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A bolt of lightning slashed across the not so distant sky with a peel of thunder nipping at its heels. Byron stood in the middle of the aptly named Seabreeze Road, momentarily stunned by the fierceness of the approaching storm. Already gyres of fine sand swirled through the air, stinging Byron’s cheeks and catching in his eyes.

Storms on Ocracoke always felt like the end of the world. There was no better reminder that you were living on an isolated sliver of sand at the edge of the ocean than the explosive cataclysm of an intense summer storm. Nan always got a kick out of it, heading out to the beach in her car and watching the chaos while listening to classic rock on the radio.

Byron used to go with her, although he always found it disconcerting, as if Nan was taunting the storms, just *asking* to be dragged out to sea by an wave.

“Ain’t no wave gonna take your Nan, Byron,” she had yelled once, raising her voice over the chaos of the storm winds, “gonna take a lot more than a storm to take your Nan!”

Nan was right about a great many things, but wrong on that count. Shielding his eyes with his free hand, Byron sighed with remorse. As his breath dispersed into the whipping wind, Byron set himself back to the task at hand.

“126, 128.” Byron muttered to himself as he made his way down Seabreeze, peering through the frenetic air at the numbers displayed prominently on the houses. They each had a name, the houses, most of them pretty stupid – like ‘Pirate’s Cove,’ ‘Sailor’s Respite,’ or one that just read ‘Paradise.’

Every house on the island had a name. It was one of the few things about Ocracoke Byron didn’t like – especially when people referred to their houses that way. “The roof to Paradise was damaged in the storm,” someone might say, or “I need to fix the gutters on Paradise,” or “Paradise’s septic tank backed up into the living room last night.”

Byron continued down the street as strengthening gales buffeted him with each step. The first heavy drops of rain began to fall, kicking up small circles of sand on the asphalt, like miniature asteroid impacts. Byron picked up the pace and reached into his plastic grocery bag for the umbrella.

Finally, Byron saw it – house number 134. Shiny brass numbers hung on the dark walls of the bungalow style home, peaking out from behind thick tree cover. The whole structure was raised eight to ten feet off the ground on concrete pillars. A pickup truck was barely visible in the premature darkness brought by the storm-clouds, parked beneath the pillars.

Under the numbers a sign was hung, in even darker wood than the walls, with contrasting white paint on the surface of high relief carved letters.

The sign read ‘Mysteries Of The Deep.’

A small shiver ran down Byron’s spine as he read the four words. He held the Cantos beneath his right arm, where it glowed brightly and warmed his skin as if it were alive. Instinctively, he squeezed the book a little harder, finding certainty in its physical form, and then began walking up to the front door, up the stairs to the porch.

As he approached, Byron noticed that curtains were drawn on the front windows, and dim but warm light spilled out from around their edges. A curl of smoke rose out from a brick chimney, only to be swiftly born away by the wind. The chimney was the only part of the house not constructed out of dark, unpainted wood. Compared to most of the brightly colored homes on the island, Mysteries Of The Deep looked fairly sober – even uninviting.

Byron stood for a moment outside the front door, swallowed a lump in his throat, and went to ring the bell. Except he couldn’t find one. After scanning the frame of the door for half a minute, his umbrella already beginning to buckle under the wind, his legs wet and icy cold below the knee, Byron decided to knock. He leaned in close to the heavy wooden door and rapped on it with his knuckles.

For a long moment nothing happened. Byron could not hear anything inside the house over the storm. He stood there on the porch, waiting, and was about to knock again when he saw the curtain in one of the window’s shift slightly, as if someone had cautiously peered out.

The wind and rain really picked up, smattering the back of Byron’s new shirt and pants with water. Byron stood there until he heard metal shifting behind the wood. Finally the door opened, just a crack, spilling out a line of the same warm light behind the curtains. Byron thinned his eyes, saw the crackling warmth of the fireplace inside, and longed to get in out of the rain.

“Can I help you?” A terse, gruff voice, resonated from behind the door. Byron tilted his head a bit but could not see anyone through the crack.

Byron cleared his throat. “Hi, um, yes. I’m looking for the uh, well, the Preceptor,” he began, regretting his word choice, “I mean, well, um, Mr. McNally, Mr. Kevin McNally?”

The door went silent for quite awhile and Byron just stood there, uncertain, as the rain picked up even further. His back was soaking wet from shoulder to foot.

Finally, the voice croaked a response. “Do I know you? Are you a student at the school?”

Byron cleared his throat. “No, sir, I’m not. I’m here because,” Byron hesitated, uncertain what to say. “Sir, my Grandmother sent me. She said it was important that I meet you.”

An audible, pained sigh crept out through the door, followed by several light bumps. Byron realized the old man was gently hitting his forehead against the wood. “I knew it,” the disembodied voice muttered, “I just knew it. Only a matter of time. I always said so.”

Byron tried to adjust the umbrella to cover his back more, but only managed to get his head covered in cold water. “Sir, may I come in? It’s a pretty bad storm out here.”

The door creaked shut about half an inch and lingered there for a second. It hung on its hinges, perfectly still, as if lost in thought. At last, just as Byron thought he was about to be turned away, there was another quick clack of metal on metal as the chain was undone.

“Fine!” The door swung wide open, revealing the same old man from the Variety Store. He now wore a red velvet smoking jacket buttoned down the center and a matching pair of red velvet slippers and pajama pants. Although his beard was eminently well groomed, his eyes looked a bit crazed at the unexpected visit. If he recognized Byron from their brief interaction at the store, the old man did not let on.

Byron hesitated on the porch, looking in through the open door into the warm interior of ‘Mysteries of the Deep’. After a brief moment the old man yelled. “Come on! You’re getting rain on the hard wood! In or out!”

Byron chose in. He stepped into the vestibule, onto an unadorned brown welcome mat. The instant Byron was inside, the old man slammed the front door shut and locked it up again. Byron watched as the old man progressed through four different locks, sliding shut the chain, closing two heavy duty deadbolts, and finally twisting a small lock on the doorknob.

Byron had never heard of a single crime being committed on Ocracoke – not since the days of Blackbeard himself. Perhaps the old man knew something Byron didn’t.

McNally spun around and caught Byron staring at him. “What?” he asked angrily, “Never seen an old man before?”

Byron decided to change the subject. “Should I, um, take off my shoes?”

McNally rolled his eyes. “No, go ahead and rest your soaking wet sneakers on my mahogany coffee table,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm, “It’s only a century old.”

Byron, exhausted and now half doused in rain, stood with uncertainty on the mat.

“Yes!” The old man yelled, “take off your shoes! What do you think this is, a youth hostel?”

Byron watched as the old man stormed off down a darkened hallway. Once he was out of sight, Byron shook his head and gave an exasperated look at the ceiling.

McNally was about the most crotchety person Byron had ever met. He offered Byron absolutely nothing – not even a towel or a dry shirt. Instead he ordered Byron to have a seat on the couch only to immediately scream at him for getting it wet.

“That’s antique calf’s leather for Christ’s sake. What are you thinking?”

Byron just stood there, uncertain what the old man wanted him to do. The two of them stared at each other for another twenty seconds before the old man stormed off again deeper into the house. “Fine!” He said as he went, and eventually returned with an ill-fitting undershirt and a tattered pair of white trousers covered in paint stains. He tossed the cloths to Byron and sat down grumpily in a small leather armchair beside a writing desk, legs a few feet from the cracking fire. “Hang your wet clothes up or they’ll smell. I’m telling you now, I’m not doing laundry until Saturday!”

Byron stumbled his way through the dimly lit house until he found a bathroom. Once inside he shut the door and flicked the light switch – but there was no light. Byron looked around for another switch but couldn’t find one, so he got changed in the dark. He hung his clothes on what he thought was a towel rack and headed back into the living room. When he got there McNally was staring into the fire with a thousand yard gaze, as if the old man had just returned from several tours of military service in a particularly gruesome foreign war.

A beat of silence passed before Byron spoke. “Uh, you’re bathroom light isn’t working.”

“Have a seat,” McNally said without looking up, his voice quieter, more somber.

Byron blinked and made his way back to the antique leather couch. As he walked, he did his best to take in the room. Three of the four walls were lined in floor to ceiling bookshelves, all filled to capacity. The fire light bounced off a hundreds of red and brown colored spines, each with golden embroidered titles, all too small for Byron to read from where he sat. Only the wall with the fireplace was exposed, the same dark stained wood as the exterior of the house, like a humorless log cabin. In the center of that wall was the dark brick of the hearth. An absurdly large moose head, with gargantuan antlers protruded from the wall above the fireplace.

There were only four pieces of furniture in the severe room, all of them resting on top of a plush Persian rug, itself all deep reds and browns. Byron sat on the antique brown leather couch, while McNally sat on the antique brown leather arm chair, beside the even more antique mahogany desk. Between them both was the *most* antique mahogany coffee table, upon which rested a single book laid at a jaunty angle and absolutely studded with colored plastic note tabs. Byron could have sworn the book was not there before he went to get changed. Byron struggled with the title for a moment. ‘Infinite Jest.’

The old man cleared his throat.

“I owe you an apology,” he began, to Byron’s surprise.

Byron shrugged. He had left everything he owned at the front door, except for his clothes in the bathroom and the Cantos, which he now held on his lap. It almost seemed to be absorbing the firelight and re-casting its own, competing glow onto the room. The Old Man did not so much as glance at it.

“That’s OK,” Byron managed. “I’m Byr —”

McNally cut Byron off and began monologuing. “I always knew this day would come. I never had any doubts. And yet, the longer I went without it coming, the more I girded myself against the possibility.”

McNally paused dramatically. He still had not looked up at Byron. Instead he spoke into the fire, his face a dance of shadows.

Byron started to reply, “Well, I didn —”

“You just never know,” McNally continued, cutting Byron off again, “when the past will catch up to you. I suppose, in truth, I thought the time for this was well and truly behind me. But perhaps it really was inevitable.”

Again McNally paused. Byron was tempted to chime in again, but decided to wait just a moment longer than he might normally.

After a silence of cinematic length, McNally asked “What’s your name, son?”

Byron gave the old man a tight lipped smile. “Byron.”

For the first time since they sat down McNally looked up. His eyes were filled with intensity. “Byron! Magnificent! The great romantic, the wordsmith of the soul! How fitting.”

Byron had no idea what the old man was talking about. “Um, thanks.”

McNally picked up a small tumbler filled with some kind of brown liquor and sipped it gingerly. Then he looked back into the flame, as if directed to do so by some invisible cinematographer. “You say your grandmother sent you here.” Another dramatic pause. “What was her name?”

Byron almost blurted out “Nan”, before remembering that his grandmother had, in fact, had an actual name beside the nickname they’d both preferred. Byron had used it so infrequently throughout his life that he had to think for just a moment before saying it.

“Elizabeth,” Byron said, “although almost everyone called her Na —”

McNally raised the palm of his hand up sharply toward Byron, stopping him mid-sentence. With great sadness, the old man placed his forehead into his other hand, and shook his head lightly. “Elizabeth. Of course it would be Elizabeth.” He lowered his hand to his side and looked back into the fire. “It was *always* Elizabeth.”

The old man just sat there, addressing the fire with his gaze, for more than a minute, as Byron shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was, Byron had to admit, a *very* comfortable couch.

Finally, McNally allowed his gaze to break away from the flames. He rubbed at his eyes sharply as he took another sip of his drink. “Is she well,” he asked, staring at no particular place on the far bookshelf opposite him, “my Elizabeth?”

Byron swallowed another lump in his throat. “I’m sorry, but she died.” Every time he had to say it Byron could hardly tamp down tears.

McNally seemed strangely unfazed – he just nodded quietly to himself, and then addressed his eyes to the rug. “You have my condolences. She was a lovely woman, your grandmother – in every sense of the word. Behind her quiet disposition, she hid a pure and unblemished spirit – the closest thing to an angel I’ve never known.”

Byron thinned his eyes. *That* did not sound like his Nan. Still, he nodded respectfully. “You two must have been very close. It was her last wish that I come see you.” Byron mustered the courage to began getting to the point. “I need to, um, understand what’s happening to me.”

McNally seemed to freeze in place for a long moment, his eyes darting back and forth across the Persian rug nervously. “I see,” he said, his voice cracking just a little for the first time. He cleared his throat. “And I suppose you’re parents aren’t around then?”

“No,” Byron retreated into himself just a little, as he did whenever his parents were mentioned. “They died when I was baby.”

“I see. Yes, well, my condolences.” McNally picked up his drink and finished it in a single swig. He contained a small cough afterwards and then looked right at Byron. “Well, Byron – ah, Elizabeth, what a name – yes, Byron. Have no fear, all of your questions will be answered. Have no fear.”

For the first time since Nan died, Byron allowed himself to relax, just the tiniest bit. “Thank you, Mr. McNally – Preceptor, I mean. I’m sorry, which do you prefer?”

McNally raised an eyebrow. “Mr. McNally will do just fine,” then he added with an awkward smile, “perhaps, in time, we can try Grandpa on for size.”

Byron blinked and then blinked again. “I’m sorry, what?”

The old man stowed his smile away and shook his head. “No, of course, not immediately. It’s just something we might work towards, you know, as we get to know one another.”

In the same way a single puzzle piece can illuminate the previously obscured subject of entire jigsaw puzzle, so too did the entire last hour suddenly click into focus for Byron. Byron had never met his grandfather, but Nan had talked about him frequently – and how he had died of a heart attack after Thanksgiving dinner, 1983.

Still, Byron had to be sure.

“Sir,” he said, “My Nan – Elizabeth – she left me this book. It’s – special. I’ve done things with it that I didn’t think were possible.”

McNally pursed his lips and reached out a hand. “Let me see it boy.”

Byron handed over the gleaming tome. “I think it’s magic, but I don’t understand how it works. Or where it came from. Or why I have it. I just need to —”

“A cookbook?” McNally was flipping haphazardly through the pages wearing a look of abject disinterest with a touch of confusion. “You’re carrying around a cook book?”

Byron’s heart dropped in his chest. Suddenly he felt like a complete idiot. “Um, yeah.”

“Why are you carrying around a cookbook?”

Byron shut his eyes and let his head rest on the couch, face up toward the ceiling. “My Nan wrote it and left it to me when she died,” he said, deadpan.

“Elizabeth?” McNally slammed the Cantos shut. “Elizabeth wrote a *cookbook*? Young man, Elizabeth never cooked a meal in her life. She was served, hand and foot, from the very day of her birth. Elizabeth could no more write a cookbook than a monkey could write a treatise on the History of The Roman Empire.” He threw the Cantos haphazardly at Byron. The heavy tome bounced off the couch and landed on the floor. “Who are you, really?”

The sound of the Cantos slamming into the floor jerked Byron out of his reverie. He sat up straight. “I’m Byron. Elizabeth was my grandmother.”

McNally spoke quickly, “Elizabeth who? What was her surname?”

“Sumter. Elizabeth Sumter.”

The old man rose imperiously from his chair, anger washing over his face with a newfound intensity. “Unbelievable. The gall. The absolute gall! You come into *my* house, under *false* pretenses, and present yourself as something you *know,* all to well, you are *not*.” McNally took two threatening steps toward Byron, who remained seated, cowering on the couch. “How *dare* you! How *dare* you? Playing with the emotions of an old, desperate man!”

Byron thought it was about time he left. He stood up, picking the Cantos off the ground, and stumbled over to the front door. “I’m sorry, I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

The volume of McNally’s voice increased even more. “Oh, a misunderstanding? A *misunderstanding!* Why, yes, I believe there *has* been a *miss*-understanding. I *miss*-understood that you were my progeny! My *grand*child! I wonder!” As he spoke, McNally took slow, menacing steps toward Byron, effectively cornering him by the front door. “I *wonder* whoever could have given me *that* impression!”

In an anxious frenzy, Byron stumbled about trying to get his wet sneakers onto his feet. He dropped the Cantos on the ground and worked at the sopping wet material with his still cold hands. “Sir, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to mislead you.”

“Oh, you didn’t, did you?” McNally’s voice was ripe with sarcasm. “No, I’m sure you had *no* interest in my extensive fortune! None at all!”

Byron finally managed to get the second shoe on just as McNally stepped up only a foot in front of him. Byron stood back up and raised his hands up as if to defend against a blow. “Sir, please, I’d just like to leave. I don’t want any trouble.”

McNally’s lower lip quivered angrily and it seemed, for a brief moment, that he might actually raise a hand to Byron. But at the last moment his hand went up and straight for the several locks on his front door. “You don’t want any trouble,” he mumbled to himself, over and over again, as he struggled to undo all four locks. “Oh, how good of you,” he said, under his breath, as the final deadbolt resisted his efforts to twist it open, “no – no *trouble* at all.”

With a final, angry yank McNally managed to unlock the the door. Pushing Byron out of the way, he swung it wide open, revealing a full blown squall outside. The rain was pouring down in veritable waves, and blowing sideways through the air, dragged by incredible gusts of wind. Seemingly right above them a gargantuan flash of lightning lit the framed darkness of Seabreeze Road like broad daylight, a clap of roaring thunder roaring simultaneously.

Byron looked out the door, then back at McNally. “I’m *really* sorry – I thought you were someone else. I just —” More than anything, Byron wanted to leave – but where would he go in this storm? With a look of abject despondency, Byron looked McNally in the eye. “— I have no where else to go.”

For just a brief second, the old man’s features softened and Byron thought he might relent and let him stay just long enough for the storm to end. But then, just as quickly. the moment passed, and McNally returned a hard and unforgiving look.

“Get. Out.”

With a small shove, McNally pushed Byron over the doorstop and out onto the porch. Immediately, Byron felt he had been swallowed by some giant, freezing creature. The rain was so strong that he could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone see through it.

“Can I at least have my —” Byron started.

But he was cut off by McNally tossing the Cantos onto the porch. “And don’t stay under my porch or I’ll call the police.”

With that, McNally slammed the door shut in Byron’s face. “— umbrella,” Byron concluded with a sad yell.

But it made no difference, not really. The storm was too intense for an umbrella anyway – it would invert in the wind almost instantly.

Soaking wet and already shivering, Byron bent down, picked up the Cantos off the wooden slats of the old man’s porch, and walked gingerly down the steps, careful to hold on tight against the gusting wind.

Slowly, aimlessly, Byron made his way back onto Seabreeze Road and began walking nowhere.

He knew he should be worried about being out in a storm like this. He should be concerned for his well being. He could be crushed by a fallen tree, or struck by lightning. Yet, for the first time in his life, Byron really didn’t care. Not about anything.

In fact, where was he even going? Why was he even walking?

He stopped and stood there in the middle of the chaos. The storm was so powerful that it seemed to constrain reality itself. As Byron stood there, hopeless, he could no longer see the houses with their stupid names, nor the trees or bushes. He looked in every direction but could not see further than a couple of feet. There was only a wall of angry water, and angrier wind and, now and again, a sharp flash of whiteness, lighting it all like a neon bulb, followed by the bellow of the wrathful sky.

It was in the midst of this darkest moment – filled with abject despair and more completely lost than he’d ever been before – that Byron saw something impossible. It cut through the otherwise impenetrable blanket of the storm and approached him from some distance away.

At first, it was just a little yellow speck – baby chick yellow. Slowly it grew in size, nearer and nearer, until at last Byron could see it was approaching him. Not just approaching.

It was skipping.

Byron swiped at his eyes in disbelief, and when he looked again, the yellow figure was less than twenty feet away, and very clearly skipping happily down the sidewalk, as if there was no storm at all. Byron could see a pair of bright green waterproof boots sticking out from beneath a bright yellow poncho. The poncho so completely stood out against the murky darkness of the storm that it almost seemed to be glowing.

Byron was so surprised by the impromptu vision of sheer joy that he nearly let the figure pass without a word. Only at last second did he remember himself and his dire straights, raising a hand and running after the figure.

“Hey,” he yelled into the storm, his untied shoes splashing through freezing cold puddles, “hey wait!”

Byron could hardly hear himself over the wind, yet the figure in yellow stopped mid skip. Heartened, Byron sped up, racing over.

“Oh, thank you so much for stopping! I’m sorry to bother you,” Byron yelled, “But, I don’t have anyplace to st —”

The figure in yellow spun around jovially and shot Byron a broad, easy smile.

Byron was astounded to discover that it was Tilda, the owner of the Variety Store.

For her part, Tilda seemed completely unsurprised. “Byron!” she said, happily, and reached up to give him a reassuring clap on the shoulder. As before, Byron felt immediately put at ease. His troubles hadn’t disappeared. To the contrary, they seemed even clearer than before. They just became momentarily easier to bear.

Tilda let go of Byron’s shoulder and threw her hands up toward the sky, smiling wide. “How about this storm, huh?!” She twirled around once, splashing her water proof boots in the a puddle, and then laughed freely. “It’s amazing! We haven’t had a storm like this in years!”

Somewhat dumbfounded, Byron smiled in spite of himself. “Yeah,” he said, finding it hard to be depressed all of a sudden, “It’s, uh, quite the storm.”

Tilda looked back down at Byron and seemed to see him for the first time. “Hm, you’re not really properly dressed for it, you know that?”

Byron nodded and gave a little laugh, his brown hair flat against his forehead, McNally’s dilapidated old clothes stuck wetly to his skin. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Tilda nodded a few times. She took a very deep, long, and slow breath in, and then another out, as if she were inhaling and exhaling the storm itself. Then, without any explanation, she grabbed Byron by the hand. “Well, let’s go!”

Her grip was surprisingly strong, and Byron started to keep pace behind her before he even had the wherewithal to respond. He was so exhausted he could hardly muster a sound. He managed a “huh?”

Tilda let go of Byron’s hand and watched him just long enough to make sure he was following. “Got to get you inside.” She said, matter-of-factly.

Then she set off ahead of Byron, skipping from puddle to puddle, whooping in response to every strike of lightning and every clap of thunder.

Byron followed her a quarter of a mile, like a beacon through the night.

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