The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel

whole,” and they would become whole, not be broken people, not any longer, because I had spoken the language of shaping.
    And, because Lettie was speaking the language of shaping, even if I did not understand what she was saying, I understood what was being said. The thing in the clearing was being bound to that place for always, trapped, forbidden to exercise its influence on anything beyond its own domain.
    Lettie Hempstock finished her song.
    In my mind, I thought I could hear the creature screaming, protesting, railing, but the place beneath that orange sky was quiet. Only the flapping of canvas and the rattle of twigs in the wind broke the silence.
    The wind died down.
    A thousand pieces of torn gray cloth settled on the black earth like dead things, or like so much abandoned laundry. Nothing moved.
    Lettie said, “That should hold it.” She squeezed my hand. I thought she was trying to sound bright, but she didn’t. She sounded grim. “Let’s take you home.”
    We walked, hand in hand, through a wood of blue-tinged evergreens, and we crossed a lacquered red and yellow bridge over an ornamental pond; we walked along the edge of a field in which young corn was coming up, like green grass planted in rows; we climbed a wooden stile, hand in hand, and reached another field, planted with what looked like small reeds or furry snakes, black and white and brown and orange and gray and striped, all of them waving gently, curling and uncurling in the sun.
    “What are they?” I asked.
    “You can pull one up and see, if you like,” said Lettie.
    I looked down: the furry tendril by my feet was perfectly black. I bent, grasped it at the base, firmly, with my left hand, and I pulled.
    Something came up from the earth, and swung around angrily. My hand felt like a dozen tiny needles had been sunk into it. I brushed the earth from it, and apologized, and it stared at me, more with surprise and puzzlement than with anger. It jumped from my hand to my shirt, I stroked it: a kitten, black and sleek, with a pointed, inquisitive face, a white spot over one ear, and eyes of a peculiarly vivid blue-green.
    “At the farm, we get our cats the normal way,” said Lettie.
    “What’s that?”
    “Big Oliver. He turned up at the farm back in pagan times. All our farm cats trace back to him.”
    I looked at the kitten hanging on my shirt with tiny kitten-claws.
    “Can I take it home?” I asked.
    “It’s not an it. It’s a she. Not a good idea, taking anything home from these parts,” said Lettie.
    I put the kitten down at the edge of the field. She darted off after a butterfly, which floated up and out of her reach, then she scampered away, without a look back.
    “My kitten was run over,” I told Lettie. “It was only little. The man who died told me about it, although he wasn’t driving. He said they didn’t see it.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Lettie. We were walking beneath a canopy of apple-blossom then, and the world smelled like honey. “That’s the trouble with living things. Don’t last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together…”
    She opened a five-bar gate, and we went through it. She let go of my hand. We were at the bottom of the lane, near the wooden shelf by the road with the battered silver milk churns on it. The world smelled normal.
    I said, “We’re really back, now?”
    “Yes,” said Lettie Hempstock. “And we won’t be seeing any more trouble from her.” She paused. “Big, wasn’t she? And nasty? I’ve not seen one like that before. If I’d known she was going to be so old, and so big, and so nasty, I wouldn’t’ve brung you with me.”
    I was glad that she had taken me with her.
    Then she said, “I wish you hadn’t let go of my hand. But still, you’re all right, aren’t you? Nothing went wrong. No damage done.”
    I said, “I’m fine. Not to worry. I’m a brave soldier.” That was what my grandfather always said. Then I repeated what she had said, “No damage done.”
    She smiled at me, a bright, relieved smile, and I hoped I had said the right thing.

V.
    T hat evening my sister sat on her bed, brushing her hair over and over. She brushed it a hundred times every night, and counted each brush stroke. I did not know why.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    “Looking at my foot,” I told her.
    I was staring at the sole of my right foot. There was a pink line across the center of the