The Weight of a Thousand Oceans

by Jillian Webster

  “What is this?” Maia whispers, peering into the submerged city below.

  “This is your destiny…” Maia’s mother lifts her chin.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Her mother brushes the tear from Maia’s cheek. “You’ve spent your entire life being afraid of your power, always ignoring or pushing it down. But you … you were made this way … on purpose. This is who you are. Continuing to deny it will only cause you more pain. You’ve escaped into the stories of your books, wanting more than anything to be like everyone else. But you are not like anyone else. Trying to be anyone other than yourself is squandering your own magnificence.”

  Her mother steps aside, revealing the reflection of Maia behind her. Terrified, Maia cowers back.

  “You don’t have to be afraid, Maia,” her mother says sternly. “She is only a reflection. This entire world and everything in it is only a reflection of what lies within. Once you finally understand this, you will know what it is like to be truly free.”

  Reaching out a single trembling hand, Maia softly grazes her reflection’s face. Her hair is different, curled tightly into delicate ribbons of red, but her eyes are the same. Her reflection stares blankly ahead as if she were made of porcelain, and for the first time, Maia no longer sees a monster standing before her but a creature of exquisite beauty.

  Her mother stands aside as Maia gazes into her own eyes and her entire world reflects back to her. Her childhood. Her fears. Her hopes and every soul-crushing dream. Everything she is and everything she ever has been echoes from deep within her eyes.

  “Your life is divinely inspired, Maia. You have risen from the depths of the earth and have a power unlike anything this world has ever seen. You have finally found your voice. Use it.”

  Maia turns towards her mother. “What do you mean? Who am I?”

  “You are the reincarnation of a living Earth, long forsaken. You are her. You are the soul of the trees, the heartbeat of each crawling ant, the breath of every humming bee. You are the music of the babbling brook and the pulse of each undulating wave. You are the spotted clouds of deep red sunsets and every reflective crystal of white mountaintops. You are the delicate drop of rain and the crushing avalanche of ice. You are all of it.”

  As her mother’s voice fades, a dark world appears before her. The world as it is now—violated, flooded, void of life, abandoned. And then the world of their ancestors—fast-paced and brimming with life. The earth like a plane of fractured glass, buckling under the pressure from billions of hungry people always demanding more.

  A sharp pain resonates from deep within Maia’s chest, and then another at her back, her head, her lungs—as if being stabbed repeatedly across her body. She doubles over as the ache of the world devours her from the inside out. Terrifying visions flash mercilessly before her. Oceans swelling, crawling inland, overtaking barriers and devouring cities. Unprecedented weather events rising up across the world, slamming against the earth repeatedly with relentless, indignant fists. Mass migrations of billions. Wars over land rising up from the dead. Social structures fracturing under the weight of unfounded chaos. Limited food supplies from over-burdened soil, flooded land, pillaged oceans.

  And then there it is, the proverbial straw, falling like a feather on a plane of splintered glass; a single mutation from a creature long forgotten. And for the first time in hundreds of years, nature’s decree of checks and balances is restored.

  In the end, there is silence.

  Heaving for breath, tears coat her cheeks. It all makes sense now. The faded red Xs on doors. The ghostly quarantine buildings. Her grandfather’s horrified face and refusal to speak. She can see it all, catastrophic and swift.

  Then, relief showers over her as the world before their ancestors reveals itself. An oasis. Life growing and thriving. Then an ice age. Mass extinction. Oasis. Ice age. Extinction. Like a beating heart, life sprouting from the earth and then retreating back. The same life force traveling throughout all living beings, burgeoning since the dawn of time, born from a single exploding moment.

  Maia opens her crystalline eyes. Her long white gown flows into the ocean as a shimmering, expansive energy streaming through every living thing surges from the depths of the earth and up through her veins.

  Delighted, her mother watches from a distance. Maia laughs and lifts her hands to the heavens as a vortex of ocean swirls around her and into the sky.

  “You hold within you exquisite power, Maia, both nurturing and destructive. You are still young; you need time yet to harness your energy. Trust the journey, trust the gut pull you feel and follow it above all else, whether it’s deemed logical or not. This will not be easy. Soft at first, your intuition will strengthen as you use it.

  “And Maia, you must guard against your temper. As you become more powerful, so will it. Do not be fooled by what your eyes see; you are more than the skin that binds you and the bones beneath your chest. You are not who you think you are—you are so much more.”

  Maia gasps, and the entire world flashes before her.

  Forty-Six

  Inhaling deeply, a foreign air swirls around Maia’s lungs. Extending her legs into a gloriously long stretch, she curls and uncurls her toes and reaches her arms with fingers wide beneath the sheets, unfurling as if she were filling the hollow bones of a body long vacated.

  The earth below her sways back and forth, telling her that wherever she is, there are still waves beneath her. She flutters open her heavy eyes to a strange room blanketed in a bizarre light. Dozens of stacked boxes line the walls across from her bed. A small, rectangular window above them displays the blue horizon, slowly see-sawing back and forth as the ship coasts along the wide ocean crests. A large oval mirror hangs above a weathered hutch in the other corner of the crowded room. The cot laying at its feet is piled with a stack of crumpled blankets.

  Maia turns towards an object on the small bedside table to her left, her eyes wide in awe. A lit lamp, shining away. She reaches up to touch it but is tethered by a cord extending from the vein of her right hand. A crisscross of tape is holding it in place. The cord attaches to a clear bag of liquid hanging on a metal hook next to her bed. She has clearly been cared for, and for a while, as she notes her skin is no longer blistered, her stomach no longer suctioned to her bones.

  Something moves at Maia’s feet. She sits up and a wave of relief steals her breath away.

  Lucas.

  Draped across the foot of her bed, he sleeps with his head nestled on top of his folded arms. His long, sun-bleached curls have been trimmed away; his thick beard shaved down to stubble. His lips, gently parted as he sleeps, are no longer cracked and peeling, and his sharp cheekbones hide once again beneath his cheeks. The tattered rags she last saw him in have been replaced by new clothing.

  She smiles. He looks like the Lucas she first laid eyes upon not so long ago in the musty basement of a ship. Back when they were strangers to each other. Back when it could never have occurred to her that in facing this journey, she would be stripped bare, forced to her knees to the brink of death. That every long-held dream and every deep-set fear would simultaneously collide, shattering her from the inside out. Like some sort of exploding supernovae, she would be made anew, discovering hidden deep within the folds of her worst nightmare was everything she was always meant to be.

  And now, everything has changed. She has had a glimpse of who she really is, although she doesn’t fully understand yet what that means. She holds her hands out before her, fighting the urge to rip the needle from her vein. She’s still human; this is for certain. Yet, she is more than that … a reincarnation born from the soul of the earth.

  It all makes sense now. The unimaginable force of nature she could harness when her emotions ran wild. The constant visions of her true self, desperate to break free from the fear that has for so long kept her shackled within.

  All she knows in this moment is that her destiny—stronger than ever—still calls her to The Old Arctic Circle. He
r mother told her the answers will be found on the journey and to trust her instincts, even when rendering no reason.

  Lucas stirs but does not wake. She knows she must tell him the truth and in doing so, she may lose him, a fate she fears worse than death. But she has no choice. He deserves to know, and she cannot hide anymore.

  Lucas opens his eyes, drawing a sharp breath as he focuses on her sitting before him. He stumbles over himself as he rushes to her side. “Maia,” he sighs. Holding the sides of her face, his eyes are wide and glassy. “You are awake, oh my God—” He tenderly kisses her. “Meu Deus,” he whispers as he kisses her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Maia is overcome as she is engulfed within Lucas’s warm embrace, yearning more than anything for this single moment to last forever. She places her palm against his cheek, her heart breaking a little more as his tears crash into her.

  “You have no idea how worried I’ve been,” Lucas whispers. He lays his head on her chest. “Your poor heart is beating so fast.”

  Maia runs her fingers through his soft curls as she stares up at the ceiling, clutching for the last dregs of her rapidly crumbling composure. “You’ve cut your hair,” she says finally, her voice hoarse and broken.

  Lucas sits back, snorting through his tears, and they share a smile. “Yes, darling,” he says as he wipes his eyes. “I finally decided to get a haircut.” He pulls his chair closer to her and they stare at each other for a few quiet moments as the ship softly groans around them.

  “Lucas, where are we?”

  Clasping her hand within his, he kisses her fingers. Then he looks up at her, grinning like a child. “A boat picked us up. A boat, Maia. Sometime after…” The smile slips from his face. He sits back into his chair, his eyes searching hers.

  She swallows hard. “After … what?”

  His brow furrowed, that familiar look of worry returns to his face. He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “You should rest. We can talk later.”

  “Please, Lucas, let’s talk now. Explain … all of this.” She sweeps her arm across the room, once again distracted by the cord still tethered to her hand. She pulls at a curled end of the tape.

  “Maia—leave it. You still need fluids.”

  Exasperated, she drops her hands into her lap. “Lucas. Explain.”

  He sucks in his lips and sighs, running his hand through his hair. “Maia,” he says somberly. “What do you remember?”

  Flashbacks of their tattered raft flash before her. The crushing heat. Overwhelming thirst. Lucas’s burned and sunken cheeks. Searing pain. Gasping for air. The jellyfish. “There was a bloom … I was stung?”

  “Yes. You remember that?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?” Lucas leans across her bed, grabbing her hand.

  Her eyes well as she recalls her grandfather’s tear-soaked face, their cabin, the smell of smoke, and the crisp grass below her feet. And then there was her mother. And then … and then there was… “I’m…” she chokes. “I’m not sure.” She can’t. Not yet—please not yet.

  Lucas sits back with his head in his hand. He takes a deep breath to speak, his brown eyes gazing into hers. Hesitating, his lips part but the words remain trapped.

  There is silence.

  “Lucas?”

  “I keep thinking I must have been dreaming,” he says finally. “I must have. We were so close to dying. I slept a lot, I know this. Everything was a blur towards the end … but I will never forget you being stung. Never. I remember it clear as day. I know it happened … but your leg—there is nothing now.”

  Maia’s brow knits together. “What do you mean, nothing?” She whips back the sheets, exposing her legs extending from beneath a plain nightgown. No scabs, no scars, not a single trace of a sting. Confused, she looks up at him. “Lucas, I was stung.”

  “Maia…” The color drains from his face and he leans closer. Grasping her hands between his own, his eyes well with tears. “You died.”

  “What?” she whispers.

  “You died,” he repeats quietly, his breathing now labored. “I know it sounds crazy, but I will be haunted by it for the rest of my life. You were seizing in my arms. I was using all my strength to keep you from falling off the raft. Your skin,” his voice cracks. “You started turning blue. And then—”

  His face is horrified as the words slowly fall from his mouth. “You stopped breathing. I was holding your head, giving you mouth-to-mouth. I was shaking you, screaming at you. You were not breathing!” He stops and looks at her like he doesn’t recognize her anymore. “And then your eyes. You opened your eyes and they were … they were like crystal. I nearly dropped you. Your hair … your hair turned bright red and spiraled into a million curls right in front of me!” Anger flickers across his face. “You were the exact same woman I saw the night of the storm.” He shakes his head. “And then you suddenly gasped this deep breath and…” He falls silent. His hand is in a fist at his mouth and his glassy eyes quiver.

  “Lucas?” This isn’t happening.

  “When you breathed out, every single jellyfish surrounding us died. The entire bloom just … floated to the surface.”

  Suddenly lightheaded, Maia’s heart pounds beneath her chest.

  “And then you fell unconscious. I swear I stared at you for hours. Even now, I still think I must’ve been dreaming. I must have been. But the jellyfish? And your leg? Every day I think about it, every day I try to convince myself that it must have been some sort of hallucination brought on by exhaustion or dehydration. People see all sorts of crazy things when they are starving to death. But what about your leg, Maia? A sting like that, if it doesn’t kill you, would take months to heal, you would scar for life … but it was like it never happened.”

  Maia gazes across her legs.

  “Maia, I am going to ask you again. Did I hallucinate?”

  She sits in silence, staring at her legs. This is it. She has to tell him—no more lies. She looks up at Lucas and his beautiful face blurs through her tears. “You didn’t hallucinate.”

  “I didn’t. I know I didn’t.” He sits back in disbelief. “What was that, Maia?” A twinge of indignation taints his voice.

  She can’t speak. He’s fading before her eyes; she can feel it. The walls are rising between them once again as he sinks back into the shell of the man she first met on the ship.

  “That stuff doesn’t happen in real life, Maia. Books, yes—not real life.”

  “I wanted to tell you, Lucas, I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I’ve experienced glimpses of it before, but I just didn’t understand.”

  He looks at her with equal tones of fear and confusion.

  “Lucas.” She reaches for him but he’s cold as ice. She pulls back. “Lucas, I’m still the same girl. I just … sometimes...”

  “Well, hello there.” A petite young woman has peeked her head into the room. Her black hair is neatly tied into a bun, her spectacles pristine. “Oh, thank goodness. I was really starting to worry about you.”

  “Maia, this is Claire. She’s been caring for you,” Lucas says. His voice is flat, void of emotion. He adds, “She is the only reason either one of us is still alive.”

  Maia shakes Claire’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “Of course. I’m just glad we found you when we did.”

  Maia glances back and forth between Claire and Lucas. “So, where are we?”

  “We found you, both passed out, floating on a half-sunken raft about five hundred miles off the West Coast of the United States. Lucas woke as we were hoisting him on board,” Claire says.

  Lucas glares at Maia as Claire talks. Maia flashes him a pleading look and his face softens.

  “We were on our way back from South America,” Claire adds. “We were picking up people and supplies from our old village.”

  “Back?” Maia asks.

  “Maia,” Lucas says softly. “They are from The Old Arctic Circle.” />
  Maia looks up at Claire. “What?”

  Claire smiles tenderly. “We live up in The Old Arctic, dear. We are more than happy to take you with us if you’d like.”

  Maia looks at Lucas and he nods reassuringly.

  Claire puts her hand on Maia’s shoulder. “Lucas has told us about your journey. You have come a long way. Please rest. I’ll make you some soup.” She latches the door as she exits.

  Maia stares at Lucas, wide-eyed. Speechless.

  His hardened demeanor fades and he sighs, placing his hand on top of hers. “You can talk to me, Maia. I am not sure what happened that day or the night of the storm, but I have had a lot of time to think about it. There is nothing you can say that will make me stop…” He falters, his face suddenly flushed. “You can talk to me,” he says.

  “I will, Lucas. I promise I will. I just…” Her chin begins to quiver as she battles against an onslaught of tears. “I just need a minute. This is all so much.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. Please rest. But Maia—” He lifts her chin so they are eye to eye. “I am here. Okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

  Overcome with relief, her head drops into her hands and she collapses to her side. Her body trembles as she sobs.

  Lucas rests on the edge of her bed and gently lifts her by the shoulders. She falls into him. Laying her head against his chest, an ocean of tears permeates his shirt as he gently rocks her back and forth.

  Forty-Seven

  Gazing out of the small cabin window, tiny glittering stars tiptoe across the early evening expanse. Her breath racing across the glass in undulating waves, Maia cranes her neck, searching for a glimpse of the moon. She finds it low in a faraway corner, like a cratered bow caught in the fabric of the sky. She sighs, tightly grasping her mother’s jade necklace in a fist at her chest. They’re safe. They’re on their way. They’re going to be okay.

  This is all so surreal … she can’t wrap her brain around it. It seems like only a moment ago they were slowly dying, drifting on a half-sunken raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And now? They are on a ship headed to The Old Arctic Circle.