A Mourning Dress for the Sea

How it begins

The measurements arrived wet.

Agnes spread the paper beside the stove and weighted its corners with spools. Bust, waist, sleeve, hem: all the ordinary headings, all followed by numbers too large for any woman she knew.

At the bottom, beneath the signature, someone had written: The sea prefers black.

She almost burned it.

Then she saw the deposit.

Six sovereigns, wrapped in a square of silk so fine she could hear it catching on the rough skin beside her thumb.

The shop rent was overdue. Her mother's spectacles needed replacing. Agnes had spent the morning letting out a dress for a woman who had explained that payment would be easier after Christmas.

She began with the lining.

By the first fitting, she had constructed only a narrow trial sleeve. The instructions said to bring it to the harbor steps at low tide and leave it where a woman might rest her arm.

There was no woman.

There was Rosa Keane, tying her boat, who looked at the silk and went pale.

"Who paid you?"

Agnes showed her the paper.

Rosa did not touch it.

A wave reached the lowest step. When it withdrew, a watch lay beside the sleeve.

No rust. No weed. Its case shone as if someone had polished it before coming ashore.

Rosa sat down.

"My brother's."

Agnes knew the name. Everyone in the town knew the names from the wreck, though the official memorial had found room for fewer than the church register.

The watch began ticking.

In Agnes's workbag, something small struck the scissors.

She reached inside and found a silver thimble.

Her grandmother's initials circled the rim.

Her grandmother had thrown it into the fire, years before the wreck. Agnes had watched her do it.

Rosa looked toward the water.

"What have you made?"

Agnes held the unfinished sleeve above the step.

For the first time in her career, she could not tell whether a garment was being fitted to its wearer or to the shape of an accusation.