
Ezra rescued his own parcel from the mud as they stood up. He
quickly removed the wet paper wrapping before it could damage
what was inside.
“Ah, a book,” Olaf observed. “We have only the Bible at our house.
I expect yours is for university?”
“It’s a journal.” Ezra flipped the empty pages for him to see.
“You are a writer, sir?”
“A researcher, a scientist in training: botany, zoology, marine
life. But when I’m home I seem to be drawn to the history of leg-
ends and mythical beings. This will be a field journal in which I
record observations and sketches of the ocean environment that
might sustain such creatures.”
“Mythical creatures.” Olaf’s face sagged, suddenly doughy. “You
are not by chance speaking of sea folk?”
“That’s right,” Ezra said. “Although I don’t tell many people. At
best, it must seem to the outside observer a frivolous pursuit, and
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at worst, lunacy. I suppose now we must keep each other’s secrets,
Mr. Ontstaan.” He smiled, but Olaf did not reciprocate.
“You ought stay away from that subject, Mr. Doyle.”
“It’s too late, I’m afraid. After all, I was weaned on such stories
since before I could talk, from my father’s customers—in the ship-
yard, around the dinner table, at the fireside. The fascinating
thing, scientifically speaking, is how consistent the legends are,
and how persistent. Think on it, Mr. Ontstaan: even the Indians
have oral traditions of such creatures. How could they generate
the same descriptions independently of the foreign merchants, the
sailors, and the local fishermen?”
“Mr. Doyle, would you consider coming home with me for supper
this evening?”
“That is kind of you, but I cannot. I want to tally the number
of mollusks and crustaceans that are at or below the high-water
mark on the rocky outcropping. I have a theory that the abun-
dance of food sources there could account for the high number of
sightings in the bay.” He gave a helpless shrug. “I am a prisoner of
the tides.”
“If you would allow me to say my piece, sir, I would dissuade
you from this dangerous obsession.”
Ezra looked at Olaf more closely now—his leathery face and
tired eyes. A man eroded by life, whose small-mindedness would
extinguish Ezra’s last pleasure, if he let him.
Ezra bowed his head and said, “I thank you for your invitation.
Please give my regards to Mrs. Ontstaan.” He turned and took
quick, long strides toward the bay.
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MONSTROUS
BEAUTY
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