Drinking Down the Salt

My cat Nellie is gray burnished with white, and with green eyes so bright they capture your heart with every full gaze. I know we’re not supposed to write human feelings onto animals, but I really do think she has a smile, and a frown, and best of all a contented squint which lids those green eyes into darkness but still manages to look just so sweet and happy that I love her all the more for it.

My Mama has never been fond of Nellie, on account of where she came from. She’s always told me not to stay out after dark, not even on the clearest, truest autumn eve and especially not on the muggy summer nights that bring the ghost forest round to visit. But sometimes you just can’t help it — the waves move slow and the Bay is full of snags, and even if you set off an hour before sundown you still find yourself navigating the shallow waters in the dark, drifting past tree roots turned to mysterious tricksters, even though you know the whole channel full well in the daytime.

And summer nights when the moon is high and the fog rolls in all thick, when the trees loom heavy and the bullfrogs groan and creak all around, that’s exactly when the ghost forest comes in. The ghosty trees are gray burnished with white, and lots of them are just stumps barely overtopping the water level. But their roots are long and gnarled, and often just deep enough that you can’t see them by the light of your lantern and the moon above. And a ghost root will snag your boat just as fast as a real root will, you can be sure about that. They hold tight and don’t let you go and sometimes, if you’re real unlucky, you won’t be there come sunup.

So it was on the night I met Nellie. I’d taken Ameline out with me, just 11 years old and thrilled any time her big sis took any notice of her. She’d been doing real good all day, hauling hard on the lines but still setting the crab pots down all nice and gentle in the flat bottom of the skiff. It had been a good trip, a fine haul, and we’d gotten distracted trying to make sure we got to every pot and managed to lose track of the sun. It wasn’t till the tree shadows darkened to deep purple-blue that we realized just how far out we were, and how little time we had to get home.

“Jeannie, we’re not gonna beat the dark, are we?” Ameline asked, her voice trembly and a little higher than usual.

“Sure are,” I said, because I’m the big sis and it’s my job to look out for my sibs. But inside, I knew there wasn’t no way we were getting home before the moon rose. I aimed the skiff back the way we’d come, and Amaline hunkered down quiet, but we both knew the truth even if we didn’t speak it aloud.

The forest came in all subtle. We didn’t see it when it came, and there was no sudden drop in noise or anything. Just one minute we were maneuvering through black water and real trees, and then as we went some of the trees were stumps, jagged and white and unreal. Pale roots emerged from the water like knobby knees, and some of them even had pale ghost moss on them, looking soft and touchable as anything. The purple-blue shadows went dark and unfriendly, and all of a sudden the Bay I’d known my whole life was a stranger.

I don’t know the story of the ghost forest. I mean, there’s a lot of stories, but I don’t know the story, the real one about how it was made and where it came from. There’s a lot of different tales about it, but they all have a ring of untruth to them, if you ask me. Some say there’s nothing unusual about the ghost trees at all, that they’re just normal stumps we see in the daytime that look all unreal in the dark. But the people who say that are out-of-towners, or at the least they’re newcomers who don’t work the bay for crabs or oysters or any of the good bluegills or sea bass that share the waters with us. They don’t know anything but the sun sparkling off the waves, and they think the Bay would be better without its clouds of moon jellies and lion’s manes.

The story I like best is also the scariest. It says the ghost forest is the lost soul of the prehistoric swamp that covered these lands long before people showed up, and that it was all killed off when the sea rose up and kissed the lands with salt. That’s why the trees are bleached white as bone, and why they never seem to disappear completely — they’re mummified with the salt they tried to drink to survive. I like that one ’cause it’s happening now, too, and I like the idea that the friendly trees I know today might last forever if they drink down the salt, instead of just dying off.

But so. The moon was high in the darkling sky when the forest came out that night, the light picking out the bone-white stumps among the normal trees. I was going as fast as I dared, but that wasn’t very fast even at the best of times. I had to keep an eye out for twice as many hazards as usual, so it probably wasn’t surprising that I was the first to spot the tiny bundle of wet fur clinging to one of the pale roots.

I killed the engine.

“Ameline, is that a cat?”

“What? Where?”

This is how I know for sure we’re related — she may have wanted to get home as badly as I did, but she wasn’t about to leave behind an animal in need. I pointed over, and she squinted into the dark, and a second later she’d grabbed up the paddle and started to steer us, slow and careful, toward the wretched creature.

It shook and shivered as we approached, but didn’t run. It was gray burnished with white, just like the branch it rested on, and for a moment I imagined reaching out and having my hand pass straight through it.

“Hey, baby,” Ameline murmured, her voice low and quiet. She pulled the skiff right up alongside, only a foot away. It could easily have jumped in the boat if it wanted, but it only shuddered and clung to the bark with four clawed feet. Ameline made to reach for the critter, and it suddenly burst into movement — two wide green eyes opened in the fur, and a long, thin tail started to lash along the bark behind it. A low growl started somewhere deep in its small chest.

“It is a cat!” Ameline declared, but I wasn’t so sure, now, myself. The creature’s body was squat and compact, more muscular than any cat I’d ever seen. Its fur tufted around its ears and paws in a way that brought to mind mountain lions and snow leopards — not that I’d ever seen either, but I imagined the wild look to be the same. It was no housecat, that much was for sure.

“Careful, Ameline,” I murmured, and I reached out and caught at the ghost root before we could glide right past it. It was rough under my fingers, feeling every bit like normal tree bark but for the deep, deep cold that sank into my skin.

This seemed to be the right move for the cat, at least. It uncoiled, just a bit, extending a surprisingly delicate pink nose to sniff at my fingers. I ran a quick mental inventory to figure out what it was smelling, and smiled.

“We have any of the bait fish left?”

Ameline scrambled to grab at the messy bucket, and a moment later she dropped a mostly intact dead minnow into my other hand. It bled from several cuts we’d made to its body, intended to drive crabs wild. I tried not to pull a face as I leaned over the gunwale and offered it to the … we’ll call it a cat for lack of a better word.

Another careful sniff, and then the cat opened a mouth that contained far too many teeth and seized the fish from me. It wrenched away from my hand and retreated a few steps up the root, munching happily. I could feel the big stupid grin spreading across my face entirely against my will. Weird teeth or no, a cat is a cat.

“Jeannie, it’s getting dark fast,” Ameline said, and she was right. More than right — the tide was rising, which would make our trip home even more treacherous. The cat’s perch was already smaller and wetter than it’d been when I first spotted it.

I nodded and held my hand out behind me silently, demanding another fish. The one she gave me this time was distinctly slimier, and I wrinkled my nose as I offered it up.

The cat walked right up to my hand this time, and followed as I moved it back toward the skiff. I held my breath as I pulled the fish over the gunwale, leaving a trail of slime and blood on the white fiberglass. The cat followed without hesitation, leaping into the flat of the boat and looking only mildly put out that there wasn’t a giant pile of fish guts waiting for it.

“Here you go,” I whispered, holding the bait out.

The cat took it more delicately this time, accepting an offering rather than capturing prey, and sat down to munch contentedly. Ameline pushed us away from the stump, and I moved back to the stern and pulled the motor into life. The three of us resumed our journey home, with Ameline now alternately murmuring reassurances to the cat and feeding it bits of fish flesh.

“I’m going to name her Nellie,” she pronounced.

“Naming an animal will get you attached to it, and you know Mama doesn’t like cats,” I warned.

“We’ll turn her lose once we’re in a safe place, and maybe she’ll come back to visit. Won’t you, Nellie?”

The cat blinked at her and wiped a spot of fish guts from her whiskers, and we both laughed, imagining we could hear her reply.

The steady drone of the engine was entirely too loud against the singing of peepers and the call of the crickets. Evening on the Bay is its own experience, and if I hadn’t had Ameline with me, I might have taken the time to enjoy it. As it was, I think we were both feeling a little too safe, a little too pleased with our efforts, because the sudden loud splash that broke the frogsong startled us both, and Ameline sat bolt upright.

“What was that?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Probably a bullfrog.”

“It’s late for bullfrogs.”

She was right, though bullfrog season had been getting longer lately, as the summers got hotter. Still, I wasn’t as confident as I sounded — bullfrogs generally either run away long before you spot them, or freeze and hope they’re invisible. That noise had sounded not ten feet from us. And Ameline hadn’t noticed it yet, but the water had changed — no more waves broke against the prow, and we cut through clean smooth swamp with no cordgrass or pond lilies or anything. The trees were taller, and crowded in closer, and I couldn’t see any stars at all through their branches. It was like nothing I’d ever seen out here, and it sent a shiver up my spine.

There was another splash, this one to the right of the skiff and dead even with the bow. Whatever it was — if it was something — had caught up with us real fast.

“Ameline, don’t lean over — ”

But I was too late. Something erupted out of the water, snapping long, jagged jaws at her. Ameline jerked back with a yelp, and we both watched as the — whatever it was — rose up and up and up, leaping out of the water and towering above us. I almost think its own size was all that saved us, because the trusty little Carolina skiff’s motor had scooted us away already by the time it reached the top of its arch and began to turn. It was long, impossibly long, and bone-white in the moonlight. Two sets of flippers like oars dotted its body, which ended in a single upright fluke, like some sort of unfinished shark. But bigger, I swear, than any shark had any business being in the Bay. And those jaws, those teeth —

It turned and came down into exactly the patch of water we’d occupied five seconds before. Cleanly down, straight down, like the water wasn’t only the five or six feet deep we knew it to be. It left silence in its wake; even the peepers seemed stunned.

“Is it an alligator?” Ameline asked in an awed whisper.

I shook my head, but I didn’t say anything because what did I know? Weren’t no alligators in the Bay. Weren’t no dinosaur-shark things either. Not these days, anyway.

“There!”

I followed her pointing finger and, sure enough, there was a ghostly white shape moving under the water, coming back toward us faster than any living thing should be able to swim.

“Grab the paddle!” I ordered, raising my voice to be heard over the motor. I revved it into a higher gear and deliberately turned my back on the approaching monster. If we were going to get out of here, we needed to go fast, and that would take all my concentration in the falling darkness. I swerved around a white ghost root that seemed to appear out of nowhere, and heard my sister shriek, and a heavy wet thunk! that could only be a paddle hitting monster flesh.

“Attagirl, Amy!” I called, not daring to take my eyes off the treacherous waters ahead.

Then, when no response came, I said, “Amy? Speak to me.”

“Jeannie!” she said, and the note of fear made me risk glancing over my shoulder.

I killed the engine immediately.

The monster, whatever it was, had my sister by her shoulder. Its sharp teeth had ripped clean through her thin tee, and blood was running freely down her side. The oar half-hung from its jaws, looking more like an oversized toothpick than a weapon. As I watched, the creature reared up, pulling Ameline almost entirely out of the boat.

“No!” I cried, and I lunged forward and past the nav gear to grab at her legs before she was gone entirely.

Ameline shrieked, and I screamed, and I was just figuring that I’d rather have a sister with no right arm than no sister at all, when suddenly a flash of light and white and green blurred past me.

I’m sure you’ve heard a kitty-cat meow before, and if not, you’ve probably heard a recording of one or at least heard a person pretend to be a cat or something. This was none of those things. The sound that came out of Nellie was a meow in the way a baby’s first babblings are choir song, if the choir had claws, and fangs, and a barrel chested tenor that could shake the rafters without a mic.

Nellie gave out a call or a growl that reminded some deep hidden part of me of being a small scared thing in a cave, first messing about with fire. And I guess it had the same effect on the monster, because it let go of my sister and dropped back in the water. Ameline came tumbling down, and I caught her with my body, and we were both crying on the deck, and looking up to see some giant mythic glowing feline with eyes of green fire facing off against a prehistoric serpent creature from the darkest depths of the ocean.

The monster snapped its jaws, almost questioningly, and Nellie flared with white light, so bright it near seared our eyes. One last snaking snap of those narrow jaws was met with Nellie’s bared fangs and a swipe that left a seeping wound across the reptilian snout, blood dark in the moonlight. The monster turned, hissing, tracing an elegant fall backward into the water. Nellie’s light was bright as day, and it was easy to watch the pale bulk of the creature swim away as fast as its flippers could take it.

There was quiet, then, real quiet, as the three of us watched until we couldn’t see a single trace of the creature. Then Ameline made a soft pained noise, and I remembered how nearly I had come to losing her, and grabbed her in a quick, tight hug.

“Show me your arm,” I said, half-sobbing.

She did, and it wasn’t near as bad as I feared. The monster had a lot of teeth, and it had got a good grip on her, but they must have been short because she wasn’t bleeding any worse than she’d ever done to herself mishandling a bait knife. I took off my sweater and started wrapping her shoulder with it when I heard a soft, uncertain, “Mrr?”

Damned if Nellie wasn’t still six feet tall and glowing like the sun, but she nosed at my sister with all the curiosity of a pussycat. Ameline and I exchanged an uncertain glance, and she extended her uninjured hand to Nellie. Nellie sniffed at it, nosed it, and then shoved her face full into Amy’s palm, demanding scritches shameless as anything.

We giggled, and if it sounded more hysterical than normal, weren’t neither of us going to say anything. I finished wrapping Ameline’s arm, and then we both gave Nellie all the praise and admiration she wanted, until she broke away from us and took up a sentinel stand at the prow.

The rest of the trip home was quiet. Nellie got smaller and darker the further we got from the crabbing grounds, but her light was plenty enough to navigate with. By the time we got home, she was the same small not-quite-housecat she’d been when we found her.

To this day, Mama doesn’t believe the story one bit. She thinks Nellie scratched up Ameline when we pulled her from a tree or something, and won’t forgive the poor cat for it. But something in our staunch defense of her must have got through, because she never said word one about getting rid of Nellie. She only cleaned and bandaged up Ameline with a baleful eye, and told me I wasn’t to take her out with me again until we’d both learned enough sense not to get caught in the ghost forest, because whatever had happened out there, it was clear we weren’t prepared for it.

Well, be that as it may, but Nellie sure is prepared for it. And I never do go out out to check the crab pots without her now, the whirr of the motor fighting with the sweet call of the spring peepers, and an extra bucketful of bait at my side just in case.