PAGE 1
P1WIDE, night, the end of the dock.
Stars over the lake. The village dark. The storm-wall a black line far out on the water, lightning flickering silent in it. Njord at the end of the dock, boots in the lake, the stone jug of mjölksta beside him. Mingus asleep against his hip.
P2CLOSE, Vigolas
walking down the dock, sitting down beside him, boots in the water too. Not saying anything. Njord pouring him a cup without looking.
NJORD
…You'll want to know about the boys.
VIGOLAS
…I was going to ask that.
PAGE 2
P3CLOSE, Njord
looking out at the black line of the storm-wall, the pipe cold in his teeth.
NJORD
…Arvid and Ebbe. · Nineteen and seventeen. · Best net-men on the lake. · Twenty-two years ago this spring.
P4FLASHBACK, soft-edged.
A younger Njord, red-bearded, hauling nets on a bright dock with two tall boys, laughing. Old Pike, younger, tied at the end.
NJORDnarrating
…I heard the storm seven months out. · Way past three days. · Never heard that far before or since. · A captain, coming for the lake.
PAGE 3
P5FLASHBACK.
The young Njord at the end of the dock at night, listening, eyes moving like water, his hand on a rod with seven empty knots' worth of cord. Confident. Proud.
NJORDnarrating
…I told no one. · I thought, I'll knot it. · The day before it forms, I'll catch it, and nobody need ever know. · I was the best there was. · I was sure.
P6FLASHBACK.
The same dock, seven months later, a black storm already formed and roaring over the lake, and the young Njord on his knees, reaching up with the rod, and the cord finding nothing to catch: it had formed a day early.
NJORDnarrating
…It changed course. · A day early. · Captains do.
PAGE 4
P7FLASHBACK, one small panel.
Far out on the lake in the storm, a fishing boat, two figures in it, going under a wave.
(No balloon.)
P8CLOSE, Njord, the present
his huge hands round the cup, very still.
NJORD
…The boats stayed out because I said nothing. · Knowing isn't stopping, lad. · I've known every storm for forty years. · I've never stopped sending boats out. · · And I've never once forgiven myself for that one.
PAGE 5
P9CLOSE, Vigolas
beside him, looking at the old man's hands. Saying nothing for a long time.
VIGOLAS
…That was him. · Hagel.
P10CLOSE, Njord
turning his head, at last, to look straight at Vigolas: the long look from the first night.
NJORD
…There's another storm I heard, lad. · Long after. · Too far out to do anything about. · Way out on the black-sailed seas.
PAGES 7–8 — SPLASH
P13SPLASH (double page). THREE DAYS BEFORE.
Drawn in two halves across the spread.
On the left, Tidekant's dock, years ago, at night: the old Njord (grey now) at the end of it, boots in the lake, head tilted toward the far horizon, his eyes moving like water, and above him, faint as a watermark in the stars, a wave that hasn't stood up yet. Forty metres. Far, far away.
On the right, the same wave, three days later, real, standing up out of the black-sailed seas like a cliff, a black-sailed ship at its foot, and a pirate captain at the wheel turning in.
Between the two halves, one long line of grey-white cloud: the same storm.
NJORDnarrating, small
…I heard it coming three days, and I sat on my dock, and I listened.
PAGE 9
P14CLOSE, Vigolas
staring down at the water between his boots. A long silence.
VIGOLAS
…And you couldn't catch it.
P15CLOSE, Vigolas
lifting his head. Not angry. Quiet and level.
VIGOLAS
…Then listen to me, old man. · · The storm was his. · The steering was mine.
PAGE 11
P18CLOSE, Njord
a long breath out, his shoulders coming down, like a man setting down something he's carried for years.
NJORD
… · …Then I'll tell you what he gave you, lad. · Since it's yours.
P19CLOSE, Njord's huge finger
tapping Vigolas's forearm, where the green lightning lives.
NJORD
…That lightning. · You didn't have it before the wave, did you?
VIGOLASslowly
…No. · I walked out of the surf at Gate City with it in my hands.
PAGE 12
P20CLOSE, Njord
nodding slowly.
NJORD
…It came in with the sea. · The storm that drowned you got inside you, the way a storm gets into a drowned man. · In anyone else it'd have turned to hate and grown a wheel. · In you… · it went green.
P21CLOSE, Vigolas
looking at his own hands, the lightning crawling faint emerald over his knuckles.
NJORD
…It was. · That's the thread your friend saw. · It's not a bond. · It's where it came from.
PAGE 13
P22CLOSE, Vigolas
a sour laugh.
VIGOLAS
…No wonder it went to him today. · It wanted to go home.
NJORD
…And you fought it. · You've been fighting it every day since the surf, haven't you? · Throwing it where you want it. · Making it obey.
P23CLOSE, Njord
shaking his head, very slowly.
PAGE 14
P24CLOSE, Njord
pointing out at the black line of the storm-wall, the silent lightning flickering in it.
NJORD
…Look at it. · Does it throw? · No. · Lightning goes where the storm already wants it to go. · The sky's been leaning that way for an hour. · The bolt's just the last word.
P25CLOSE, Vigolas
watching a bolt flicker in the far wall, from cloud to cloud, along a path that, now he looks, was always there.
VIGOLASquietly
…It was already going there.
PAGE 15
P26CLOSE, Njord
pouring two more cups.
NJORD
…You've fought that storm seven lives, lad. · Stop fighting it. · Listen to where it wants to go, and go there with it. · And when his storm comes, his lightning will want to go where yours is going. · · And it'll land twice as hard.
P27CLOSE, Mingus
waking against Njord's hip, yawning, putting his chin on Vigolas's knee instead.
PAGE 16
P28WIDE, the dock, very late.
Two men with their boots in the lake and a dog between them, the jug nearly empty, the stars wheeling, the storm-wall flickering far off.
VIGOLAS
…Njord. · Your boys.
VIGOLAS
…It wasn't the knowing. · You told me yourself. · A dead man can still change his mind. · · That's on him, too.
P29CLOSE, Njord
saying nothing. A tear running down into his salt beard. His hand on the dog.
PAGE 17 — THE HOOK
P30CLOSE, Njord
standing, slow and stiff, picking up his rod with its seven knots, looking down at Vigolas.
NJORD
…Dawn. · In Old Pike. · Bring your lightning.
P31FINAL PANEL, close on Njord
a huge old man against the stars, the rod over his shoulder.
NJORD
…Lightning doesn't strike, lad. · · It's answered.