The Water Keeper

Murph lives on a small island near Jacksonville, Florida, in a church. It is next to a much larger island, Fort George Island, which brings in dozens of large tourist yachts and boats each day. He watches as one arrives with two guys and 10 girls, all of whom are dressed in revealing clothing and, before long, are partying topless on the yacht and beach.

Murph prepares his boat, Gone Fiction, for a trip down the coast to scatter Fingers’s ashes “at the end of the world” (13), which is what he requested. He put them in the orange case that held his wine and bread. He has left them on the table for days alongside Marie’s ashes, which are in a purple urn. Marie asked for her ashes to be scattered just off the island in a spot from her childhood; however, Murph has not yet worked up the will to do so. Instead, he has spent much of the last several days staring at their ashes.

Near the end of the day, Murph hears a knock on the door. It’s one of the girls from the party yacht.

The young girl at the door asks to use the bathroom. Murph notes that she is young—he guesses maybe 15 or 16—that she is dressed in revealing clothing, and that she is likely high on drugs. He lets her in.

When she comes out of the bathroom, she asks about the church. He tells her that enslaved people built it and then used it as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Their names and the dates they were there are etched into the wall. She notes how some of the names are recent, and he tells her that “people still own people” (21). Murph asks her if she is okay and how old she is, but she dodges both questions, insisting that she’s 21.

The girl flirts with Murph, touching his arms and asking if he works out. She repeatedly asks for the priest, calling Murph “Padre,” but Murph tells her that they are currently looking for a new priest. He lives there for free and does the groundskeeping.

In the middle of their conversation, the girl vomits into one of the aisles. She tries to clean it up, but Murph insists that he will do it. He asks her again how old she is, and she admits that she is 16. He asks for her phone, where he inputs “ICE—Padre,” telling her it’s for an emergency.

The girl goes to the wall and writes “Angel” in lipstick. Murph asks if that’s her name, and she tells him that it’s what her mother “used to” call her. Murph then takes her picture with his own phone.

Outside, someone on the yacht blows the horn. She asks Murph if he thinks if “God gives us credit for showing up,” and Murph tells her that he thinks God is concerned with “the walk…from broken to not” (30-31). The girl goes outside.

As Murph watches, the yacht driver turns away from the shore. The girl walks along the dock to a muscled man who gives her a shot and a hit off what he is smoking. She then takes off her top and joins other girls in a jacuzzi. Murph notes that he can’t see the name of the boat.

Murph wakes up from the same dream he keeps having. In it, he is marrying Marie, yet each time he tries to kiss her, he can’t get close enough. He goes through each stage of their wedding and reception, waking up just before the first dance.

Murph goes outside to finish preparing the boat. He remembers the first time he met Fingers. Fingers needed a boat, and Murph—13 at the time—offered to take him out. From there, he and Fingers got to know each other as Fingers fished. Eventually, Fingers gave him a job as the groundskeeper at the church.

Murph also thinks about his proposal to Marie. A week before their wedding, she took him into the church. She confessed to him that she was sexually abused by her father when she was a young girl, so she was no longer a “virgin.” However, Murph insisted that he loved her regardless and that it did not bother him.

Murph moves Marie’s ashes to the center of the table and then takes the orange box holding Fingers’s ashes. He straps it to the front of his boat, knowing that Fingers would want to be able to see on their journey. Murph decides that, as much as he just wants to leave and never come back, he needs to return to say goodbye to Marie properly.

Murph spends the first day heading south along the Florida coastline. He thinks about how he could get to his destination in just a few days, but instead, he is going to take the journey slowly, which is what Fingers would have wanted.

In the afternoon, Murph finds a white labrador paddling in the middle of the river. He pulls the dog aboard. He tries to let him off on the shore, but each time, the dog jumps back into the water and continues swimming. He also asks several people if they’re the dog’s owner, but none of them are. Finally, Murph decides that he has to bring the dog with him, as he has no collar or identification. He names the dog Tabby.

At around midnight, Murph arrives in St. Augustine. He anchors his boat on the shore and sleeps on the bench under the stars.

The next morning, Murph goes into town with Tabby. He spots the yacht that the young girl got onto and sees that the name is Sea Tenderly.

After breakfast, Murph buys dog food, a bowl, a collar, and a leash. He checks the newspapers and social media, looking for Tabby’s owner, but finds nothing. He takes Tabby to a shelter, but they tell him that he will be put down if they can’t find an owner for him.

Murph and Tabby sit in the park for the rest of the day. That evening, he hears a woman arguing on the phone. She is disheveled and dressed in a waitress uniform with one shoe missing. She pleads with the person on the phone to come back. When she calls her “Angel,” Murph realizes that he has to speak to her. As she walks toward the shore, Murph follows her.

The woman asks several people to take her to Daytona. When they all decline, she steals a small boat. She crashes it into several other boats as she backs it out of the marina but manages to get it out past the shore. Since night is falling, Murph realizes that she will likely crash, get stuck, or run out of gas. He decides to follow her.

Murph loses the woman’s boat but then finds her wake further down the shore. He realizes that she is entering a small, dangerous channel; it is shallow and thin and is also difficult to navigate in the dark. At the same moment, he notices a different wake from a much larger vessel.

As Murph finally catches sight of her boat, the woman tries to pass a large yacht going in the other direction. Murph realizes that she is underestimating the size of the yacht’s wake. Her boat hits it while moving too fast, which sends the woman flying out of the boat. The boat breaks in half and sinks.

In the dark, Murph desperately searches for the woman. With Tabby’s help, he finds her flailing in the water and rescues her. Her clothes are shredded, and she is bleeding profusely.

Murph goes to the nearest marina, where he finds a young attendant. He asks about a hospital, but the nearest one is 45 minutes away. Instead, he gets a hotel room, paying the attendant to watch his boat.

In the hotel room, Murph tries to take the towels and the remains of the woman’s clothes off her. However, he realizes that she is covered in cuts. Even in her rough state, Murph notes how “beautiful” she is.

Murph explains that he needs to clean the woman’s clothes. Without speaking, she gets up and goes with him to the bathroom. He helps her into the shower as blood, mud, and shells run off her. He realizes that she must have landed in a group of oysters, as there are nearly a hundred cuts from shells on her body. Slowly, Murph pulls the shells from her back and shoulders and then washes the cuts clean.

Murph leaves the woman on the bed while he goes to a grocery store. He gets her clothing and food, as well as bandages and ointment. He then returns to the hotel room and bandages her cuts.

Afterward, the woman tells him that if he’s “going to do something” to her, then he should “just get it over with” (60). Murph responds that he is going to come back in the morning, and he leaves Tabby with her as he goes.

When Murph returns to the room the next morning, he finds the woman dressed. She cleaned the room and made the bed. He notes that she did not touch the wine or pain medicine that he bought her.

Murph takes the woman out to breakfast. He asks her what she was doing on the boat, and she tells him that she was looking for her daughter. Murph describes the girl from the church and then shows her the picture. The woman sobs as she admits that the girl is her daughter.

The woman’s name is Elizabeth, but people call her Summer. She used to perform on Broadway; however, she made a series of “bad decisions” that led her to retire early. Now, she teaches dance on the side while working two jobs. She is trying to pay for the dance school that Angel got into. She and Angel have had a tough relationship over the last couple years, culminating in Angel getting on a yacht and disappearing over the last month.

Summer admits that she has experienced addiction three times and also recovered three times. During her most recent bout of addiction, she used reading to stop taking opioids. She has read the same 13-book series 27 times.

Summer tells Murph about the book series. It is about a priest who gets recruited by the government to go on secret missions. He works with a nun, who is scarred and has a secret in her past that she never shares. They both love each other but refuse to admit it due to their religion. The author of the books is David Bishop, which is also the main character’s name (and also Murph’s real name, as he is the author of the books).

The 13th book ends with the nun standing outside the bathroom while Bishop showers. She writes him a letter, admitting her secret to him, and then leaves. However, the book ends before telling the reader the full contents of the note.

No one knows who the real author is. People have searched desperately to try to find him, even analyzing the writing in all the books to show that it is a man. Someone tracked the earnings of the book to an offshore account and then showed that the money eventually leads to a nonprofit—meaning that the real author isn’t even taking profits from the books.

Summer explains that she loves the books because they give her “hope.” The relationship between Bishop and the nun shows that anyone can be loved, despite their scars and secrets.

Murph and Summer go back to his boat. On the way, Murph gets her a new phone. He tells her that he will help her find Angel. She offers to send him money, thanking him for everything he’s done, but he declines.

As they travel out into the ocean, Murph makes a phone call to an unspecified man. He sends him the picture of Angel and asks for any information on her that he can get. The man agrees, delighted that Murph is working again.

As Summer sleeps, Murph makes his way to Daytona. He lets her continue to sleep as he docks and goes for food. He asks the attendant if any large party yachts have come through. He points to one off in the distance, which Murph immediately recognizes as the yacht that Angel got on. The attendant also tells him that an expensive black boat was docked there before the yacht arrived. As Murph pulls up next to the Sea Tenderly, Summer wakes up and comes to stand next to him.

Murph and Summer board the yacht. It is covered in trash, bottles of alcohol, drugs, clothing, and more. Murph explains that they likely changed boats in case someone was following them.

Summer asks Murph if she should call the authorities for help. However, Murph explains that if the men who took Angel get spooked, they will immediately leave for another country. He goes on to explain what they are dealing with. The men find young women, usually those estranged from their parents, and then lure them onto their yachts to party. They then give them excessive amounts of drugs and alcohol, insisting that they can leave whenever they want, but never truly giving them a chance to. They post their pictures on the “dark web” and then prepare to traffick them to wealthy men. After collecting dozens of girls, they leave the country, traffick the girls, and then return for more.

Summer sobs as Murph hugs her. She asks him how he knows so much, and he admits that he has searched for 113 girls similar to Angel; he has found and saved 99. He tells Summer that she should do whatever she thinks is “best”—he just wants her to fully understand what she is dealing with.

Murph tells Summer that she should keep calling and leaving voicemails for Angel. However, Summer confesses that she doesn’t have her daughter’s number, as she changed it shortly after leaving. Angel called her once—the conversation that Murph overheard—but then Summer lost her phone in the ocean. Murph wonders if he put his phone number in Angel’s old phone or her new one but decides not to mention it to Summer.