The Dead-Tossed Waves

by Carrie Ryan

  I wake up gasping, my fingers clutching at the sheets and blood roaring in my ears. It takes me a moment to calm the pounding of my heart and even longer to realize that my mother’s in the room, standing by the window and staring down at the beach.

  “Mom?” I ask, pushing up to my elbows. The wisps of my dream still crowd around my head, a tangle of confusing desires. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the images away.

  My mother says nothing, doesn’t even look at me, and so I say again, “Mom?” kicking back the covers and throwing my legs over the side of my bed.

  She lets the blinds fall back and comes to sit down next to me. In her hands she holds a small thin book and she traces her fingers over the edges of it as if she’s nervous.

  Other than yesterday I’ve never seen my mother hesitate, never seen her unsure of herself. It unsettles me watching her that way now.

  I feel so distant from her even though our shoulders touch, and our hips and knees, as we sit side by side. I want to tell her about last night, to apologize for running and ask her to forgive me. But I don’t.

  Finally she breaks the silence and tension. “I’m sorry, Gabry,” she says. Her voice is defeated, without the current of strength that I’m so used to hearing. “I probably should have told you before about where you came from.”

  She stares down at her hands pressed against the cover of the book and I can just make out the title between her slim fingers: Shakespeare’s Sonnets. I always thought our hands were so similar, always thought it was a trait we shared.

  But even that thought was built on a lie and this realization makes it all so fresh, so clear how deep the betrayal is.

  “I just thought it would be easier,” she says. “The Forest—it’s so cruel.” She almost spits the last word and I watch as emotions crowd her face: anger, fear, grief, resignation.

  “I guess I thought it would be easier for both of us if we forgot about the Forest—if we could just let it go.”

  Her face has so many more lines on it than I remember, and her hair is shot through with more white. I should tell her it’s okay; I should tell her I forgive her, but I can’t. If there’s anyone in this world who I should be able to trust it’s my mother, and that makes it all so much more painful.

  She thumbs through the pages of the book, fanning out the corners. I know she’s waiting for me to say something but I don’t know what and so I stay silent.

  She heaves a deep breath and holds it. “I’m going back into the Forest, Gabrielle.”

  “What?” I say before the word even forms in my mind, a thousand protests behind it. “Why? How? I don’t—” I can’t even find the way to ask the questions and I shake my head. Suddenly the idea of losing her starts to seep through me and I swallow bitter uneasiness.

  She places a hand on my leg, curling her fingers over my knee. “It’s what I have to do, Gabry,” she says. “Last night I thought about you and everything you said and you’re right. I should not have let them go that easily—should not have let the past go.”

  I can’t even process what she’s saying because I’m too wrapped up in trying to figure out what this means for me, for the lighthouse and Catcher and my future.

  “What about me?” I ask, my voice sounding small and hollow.

  She turns and looks at me, her eyes bright against the pale of her cheeks. “I want you to come with me.”

  I can’t help it—I leap up, pushing from the bed and backing toward the window. “No,” I tell her, shaking my head. “No,” I say again, sure of my answer.

  “Gabry—” I know she’s going to try to convince me and so I cut her off.

  “I can’t, not into the Forest. No.” I wipe my fingers over my sweat-slicked upper lip, fear burning through me. “It’s too dangerous. It’s off-limits. It’s full of Mudo!” My voice escalates as I pace the room.

  My mother just sits on the bed, her face and body not betraying her emotions, which infuriates me even more. I’ve lost too much recently; everything’s changed too fast and I can’t take this—not now. I need my mother, her support and love and help and protection.

  “You can’t go,” I tell her.

  “Gabry—” This time her voice holds a hint of a warning but I don’t heed it.

  “No, the Council—they’ll find out. They’ll punish you, and what will happen to the lighthouse? What will happen to me?”

  She stands up and walks over to me, placing her hands on my shoulders. I want to pull away but I don’t because her touch feels too much like when I was little and needed her reassurance. “The Forest is safe enough, Gabrielle. I’ve been through it twice and I can do it again. The trick is just the first part—running from the gate over the waterfall to the path a few hundred yards in. I know you, Gabry, and I know you’re strong enough to do this.”

  I want to tell her yes, I want to give in and follow her orders. To let her lead me and just blindly follow. But I think about Catcher and Cira and I can’t do it.

  “Why?” I ask her, the pain I’m feeling lacing around the word, infusing it.

  “I have to know what happened to them,” she says simply.

  “But it’s been years,” I tell her.

  She shrugs. “I shouldn’t have given up on them. I shouldn’t have stopped hoping. I should have done something.” She pauses and looks past me. “I just have to know, one way or another.”

  “And so you’ll leave me—abandon me—to find out? To risk your life? What about me?”

  “This is why you should come with me—we can find out about your past too,” she urges.

  I shake my head. “No, not into the Forest. I can’t.”

  “But the Forest doesn’t have to be dangerous—”

  “You’re the one who taught me to be afraid of the Forest!” I shout at her, letting go of any restraint or reserve. “All my life that’s what you told me—beware of the Forest of Hands and Teeth! You told me that it’s nothing but death and desperation!”

  “I wanted you to grow up safe, Gabrielle,” she responds pointedly, “not scared.”

  I stare at her. I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d slapped me. And my words are designed to cut her just as deep: “Whose fault is that?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and raising one eyebrow.

  We stare at each other, both of us breathing hard as if we’ve been physically fighting.

  From the main room downstairs I hear the little bells chiming that high tide is near, the signal for my mother to start her patrol. She walks to the door and looks back at me.

  She tries again to convince me to go with her into the Forest but I don’t give in. I tell myself that I can’t leave Catcher or Cira but I know the reality is that I’m too scared. And I know I can’t tell her this because I don’t know if she’s ever felt fear like mine.

  “Please think about it, Gabry,” she says. “After I clean the beach I’ll come back and we can talk about it more.” She touches the doorjamb as she leaves, automatically rubbing her fingers over the words etched there—a line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I turn away from the familiar, screaming inside. Then I hear the echo of her steps as they disappear down the stairs.

  “I can’t,” I tell the empty room. I wish I were strong enough, as strong as my mother. But I’m nothing like her. When she was my age she had her entire life wrenched away; she spent years trying to find safety. All I’ve ever known is security and I’m too terrified to give it up.

  Pounding wakes me up and for a minute I think it’s just my head throbbing from sleeping too long in the heat. I stare groggily at the walls of the lantern room, at the fresh etchings of another Shakespearean sonnet my mother carved into the low walls last night while I was gone. I think about her asking me again to come with her into the Forest and how I refused again. I’m still shocked and amazed at my own ability to say no.

  With bright eyes she told me that all I had to do to find her was follow the light and then she walked away and I watched her go through the
binoculars before falling asleep outside on the gallery.

  I hear more pounding and realize belatedly that it’s coming from downstairs. In an instant I wonder if it’s my mother, if she’s given up on going into the Forest and come home. Hope blooms in me hot and fierce and I sprint down the steps to the main door.

  When I throw it open, though, it’s Elias. The sun glares behind him and my sleep-slowed mind struggles to figure out what’s going on. “Elias, what are you do—”

  “On the beach,” he cuts me off, pointing over his shoulder and gasping for air. I look past him and see them: the bloated bodies of the Mudo washed ashore, a few of them already sensing us and struggling to stand.

  From inside the house I hear the insistent chime of the bells signaling the tide change. I’ve been so used to hearing them, so used to my mother being the one to answer their call, that I didn’t even recognize the sound. I wipe my hand over my face as the enormity of my mother’s abandonment settles in. Even though she told me she’d return in a few weeks I feel her absence like a permanent ache.

  Her duties have fallen to me and I’ve already failed.

  “Here,” I say, grabbing a sharp-bladed shovel from a rack by the door and thrusting it into his hands. He turns and runs back to the water, his motions practiced and sure as he begins to decapitate the Mudo. He kills two in quick succession, leaving two more, who stumble toward him. He thrusts the blade against the knees of one of them and I hear the snap of bones breaking. He swings the shovel at the other, smashing its head, then stands over it to sever the neck.

  I grab another shovel and stride out onto the beach next to Elias. He doesn’t say anything as I approach a Mudo lying twisted where the waves abandoned her.

  I don’t take the same care my mother did when I decapitate the Mudo. I don’t want to think about them as anything other than monsters. I refuse to wonder about where they’re from and how they ended up here. I can’t let myself imagine families missing them, how they died, who they once were.

  I’m just content to end their misery. End their infinite hunger. The same thing I’ll have to do for Catcher when the time comes—something else I refuse to think about now.

  My arms shake when I’m done with the last Mudo and the waves tuck the decapitated bodies back into their depths. The late-afternoon sun makes everything harsh, the heat over the water breaking the light into a million colors.

  Elias drives his shovel into the sand, propping his arms on the handle. Sweat gleams on his skin, traces the lines of the muscles along his shoulders where the short sleeves of his tunic are tucked up.

  I should thank him for waking me up. For helping me clear the beach, because I’m not sure I could have done it alone. “What’re you doing here?” I ask instead, trying not to wince at the confrontational tone of my voice.

  Elias rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re welcome,” he says, sighing, and I narrow my eyes at him. It’s somehow different to be here with him in the daylight, as if it was easier to talk when the darkness masked more of our faces and emotions. I dig my foot into the beach, spiraling sand over my toes. I feel prickly and defensive, my skin tight with sunburn and my head pounding from dehydration.

  “Thank you,” I finally say.

  “I was worried,” he adds. I look up into his eyes, at the earnest kindness I see there. And it’s that small bit of tenderness that’s my undoing. It makes me realize how alone I am here. How Elias might be the only person who was thinking about me—worrying about me.

  Suddenly I’m overwhelmed thinking about the empty lighthouse. All the empty nights that stretch ahead of me: alone. The only person between the ocean and Vista. My eyes tear up.

  “What’s going on, Gabrielle?” he asks. “Is everything okay?”

  I stare down at my feet, at the way the water pools around my toes, and nod. But the word that leaves my lips is “No.”

  He shifts, as if suddenly uncomfortable. “The tide should carry away the Unconsecrated,” he says. “The beach should be safe for a while.”

  “My mother always called them Unconsecrated too,” I tell him, watching a wave slip over the chest of a dead Mudo. “She grew up in the Forest. She …” Memories flood me, choke me. Her stories crowding around my mind, blurring together. I want to tell him that I’m from the Forest also but I can’t find the words. “She …” I start again, but nothing comes.

  Finally I let my shoulders drop. “She’s gone,” I say. “She went back into the Forest and I let her go without me.” My voice feels hollow.

  He doesn’t move, just stands there staring out at the horizon.

  “She’s gone. My best friend and everyone else my age I knew are all being held and are about to be handed over to the Recruiters. And Catcher …” I almost choke on his name. “He’ll be gone too. Everyone will be gone and I’ll be alone,” I tell him. Admitting it makes the fear seem real and it squeezes at me.

  Sand shifts under my feet as he closes the distance between us. I feel his hands in my hair and then he pulls me to him. I resist at first but then I realize that Elias is the only one I have left right now. He’s my only ally. I’m not sure if I should trust him, if I can trust him, but I feel as though I have no other choice unless I want to be utterly alone and I’m not sure I can handle that right now. If I can stand losing everything so quickly.

  He holds me tight, his hand pushing my cheek against his shoulder as if he can keep my shattering pieces together. As if he understands what’s happening to me. I don’t want the feeling to go away.

  “Please don’t go back,” I beg him. I think of the darkness, of being alone in the lighthouse with the night closing in. “Please don’t leave me alone here. What if more wash ashore? Please stay.”

  His voice cracks when he answers. “I can’t, Gabry, I’m sorry.”

  “Please,” I whisper. I don’t want to be alone, am not sure I can be alone. I never have been before—the thought of it terrifies me.

  “You’re the only one I have left,” I say, looking up at him. I let him see my pain and vulnerability, hoping that he’ll realize how much I need him. How much I’m begging to trust him. I feel naked in this moment and I almost think he’ll say yes, his face betraying his emotions. But then he turns his gaze back to the ocean.

  “I’m sorry,” he croaks.

  I take a deep breath, wondering why I ever allowed myself to trust anyone in this world. How much easier it would be if I didn’t care.

  For a heartbeat I wonder if this was my fate when I was left in the Forest as a child, after I was lost and before my mother found me. If this helplessness and solitude has been so ingrained into my life that it’s all I can aspire to, all I should expect.

  I survived then, I must be able to survive it now. I have no other option.

  I stare into the side of Elias’s face and can sense his hesitation in the way he holds his body so tight. I feel his conflicted emotions heavy in the air between us but also his resolution.

  There’s nothing I can say or do to keep him here. He’ll leave just like everyone else. I feel stupid for even having asked him to stay. He’s a stranger—someone I barely know. Someone who clearly has as little reason to care about me as I do about him.

  And so I push softly away from him, letting go of his comfort and warmth, and walk back into the lighthouse, leaving him behind to stare at the waves.

  It’s cooler inside the lighthouse, the darker air a refreshing change as I climb the stairs. The door to my mother’s room is cracked, slants of light soaking the scarred boards of the landing. There’s a single bed pushed against the far wall under the window; it’s neatly made up, an old faded quilt stretched taut across it.

  The sun glares through the window, the stretch of water the only thing beyond. Leaning against the pillow is a photograph of my mother and me. We’re standing in the ocean; she’s behind me with her arms wrapped around me. I’m just a child, laughing as the waves crest around us.

  I remember when it was taken.
An old man with an even older photobox had come to Vista willing to trade housing and food for a photograph. The town wanted to turn him away but my mother took him in.

  He stayed with us a week, snapping two photos on the last day. I remember the water was cold, the tide quick and waves tall. But I was safe and warm in my mother’s arms. If I look closely I can see the shadows that haunt her face. As if she is lost in that picture, lost in the blur of water and sky and I am the only thing holding her firm.

  Beside the photo is the book my mother was holding this morning when she asked me to go with her into the Forest. I pick it up, run my fingers along the edges, wondering if I can still feel the heat of her touch.

  I sit on the bed, the mattress sinking under my weight, and flip through the book, the words on the page as familiar as walking.

  When I was a little girl my mother took a knife and carved bits of the poems into the doorjambs of the lighthouse, spots she always touched with her fingers when she entered or left rooms. I asked her once why she did this but she’s never been able to explain it to me. I think about the one she carved into the lantern room last night, of her reminding me that the light will always take me home.

  And I wonder if she’s out there now, waiting for that light to appear on the horizon, showing her that I’m strong enough to move forward without her even though I’m not sure I am.

  Though I’ve been dreading it, I go to visit Cira at the end of the day. The Council moved everyone into the jail in the basement of the Central Hall, and the Militiaman standing guard says nothing to me as I walk down a short flight of stairs into a closed dank room divided in half by thick vertical bars.

  A few families press against the bars, their fingers twined around the hands of their jailed children, eking out every moment together they can before being sent away. I have to stop when I see it. I swallow, the scene so similar to the Mudo pressed against the fence on the beach last night.

  I want to run back aboveground but I force myself forward. Cira rushes to me, laces her fingers through the bars. “Catcher?” she asks, breathless with anticipation. Her eyes are bright, her cheeks pink. So hopeful and alive. “Did you find him? Is he okay?”