Drowned (15 page)

When I reach down again, though, the torch is gone. My arms fan out, cautiously, along the ground around me, but somehow it has just disappeared.

I am going to die here. I am going to be eaten by a horrible monster, or scared to death by a ghost or demon, and nobody will find me for a thousand tides. When someone does, it will be Burbur, and she will say,
Stupid girl.
And Tiam will die, too, because of me. We will both die, in the same basement, a hundred rooms separating us.
Together, apart.
That is the story of Tiam and me.

I think of me dying alone, in this moldy, metal room. And him alone, in that dusty room. Dying the same way, in places so different...

Suddenly it hits me. The floor. The floor of these rooms is stone. The floor where I left Tiam was dirt. Dust. Sand. The walls were altogether different, too. The walls here are stone. The walls in Tiam’s room were metal. It’s the subbasement. He’s down on the lower level.

I’ve got to get down to the lower level. I have to figure out a way to pull open that metal disc in the ground. I need a spear, or...someone with smaller fingers and two strong hands.

Fern. I need Fern.

Shivering, I take baby step after baby step, trying to remember where everything once was, but I don’t. I can’t. Of course it’s just in my head, but it seems as if everything is twisting around, and I find myself bumping into things everywhere, as if I’m in a giant maze where the walls keep moving. My hand catches splinters from the crates again and again and starts to sting as I find my way back... Or am I finding my way back? Maybe I’m just going deeper into the stores.

I finally touch upon something solid and cold metal. The door. I feel for the handle, pull it open. I inhale, relieved at the fresh air that greets me. I must be back at the main corridor of the stores, but it’s transformed now, because the sun has set, and the only thing streaming down the staircase is moonlight. Swallowing hard, I make my way toward it, when I feel a cold, wet sensation that I hadn’t felt before at my toes.

Cold, wet. It’s the one feeling that everyone on this island dreads. Suddenly I feel as if I’m falling through space.

I have no idea what time it is. A wave crashes somewhere nearby. As the sound of rushing water echoes through the chamber, a thousand thoughts run through my mind. Had the siren indicating the end of low tide sounded? Could I have missed it? Could high tide be approaching already? Considering that I’ve been fumbling around here for what seems like forever, closed off from much of the rest of the island... Yes, yes, yes.

No.

By the time I get to the opening, water is trickling down the staircase. It’s already around my ankles. There’s time, though, I tell myself, trying to calm my shaking limbs. There’s time. I start to climb the stairs when I see the door at the top of the staircase. It’s closed. Somebody closed it. Water is pouring through the rusted bars in the window at the very top. The water level on the first floor is already over my head. I reach up and push on the door, but it doesn’t move. It’s locked. Or stuck.

And where is my key? I fumble around for it but can’t even remember where in my bag I put it. My mind is a frenzy of competing thoughts, none that makes sense. The water begins to surge faster through the open window now, its sheer force throwing me down the stairs. The back of my head slams against Burbur’s map on the wall, but I’m too busy trying to keep my head above the swirling water to think about the pain. I push my hand flat against the stone ceiling, then my cheek, to take as much of the precious air as I can before the water swallows me completely.

Now
this
is where I die. That—and that, without my help, Tiam will soon follow me—are the last things I think about before everything goes black.

Twelve

Waking Alone

D
rip, drip, drip.

While I sleep, I have the most vivid dream, one I’ve never had before. I’m in the fairy tale
The Little Mermaid.
The story is about a strange creature who is half human, half fish. In the dream, I am whole, and I am beautiful and strong. I swim about the island, immune to the attack of the scribblers. Either I am too fast for them or they don’t want me. I swim everywhere, drawing water through my mouth, letting it course through my body, filling me, leaving me, pushing me forward. In my dream, the stump is gone; my arms are both perfect fins.

I surface. There I see Tiam. I try to wave at him, and I think he is waving at me, too. There’s a beautiful smile on his face, and a thrill surges through me, knowing the smile is meant for me. But just then, Star embraces him, and they walk away together, hand in hand. And suddenly my perfect fins begin to tingle. I look down and see my body beginning to dissolve into the foam on the ocean’s surface. I try to stop it, to swim away, but the faster I swim, the faster I melt away.

And then I wake to the drip, drip, drip.

The sound is the first thing I’m aware of when I gain consciousness. Next is the pain slicing through the back of my skull. It makes opening my eyes feel like lifting a weight bigger than myself.

When they finally do flicker open, I half expect to be in the ocean, the dream was so realistic. Frighteningly so. But the first thing I see are walls rising on either side of me, glistening wet. What is left of the water on the ground is making an exit through drains on the sides of the passage, with a deep
glug glug glug
sound. My neck is stiff, but I manage to turn it so that I’m gazing up at something familiar. Burbur’s map. I’m still in the basement.

That isn’t possible.

How can I still be here? Here and alive?

I must be dead. I shouldn’t be here. This entire passage was underwater not long ago. There was no escape.

From head to toe, I’m soaked. My hair is matted in a web over my cheeks. I crawl to my knees and wring a bucket of seawater out of my tunic. I climb the slick staircase to the top, then yank on the door. Still locked.

What happened?

I locate my bag in the corner of the corridor. It, like everything else, is soaked. Soaked! Cursing, I reach through and pull out all of my belongings. All the things I needed to keep clean and dry. My mat is wet and crusted with sand, and my books—my beautiful books are sopping. I page through them and the ink is bleeding everywhere. How careless! After all these tides of survival, they meet their end with me. I curse some more, try in vain to shake the water from them, then carefully place them back inside the bag.

Then I reach inside and pull out Clam. His little box house is crumpled, but he’s as happy as ever. He even pokes a claw at me, as if waving.

I turn to Burbur’s drawing. All those big black X’s marked over maybe only one-quarter of the rooms on the map. Maybe that was to say that all the material in them had been used up. If that’s true, the other ones... Are they full? Full of only useless things? Is it possible the people before us would have packed the stores with a hundred rooms of worthless items?

Just then, something dawns on me.... Maybe...maybe the X-rooms are flooded out. Yes. That’s probably it. The stores have been empty since before I was born.

I lift my bag, and the honey cans clink together.

Then, what were those honey cans doing there? What about them was so useless?

Rotten. The contents must be rotten.

This time, I easily find the key in the side pocket of my bag, just where I’d left it. Why had it been so difficult to find before? My muscles feel rubbery as I open the door and stumble onto the first-floor landing. Everything is wet and sparkling like crystal in the sun, making my eyes ache. There are no people present; they must all still be in formation. Water is trickling down the main staircase in the foyer, making it slippery. I climb the stairs carefully, enter my quarters and see that the laundry chute looks very much the same way I left it. I pull back the grate. “Tiam? Are you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Did you talk to Star? Is she okay?”

“No, I—” I say, flustered. “I mean, she’s fine.”

“What’s wrong? You sound rattled.”

“It was the weirdest thing. I’ll tell you about it later,” I say. “But now, I’m trying to find you. Through the main entrance to the stores. It didn’t go so well this time, but I think I have an idea—”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find my own way out.”

“There might not be another way out,” I argue, sick of his pride. “I put you down there. I can’t just leave you there. And you need to get out. We need you up here. Things may be falling apart. The guards... Burbur... They’re acting very strange. Everyone’s on edge. I think they killed a guard and—”

“A guard?” His voice is tight. “Was it really dangerous in formation? What’s going on out there?”

“I...” I don’t know how I can begin to explain what has happened, as I barely know myself. I should have been out in formation, to avoid making people wary. Now I’ve missed two formations. When I turn up alive, how can they not be suspicious? Even if I say I was up in the tower with the princess, that will be putting me on her side. And as Finn said, that’s probably not the best side to be on. After all, look what happened to Tiam. I just repeat, “Everyone’s restless.”

“And you said the princess is okay? The king?”

I’m disappointed he would ask about her, but then again, what was I expecting? They are to be married. “I think the king is okay. And your princess is fine.” I feel guilty the moment I say it, but I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. That dream of him walking away from me, arm in arm with Star, feels so fresh, which is probably why my
your princess
drips with sarcasm.

“Coe,” he begins with a deplorable tone that makes me squirm. “About Star. I wanted to—”

“Are you hungry? I’m throwing down a can of honey for you,” I break in. The last thing I want is to hear him talk about his relationship with Star. I’ve had to sit through enough of her daydreams about him and her and their royal children to make me want to die a thousand times over. “I found a whole room full of cans in the royal stores,” I explain. “The
empty
stores. Weird, huh?”

“Honey?”

“I think it might be mashed-up insects. It might be rotten, which is probably why nobody ever ate it. But I don’t have anything else. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Thanks. I’m starving.”

“Look out below.” I grab it out of my pack and drop it into the void. It rattles all the way down and lands with a loud clatter. “Have you seen any more of those things?”

“No. I’m good.” There’s a pause. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s called honey.” I say the foreign word slowly, so he can understand. “Can you open it?”

“Yeah. But what
is
it?” I’m about to explain that I really have no idea, when he says, “Wow. It’s... Wow. It’s...different. Good. Where did you get it? You said...there’s a lot of it?”

It’s good?
Then why was it still there? Something pricks at my neck, but there’s got to be a rational explanation. I think of my father, kissing the king’s hand before setting off on his Explore. The king wanted the best for us. Buck Kettlefish believed that. There’s got to be some reason for all of us to be nearly starving outside when perfectly good, edible food hides in the stores.

I open my mouth to ask Tiam what he thinks but I hear a shuffling upon the staircase. I flatten the thin metal of the grate flush against the opening in the wall as two guards rush by. I stand and peer into the hallway, wondering what they’re after, when I hear them whispering. Two more guards join the commotion, gesturing to the tower and shrugging. Their faces are lined with worry.

I hear muffled fragments, but I don’t need to hear the entire conversation to understand what is going on. The words
funeral
and
leaderless
are all I need.

I peel back the laundry grate once again and whisper, “Tiam. The king has just died.”

Thirteen

No Nearer

A
hush falls over the floor as two guards carry the king’s body toward the exit. Appropriately, he’s covered, face to toes, in his cheerful pink robe. I know the guards will take him out to the end of the island farthest from the castle and throw him in the ocean for the scribblers. They will strip him naked first, though, and the rest of them will fight over the best pieces to patch up their clothing. I’m sure for the foreseeable future a good number of Tides commoners will be piecing the garish pink Tiam had called “ridiculous” into their tunics.

I ring three times for the princess, but she doesn’t answer, so I creep up the staircase and through the door. She is sitting at her vanity, looking blankly at herself in her mirror. “Didn’t I tell you to ring first?” she asks softly. I notice her eyes are rimmed in red, just like mine. I begin to explain that I had, but she says, “You heard of the king?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I’m sorry,” I whisper.

A flash of grief registers on her face, but it disappears as she inspects me. “Why are you so filthy? You smell like fish.” She shakes her head and makes a tsking noise. “You need to take better care of yourself if you are to take care of me! I suppose I am the only civilized person left on this godforsaken island. I have no idea why I allowed Tiam to talk me into this arrangement.”

I look down at my clothes. My once-white tunic is now streaked brown. My knees and ankles are coated with grime. I look like my old self.

“Where is Tiam? Did you bring him with you as you said? Now that I am the highest-ranking royal in the land, I think we should be married at once.”

“I think you should come with me, Princess,” I say, though I’m not sure where I’d bring her. Where on this island could I hide her? She’d never willingly go down to the moldy, filthy stores.

“You need to finish my wedding dress,” she says, sweeping across the room to her wardrobe. She pulls it out and lays it on her bed. “Oh, it is a mess. Just a mess. I hope you can make quick work of it. I expect it to be done right away.”

Shock. She’s in shock over the death of her beloved father. I think of Tiam’s words.
The princess will know what to do.
I wonder what he would think if he knew she wanted me to sew a dress, instead of helping me find a way to save him. She doesn’t notice me bristling at the suggestion because she is already ripping off her robe and wiggling herself into the unfinished white fabric. Once she gets it over her head, she stares at herself in the mirror, then gives me an icy look. “There are some pins on the dressing table. Come on.”

“Star,” I say gently. “You are not feeling well because of your father. I understand. But he is gone now, and you are not safe here. We need to—”

Tears form in her eyes. “I am not leaving the tower until this dress is done. And that’s final, Coe.”

To me, the dress is finished. It covers everything. The seams appear even. It’s more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen. The real problem is not what the dress looks like, but how I’m going to successfully produce the groom by tomorrow. But I’ve seen the way Star cares for Tiam. She didn’t even want him in the tower. If I tell her I still haven’t been able to find him, she’ll tell me to work harder, that it’s my concern, not hers. So, trying to think of the right arrangement of words that might coax her to follow me, I grab a small container of pins and hurry to her side.

She clutches a handful of material. “Pin this. Like this.” I fumble with my one hand to gather it like she asks. She clicks her tongue and pushes my fingers away, annoyed. “No, like
this.
And be careful! You’re filthy!” After a few more moments of tension, of me trying to make myself useful but getting batted away from her like a pesky insect, she crumples into a ball and begins to sob.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, you see,” she says between sobs. “All these tides I imagined a grand wedding. Something the people of Tides would talk about for generations to come. But that’s stupid, isn’t it?”

I don’t say a word. Of course it’s stupid, but I don’t think she wants me to agree with her. She wants me to argue, tell her that it’s a great idea to have a wedding when the world is crumbling around us.

“But Tiam and I can have a small ceremony, right? Just a small one. Maybe just him and me. Right here, in the tower, where I was born and raised. That would still be nice. Right?” She looks around the room. “It would be a fitting way to begin my new life as a married woman.”

I nod. I think if I were ever to be married, as impossible as that notion is, I would like that better.

“Everything is going away. Everything.” She looks down at the dress, swishing the material miserably around her thighs. “I know a simple girl like you cannot understand, but Tiam is all I have left. I want to look perfect for him. Regal, something all the Wallow ancestors would be proud of. Do you think I will?”

I don’t know why, considering she is so out of touch with reality, but part of my heart breaks for her. She is losing everything she’s ever known. At least I never had anything to begin with. I nod and say, “Yes. I will make the most regal dress you have ever seen.”

A hint of a grateful smile passes over her as she slides the delicate neckline of the dress below her armpits, then lets the entire thing fall in a puddle at her feet. Then she clears her throat. “There is a spool of white thread in the top drawer and a needle. Take it back to your room and bring it back to me when it’s done.”

I walk to the dresser and look down at it. It’s obviously thousands of tides old. It’s made of some dark wood, stained and beaten in places, and the metal pulls on each drawer are shaped like little black flowers. There are three small drawers at the top, but I don’t want to bother the princess further by asking which she meant, so I slide open the one on the right. I move things aside, but there is no thread there, no needle. I’m about to close it when I see a small lined piece of paper there. It looks like a map, a very old one. The paper is brown, with tattered edges, just like the pages of my book. I can just make out the letters B MT there before her voice rattles me. Something about those letters—

“Not that drawer! What are you doing? Snooping through my private things?”

I shut the drawer so hard that the mirror and perfumes in glass jars atop it shake violently. “No, I—” I open the next drawer and pull out the thread and needle. “I found them.”

The dress is still lying on the floor. I reach down and pick it up.

“Please make quick work of it. And then we can be under way,” she says, as I nod and pick up the dress, afraid to tell her that I’m not a miracle maker. She’s so deluded, and with her father dead, I’m afraid any more bad news will only push her further out of reality. I’m five steps down the long staircase when she calls after me, “And take a bath! A long one! Please!”

When I’m back in my quarters, I notice that Burbur is nowhere in sight. Everything is quiet, shuddering, as if afraid of something. Even the waves have seemed to cease their unending noise. Little shell trinkets are strewn carelessly about the hallway. It no longer gleams with radiance in the late day sun. In my room, none of my things are arranged, no fresh garment is hanging in the doorway. There is water in the tub, but as I swirl my hand in it, I realize quickly that it is salt water. There are a few white jellyfish bobbing on the surface.

“Tiam?” I call into the opening over the tub. I’m eager to tell him the princess wants to marry him tomorrow. That in the midst of the chaos, she wants me to sew her dress. I’d like to hear what he has to say about that.

But there’s no answer. I wait and then call again. Nothing.

Maybe he’s just away exploring,
I think. After all, Tiam is not one to sit around and do nothing. I need to go back into the stores and find him.

I call to him again, still no answer. I think about my last conversation with him:
I’ll find my own way out.
Maybe he did. Maybe he’s far away from the opening, on his way back up to us. Or maybe one of those horrible creatures got him.

Formation will be soon. From the window, I can see the tides rising. I didn’t hear the siren ending low tide. Perhaps whoever is responsible for that has given up on it, just like Burbur. I will need to go out there, to quell any suspicions. I also need to face Finn and ask him to forgive me. He probably hates me. When he finds out everything I’ve been doing to save Tiam, he’ll be even angrier. But I couldn’t let Tiam die. I can’t. I try to think of what my father would do, what he would say to smooth things over, but I can’t find his words. If he were here, it wouldn’t have gotten to this point.

Before I know it, I’m lying on the bed, weeping next to the white heap of fabric that is Star’s wedding dress and wishing my father were here with me. He would know what to do, and never would have made such a mess of things as I have.

Suddenly something moves in the hallway. A ghost?

I haven’t slept. My head still aches, and my vision is blurred. I’m not thinking straight.

Then Star pokes her head in. I swallow. She’s come to punish me for not finishing the dress.

Instead she says nothing, just sits there, breathing heavily. When my eyes adjust I see tears streaming down her own face. “Princess?”

She doesn’t look at me, just lets out a muffled, “Huh?” She almost seems surprised to see me here.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Oh. Yes. Where is Tiam?”

“He’s down in the stores. We’ll need to go down there and meet him after the next tide. I’ll have the dress finished by then. And then you can be
under way,
” I say, using her term, although it sounds ridiculous to think of a marriage, something so beautiful, like a task to cross off one’s list.

“Oh.” She seems satisfied. And yet I can tell there is something she’s holding back.

“Princess? Is there something else?”

And with that, the floodwaters pour forth. “I’ve never been in the tower without my father. He’s always been there. His snoring would always comfort me. And now he is gone, and it feels so empty and quiet up there and I wonder if you might come up and stay with me.”

“I—” I begin, hardly knowing how to answer. The only thing I know right away is that I would rather face the tide than spend the entire night comforting her. “I’d hardly call it suitable for a mere commoner like myself to share the royal quarters,” I say.

She sighs. To my relief, she says, “You are right. What would people think?” She stands, and for a moment I think she will go back to her tower. Instead, she asks, “Might I stay with you here for a while?”

“Um...” Before I can say more she moves in and lies down beside me on the bed. I shuffle over, giving her most of the available space until I’m pressed against the wall.

“Goodness,” she says, shifting uncomfortably. “These beds aren’t suitable for royals at all, are they?”

Not as if I would know. “I’ll have to go into formation soon,” I remind her.

“Oh, that is all right,” she answers, folding her hands daintily over her stomach. She sniffs. “Tell me one of your stories. It will improve my mood.”

“Stories?” I’m not sure how she thinks I can tell stories, when I lack the creativity to daydream.

“Tiam told me that you tell lovely stories. He says you would tell them in the formation to pass the time. Is that true?”

I nod, a sick feeling building in my stomach that he’d spent the time sharing such things with her. Talking about me.
Oh, Coe tells lovely stories, but it’s a shame she’s so horribly strange-looking.
I wonder what else they’ve shared, two beautiful people, alone together. I wonder if he thinks about pressing his body next to hers, if that’s what
he
daydreams about.

“Then, go ahead. Tell me one about a princess like myself, if you know any.”

“All right.” I begin to relate to her the story of
Sleeping Beauty.
It’s one I’ve never told before, and I know it will require a lot of explanation, but I can’t think of any others. I tell her of the beautiful princess who pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and goes to sleep, only to be awakened a hundred years later by the kiss of her true love.

“True love?” she asks.

“Yes, long ago they believed that there was one man especially made for every woman. They called them soulmates. And sometimes a person would search their entire life to find their soulmate. And that would complete them.”

“That is a silly concept. After all, nobody on this island has a soulmate.”

“Well, it was a comforting thing for them, to believe they wouldn’t live out all their days alone. It may not have been entirely true. But there were thousands and thousands of people then, more people than one could meet in a single lifetime, so it wasn’t as though the notion could be tested.”

“Perhaps it’s only royal people, people of worth, who have soulmates,” she continues on, ignoring me. Then, oblivious to the insult, she says, “It is rather sweet and comforting. I think Tiam...Tiam is my soulmate.”

I swallow. “Is he?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel when he looks at me. It’s hard to explain.”

She doesn’t need to explain. I understand that feeling perfectly.

“He is quite...handsome. Even filthy and ragged, he’s handsome. And when he talks, his words vibrate in the deepest part of me. I could listen to him talk all day.” She fingers a giant pearl on a string around her neck. It’s perfectly round and white like the moon, and larger than any I’d ever come upon. Only one person on the island has the luck to find a pearl that large. The way she’s stroking it, I can almost imagine the entire scene, him tying the breathtaking jewel around her neck as a promise of marriage. I try to blink the scene away, but the more I try, the more clear it becomes. Her voice is so fragile, almost childlike, when she whispers, “And he is all I have now. He is everything to me.”

I flash back to the moment that Tiam fastened that gaudy red piece of stiff material around my own wrist. I’d been touched by that gesture, too. Now it just seems cheap. He gives me discarded junk that royals wouldn’t find important. He gives her rare jewels of unequaled beauty. It’s perfectly fitting, so I’m not sure why it hurts so much. “You are probably right, that he’s your soulmate.”