Chapter One

I returned after ten years' absence, on a hot day in late August,
on the eve of summer's first bad tides. As I stood watching the
approach from the deck of Brismand 1, the old ferry into La
Houssinière, it was almost as though I had never left. Nothing
had changed: the sharp smell of the air; the deck beneath my feet;
the sound of the gulls in the hot blue sky. Ten years, almost half
my life, erased at a single stroke, like writing in the sand. Or
almost.

I'd brought scarcely any luggage, and that reinforced the illusion.
But I'd always traveled light. We both had, Mother and I; there had
never been much to weigh us down. And at the end it had been I who
paid the rent for our Paris flat, working in a dingy late-night
café to supplement the income from the paintings Mother hated
so much, while she struggled with her emphysema and pretended not
to know she was dying.

All the same I should have liked to have returned wealthy,
successful. To show my father how well we'd managed without his
help. But my mother's small savings had run out long ago, and my
own -- a few thousand francs in a Crédit Maritime; a folder of
unsold paintings -- amounted to little more than we'd taken with us
the day we left. Not that it mattered. I was not planning to stay.
However potent the illusion of time suspended, I had another life
now. I had changed.

No one looked at me twice as I stood slightly apart from the others
on the deck of the Brismand 1. It was high season, and there
were already a good number of tourists aboard. Some were even
dressed as I was, in sailcloth trousers and fisherman's vareuse --
that shapeless garment halfway between a shirt and a jacket -- town
people trying too hard not to look it. Tourists with rucksacks,
suitcases, dogs, and children stood crammed together on the deck
among crates of fruit and groceries, cages of chickens, mailbags,
boxes. The noise was appalling. Beneath it, the hissshh of the sea
against the ferry's hull and the screee of gulls. My heart was
pounding with the surf.

As Brismand 1 neared the harbor I let my eyes travel across
the water toward the esplanade. As a child I had liked it here; I'd
often played on the beach, hiding under the fat bellies of the old
beach huts while my father conducted whatever business he had at
the harbor. I recognized the faded Choky parasols on the terrasse
of the little café where my sister used to sit; the hot dog
stand; the gift shop. It was perhaps busier than I remembered; a
straggling row of fishermen with pots of crabs and lobsters lined
the quay, selling their catch. I could hear music from the
esplanade; below it, children played on a beach that, even at high
tide, seemed smoother and more generous than I remembered. Things
were looking good for La Houssinière.

I let my eyes roam along the Rue des Immortelles, the main street,
which runs parallel to the seafront. I could see three people
sitting there side by side in what had once been my favorite spot:
the seawall below the esplanade overlooking the bay. I remembered
sitting there as a child, watching the distant gray jawbone of the
mainland, wondering what was there. I narrowed my eyes to see more
clearly; even from halfway across the bay I could see that two of
the figures were nuns.

I recognized them now as the ferry drew close -- Soeur Extase and
Soeur Thérèse, Carmelite volunteers from the nursing home
at Les Immortelles, were already old before I was born. I felt
oddly reassured that they were still there. Both nuns were eating
ice creams, their habits hitched up to their knees, bare feet
dangling over the parapet. The man sitting beside them, face
obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, could have been anyone.

The Brismand 1 drew alongside the jetty. A gangplank was
raised into place, and I waited for the tourists to disembark. The
jetty was as crowded as the boat; vendors stood by selling drinks
and pastries; a taxi driver advertised his trade; children with
trolleys vied for the attention of the tourists. Even for August,
it was busy.

"Carry your bags, mademoiselle?" A round-faced boy of about
fourteen, wearing a faded red T-shirt, tugged at my sleeve. "Carry
your bags to the hotel?"

"I can manage, thanks." I showed him my tiny case.

The boy gave me a puzzled glance, as if trying to place my
features. Then he shrugged and moved on to richer pickings.

The esplanade was crowded. Tourists leaving; tourists arriving;
Houssins in between. I shook my head at an elderly man attempting
to sell me a knot work key ring; it was Jojo-le-Goëland, who
used to take us for boat rides in summer, and although he'd never
been a friend -- he was an Houssin, after all -- I felt a pang that
he hadn't recognized me.

"Are you staying here? Are you a tourist?" It was the round-faced
boy again, now joined by a friend, a dark-eyed youth in a leather
jacket who was smoking a cigarette with more bravado than pleasure.
Both boys were carrying suitcases.

"I'm not a tourist. I was born in Les Salants."

"Les Salants?"

"Yes. My father's Jean Prasteau. He's a boatbuilder. Or was,
anyway."

"GrosJean Prasteau!" Both boys looked at me with open
curiosity.

They might have said more, but just then three other teenagers
joined us. The biggest addressed the round-faced boy with an air of
authority.

"What are you Salannais doing here again, heh?" he demanded. "The
seafront belongs to the Houssins, you know that. You're not allowed
to take luggage to Les Immortelles!"

"Who..."

Excerpted from COASTLINERS © Copyright 2002 by Joanne
Harris. Reprinted with permission by Perennial, an imprint of
HarperCollins. All rights reserved.