Currently

by Sarah Mensinga

  Because we don’t have enough of Gren’s money left to travel on a passenger ship, and it would be risky to pretend to be a family of uppies, we’ll have to stow away on a boat—at least until we reach the next mountain city. There, I hope we’re able to find work so that we can continue our journey more honestly.

  I soon find a ship that will be perfect for our escape—The Sunset’s Splendor. Despite her pretty name, she’s a massive shipping vessel—a traveling warehouse really—and she’s stocked with specialty foods from around the Sea Spread. According to Carnos, rich uppies love eating fruits, nuts, and meat from distant lands, and they’ll pay huge amounts of money for them.

  Therefore, if we stow away on the Sunset’s Splendor, we’ll have plenty to eat, and because the boat is so big, there are probably lots of good hiding places too.

  However, since the ship is only docked in Varasay for two days, Sande and I must act quickly.

  The hardest part is telling Bessel. I worry she’ll be afraid to leave, and I worry she’ll be furious that Sande and I care about each other as much as we do.

  I let Sande handle it, and he wisely doesn’t focus on me. “Pa would want you to be happy,” he tells her. “He’d want us to have a better life.”

  Bessel listens quietly, then she examines our passbooks and asks how we paid for them. She hardly reacts when I admit the money was meant for my wedding, and I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad sign.

  That night we pack our belongings and dress in dark clothes. I feel calm and brave for the most part, but when it’s time to say goodbye to Gren, I’m overwhelmed with tears.

  To my surprise, Bessel takes pity on me. “How about you two walk over to Gren’s unit together?” she says to Sande. “Nerene could probably use the company.”

  And maybe he was right. Maybe Bessel only hated me because she was unhappy.

  “At least Gren’s too old to work in the factories,” Sande says as we walk down the thin lane between barracks buildings.

  “That’s true,” I sniffle.

  I long to tell Gren about our plans, but the Rinians are with her, and there are just too many deeplanders in the corridors of their barracks building. It seems like everyone who lives in building twelve spends their evenings visiting neighbors and sharing food. It’s actually quite lovely although not helpful right now.

  Gren seems to sense something is happening though, and surely she can see I’ve been crying.

  “I love you, my third daughter,” she tells me, and to Sande she says, “Now you take care of her, or I’ll haunt you as a death shadow.”

  “She knows,” I say as we walk back to building ten, huddled together because it’s now raining. Grumpy winter weather is probably for the best tonight, though. It’ll be easier to sneak aboard the Sunset’s Splendor if the shipsmen don’t want to be drenched standing guard.

  We soon return to our barracks unit, where we’ve left our baggage and Bessel, who’s hopefully ready to leave. We find her stoking a fire in the small cookstove that’s built into the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Sande asks. “We already ate.”

  “Oh I’m not cooking,” Bessel says, and instead of looking at him, she smiles at me. “I burnt the passbooks.”

  I never thought Sande was like his parents, but I see it now. The Olins will all go to dramatic lengths to either make something happen or to get their way. Trennet jumped into a saltwater tank to save an uppy worker, and now here’s Bessel, burning our passbooks.

  “What! What? Why?” Sande rushes forward, grabs a poker, and yanks open the oven. I pull aside a reed mat as he scatters burning crumbles of ash onto the concrete floor.

  The passbooks are destroyed, though. There’s nothing left of them that’s recognizable, aside from shriveled, blackened covers.

  Bessel calmly closes the door to our barracks unit. “I didn’t have a choice, Sande. That girl influenced you like she always does. You were making poor decisions.”

  By that girl she means me.

  Sande stares at his mother, speechless, his arms shaking.

  “It’s her fault I had the procedure,” Bessel continues. “And only a mad woman would make herself vomit on a priest just to get assigned to your barracks unit. And now here she is, putting tricky little thoughts into your head about running away. She might as well be a siren, Sande. When you’re near her, you don’t think straight. It’s like she has wavurl.”

  “Stop talking,” Sande shouts. “Stop.”

  “No, I won’t.” Bessel raises a hand. “These are things you need to hear. You could have worked at the desalination plant with your father. If you’d been there, maybe you could have saved him, but no, you followed the criminal’s daughter to the steamship factory. And now she’s convinced you to risk your life, oh and my life too, on a plan that will get us all banished.”

  “It’s not her plan; it’s my plan.” Sande’s voice drops so low it sounds like a growl.

  “You just think that—that’s how deceitful she is.” Bessel turns to sneer at me. “I bet your mother was thrown out of the city for the same sort of behavior. I mean think about it, she was pregnant, what does that tell you?”

  I’ve never seen Sande look like he wants to hit someone. His fingers are rolled up tight, and his right hand trembles.

  “You should leave,” I tell Bessel.

  “Oh, would you like me to? Shocking. Well this happens to be my home and my son. It’s you who should leave.” Bessel steps toward me. “Look at you, so proud of yourself. I know what happened last tide. Marsie the Healer? She said Gren wanted fere poison—and trust me, I know what that’s used for.”

  “Get out!” Sande yells. “Out! Now!” He opens the door, grabs Bessel’s sweater-covered arms, and shoves her into the corridor. I get a quick glimpse of her landing hard on her hip before Sande clangs the metal door shut and slides the bolt across.

  I’ve never seen him so distraught, and I’m worried he’ll do something rash in the hope of setting things right—but what desperate thing might he do?

  “We’ll find more money, buy new passbooks,” I quickly suggest, wanting to calm him down. But it’s such a feeble solution. Gren gave me money that she had saved over many tides. Where would Sande and I find another fifty paper shells? “Or maybe we can travel without passbooks?” But I don’t want that, not at all. We’d have to be stowaways for a much longer time, and it would be difficult to legally work in any mountain city. And what would happen if we were caught? Would we be shipped back here for punishment? Probably.

  “This is my fault,” Sande says, dropping to sit on the bunk that was once his father’s. It’s still covered with Trennet’s favorite wildwool blanket. “I should have known she’d do something like this. She’s always been monstrous when it comes to you.”

  “We’ll just have to find another way.” I sit beside him and run my hand over the fuzzy knots and braids of the blanket.

  “There isn’t one,” Sande says, and it’s not like him to sound so defeated.

  I wrap an arm around his shoulders, and together we watch the restless orange remains of Bessel’s passbook fire.

  Even though Sande was heartbroken when Trennet died, our plan to buy passbooks and run away to Ellevah lifted his gloom. But now that the passbooks are gone, his grief seems to hang on him more heavily than before. It’s not that he cries or is irritable, he just never smiles or laughs, and one afternoon I find the map he showed me at the dead boat, the one of the Sea Spread, torn into tiny pieces.

  I’m sad too, but what happened will never cut into me as deeply. I haven’t recently lost a parent or been betrayed by one.

  We let Bessel back into our barracks unit because she has nowhere else to go, and we don’t want Gray Straps asking questions. She doesn’t speak to us when she returns though, so we don’t talk to her either. To be even more defiant, Sande sleeps in my cot, even though there’s not much room.

  And one night, when Bessel has a late shift, he tries to undress me.r />
  “No,” I say, wriggling away from him.

  “But nothing matters now,” he whispers.

  “If I get pregnant, it’ll matter.”

  And as things get worse in our barracks unit, bad things seem to be happening elsewhere too.

  A Riversborn man hurts himself in a factory, and although he doesn’t die, he crushes his leg so severely in a metal press uppy healers have to cut it off. After that, a stomach illness spreads through an automotor warehouse. Gray Straps quarantine several families because of it, and there are rumors they aren’t giving the ill people enough food. Sande then cuts his hand at the factory so badly the foreman sends him home for a sunedge, and Gren’s cough deepens.

  “Now why are you still here?” She whispers during my next visit, sounding disappointed.

  Even though the Rinians are away at their work assignments, I don’t want to endanger Gren by telling her too much, so I just say, “Bessel ruined everything.”

  “Oh, she’s got a talent for that.” Gren sits up in her cot, her movements slow, her arms trembling. “I want to help. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Not unless you’ve got more paper shells,” I joke ruefully. I’ve brought her some spiced bread, and after putting the wrapped parcel on a shelf, I flop onto the cot opposite hers. “You were so generous, and I… I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to use that money for something else.”

  Gren’s eyes crinkle. “I’d give you more if I could. I just want you to be safe, and I’m usually so good at keeping you safe. I’ve lost my touch. You know, I saved you one time you don’t even know about.”

  “When was that?”

  “Remember that cardpaper you asked about? The one with the fancy letters and the trident?”

  I nod and turn so that I can see her better.

  “I told you that tide merchant wanted to buy a child. Well, the child was you.”

  My insides twist. “I don’t remember.”

  “Oh no, you wouldn’t. You were still outside the city with your maam.” Gren crumples her brow as if struggling to remember what happened. “He heard I was friendly with your mother, so he came to my market booth with all sorts of questions. In particular, he was keen to know what time of year you were born. Anyway, he asked me to sneak you into the city the next tide. He promised to pay me all sorts of money if I brought you to him. But of course I would never do what he wanted, for my goodness, how could I take you from your mother? So to get rid of him, I told him you’d died, and that was that.”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure what to think about her story. Surely there could only be one reason a traveling merchant would want to know when I was born. “Do you think he was my father?”

  Gren shrugs. “Maybe, or maybe he was hired by your father. But who would steal a child in such a way? It’s not like he wanted to help your mother. And Nerene… this man didn’t seem like a good person. He had a strange way about him that made me feel wrong inside.” She hesitates as if she’s not sure how to describe her memories. “It was like my thoughts were sick.”

  I leave Gren’s wishing she hadn’t told me about the tide merchant because I’m now full of questions I’m sure I’ll never get the answers to. I’ve also never thought about my father much on purpose because it never seemed like he deserved my attention. Therefore I don’t like having to think about him now. I suppose I always assumed that whatever happened to my maam, whatever her crime was, my father was tied up with it or maybe even to blame.

  As I walk back to barracks building ten, I take the strange man’s cardpaper out of my pocket and turn it over in my hands. The corners are soft, probably from being in Gren’s wallet for so many years, but otherwise it looks as if it was printed in a fine shop. I run my fingers over the black letters that are smooth and yet slightly raised. Is my father’s name written on this card? Should I even care?

  Another sunedge of nine days passes, and although I can’t think of a new way to escape the city, I begin to suspect Sande has. He often stops in the middle of what he’s saying and drifts off in thought. Also, for the last day or so, whenever I return home from Giron’s factory, he’s not in our barracks unit where he’s supposed to be resting and letting his hand heal. I suppose I’m glad he’s working on a new plan—it’s better than him being sad and despondent—but I’m troubled that he hasn’t told me about it. That means it’s probably dangerous, and what’s more dangerous than illegally buying passbooks?

  I soon get an answer. A few days after Sande returns to work, we’re met at the factory doors by a foreman who tells us to gather in the storage hall—something we’ve never been told to do before. Feeling nervous, we walk to the cavernous space on the countertide side of the factory, and because it’s still largely empty of steamship components, there’s enough room for all one hundred and fifty of us workers to crowd inside.

  My heart stutters when I see Amista up on a balcony attached to the head foreman’s office. “She works beside me,” I whisper to Sande.

  A big uppy holds her arms, and Giron stands on the balcony too. His striped blue suit and patterned orange necktie look out of place in the grimy room.

  Sande and I climb onto a supply crate so we can see better, and I’m so worried about Amista, I slip twice. Even from the far side of the storage hall, I can tell she’s crying.

  “Why would she be up there?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Sande says, but his conflicted look makes me think he does.

  We wait for the entire day shift to arrive—about a quarter of an hour—and it’s the worst kind of waiting because we can all sense something bad is about to happen. When workers stop trickling in through the doors, Giron moves closer to his voice-enhancing device. I don’t like that it’s here. If he bothered to set it up, he’s put a lot of thought into whatever is happening.

  “Well I’m very sorry you’re starting your day in here, but we have a discipline situation.” He sounds angry, not sorry. “You’ll have to work late tonight to make up the time. Anyway, this floor worker, Anisa Frue—”

  “Amista,” I correct softly.

  “—stole from my medicry.”

  “Kracken,” Sande swears under his breath.

  “No, I didn’t!” Amista twists so that she can shout into the voice-enhancing device too. The uppy holding her arms pulls her back, but she keeps yelling and we can still hear. “I would never do something so cracked. I don’t care what’s in your stupid medicry!”

  “We have to help her,” I whisper, thinking about the illegal snapper Gren gave me. I tucked it in the back of my boot, but what can I do with it? I just have the one, and if I knock out the uppy holding Amista, another foreman will simply climb the stairs and take his place. Not to mention, I’ll be in horrible trouble.

  “Oh stop fussing, of course you’re the thief.” Giron adjusts his necktie and winces at Amista as if just looking at her offends him. “I know your grandmother is a healer. I also know you visited the medicry yesterday for a burn. You obviously looked around and said, ‘Well gee, how about I help myself?’”

  “My grandmaam doesn’t need your uppy supplies!” Amista shrieks. “She makes her own medicines, and they’re way better than any moldwater, syphillin uppy garbage.”

  Giron’s eyes widen, and he’s surely not used to hearing that sort of language come out of such a small person. He clears his throat, swallows, and then clears his throat again. “Well, in Varasay we have rules. You stole from me, so I must punish you. And if you refuse to submit to punishment, I will report you to the Threegod Priests. Do you want to risk banishment?” He looks to the rest of us with a hesitant smile as if expecting our support. “Look, I’m on your side, deeplanders, and I am trying to be fair. No stealing is fair.” He swallows, wipes perspiration from his brow and then nods to the foreman. “Put her on that stool there and give her three lashes.”

  “No! NO!” Amista wails. She wrenches herself from side to side, but the foreman has no trouble forcing her small body over the kelpwood stoo
l, stomach down.

  She hasn’t even been struck yet, but just seeing her in such a vulnerable position makes me feel like something has broken into sharp pieces inside my chest.

  Another foreman, my supervisor, climbs onto the balcony carrying a whip. He’s not tall, but he looks strong.

  “Here, why don’t you give me that…” Giron holds his hand out for the whip, and I doubt he’s volunteered to be kind. Yes, he’s probably weaker than any of the foremen, but I have a grim feeling that he wants to personally punish Amista.

  Giron unrolls the whip, letting it hit the balcony floor with a soft, leathery slap, and there’s a wave of angry movement in the crowd—a silent, horrified protest.

  He swings his arm back, looking as if he has no idea what he’s doing, and both foremen grimace, perhaps worried he’ll miss and hit them. But before Giron cracks that long piece of leather over tiny Amista—Sande shouts, “Hey, I did it! Over here! I stole from the medicry!”

  My breath catches in my throat. Is that true?

  I am certain that Giron heard Sande, for the hall is quiet and nearly everyone turns to look at us, but he whips Amista’s back anyway, and she screams as the leather slices into her uniform. We’re on the opposite side of the hall but I can still clearly see a line of red bloom on her dress, and Giron has the strangest expression. He seems to be smothering a smile, and his eyelids are also fluttering as if he’s about to faint. I’ve gutted plenty of fish and skinned countless visconey, but I wonder how much blood Giron has seen in his sheltered, uppy life.

  “I said it was me,” Sande cries, jumping down from the crate. “Punish me.”

  So was this his new plan? Steal from the factory medicry? Or is he trying to save Amista?

  Giron seems to share my suspicions. “You just want to protect the girl.”

  “No, I’ve been trying to protect myself.” Sande shoves his way through the other workers. “I was going to sell the medicine and buy a passbook, and then I was going to leave this miserable city. I don’t want to work for free, none of us do. You shouldn’t force us.”