I see you, Chidi, said Allambee, the fog in his eyes returned. I see you fear that man, Henry, like I would also . . . aye, if my mother had not told me to be brave for her . . .
Chidi blinked, recognizing the signs of her friend nearing his end, the same as she had witnessed in so many before him also. The last gasps of memories, all firing at random. She nuzzled closer to Allambee, then, praying the slippery feel of her sealskin might wake him back to the reality of the moment. That he might spend his final minutes in accomplishment of his goal to reach and meet his father, rather than be lost in his past before death took him. When she pulled away to meet his gaze again, she found Allambee smiling; just as he had done when uttering the same message to her on the lonely beach outside of Chicago, the same sunset evening they had first met.
Allambee coughed, then, his mouth opening and closing as if he were choking on the Salt breath that his Nomad body accepted as air.
Atsidi hugged his son close, raising his left arm under Allambee as a father might do for a choking, toddling child, all with the hope of clearing their airway.
Chidi could not say as to whether the attempt worked, or else Allambee regained control of himself, but, when the moment passed, Allambee found his father’s gaze a final time. I will be brave for you also, Father . . . his eyes fluttered as he spoke. Would that help you? To know that you do not need to swim from fear any longer . . .
Seeing your face has helped me already, said Atsidi Darksnout. Stay with me awhile longer, my son . . . stay, that you might teach and help me even more in the days and years to come.
Allambee’s smile broadened, his teeth glinting in the scattered rays of moonlight as he raised his hand toward the face of the Hammer chieftain. They are singing, Father . . . He looked off to the left of Chidi, again as if he saw others at her side that were not there. They sing me to swim . . . to come and join Them . . . aye, They are singing, Father . . .
Chidi’s heart burst at the sight of the stoic, Nomad chieftain bending his neck and lifting his son, their foreheads touching.
Swim away then, my son, Atsidi Darksnout forced the words. Swim to the green waters and the eternal hunts awaiting you there . . . his fingers clenched upon Allambee’s shoulders, holding him as close as he could. Aye, swim away in peace, brave one . . . and know your father will soon follow you there to teach you all the things in that next life that I could not show you in this one.
Chidi could not say when Allambee’s spirit left him, only that she knew her friend had left the watery world and his body behind long before Atsidi Darksnout pulled away from his son. Her chest tightened when recognizing the stillness that overtook his remains.
Allambee’s arm lazed in the underwater current, even as his father cradled his body close.
Chidi wished for her human eyes in that moment, if only that she might have some way of similar release to all that which surged within her. With no means of allowing her grief to escape, Chidi looked up to where the surface existed, some twenty feet above her. With a swift kick of her hindflippers, she abandoned Atsidi Darksnout and his warriors. Chidi sped toward the blurry world above, as if she hoped to sprout wings upon reaching the surface and fly off to wherever the spirit of Allambee Omondi had fled also.
Reality remained in the above; the Salt stretching in every direction but upward, and Chidi could sprout no wings. Trying all the same, Chidi shot free of the Salt and into the open air, screaming with her seal voice at the waves crashing about her and the wind whistling over all.
Gravity forced her to enter the watery world beneath once more.
Trembling, Chidi tucked and rolled her seal body, somersaulting below to aim her nose for the surface again. Later, she would not be able to say why she felt the need to break above the waves, for it was not the air that existed there that she required. In her heart, she knew only that she was not truly a creature of the Salt, and that she tired of all that she had ever witnessed since learning of the watery hell that Henry Boucher had dragged her into.
Meaning to burst free of the Salt once more, Chidi hesitated when spotting a silvery glimmer speeding up to join her. Watawa slowed as he came to swim not five feet away from her, the look in his one good eye softened with understanding.
He’s gone . . . Chidi blurted. Allambee is gone.
From this world, perhaps, said Watawa before glancing around the surrounding water and raising his left hand in a sprawling, panned signal for Chidi to look there also. Or it may well be he lingers among us even now . . .
Chidi followed his motion, but, save for the Nomad warriors beneath them, she saw only endless dark and empty water. He’s not here, she said. He’s dead.
Only so long as you allow, said Watawa. The memory of your friend lives within you, child. As do all those we keep safe and alive within us after they have left this world to swim onto the next. Weep if you will for his passing, Chidi, for all who come to know grief carry out the measure to their own choosing. But, while you grieve, know there are others who knew and loved him also that will celebrate. Not of his passing, but for having known him in this life.
Chidi shook her seal head. I would give all of those celebrations to have him here again, or else to go back in time and force Allambee to stay on land where it was safe.
Watawa frowned. My brother often reminds me there is no safety in this world. He glanced to the depths, his gaze holding on the darkness below. The more time passes, the more I think Quill may have had the right of it all along. Watawa looked to Chidi again, his face set in hopeful reprieve. And yet despite my brother’s claim, I would rather hold to all that I have told you about your fallen friend – that for all those bravely gone before, we keep the dead both safe and alive within us. Their stories and their lives unending, so long as we choose to sing their tales and utter their names.
I don’t want stories, said Chidi. I just want my friends back. Allambee and Racer and . . . little Sasha. I would bring them all back and far more too.
Then, let you continue to remember their faces and their names that they might visit you again in your dreams, said Watawa. But I speak of the future now, and the present would hear such stories as you have to offer about the brave and selfless, Nomad warrior named Allambee Omondi.
Chidi followed his nod below, back to the depths where she knew Atsidi Darksnout awaited her. She trembled at the thought of swimming back down and facing him, forced to see Allambee still dead in his arms. I don’t want to remember him that way, she whispered to Watawa. I want to remember him as he was.
As any friend would, said Watawa. But to ignore what is, Chidi, to blind one’s self to all that is? That leads one to forgetfulness and willful blindness. Watawa raised his left hand to his face, touching the shell covering over his eye. Take it from one who knows, child. Aye, one who would take such moments back and face those harder truths now, if I were able. Harsh though they may be, terrible as they were, I would go back and face them all knowing such regret as I do now.
Chidi looked toward the surface again, wishing that Watawa would leave her be and allow her to swim back to the boat with Bryant and Marisa. To warn Bryant that they should head for the nearest shore and forget all that they had ever witnessed below, and especially of Marisa Bourgeois’s visions and prophetic words.
Watawa was nudging at Chidi again. Go and see him, child, he urged her swim below. Honor your friend and his sacrifice by looking upon his broken body. Aye, let you burn the image of him into your memory that you might never forget the great love he offered up today on your behalf.
He died for you, Chidi took the Nomad shaman’s meaning. The least you can do is pay him tribute now.
Chidi relented then, fortifying her mind with memories of Allambee alive and well in the above as best she could for all that she knew awaited her below. The other ghosts of her past followed her there also, the images of Racer lain in the cornfield, forever staring up at the starry night sky. She remembered Sasha too, how her tiny hands fit neatly inside of Ch
idi’s grip when they fled from slavery and Henry Boucher. As Chidi descended alongside Watawa, she filled her mind with memories of her fallen companions in preparation of witnessing another lost far too early.
Below, Atsidi Darksnout still clung to the remnants of his son.
Chidi’s muscles stiffened as she forced herself to heed Watawa’s plea. Her gaze quickly swept over the mortal wounds that the Orcinian seawolf, Arsen, had given to Allambee. Like a rising, icy tide, the fear and grief within her threatened to overtake once more. Chidi might have given in then also, but she glimpsed Allambee’s face at the last. Though her mind warned that he wore no expression in death, Chidi imagined her friend carrying the same hint of a smile she remembered of him in life. That of a satisfied boy, unabashedly proud of his accomplishment and reveling in the notion of finally meeting his father.
As if sensing himself watched, Atsidi Darksnout looked away from his son and directly at Chidi instead. Though she remembered the sternness in his gaze at the zoo, Chidi saw none of it now, nor any sign of malice either. Chidi, he said, nodding. My son shared his life with you, it seems. Of his mother and all that she told him of me also. Tell me, Chidi, in all your time together, did my son say nothing of the love I bore him? The Hammer chieftain asked, his voice catching. Did his mother tell him nothing of the pain it caused me to leave them?
Chidi chose her words carefully. I can’t speak to that, she said. But Allambee did say his mother told him that you trusted no one . . . that it was no way to live . . .
No, said Atsidi, frowning as he looked upon his son’s broken body once more. And it seems to me now that there are many ways to die . . . far fewer to live. Allambee stroked his son’s face, even as he spoke to Chidi once more. How did my son and you come to this, Chidi? For all the whole of this watery world and the above, how did you come to be together in this place and with me so near?
Chidi nearly spoke the words she had come to parrot so often in her life with Henry. To utter such safe words of ignorance, or else pretending to not know. Yet the longer she looked on Allambee, the more she dwelt on the pain in Atsidi’s voice, Chidi recognized a twin soul in desperate search of truth and answers. Marisa . . . Chidi whispered. Marisa Bourgeois led us here. Her mind stumbled with the admission, even as she knew it for true. She thought back on all the interactions she’d had with infamous Silkie runner; from chasing her at the Shedd, to finding and traveling with Allambee thereafter, and all the times since leading to their reuniting in the depths of Orphan Knoll. Every one of Chidi’s answers ended with Marisa Bourgeois. She brought us out here . . . just like she brought us all together.
Atsidi’s gaze flickered. My people spoke her name when they came to me. She is near, then? This Silkie, Marisa Bourgeois?
Chidi hesitated. I didn’t say she was a Silkie.
No, said Atsidi. And yet I know her for one all the same. Aye, he said, petting Allambee’s face once again. Indeed, it seems that Marisa Bourgeois has seen much and more than I first credited her for. Atsidi’s expression gave nothing away as he looked up and beyond Chidi, toward Watawa instead. Open Shell, go and fetch the Silkie, Marisa Bourgeois, from their ship. I would speak with her again.
Again? Chidi wondered. They’ve met before?
No sooner than Watawa sped off, Atsidi refocused on Chidi, scoffing as he did. Your seal face hides much, child, yet I sense your questions all the same. Ask what you would of me. His shoulders slumped with the weight of his son and his grief. Ask, Chidi, and I will answer that which I can in honor of my son’s kinship with you.
Again, Chidi felt the old ways of silent obedience creeping upon her. The need to retreat from her questions and allow them linger on instead. But when Atsidi Darksnout would not break his stare of her, Chidi recalled another Nomad of similar stoic nature; Watawa’s brother, Quill, bidding her to speak out or forever suffer in silence. Forgive me, she started carefully. But, for one who lost his son, you don’t seem—
Overwhelmed with grief by the loss of him? Atsidi cut in. You think me heartless?
No, said Chidi quickly. Only that . . . well, I wouldn’t imagine you would want to speak with me any longer. Or Marisa either, knowing that your son died because of us.
For you, perhaps, said Atsidi. He did not die because of you, child.
He did though, said Chidi. He died protecting me.
No, said Atsidi. My son died because we are all of us trapped in whirling, tidal pools that the Salt and destiny sweep us in. Each of us funneling round and round until it becomes our turn to venture further in and dive below into the depths unseen that we might discover what awaits us on the other, darkened side, Beyond. Believe you me, child, I long spat in the face of such talk as destiny in my younger years. But, when I see you before me now, aye, and that I were allowed to hold my son in his final moments? I understand now there be at least some little truth to such fateful speech . . . and far greater things beyond my understanding. He looked on Allambee yet again. Like waves at war upon the sand, the Salt forever gives and takes in eternal ebb and flow.
All I’ve ever seen it do is take, said Chidi quietly.
So thought I, once, said Atsidi. And yet I see clearly now that the Salt and destiny both offered me this gift of reuniting with my son in his last moments. All that he would do as he dreamt and longed for. Aye, that my son returned to reveal the true fated way ahead for me and my people also.
Chidi shivered at the coldness in his voice, the similar, icy look in his eyes when Watawa returned with the Cape Fur Seal that was Marisa Bourgeois swimming alongside him.
Unlike Chidi, Marisa did not hesitate in approaching the Hammer chieftain. Atsidi Darksnout, she said, Marisa’s voice confident and clear as Chidi wished her own might sound when speaking. We meet again . . . much as I wish it were not so. Marisa cocked her seal head to the side in acknowledgment of Allambee in his father’s grasp.
Aye, said Atsidi. I admit now, as I did before, to doubting your claim that I would both see and hold my son again in this lifetime. Would that you had told me then it would be his last moments.
Marisa swam closer. Would that have changed things for you if I had?
Perhaps, said Atsidi. Had I known my son would die as a result, I would have begged you to keep him safe, rather than him ever come to know my face.
And yet, like me, you cannot see all ends, my friend, said Marisa.
Can you not? Atsidi asked.
Only so far as I am allowed, said Marisa. If your son had lived, it may be the whole of this world and above would die for it.
Atsidi scoffed. And yet a mystic witch such as I deem you to be would say these worlds are still doomed, no matter the fate of my son’s life. He shook his head. I would trade both worlds and all those in it for more time with him.
How much time, Atsidi Darksnout? Marisa replied. A minute? An hour? More?
Chidi’s face warmed at Marisa’s taunting, even as Atsidi’s face stiffened also.
You mock my grief? He asked.
I would illuminate your concept of time, said Marisa. For we have little and less, Darksnout. And though your time with Allambee Omondi was spare, it was still longer than some will ever receive.
A cruel gift, said the Hammer chieftain, glancing upon his son’s face.
No, said Marisa, swimming a circle about the Hammer chieftain before rising to face him at eye level. Your reunion was not a gift. It were a bargain struck. The same as any who would become a father or mother. In their hearts, each know they must someday bid farewell to their child also. Most do not consider the cost, however, for it is different for each and every tie. If some knew the price at the time of farewell, how many would still readily agree to take on the bargain?
Atsidi shook his head. This price is too great to bear.
Marisa nodded with her seal head. Aye, she said. As I warned you when first we met that you would not like the outcome of leaving your cell behind, even if it served a greater good.
Atsidi glared at her. You are
an odd Silkie, girl. To mock my pain in such a moment as this.
Not mocking, said Marisa. Reminding. When I warned that you would meet your son for but a little while, we also spoke of how the Salt would have its due. Now, I have come for mine.
Here, then? Atsidi asked. You would choose this time to have me meet your blood price, here and now?
Not I, said Marisa. Let you give the repayment to Chidi instead. No doubt your son would approve.
No doubt, Atsidi answered, his tone simmering as he looked between the two Silkies. Is that all then, girl? All the price that you would have of me?
The Salt demanded this price of you, Darksnout, not I, said Marisa, nodding toward Allambee in his arms. But I would have you keep your son’s memory alive and safe within you. From this day, until your last day, Atsidi Darksnout. See that you keep the sacrifice of Allambee Omondi ever at the forefront of your memory.
That is but a little cost to me, said Atsidi. As for your blood price, I will see it done. Now, go. Leave me to my grief . . . and, if you value your life, do not ever let me see you again, Silkie.
Marisa nodded in silent reply, then turned her nose upward and ascended for the surface.
Chidi started after her. She had not risen two feet from her former position before Atsidi called her to stay.
Not you, he said. I have yet to repay my debt for this encounter with my son.
Chidi shivered at the implication and his dark eyes studying her, even as Atsidi Darksnout continued holding his son. She nearly took off for the surface again when his left hand left its purchase of Allambee. The Hammer chieftain reached for the lone adornment that floated near his heart; a shark tooth talisman that seemed to bat against Atsidi’s lean-muscled chest, caught in an invisible Salt stream of constant movement. Held by a piece of simple weave, crafted of seaweed rope that served as a necklace, the tooth seemed to float on the underwater current. Atsidi’s fingers clenched around the talisman, forming a fist, and the tooth the treasure inside.
Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Page 37