The Curse Keepers Collection (154 page)

“Yes, sir.”

After that he started to take me out on the
Lucky Star
late at night, when every other kid in my third-grade class was tucked safely into bed. We’d shoot across the water as quickly as the rattrap would take us until we were out on the ocean, the lights on the shore barely visible. Then he’d kill the engine and we’d sit in silence—sometimes for a couple of minutes, sometimes for nearly an hour—while he nursed the bottle of Jack Daniels he kept tucked in the captain’s room.

Sometimes I’d doze off before he began to talk, but eventually he always got around to discussing the reason for our father-son bonding sessions.

“What are you, boy?” he’d ask and I’d rouse, my shoulders stiffening in anticipation of the lesson to come.

“The next Manteo Curse Keeper.”

“Which one?” his gravelly voice would bark.

“The twenty-ninth.”

“That’s right. The twenty-fucking-ninth.” Then he’d spit his disgust into the ocean before grilling me on how the curse began. Of course, everything he said had his own special twist on it. He talked about how Manteo threw everything away to protect bastards who never appreciated one fucking ounce of help. How twenty-nine generations had suffered because of the irresponsibility of one man. How it was our job to rectify the sorry situation.

“What does your grandmother say?” he’d ask at the end of his lesson, his words slurred.

“She says the signs say the curse will break in her lifetime.”

“It ain’t broke yet, has it?”

“No, sir.”

This continued to happen, off and on, for two years. My mother didn’t approve, but she lacked the backbone to defy him. I could only remember her speaking up to him once, and he backhanded her across the face in front of the whole family. My then-six-year-old brother clung to her leg, crying with fear, then my father stumbled out of the house in a drunken stupor for the rest of the night. He never once addressed the fact that he’d given her a black eye.

When I was ten, my father started to disappear for days on end. He spent time with a new group of friends—people he claimed could change everything for us. He would pull a wad of small bills out of his pocket, flashing the cocky grin he’d probably used to win my mother, and say, “Times are a-changing, Collin, my boy. There’s a new family business and it sure ain’t fishin’ or curse keepin’.” Then he’d laugh until he broke into a fit of coughing.

My grandmother watched it all with her sharp, dark eyes. Eyes that took in everything the human eye could see and more. I knew she saw what I did: even though he hated the curse, my father had never once denied its existence. To do so would have forced him to accept responsibility for his own fate, a task he’d never be prepared to assume, no matter what his word vomit claimed.

But one cold winter night, he staggered into my room and sat on the edge of my bed, leaning over me and pushing a cloud of alcohol-laden breath into my face.

“Collin Fitzgerald Dailey,” he sneered, shaking my shoulder. He hated my name, only one of two concessions he’d ever made to my Irish-American mother—at least as far as I knew—the other being my brother Conner’s name. “It’s time to prepare.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I was smart enough not to ask. He tossed my heaviest coat at me, and it landed on my twin bed with a thump.

“Dress warm, boy. We’re goin’ out on the sea.”

I waited until he left the room to release my groan.

“He’s taking you again?” Conner whispered with a mixture of jealousy and fear.

“Yeah,” I grumbled as I reached for my jeans lying on the floor.

“You haven’t gone out for a long time.”

“I know.” It had been months. That had been one of the perks of my father spending so much time with his new friend Marino: no more nighttime sea excursions. That, along with the money my father seemed to have.

Besides the fact that he was indisputably drunker than usual, there was something ominous about tonight’s adventure. Still, there was no denying my father.

I dressed quickly and heard my parents in the living room. My mother was crying, but my father was having none of it. “I have a lead on the fucking weapons, Katie. I’m gonna put an end to this thing. I’m going to destroy
them
.”

I stood in the shadows of the hallway, listening.

“But she’s just a child,” she whispered.

My stomach clenched. Who was she talking about?

“Come on out here, boy,” my father bellowed. “I see you lurking in the shadows like a coward. Real men stand up to what they’re afraid of.”

Three steps brought me to the entrance of our tiny living room. My mother sat on the sofa, wringing a tissue, her eyes red and puffy. I stopped in the middle of the room, then added a few extra steps to show I wasn’t afraid. In truth, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this scared.

“Collin,” my mother whispered, but my father grabbed her arm and leaned over into her face. She grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut.

“
Enough
, Katie.”

I lifted my chin and steeled my back. “I’m going. Don’t try to stop me.” I couldn’t let him hurt her. She’d become so fragile it wouldn’t take much to break her for good.

My father dropped his hold and teetered toward the front door while my mother watched in wide-eyed horror.

I ran to her and gave her a hug. “I’ll be fine.”

She pulled back and grabbed the lapels of my too-big brown coat, a hand-me-down from my cousin. Her eyes searched mine, wild and desperate. “You know how to drive the boat, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“He’s more drunk than usual . . . ” she whispered. “If he—”

“Come on!” my father bellowed.

I jerked away from her before she could finish, hustling to meet him at the door. He whacked me on the back of the head, sending pain shooting through my skull.

“Are you a baby or a man, Collin Dailey?” he slurred.

“A man.”

“Damn right. Men don’t answer to women. Women are good for screwing and cleaning house. Best you remember that, boy, otherwise you’ll end up being pussy whipped. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” I said as we went into the darkness. I’d heard different versions of this speech about women for as long as I could remember. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if he said that to Grandma Opal. She’d probably kill him on the spot.

Sometimes I wished she would.

In his inebriated state, it took my father three attempts to open his car door, and two to get his keys into the steering column. The car straddled the centerline of the road, but thankfully there wasn’t much traffic this late at night. There were only a handful of cars at the parking lot abutting the dock when we arrived because the early-morning fishermen wouldn’t be out for another hour or two.

My father grabbed a small brown bag out of the back seat before he staggered to the dock and climbed over the edge of the boat, nearly falling on his ass from the drop in height. I untied the vessel from the dock and then followed him onboard.

Soon we were flying across the water, my father at the helm while I sat outside, huddled with my back to the wall of the cabin. My father would never let me ride in the captain’s helm with him, no matter how cold it was. Real men sailed in the cold, he would say. I knew better than to point out that we weren’t sailing or that
he
was always inside.

I was tired, but my fear kept me awake as he raced through Pamlico Sound, around the tip of Hatteras Island, and out onto the Atlantic. I wrapped my coat tight around my body, leaning my head back to stare at the stars.

He took us farther out than usual. I hadn’t seen any sign of the shore for quite some time when the engine finally slowed, then died. The door opened and he walked out, tripping over his feet and nearly falling. His face darkened with anger and he spun around to face me.

“Time for your lesson, little Curse Keeper.”

The look in his eyes was murderous. I had always been scared of him, but this was the first time I’d feared for my life. My back pressed against the wall, I slowly slid up until I was standing, and squared my shoulders.

Real men showed no fear . . . It was another lesson my father had taught me.

“Okay.” My voice sounded strong and clear in the darkness.

He began to pace across the short deck, weaving as he sipped on a nearly empty bottle of Jack. “It’s all about to end, Collin.”

I waited several seconds for him to continue and when he didn’t, icy fear seeped through my veins. It was obvious he wanted me to prompt him for an explanation, and while I was fairly sure I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want to make him any madder. “What is?” I forced out.

“The curse.”

I’d heard this before, but something was different on that cold dark night. Something told me I should take him seriously.

“I know how to break it this time.”

My eyes grew so wide that the cold wind whipping across the water made them sting. “How?”

“You don’t need to worry about the how of it, only that this damn thing will finally be over and we’ll be rich.”

“How?” I repeated.

“The Ricardo Estate, boy.” He’d been talking about the elusive Ricardo Estate for weeks, but I’d figured it was just one my father’s many pipedreams and schemes. Until now. “I’ve found the ring . . . and I know where the spear is too.”

“What ring?”

He pointed his finger at me, his eyes wild. “Don’t play stupid with me, boy! I know your grandmother told you all about the Dare weapons.”

My father hated that she tried to counteract his teachings, and I was the one caught in the middle of their conflict. “She says the curse will break in her lifetime. She says I need to be prepared,” I sputtered out.

“Because she doesn’t think I’ll be the one to do it,” he sneered, resting his ass on an upside-down bucket. “But I fooled her.” Then he broke out into laughter.

I always kept at least part of her lessons secret from him, even when he grilled me for hours. Up until the previous year, she’d tried to convince my father his designs were foolish, but it was a wasted effort. As wise as she was, I wondered how she failed to realize that a fool’s mind couldn’t be changed. Maybe she had a hard time giving up on him since he was her son. What I had trouble understanding was why he wanted to be the one who broke the curse. The responsibility sat heavily on my shoulders.

“So this is our final lesson.” He teetered close to the edge of the boat and it suddenly occurred to me how easy it would be for him to fall over the side and be lost at sea forever. No one would ask any questions if I went back without him.

But my luck was worse than my father’s and he stayed on the deck, bitterly complaining about all the hardships the descendants of Manteo had faced over four hundred years, going on and on about how he’d be the one to save us all. The reason my grandmother would never recognize his greatness, he said, was because she was jealous of him. It was a verbal manifesto, wasted on the ears of his sleepy ten-year-old son.

My father ranted for nearly an hour, an incoherent mess of a person who grew messier with each sip of Jack, especially after he opened the fresh bottle he’d brought on board. He sat on the deck across from me as he continued his binge. When he reached a lull and seemed more passive than before, I asked the question that I’d wanted to ask him for two years, ever since our first Curse Keeper boat outing. “Why the ocean?”

His head jerked up but the uncoordinated move almost made him fall over. “What about the ocean?”

“We’re the sons of the land. Why do you bring me out onto the ocean to talk about this?”

“We’re fisherman,” he sneered. “It’s part of our fucking history.”

“Yeah, I know.” I was sitting on the deck and scooted several feet closer to him, making sure to stay out of arm’s reach. “But that’s not why you bring me out here to teach me your lessons. Why the ocean?”

He closed his eyes and rested his head against a bucket. He hesitated for so long I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t going to answer or if he was even awake. Finally, he said, “So the gods and spirits won’t hear.”

It was my turn to hesitate. “The gods and spirits are locked up in Popogusso,” I said. “How can they hear us when we’re on land?”

“One god escaped. You know that from me and your grandmother. He’s watching me and plotting against me. I’m trying to hide my plans from him.”

Ahone?

My father was drunk
and
crazy.

I watched him for several minutes, waiting for him to say more. But he didn’t. Soon I realized he was asleep. When the sun began to rise and he still hadn’t come round, I went into the helm, started the engine, and headed back toward Hatteras Island, glancing back at my father to see if he’d roused. He was still out, and he stayed that way even after I docked the boat. I stared at him for several long moments, trying to decide whether to leave him there or wake him.

But I’d suffered his wrath before after waking him from drunken slumbers. I tied up the boat and started walking back home so I could go to school. I had a spelling test to take.

I never saw him again.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE