“Why would you take the tooth from her, then, if that’s all the reminder she had of him?” Chidi asked.
“Because I told her what she already knew of her great love – that Atsidi Darksnout had never truly trusted anyone in this world but her. That I could help the boy to meet his father, but the Hammer chieftain would not believe my words alone of the son he had sired. The brooding and distrustful Hammer chieftain would require proof.” Her gaze fell upon the tooth and necklace. “Proof of a time he relinquished all his doubts and fears that he might know the deeper power of love, if for a scattered moment in time.”
Chidi clenched the tooth tighter. She winced when feeling the razored bite of its jagged sides scratching at her skin. Not enough to wound for the force of her grip alone, but a reminder of the lost deadly force the tooth once could wield. “You lied to her too, then,” Chidi accused Marisa. “You lied to Allambee’s mother.”
“How did I lie?” Marisa asked. “I promised that I would share her message with Atsidi Darksnout, just as I would reunite their son with his father.”
“What message of hers did you share?” Bryant asked.
Marisa smirked. “You know better than to ask of the private, whispered words shared between lovers, David Bryant. I would not betray their secrets to you, not even if you held the remaining three keys we require.”
“What did Atsidi say when you first showed him the tooth and necklace, then?” Chidi asked, her blood warming again. “When you promised to reunite him with Allambee?”
Marisa shrugged. “His long-suffering doubts led him to disbelieve me there also, despite the gift I brought him from his lost love. It was then that I struck the bargain with him - that he would know my words for true when our currents crossed again, the same night as Atsidi Darksnout would both finally meet his son . . . aye, and lose him to the green waters also.”
Thoughts of Allambee swimming in her mind, Chidi’s fingernails dug into the palm of her hands at Marisa’s words.
Bryant interrupted before Chidi could speak. “Bourgeois, you said these keys, or gifts, you’re looking for couldn’t be taken, but it sounds to me like you put this Nomad leader in a corner . . . forced him to return that tooth to you, or else to break his word.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Marisa. “But, had I required the gift from Atsidi Darksnout, had it not been freely given over, then no doubt it would lose such power as I believe it holds within it now.”
Chidi spoke up. “You told him to though,” she said. “You reminded him of the bargain made.”
“Aye,” said Marisa. “But you were the necklace and his tooth not for the bargain struck between he and I, but for the kindness and friendship you shared with his son, Chidi. Say rather a testament to the sacrifice his son laid down to save your life.”
“You used me too, then,” Chidi sputtered the words. “The same as you used Allambee and his family.”
Marisa’s face pained. “Is that how you see all that I have told you, Chidi? Again, that you are merely a pawn upon a board? Aye, and me the player to choose where you are moved or not?”
“How else should I see it?” she asked.
Marisa took her time in parsing her words. “I know not who the true players are in this game we live out. Nor do I know if there be but one Creator, or several, to move us all upon the board. I understand well, however, that I am not their favored piece, Chidi. Why else would they torment with such terrible visions of all that to come, unless I carry out the actions that They would have from me?”
“But you don’t have to,” said Chidi. “You tell me ‘There is always a choice’ and yet you act like you don’t have any.”
“I have choices, Chidi,” said Marisa. “And yet I am to wise enough somewhat to understand there are things I am meant to see and do, as well as many other things that I will never be deemed worthy of seeing or doing.”
“How’s that, then?” Bryant challenged her. “Seems you got examples all the while when it comes us and the decisions we’ve been made. How ‘bout you turn that all-seeing eye on back yourself there, girlie, and give us an example.”
Marisa’s face tightened at his rebuking tone. “When I ventured ashore into your country with Allambee Omondi at my side, I chose to seek out Zymon Gorski with the hope that I was wrong about all the things to come. I hoped that Zymon might hide and protect the boy for me until I could free his father and bring them both to meet in safer circumstances. Instead, I found myself hunted by others I have long seen and fled from in my dreams.” Marisa’s gaze turned away from him, and upon Chidi once more. “Aye, instead of reuniting the boy with his father, I was surrounded by your Selkie catcher crew instead, Chidi. Trapped and forced to either give up myself . . . or sacrifice the boy in my place. For when I saw Lenny Dolan’s face and recognized him from my dreams, I knew then that I was soon to meet you thereafter also. Aye, and that the boy would be safe with you until such time as I would meet with him again.”
Chidi’s mind raced with the memory of chasing Marisa through the Shedd Aquarium, how the elusive runner had swapped positions with Allambee and sent him out as a decoy to be caught instead. “Why didn’t you come with us at the Shedd, then?” Chidi asked. “If you saw that we would all come to be here later, why did you run at all?”
“For the same reason as the treasured gifts you wear now,” said Marisa, again pointing to the ring and necklace Chidi wore. She smiled ruefully. “I had long dreamt of meeting Grandmother Wilda. Longed to spend time at her side and hear of all the stories about her time in the War of the Ancients. Yet each time I tried to visit her, I found myself again thwarted at every turn for your crew’s continued hunting of me at the zoo also. Time and again, I attempted to seek the elderly Merrow out and speak to Wilda of the precious ring that you wear now. Both to meet and warn her that the Tide-Turner would soon come for the Ancient key that she had once been given also.”
“Why didn’t you reach her, then?” Chidi asked. “What happened to you at the zoo to keep you from it?”
Marisa snorted and looked to Bryant. “Will you tell her what happened at the Silent Hammer’s exhibit, David Bryant, or should I?”
When Bryant stumbled over a response, Chidi inferred Marisa’s inquiry of him. “You caught her there?” Chidi asked, remembering how she and Lenny Dolan had found Marisa in handcuffs in Bryant’s charge on the same night they took Garrett Weaver too.
Bryant shrugged like a little boy scolded by his mother. “Didn’t exactly know we’d all end up here, did I? Hell, if I’d have known we’d all end up this way, I might’ve just turned her loose.”
“No,” said Marisa. “And it would not matter if you had, David Bryant. For like both of you, I had kept myself blinded to truths I did not want to accept, then. But I understand now that I was never meant to meet Wilda. The final result has occurred all the same, as was always meant to be.”
“How’s that?” Bryant asked.
Marisa chuckled. “Destiny is a fickle thing, my friend, and one not easily understood upon its face. Cast a rock into a stilled pool and you may watch the ripples as they grow for your decision and the action made. But, in time, the pool will grow still again. For the next to chance that way, they may look upon the pool’s stilled surface and believe they are the first to ever pass that way. Yet beneath the surface, David Bryant, and for however deep the pool may go, the rock you threw will still remain as a testament that you once were there and made your decision. Both to stop at the time and place, the choice of which rock to pick up, and then to cast it from you also. Who is to say you were not meant to do so all along?”
Bryant scoffed. “Still don’t see how chucking rocks into a pond, or pool, has anything to do with destiny.”
“In regards to time, David Bryant, a few precious seconds can mean life or death,” said Marisa, looking on Chidi again. “But even I cannot see all ends. The results of all the decisions made, or how they come to pass. There is always a choice, but it does not mean there
will not be others making their own decisions to thwart our own.”
Bryant grunted. “That may be, but if we all end up where we’re supposed to, then what’s the point?”
“You speak as one who believes we are now where we are supposed to be,” said Marisa.
“Are we not?” Bryant challenged her.
“No, David Bryant,” said Marisa Bourgeois. “We still have some way left to go before our shared journey ends . . .” she looked away from him and Chidi, toward the rear of the boat instead. “And we will not be alone in venturing there before this storm unleashes its fury in full. Say rather, before the old Salt returns to lay claim over the new.”
Chidi startled when a pair of Nomads breached the surface, not five yards away from the end of the boat. Though the waters and sky were still dark, the moonlight shone off the leader’s seashell eye-patch as he swam toward the boat.
Chidi shared a surprised look with Bryant as ran for the back of the boat. Her chest tightened when Watawa and a shadowed companion drew nearer to the boat. As both came into focus, she noted not only the two-toned skin patterns of Watawa’s companion, but recognized the teen by face and name as well. Garrett Weaver? She thought to herself, her mouth running dry when Watawa ushered Garrett to climb the ladder and join them on the deck.
Bryant reached down to help Garrett aboard. “C’mon, son,” he said, yanking the teen up the ladder and onto the deck. “There you go.”
Shivering, Garrett reached for the boat side to steady himself before taking a seat. His gaze met Chidi’s for a moment, his eyes narrowing like one swearing recognition of an old acquaintance, but unable to put a name to the person’s face.
Chidi glanced away before he could place her from when they had crossed paths ashore, inside his school after the events of the Indianapolis Zoo. She opted to find Marisa instead.
The mystic Silkie was smiling again, and not in a way that gave Chidi any comfort.
What is he doing all the way out here? She wondered of Garrett Weaver, along with a host of other questions. For all of those plaguing her mind, one came to the forefront the longer she studied the face of the elusive runner. What have you seen for him, Marisa? What awaits us and Garrett Weaver next?
Bryant distracted her from such thoughts, whistling off the back end of the boat at Watawa instead. “C’mon! Take my hand!” he called out. “I’ll help you on board.”
“Not this time, my friend,” Watawa replied, then looked up at the night sky before turning to those on board again. His face paled, beset with the grim manner in which he spoke. “For though it would seem see the storm here in the above has passed for now, I assure you the Salt is churning beneath.”
“Why?” Bryant asked. “What’s going on down here?”
Watawa nodded toward Garrett’s position. “Let you ask our mutual friend. Or say rather, when he is ready to speak of such ill tides as he has witnessed in the depths.” The Nomad shaman pushed off from the boat ladder and drifted backward. “For now, I must go and attempt to talk some reason into my people, lest others hold their sway.” Watawa nodded in Garrett’s direction. “Farewell, my friend. I pray that you see our message delivered in time for the benefit of all.”
What message? Chidi wondered, looking between them for any clue she had missed.
Watawa waved goodbye, then looked to Chidi and gave a final nod before vanishing beneath the waves once more.
She watched the waters where he disappeared, waiting for him to return with a reply to the question she had not voiced. Chidi wondered after the answer all the same.
Behind her, Bryant stomped away toward the captain’s cabin. He returned a second later with a woolen blanket for Garrett Weaver. “Here,” he draped the blanket over the teen’s trembling shoulders. “Get you warmed up in a minute, kid. Not that you need it, I guess. Salt blood keeps you warm, I reckon.”
Garrett muttered something under his breath that Chidi could not hear. She assumed it was a thank you, but when Garrett’s gaze drifted to look off the back of the boat to where Watawa had vanished, she debated whether the teen had been trying to speak something of the message that the one-eyed Nomad had meant for him to relay.
Bryant reached for him anyway, whether he understood Garrett’s intentions or no. “You okay, kid?”
The manner in which Garrett yanked away, his breath quickening and face paling, told Chidi the teen must truly have witnessed something sinister beneath the waves. What’s happened to you, Garrett? She wondered of him, even as Bryant showed the teen his hands in a peaceful show he meant no harm. What all has happened to you since Lenny and the others brought you to the Salt, like Henry once did for me? What happened to you after we last saw each other in Crayfish Cavern?
Chidi’s conscience warned she would not like the answer as Garrett relented to Bryant’s reaching for him again. The Selkie marshal helped Garrett to stand, then guided him away from the water and toward what remained of the sheltered captain’s cabin. Chidi watched them go, noting that Garrett eyed the broken windows and blood stains upon the walls that Bryant had not yet cleaned. Only once both were safely inside, the door closing behind them, did Marisa speak up again.
“The past returns in many forms, no, Chidi?” she asked.
Chidi ignored the question. “Why is he here?” she asked.
Marisa shrugged. “You heard Watawa the Open Shell as clear as I did. It would seem that Garrett Weaver has a similar message to deliver, for he too has witnessed the Other and the greater Salt storm to come.”
The Sancul, Chidi thought, but did not say.
Marisa nodded anyway, as if she had read Chidi’s mind. “I told you once before, Chidi, just as I remind you now – the dark tides mean to fall upon us all. You need look no further than those of us upon the boat to see that it be so. Selkies, Orcs,” she nodded toward Garrett in the cabin with Bryant, then looked back out across the open Salt as well. “Even the Nomads who breathe the same Salt as the Other and his minions. The Other would see us all ended if allowed to achieve His ends.”
Chidi wet her lips with her tongue. “If that’s true,” she began. “If the Sancul mean to kill us all, how are we supposed to stop them?”
Marisa sighed. “There is but one way that I see before us,” the mystic Silkie looked away from Chidi and toward the cabin once more. “And that is by continuing. Pressing ever onward, despite all such things as would seek to drown us in our grief, misery, aye, and such unimaginable pain to come. We chosen few must continue, Chidi. For make no mistake, the Other will not tire in His efforts to seek the end of us and the whole of this world, above and below.” She motioned to the captain’s cabin and those within. “Garrett Weaver has seen much since coming into our world, Chidi. The pair of you much alike, yet very different also.”
“You’ve seen Garrett Weaver in your dreams too?”
“Seen and heard him, aye,” said Marisa, her eyes narrowing on the cabin door as if she could peer beyond it. “Another pained voice, crying out in the darkness.”
Chidi hesitated. “What did he say?” she asked. “If you heard him calling out?”
“The same as I heard from you,” the mystic Silkie’s smile dawned once more when she turned back to face Chidi. “He called out for help, my friend. Some tender morsel of hope and light to guide him from his pain and the darkness cast upon him.”
“And you’re going to help him, are you?” Chidi asked, even as her thoughts turned back to another instead. “Just like you helped Allambee?”
“It was not my aid he called for, Chidi,” said Marisa quietly. “As to whether another has heard, or ever will hear the prayers of Garrett Weaver? I cannot say for certain. Alas, the darkness blinds me there also.” Marisa’s shoulders slumped. She closed her eyes, inhaling deep of the Salty, sea-air. “But the future does not hold its sway over me yet,” The mystic Silkie opened her eyes and offered Chidi her brilliant smile once more. “And it might be that I may yet offer Garrett Weaver some small gift of hope to comfo
rt against the pain and darkness raging in him now.”
Marisa turned to leave her alone, then.
Chidi called out to her as Marisa reached for the cabin door. “And what of Allambee?” she asked, hesitating when Marisa glanced back in study of her question. Chidi stammered on. “What of the things you saw for me? How can you expect me to continue on with you after all I have seen?”
Marisa nodded. “I know that you will, Chidi Etienne. If only to honor to the sacrifice offered by so many of those who have followed your lead and given up their lives that you might survive. As I have told you since our time together in Crayfish Cavern,” said Marisa. “I saw tears for you then, Chidi Etienne. Some you have already wept . . . and far more for you still to weep.”
Chidi swallowed that, her mind warning to no longer doubt the prophetic words of Marisa Bourgeois. As the faces of those she had already lost again rose to haunt her mind, Chidi buried them all by looking through the cabin glass to someone she cared for that yet remained.
Beyond, she saw Bryant and Garrett Weaver conversing as the man she once named Silkstealer piloted their boat eastward across the Salt and away from the reach of the Nomad armies she had seen below. For all her focus of the Selkie marshal at the captain’s wheel, Chidi could not help but focus on the face of Garrett Weaver too, remembering how she had seen him lain unconscious outside the police station in his hometown. His unwitting enslavement at the center of Lenny Dolan’s plan to free far more for a singular sacrifice. And those plans failed us too, she thought then, looking back to Marisa Bourgeois, dwelling on all that the mystic Silkie had told her of for those attempting to swim against the currents of fate. All to lead us here . . .
Marisa’s eyes narrowed when Chidi remained silent. “What is it, Chidi? What question on your tongue? The one you hesitate to speak . . . the answer you crave all the same?”
Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Page 49