The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky

by David Litwack

  He shrugged.

  “How about where I stick you? Wrist or forearm?”

  “Anywhere’s fine, as long as the stuff makes it into my veins.”

  When he’d first been diagnosed and given no chance for a cure, he’d remained reasonable as always, saying he wanted to die in peace and be no burden to his family. But the doctor said he had a growth pressing on his lower spine. As an expert in the field, her father knew the consequences—incontinence, paralysis, and pain. If he desired a peaceful end, he would need treatment.

  Helena wondered how he could be so buoyant.

  He looked up at the ceiling while the needle went in.

  Nurse Sorin kept up a constant chatter as she arranged the tubes. “So, are you retired?”

  “Do I look that old?”

  “No sir. You look like you could run a long-distance race.”

  “I did, just three years ago. And I’m not retired. I teach at the Polytech.”

  Helena glanced up from her book. She couldn’t let him get away with the understatement. “He’s a tenured professor of physiometry, named best teacher at the Polytechnic Institute five years in a row. Some say he’s in line for the Order of Reason.”

  The nurse wrapped the plastic tube around the pole and flicked it with her finger. “That right? You must be very smart.”

  “Not as smart as my daughter,” he said. “Have I introduced you to Helena? Someday, she’ll be a better researcher than me. She’ll solve problems I never dreamed of, find cures for diseases like the kind that’s killing me.”

  Helena flushed and looked back at her textbook, but the words had blurred.

  ***

  It had been the same textbook she was staring at now—and the words were no clearer.

  The door beside the receptionist’s desk opened, and to Helena’s surprise Jason emerged. As soon as he saw her, he flashed that boyish smile, stepped in her direction and spoke her name. Her lips parted, and she rose to greet him.

  An official-looking man came bustling from behind and wedged himself between them. He placed a hand on Jason’s back and nudged him toward the exit, clearly eager to avoid the two of them speaking before he’d interviewed them separately.

  “Thank you for coming, Jason. Please contact me if you think of anything else.” Only when Jason was out the door did the official turn to her. “And you must be Helena. Come right this way, please.”

  As he led her into his office, Helena twisted around to peer into the hallway, but Jason was gone again. She had so many questions to ask him. What had he been up to these past few years? What kind of man had he become? Had the dreams of their youth worked out better for him than for her?

  But more, she wanted to ask the most unusual of questions: if he’d dreamed the past three nights as she had; if he too was haunted by a girl with golden hair on the prow of a sinking ship.

  Chapter 3 – Jason

  Jason Adams stopped between the granite columns that graced the top of the stairs and squinted into the sunlight. The walk back from Carlson’s interview had been unsettling, too much like the dream that had troubled his sleep since childhood—like the dream, but in reverse.

  In that dream, he’d awake to a muffled keening and follow the sound, first through a chamber lined with granite columns, then down a hallway with ever lower ceilings, until he had to crouch to pass through. Finally, he’d come to a tiny room where a little man stood, smaller than life-size, with a woman kneeling on the dirt floor beside him in prayer.

  Some nights, when the moon had poured its pale light through the window of his bedroom, he’d rouse, rub his eyes, and blink up at the ceiling, wondering what the dream meant. By his mid-teens, he knew.

  When he was young, maybe four or five, his mother took him to see where his father worked. He remembered granite columns and marble floors with blue-gray swirls that caught and held his eye.

  “Is this where my daddy works?”

  “No,” his mother said. They passed through a hall and down stairs to a smaller room.

  “Is this it now?”

  “Not yet.”

  Finally, they’d found his father in a cramped and dusty mailroom, and the younger Jason began to cry.

  His father had stopped sorting mail into cubbyholes to comfort him, but his mother began to pray. She was always praying, a family tradition she refused to give up. His father begged her to stop, but she kept on, irrationally invoking some ancient god.

  Jason now had few other memories of his mother: how she grew ill a year later and wasted away, how he watched her casket lowered into the ground, how his father clutched him and told him how terrible it was to be alone.

  He shook off the mood. Today had been better. The chief examiner’s office was nicer than the cell of his dream, the woman in the waiting room from a happier memory.

  Helena.

  She’d glanced up as he entered, her face open but astonished, as if she’d found the years apart to be a constant surprise—and not always pleasant. He smiled at her the way he used to smile when they’d walked home along the cliffs, and she responded with her usual half grin, one side of her lips curling upward while she tilted her head the other way. A glint in her eyes seemed to say, “You’re a silly boy, Jason, but I like you anyway.”

  He’d stepped toward her, but before he could get near, Carlson had herded him out the door.

  Helena. He’d been delighted to see her that first time, sitting on the cliffs at the midpoint of his jog. Though he’d often thought of her, they hadn’t spoken in years. Then the letters stopped, too. Which one of them was last to write? Who was first to not respond? He couldn’t recall.

  Of course he’d heard about her father and knew how much she must be hurting. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she seemed so distant, barely making eye contact. He hadn’t been able to think of what to say.

  Now, they shared a gift from the Blessed Lands, the daughter of the sea and the sky. They’d been given a second chance.

  He knew at once what to do: wait for her, even if it took the rest of the afternoon. He’d wait outside in the warm air, far from the windowless office. Summer was waning, and he’d take advantage of it while it lasted.

  Across the street from the department sat a small restaurant called The Freethinker’s Café, with a few tables set out on the sidewalk for the summer, each shaded by a red-and-white umbrella fringed at the edges. A sign hanging over the entrance declared it the ideal place for friends to meet, but it was well past lunchtime and no friends were there. He’d be the only customer.

  He wandered over to take up his watch. From this vantage point, he had a clear view of the thirty-two stairs he’d just descended. She’d have to come out that way.

  ***

  An hour later, Jason watched Helena pause between the columns to let her eyes adjust to the glare. When he called out her name, she cupped a hand over her brow and peered toward the sidewalk at the base of the stairs.

  He raised his arms over his head. “Over here, across the street!”

  She finally noticed and responded with a flip of the fingers, then brushed a strand of hair from her face and started down. She skipped over the first few steps but checked herself, hands flying out like little stabilizers, while he bounded across the street. They converged when she had one step to go.

  “I have some time,” he said. “I thought we could have a drink and compare notes.”

  “Notes?”

  “About Carlson and the little girl.”

  “Did you believe him?” She glanced back up the stairs as if expecting the chief examiner to be spying on them. “He asked if there were insurgents lurking in a mother ship, if she carried subversive literature or weapons.”

  “He asked me that too.”

  “All I wanted was to find out why she came and what will happen to her. Such a beautiful child.”

  “I know.” He conjured up the two of them rushing into the surf, him carrying the girl to safety. The face wi
th eyes the color of the ocean surfaced in his mind, but he shook it off and focused instead on the face before him—Helena. “So, will you?

  Her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, but she still seemed distracted. “I’m sorry. What were you asking?”

  “Will you join me?” He contorted his brow into a rebuked schoolboy face. “Or are you mad at me for not answering your last letter?”

  She reached out and stroked his cheek, then tried to smooth the furrows from his brow, just like she used to after he’d had a bad day at school. “And all this time I thought I was the sinner.”

  He took her hand and lowered it to his chest, cradling it in both of his as he’d done so often when they were younger. But something was different now—a tension in her fingers.

  After a moment, he let go. “Then we’re both equally guilty. Or innocent. Why don’t we start fresh?”

  The worry on her face evaporated, and she broke into a smile. “Okay.”

  A few minutes later she was sipping a glass of her usual lemon-flavored drink, trying to keep the ice from touching her teeth, watching him over the rim. Other than telling him what she wanted to drink, she’d said little.

  At last, he snuck a hand across the table and took the book from her purse.

  She snatched it back before he could see the title. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve waited all week to see what you’re reading.”

  She closed and opened her hand as if to imply it had never intended to interfere, then slid the book over.

  “Tell me,” he said, “why do you sit on the cliffs each day at the changing of the tides and read...?” He picked up the book. “Fundamentals of Physiometry?”

  She wiggled her fingers, motioning for the book back, and he dutifully complied. “It’s a textbook. I’m studying for an exam.”

  “And here I’d been picturing you reading poetry by the sea.”

  “You were the whimsical one, Jason, always staring at the clouds. I’m a down-to-earth Brewster. We do science.” She replaced the book in its pocket and stored the purse beneath her seat.

  He balanced on the front legs of his chair and inched a hand closer to hers. “I wasn’t staring at the clouds, Helena. I was staring at you.”

  She gave a dismissive wave, a familiar gesture that reminded him how much he’d missed her, but now he had her attention. Her eyes were on him, unable to look away. They were sadder than he remembered.

  He recalled the memorial service from the week before. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a great man.”

  “Thank you,” she mumbled. Her mind was very much elsewhere.

  He tried to bring her back to the present. “But why that rock and why that time?”

  “It’s where he used to bring me when I was little. He’d take me there just before high tide. We’d watch the spray and listen for the sound of the waves crashing between the rocks. He called it the thunder hole.”

  Her voice cracked and she needed a long sip of lemon drink before continuing. “He was a runner, like you. When he was invited to speak at conferences, he’d find exotic places to go for a run. Then he’d come home and tell me stories about them. His favorite spot was where you run, on the beach below the cliffs.”

  “I didn’t hear much,” he said. “Just the eulogy in the student newspaper. What happened?”

  She started to answer, but her eyes welled up and she needed three breaths to regain control. “The doctors said there was nothing they could do but make him comfortable. Some cells in his body had decided to reproduce too quickly. That’s all. No more meaning than that.”

  She lost her train of thought and began to fiddle with her hair. She removed the silver clip that held it in a ponytail and combed her fingers through once, twice, three times, trying to gather the errant strands in a bunch and reset the clip.

  While she worked at it, Jason watched. Up close, he could see how much she’d changed—a grown woman now. Serious. No longer the schoolgirl of his youth. But one thing was the same: an intensity palpable enough to touch.

  She looked up and caught him staring.

  He nodded, a tilt of the head, enough to say: Go on, I’m listening.

  She returned the nod. “Four months later, he was gone. He was a great scientist and expected me to be the same, but the last lesson he taught me was that science has its limits.” She set the clip back in place, but awkwardly, so hair spilled about her neck.

  Jason waited, still trying to fathom the person she’d become. When the silence began to drag, he made a guess. “Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Become a great scientist like he was?”

  Her lips parted, but no words came out. Instead she lowered her head into her hands and massaged her temples with her thumbs.

  “Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t sure for what. They’d always been able to say anything to each other. He moved closer and placed his palms flat on the table. “I didn’t mean to pry. I just want to know more about you than that you study physiometry at high tide. I want to know everything about you, Helena Brewster, all the good and the bad since we were last together.”

  She fidgeted in her chair and shifted toward the granite façade across the street. Her face took on a pained expression, like someone about to make a confession.

  She sighed. “I was in my last semester when he got sick. He made me promise I’d graduate on time, that his death wouldn’t delay the career he’d planned for me, but I had to take leave from school to help care for him.”

  “Where was your mother? Weren’t they a famous research team?”

  “My mother?” Her voice sounded like surf rolling into the thunder hole; he waited for the crash. “She was brilliant at organizing his lab and his life, but when he needed her most, she couldn’t bear to watch him die. So his care fell to me. After the funeral, when I needed her most, she ran up north to a place called Glen Eagle Farm.”

  “A farm?”

  “More like an art colony, a place where people go to get their lives back together, reason be damned. She was such a mess, I suspect she would’ve transmigrated if it weren’t for me. I haven’t done much better. The university gave me a waiver until the end of September, but I haven’t been able to focus. I bring this book to the cliffs every day, but mostly just stare out to sea.”

  “And rescue strange little girls from the chop.”

  She turned back to him. Her failure now out in the open, she seemed more relaxed. “You’re the one who rescued her. I just stuttered and watched. Enough about me. Why do you always run at high tide?”

  He was surprised at the shift in the conversation, but pleased. “I’m training for the Albion road race next spring. I run on the beach because, like your father, I think it’s the best place to run, especially after high tide, when the sand’s been compacted by the waves.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “I want to know more about you, Jason Adams, than that you run on the beach.” She said it with a hint of a smile.

  He laughed. “Fair enough. Let’s see... no house on the cliffs, just a one-room flat with no view. No world-changing research like your father, but a good engineering job at the Polytech.” He took a sip of his own drink. “Enhanced communications.”

  “Communications? I thought the department controlled that.”

  “They do, and you know how secretive they can be, but they’re starting to loosen up. People like us can only use communicators to talk, but the technology can do much more: send images and printed material. The department restricts it to keep it away from zealots—too efficient a way to spread myths—but researchers at the Polytech argued that controlling communications was inhibiting progress. Reason prevailed.”

  “Is it what you want to do?”

  “It’s a good living with a bright future.”

  “But is it what you want?”

  She stared up at him with that same look she gave him when she’d visit at the sandwic
h shop. The question was the same too: was it what he wanted? He’d place his sandwich-shop cap on her head and watch the way her pony tail spilled out the back. Then he’d patiently explain how his family was different from hers, that if he hoped to go to university, he had to work after school. He’d accomplished a lot since then—a degree, a professional job—both firsts in his family. More status, more money. More loneliness too.

  He tried to smile. “Why do you ask?”

  “Remember how we’d talk about what we wanted when we grew up. My path was set: follow in my father’s footsteps. Now I’m not sure. But you? It was something different every few months: climb the highest mountain, find a cure for diseases, sail across the ocean and show the zealots the light of reason. From my regimented existence, I could only look on and admire. And envy. You never accepted the way things were. You wanted more. What happened to that Jason?” She found his eyes and waited.

  He looked away, inspecting the underside of the umbrella. A breeze blew through the café, making the umbrella sway, knocking over a menu on a nearby table. He got up to retrieve it and set it back in place.

  “That Jason grew up.” He sat back down and forced another laugh; he was done with his turn. “So back to Mr. Carlson. You remember him.” He mimicked the chief examiner’s voice. “‘Were there explosives strapped to her chest when you found her?’”

  Her intensity vanished. “How could he possibly—”

  “He’s on a mission to protect us from a half-drowned nine-year-old.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed.

  Helena broke it first. “I’ve dreamed about her the last three nights. Do you find that odd?”

  “Not at all. I’ve never met anyone like her.” He glanced up, suddenly wishing the umbrella had a hole in it so he could see through to the sky. “Helena?”

  “Yes?”

  “We both rescued her. Maybe we should go visit her together. It’s an hour’s drive from Albion and....”

  He waited as she drained the remainder of her drink, then reached across, trying to bridge the gap between them. When his fingers brushed her hand, she pulled it away.