It takes a few long breaths for Tessa to let Ardenal’s idea take shape in her mind. Is this his way of hurting her since she had been so careless in flirting with Nate? She expected that cancer would tear their family apart, not that they would crumble while Ella’s heart continues to beat. How could she return to their house, their family home, without Ella and Arden? Would she be strong enough to start a new life with Nate aboard one ship or another? Who would she be?
Tessa defined herself for years as Arden’s wife, Archie’s daughter-in-law, Ella’s mother—then, the mother of a cancer kid, and, finally, a single parent. The idea of reinventing herself brings up old wounds and a haunting loneliness she can never seem to be rid of. Kissing Nate was freeing and fun, but is it enough? She comes alive with him, and a part of her believes his love could heal her.
Still, another love nags at Tessa like something forgotten that teeters on the edge of consciousness. A two-year-long, grudging love that held Tessa hostage in the shell of her life, wondering at everything: her self-worth, her identity, and her doubts about whether anyone would ever want her and choose to stay.
“Think about it. That is all,” Ardenal finishes. “I really do want what is best for our family, and that includes your happiness.” He leans over and rests his hot red lips on Tessa’s cheek. He does not pull away immediately, and she does not want him to. Something else rises in her chest, but this time it is not words but the ache before sobbing. More reckless tears burst from her. Tessa is uncomfortable with her emotions, accustomed to burying them six feet underground.
Ardenal pulls away, and she catches his hand. Tessa draws him close, wrapping her arms around his neck, resting against his shoulder. As the warmth of his kiss fades from her cheek, she weeps out all the pain and regret, the guilt and the words left unspoken, dampening their embrace.
When the hug is over, when the well of tears has run its course, Ardenal again withdraws. His black eyes search hers. He cups Tessa’s face in his hands, then stands and walks back into the sleeping vineyard.
Chapter 19
Ella
There’s Mom. She stands on a rock at the top of a frantic waterfall. I crawl along the water’s edge, out of the curl of sleep. There’s no sprite-woven blanket covering me and no pillow of feathers beneath my head. Am I dreaming? I pinch myself like I’ve seen people do in the movies, but nothing changes. The rushing water strays into my face and dampens my shirt. My knees buckle and I slip on the wet rocks, but I catch myself and crawl farther. I make it to the edge of the waterfall.
When I look down, there’s no end. The fall continues for eternity in a seamless fold of water, air, and distance with no crash of spray at the bottom, if there is a bottom. Whoa, vertigo!
I blink. Is this Jarr-Wya? This place doesn’t make sense. Our surroundings look normal but also strange, as if filtered through heat waves, a prism, or Dad’s filthy, fingerprinted glasses back home.
I scream to Mom, but she can’t hear me through the wailing rapids that carry my voice over the edge.
My voice!
Not the green birds.
Not the screech of brokenness at the hand of greedy cancer.
My voice! I almost forgot what I sound like.
I keep talking—loud and strong and as deep as this waterfall—until my throat cracks and it’s all I can do to laugh.
Mom is barefoot and drenched. Her hair is pulled up in a messy bun. She’s dressed in jeans and a white tank top, which are clean, something we haven’t been in a long time. I’m accustomed to Mom in her cotton dress and pale pink jacket that she chose for Lady Sophia’s concert on the Atlantic Odyssey. This new outfit is more practical. Where did she get it?
Mom’s quivering. She’s looking down, too, like me, searching for the waterfall’s end. Why is she on that rock? She must know it’s slippery and dangerous. Now I feel like the nagging parent!
Mom’s toes inch forward.
What’s she doing?
She screams.
Then jumps.
“No, Mom!” I rush to the edge and leap after her.
It’s hard to breathe. Rocks churn the plummeting water, trapping air bubbles. I reach for them, but they pop at my touch. This time, I stretch gently and catch one between my hands. I pull it to my lips and suck. The bubble shrinks.
I’m descending, but the sensation is closer to floating than falling.
All I see is silvery-white water. Tipping my body, I raise my feet up and angle my head down, as best as I can estimate direction. My arms come together and I squish my fingers into a point. My body slices the water and I descend more quickly. I see a blur of gold and blue beneath me. It’s Mom, her hair and her jeans. I continue to drop, then fan my fingers, spread my arms and legs wide, and arch my back. My speed decreases and I whoosh past Mom, just in time to catch her by the wrist. She recognizes me. We hold hands, bellies down, and continue to ride the fall.
Mom’s coughing. Tenderly, I pluck an air bubble from the flow and hand it to her. She kisses it, and the bubble dwindles. I catch another and drink the air. We continue this rhythm—I pass her a bubble, she breathes, I catch one for myself, I breathe—while staring at each other. Her green eyes are held fast by mine.
“Where are we, Mom?”
“I don’t know, Ella. I was dreaming. Then here you are.”
“Are you still dreaming?”
“I think so.”
“How did you get onto the rock at the top of the waterfall, in the middle of the river?”
“Choice, Ell. I chose to be there. To be alone. I don’t want to be hurt again. I don’t want to be left.”
“How could anyone leave you if you’re alone?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll go with this. Why did you jump?”
“Another choice. I hope there’s more for me, Ell. I don’t know who I am or where I came from, but maybe there’s more than my loneliness, my emptiness.”
“At the bottom of the waterfall is more?”
“I hope so.”
Mom punctures her bubble and looks at me desperately. I pass her one meant for me and rest it on her free palm. She sucks in air, and a relieved expression paints her face. Water surrounds us, raining down, with no crescendo visible at the top or bottom. Everything’s a silver splash and radiating bands of light, but beyond that, silence.
“If this is a dream, Mom, wake up. I doubt there’s another way out.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Okay. Take as much time as you need.” I roll over onto my side, then change my mind. “What, Mom? Not ready for what?”
“I’m scared.”
“Why?”
“Because, Ella … because I’m an orphan.”
I don’t know how to respond and so I don’t, not right away at least. I can’t tell if it’s droplets from the waterfall or tears on her cheeks. I try to get the truth from Mom, who feels more delicate here, in her dreams, than she ever does when awake. “You’re an orphan in the dream or in real life?”
“In every life.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“Literally, of course, Ella. How can someone be a figurative orphan?”
“I don’t know. Every time we talk you ask for clarity by saying, ‘Literally or figuratively?’ I’m trying here!”
“Literally. I have no idea who my parents are. At least one was blond, I suppose. One had green eyes like mine. They placed me in an unmonitored pass-through window at the hospital. Left me under the cover of darkness and anonymity, like they were returning an undercooked meal at a fast-food drive-through. That’s the story my fourth pair of foster parents told me, but only when I was naughty. They’d say, ‘Now we understand why your parents returned you to Seattle Hospital, and don’t tempt us to do the same.’”
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“My foster parents took me there, to that same hospital, to get my scoliosis checked after the surgery I had as a baby. I was so young, but I remembered that
place. The scars were reminders, too. They were grotesque, raised and red, like the scars on your neck, Ell.
“I remember the fear of entering the hospital again,” Mom continues as she swishes her hands through the water. “I screamed and screamed till my foster parents refused to return for the physical therapy treatments. My time in that hospital is my earliest memory, and my foster parents used my fear to keep me quiet. When I was old enough, I left them. I was better off alone.”
“Mom, I’m sorry …”
“You shouldn’t know these things. I’m glad this is just a dream. At least in here I have someone to talk to. Maybe you’re the possibility of more I felt at the top.”
I smile weakly and scoot closer to Mom. I wrap my arms around her. Even if this is a dream, I want it to be a happy one. I kiss her cheek. “I love you, Mom,” I say. She squeezes me tightly.
A rumbling causes us to pull back from each other and turn upright in the water, though it takes a moment for us to find which way is up.
“What was that?”
“How should I know, Ell?”
“Well, this is your dream.”
“I have no idea.”
Another rumble, and Mom and I collide with the bottom we didn’t see coming. It’s not a pool of water or hard rocks. Instead, we land on a patch of feathery grass. When we look around, it’s clear we’re on a tiny island surrounded by calm waves that connect seamlessly to the falling water on every side.
“Hold on!” Mom warns.
“What’s happening?”
The land grows larger, rounder, and rises slowly; then, a smaller island pokes out from the water an arm’s length away. As we rise, the puny landmass connects to ours. We cling helplessly to the feathery grass. The small island rises fully and turns. It reveals itself to be a creature that points at Mom and me with a short fat beak and studies us with yellow-green eyes.
“Hello,” the creature says. I immediately recognize it as a green bird, a giant one, the same kind that fly out of my mouth since our run-in with Tanius.
“Hello, are you a friend?” Mom asks the green bird.
“Of course, my dear! Are you?”
“Of course,” Mom repeats. “I’m Tessa. This is my daughter Ella.”
“Mom! Don’t tell it my name.”
“It’s fine, Ell. She’s a friend.”
“Of course she would say that!”
“My name is Finnah.”
“Nice to meet you Finnah.” Mom smiles. “Can you take us where we need to go?”
“Where is that, friends?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, I know that place!” Finnah squeals and flaps her wings against the water so they splash waves outward. Finnah adds, “Better hold on. Away we go!”
As the dislocated water flows back with a slap to the center of the rippling expanse, Finnah’s body lifts and she bursts upward. Mom and I cling to her feathers. We crawl our way up against the rushing air and splattering water that catches and sprays off Finnah’s wing tips. We reach her neck and hook our arms over each of her wings.
“Faster,” Mom calls. Her smile is wild, and the bird also appears to be grinning. Finnah rises higher and the light grows brighter and the splashing more haphazard. I bury my face in the green bird’s feathers, blinking away the water that pools there from the falls. My muscles scream out, aching from being clenched, but I know if I relax I’ll slip back down into the endless waterfall.
“Faster, faster, Finnah!” Mom sings.
We fly so quickly and so high that we’re enveloped in white light like a shooting star. Mom smiles widely, and I can see all her teeth. She howls with joy. Her messy bun unravels and her long golden mane billows behind her. She curls up to sit on Finnah’s wing and lifts her arms, rolling them through the air like I used to do when Mom drove me to the hospital, my hand out the window, the breeze pushing it up, then down as I tipped my fingers.
Chapter 20
Tessa
Tessa wiggles her toes. They itch and tickle at the same time. She kicks at the sprite-woven blanket she had huddled under in the night, but the vine-like weave, which should be light and springy, is lazy and suffocating. Tessa kicks harder. There is a sploosh and her eyes pop open. Wet. That one thought breaks through her dream, leaving it forgotten forever, and she swivels where she lies on a bed of leaves. Crawling to a sitting position, Tessa looks around at the sleeping company with terror and incomprehension. Water surrounds them all. It rises four inches from the earth.
Tessa shoves Nate hard, jerking him awake from his rhythmic snoring. His eyes strain at the pink-grey morning; the sun hides its face. He scans the area as if he forgot where he had fallen asleep. He jumps to his feet.
Tessa also leaps out of the water and runs past still-slumbering Olearon warriors to the far edge of the company, where Ella chose to rest, away from her mother. When Tessa’s knees splash down beside Ella, the teenager is spattered. She wakes with an inaudible cry and releases three newborn green birds. A look of confusion, then horror and worry, flashes across her face. She turns to find Luggie, then stops. Tessa can read relief in Ella’s expression as her sleepy mind remembers that Luggie is elsewhere, though that does not mean he is safe.
The water is warm, so the company did not detect its arrival. It continues to creep in from the ocean at the northwestern corner of Jarr-Wya. Nate, Tessa, and Ella rush from one sleeping body to the next, shaking awake Olearons and Lady Sophia. One warrior, who had rested on his stomach, does not rouse when Ella rocks him back and forth. She releases a flock of green birds, which capture the attention of Tessa and Ardenal, who come running to hoist the warrior from the rising flood.
It is Nameris.
Nameris, the studious Olearon who can plot any location on Jarr-Wya as if he is a map himself. The lanky one, who battles using his mind over his brawn. The one who can sense the truth of the spoken word, his gift from Rolace.
Nameris’s red face is swollen and creased like a person’s fingertips after they have sat too long in the bath. Ardenal shakes him. “Wake up, my friend!” But the warrior’s head flops back. His chest does not swell with air. “Help me,” Ardenal pleads to Tessa, and she grabs Nameris’s feet. The two carry the limp warrior a few feet through the water to where an ohmi crate sits, only its top visible in the swirling current.
Ardenal blows his air and fire into Nameris’s mouth, through his pale blue lips. He pounds the warrior’s chest, and once more fills Nameris’s lungs. The warrior is waterlogged and unresponsive.
Tessa guides Ella away, but her daughter leans out of her embrace. Ella chooses to watch. Tessa bites her lip. As much as she wishes to protect her child from death, Ella is already too familiar with it: Grandma Suzie. The passengers of Constellations Cruise Line. Valarie, the cruise director on the Atlantic Odyssey. Their first guard, Olen. The Maiden of Olearon …
Lady Sophia mumbles, “Don’t look, Ella. It’s so sad. So terribly sad.” The singer shoos Ella along, toward the sprawling Great Tree. Ella shakes her head, meeting Lady Sophia’s blotchy eyes. Ella will not be shooed, and Tessa takes pride in her daughter’s resolve.
Are you sure you want to watch? Tessa asks Ella through her mind, a conversation for them alone.
How can I turn away? Ella responds. Her mouth does not open, but she looks up at Tessa. Is that what people will do when I die? Will they look away, hide their eyes from how “terribly sad” I am?
Oh Ell, Tessa thinks. She pulls Ella closer and keeps her arm around her. We all want to protect you from this heartbreak.
Even if I don't look, my heart will still break for Nameris. Ella takes a step closer to the unmoving Olearon, his back propped on the ohmi crate, her father continuing to pound the chest of his fellow warrior. He deserves that I watch, that I suffer my own pain at his loss. Even when I can’t do anything else, I can do this.
Tessa does not follow, giving Ella space. Instead, she inhales the moment, its tragedy and its beauty, both entangled in the brav
ery she sees so plainly on her daughter’s face.
A deep, rumbling, choking gurgle slips between Nameris’s blue lips, then a blast of green-stained water. Lady Sophia shrieks. Ella stumbles back into Tessa’s arms. Ardenal wipes his face clean of the expelled liquid and lifts Nameris by the shoulders. The warrior’s legs look to Tessa like red elastic bands, too rubbery for him to stand on.
When Nameris focuses his eyes and gains his balance, Azkar relights his younger sibling’s flame. The grotesque black scar on the elder brother’s face twitches upward as he smiles with relief. Tessa has never seen Azkar smile. It makes her brighten and sigh, exhaling the moment.
As worry morphs to reprieve, the small company become aware of the seawater accelerating its rush into the vineyard. The flowing liquid is dark in the absence of the sun. It covers the feet and ankles of the Olearons and up to the calves of the humans.
Tessa counts the half company, eight in all: Azkar, Nameris, Junin, Ardenal, Lady Sophia, Nate, Ella, and herself. She yells to Junin, “We’re all here!”
“We must make for the Great Tree,” Azkar hollers, the sound of the water a roar and crack as the wooden rows of the vineyard bow under the pressure.
“Azkar, take Nameris to the tree,” says Junin. “He is weak and cannot help. And the humans, too—Tessa, Ella, and Lady Sophia—but Ardenal and Nate, please stay.”
Nate squeezes Tessa’s hand quickly before turning to the female Olearon. “What can I do?”
“The sprites. We must wake them!” she replies.
Nate turns to Tessa, who waves him on toward the vineyard. She watches as he sprints behind Junin, his long strides dwarfed in comparison. Ardenal—making sure Ella is in Tessa’s care—also races back to the vineyard through swirling water that now dampens Tessa’s knees.
Tessa turns to the company. “Hurry,” she yells as her feet slosh through the muddy water. She plants her hands on Lady Sophia’s bottom and pushes the woman upward, onto a low arm of the Great Tree. Azkar reaches down from his perch, where he hangs by his legs from a stable branch, to hoist the singer higher. Nameris, still looking the shade of an unripe apple, is also dragged up by Azkar, who groans at their weight.
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