Vessel, Book I: The Advent Page 6

Corin Charles Livingston III had never been much of a runner. He really didn't consider himself much of an athlete altogether. Running the New York City Marathon was just something to do, the same as hiking the Appalachian Trail or walking the length of the Great Wall of China. Or surfing Waikiki, or climbing Kilimanjaro. Having done all of these things, it's safe to say that Corin was in darn good shape for someone who didn't call himself an athlete.

  At twenty-seven, Corin had the time and money to pursue these hobbies because he was all alone on a small branch of a very rich, very English family tree. Blue blood and old money ran through this tree. And every day it was filtering in more money from a massive stock portfolio and some very prosperous business ventures.

  And the green grass grew all around, all around, and the green grass grew all around.

  It goes without saying that Corin was the type of person who usually got what he wanted. But before you go and label him some kind of indulgent aristocrat, give him a chance. The Livingston family business wasn't centered around retaining wealth so much as appropriating it. All because Corin's father―happily married, bereaved of his only sibling, and childless and presumably sterile at forty-five―had made a midlife career of steering family wealth into third world philanthropist organizations. Corin Three entered into this global equation very late―scandalously late, as his parents were both at the cusp of senior citizenship. Luckily for the Livingston beneficiaries, however, he turned out to be a compassionate, gracious, and well-traveled little protege. Instead of blazing through the post-graduate haze of sports cars and plastic girlfriends expected of his wealth bracket, Corin had spent most of his twenties substituting for his aging father in board meetings all over the world and securing grants for various foundations.

  That's not to say that he escaped a monied existence. Corin had attended expensive institutions of private education and encountered equally as many cocktail parties as ashrams. He dressed smartly, possessed a taste for top shelf bourbon, and spoke with a genuine Oxbridge accent (the kind that reeks of caviar and riding breeches), but he was not a lavish spender. He wasn't some socialite prick, either. Actually, amid the boardroom-to-bushland lifestyle he maintained, there were only three luxuries he consistently afforded himself: first class flying, good liquor, and as many adventures as he could pencil in.

  The New York City Marathon was one adventure he pointedly never missed. He always looked forward to the thrill of being among so many other people, all falling in and out of stride with one another on their way to a singular, frantic goal. The urban air was salty and damp that time of year, and during the 26-mile run it poured in, lungful after lungful, a cold and gritty cleansing. Corin considered it his annual American baptism.

  The New York itinerary was never without it's workload, of course. A tight schedule of meetings sandwiched the marathon: the usual companies to charm, executive officers to wine and dine―all of them American, none of them easy to sway. So in the two weeks that followed his Australian tour, there was no shortage of work to keep Corin occupied. Annual data to peruse and statements to arrange, all in accordance with Corin senior, who was insufferably stubborn and―at eighty-one―also insufferably deaf.

  Corin was more grateful than ever for the distraction. After his return to the family estate in North Devon, the dreams had only grown more vivid, more nagging, more urgent. It was all he could do to brush the images from his mind each morning and keep himself busy with work at all hours. He could manage, he told himself. He would decompress after New York, take that trip to Barcelona. A vacation. He would be fine. Just fine.

  Then came his transatlantic flight to New York. And there was nothing fine about that.

  Corin loved flying. Always. Despite his active nature, he loved the feeling of transit, the respite between two different chapters of action. He loved the cushy seats and the chilled chardonnay. He adored the stewardesses and their perfect lipstick. He reveled in the tiny earphones wrapped in plastic and the ding! of the seatbelt sign. But that single flight to New York robbed him entirely of all of these skyward joys.

  It started out over the Atlantic as a headache. Just a headache, a sort of heavy feeling. Without warning, this headache became outright nausea, a weighty, sick, prickling feeling that circulated to the tips of his toes. No amount of Tums or time spent hovering over the little metal air toilet led to any relief. Corin didn't need to throw up. That wasn't the problem. He knew what the problem was, just as certainly as he knew he should check into Manhattan's finest workaholic rehab center upon arrival.

  The problem was the water.

  H2O. Miles of it. Miles wide. Miles deep. The blasted Atlantic was what pinned him down to his luxury recliner chair, and he knew it. It tugged at the pit of his stomach, pulled him down with what felt like twice the normal force of gravity. Waves of heat frothed under his skin, moving in sync with the undulations of the blue horizon. Those same motions continued to play across his sight even when he closed his eyes. He could almost hear the sound of it.

  Despising the lack of logic in the act itself, Corin closed his window shade and shunned the sight of the ocean. A stewardess, noting his obvious discomfort―and his appealing, boyish freckles, no doubt―offered up an airsick bag, which he politely declined. Never once had he been sick on a plane, and he wasn’t about to start hurling into a little bag in front of God and everybody. Absolutely not.

  In classic quiet desperation, he popped a few more Tums, leaned back, and looked to the small screen before him for salvation. The first in-flight movie was about to begin. If he couldn't sleep this ghastly feeling off, he thought, he could at least try to distract himself with some genuine American drivel.

  Unless of course, the drivel starred an unwanted guest from his own troubled mind. The movie was none other than Jesse Cannon's latest release, a nautical World War II musical.

  "Oh, Christ."

  Corin immediately flagged down the eager stewardess, ordered a Glenlivet on the rocks, and asked for the day's New York Times, even though he'd already read it and pitched it back at Heathrow. For the unbearable hours that ensued, he kept his eyes off the screen, his ears plugged with swing music, and his throat wet with a responsibly paced yet ample amount of scotch.

  Ages later, having gotten slightly more drunk than he'd intended and not feeling well by any means, Corin saw the lights blink on and heard the landing instructions start. He opened his window shutter to the sight of the Eastern shore, expecting to feel as the Puritans felt when they'd finished their own voyage, wretched but unspeakably glad. Instead, as his plane tipped toward JFK International Airport, leaving all of New York spread out below him―including Liberty herself―Corin felt only the electric chill of something like dread.