The House in the Cerulean Sea

All of the island’s residents take the ferry to the mainland. Chauncey has dressed himself in a tiny trench coat and a top hat as a disguise. The townspeople gawk at them as they drive by. Once they’ve parked, they split into smaller groups: Arthur with Sal and Theodore, Zoe with Phee and Chauncey, and Linus with Talia and Lucy. Linus is alarmed. His group is separated quickly from the others as Talia ducks into a hardware store, where she admires the gardening tools and bonds with the owner; Talia doesn’t have enough money to purchase her items, so Lucy offers to give her his money. Linus pays for the things instead. The shop owner asks if she might come and photograph Talia’s garden someday.

The owner of the record store, J-Bone, responds well to the children. He is welcoming and happy to help them. Lucy and J-Bone bond over music. J-Bone’s employee Marty tries to exorcise Lucy but is quickly stopped. J-Bone is angry and says he will fire the man. Linus is protective, which Lucy soon realizes and is pleased by. They emerge into the shop’s main area to find Talia playing with a girl on the other side of the window; the girl’s mother snatches her away and calls Talia a freak, but Talia takes it with aplomb, saying that there’s hope because the little girl didn’t care what she looked like. J-Bone gives Lucy his records for free as an apology for Marty.

The whole group meets up again at the ice cream parlor, where the owner tries to deny them service. Arthur and Linus confront him; the ensuing argument frightens Sal enough that he shifts into his dog form. Arthur is so angry that the man is frightened of him. The woman from the hardware store, Helen, enters and argues with the man. She reveals that she is also the town’s mayor and threatens to prevent his lease from being renewed. The man goes to the back and allows Helen to serve the children their ice cream. Linus takes Sal to the bathroom and comforts him until he shifts back and puts his clothes on. Linus questions why Helen hasn’t made these efforts before, and she agrees that she’s been remiss, apologizes, and promises to do better.

When Linus drops off his third report at the post office, he receives a larger, thicker envelope than EUM’s previous messages. It has a key to the cellar, a cover letter from Werner that admonishes him for his lack of objectivity and cautions him to be wary of emotional manipulation from the orphanage’s residents, and a “semi-complete” file on Arthur Parnassus.

Linus waits to open Arthur’s file until he’s alone in his guest house. He tries to talk himself out of reading it but cannot and is very affected when he reads that Arthur is a magical being. The chapter breaks to another scene before the reader is told what species he is. At an awkward group dinner at which Linus is noticeably quiet and not eating, Linus struggles with his new knowledge of Arthur’s secret and how it may be tied up in the type of emotional manipulation that Werner warned him about. He wonders if they all conspired before his arrival to make him care and feel at home, and if the feeling of belonging he has is all a lie constructed to sway his decision.

In the middle of the night, Linus takes the key to the cellar door and opens it. He finds a small, stone room with a metal-lined door. The door has gouge marks the size of a child’s hands. There is a desk, a broken metal bed frame, and a pile of flame-retardant tarps. Linus also finds over 60 marks ticking off days. Arthur arrives and confirms that he is a phoenix and perhaps the very last of them. He tells Linus about his time at the orphanage and the cruel master who abused the children and locked him in the cellar for six months. He also tells him about Werner, whom Arthur was in love with, and who he believes used him to attain his current position. He shows Linus his magnificent fiery wings and phoenix aspect. Arthur also explains that he approached DICOMY to re-open this orphanage, knowing that they’d jump at the chance to keep track of him, but also knowing that he’d have an opportunity to give the “extreme” children a loving home. They talk about the unfairness of the system and particularly DICOMY’s dictate that Arthur must not reveal his nature to the children, which Linus vehemently protests. Linus says he will go back to the city and his job, which hurts Arthur, though he gathers his dignity and bids Linus a polite goodbye. 

During his last week on the island, Linus spends time with each of the children. Theodore shows Linus his hoard, which is beneath the couch. The hoard consists of what the wyvern considers treasures: keepsakes and memories of Arthur and the other children. Part of it is the pile of buttons Linus has given him during his stay. Theodore gives Linus back the first button he ever gave, the brass one, and insists that he keep it as a gift.

Two days before Linus leaves, a group of men from the mainland gather in preparation to storm the island. Linus and Arthur leave to handle them while Zoe remains behind to protect the children; they drive across the channel on a road of salt that Zoe creates from the water. At the dock, they find a group of men with protest signs who have been arguing with Merle about paying to use the ferry. Helen is there to quell the protest, but the men are insistent that the orphanage, its residents, and the island be removed. Linus argues with them until one of them throws a rock. Linus steps in front of Helen to shield her. Arthur assumes his phoenix aspect and catches the rock; Linus is able to return him from his anger to his human form. Arthur speaks to the people, though he’s not able to fully persuade them; Helen steps in and threatens more mundane consequences if they continue their course of action. Linus and Arthur return to the island.