"Good heavens," said his wife, "isn't it after ten o'clock?"

"Five 'til," he said, backing up. He made the turn and hammered down on the accelerator.

"That's one block . . . ," she said.

Going this fast on wet pavement didn't exactly demonstrate the wisdom of the ages. "This is two," he counted.

"Now turn left here. I'm praying they'll be open."

He turned left. Nothing but yawning darkness. Then, a dim light a few yards ahead, swinging.

They inched along, not knowing what lay in their path. A sign propped against a sawhorse revealed itself in the glare of the headlights.

Ferry to Whitecap

Have Your $ Ready

A lantern bobbed from the corner of what appeared to be a small building perched at the edge of the water.

He'd read somewhere about blowing your horn for a ferry, and gave it a long blast.

"Lord, is this a joke?" his wife inquired aloud of her Maker.

A light went on in the building and a man came out, wearing a cap, an undershirt, and buttoning his pants.

Father Tim eased the window down a few inches.

"Done closed."

"Two minutes," said Father Tim, pointing to his watch. "Two whole minutes before ten. You've got to take us across." He nearly said, I'm clergy, but stopped himself.

"You live across?"

"We're moving to Whitecap."

"Don't know as you'd want to go across tonight," said the man, still buttoning. " 'Lectricity's off. Black as a witch's liver."

Father Tim turned to Cynthia. "What do you think?"

"Where would we stay over here?"

"Have t' turn back fourteen miles."

Cynthia looked at her husband. "We're going across!"

"Twenty dollars," said the man, unsmiling.

"Done," said Whitecap's new priest.

Leaving the tropical confines of the car and clinging to the rail of the ferry, they looked across the black water, and up to clouds racing over the face of the moon. They were leaving the vast continent behind, and going to what looked like mere flotsam on the breast of the sea.

The ferry rocked and labored along its passage, belching oily fumes. Yet, quite apart from the noxious smell, Cynthia detected something finer, "There it is, Timothy! The smell of salt air!"

"Gulls wheeling above us," he muttered lamely, noting that a few gulls followed the ferry, even in the dead of night.

She leaned against his shoulder, and he put his arm around her and took off her cap and nuzzled her hair. She was his rock in an ocean of change, no pun intended.

"Look at the stars coming out, my dearest. The sky is as fresh and new as the fourth day of Creation. It's going to be wonderful, Timothy, our new life. We're going to feel freer, somehow, I promise."

That was a very nice speech, he noted, as only his wife could make.

"Absolutely!" he said, trying to mean it.

Their car had been unchained from its moorings, and the ramp to Whitecap cranked down. The ferry pilot stood by the ramp, a cigarette in his mouth, holding the gas lantern and signaling them off.

"Would you look at our map?" Father Tim leaned out the window. "We're trying to get . . . here." He pointed to the location of Dove Cottage, marked by a red arrow. "Since we're not approaching from the bridge . . ."

The lantern was lifted to light the hand-drawn map. "No problem," said the pilot, leaving the cigarette in place. "I've been around in there a few times. Go off th' ramp, take a left, drive about a mile and a half, turn right on Tern Avenue, go straight for about a mile, then take a left on Hastings. Looks like your place is on th' corner . . . right there."

"Left off the ramp, a mile and a half . . ." Father Tim repeated the litany. "Any idea when the power might be restored?"

"By mornin', most likely. Worst out was three days, back in '89.

What line of business you in?"

"New priest at St. John's in the Grove."

The pilot took a heavy drag on his cigarette and pitched it over the rail. Then he reached in his pants pocket, withdrew a ten-dollar bill, and handed it through the window.

"Oh, but-"

"Godspeed," said the ferry pilot, walking away.

A waxing moon drifted above them as they drove along the narrow road.

"They all look alike," Cynthia said, peering at the darkened houses. "White, with picket fences. Some on stilts. Goodness, do you think all these people are really sleeping?"

"I saw something that looked like candles in one window."

"Did we bring candles?"

"What do you think?"

"I think we brought candles! I'm thrilled to be married to such a predictable stick-in-the-mud. I hope you brought extra blades for my razor."

"If I didn't, which I did, you could find them at a store. Whitecap isn't the Australian Outback."

"You know one reason I love you?" she asked.

"I haven't the foggiest."

"Because," she said, "you're steady. So very steady."

A former bishop had once said something like that, calling him a "plow horse." The bishop made it clear, however, that it was the race-horse that clambered to the top of the church ladder and made a fine stall for himself.

Barnabas thrust his head out the window, sniffing. New smells were everywhere, there was nothing known or expected about the smells in these parts.

"Hastings Avenue should be coming up," he said. "There! Do you hear it?"

"The ocean! Yes! Oh, stop-just for a moment."

He slowed to a stop, and realized the great roar was out there somewhere, that just over the high dunes was a beach, and, lying beyond, a vast rink of platinum shimmering under the moon.

" 'Listen!' " he whispered, quoting Wordsworth. " 'The Mighty Being is awake, and doth with His eternal motion make, a sound like thunder, everlastingly.' "

"Lovely!" she breathed.

They moved on slowly, as if already obeying some island impulse, some new metabolism. With only the moon, stars, and headlights to illumine their way in the endless darkness, they might have been the last creatures on earth.

"Let's put the top down!" crowed Cynthia.

"Fat chance," he said, turning off Tern.

He walked back to the car with the flashlight.

"I don't see the half-hidden street sign Marion Fieldwalker talked about. . . ."

"I can't understand it," she said, studying the map under the map light. "We turned right on Tern, we went left on Hastings to the corner. This must be it."

"The overgrown hedges are definitely there."

"Maybe the sign blew away in the storm. Should we . . . retrace our steps and try again, or do you think . . . ?"

It had all become a blasted nuisance as far as he was concerned. And he would never say so to his wife, but it was spooky out here, stumbling around on some godforsaken jut of land in the pitch-dark, miles from home and reeling from what had become a fifteen-hour trip with nothing but a pack of blasted peanuts to . . .

"We did exactly as the map said. I don't think trying to do it all over again would help us. Why don't we investigate?"

He helped her out of the car and shone the flashlight onto the porch. It was an older beach cottage, with a line of rocking chairs turned upside down to keep the wind from blowing them into the yard. A derelict shutter leaned against the shingled wall.

"Gosh," she said, otherwise speechless.

"I don't see a rosebush climbing up anything," He'd been looking forward to that rosebush.

"Maybe the storm . . . ," she suggested.

". . . blew it down," he said.

They went up the creaking steps to the door.

"Look, Timothy, up there."

A sign hung lopsided above the door, dangling from a single nail.

OVE.

OTTAGE.

"Oh, my," she said quietly.

Surely this wasn't . . . surely not, he thought.

"They said it would be unlocked," whispered his wife. "Should we . . . try the door?"

The door swung open easily. He was afraid to look.

"Aha."

The furnishings sat oddly jumbled in the large, paneled room. A slipcovered sofa faced away from two club chairs, card tables blocked the entrance to what appeared to be a dining room, a faded Persian carpet covered one side of the floor, but was rolled up on the other.

They went in carefully, as if walking on eggs.

Cynthia hugged herself and stared around in disbelief. "How could this possibly ... ?"

He passed the light across one of the tables and saw a half-assembled jigsaw image of the Grand Canyon.

"Look at that lovely old fireplace," she said. "Marion never mentioned a fireplace. . . ."

"Mildew," he said. "Do you smell it?"

"Yes, but how odd. Marion said they'd worked like slaves to clean everything up. Timothy, this can't be Dove Cottage."