When it storms along the shore, I watch the waves. I hear low bellows echoing off the low clouds, and I see dim shapes dark against a dark sky. I wait for Siobhan to return.

****

When I went home for my father's funeral, I found Siobhan a shadow of the woman she would become. At twelve my sister was tall and skinny, her lanky hair covering dark, haunted eyes. She stared through the visitors at the funeral home as they passed the casket and when I told her she would live with me, she didn't even blink. It took her less than an hour to pack.

The trip back to my house was silent. I drove with the radio low, Siobhan staring out the window at the steady drizzle that accompanied us from Pennsylvania into New Jersey. Despite storm warnings, the ferry still ran between the mainland and the island where I live. Because the water was choppy we sat in the car, watching the waves break against the sides of the boat. The hour ride seemed to take much longer but when we docked the sun still peeked around dark, threatening clouds. I was glad we made it home before the sky opened.

I helped Siobhan take her bags up to her room. I set them down on her bed and she went to the window, opening it wide. A cool breeze whipped back the curtains, blowing up for the storm. Leaning on the sill, she looked out at the ocean. I started to unpack her bags. "What do you see?" I asked.

She shrugged but didn't answer. She still wasn't talking to me.

I pulled her wrinkled clothes from the bags and smoothed them out on the bed as best I could. Siobhan stayed at the window. The past few days had been a blur of people and emotions -- she would want to catch her breath, get situated. "There's a storm brewing," I cautioned, leaving her door open as I left. "Be sure to close the window when it starts."

Behind me I only heard the wind outside and the sea crashing against the sand.

****

The storm broke before I went to bed, and on my way I stopped outside Siobhan's door and listened. I could hear the rain beating loudly against the roof of the porch, right outside her window. I pushed the door open slightly. She lay with the covers up to her chin, the window open a few inches. Wind whistled into the room, a cold, damp draft. Rain soaked the curtains and pooled on the hardwood floor.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the room. Water ran down the windowpanes, rivulets casting gloomy shadows over the bed. Siobhan's face looked blue in the glare, streaked with shadows. With her closed eyelids and slightly parted lips, she looked as if she were lost in the storm.

In my own room the soothing sounds of the rain and surf lulled me to a dreamless sleep. Siobhan will be fine, I thought before drifting off. Just give her some time.

****

I woke up early and fixed eggs for Siobhan. I didn't have any assignments lined up until the afternoon -- I worked as a photographer for The Leader, a small paper that ran local interest stories and ads for beach houses -- and I thought a warm meal might make her warm up to me. When she came down, though, she had dark circles under her eyes and an unfriendly frown on her face. "Rough night?" I asked, not expecting an answer.

She surprised me. "Have you ever seen things out in the waves?"

"What kind of things?" I asked carefully, handing her a plate.

She picked at the eggs and answered, "Large things. Out in the ocean."

"You mean whales?" I sat down. In the summer whales often swam in the warmer waters, and sometimes you could see them from the ferry if they ventured into the bay.

But Siobhan shook her head. "Not whales. Something larger."

I frowned. "Larger?" I had never heard of any animals larger than whales. "What do they look like?"

She shrugged. "Well," I said, "I have a shoot later on today down by the library. They're doing some renovations and the paper wants pictures." Cautiously, I added, "There might be some books on local marine life. I could take you with me."

I expected her to say no, but when I looked up there was a new shine in her eyes, and I smiled. Maybe having a sister wouldn't be so bad after all.

****

The construction at the library wasn't much -- one or two good shots would be all I got out of the roll of film. As I packed away my camera Siobhan came out of the library, a book in her hands. "Find what you were looking for?" I asked.

She nodded and showed me the book. It was large and thin, obviously from the children's section. The cover showed a faded Tyrannosaurus splashing through a Jurassic swamp. "Dinosaurs?" I asked, reading the title of the book, scrawled in lurid red letters across the cover. "I thought you were looking for …" I shrugged. "Something else."

Without saying a word, Siobhan pulled the book back, her eyes downcast. Quickly I said, "No, I didn't mean --" Holding my hand out for the book, I apologized. "I was expecting something else," I said again. "What did you find?"

Warily she handed me the book. "Page seven," she said.

I flipped to the seventh page, near the middle. There swam a dinosaur as large as a brontosaurus perhaps, with four paddle-like limbs and a long neck that ended in a small, snake-like head. Beside the picture was the caption Elasmosaurus, largest of the plesiosaurs. The picture looked vaguely familiar. "Like the Loch Ness Monster?" I asked, looking up at her. "Is this what you saw?"

She shrugged. "Something like that. I only saw the head and neck but I don't think it had those long teeth." The creature had fang-like teeth that ringed its mouth. She hesitated before adding, "And I think there may have been more than one."

Slowly I shook my head. "You've seen dinosaurs in the ocean?"

She shrugged again and closed the book. "I don't think they're dinosaurs," she said, hugging the book to her thin chest. "That's just what they look like to me."

****

That night the sea was calm and quiet, and when I asked if she had seen the creatures again, Siobhan shook her head. "I didn't even hear them," she said gloomily.

"What do they sound like?" I asked.

Siobhan shrugged. "Low sounds, I guess. Rumblings almost."

Like thunder, I thought, remembering the storm from the other night. I didn't say anything. After all that she'd been through lately, if she thought thunder was dinosaurs calling to each other in the rain, then she'd be fine.

Siobhan went with me again when the paper sent me to the far end of the boardwalk where some of the older amusement park rides had been torn down. The Flyer was my main interest -- a rickety wooden roller coaster, it was the first ride to open on the boards in the 1920's. I hoped the debris was still recognizable.

The boardwalk ran alongside the ocean for two miles, ending beside a rocky jetty. On the beach lay white wooden beams, splintered and rotted, the paint chipped in places. A faded sign leaned against the pilings, partially hidden by the wooden beams, constantly washed by the tide. The Flyer, it read in large letters whose once garish colors had drawn in the crowds. I began setting up my equipment.

Beside me, Siobhan stared at the debris, her eyes large. "Bones," she whispered. I looked up from my camera.

"Hmm?" I asked. I had about five minutes of good daylight left, and I hoped to get a few dusk shots as well. I wasn't paying much attention to my sister.

"Bones," she said again, louder. Looking through the lens of my camera, I stared at the piles of wood, the setting sun glistening off the paint wet with sea water. The curved tracks could vaguely resemble the bones of a large animal.

But they weren't -- they were only discarded pieces of wood, piled together, waiting to be hauled away. "Bones of a fallen giant," I said, nodding. I could almost see it in newsprint. "It's a good caption."

Siobhan shook her head. "They look like bones of the creatures I saw the other night. Bones of the sea."

I didn't know what to say to that so I said nothing. Siobhan stayed quiet, but the air between us was strained. I hurried through my shoot as dark clouds rolled in from the sea, blocking the last of the sun. It looked like we were in for another storm. I packed away my equipment and we hurried home.

****

The next morning when I developed the film in my dark room, I thought I had left a few empty exposures on the roll, but all twenty-four pictures were used. One photo in particular was an unbelievable shot of the old sign, faded but still readable, the sun angled behind it and debris strewn around. The photo would be perfect for a front page story. I set it aside and developed the rest of the film.

The last four or five photos came out fuzzy, blurred. They looked as if they had been taken in poor lighting, and one of them had a bright glare in the corner, the reflection of a flash on glass. Dimly I could make out the faint shadow of a person beside the glare.

When the pictures dried, I took them out to Siobhan, who sat on the porch steps looking at the sea. I dropped the photographs beside her. Startled, she looked at the top picture. Then she sighed. "They didn't come out, did they?"

"When did you take them?" I asked, sitting down beside her. I picked up the pictures and handed them to her.

"Last night," she answered, leafing through the photos. She peered closely at one of them. "This is the best you could do?"

"Well, it looks like you took them through a closed window," I said, pointing to the top picture.

She laughed. "Only this one. After I saw the flash I opened the window and leaned out." She thumbed through the pictures absently.

I sighed. "I guess you weren't just taking pictures of the beach at midnight." She shook her head. "You saw those creatures again." It wasn't a question.

"Well," she said, handing the photos back to me, "it doesn't matter. They didn't come out." She stood up and went inside.

I glanced at the pictures again. Despite the fact that she had taken them at night, during a storm, I thought I could make out the sea, darker than the sand, and in one of them I thought I saw a large, indistinct shape against the sky. But the pictures were so blurry, taken in such poor conditions, that I could've been seeing things that weren't really there, things I wanted to see for Siobhan's sake. It could've been anything.

****

As September faded into October, fog rolled in thick and billowy, the last of the summer storms threatening to blow into low-scale hurricanes. Late one night, as dense fog came in off the beach, Siobhan and I sat on her bed. I brushed her hair in long, even strokes and she leafed through the remaining pictures of the Flyer. I had already sent in the few I thought the paper would like, and I had tried to dodge out the dark, blurred pictures she took. They came out no better than before. Outside her window the night was close, the fog deep. The sea was lost somewhere out there, the sound of the surf muted by low clouds. "I wish these had come out better," Siobhan sighed, motioning towards the pictures.

Suddenly a long, low braying drowned out the surf. I stopped, the brush still in Siobhan's hair. Beneath my hands she stiffened slightly. "Do you hear that?" she whispered. I pulled the brush through to the ends of her hair, smoothing its path with my hand. Then I stood up -- it was getting late. "What was that?" she asked.

I shrugged. "The lighthouse at the end of the boards has a foghorn."

The sound repeated, higher this time, and shorter. "Maybe there's a ship down the shore or something," I muttered, disconcerted. Most ships kept well away from the beach, and those sounds were close.

"Maybe it's them," she said, going to the window. I stood beside her and we looked out into the fog. All we saw was darkness.

I sighed. "Siobhan," I began, but the braying started again and she hushed me. Together we listened to the sounds, soothing in the night.

"Can you see them?" she asked. I squinted and thought I could make out dark waves which might have looked like the rounded backs of large animals to someone who saw dinosaur bones in the fallen remains of roller coasters. But they were just waves, and the sounds could be nothing more than ships calling out into the night.

****

That photo of the Flyer was picked up by the mainland paper, as I had hoped, where it caught the eye of an editor in Cape May. Within a week I had a meeting to discuss a series on old Victorian homes. Despite dark clouds looming in the sky, the forecast called for an afternoon clearing, and Siobhan and I decided to spend the weekend on shore. It would be nice to get away from the island for a while, to leave the sea -- and its monsters -- behind.

We caught the early boat -- that late in the year the ferry only ran twice daily, and the late boat wouldn't leave until sunset. Ours was the second of only ten cars to board that morning. A misty fog clung to the choppy waters and I could feel the boat's rocking the moment we drove on. Before the ferry got underway, Siobhan and I went up to the lounge. There they had a small cafeteria and we ate donuts while the boat shook free of the pier. My sister sat by the window, watching the island slip away into the mist. "Can we go outside?" she asked.

I looked out the window. The fog was bright as the sun started to rise and all I could see were a few sleeping seagulls atop pilings. The deck was empty, the other passengers preferring to stay inside on such a gloomy day. Siobhan turned to me with pleading eyes. "Okay," I said with a laugh. "But be careful. It's probably slick out there."

It was. A thin film of sea spray coated the deck, making the wood treacherous and the benches too damp to sit on. Siobhan went to the bow and together we stared out into the fog. I waited for her to mention her creatures -- surely she would see something in this soupy cover -- but she stayed silent. The hungry lapping of the waves against the boat sounded like a hand slapping the water, and we could hear the faint horn of a tugboat, somewhere beyond our sight. Other than that, the morning was quiet.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Siobhan asked suddenly. Unsure of what to say, I continued to stare out over the water and remained quiet.

She nodded. A few minutes later, she said, "There's a place out there where time doesn't exist. When I see them, that place is real -- it's here, it's now, just out of my reach. Time stands still, frozen in one of your pictures, always just about to happen."

I sighed. "We can't live inside a photograph."

"But a picture lasts forever," she argued. "That captured image has to be real somewhere."

I didn't have the strength to explain to her the properties of film, the emulsions that created the image into a picture one could see, the process by which the print was created. So instead I reached for my camera, slung over my shoulder. Stepping back from the railing, I raised the camera to my eyes and squinted through the viewfinder. "Smile for me," I said.

Siobhan turned. Seeing the camera, she smiled brightly. The wind picked up, blowing her hair from her brow, and with a dramatic flare, Siobhan hoisted herself onto the rail to sit on the thin bar. "Careful," I said, steadying the camera.

"I am," she said through her smile, and wrapped one arm around a nearby pole.

She laughed as I took the shot, and then the boat lurched. The force threw me back against the benches that lined the deck. I dropped my camera -- if the strap hadn't been around my neck I would've lost it. Siobhan called out my name.

"I'm fine," I said, getting up. I looked over to the rail.

Siobhan was gone.

****

Every night I'm on the ferry again. Siobhan sits on the rail smiling -- I see her through the lens of my camera. Behind her the fog is dense, full of dark shadows and cloudy shapes. Then the boat lurches and I'm falling. I hear Siobhan call my name but when I look up, she's gone.

Suddenly I'm at the railing. The water is white with froth. From the corners of my vision I see large shapes alongside the ferry, frolicking in the waves, keeping pace with the boat. But when I turn they disappear into the sea, the water swallowing them as completely as it swallowed my sister. I can only see them in the corners of my vision. I wonder if I'll see Siobhan there too.

****

The last picture I took of her came out clear, despite the fog. Her smile is frozen, her eyes bright with excitement. And now she's in that timeless place where her dinosaurs roam, still sitting on the rail, forever about to fall.

THE END