Listen to the Moon

A framing narrator, the grandson of Merry MacIntyre, introduces the story of his grandmother, who "came up out of the sea" as a girl of about twelve, half-starved and feverish, able to speak only one word: "Lucy." He has pieced together her story from family members, museum records, school logbooks, and the journal of the late Dr. Crow, the islands' physician.

In May 1915, on the island of Bryher in the Scilly Isles, a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of England, twelve-year-old Alfie Wheatcroft and his father, Jim, a fisherman and potato farmer, go out fishing for mackerel. Alfie has skipped school, against the wishes of his mother, Mary. The family looks after Mary's twin brother, Uncle Billy, a former master shipbuilder who experienced a mental health crisis after losing his wife and baby, and was institutionalized until Mary brought him home. He now lives alone in a boathouse, restoring an old boat he calls the Hispaniola, after the ship in Treasure Island. The islanders call him "Silly Billy."

When fishing proves poor, Alfie and Jim row toward St. Helen's, an uninhabited island once used as a quarantine station where the sick were left to die in a building called the Pest House. Alfie hears a child crying from the island. They search the ruins and discover a gaunt, terrified girl cowering in the fireplace corner, wrapped in a gray blanket. She falls unconscious while trying to flee, and Jim carries her to the boat.

On Bryher, Mary takes charge. The girl whispers one word, "Lucy," before losing consciousness. Dr. Crow diagnoses severe dehydration, fever, and deep shock, and Mary volunteers to care for the girl as a foster daughter. Cousin Dave Bishop, sent to search St. Helen's, returns with a teddy bear and the blanket, which bears an embroidered name: "Wilhelm," the same name as Kaiser Wilhelm, the German emperor. Mary swears him to secrecy, fearing anti-German sentiment in wartime.

"Lucy Lost," as the islands call her, becomes the subject of wild speculation. She remains bedridden and silent, though Alfie talks to her daily. At school, Alfie fights repeatedly with Zebediah Bishop, Cousin Dave's son, who threatens to reveal the German name. Dr. Crow warns Lucy may need to be sent to an institution. Mary refuses, having witnessed the conditions of the asylum where Uncle Billy was kept. The doctor suggests music as therapy and brings a gramophone. When Chopin plays, Lucy rises from bed and comes downstairs, whispering "Piano." She takes charge of the gramophone, becoming especially attached to Mozart's "Andante Grazioso," and begins joining the family for meals.

The narrative shifts to the first-person voice of the girl herself, whose real name is Merry MacIntyre, though this is not yet revealed. Merry recounts her life in New York City with her mother, Martha; Papa's elderly uncle, Old Mac; and her lifelong nanny, Aunty Ducka. Her father, a Canadian officer, has gone to fight in France. A letter arrives: Papa has been wounded and is convalescing at Bearwood House in England. Merry and Martha decide to sail to be with him. Papa has asked Merry to listen to the moon as he does, so they can feel connected across the distance. Their shared ritual is the Mozart "Andante Grazioso," which Merry plays daily on the piano. Before boarding, Merry says goodbye to her teacher Miss Winters and her best friend Pippa Mallory.

Back on Bryher, Lucy's recovery continues. She encounters Peg, the island's stubborn communal workhorse, and smiles for the first time. She gets lost in fog but is found safe with Uncle Billy in his boathouse. Peg allows only Lucy to ride her bareback, and Alfie learns to ride under Lucy's silent instruction. When Mr. Beagley, the tyrannical headmaster of Tresco School, insists Lucy must attend, she reveals through a drawing that her terror is of the water, not school. On her first day, she rides Peg across the channel at low tide. In Assembly, transfixed by the piano, she walks forward and plays Mozart beautifully. Mr. Beagley punishes her, but her defiance makes her a hero among the students. Miss Nightingale, the young sympathetic teacher, becomes Lucy's protector.

Merry's narrative resumes aboard the ship, now identifiable as the Lusitania. Martha is seasick; Merry befriends Brendan Doyle, an Irish cabin steward, and a family with two small children, including Celia, who carries a one-eyed teddy bear. On the last morning, near the Irish coast, Merry plays her Mozart piece to enthusiastic applause. Minutes later, she sees a trail of bubbles racing toward the ship. The torpedo strikes, and the Lusitania sinks within minutes. Brendan goes to find Martha but never returns. An elderly lady gets Merry into a lifeboat, urging: "Live, child, you have to live" (187). Merry finds Celia but spots Martha's dressing gown floating facedown in the sea and understands her mother is dead. The lifeboat capsizes, and Merry swims with Celia on her back until she finds the ship's grand piano floating in the ocean. During the night, Celia slips away and is lost. Alone with Celia's teddy bear, Merry loses all sense of identity and memory.

A German submarine surfaces. A sailor named Wilhelm Kreuz brings Merry aboard. The captain, Kapitän Klausen, explains that his uncle was once saved from a shipwreck by Scillonians, the residents of the Scilly Isles, and decides to set Merry ashore on St. Helen's. Wilhelm gives her his mother's blanket, rows her ashore with food and water, and says "Wasser. Gut" (243). Merry survives for weeks alone on limpets, rainwater, and gulls' eggs, growing weaker until Alfie finds her.

In October 1915, Cousin Dave breaks his promise, and word spreads about the German name on the blanket. Anti-German hostility erupts. The Wheatcrofts are shunned, "Remember the Lusitania" is painted on their door, and a stone is thrown through Lucy's window. Mary reveals she had already cut off the name tape and a German label from the teddy bear, but suspicion persists. Dr. Crow suggests taking Lucy to St. Helen's to reawaken her memory. Alfie sails her there, and Lucy races across the island, recognizing everything. She finds the water flask in the chimney and says "Wasser. Gut," then draws a submarine in the sand and cries out: "Ninny! Nincompoop!" These are words her father used to call her, confirming she speaks English.

After a confrontation with Zeb's gang on the beach, Uncle Billy rescues Alfie and Lucy and announces the Hispaniola is finished. That night, Lucy writes names on all her drawings, including "Papa," "Mama," and "Pippa." The next morning, Uncle Billy and the Hispaniola are gone. The entire island searches for four days before his sail is sighted. He has rescued two German sailors from a life raft; one is dead, and the other identifies himself as Wilhelm Kreuz. When the Wheatcroft family arrives at Dr. Crow's house, Lucy recognizes Wilhelm and speaks fluently for the first time: "I am not Lucy Lost. I am Merry MacIntyre" (317). Her memories unlock as she tells her whole story.

Dr. Crow locates Merry's father with his regiment in Belgium. Papa arrives on Bryher, and they are reunited. Merry stays for three more years, falls in love with Alfie, and marries him after the war. They later move to New York when Papa and the others grow old. Alfie becomes a ship's captain, and they raise a family, returning to Scilly three times to visit. The grandson-narrator closes the story from Veronica Farm on Bryher, writing at the kitchen table under the gaze of Celia's one-eyed teddy bear: "And if our story lives on, mine and Alfie's, so do we. So do those we remember" (329).