In this spellbinding and heartfelt new novel from the

author of Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen vividly depicts

the essential bonds of love and friendship.

After disgracing themselves at a high society New Year’s Eve party in

Philadelphia in 1944, Madeline Hyde and her husband Ellis are cut off
financially by his father, a former army colonel who is already ashamed of
his son’s inability to serve in the war. When Ellis and his best friend Hank
decide that the only way to regain the Colonel’s favour is to succeed where
the Colonel very publicly failed—by hunting down the famous Loch Ness
monster—Maddie reluctantly follows them across the Atlantic, leaving her
sheltered world behind.

The trio find themselves amid the devastation of World War II, in a
remote village in the Scottish Highlands, where the locals have nothing
but contempt for the privileged interlopers. As the men go out looking for
the monster, Maddie is left on her own at the isolated inn, where food is
rationed, fuel is scarce, and a knock from the postman can bring tragic
news. Gradually the friendships she forms open her up to a larger world
than she knew existed. As she embraces a fuller sense of who she might
be, Maddie becomes aware not only of the dark forces around her, but the
beauty and surprising possibilities of life.

Cover design: Tal Goretsky

Cover photographs: © Richard Jenkins (woman), Getty ‘…the only fault I can find with this book is
Images (water)
that I’ve already finished it.’
fiction Jodi Picoult
 At the Water’s Edge
A NOVEL

Sara Gruen

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 5 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2015
First published in the United States in 2015 by Spiegel & Grau,
an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Copyright © Sara Gruen 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational
purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 988 3

Internal design by Caroline Cunningham

Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper in this book is FSC® certified.

FSC® promotes environmentally responsible,
socially beneficial and economically viable
C009448
management of the world’s forests.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 6 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 Prologue

Drumnadrochit, February 28, 1942

Agnes Màiri Grant,

Infant daughter of Angus and Màiri Grant
January 14th, 1942

Capt. Angus Duncan Grant,

Beloved husband of Màiri
April 2nd, 1909–January , 1942

T he headstone was modest and hewn of black granite, granite

being one of the few things never in short supply in Glenurqu-
hart, even during the present difficulty.
Màiri visited the tiny swell of earth that covered her daughter’s
coffin every day, watching as it flattened. Archie the Stonecutter had
said it might be months before they could put up the stone with the
frost so hard upon them, but the coffin was so small the leveling was
accomplished in just a few weeks.
No sooner was the stone up than Màiri got the telegram about

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 13 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 4 SARA GRUEN

Angus and had Archie take it away again. Archie had wanted to wait
until the date of death was verified, but Màiri needed it done then, to
have a place to mourn them both at once, and Archie could not say no.
He chiseled Angus’s name beneath his daughter’s and left some room
to add the day of the month when they learned it. An addition for an
absence, because Angus—unlike the wee bairn—was not beneath it
and almost certainly never would be.
There were just the two of them in the churchyard when Archie
returned the headstone. He was a strong man, heaving a piece of
granite around like that.
A shadow flashed over her, and she looked up. A single crow circled
high above the graves, never seeming to move its wings.
One Crow for sorrow,
It was joined by another, and then two more.
Two Crows for mirth,
Three Crows for a wedding,
Four Crows for a birth
Archie removed his hat and twisted it in his hands.
“If there’s anything Morag and I can do, anything at all . . .”
Màiri tried to smile, and succeeded only in producing a half-
choked sob. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it
to her mouth.
Archie paused as though he wanted to say more. Eventually he
replaced his hat and said, “Well then. I’ll be off.” He nodded firmly
and trudged back to his van.

It was Willie the Postie who had delivered the telegram, on Valen-
tine’s Day no less, a month to the day after the birth. Màiri had been
pulling a pint behind the bar when Anna came, ashen-faced, whisper-
ing that Willie was on the doorstep, and would not come inside. Wil-
lie was a regular, so Màiri knew from that very moment, before she
even approached the door and saw his face. His hooded eyes stared
into hers, and then drifted down to the envelope in his hands. He

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 14 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 5

turned it a couple of times, as though wondering whether to give it to

her, whether not giving it to her would make the thing it contained
not true. The wind caught it a couple of times, flicking it this way and
that. When he finally handed it to her, he offered it up as gently as a
new-hatched chick. She opened it, turned it right side up, and let her
eyes scan the purple date stamp—February 14th, 1942—added by
Willie himself not half an hour before, and then

MRS MAIRI GRANT 6 HIGH ROAD DRUM INVERNESS-SHIRE

DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM THAT YOUR HUSBAND CAPTN ANGUS D
GRANT SEAFORTH HRS 4TH BTN 179994 IS MISSING PRESUMED
KILLED ON WAR SERVICE JAN 1 1942 LETTER WITH DETAILS TO
FOLLOW

She took in only three things: Angus, killed, the date. And they
were enough.
“I’m sorry, Màiri,” Willie said in a near whisper. “Especially so
soon after . . .” His voice trailed off. He blinked, and his eyes drifted
down, pausing briefly on her belly before coming to rest again on his
hands.
She could not reply. She closed the door quietly, walked past the
hushed locals and into the kitchen. There she leaned against the wall,
clutching her empty womb with one hand and the piece of paper that
had brought Angus’s death in the other. For it did seem as though it
was the paper that brought his death rather than simply the news of
it. He had been dead for more than six weeks, and she hadn’t known.
In the time between the arrival of the telegram and the return of
the headstone with Angus’s name on it, Màiri had begun to blame
Willie. Why had he chosen to hand her the telegram? She had seen
his hesitation. He would have been complicit in what, at worst, would
have been a lie of omission, especially if it meant she could believe
that Angus was still out there somewhere. Even if he was doing things
she couldn’t comprehend, things that might change him in the terri-
ble ways the men who had already been sent home had been changed,

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 15 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 6 SARA GRUEN

she could believe he was alive and therefore fixable, for surely there
was nothing she couldn’t love him through once he came home.
They had lied to her about the baby, and she had let them.
Since she had first felt the baby quicken, she was keenly aware of
its every movement. For months, she had watched in wonderment as
little braes poked up from her belly, pushing their way across—an
elbow, or perhaps a knee—a subterranean force that constantly re-
arranged the landscape of her flesh. Was it a boy, or a wee girl? Which-
ever it was, it already had strong opinions. She remembered the
moment it occurred to her that it had been hours since she felt it
move, on Hogmanay, of all days. At midnight, precisely when Ian
Mackintosh struck in his pipes to form the first chord of “Auld Lang
Syne” and seconds before corresponding shots rang out from the
doorway of Donnie Maclean, Màiri began poking her belly, trying to
wake it, for they said that unborn babes slept. She yelled at it, screamed
at it, and finally, realizing, wrapped her arms around it and wept.
Thirteen days later, her pains started.
Her memories of the birth were vague, for the midwife had given
her bitter tea mixed with white powder, and the doctor held ether
over her nose and mouth at regular intervals, putting her under com-
pletely at the end. They told her the baby had lived a few minutes,
long enough to be baptized. Their lie became her lie, and that was
what went on the headstone. In truth, she’d probably lost both child
and husband on the same date.
The promised letter never arrived. Where had he died? How had
he died? Without the dreaded details, she had only her imagination—
her terrible imagination—and while she wished she couldn’t fathom
what his last moments might have been, she could, with distinct and
agonizing precision, in a million different ways. Please God that they
were moments indeed, and not hours or days.

The murder of crows descended in a noisy fluster, settling in a row on

the stone wall, huddling into themselves, their blue-black feathers
puffed and their heads tucked in as though they’d pulled up their coat

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 16 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 7

collars. They stared accusingly, miserably, but without their usual

commentary. Màiri counted them twice.
Seven for a secret, never to be told.
She knew then that she would never know the details, would never
know what had happened.
A bone-chilling wind stirred the fallen leaves until they formed
cyclones that danced among the graves. Màiri crouched and fingered
the names of her child and husband in the black stone.
Agnes.
Angus.
A third of the stone was still blank, at the bottom. There was room
for one more name, one more set of dates, and these would be accu-
rate.
She stood without taking her eyes off the stone. She wiped her
eyes and nose on the handkerchief, and kept it in her hand as she
wrapped her arms around herself and walked through the black iron
gate, leaving it swinging. She headed toward the inn, except when she
got to the crossroad, she turned left instead of going straight.
A light snow began to fall, but despite her bare head and legs she
trudged right past the Farquhars’ croft. She’d have been welcome
there, as well as at the McKenzies’, where she could see the fire glow-
ing orange through the window, but on she went, teeth chattering,
hands and shins numb.
Eventually the castle rose on her left, its majestic and ruined bat-
tlements like so many broken teeth against the leaden sky. She had
played within its walls as a child, and knew which rooms remained
whole, where you had to watch your footing, where the best hiding
places were, where the courting couples went. She and Angus had
been among them.
The snow was heavier now, falling in clumps that collected and
melted on her hair. Her ears were past stinging. She pulled her sleeves
over her frozen hands and pinched them shut with her fingertips.
Through the gatehouse, past the kiln, pushing through the long grass
and scrub gorse, bracken, and thistles, straight to the Water Gate.
She paused at the top, staring at the blackness of the loch. Thou-

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 17 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 8 SARA GRUEN

sands of tiny whitecaps danced on its surface, seeming to move in the

opposite direction of the water beneath them. It was said that the
loch contained more water than all the other bodies of water not just
in Scotland but also in England and Wales combined, and it held
other things as well. She had been warned away from it her entire
life, for its depth came quickly, its coldness was fierce, and the Kelpie
lay in wait.
She picked her way sideways down the slope, letting her icy fin-
gers out of her sleeves to hold up the hem of her coat.
When she reached the bottom, the water lapped around the soles
of her shoes. The edge of the loch looked seductively shallow, slipping
over the gravel and back into itself. She took a step forward, gasping
as the water flooded her shoes, so cold, so cold, and yet it had never
frozen, not once in recorded history. Another step, another gasp. Bits
of peat swirled in the water around her ankles, circling her legs, beck-
oning her forth. Another step, and this time she stumbled, finding
herself knee-deep. Her wool coat floated, an absurd umbrella, first re-
sisting and finally wicking water, pulling her deeper. She looked back
at the landing, suddenly desperate. If only she had a hat, she could
throw it back onto the thorny gorse. If she’d had anything that would
float, maybe they’d think it was an accident and let her be buried with
her daughter. Maybe they’d think the Kelpie took her. And then she
remembered that the loch never gave up its dead, so she spread her
arms wide and embraced it.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 18 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 Chapter One

Scottish Highlands, January 14, 1945

“O h God, make him pull over,” I said as the car slung around
yet another curve in almost total darkness.
It had been nearly four hours since we’d left the naval base at
Aultbea, and we’d been careening from checkpoint to checkpoint
since. I truly believe those were the only times the driver used the
brakes. At the last checkpoint, I was copiously sick, narrowly missing
the guard’s boots. He didn’t even bother checking our papers, just
lifted the red and white pole and waved us on with a look of disgust.
“Driver! Pull over,” said Ellis, who was sitting in the backseat be-
tween Hank and me.
“I’m afraid there is no ‘over,’ ” the driver said in a thick Highland
accent, his R’s rolling magnificently. He came to a stop in the middle
of the road.
It was true. If I stepped outside the car I would be ankle-deep in
thorny vegetation and mud, not that it would have done any more to
destroy my clothes and shoes. From head to toe I was steeped in sulfur
and cordite and the stench of fear. My stockings were mere cobwebs
stretched around my legs, and my scarlet nails were broken and peel-

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 19 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 10 SARA GRUEN

ing. I hadn’t had my hair done since the day before we’d sailed from
the shipyard in Philadelphia. I had never been in such a state.
I leaned out the open door and gagged while Ellis rubbed my back.
Wet snow collected on the top of my head.
I sat up again and pulled the door shut. “I’m sorry. I’m finished.
Do you think you can take those things off the headlights? I think it
would be better if I could see what’s coming.” I was referring to the
slotted metal plates our one-eyed driver had clipped on before we’d
left the base. They limited visibility to about three feet ahead of us.
“Can’t,” he called back cheerfully. “It’s the Blackout.” As he
cranked up through the gears, my head lurched back and forth. I
leaned over and cradled my face in my hands.
Ellis patted my shoulder. “We should be nearly there. Do you
think fresh air would help?”
I sat up and let my head flop against the back of the torn leather
seat. Ellis reached across and rolled the window down a crack. I turned
toward the cold air and closed my eyes.
“Hank, can you please put out your cigarette?”
He didn’t answer, but a whoosh of frigid air let me know he had
tossed it out the window.
“Thank you,” I said weakly.
Twenty minutes later, when the car finally came to a stop and the
driver cut the engine, I was so desperate for solid ground I spilled out
before the driver could get his own door open, never mind mine. I
landed on my knees.
“Maddie!” Ellis said in alarm.
“I’m all right,” I said.
There was a fast-moving cloud cover under a nearly full moon,
and by its light I first laid eyes on our unlikely destination.
I climbed to my feet and reeled away from the car, thinking I
might be sick again. My legs propelled me toward the building, spin-
ning ever faster. I crashed into the wall, then slid down until I was
crouching against it.
In the distance, a sheep bleated.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 20 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 11

. . .

To say that I wished I wasn’t there would be a ludicrous understate-

ment, but I’d only ever had the illusion of choice:
We have to do this, Hank had said. It’s for Ellis.
To refuse would have been tantamount to betrayal, an act of calcu-
lated cruelty. And so, because of my husband’s war with his father and
their insane obsession with a mythical monster, we’d crossed the At-
lantic at the very same time a real madman, a real monster, was at-
tempting to take over the world for his own reasons of ego and pride.
I would have given anything to go back two weeks, to the begin-
ning of the New Year’s Eve party, and script the whole thing differ-
ently.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 21 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 Chapter Two

Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, December 31, 1944

“F ive! Four! Three! Two!”

The word “one” had already formed on our lips, but be-
fore it could slide off there was an explosion overhead. As screams
rose around us, I pitched myself against Ellis, tossing champagne over
both of us. He threw an arm protectively around my head and didn’t
spill a drop.
When the screams petered out, I heard a tinkling above us, like
glass breaking, along with an ominous groaning. I peeked out from
my position against Ellis’s chest.
“What the hell?” said Hank, without a hint of surprise. I think he
was the only person in the room who hadn’t jumped.
All eyes turned upward. Thirty feet above us, a massive chandelier
swung on its silver-plated chain, throwing shimmering prisms across
the walls and floor. It was as if a rainbow had burst into a million
pieces, which were now dancing across the marble, silks, and damask.
We watched, transfixed. I glanced nervously at Ellis’s face, and then
back at the ceiling.
An enormous cork landed next to General Pew, our host at what

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 22 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 13

was easily the most anticipated party of the year, bouncing outra-
geously like a bloated mushroom. A split second later a single crystal
the size of a quail’s egg fell from the sky and dropped smack into his
cocktail, all but emptying it. He stared, bemused and tipsy, then
calmly took out his handkerchief and dabbed his jacket.
As everyone burst into laughter, I noticed a footman in old-
fashioned knee breeches perched near the top of a stepladder, pallid,
motionless, struggling to contain the biggest bottle of champagne I’d
ever seen. On the marble table in front of him was a structure of
glasses arranged so that if someone poured continuously into the top
one, they would eventually all be filled. As a rush of bubbles cascaded
over the sides of the bottle and into the footman’s sleeves, he stared in
white-faced horror at Mrs. Pew.
Hank assessed the situation and apparently took pity on the fellow.
He raised his glass, as well as his other hand, and with the flair and
flourish of a ringmaster boomed, “One! Happy New Year!”
The orchestra struck up “Auld Lang Syne.” General Pew con-
ducted with his empty glass, and Mrs. Pew beamed at his side—not
only was her party a smashing success, but it now had a comic anec-
dote people would speak of for years.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and old lang syne . . .
Those who knew the words sang along. I had refreshed my mem-
ory that afternoon in order to be ready for the big moment, but when
cork met crystal, the lyrics were knocked straight out of my brain. By
the time we got to running about slopes and picking daisies fine, I
gave up and joined Ellis and Hank in la-la-la’ing our way through the
rest.
They waved their glasses in solidarity with General Pew, their free
arms looped around my waist. At the end, Ellis leaned in to kiss me.
Hank looked to one side, then the other, and appeared baffled.
“Hmm. I seem to have misplaced my date. What have I done with
her?”
“What you haven’t done is marry her,” I said and then snorted,

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 23 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 14 SARA GRUEN

nearly expelling champagne through my nose. I had sipped my way

through at least four glasses on an empty stomach and was feeling
bold.
His mouth opened in mock offense, but even he couldn’t pretend
ignorance about Violet’s growing desperation at the seemingly end-
less nature of their courtship.
“Did she actually leave?” he said, scanning the room a little more
seriously.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Then who will give me my New Year’s kiss?” he asked, looking
bereft.
“Oh, come here, you big lug.” I stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss
on his cheek. “You’ve always got us. And we don’t even require a ring.”
Ellis threw us an amused side eye and motioned to Hank that he
should wipe my lipstick off his cheek.
Beyond him, the footman was still balanced on the second to high-
est rung of the stepladder. He was bent at the waist, trying to aim the
bottle at the top glass, and had gone from pale to purple with the ef-
fort. His mouth was pressed into a grim line. I looked around to see if
reinforcements were coming and didn’t see any.
“Ellis? I think he needs help,” I said, tilting my head in the foot-
man’s direction.
Ellis glanced over. “You’re right,” he said, handing me his glass.
“Hank? Shall we?”
“Do you really think she’s left?” Hank said wistfully, his lips hov-
ering near the edge of his glass. “She was a vision tonight. That dress
was the color of the gloaming, the sequins jealous stars in the galaxy
of her night, but nothing, nothing could compare to the milky skin of
her—”
“Boys! Concentrate!” I said.
Hank snapped back to life. “What?”
“Maddie thinks that man needs help,” said Ellis.
“That thing’s enormous,” I said. “I don’t think he can hold it on
his own.”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 24 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 15

“I should think not. That’s a Balthazar,” said Ellis.

“That’s not a Balthazar,” Hank said. “That’s a Nebuchadnezzar.”
The footman’s arms were quaking. He began pouring but missed.
Champagne fell between the glasses, splashing onto the table and
floor. His gloves and sleeves were saturated.
“Uh-oh,” said Hank.
“Uh-oh indeed,” said Ellis. “Mrs. Pew will not be pleased.”
“I rather suspect Mrs. Pew is never pleased,” Hank said.
Rivulets of sweat ran down the footman’s forehead. It was plain to
see that he was going to fall forward, right onto the glasses. I looked
to Mrs. Pew for help, but she had disappeared. I tried to signal the
General, but he was holding court with a replenished cocktail.
I dug my elbow into Ellis’s side.
“Go!” I said urgently. “Go help him.”
“Who’s she talking about?” said Hank.
I glared at him, and then some more, until he remembered.
“Oh! Of course.” He tried to hand me his glass, but I was already
holding two. He set his on the floor and yanked his lapels in a busi-
nesslike manner, but before he and Ellis could mobilize, help arrived
in the form of other servants bearing four smaller but still very large
bottles, and three more stepladders. Mrs. Pew glided in behind them
to make sure all was under control.
“Now those are Balthazars,” said Hank, with a knowing nod. He
retrieved his drink from the floor and drained it.
“No. Those are Jeroboams,” said Ellis.
“I think I know my champagne,” said Hank.
“And I don’t?”
“I think you’re both wrong. Those are Ebenezers,” I said.
That stopped them.
I broke into tipsy giggles. “Ebenezer? Get it? Christmas? The holi-
days? Oh never mind. Someone get me another. I spilled mine.”
“Yes. On me,” said Ellis.
Hank spun around and set his glass on the tray of a passing waiter.
He clapped his hands. “All right, who’s up for a snowball fight?”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 25 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 16 SARA GRUEN

We toppled outside and made snow angels right there in front of

the Pews’ home and all the cars and liveried drivers that were lined
up waiting for guests. I gathered one snowball and managed to land it
on Ellis’s chest before screeching and running back inside.
In the vast foyer, Ellis helped brush the snow off my back and hair.
Hank hung his jacket over my bare shoulders, and the two of them
guided me to a trio of ornate, embroidered chairs near a roaring fire.
Hank, who had had the presence of mind to grab my mink stole on
the way back in, shook it off and draped it over the edge of the rose-
wood table in front of us. Ellis went in search of hot toddies, and I
peeled off my gloves, which were stained and soaked.
“God, look at me,” I said, gazing down at myself. “I’m a mess.”
My silk dress and shoes were ruined. I tried in vain to smooth out
the water spots, and checked quickly to make sure I still had both ear-
rings. The gloves were of no consequence, but I hoped the stole could
be saved. If not, I’d succeeded in destroying my entire outfit.
“You’re not a mess. You’re magnificent,” said Hank.
“Well, I was,” I lamented.
I’d spent the afternoon at Salon Antoine having my hair and
makeup done, and had eaten almost nothing for two days before so
my dress would drape properly. It was a beautiful pomegranate-red
silk, the same material as my shoes. It matched my ruby engagement
ring, and all of it set off my green eyes. Ellis had given me the dress
and shoes a few days earlier, and before the party I had presented
myself to him like a flamenco dancer, twirling so the skirt would take
flight. He professed his delight, but I felt a familiar pang of sorrow as
I tried, yet again, to imagine exactly what he was seeing. My husband
was profoundly color-blind, so to him my ensemble must have been a
combination of grays. I wondered which ones, and how many varia-
tions there were, and whether they had different depths. I couldn’t
imagine a world without color.
Hank dropped into a chair, leaving one leg dangling over its arm.
He pulled his bow tie open and undid his cuffs and collar. He looked
like a half-drowned Clark Gable.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 26 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 17

I shivered into his jacket, holding it closed from the inside.

Hank patted his chest and sides. He stopped suddenly and lifted an
eyebrow.
“Oh!” I said, realizing what he was looking for. I retrieved the
cigarette case from his inside pocket and handed it to him. He flipped
it open and held it out in offering. I shook my head. He took a ciga-
rette for himself and snapped the case shut.
“So, how about it then?” he said, his eyes glistening playfully.
“Shall we go get us a monster?”
“Sure,” I said, waving my hand. “We’ll hop on the next liner.” It
was what I always said when the topic came up, which was often, and
always after boatloads of booze. It was our little game.
“I think getting away would do Ellis good. He seems depressed.”
“Ellis isn’t depressed,” I said. “You just want to escape Violet’s
clutches.”
“I do not,” he protested.
“You didn’t even notice when she left tonight!”
Hank cocked his head and nodded, conceding the point. “I suppose
I should send flowers.”
“First thing in the morning,” I said.
He nodded. “Absolutely. At the crack of noon. Scout’s honor.”
“And I think you should marry her. You need civilizing, and I need
a female friend. I have only you and Ellis.”
He clutched a hand to his heart, mortally wounded. “What are we,
chopped liver?”
“Only the finest foie gras. Seriously, though. How long are you
going to make her wait?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know if I’m ready to be civilized yet. But
when I am, Violet can have the honors. She can pick a mean set of
china.”
As I set my drink down, I caught another glimpse of my dress and
shoes. “I think maybe I need civilizing. Will you just marry her al-
ready?”
“What is this, an ambush?” He tapped the cigarette against the

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 27 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 18 SARA GRUEN

top of the case and put it between his lips. A servant appeared from
nowhere to light it.
“Mm, thanks,” Hank said, inhaling. He leaned back and let smoke
drift from his mouth to his nose in a swirling white ribbon that he
re-inhaled. He called this maneuver the “Irish Waterfall.”
“If I do marry her, Ellis and I won’t have a hope, because you girls
will gang up on us.”
“We won’t be able to,” I said. “The distribution will be equal.”
“They’re never equal between the sexes. You already gang up on
Ellis and me all by yourself.”
“I do not!”
“You’re ganging up on me right now, at this very minute, single-
handedly baiting the marriage trap. I tell you, it’s the ultimate female
conspiracy. You’re all in on it. Personally, I can’t see what all the fuss
is about.”
Ellis returned, followed by a waiter who set steaming crystal
glasses with handles on the table in front of us. Ellis flopped into a
chair.
Hank set his cigarette in an ashtray and picked up his toddy. He
blew steam from the surface and took a cautious sip. “So, Ellis, our
darling girl here was just saying we should go on a trip,” he said.
“Find us a plesiosaur.”
“Sure she was,” said Ellis.
“She was. She has it all planned out,” said Hank. “Tell him, Mad-
die.”
“You’re drunk,” I said, laughing.
“That is true, I will admit,” said Hank, “but I still think we should
do it.” He ground the cigarette out so hard its snuffed end splayed like
a spent bullet. “We’ve been talking about it for years. Let’s do it. I’m
serious.”
“No you’re not,” I said.
Hank once again clasped his heart. “What’s happened to you,
Maddie? Don’t tell me you’ve lost your sense of adventure. Has Violet
been civilizing you in secret?”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 28 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 19

“No, of course not. You haven’t given her the chance. But we can’t
go now. Liners haven’t run since the Athenia went down.”
I realized I’d made it sound like it had spontaneously sprung a
leak, when in reality it had been torpedoed by a German U-boat with
1,100 civilians on board.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” said Hank, nodding sagely.
He sipped the toddy again, then peered into it accusingly. “Hmmmm.
Think I prefer whiskey after all. Back in a minute. Ellis, talk to your
wife. Clearly she’s picking up bad habits.”
He launched himself from his chair, and for a moment looked like
he might topple over. He clutched the back of Ellis’s chair while he
regained his balance and finally wafted off, drifting like a butterfly.
Ellis and I sat in relative silence, within a bubble created by the
chatter and laughter of other people.
He slid slowly down in his chair until it must have looked empty
from behind. His eyes were glassy, and he’d turned a bit gray.
My own ears buzzed from the champagne. I lifted both hands to
investigate my hair, and discovered the curls on one side had come
undone and were clinging to my neck. Reaching further around, I
realized that the diamond hair comb given to me by my mother-in-
law was missing. I felt a stab of panic. It had been a gift on our wed-
ding day, a rare moment of compassion shown me by a woman who
had made no secret of not wanting me to marry her son, but was
nonetheless moved to give it to me seconds before Hank walked me
down the aisle.
“I think we should do it,” Ellis said.
“Sure,” I said gaily. “We’ll just hop on the next—”
“I mean it,” he said sharply.
I looked up, startled by his tone. He was grinding his jaw. I wasn’t
sure exactly when it had happened, but his mood had shifted. We
were no longer playing a game.
He looked at me in irritation. “What? Why shouldn’t we?”
“Because of the war,” I said gently.
“Carpe diem, and all that crap. The war is part of the adventure.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 29 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 20 SARA GRUEN

God knows I’m not getting near it any other way. Neither is Hank, for
that matter.” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving a swath of it
standing on end. He leaned in closer and narrowed his eyes. “You do
know what they call us, don’t you?” he said. “ ‘FFers.’ ”
He and Hank were the only 4Fers in the room. I wondered if
someone had slighted him when he’d gone to find drinks.
Hank took his flat-footedness in stride, as he did most things, but
being given 4F status had devastated Ellis. His color blindness had
gone undetected until he tried to enlist and was rejected. He’d tried a
second time at a different location and was turned down again. Al-
though it was clearly not his fault, he was right that people judged,
and I knew how this chipped at him. It was relentless and unspoken,
so he couldn’t even defend himself. His own father, a veteran of the
Great War, had treated him with undisguised revulsion since hearing
the news. This injustice was made all the more painful because we
lived with my in-laws, who had perversely removed any chance at
escape. Two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, they cut Ellis’s al-
lowance by two thirds. My mother-in-law broke it to us in the draw-
ing room before dinner, announcing with smug satisfaction that she
was sure we’d be pleased to know that until “this terrible business was
over” the money would be going toward war bonds. Strictly speaking,
that may have been where the money was going, but it was perfectly
clear that the real motive was punishing Ellis. His mother was exact-
ing revenge because he’d dared to marry me, and his father—well, we
weren’t exactly sure. Either he didn’t believe that Ellis was color-
blind, or he couldn’t forgive him for it. The nightmarish result was
that we were forced to live under the constant scrutiny of people we’d
come to think of as our captors.
“You know how hard it is,” he went on, “with everyone staring at
me, wondering why I’m not serving.”
“They don’t stare—”
“Don’t patronize me! You know perfectly well they do!”
His outburst caused everyone to turn and look.
Ellis waved an angry hand at them. “See?”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 30 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 21

He glanced fiercely around. To a person, they turned away, their

scandalized expressions trained elsewhere. Conversations resumed,
but in dampened tones.
Ellis locked eyes with me. “I know I look perfectly healthy,” he
continued, his voice under taut control. “My own father thinks I’m a
coward, for Christ’s sake. I need to prove myself. To him, to them, to
me. Of all people, I thought you’d understand.”
“Darling, I do understand,” I said.
“But do you?” he asked, his mouth stretching into a bitter smile.
“Of course,” I said, and I did, although at that moment I would
have said anything to calm him down. He’d been drinking hard liquor
since early afternoon, and I knew things could degenerate quickly.
The carefully averted faces of those around us already portended a
very unpleasant beginning to the new year.
My mother-in-law, who had missed the party because of a mi-
graine, would surely start receiving reports of our behavior by noon.
I could only imagine how she’d react when she found out I’d lost the
hair comb. I resolved to telephone the next day and throw myself on
Mrs. Pew’s mercy. If the comb had come out in the snow, it was prob-
ably gone forever, but if it had fallen down the back of a sofa, it might
turn up.
Ellis watched me closely, the fire dancing in his eyes. After a few
seconds, his angry mask melted into an expression of sad relief. He
leaned sideways to pat my knee and almost fell out of his chair.
“That’s my girl,” he said, struggling upright. “Always up for ad-
venture. You’re not like the other girls, you know. There’s not an
ounce of fun in them. That’s why Hank won’t marry Violet, of course.
He’s holding out for another you. Only there isn’t one. I’ve got the one
and only.”
“Who the whatty-what now?” said Hank, appearing from nowhere
and crashing back into his chair. “Over here!” he barked, snapping his
fingers above his head. A waiter set more drinks on the table in front
of us. Hank turned back to Ellis. “Is she trying to marry me off again?
I swear there’s an echo in here.”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 31 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 22 SARA GRUEN

“No. She’s agreed. We’re going to Scotland.”

Hank’s eyes popped open. “Really?” He looked at me for confir-
mation.
I didn’t think I’d agreed, per se, at least not after I realized we
weren’t just joking, but since I’d managed to defuse the bomb and
perhaps even save the evening, I decided to play along.
“Sure,” I said, gesturing grandly. “Why not?”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 32 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 Chapter Three

T he next morning, I was startled awake by the telephone ringing

in the downstairs hallway. It was exactly nine o’clock, which was
the very earliest time considered civilized. I clutched the covers to my
chin, paralyzed, as Pemberton, the butler, summoned my mother-in-
law. I heard her determined footsteps, then her muffled voice, rising
and falling in surprised waves.
I was entirely wretched—my head pounded, my stomach was
sour, and it was quite possible that I was still drunk. While I remem-
bered much of the night before, there were moments I couldn’t recall,
like getting home. The realization that I’d passed the point of being
tipsy had come over me quite suddenly—I remembered being acutely
aware that it was time to call it a night, but I did not remember leav-
ing, much less the ride home. I had no idea how many—or few—
hours I’d been in bed.
My ruined dress lay in a limp heap in the middle of the carpet,
looking for all the world like a length of intestine. My shoes were
nearby, one of them missing a heel. The white stole was flung over
the edge of my polished mahogany dressing table, the fur spiked and

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 33 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 24 SARA GRUEN

dirty. I’d dropped my strand of pearls in front of my jewelry box, and

both earrings, cushion-cut rubies surrounded by diamonds, were
nearby but not together. A very large champagne cork was planted
squarely between them. I checked my finger for my ring and then,
with a sickening feeling of vertigo, remembered the hair comb. I bur-
rowed my face into my pillow and pulled its edges over my ears.
At noon, the housemaid knocked gently on the door, then opened
it a crack.
“I’m sorry, Emily. I’m not feeling up to breakfast,” I said, my voice
muffled by the pillow.
“I’ve brought Alka-Seltzer and gingersnaps,” she replied, which
made my stomach twist again. It meant that not only had we wak-
ened the entire house when we returned, but also that our condition
had been obvious.
“Put it on the table,” I said, rolling to face the opposite wall. I
didn’t want her to see me. I’d fallen into bed without even removing
my makeup, as evidenced by the streaks of mascara on my pillowcase.
“Thank you, Emily.”
“Of course, Mrs. Hyde.”
She stayed longer than I expected, and when she left, I saw that
she’d taken the dress, shoes, and mink with her.
The telephone rang sporadically throughout the day. With each
call, my mother-in-law’s voice became a little more resolute until fi-
nally it was brittle and hard. I shrank further under the covers with
every conversation.
At nearly six thirty, Ellis staggered into my room. He was still in
his pajamas. His robe was open, its sash dragging on the floor behind
him.
“Dear God, what a night,” he said, scrubbing his eyes with his
fists. “I’m a bit green about the gills. I could use an eye-opener. How
about you?”
I suppressed a retch.
“Are you all right?” he asked, coming closer. His face was drawn,
and there were dark semicircles beneath his eyes. I didn’t even want

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 34 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 25

to know how I looked—Ellis had at least made it into his pajamas; I

was still in my slip.
“Not really,” I said. “Look what Emily brought on my breakfast
tray.”
He glanced over and guffawed.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “It means they’re all gossiping about us in
the kitchen. And I lost your mother’s hair comb.”
“Oh,” he said vaguely.
“Ellis, I lost the hair comb.”
When the gravity of this sank in, he sat on the edge of the bed and
the last of his color drained.
“What am I going to do?” I said, curling into a ball.
He took a deep breath and thought. After a few seconds, he slapped
his thighs with resolve and said, “Well. You’ll have to telephone the
Pews and tell them to be on the lookout, that’s all.”
“I was going to. But I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, I can’t get near the telephone. Your mother’s been
on it all day. God only knows what she’s heard. And anyway, I can’t
call Mrs. Pew. I can’t face her, not even over the telephone.”
“Why?”
“Because we were tight! We rolled around in the street!”
“Everyone was tight.”
“Yes, but not like us,” I said miserably. I sat up and cradled my
head in my hands. “I don’t even remember leaving. Do you?”
“Not really.” He got up and walked to my dressing table. “When
did you get this?” he asked, picking up the cork.
“I haven’t a clue,” I replied.
On the main floor, the telephone rang yet again, and I cowered.
Ellis came back to the bed and took my hand. This time, when Pem-
berton fetched my mother-in-law, her footsteps were brisk and she
spoke in punctuated bursts. After a few minutes, she went silent again,
and the silence was ominous, rolling through the house like waves of
poisonous gas.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 35 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 26 SARA GRUEN

Ellis looked at my clock. “She’ll come up to dress for dinner in a

few minutes. You can call then.”
“Come with me?” I whispered, clutching his hand.
“Of course,” he said. “Do you want one of your heart pills?”
“No, I’ll be all right,” I said.
“Do you mind if I . . . ?” He let the question trail off.
“Of course not. Help yourself.”
At ten to seven, forty minutes before we were expected in the
drawing room for cocktails, we crept downstairs, both of us in our
robes, glancing nervously at each other and hiding behind corners
until we ascertained that nobody was around. I felt like a child sneak-
ing down to eavesdrop on a party for grown-ups.
I telephoned Mrs. Pew and sheepishly asked if she would please
keep an eye out for my hair comb. After a slight pause, she said curtly
that yes, she would. As she had told me last night.
When I hung up, I turned wordlessly to Ellis, who pulled me into
his arms.
“Hush, my darling,” he said, pressing my head to his chest. “This
too shall pass.”

At seven thirty, we met at the top of the stairs. I had bathed and re-
paired my hair as best I could in the available time. I had also put on
a touch of lipstick and rouge, since my face was so devoid of color as
to be nearly transparent, and dabbed some eau de toilette behind my
ears. Ellis had nicked himself shaving, and there were comb marks in
his wet hair.
“Ready?” he said.
“Absolutely not. You?”
“Courage, my dear,” he said, offering his arm. I curled my icy fin-
gers in the crook of his elbow.
As Ellis and I entered the drawing room, my father-in-law, Colonel
Whitney Hyde, raised his face and aimed it at the grandfather clock.
He was leaning against the mantel, right next to a delicate cage hang-
ing from an elaborate floor stand. The canary within was the color of

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 36 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 27

orange sorbet, a plump, smooth ovoid with a short fan of a tail, choco-
late spots for eyes, and a sweet beak. He was almost too perfect to be
real, and not once had he sung during my four-year tenure in this
house, even as his quarters were reduced to help him concentrate.
My mother-in-law, Edith Stone Hyde, sat perched on the edge of
a silk jacquard chair the color of a robin’s egg, Louis XIV style. Her
gray eyes latched onto us the moment we entered the room.
Ellis crossed the carpet briskly and kissed her cheek. “Happy New
Year, Mother,” he said. “I hope you’re feeling better.”
“Yes, Happy New Year,” I added, stepping forward.
She turned her gaze on me and I stopped in my tracks. Her jaw
was set, her eyes unblinking. Over by the mantel, the ends of the
Colonel’s mustache twitched. The canary fluttered from its perch to
the side of the cage and clung there, its fleshless toes and translucent
claws wrapped around the bars.
Tick, tock went the clock. I thought my knees might go out from
under me.
“Better . . . Hmmm . . . Am I feeling better . . .” She spoke slowly,
clearly, mulling the words. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly. She
drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair, starting with her small-
est finger and going up, twice, and then reversing the order. The
rhythm was that of a horse cantering. The pause felt interminable.
She looked suddenly up at Ellis. “Are you referring to my mi-
graine?”
“Of course,” Ellis said emphatically. “We know how you suffer.”
“Do you? How kind of you. Both of you.”
Tick, tock.
Ellis straightened his spine and his tie and went to the sideboard
to pour drinks. Whiskeys for the men, sherries for the ladies. He deliv-
ered his mother’s, then his father’s, and then brought ours over.
“Tell me, how was the party?” his mother said, gazing at the deli-
cate crystal glass she held in her lap. Her voice was completely with-
out inflection.
“It was quite an event,” Ellis said, too loudly, too enthusiastically.
“The Pews certainly do things right. An orchestra, endless cham-

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 37 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 28 SARA GRUEN

pagne, never-ending trays of delicious tidbits. You’d never know there

was a war going on. She asked after you, by the way. Was very sorry to
hear you weren’t feeling well. And the funniest thing happened at the
stroke of midnight—did you hear? People will be talking about it for
years.”
The Colonel harrumphed and tossed back his whiskey. The canary
jumped from one side of its cage to the other.
“I’ve heard rather a lot,” my mother-in-law said coldly, still star-
ing into her glass. Her eyes shifted deliberately to me.
The blood rose to my cheeks.
“So, there we all were,” Ellis continued bravely, “counting down
to midnight, when all of a sudden there was a positively huge explo-
sion. Well, even though we’re a continent away from the action, you
can imagine what we thought! We nearly—”
“Silence!” roared the Colonel, spinning to face us. His cheeks and
bulbous nose had gone purple. His jowls trembled with rage.
I recoiled and clutched Ellis’s arm. Even my mother-in-law
jumped, although she regained her composure almost immediately.
In our set, battles were won by sliding a dagger coolly in the back,
or by the quiet turn of a screw. People crumpled under the weight of
an indrawn sigh or a carefully chosen phrase. Yelling was simply not
done.
The Colonel slammed his empty glass down on the mantel. “Do
you think we’re fools? Do you think we haven’t heard all about the
real highlight of the party? What people will really be talking about
for years? About your disgraceful, your depraved . . . your . . . contempt-
ible behavior?”
What happened next was a blur of insults and rage. Apparently we
had done more than just get drunk and make fools of ourselves, and
apparently Ellis’s moment of temper had not been his worst misdeed.
Apparently, he had also crowed loudly about our decision to go mon-
ster hunting and “show the old man up,” stridently proclaiming his
intentions even as Hank was using a foot to shove him into the back
of the car.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 38 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 29

The Colonel and Ellis closed in on each other across the enormous
silk carpet, pointing fingers and trying to outshout each other. The
Colonel accused us of going out of our way to try to embarrass him,
as well as being loathsome degenerates and generally useless mem-
bers of society, and Ellis argued that there was nothing he could do,
and for that matter the Colonel did nothing either. What exactly did
his father expect him to do? Take up a trade?
My mother-in-law sat silently, serenely, with a queerly calm look
on her face. Her knees and ankles were pressed together in ladylike
fashion, tilted slightly to the side. She held her unsipped sherry by the
stem, her eyes widening with delight at particularly good tilts. Then,
without warning, she snapped.
The Colonel had just accused Ellis of conveniently coming down
with color blindness the moment his country needed him, the cow-
ardice of which had caused him—his father and a veteran—the great-
est personal shame of his life, when Edith Stone Hyde swiveled to
face her husband, bug-eyed with fury.
“How dare you speak of my son like that!”
To my knowledge, she had never raised her voice before in her life,
and it was shocking. She continued in a strained but shrill tone that
quavered with righteous indignation—Ellis could no more help being
color-blind than other unfortunates could help having clubfeet, didn’t
he realize, and the color blindness, by the way, hadn’t come from her
side of the family. And speaking of genetics, she blamed her (and
here she actually flung out an arm and pointed at me) for Ellis’s
downfall. An unbalanced harlot just like her mother.
“Now see here! That’s my wife you’re talking about!” Ellis shouted.
“She was no harlot!” the Colonel boomed.
For two, maybe three seconds, there wasn’t a sound in the room
but the ticking of the clock and the flapping of the canary, which had
been driven to outright panic. It was a haze of pale orange, banging
against the sides of its cage and sending out bursts of tiny, downy
feathers.
Ellis and I looked at each other, aghast.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 39 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 30 SARA GRUEN

“Oh, really?” my mother-in-law said calmly. “Then what, exactly,

was she, dear?”
The Colonel moved his mouth as though to answer, but nothing
came out.
“It’s all right. I always suspected. I saw the way you used to look at
her,” my mother-in-law continued. Her eyes burned brightly with the
indignity of it all. “At least you weren’t foolish enough to run off with
her.”
I was almost compelled to defend the Colonel, to point out that
everybody had looked at my mother that way—they couldn’t help
themselves—but knew better than to open my mouth.
My mother-in-law turned suddenly to Ellis.
“And you—I warned you. As embarrassing as it was, I probably
could have tolerated it if you’d just wanted to carouse, to sow some
wild oats, but no, despite all the other very suitable matches you could
have made, you snuck off to marry”—she paused, pursing her lips
and shaking her head quickly as she decided what to call me—“this.
And I was right. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It’s positively
shameful the way the two of you and that beastly Boyd fellow carry
on. I despair of the grandchildren. Although, frankly, I’ve nearly lost
hope in that regard. Perhaps it’s just as well.” She sighed and went
calm again, smoothing her forehead and staring into the distance to
revel in her victory. She’d successfully dressed down every other per-
son in the room and thought it was now over: game, set, match.
She was wrong. Had she looked, she’d have noticed that Ellis was
turning a brilliant shade of crimson that rose from the base of his
neck, spread beneath his blond hair, and went all the way to the tips
of his ears.
“Let’s talk about shame, shall we?” he said quietly, ferociously.
“There’s absolutely nothing that I—or Maddie, or anyone else—
could do to bring further shame upon this family. You”—his voice
rose in a crescendo until he was shouting again, pointing his glass at
his father and shaking it, sloshing whiskey onto the carpet—“shamed
all of us beyond redemption the moment you faked those pictures!”

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 40 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 31

The ensuing silence was horrifying. My mother-in-law’s mouth

opened into a surprised O. The small crystal glass she’d been holding
slipped to the floor and shattered.
Tick, tock went the clock.

This is the story as I’d heard it:

In May 1933, an article appeared in a Scottish newspaper that
made headlines around the world. A businessman (university-
educated, the reporter was careful to point out) and his wife were
motoring along the newly built A82 on the north side of Loch Ness
when they spotted a whale-size animal thrashing in otherwise per-
fectly calm water. Letters to the editor followed describing similar
incidents, and the journalist himself, who happened to be a water
bailiff, claimed to have personally seen the “Kelpie” no fewer than
sixteen times. Another couple reported that something “resembling a
prehistoric monster” had slithered across the road in front of their
vehicle with a sheep in its mouth. A rash of other sightings followed,
sparking a worldwide craze.
The Colonel, who had been fascinated since boyhood by cryptozo-
ology, and sea serpents in particular, came down with a full-blown
case of “Nessie Mania.” He followed the stories with increasing rest-
lessness, clipping newspaper articles and making sketches based on
the descriptions therein. He had retired from the military, and idle-
ness did not suit him. He’d largely filled the void with big game hunt-
ing in Africa, but by then he found it unsatisfying. His trophy room
was run of the mill. Who didn’t have a zebra skin hanging on the
wall, a mounted rhinoceros head, or an elephant foot umbrella stand?
Even the posed, snarling lion was passé.
When the first published photograph of the monster, taken by a
man named Hugh Gray, was denounced by skeptics as being the
blurred image of a swimming dog, the Colonel was so incensed he
announced he was going to Scotland to prove the monster’s existence
personally.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 41 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 32 SARA GRUEN

He prevailed upon the hospitality of his second cousin, the Laird

of Craig Gairbh, whose estate was near the shores of the loch, and in
a matter of weeks had taken multiple photographs that showed the
curved neck and head of a sea serpent emerging from the water.
The pictures were published to widespread acclaim on both sides
of the Atlantic, and the Colonel’s triumphant return to the United
States was marked with great fanfare. Reporters flocked to the house,
stories ran in all the major newspapers, and he was generally regarded
as a hero. He took to wearing estate tweeds around town, which made
him instantly recognizable as the celebrity he was, and joked, in a
faux British accent, that his only regret was not being able to mount
the head in his trophy room, explaining that since Scotland Yard it-
self had requested he not harm the beast, it would have been in bad
form to do so. The height of the frenzy was when he appeared in a
newsreel that played before It Happened One Night, the biggest movie
of the year.
Like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun. It wasn’t long before the
Daily Mail published an article suggesting that the size of the wake
was wrong and making the scandalous accusation that the Colonel
had photographed a floating model. Next came allegations of photo-
graphic trickery—so-called experts claimed the photographs had
been touched up and then rephotographed, citing slightly different
angles and shadows, variations in the reflections. Because the Colonel
had processed his own film, he was unable to defend himself.
The Colonel swore by the veracity of his photos and expressed
outrage that his honor was being called into question precisely be-
cause he’d been honorable enough to defer to the request from Scot-
land Yard. If he’d just gone ahead and shot the beast—and he’d
brought his elephant rifle with him for that very purpose—no one
would be able to deny his claims.
The final nail in the coffin of public opinion was when Marma-
duke Wetherell, a big game hunter who had been on safari with the
Colonel several times, arrived at the loch with a cadre of reporters
declaring that he was going to prove once and for all that the monster
existed, and then promptly falsified monster tracks using an ashtray

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 42 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 AT THE WATER’S EDGE 33

made from the foot of a hippo—a hippo that the Colonel himself had
taken down in Rhodesia.
Reporters and their impudent questions were no longer welcome.
The Colonel gave up his tweeds and his accent. The sketches and
newspaper clippings, so carefully glued into Moroccan leather scrap-
books, disappeared. By the time I came into Ellis’s life, the subject was
taboo, and preserving the Colonel’s dignity paramount.
Of course, what was taboo to the rest of the world was anything
but to our little trio, especially when the Colonel was acting particu-
larly accusatory about Ellis’s inability to serve.
It was Hank who came up with the idea of us finding the monster
ourselves. It was a brilliant mechanism for blowing off steam that al-
lowed Ellis to poke merciless fun at the Colonel, imagine himself
triumphing where his father had failed, while simultaneously prov-
ing that he was as red-blooded as any man at the Front. It was a harm-
less fantasy, a whimsy we trotted out and embellished regularly,
usually at the end of a long night of drinking, but never within any-
one else’s earshot—at least, not before the New Year’s Eve party.

Ellis swallowed loudly beside me. My mother-in-law remained frozen

to her seat, her fingers and mouth still open, the crystal sherry glass
in shards at her feet.
The Colonel’s face was tinged with blue, like the skin of a ripe
plum, and for a moment I thought he might be having a stroke. He
lifted a quivering finger and pointed at the door.
“Get out,” he said in a strange, hollow voice. “Pemberton will
send your things.”
Ellis shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean? To where?”
The Colonel turned his back to us, resting one elbow on the man-
tel, posing.
“To where?” Ellis asked with increasing desperation. “Where are
we supposed to go?”
The Colonel’s stiff back and complete lack of response made it
clear that wherever we went, it was of no concern to him.

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 43 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 Advance praise for At the Water’s Edge

‘If I needed a reminder of why I am such a fan of Sara Gruen’s books,

her latest novel provides plenty. Unique in its setting and scope, this
impeccably researched historical fiction is full of the gorgeous prose
I’ve come to expect from this author. And even after the final page,
its message still resonates with me: The monsters we seek may be
right in front of us. In fact, the only fault I can find with this book is
that I’ve already finished it.’ Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling
author of Leaving Time

‘I devoured this book. Once again Sara Gruen has proven herself
to be one of America’s most compelling storytellers. You might be
tempted to rush to get to the answers at the end—but don’t, or you’ll
miss the delectable journey that is Gruen’s prose.’ Kathryn Stockett,
New York Times bestselling author of The Help

‘Magical . . . At the Water’s Edge skilfully transports us to a small,

tenacious Scottish village in the grip of war, and into the heart of
Madeline Hyde, a woman who is a stranger to herself until forces
convene to rock her awake. Sara Gruen is a wizard at capturing the
essence of her historical setting, and does so here in spades, but it’s
Maddie’s unexpected transformation that grounds and drives the
novel. As her husband and best friend search the surface of the Loch,
desperate for a sign of the elusive creature, Maddie learns to plumb
her own depths, and comes fully alive to the world around her.’
Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife

‘At the Water’s Edge is a rich, beautiful novel. Elegantly written and
compulsively readable, it is at once a gripping love story, a profound
examination of the effects of war on ordinary women, and a compel-
ling portrait of female friendship. While delving into powerful
themes, Sara Gruen never loses sight of what matters: her charac-
ters. This story of one privileged young woman, coming of age in
a time of impossible upheaval and terrible choices, will keep you
riveted until the very last page.’ Kristin Hannah, New York Times
bestselling author of The Nightingale

‘Intoxicating . . . Sara Gruen has an exquisite eye for detail, and she
evokes the haunted—and haunting—Scottish landscape with her
signature passion, freshness, and scope. Atmospheric and gritty, the
compelling tale of Madeline’s struggle to redefine herself in a world
gone mad will linger long after you turn the final page. I love this
marvellous, marvellous book.” Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times
bestselling author of Someone Else’s Love Story

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 1 4/03/2015 3:36 pm

 A B O UT TH E AUT H OR

SARA GRUEN is the #1 New York Times and USA Today

bestselling author of Water for Elephants, Ape House,
Riding Lessons, and Flying Changes. Her works have
been translated into forty-three languages and have sold
more than ten million copies worldwide. Water for
Elephants was adapted into a major motion picture star-
ring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Chris-
toph Waltz in 2011.
She lives in western North Carolina with her hus-
band and three sons, along with their dogs, cats, horses,
birds, and the world’s fussiest goat.

www.saragruen.com

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 365 4/03/2015 3:37 pm

 BY SA R A GRUEN

Riding Lessons

Flying Changes

Water for Elephants

Ape House

At the Water’s Edge

AtTheWatersEdge.indd 2 4/03/2015 3:36 pm