Currently

by Sarah Mensinga

  He must sense my discomfort because he graciously says, “Well thank you… Did you tell me your name?”

  I shake my head. “It’s Nerene Keel.” Now that Douglen and Jeck are dead, I hope it’s safe to call myself that again.

  Sir Mauricen watches me thoughtfully before saying, “Thank you for returning the arctic stones, Nerene Keel. I can’t tell you how upset I was when these went missing. It was baffling and rather embarrassing, to be honest.” After another long silence, he adds, “Do you know your way out? I’m afraid this hall won’t be open for a few sunpeaks, and I’m—” He looks down at the drawings and makes an exasperated noise. “Still working out the details.”

  I swallow. I’m not just here to return the arctic stones, and I know that what I want to happen won’t happen unless I’m brave enough to ask for it, so I blurt, “Would you hire me?”

  Sir Mauricen looks up in surprise, but he doesn’t immediately say no, so I ramble on.

  “It’s just, you seem kind, and I’m a hard worker. I don’t want to just… follow the tide anymore, I’m ready to find a place to stop and stay.” And now I’m sure I’m no longer making sense. “Please. You won’t regret giving me a job, I promise.”

  Sir Mauricen still looks startled. “What is it that you do?”

  I hope the few skills I have matter in the uppy world; “Well, I know a lot about deepland plants, especially herbs—I once tried to write a book about them. And I’m very good at catching flier hens and visconeys. I can also shoot a snapper, and I know how to make them too, so long as I can find urchin root. I can weave almost anything out of reeds as well.” I swallow, hating how my words echo in the vast space.

  Again it takes a while for Sir Mauricen to speak, but eventually he says, “Are you from the deeplands? You weren’t born in Beth, surely?”

  “I'm from the deeplands near Varasay,” I say quickly, trying not to let on how unhappy I was there. “I've also lived in Ellevah.”

  He gives me a keen look. “How did you get a passbook?”

  I hesitate.

  He quickly raises a hand. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t need to know.”

  I smile. I knew it was the right decision to come here.

  “Well then,” he says, smiling too. “How interesting. I would actually love to hire you.”

  It seems too good to be true. I stand there, my heart thumping, waiting for him to elaborate.

  “You see, my friends and I have wanted to travel to the ruins of a pre-tide civilization for a long while now, but we’ve had trouble finding deepland guides. They’re hard to come by in Beth, as you can imagine, with our shameful slavery laws. Would you be willing to help us travel through the kelp jungles?”

  “Yes, of course,” I say, thinking fondly of my herb gathering trips in Ellevah.

  Sir Mauricen smiles. “How wonderful! And I’m sure I can find something for you to do here until the tide passes too. There’s always something that needs doing.” He waves a hand at the scattered diagrams.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you so much.”

  Sir Mauricen holds up the drybark box. “No, thank you. And perhaps when you are ready, you can tell me where you found these.”

  My hesitation surely must show in my face, because he gently adds, “If, of course, you are ever ready.”

  Saying goodbye to Shara, and even little Timsy and Dorla, is heart-wrenching. Shara and I hug and hug, and we promise to visit each other and send letters, even though we both know how difficult that will be.

  Then all of a sudden, the tide passes, along with the winter, and I’m on my own. I move into a small housing unit—a spread in the high city not far from the museum—and I do my best to create a quiet, stable life for myself. Every day I fall more in love with the museum, and Sir Mauricen proves himself to be the trusted friend I hoped he would be. The rest of the museum staff is also kind, and when summer comes, our expedition goes well. As always, I adore hiking through the deeplands, and I’m fascinated by the ancient settlement we visit too. When I’m not exploring the old buildings that are draped in vines, I look for and sketch interesting plants. I also do my best to learn all I can about the statues, tablets, and pottery that we’ll be bringing back to the museum. When we do return to Beth, Sir Mauricen asks me to help plan future expeditions, and I soon realize that I’m good at it.

  Time slips by, tides pass by, and it starts to feel as if things will go on unchanging until my skin wrinkles and my hair silvers. But one winter, four tides after I said goodbye to Shara, I’m marking routes on a map of the Suthrellon deeplands when there’s a knock on my workroom door. I open it and find a museum guide waiting in the passage, a young woman named Maralee.

  “There are people outside with a package for you,” she says. “I offered to deliver it, but they said they’d rather give it to you themselves.” She frowns apologetically.

  “Package?” I say, while imagining what Maralee means when she says “people.” I picture a crowd of uppy strangers. I also think about how I once arrived at the museum with something I wanted to personally deliver. “I’ll come down.”

  I find only two people on the museum steps. A child with bright red hair grasping a large, square parcel wrapped in paper, and a man wearing well-worn clothes, who has a short beard, eyeglasses, and… and a face I know.

  “Sande!” I cry.

  “Nerene!” He rushes forward to hug me, and for an instant, I dive back seven or eight tides to when I last saw him. He even smells the same. Yet when he lets go, we’re washed forward to the present. And here in the present, we’re strangers.

  “How?” I say, feeling flustered and unsteady. “And please, come in out of the cold.”

  The doorman steps forward saying, “It costs fifteen paper shells to enter the museum today.”

  But I wave him off. “They're with me—it’s fine.” And again I look at Sande, still shocked that it’s really, truly him. His face seems rougher now, or maybe harder. He’s skinnier too and missing a bottom tooth. “How did you find me?” I say.

  “Someone asked me to bring you this.” He nods at the parcel the little girl’s hugging. She gives me a beaming smile and holds it out to me. I accept it—it’s heavy—and I wonder if she's his daughter. I can't quite tell how old she is. Six tides? Or maybe seven? She doesn’t look like him at all, though, except for maybe her curls.

  “I was so happy to know you were still alive” Sande says. “And the package came with an envelope of paper shells. I thought the money was simply for postage, but there was so much of it, as well as passbooks for myself and Klariah. It seemed whoever wanted you to have this package wanted us to bring it to you in person, and we were quite happy to take the trip—it wouldn’t have been something we could afford otherwise.”

  Klariah, so that’s the child’s name. “Is she yours?” I ask.

  “Sort of.” He winks. “A lot has happened since I last saw you.”

  “A lot has happened to me too,” I say faintly, looking down at the package in my arms. I feel as if I’ve slipped down an icy hill and now the world is speeding past me. Sande is alive. My name is also on the parcel, and I recognize that compressed, angular handwriting. “Who gave you this?” I ask, even though I already know.

  “I can’t remember,” Sande says. “Strange, isn’t it? Whoever they were, they must have been very unremarkable.”

  Of course he doesn’t remember. “Well, it’s so good to see you,” I say. “And I want to know everything that’s happened since we left Varasay. There’s a good place to talk nearby, a tea shop. But… do you mind if I run this up to my workroom?”

  “Not at all,” Sande says, looking impressed that I have a workroom. “Do you mind if we…” He eyes the main gallery where the exowhale hangs on wires. The little girl, Klariah, has already skipped several paces away from us and is peering longingly into the huge hall.

  “Yes, please, explore the museum,” I say. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  And of course,
I can’t bear to just put the strange package in my workroom. I shut the door, cut the strings tied around it, unwrap the outer paper that reads, “Nerene Keel, Royal Museum of Beth”, and pull back the waxed canvas inside.

  It’s a hand-bound book with a leather cover that reads: “Common Sea Spread Spices.”

  I wipe away a tear. It’s our manuscript; Cressit’s and mine—the one I lost. It never had this cover before, though. I open it, and as I hoped, I find a letter tucked inside. I unfold the paper with trembling hands.

  Dearest Nerene,

  I’m afraid I’m writing in haste, so this will be short. I’m also sorry that I’m not bringing you this book in person, but I thought if I did, it might be hard to leave. Yet after using my wavurl inexcusably on you twice, it doesn’t seem right to risk making that mistake a third time.

  Melily is well, and she would send her love if she knew I was writing you. She survived, but her lungs were permanently damaged, and now she cannot walk where you walk—if you understand what I mean. She found her family, and last I heard, plans to be married.

  Deepest love to you, and maybe I will visit when my wavurl fades. I hope you are happy. I also hope this was hand-delivered. I went to great lengths to find just the right person to bring it to you.

  -C.S.

  I tuck the letter back into the book, and I dab my eyes with a handkerchief because I suddenly have so many things to cry about. I have happy tears because I've finally heard from Cressit, and now I know Melily survived. I have sad tears because it seems that Melily can no longer breathe air, which means I’ll never see my dear friend again. And I have sad tears because I won’t see Cressit any time soon either. It could take another fifteen or twenty tides for his wavurl to fade. Do I think it best that he stay away until then? Yes, I suppose I do, but hearing from him still makes my chest feel tight.

  And yet, I’ll have to think all of these things through later, because I have visitors—interesting visitors—and they’re waiting for me.

  Hoping my skin isn’t too red and blotchy, I walk back down the museum's marble staircase having imaginary conversations with Cressit about Douglen and Jeck’s deaths, and about our book—which he must have gone back and rescued at some point.

  But he’s not here now.

  Sande is.

  I find Sande and the mysterious Klariah where I left them in the main gallery. She’s calling out to him in a language I don’t know, and he answers her in that same language, sounding as if he’s spoken it all his life.

  He waves when he sees me crossing the hall, jacket over my arm, and he smiles. “You opened the package, didn’t you?”

  “I was curious,” I admit. “I’m sorry for taking so long.”

  “Don’t be, but you have to you tell me what was inside.” He laughs. “I’ve been traveling with it for months, and you have no idea how many times I nearly tore it open out of curiosity. It was torture.”

  The old Sande would have torn it open, and I find his restraint interesting. “It was a book that I wrote with a friend. I thought the only copy was lost, so thank you for bringing it back.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “You wrote a book? That’s amazing.”

  “Well, it’s not a real book, not yet. There’s just the one copy, but who knows?” I’m holding my coat, hat, and muffler because I thought I’d take Sande to a nearby tea shop, but seeing that his small companion is happily skipping around the main gallery, perhaps staying here is better.

  My story seems too difficult and complicated to begin with, so I sit on a bench near Sande and say, “So where have you been for all these tides?”

  He smiles in a bittersweet way. “Are you sure you want to know everything?”

  I nod.

  So he sits down beside me and begins to talk.

  A big thank you to everyone who encouraged me during the (long!) process of sending this story out into the world.

  Thanks in particular to Alexis Lantgen for always being willing to talk through plot problems, and to Gerardo Delgadillo for giving me such great feedback.

  Additional thanks to the many other amazing people who’s insight and advice have helped me grow as a writer: Dani Baxter, Diana Beebe, Mervyn Dejecacion, Sean Easley, Jason Gurley, Ann Hasseler de Carrasco, Kellie Patrick-Getty, Jared Pope, Holly Rylander, and my editor, Thalia Sutton.

  Thank you, Mom and Dad, for letting me subject you to lengthy discussions about my publishing plans. And thank you to my sisters; Christine for being so encouraging even when your life is busy, and Laura for being a great beta reader and my first beta reader ever.

  Thanks also to my awesome kids who know that when Mom is hunched over her computer, they should ask questions two or three times—and to never assume that they can eat candy if I vaguely say, “Yes.”

  And above all, thank you to my wonderful, amazing, supportive, dashingly bearded husband, Stephen, who reads all my messy first drafts. You told me once this was your favorite book, and more than anything else, that helped me find my way when I got lost in the Sea Spread.

  I love you.

  Sarah Mensinga was born in Toronto, Canada, and now lives in Texas with her husband and three kids. She often works as an artist in the animation industry and has had short comics published in various anthologies, including Flight 4 & 5.

  Find her at www.sarahmensinga.com or on Instagram and Twitter.

  If you would like to experience an audio/visual exploration of this novel, visit the Chattersketch channel on YouTube.