The Dead-Tossed Waves

by Carrie Ryan

  He glances up at me. “Your mother’s pretty good with plant medicines. Doesn’t she have something for this?”

  He steps even closer, I can feel his breath; I can feel his skin and his smell and his want.

  I drop the kettle on the counter, some of the hot water spilling out and dripping onto the floor by Daniel’s foot. He steps back, reluctantly letting me go. “It’s fine,” I say again. Even I can hear the way my voice shakes.

  He tilts his head a bit, a sharp look to his eyes. “Where is your mother?” he asks. He sticks the knife into the counter next to me, its tip barely digging into the wood. I take a step back from him, reaching for a clean towel from a drawer as an excuse to put distance between us.

  “I noticed the lighthouse isn’t lit,” he says, moving closer. His voice is deeper and there’s something about it that raises the little hairs along my neck.

  I close my eyes, cursing myself again for leaving without lighting the lantern. Of course such an oversight would draw the Militia here. The Protectorate demands we keep the house lit even though traders haven’t tempted the pirates in years.

  “She’s sick,” I tell him. “I’ll do it now,” I add as I hurry out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the lantern room. I open the lamp and adjust the wick, my hand still shaking as I listen to the thump of Daniel following me, his bad leg slowing him down. My shoulders sag; I’m relieved to be alone even for just a small moment.

  But being alone means my thoughts stray back to Elias and the Soulers. I scramble over to the windows and scan the beach below, making sure Daniel won’t be able to see Elias if he happens to glance outside. Nothing moves in the darkness and I wonder if Elias is still out there, if he’s looking up at me even now.

  I shiver and glance past the Barrier into the ruins. Are the Soulers still out there? Is their sick ceremony still going on? I squint, trying to find the amphitheater, and I think I see a spark of light, a soft glow where they should be, and then nothing.

  Daniel’s steps grow louder and I turn back to the lamp and light it quickly, then busy myself with winding the gears.

  He steps into the room and immediately the space feels too small. Too tight and too high. There’s only one exit and his bulk blocks it. He holds the knife, the blade gleaming in the light.

  I set the lamp spinning but Daniel’s presence unnerves me and I’m distracted. The tip of my finger catches between the teeth of two cogs and I cry out at the sharp pain. The glare of the light sweeps over us, the brightness almost a physical force.

  Daniel steps farther into the room and I skirt the lantern, pretending to examine another set of gears while my finger throbs.

  He notices my mother’s recent carvings on the low walls. Stoops to run his fingers over the first few words of the sonnet. “What’s this supposed to be?” he asks. He’s still gasping from the effort of climbing the stairs.

  “My mother likes poetry,” I tell him, refusing to look up. The gears click under my hands, teeth fitting against each other and then gliding away.

  He glares up at me, straightening. “This is Protectorate property.” The light slides over him and he’s silent until I meet his eyes. I watch as beads of sweat trail from his forehead down his temples and along his cheeks to his jaw. My mother has carved pieces of sonnets into almost every doorway of the lighthouse; it never occurred to me she might get in trouble for it.

  Before I can figure out how to respond he brushes a hand through the air. “The Recruiters are arriving the day after tomorrow. Hopefully your mother won’t be too sick—or too busy defacing property—to show up with the other advisors. The Chairman’s expecting her. He sent me to deliver the message personally. And to reprimand her for shirking her duty as the lighthouse keeper.”

  The light makes another sweep around the tiny room and slaps me in the face, piercing my vision. I close my eyes, the darkness an explosion of bright spots. Cira will be gone in two days. The Recruiters will be taking her and the others away. I should have been going with her. “Of course my mother will be there,” I tell him. Hoping I sound convincing.

  With my eyes closed I don’t realize he’s crept nearer until he wraps his hand around the railing next to me, his arm almost circling me. He’s too close, there’s not enough space. I can’t breathe, can’t even think. His chest presses against my shoulder, his mouth almost to my ear.

  “Is your mother asleep?” he asks. And I can hear it all in his voice as my skin breaks out in goose bumps. Suddenly I feel helpless and trapped. I almost call out, hoping that Elias is still outside, that he can come to my rescue.

  But then I remember how he left me alone to go back to the ruins. How he chose the Soulers over me. And thinking about the Soulers makes my stomach twist.

  I need to get Daniel out of the house. I need to find a way to get him away from me.

  His breath is hot on my neck, his body crowding me against the glass. I turn my head away, cringing, but his hand grabs mine, his fingers digging into my palm. “Come on, Gabry,” he says.

  And so I do the only thing I can think of to get him to leave me alone. “I saw the Soulers,” I tell him, my heart pounding.

  He stops moving, stops pressing against me and I slip past him, stepping out onto the gallery. The air out here is so much cooler, not infused with the smell of Daniel and my fear. He comes after me quickly, his leg dragging over the grating of the floor and sending vibrations up through the metal railings.

  “What are you talking about?” he asks, clearly suspicious. The light continues to spin, hitting us and then trailing away into the darkness. The wind whistles slightly as it shifts around the vent over the lantern room.

  “Out there in the ruins,” I tell him, gesturing past the Barrier. I try to step away as he moves closer but he pins me to the railing again, his chest pressed to my side, pushing his cheek into the crook of my neck so that he can follow where I’m pointing.

  “I saw lights out there earlier.” My voice is shaking and his flesh feels slick with sweat. “And during the day I think I saw movement through the binoculars—a group of people wearing white. It just occurred to me that it could have been the Soulers.”

  As he squints his body presses against me even more, the railing digging into my hips. The only way to move away from him is to lean out over the emptiness. If I tip a little bit farther, or if Daniel pushes slightly harder against my back, I could flip over the railing and fall into the nothing. I glance down at the beach so far below, wondering if Elias sees me. If he’s worried about me or if he hears me telling Daniel about the Soulers.

  My muscles tense, waiting to see if Daniel believes me. Waiting to see if he’ll leave me alone. The one thing I know about Daniel is that he’s always had more loyalty to the Militia than to anything else. He would do anything to make himself shine in the eyes of the Council.

  He turns his head toward me, sweat from his cheek dripping onto my shoulder. “Excellent work,” he says. “If you’re telling the truth.”

  He pauses for a moment, his breath moist in my face. And then he just smiles, the light playing along his teeth. “Good night, Gabrielle,” he says, before limping back into the lantern room and down the stairs. I hear the thump and drag of his bad leg, the thud of every step down the lighthouse, until the door closes below and he struggles back across the beach to the path through the woods toward town.

  I allow myself to collapse onto the gallery floor, the wind licking cool along the back of my neck. Swallowing, I twist my fingers together in front of me until my knuckles glow white, trying to figure out what game Daniel’s playing and what I should do next. Everything’s happening too quickly. I just want to sit here and pretend that nothing has changed. But I know it’s useless. Everything is changed. My best friend will be taken away. The Council will find out my mother’s gone. And Catcher will die.

  The only question is, what will be left of me in the end?

  When enough time has passed that I’m sure Daniel is gone I slip downstairs an
d outside into the darkness. The moon is disappearing beyond the town into the Forest and I feel the need to wrap my arms around myself even though the night is hot. I peer into the shadows looking for Elias and even try calling his name a few times, but he’s gone.

  I feel waterlogged and heavy as I climb back up to the lantern room and stand there for a moment, staring at the words of the sonnet my mother carved on the walls. I wonder where she is. If she’s safe. If she’s thinking of me.

  Completely devoid of energy, I step outside onto the gallery and watch the beam of light cut through the night, illuminating the world around me. In the distance I look again for the pinpricks of the Souler lanterns but they’re well hidden. I brush my hand over my face, weariness pulling heavy on every part of me, exhaustion from the day creeping in.

  I wonder what Daniel will do with what I told him. If he’s told the Militia and even now they’re preparing to storm out the gate after the Soulers. I feel a slight twinge of responsibility, as if maybe I should have thought longer before saying something. But then I remember what that boy looked like, bloody and broken. I remember the sound of his moans.

  Pushing the thought away, not wanting to deal with it now, I let my head fall back, close my eyes and feel the rush of wind from the ocean.

  I finally understand what my mother meant about forgetting. About how much easier it is to let the pain slip away and fade into nothing. If I could forget today I would. If I could erase every moment I would do so happily and without hesitation.

  In my dream I’m sitting in my mother’s boat. My back is cupped by the bow and the sail hangs limp, barely rustling in the soft summer air. All around me is nothing but waves marching endlessly away. I can’t see land and I know I should be terrified but there’s something about the rocking of the boat that keeps me comfortable and safe.

  Sitting at the stern, his hand resting gently on the tiller, is a large man I’ve never seen before. But somehow I know that it’s Roger, the man who cared for the lighthouse before my mother took over, the man who found my mother on the beach when she escaped from the Forest. He doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of wind and just sits there, his other hand holding the limp damp line. A rusty-edged shovel sits in the hull of the boat between us.

  “I’ll pass it to you then, I guess,” he says. I blink at him, wondering how I can know what he looks like, how he sounds. “What do you mean?” I ask him.

  “The light. The beach. They’re yours now. If you’ll have ’em.”

  My chest squeezes a little at the responsibility. I shake my head. “They’re my mother’s,” I tell him.

  When he smiles it’s wistful, lines crinkling at his eyes from years squinting into the sun. “Nah, it was never hers. She wanted this.” He spreads his hands out wide, wider than they should be, and skims them over the waves. “She just wasn’t ready to let go of the rest. Wasn’t willing to stop waiting.”

  I shake my head, trying to figure out what he means. “Waiting for what?” I ask him.

  He looks at me as if expecting me to answer my own question. As if I should somehow already know what he means. “For everyone,” he finally says. “For them.” He points at the waves with his chin.

  I look down into the water and that’s when I see them dancing under the surface. The people. They stretch and glide and twist, just as Mellie did before she was infected. I pull back into the boat but it’s not enough—I can’t get away.

  Their hands flutter under the water. I open my mouth to scream but it’s laughter that comes out. I try to scream louder but I keep laughing and laughing. Roger leans his head back and laughs with me and I want to grab for him, beg for help, but nothing happens except the laughter.

  The bodies in the water rise higher and higher, bubbles pouring from their mouths. When they pop to the surface it’s not moans that I hear but whispers. Then their hands are reaching over the rails, are trailing along my skin. They pull me out of the boat and into the water and I wait for the teeth.

  They slide their lips over my skin, whispering whispering whispering. They tell me their names, they tell me their lives, they tell me their pain. Roger stands in the boat and looks down at me, his face a shadow against the bright blue sky. I can’t struggle, I can’t stop laughing, I can’t resist these people-who-once-were.

  I wake up fighting to breathe and I realize that I’m still on the gallery and rain is crashing down around me. I pull myself into the lantern room, the memory of fingers grabbing me in the dream causing me to rub my hands over my body to erase the sensation.

  Lightning streaks across the horizon, a spark in the heavy gray morning. I glance down at the beach, where the waves are already starting to churn. A storm usually means Mudo dredged from the ocean; it means more Mudo than I can take care of alone.

  I just want it all to go away. I’m too tired. I don’t want to deal with any of it anymore. Thunder reverberates under my feet and I sigh deeply. Pushing strands of dripping hair out of my face, I start making my way downstairs, not bothering to change into dry clothes before draping an oilskin poncho over my shoulders and trudging through town to ask the Militiamen for help clearing the beach.

  In the center square, decorations hang limp in the rain—lanterns dripping and water pooling under brightly woven banners. The stage is draped with swaths of cloth in the colors of the Protectorate. The Recruiters’ visit is always a cause for celebration for those who aren’t leaving with them. It’s Vista’s chance to shine, to prove it still deserves its place in the Protectorate. But today it all looks muddy and soggy.

  I skirt the activity, avoiding eye contact as I tug my hood low over my face and walk to the guardhouse by the gate. Daniel sees me before I get too close and he limps out to meet me, his mouth pulling into a slow smile. In the damp gray it’s easy to forget last night, how dark his face looked as shadows crept about it when he leaned over me, Elias’s knife gleaming between us.

  “How’s your mother, Gabrielle?” he asks.

  I try to smile as well but I know it doesn’t reach my eyes. “Better,” I tell him. “Though with the storm coming in I think we’ll need Militia help on the beach.”

  He nods and I think about my dream, about the whispers of all the dead. I tap my fingers against my leg with agitation. I wonder now if I shouldn’t have told him about the Soulers. If I should have waited, given Elias a chance to explain it all to me.

  “Listen—” I have to clear my throat before I can continue. “About the Soulers and what I said last night—”

  Before I can go on he cuts in, his eyes gleaming. “You were right,” he says, almost bouncing with excitement. “About what you saw from the lighthouse. It was the Soulers.”

  “Oh” is all I can say. He waits for my enthusiasm but I can’t muster it. His eyes narrow.

  He steps closer to me; only a few drops of rain are able to penetrate the space between us. “The Protectorate values loyalty,” he says, his tone a little sharper. He feels too near and I drop my hand to my hip out of habit, a defensive stance.

  He glances down and sees my fingers resting on the hilt of the knife. I know he recognizes it from last night: the Souler knife. He cocks his head to the side. “And to be honest, the Chairman’s always questioned your mother’s, since she’s an outsider. Claiming to be from the Forest, no less.”

  His hand closes over mine, over the knife, and I try to pull away but he tightens his grip. I wonder if the other Militiamen are watching us, if they have any idea what Daniel’s saying. I wonder what would happen if I called out to them, if I shouted for help. But I don’t trust that they wouldn’t just ignore me, leave me to Daniel’s whim.

  “There’s no reason for the Chairman—or me—to doubt your loyalty too, right?”

  I stare at his narrowed eyes. I never knew him that well growing up. He’s older and was friends with boys who all left in the past few years to join the Recruiters. I’ve always wondered if being left behind because of his leg made Daniel angry, bitter against the Protec
torate. I can’t tell if his warning is because he’s unquestionably loyal to the Chairman or because he cares about me.

  A part of me wonders if I could tell him the truth. I want so badly to be able to trust someone and have them say that everything’s going to be okay. I wonder if maybe I’m too suspicious of Daniel. But his fingers bite into my wrist and nothing in his expression betrays his emotions.

  Just then there’s a shout from the head Militiaman, Wesson, who’s standing on a platform with a view over the Barrier. Daniel eases away, the tension between us popped like a bubble.

  Militiamen begin to crowd around the gate as it grinds open, and Daniel steps in front of me, shielding me from the world beyond.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, but he’s no longer focused on me.

  “Stand back just in case,” he says, placing a hand against my stomach to push me farther behind him.

  More Militia begin to crowd around and I feel their agitation—it vibrates in the air. They clench weapons tight in their fists and stand poised on the balls of their feet.

  The gap in the gate widens enough that over Daniel’s shoulder I can see down the old road. I recognize them instantly: the Soulers. They’re being led by a group of Militiamen from Vista, their black shirts soaked and the blades of their scythes and axes gleaming in the rain.

  The Soulers walk slowly, purposefully. Each wears a white tunic. The hems of their pants and skirts are thick with red mud, and most of them are so thin that they seem almost emaciated, with gaunt cheekbones and sunken eyes. Even in the dull light it’s easy to see how worn they look, how brittle their bodies appear.

  They look nothing like they did last night, menacing in the dark shadows of the moon. Now they appear harmless and weak. Except for the Mudo they tug along behind them on rigid leashes.

  I swallow against the tension buzzing along my arms as I scan the faces of the Soulers, wondering if Elias is among them. I feel stupid. I know I should want him to be captured, I should want him to pay for being part of a cult that could do what I saw last night. But I can’t forget how gentle he was with me—how he saved me on the beach.