By John Woodington

While love begins in summer no matter where you are, summer doesn’t arrive on the Coast of Maine until August, when it is almost too late. Charla had lived on Maine’s southern coast all fifteen years of her life, and though the school year might have been ending, summer would not be coming for quite some time. She sat at the wooden picnic table in the schoolyard with Terra and Noreen, as they did every day when it was warm enough to eat outside, though the clouds overhead whispered of rain. The three girls were talking about something that nobody ever talked about, because it was such a subject of non-interest. They were talking about Stephan.

Charla looked over at Stephan as he sat under an oak tree staring out towards the ocean he couldn’t possibly see. "He doesn’t talk much, does he?" she said.

"I don’t even know what his voice sounds like," Terra said.

Noreen brushed a lock of brown hair away from her eyes as she glanced over. "And he always eats alone. What do you think is wrong with him?"

Terra shook her head. "He’s just one of those kids that doesn’t mix."

Stephan was as plain a boy as there could be. He wasn’t skinny, but he wasn’t overweight. His hair was brown like everybody else’s, and she was pretty sure his eyes were green.

But something was different about him today, though none of the girls could tell what it might be. Charla leaned in. "A backpack," she said. "He’s never had a backpack at school, and today he does." A black backpack rested near the same tree as Stephan, plain as its owner.

"How could he never have a backpack at school?" Terra said. "Everybody does."

"Rich people don’t need backpacks," Noreen said.

It was common knowledge in the community south of Kennebunkport that Stephan Everson was rich from the inheritance he received after his father was swept overboard in a flash storm while fishing off the coast. He now lived in his father’s coastal mansion with his mother.

"Doesn’t he ever have homework?" Charla said, her voice low, her eyes on the motionless boy beneath the oak.

But her voice wasn’t low enough, and Stephan turned and looked at her. Charla sat up straight on the old picnic table bench, startled. She had never seen Stephan look at her before, and it made her feel horrible, as if she had been caught stealing, even though she hadn’t been saying anything mean. He stared at her as if he knew she was disappointed with him for some reason, but he also seemed surprised that she would even take the time to be disappointed with him in the first place. The wind gusted, his rustling hair the only part of him that moved.

"I…I’m sorry," she said, not loud enough for anyone to hear, her eyes still fixed on him. She wanted to look away from the plain rich boy, but she knew that if she did, he would be hurt even more than he was now, if he was at all.

And then he moved. Slowly, as if it were an effort for a boy of fifteen, he stood to his feet, grabbing his black backpack on the way up. His grey shirt showed the slight pudge of his stomach as he walked towards her.

"What’s he doing?" Terra asked.

Noreen turned away. "Oh dear Lord."

But Charla’s eyes remained locked with his, not because he was pleasant to look at, but because it was a necessity, it was what she was supposed to be looking at, and to look away would be rude.

Stephan stopped three feet away from her, and crouched down so that she didn’t have to look up at him.

His eyes weren’t green, Charla noticed, but grey with a green reminiscence, as if the green had faded away years ago, like the color in old men’s hair. He searched her face like an old wardrobe, looking for a favorite garment.

The wind chilled Charla’s arms, and she rubbed them. He looked different now, scared. "We didn’t mean to gossip," she said to him. "We were just…"

"I have something for you," Stephan said. The sound of his voice shocked all of them, not because it was odd or different, but because it was new, unknown.

"You do?" Charla asked.

Stephan nodded. "Can we be alone for a minute?"

Terra and Noreen left without even a look from Charla, scurrying to the other side of the schoolyard to watch from afar.

Stephan sat down next to Charla, his leg nearly brushing her long skirt. He lifted his backpack and set it down carefully next to her brown lunch bag. "I won’t bother you for long," he said. "I just want you to have this."

Charla didn’t know what to say, or if she should say anything at all. She watched as Stephan unzipped the backpack and lifted away the top flap. Inside was a clear glass bottle, a wine bottle maybe, and inside the bottle was a beautiful miniature ship.

Two tall masts jutted out of the smooth wooden hull of the boat, three sails billowing in nonexistent wind hung from each pole. The ship rested on water formed of clay, whitecaps cresting and curling. Dozens of rope lines ran from the masts to the deck of the ship, all taught like wire. On the front deck stood a single man, small as a seed, but perfectly clothed in sailor’s garb. The side of the lacquered wooden hull bore the name "Pride of the Dawn" in white letters, and the whole ship rested peacefully inside the clear glass bottle, like a frozen moment.

"This is for me?" Charla said.

Stephan nodded, his eyes on the ship.

"But, why?"

He shrugged. "I want you to have it," he said. "It’s named after the last ship my father was on, though it looks different. His boat didn’t have any sails, and I didn’t want it to look like that anyway."

Charla looked back at the perfect ship. It was much bigger than the corked bottleneck at the front end of the bottle. "How did you get it in there?"

Stephan shook his head. "A secret." He looked like he was waiting for something.

At that moment Charla knew she must say something to him, something more than just a question about his gift, something more than thank you. His grey eyes still stared at the ship, so desperate.

"Will you show me?" she asked. "Show me how you got it in there?" It was the only thing she could say, and though she didn’t really want to go back to his house and watch him model a ship together, she knew it was what he had wanted her to say, and she couldn’t let him down, not now. The Pride of the Dawn was so beautiful, and its price so meager.

Stephan looked at her. "I’ll show you if you want, but you don’t have to," he said. "It’s just a gift."

"No, please," she said, lying because it was the right thing to do. "Show me." She smiled, and Stephan’s mouth dropped open just a little.

"Alright," he nodded.

After school, Charla followed Stephan to his house, little more than a mile’s walk from the school. The upper windows of the large dark house gazed out over the grey sea and its stony shore. A veranda wrapped three sides of the house, and two wooden chairs sat facing the ocean, gently rocking in the breeze as if occupied by ghosts. Charla glanced out over the eastern sea line. The water was still too cold for swimming, even on Kennebunk Beach, and the distant frothy white caps roiled towards them, the Atlantic’s breath breaking on the rocky shoal.

Stephan led her inside, the cool wind dying the instant the door shut, leaving them alone. The entrance hall opened up ahead into a dining room with a small table and a single chair. They walked past an opening to another large room with a wingback leather chair facing a brick fireplace and empty wood mantle. Fake flowers furnished the corners of every open space, though somehow they seemed to be dying.

"Where’s your mother?" Charla asked. Her voice sounded horribly loud in the spacious room. Stairs directly ahead of them led up to the second floor.

Stephan didn’t turn around to look at her. "She’s dead," he said.

Charla stopped. "What? But I thought it was your dad who—"

"She died earlier," he said, cutting her off. "On the boat that sank touring the Isle of Shoals."

Charla thought back, trying to remember. "But that was years ago," she said, vaguely remembering her parents talking about the incident over dinner. A few people from the Kennebunks had died on that boat, but mostly tourists. Storms can attack quickly and fiercely when the ocean permits.

Stephan shrugged and started up the stairs. "She was on it," he said. He seemed to be walking slower than before. "I have a maid that does all the cooking and cleaning."

Charla followed him, silently berating herself for not knowing better as they ascended the stairs and turned to the left. Why hadn’t she known that both of his parents were dead? Maybe she had been too young. Or maybe it was because Stephan’s father had been the rich one in the family. The death of the wealthy always generates more of a stir among the public.

The first hallway Stephan led her down was lined with frames that held documents and certificates, but no pictures. One was a shipbuilding license, another a land permit. Many of them had the name "Blue Harbor Co." printed in large or script letters. Stephan’s father had owned Blue Harbor, Charla knew. It was where he had made his fortune as a shipwright. The company had been sold upon his death and Stephan had received the profits. The bottom half of the entire state of Maine had known about it, as the deal had been worth millions. It bothered Charla that she hadn’t realized the truth about Stephan’s mother. She would have received the money for the company, had she been alive when it was sold. But Stephan was the only living heir, and it had all fallen on him.

They turned a corner down another hallway, this one dimmer than the first. No windows lined the walls, only anonymous doors like sentries standing guard. He led her to the very end of the long hall and the door that stood there, twisted the brass handle, and let her into the light.

Huge windows illuminated the room despite the gloom outside, and it took a moment for Charla’s eyes to adjust to the brightness. Things faded into clarity, objects poking out of the brilliant blur. A double bed and shelves rested nearby, and she figured they must be in his bedroom.

He stepped away from her, revealing the scene around them. Charla’s mouth slowly opened wider and wider until she had to cover it with her hand to keep her jaw from dropping off and tumbling to the floor. A chill furrowed the hairs on her arms, and she shook for a moment until the freeze melted.

Every surface of the room was a display, and every display was beautiful. There had to be hundreds of bottles lining the windowsills, shelves, bed headboard, tables, and desk that furnished the room, and inside every bottle floated a ship.

Charla slowly circled the room, staring in wonder at all the ships. Some were like the one he had given her earlier in the day, majestic sailboats cresting the living seas. Others were different. Some were very small bottles, like miniature liquor bottles in a hotel room, or chemistry flasks from school. The ships inside were smaller yet, but no less detailed then their larger brothers. On the other end of the spectrum were huge water cooler bottles, encasing massive three-mast galleons with dozens of sails and hundreds of lines. In another water jug was a fleet of small ships, dozens all sailing in the same direction, one boat leading the pack, another falling far behind.

On the next shelf were ships crashing through huge waves, their sails broken off at odd angles, jagged mast poles jutting up from the decks. The glass of the bottles was darker, as if they were actually sailing underneath a cloudy sky. In one bottle stood a huge man in a white apron, standing over a table on which sat his own ship in a bottle. In another a ship sank, the front half of its hull reaching out above the crushing waves of the sea. Another ship sat on clear sapphire seas, with a pack of dolphins swimming beneath the surface. A small boat held a man staring over the side, gazing down at the back of a monstrous whale as it glided below him. A line of men struggled to pull a full net of fish over the gunwale. Two beautiful ships blew each other apart with their rows of cannons, a skull and crossbones flying black over the winning galley, pirates climbing the rope rigging, daggers in their teeth. Ships inside forty-watt light bulbs. Ships in blue glass, sailing on calm seas at night.

Every ship she saw was different, as if the shelves and tables of Stephan’s room held the miasma of emotions that one could experience, each one bottled for public viewing. And every one of them was beautiful.

She swept her gaze around the room at all the ships until her eyes finally landed on Stephan, who held a ship in his hands, just the ship and not the bottle in which it would surely soon be encased.

"See," he said. "The masts fold down," he let loose one of the strings between his fingers and the two sailed masts of the ship fell backward, lying down flat on the deck. "Then you can fit it through the bottleneck, and when it’s in there you pull the strings tight again and," he pulled the strings, "the sails rise up."

"You made all of these?" Charla asked, still in shock of the spectacle.

Stephan nodded, his eyes near the floor. The way he held that ship, she would never have believed those pudgy, clumsy fingers could be capable of such intricate and delicate beauty.

She looked into his eyes. They looked greyer than ever, as if storm clouds had set in over the natural sky. "Why?" she asked.

He looked up at her. "My dad built ships, the best in the state, maybe the country. My mother liked boats, too." He stopped for a moment, as if unsure of what he wanted to say next, what she would receive the best. "Did you know that I can’t swim?"

Charla didn’t know what to say.

"I don’t even own swim trunks. I haven’t waded any deeper than my ankles for years."

"Stephan," Charla said, becoming frustrated for some reason unknown to her. "Why did you give me that ship?"

"You don’t like it?"

"No, it’s not that. It’s beautiful. But, why that one? Why the one named after the ship your father—"

"If you don’t want it you can just tell me."

"I want to know why—"

"I don’t know," Stephan turned away from her, dropping the unprotected ship on the polished desk, breaking off both masts and sending them skittering to the floor, sails, rigging and all. He never looked back at it. "I thought maybe you’d look at me differently. You’re very…I think…I mean, look at you." He ran his hands back through his hair. "I look at you. I just wanted you to look back."

Charla closed her mouth. "I didn’t mean to…"

But she could think of nothing else to say. She would never have suspected something like this from a boy like Stephan. He had never said a word to her before today, and now he was showing her all this. She wondered how many other people knew about this place, about these bottles.

"I come home every day and work on these things," Stephan said, turning back to the ship he had broken. He nudged it with one of his fingers, then let it rest. "These in here are the best ones. I have a lot more in the attic, the bad ones. I don’t know why I make them. They’re not good for anything."

"That’s not true," Charla said. "They’re beautiful. Every one of them."

"Beauty has no purpose," Stephan said. "It never did anyone any good. I never have to work a day in my life because of the money my father left me. Most people would be happy about that. I can devote all my time to doing whatever I want and never have to worry about it. But instead I build these things. I thought maybe if there were someone else that I could share them with I wouldn’t feel so unproductive, like all of this was for nothing."

"It’s not for nothing," Charla said. "I mean, how many people in the world could build something as beautiful as this?" She pointed at a ship in a gumball machine, still baffled as to how he got the ship above the water that covered the only opening. "How can you say this is worthless?"

"What is it worth, then?"

"I don’t know," Charla said. "Think of all the people who’d like to see something like this."

"Nobody has ever seen it until now," Stephan said.

"But they could. You could set up a museum or something, and everyone could come and see the—"

"No," Stephan said. It wasn’t loud, but it was firm. "Please. Just leave."

It was so abrupt that Charla didn’t know what to do. It was obvious that he was upset, but she didn’t know if it was her fault, or if she should try to fix it. His face looked so dark. It matched his thundering eyes.

"I’m sorry," she said. "Thank you for the ship. It’s beautiful. I’m going to show it to everyone."

Stephan said nothing as Charla stepped past him and left.

When she got to school the next day, everyone was huddled in quiet groups and whispering things she couldn’t hear. She found Terra and Noreen outside at their picnic table, leaning in and talking to each other. They both turned and stared at her when she approached.

"Why’s everyone so quiet today?" Charla asked.

Terra and Noreen looked at each other, then back to Charla. "You didn’t hear?" Noreen said.

Charla shook her head. "Hear what?"

"Stephan Everson’s dead," Noreen said. "He drowned swimming last night."

Charla could only stare as her vision blurred and her stomach coiled in sickening dread. "What?"

Terra nodded as if she knew the whole of the story. "Remember, we were just talking about him yesterday." She looked around, checking for any close ears. "I wonder where all that money will go?"

She sounded almost excited about it, as if Stephan’s death might bring some good fortune to her life. Charla wanted nothing more than to slap her across the face, but she didn’t. Her mind kept telling her that she was the last person that Stephan had talked to.

"I mean, I don’t think he had any relatives or anything," Terra said.

Tears dripped down Charla’s cheeks. "Shut up," she said, her voice finally breaking through its cell of silence. "Don’t you dare say another word."

"What’s wrong with you?" Terra asked.

Charla turned away from the girls and stalked off faster and faster, until she was running, her hair whipping back behind her. Her eyes and heart wanted nothing more than to cry for the boy who had joined his parents in the heart of the sea. The boy who had given her a beautiful ship in a bottle.