Water & Storm Country (12 page)

“You’ve improved your ship’s speed, I see,”
my father says. “You were still the last ship to arrive, but we
didn’t expect you until nightfall.”

Jeb smiles broadly. “I’m glad you noticed,
Admiral,” he says. “Sometimes the only way forward is through
threat and punishment. We sent three men to the brig just
today.”

A heavy wad forms in the back of my throat.
How dare he—

I take a step forward, fully prepared to set
the record straight, but Hobbs stops me with a strong arm across my
chest. “It would be unwise to interrupt,” he says. “Do not fear,
Lieutenant, I’ll provide a full report to your father. You’ll get
credit for what you’ve accomplished.”

I look up at Hobbs’ scarred face, my eyes
wide with surprise, both because he’s going to vouch for me and
because he called me
Lieutenant
for the first time. I offer
a smile but he just glares down. “You can wipe that smile off your
face, boy, you’ll also get credit for what you haven’t done.”

My smile fades and the face of the bilge rat
girl appears in my mind. Letting a bilge rat—and a girl at
that—mock me without repercussion won’t impress my father in the
least. I can only hope that my leadership with the oarsmen will be
enough to overshadow my weakness.

I stand at attention as my father finishes
his formalities with Jeb. The captain steps aside and pretends to
busy himself with giving orders to a few of the men who’ve stopped
to watch.

My turn
, I think. I watch my father
approach, his every move commanding attention.

Not once do his eyes touch upon mine.

“Lieutenant Hobbs,” he says, standing right
in front of me. “Will you walk with me?”

“Aye, aye, Admiral,” Hobbs says. They break
away, cross the main deck, and climb the stairs to the lofted
quarterdeck.

I’m invisible.

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant Jones,” Barney says,
“Lieutenant Hobbs will tell ’im what you did.”

I nod vaguely in Barney’s direction, but I
don’t say that Hobbs telling my father everything is exactly what
I’m worried about. Then, looking down, I stab the tip of my boot at
the spotlessly clean deck, seeing the pretty face of the mean bilge
rat in the shine of the wood. Why didn’t I stand up to her like I
stood up to Webb?

“Is that
the
Lieutenant Jones?” a
faraway voice shouts.

I look up excitedly when I hear the familiar
voice. “Cain!” I say, not caring that my overzealous reaction is
likely not becoming of a lieutenant.

Cain’s dark hair is tied in a ponytail,
leaving his face visible save for the beard that’s grown slightly
longer in the two days that’ve passed since we parted ways. He
leaps from the plank and embraces me, slapping my back hard with
his palm. “How’s life on the dreaded Mayhem?” he whispers sharply,
looking around with comically wide eyes, as if there might be sea
monsters lurking in the shadows.

I laugh, look up at him. “Not as bad as I
expected,” I say.

“The rumors are flying already,” he says with
a wink.

“What rumors?” I ask, following him across
the deck.

I match his stride as he makes his way to the
fore decks. A white-winged gull passes overhead, catching my
attention. As I walk, I follow its flight to the main mast,
twisting my neck around. A brown bulge hangs on the thick wooden
column. The gull continues flying, but I settle my gaze on the
brown lump. Not a lump, or a bulge—a person. A brown-skinned bilge
rat, clinging to the mast with one hand, bare feet wrapped around
the wood cylinder, her other hand clutching a brush, scrubbing at
the salty mast as if cleaning it might save her very life.

Her long, dark hair hangs down in waves,
billowing under the strength of the breeze. She looks down and sees
me, and our eyes meet, and I know I’ve stopped walking while Cain
continues on, maybe answering my question, maybe not; I don’t know,
I don’t care, because the bilge rat smiles at me and she’s really
very pretty, with striking features that I can’t seem to look away
from.

I smile back, despite how she mocked me in
front of my men, how she ruined any chances of me winning my
father’s respect, because something about her just makes me want to
smile.

She raises the hand with the scrub brush and
my smile drops, though I don’t know why. And I’m frozen to the
deck, watching the smiling girl, waiting for her next move,
captivated by her.

She whips her hand back and throws the wooden
brush, and I know I need to get out of the way, because it’s coming
hard, end over end, and her aim is good, but still I can’t seem to
lift my legs, because she’s still smiling—behind her act of
violence she’s smiling.

I try to cover my head with my hands, but
it’s too late, and the wooden brush handle cracks me in the
forehead, knocks me back into something, the railing or a barrel or
something else.

My minds whirls and explosions of light pop
and burst before my eyes and then all goes black.

~~~

The wind whips my hair over my ears and
around my face. The salt stings my cheeks but I’m smiling because
I’m going to meet my mother on the fore deck. She’s promised to
watch the sunset with me. Already the sky is changing from red to
deep purple, splashing orange and pink around the pillow-like
clouds.

But wait.

Mother’s already leaning on the railing, but
her gaze is downward, into the sea, rather than up at the
breathtaking colors of the water country sky. All that lies in the
churning whitecaps is death.

And I know.

I know.

Because I’ve been here before—and it’s what
some of the men on the ship call “salty memories”, when you see
something for the first time, but it’s like you’ve seen it before,
maybe many times, and it hits you so hard it’s like a punch to the
face. And I want it to stop—
please stop
—because I know how
this one ends—how it always ends—how it
has to
end.

Blood in the water.

The smile fades from my face and my lips and
jaw feel sore, like they’ve smiled too much and need to rest.

I’ve tried running, leaping, grabbing my
mother just as she topples over the handrail, willing myself to be
stronger with each subsequent effort. And each time he’s there to
watch, my father, unwilling to help, disgusted by my failure as my
mother meets a wet and silent doom at the hands of the sharp-tooths
and the Deep Blue.

I can still save her—can’t I? Why else would
I have chance upon chance? Somehow I know it’s the only way to end
this nightmare, to gain my father’s respect once and for all.

Save her.

Be faster.

Be stronger.

Be smarter.

I realize I’ve been going about it all wrong.
And it’s another one of my father’s lessons that marks the change
in my thinking: “Speed and strength only get you so far. Brains set
you apart from the common sailor.”

I’m wasting time and any moment the big wave
will hit the bow and my mother will be thrown off balance and
she’ll fall down, down, down.

But I don’t move because my brain tells me
not to. I stand, watching. Waiting.

And the wave never comes. Minutes pass and
still she stares into the murky waters, which are quickly darkening
to black.

I’ve done it.

I have.

I walk toward her on tiptoes, afraid that my
very footfalls might cause the ship to lurch, to buck her from its
back like a Stormer’s horse.

She turns and her eyes are red and wet.

Somehow she falls, her eyes glittering with
moisture as they catch the last rays of the dying sunlight. I’m too
far away and, anyway, my feet are frozen to the planks, and all I
can think is
I saved her, didn’t I?
but the answer comes
from the side, when a shadow steps into view. Although the shrouded
cloak of night has fallen over the ship like a storm cloud, my
father’s eyes are clear and blazing in the darkness. They speak to
me, and they say one thing:

You failed me.

~~~

“What happened?” the disappointed voice
says.

I’m awake, but I keep my eyes closed, careful
not to twitch. Two memories twist and spiral through my mind: My
mother’s wet, red eyes pinch at the back of my head, causing a deep
ache that makes my neck feel like dried, salted meat; the
brown-skinned girl’s brush spirals through the air, thudding into
my skull again and again, until my forehead throbs and throbs like
waves crashing over me. Two memories of very different kinds of
pain.

My father is nearby and I can’t face him like
this.

“Uh,” Barney says.

“You’re his steward, aren’t you?” My father
again, his voice laced with venom.

“Well, yes, but—”

“So you should’ve been nearby, right?” Not a
question—an accusation.

“Of course, but—”

“And yet you didn’t see anything, is my
understanding correct?” My father’s question hangs above me like a
knife. With each moment that the question goes unanswered, I can
sense the blade drawing closer and closer, until its sharp edge
cuts into my throat and I have to hold my breath. Barney will tell
him everything, and the bilge rat with the pretty, brown eyes and
the unpleasant disposition will be chucked overboard quicker than a
big-chin catches a fish.

“No, Admiral, I didn’t see anything,” Barney
admits. I release my held breath out my nose, careful to keep it
even and normal. Why I should be so concerned with the welfare of
my attacker, I do not know, and I wonder whether the knock to the
head has permanently dulled my senses.

She’s safe for now, and so am I.

“Lieutenant Cain—what do you have to say for
yourself? I understand you were with Lieutenant Jones when it
happened.”

No.

“I was,” Cain says, his voice firm and
sure.

No.

“How did Lieutenant Jones end up unconscious
with that mark on his forehead?”

Throb, THrob, THROB! The pounding in my
skull, which moments ago was dull, albeit it ongoing, begins
cracking like a hammer, and a wave of nausea passes through me. I
feel my lips start to quiver as I strain to choke down chunks of
undigested food while maintaining the ruse of being asleep.

“I don’t know,” Cain says, and my eyes almost
flutter open in surprise. Surely he saw.

Surely.

“I was walking ahead of him, and when I
looked back he was flat on his back, his forehead already starting
to swell.” Could it be? No one saw what happened?

“We must conduct a full investigation,”
someone growls. Hobbs. “A vicious attack on an officer cannot go
unpunished. The result would be mutiny.”

THROB, THROB!

There’s a scratching sound and I can picture
my father stroking his beard. “And you will conduct this
investigation?”

“I will,” Hobbs says.

THROB!

“It will take a well-orchestrated team,” Cain
says. “I would be pleased to assist, if you agree, that is.”

“You’re suggesting my top two lieutenants
remain on the Mayhem indefinitely?” To my surprise, my father’s
tone—which has all the evenness of stating a fact—doesn’t match his
words, which imply disbelief at such an impossible suggestion.

“Admiral,” Cain says, “you know as well as
anyone that The Merman’s Daughter could sail with half as many men.
With some effort and a bit of luck, we’ll have the investigation
wrapped up in a few days, at which time I can return to my
post.”

“I really don’t think—” Hobbs starts to
say.

“Done,” the admiral says. “Catch the attacker
and bring him to me.”

The door slams so loudly I swear it’s right
next to my ear. My head pounds with the force of a ship carried
onto the rocks by a water country storm.

The world drifts away once more.

S
weat and burning
muscles and sore bones are nothing compared to waiting.

I’d train for a million more hours if it
would mean my mother’s return. Barely a week has passed since the
Riders left, but already my mind is past the point of distraction.
When I eat, when I speak, when I rest, my every thought is of my
mother.

Is she alive? Is she fighting yet? Is she
thinking of me?

Although I know these questions are unfit for
the mind of a Rider-in-training, they rise up again and again until
I can’t concentrate on anything else.

My father isn’t helping. He barely speaks,
barely eats, barely sleeps. He’s meditating when I lay down to
sleep. When I awake, still he sits, eyes closed, hands extended,
soft hums and deep breathing rising from his throat. Did he sleep?
Has he slept since she left?

When I try speaking to him, his eyes remain
closed, and he waves me away with a hand.

I am alone when I’m with my father.

I don’t spend much time in our tent.

Outside isn’t much better. It’s as if the
camp is in mourning, the hush so loud I want to scream. When anyone
does speak, it’s in whispers and with barely parted lips, the
unidentifiable words deafening in the abject silence.

I don’t spend much time in the camp.

When I throw myself into training, it helps,
but only for a day, until even the aches and pains are insufficient
to drown out the questions in my mind.

Although gray clouds swarm above, it hasn’t
rained for two days, as if the sky is gathering up every last
raindrop, hording them for some unknown purpose.

As I walk along the beach, the sand is soft
and cold and foreboding under my bare feet. I burrow a small hole,
well back from the water. Today I fear the chill of the Deep Blue
on my skin—which usually feels invigorating and life-giving—could
have the opposite effect, carrying the Plague in its wet entrails.
As if touching the water would make me shrivel and die.