“Then I could go a bit farther out to sea,” said Fergus, “where perhaps the fish are more plentiful.”
“You’ll never make it,” the man said. “The current will dash you to bits on the rocks!”
“Not me,” Fergus said.
The man looked at him skeptically, about to turn his back. Fergus really didn’t want to break his promise, but it was beginning to look like he’d starve to death unless he told someone about his talent. So he said, “I can control the current.”
“Ha!” the man replied. “I’ve heard some whoppers in my time, but that tops them all.”
“If I can prove it, will you give me something to eat?”
“Sure,” the man said, amused. “I’ll throw you a banquet!”
So the man and Fergus went down to the shoreline, where the tide was going out for the day. Fergus huffed and grunted and gritted his teeth, and with a great deal of effort he was able to bring the tide back in, the water rising from their ankles up to their knees in just a few minutes. The man was astounded, and very excited by what he’d seen. He brought Fergus back to his house and threw him a lavish banquet, just as he’d promised. He invited all his neighbors, and while Fergus stuffed himself, his host told the townspeople how Fergus had brought in the tide.
They were very excited. Strangely excited. Almost too excited.
They began to crowd around him.
“Show us your tide-pulling trick!” a woman shouted at him.
“The boy needs his strength,” the host said. “Let him eat first!”
When Fergus couldn’t force himself to take another bite, he looked up from his plate and around the room. Stacked in every corner were crates and boxes, each filled to the top with different things: bottles of wine in one box, dried spices in another, rolls of fabric in another. To one side of Fergus’s chair was a crate spilling over with dozens and dozens of hammers.
“Excuse me, but why do you need so many hammers?” Fergus asked.
“I’m in the salvage business,” the man explained. “I found them washed up on the beach one morning.”
“And the wine and rolls of fabric and dried spices?” Fergus said.
“Those too,” the man replied. “Guess I’m just lucky!”
The other guests found this funny for some reason, and laughed. Fergus began to feel uncomfortable and, thanking his host for the fine meal, excused himself to go.
“But he can’t leave without showing us his trick!” said one of the guests.
“It’s late, he must be tired,” said the host. “Let the boy sleep first!”
Fergus was tired, and the offer of a bed was more than he could resist. The man showed him to a cozy bedroom, and the moment Fergus’s head hit the pillow he fell into a deep sleep.
In the middle of the night, he snapped suddenly awake to find people in his room. They crowded around the bed and tore his blankets off. “You’ve slept enough!” they said. “It’s time to do your trick!”
Fergus realized he’d made a mistake, and he should have snuck out the bedroom window and run away—or better yet, never revealed his talent in the first place. But it was too late for that now. The crowd dragged him out of bed and down to the shore, where they demanded he pull in the tide again. Fergus didn’t like being forced to do things, but the more he resisted, the angrier they got. They weren’t going to let him go until he did what they asked, and so, resolving to run away at the first opportunity, he pulled in the tide.
Water came rushing in. The people jumped and cheered. A bell began tolling out to sea. A bank of fog cleared, revealing the lights of a passing ship, which was being dragged toward land by the quickly shifting tide. When Fergus realized what was happening, he tried to push the tide back out again, but it was too late, and he watched in horror as the ship smashed to pieces against a cape of jagged rocks.
Dawn began to break. The ship’s cargo washed ashore in crates and boxes, along with the bodies of the drowned crew. The townspeople divided the crates among them and started carrying them off. This is what they’d meant by “salvage”—they were wreckers, and drew passing ships toward the rocks with false lights and signals. They were thieves and murderers, and they had tricked Fergus into doing their evil work for them.22
Fergus broke free from them and tried to run, but a crowd blocked his escape.
“You’re not going anywhere!” they said. “There’s another merchant ship passing tonight, and you’re going to help us wreck that one, too!”
“I’d rather die!” Fergus shouted, and then he ran in a direction none of them had expected—toward the water. He splashed into the surf, grabbed a splintered plank from the wreckage, and began to paddle. The wreckers tried to catch him, but Fergus used his talent to make a wave that rolled in reverse, pushing him away from shore rather than toward it, and soon he was far beyond their grasp.
“Idiot!” they shouted after him. “You’ll drown!”
But he didn’t drown. He hung on to the plank for dear life, the wave carrying him past the rocks and far out to sea, into the deep, cold water where ships passed.
He waited, bobbing and shivering for hours, until a ship appeared on the horizon. Then he made another wave and rode it toward the ship, and when he got close he began to shout. The ship was very tall and he was afraid no one would notice him, but finally someone did. A rope was lowered, and Fergus was brought up onto the deck.
The ship was called the Hannah, and it was filled with people who were emigrating to America to escape Ireland’s famine. They had sold everything they owned to buy their passage, and now they had nothing but their lives and the clothes on their backs. The captain was a cruel, greedy man named Shaw, and no sooner had Fergus been pulled from the ocean than Captain Shaw wanted to throw him back again.23