Seaborn 01 - Saltwater Witch

by Chris Howard

  She snapped it up, flipped through it with a disgusted look on her face. “Nothing but trash, a muddled waste of time...rot your brain.” Her gaze stopped on the two penciled names on the inside cover, then she closed the book and gripped it like a brick in her fingers.

  I held my hand out for it, but Matrothy pulled the book back, her fist wrapped around it. She swung it, caught me across the side of the face, and knocked me off the bed.

  I got up in time to see Matrothy toss the book on the floor. She walked away, her glower swinging to each bed.

  “Brush your teeth, all of you, and then lights out!”

  Holding my cheek, I got to my feet, and it was already hot and puffy. The impact of the book felt like it had loosened my jaw, and I opened and closed my mouth, tasting for blood or teeth dangling. And I kept my glare fixed on Matrothy’s back until the director slammed the door.

  Then I caught Jill mouthing the word “revenge” at me as we got into the line for the bathroom. I just nodded back, assuming that she meant Matrothy was here for revenge.

  But it occurred to me I could use the word against the tyrant. That thought was bright as a sun breaking over the hills in the morning, intense and new, promising to get hotter. My whole body froze around the idea of killing Matrothy. My breathing slowed, thoughts of vengeance racing through my head, building scenarios of murder out of all the knowledge I’d gathered of the director’s routine, manner and methods of violence. Where would I kill her? Here in the hall, in front of everyone? Down in her cramped office on the first floor? I had been hauled there countless times for beatings and shoutings.

  Nicole put her hand on my shoulder in a show of sympathy, and I jumped, snapping out of the dream just when it was starting to get bloody.

  “You okay?”

  No, I’m a total psycho.

  “Yeah, fine.” I nodded and got in line. I tucked my head down so that others couldn’t see my cheek swelling. The line moved quickly, and I brushed my teeth after spending a few minutes twisting and wrenching the flattened tube, wrestling with it, forcing it to give up the last of the paste.

  I spit a few times and brushed some more, listening for my mother’s song. I heard nothing but the splattering water and the gurgling drain.

  The water rolled around the white porcelain, and made me think of the suggestions Praxinos had given me so far.

  In the water.

  Praxinos said I could go anywhere in the water, that I’d never have to worry about breathing or pressure or the cold, that I could live as easily in the darkest abyss as a mountain lake.

  Was it something that just switched on when I went under the water? The cold water from the tap felt cold on my skin and hot water felt hot. What was different about it? Praxinos called it an ara-something, a curse, not really a power. The seaborn lived on the ocean’s floor because they were cursed to live there.

  While getting my pajamas on I whispered, “Are you still there?”

  What happened?

  “I can’t talk, but you can still talk to me,” I said, trying to keep my lips from moving.

  Nicole heard me anyway, and gave me a worried look. I gave her back an innocent smile, that I’m sure didn’t help the crazy factor.

  I’ll tell you about my grandfather, Polemachos, the first king of House Alkimides...

  Praxinos droned on for hours while I curled up in the dark with my eyes closed, half listening. I was on the edge of sleep when Prax’s excited voice startled me. He went off on a tangent for thirty minutes on giant squid chasing, a game he’d played when he was my age.

  Alpha, beta, gamma, delta... Just before I drifted off completely, Praxinos decided there was no better time than now to embark on ancient Greek lessons.

  Sure. And I slid into a warm comfortable sleep.

  There was darkness and pressure against my skin. My hearing changed, as if I could feel every sound as tiny vibrations around me. Sound waves. Mr. Henderson had a whole lecture on sound waves.

  I opened my eyes in a dream and immediately wondered if I had actually opened them.

  The water was so dark. I blinked and I knew I was far away from Nebraska, in the middle of a very deep ocean. I spent a few seconds trying to make out the shadowy figures of some pelagic animal between me and the surface, a pod of dolphins or killer whales.

  Off in the distance I heard Praxinos talking about the ancient Greek language.

  That’s my preamble to the omicron and alpha declension nouns. Let’s move on to the verbs...

  The dream seemed so real, and I wanted nothing more than for it to continue.

  This is my world.

  Moving fast through it, I held my arms tight against my sides and watched the ocean race by. I kicked my legs and rocketed through the warm dark fluid like a fighter jet across the sky. I angled back and then zigzagged between three coral covered towers of stone. Up ahead, the horizon was black and something told me to keep moving toward it.

  In seconds, I went over the edge of a wide canyon, plunging headfirst into water so deep the blaze of the sun had never touched it. I swam vertically for what seemed like an hour, deep, into the pure abyssal night.

  There were sharp flashes of light around me, anglerfish luring in prey. Long ribbons of fiery dots flared to life and vanished, and far off in the darkest of dark, singular pinpoints of light blazed into existence, glowed and expired like the birth and death cycle of miniature suns.

  My hands shot out, arms windmilling to slow myself down. The floor was coming at me quickly. I bent my body at the waist, swung my feet down and landed up to my knees in the soft muddy bottom.

  The soft powder of the ocean floor clouded the water. Tilting my head up, I caught shadows and pale light on flat stone facings. The ocean glowed green-blue, and the light seemed to come from me—yeah, the freakishness just keeps going: I’m glowing in the dark.

  A gigantic box-shaped stone loomed over me, and I had landed right next to it. That seemed interesting. Time to explore. The mud had caught my ankles and anchored my legs, but I twisted to free myself, sliding higher into the water to kick along one squared face of the massive rock. Running my fingers over it, through soft nets of sponge and mats of tiny animals with tentacles, I felt long straight ridges running vertically. Underneath all the growth, the box was rough stone with smooth carved strokes, man-made.

  I jerked my hands back, startled.

  The stone moved when I touched it.

  It drifted away and then back toward me, a slow pendulum motion. It was as if the box floated in mid-water.

  Interesting. I swam over the top, down one side. Underneath I found the strangest thing: two heavy chains went from metal rings in the bottom to the seafloor.

  The whole thing was a puzzle. Maybe if I got a wider view.

  So I kicked away and then turned back to get a look at what appeared to be a giant rectangular box made from stone that...floated...as if it would normally have shot off to the surface except that someone had anchored it deep into the mud.

  Tiny bubbles of air lifted away from the top, one after the other, a parade of miniscule glassy spheres. It was a box, hollow on the inside, full of air?

  I froze.

  A low hollow moaning sound came from somewhere nearby. I swung around in the water, twisted and kicked to get closer to the seafloor, feeling vulnerable out in the open.

  Then I hovered about a foot above the mud, trying to determine the direction of the new noises. Someone coughed, and then drew in a long ragged wet breath, and the sounds were harsh and echoed sharply.

  “Hello?”

  There were scraping noises coming from the stone.

  “Is someone there?”

  A man’s voice answered me. “Who are you?” It wasn’t Praxinos.

  “Tell me your name first.” I said, swimming around the giant floating box, darting to the other side to see if he was hiding behind it.

  “I’m Gregor...of Hous—I am Gregor.” He stopped, and drew in another wheezing breath.
“Now, who are you?”

  “My name’s Kassandra.” My voice sounded clear and strong while his was weak and echoed faintly. He couldn’t be inside that thing? “Where are you?”

  “Kassand—” He broke into a fit of coughing. “Kassandra...” His voice faded. “I failed her. Fail and die. I failed Kassandra.” He was sobbing, and then his voice went quiet. “Kassandra is my daughter’s name.”

  “Where are you?” I followed the links of chain into the mud.

  “I am inside this...” His tone went cold, and he stopped talking, suddenly becoming wary.

  “The stone?” I turned and climbed like a crab over the sides and then up to the top. “I don’t see a door or a way to get in. What are you doing inside?”

  He made a muffled whimper and then took another breath. The man was weeping.

  “How did you get inside?”

  “Go away!” He coughed again, then made what sounded like a laugh, and then wept in between choppy gasps for breath. “Liar. You have come to torment me, using my daughter’s name.” Then he got angry. “You’re nothing but a trick of that squidfuck of a king, Tharsaleos.”

  Which made me angry. “I am Kassandra! My mother was Ampharete, a princess of the Alkimides.”

  The ocean went silent.

  His voice came back almost inaudible. “Ampharete...of House Alkimides...is my wife.”

  I opened my eyes in the dark hall in the girls department of St. Clement’s Education Center, sitting up, heart thudding. My fingers clawed at handfuls of blanket, and I swung my wide-awake gaze up and down the hall.

  Everyone else was asleep...everyone but Praxinos.

  Of all verb tenses, the Future in Greek is the easiest to learn...

  Chapter 10 - Princess

  Heart thudding, my skin feeling cold, I slid out of the blanket and made my way unsteadily to the end of my bed. Then eased my trunk open and pulled out a shirt and a pair of shorts.

  “Shut up, Praxinos. I’m trying to think,”

  What’s your highness up to that learning or even polite talk has been cast aside?

  I tossed socks into the pile. “I’m leaving St. Clement’s. Running away from here,” I breathed the words, glancing around to see if anyone had stirred from sleep.

  To where?

  “To find my father. He’s alive. He’s imprisoned...inside a big rock that’s chained to the seafloor.”

  I see. He sounded doubtful. We’re off to spring a prisoner...from a big rock?

  “I saw him in a dream, but it was like I was really there.”

  I understand little of what you’re saying, Wreath-wearer. Begin again.

  I scowled at his use of the title, worse than princess, because it had the deeper relation to my mother’s death. I threw it off with an angry head shake. There was no time for bitterness. Not yet. “He’s sealed inside this thing.” I whispered as forcefully as I dared. “We have to get him out.”

  Where?

  “It was in the sea, deep in a canyon. The rock is chained to the floor.”

  Praxinos said nothing for a second. Describe this rock.

  I whispered frantically as if we were wasting precious seconds chatting. “It was big. I had to kick twice to reach the end of it. It’s a rectangle, longer than it is tall or wide. I tried to follow the chains into the sand but I couldn’t find the ends. His name’s Gregor. He...He didn’t believe me...He thought I was using the name ‘Kassandra’ to hurt him. There’s no door into the rock, either. I couldn’t find a way in.”

  Gregor is your father’s name. Were there many of these rocks?

  “I only saw one. The one my father’s inside.”

  Were there other things down there...alive?

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “What kinds of things?”

  Praxinos ignored me. For a seaborn there are few tortures greater than being forced to remain out of the water: To be locked inside a bubble of air at the bottom of the sea. Shut inside an air-filled chamber, but surrounded by the vast ocean. Unable to feel the water on your skin but knowing it is just beyond the stone walls. It drives a seaborn mad.

  “You know what it is?” I whispered excitedly.

  I may. But you could not have been there...I think you’re describing a lithotomb.

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  We’re just going to swim down there and get him, are we?

  “It’s my father.”

  Do you know where to go?

  “You’re going to tell me.”

  I know where they are, said Praxinos but in an unhelpful voice. Set this dream aside. What else has happened? Why the sudden urge to leave the middle of Nebraska?

  I answered immediately. “Because I don’t belong here, Praxinos. I belong...somewhere else.”

  The lid of my trunk slid out of my fingers, dropping the last quarter inch with a little thump. I straightened and looked around the dark quiet hall. A few of the sleepers were stirring but none of them seemed to know what I was about to do. I pulled my pillow out of its case and stuffed my clothes inside, added The Odyssey and my homework notebook with a pen.

  With my senses charged from the dream and the excitement of sneaking out of Clement’s in the middle of the night, I tried to get my head turned toward the future.

  How far is the ocean?

  I’d studied the map of North America in Vilnious’ classroom, and had a pretty good picture of it in my mind, but I did wonder about its accuracy, and how far away things were.

  On the map, Nebraska was pink and there was a purple state below it that I was almost certain was Kansas.

  How many days would it take to get there?

  Mullen was the nearest town—the farthest I’d ever been from Clement’s, and it might take me all night and most of tomorrow just to walk there. I could ask someone in Mullen about the distance to the next state. I’d ask Ephoros the ocean questions. I would have to come up with anything that had to do with Nebraska and the rest of America on my own.

  Praxinos wouldn’t know the first thing about traveling on roads, would he?

  I stopped in the middle of the aisle, my head going from one side to the other. Should I wake Jill and Nicole, and tell them what I was about to do?

  They took a boat out on Red Bear Lake to save me. They had stood up for me before and been punished.

  Even the best of friends will only take so much of that.

  I walked to the end of the hall, throwing a quick sneer at sleeping Deirdre Milhorn as I passed.

  My hand curled around the doorknob, stopped only a second, and then I opened the door.

  Stepping across the entry room outside, there was a dim glow from the parking lot lights coming through the window to my right, glinting dully on the worn railing of the stairway leading down to the first floor. A long gleaming line revealed where a second railing ran toward the far wall and then bent away and up to follow the stairs to the third floor.

  I stopped and looked down the gaping black stairwell, imagining that Matrothy was pounding up the steps, bellowing my name. With a shudder that shook things in place in my head, I got my fear under control.

  Matrothy lived at the school, in an apartment somewhere on the first floor, but she wouldn’t be up this hour, right? Still, I couldn’t walk the first floor halls without being seen by someone.

  I bit my lip and scowled, trying to come up with a way to get out of Clement’s.

  I’m already stuck.

  I couldn’t use the front door because the administration office opened opposite the entrance, and at least one of the ladies who worked behind the counter was sure to be there.

  There were the stairs going up to the seventeens-and-up girls. Short of flying, that was the only way up or down from the third floor. I turned on my heel and looked at the nine-to-sixteens hall with the door halfway open.

  No way I’m not going back now.

  There were ways to get out through the basement, little covered doorways that opened up on the ground floor, and I turned to
the window over the playground. The school grounds were dimly lit with a few streetlights at the edges.

  Putting each step down carefully, I moved over the shiny plastic tiles to the window. It took me a few minutes to slide the latch and push the frame up to the highest position, only making a few clicks and a slow scraping noise.

  Then I was leaning into the cool summer air, taking a deep breath, and realized for the first time that my heart was pounding like mad, so fast that each beat seemed to blend into the next.

  “What are you afraid of?” I whispered.

  Me? Oh, you know, shipwrecks...and the men who sink with them...broken wooden ribs of the hull...sea-anemones, corals and other creatures of the deep growing on it...they look eerie in the gloom.

  “Not you. I was talking to myself.”

  I lifted my leg through the open window. I put it down on the roof of the little bulkhead building that stuck out from the first floor and had a door that led down into the basement. There were six or seven of the doors sticking out from the first floor around the school. I pulled the rest of my body through the window and stood up on the steeply slanted roof.

  “I’m outside.”

  Going to get away from the school so the evil director won’t catch you?

  “Right.”

  Let me know when we reach the water. What is your plan? Follow a path to the biggest river and then into the Gulf of Mexico?

  “I haven’t really thought that far. I’m still standing on the roooooooof!”

  I slid down one side of the gray shingles, fell on my butt and flew off the edge. I swung my arms in front of me, spiraling them to push my body forward. My pillowcase full of clothes, shot out in front of me and hit the ground.

  I landed at a steep angle on my heels, which immediately slid out from under me. Then I skidded forward and landed flat on my back, my head slamming into the hard dirt.

  A bright band of stars blazed across the sky. I stared at them for a second, and then rolled over to my stomach. My brain didn’t seem to want to come back online, stunned from the fall. My lungs didn’t want to work and I made feeble choking noises. I tried to breathe but couldn’t take in any more. I tried to exhale and nothing wanted to come out. I rolled onto my back again and my body jerked on its own, bending in the middle like an arch. I fell back, arms wrapping around my stomach. It felt as if someone had punched me. My lungs burned as I sucked in a long ragged breath.