by Lydia Kang
Somewhere in the recesses of my storming mind, there is a whimper. I cannot remember why I’m so angry. There’s nothing but the pull, the need. It’s so bitter and vivid, I know nothing else. I crave it.
I extend my arms. Soon, I’ll touch the boat, as a child might test the icing on a birthday cake. I shall pull it down, wrap my fingers around its hull, and keep it tethered to the bottom until nothing but bones remain. And even then, I won’t give up the dead.
Take them, Anda. It’s November. There is no choice in being what you are.
Yes. Yes. It’s time.
Chapter Fifty-Three
HECTOR
The rain comes suddenly, with a slap and a rumble.
“They didn’t say the weather was going to be this bad,” the captain says, twisting the radio knob to find the NOAA frequency. He switches on the windshield wipers to clear the glass in front of him. The waves, which were low and cresting before, have doubled in size. In minutes, they triple the amplitude.
“Do you always see storms come up this fast?” my uncle asks nervously. He’s holding on to a side railing and scanning the dials up front, as if he has any clue what they’re for.
“Sometimes,” the captain says. His voice isn’t reassuring at all. The other officer is attending to the broken nose of the guy I hit, casting me occasional glances.
There’s nothing to look at. The cuffs are on, and I’m going back to hell.
The boat had been barely pitching up and down when we’d started the journey toward Grand Portage, but the soft gray clouds have morphed with frightening speed. They’ve thickened into a darker, sinister color—like smoke rising from burning wet wood or plastic, with a greenish tinge. The drenching rain that soon turns into a deluge.
I can’t help but smile with pride. God, she’s good.
“Should we turn back?” my uncle asks quickly. He fidgets with his life vest and tightens the strap around his chest.
“No. We’re almost halfway there. If we run into trouble, we’d be better off being closer to Grand Portage.”
“Well, can’t you go faster?”
“Through those waves?” He points with disgust. “No.”
I look forward and then sideways. The waves are so much higher now, cresting with foamy white peaks that dissolve into the water before appearing in another wave, bigger than the previous. They strike the vessel left and right. The spray constantly fills the air. The boat is heaving at extreme angles. To the officers, it’s troubling. My uncle looks like he’s going to shit his brains into his pants.
To me, the violent rocking is a lullaby.
The captain hands the radio to another officer, whose voice can’t contain the worry everyone is feeling. The captain goes back to steering the vessel. He drives the boat perpendicular to each wave, so the nose of the craft bobs up nauseatingly high before crashing down on each valley. The windshield wipers are going at full speed now, but we can barely see anything past the next wave coming in. The sky and water are one mass of greenish gray. I can’t believe how fast she’s made this storm. It’s absolutely incredible.
“Gale force winds. Experiencing a nine Beaufort, only five about ten minutes ago. Seas at least fifteen feet now,” the captain radios in. “Crew is fine. We got one bloody nose we’ll explain later. Our two passengers are okay.”
Okay? Depends on who you ask.
“Are we going to be okay?” my uncle asks. When he says “we” I know he’s not including me. He now seems to have completely forgotten that I’m sitting back here with a contented smile on my face.
“Well, if we can keep managing these waves, yes. She’s a good, hearty ship. As long as it doesn’t get worse, we’ll be all right. She’s handled this type of weather many times before.”
Ah. But has Anda handled her?
Chapter Fifty-Four
ANDA
So pretty, this thing I’ve composed.
The boat is clawing its way up the steep waves and crashing over them. I’ve crossed impossible lengths, and its shuddering hull is within my sight. Soon, it will be within my reach. The captain has good control, but he’s sweating profusely under his uniform. I smell his fear—sour and rank. It inflames me.
The rest of the passengers are holding on, waiting for the storm to abate. Under the surface, I open my eyes and take in the murky, churning water around me. The silt and stones of the lake bottom pelt my skin. They’re fawning, and I kick them away. They’ll never persuade me to be kinder.
I raise my hands a little and incite the wind, whipping the waves to twenty feet.
Twenty-five.
Thirty.
The captain is well seasoned, navigating the steep swells to let the ship’s reinforced bow take all the brutal force of each eager wave. The boat is sturdy and will take the punishment according to the physics of its creation. She has good bones. It will be lovely to bite into them and spit them out.
But—this won’t do. It’s taking too long. From the depths of the lake, I hear a calling.
Don’t be greedy. Share, my dear.
Others are hungry to partake in the coming feast. I hold up three fingers on my right hand, swirling them slowly above me, inviting the Three Sisters to rally forth. Rarely released but just as voracious, they had their turn in my place before evolving into a legend.
The three rogue waves travel one after the other; impossibly large, even within such a terrible November storm. People speak reverently of them. They’ve taken other ships before, far larger. My sisters are ravenous like me but cannot come forth without my call or mother’s. They live only for destruction, tied irrevocably to one another’s strength, and ours.
I kiss my first fingertip and release the first one. Made of wind and water and the disturbed depths, she comes from a slight angle, far larger than anything the captain has encountered before. The angle is off just enough that when the ship crashes down the deep trough, it sways dangerously from port to starboard. Lake water washes over the entire craft, and two glass windows on the cabin break. The boat takes on water and begins to list to the port side. It’s survivable, yes. The men inside yell and shriek, all but one.
I kiss my second fingertip and send along the second sister.
The same size as her first sister, she will cripple the boat. The passengers can’t believe a second rogue wave is coming. It’s enormous. Their eyes widen with sheer, frozen fear as they see it. They feel the inevitable in their hummingbird-fast hearts.
The captain hollers, desperately trying to steer her straight, but now her starboard side takes the worst of it as it presses her down, a weight and force she cannot bear. She lists so badly that her keel bobs above the surface for a second, and her hull cracks—ah, such an alluring sound. The passengers are finding their upright is sideways, their down is left. I hear a bone snap and skulls crashing against the inside of the cabin. There are more screams.
I sigh. This is the sweetest part. I kiss my third finger and send along the last sister, stronger and more willful than the first two, and at least one-third more enormous. She is the youngest and the most ravenous. Now the captain knows I am here. His eyes open wider with reverence. Inside his head, he says it to himself—the Witch of November. The Three Sisters. It’s just like the tales of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He wonders if they’ll sing a song about him, too, someday.
The third sister hits the vessel with pure green water, the thick of the wave immersing everything. She cracks the hull further, and water gushes into the boat. Two of the crew have opened up the door to the cabin, now the roof of their prison. The captain refuses to leave. He’s a good man. I’ll give him an honorable death and let him stay with his lady. As water rapidly fills the cabin inch by inch and the sighing boat begins its descent, I sense the other passengers.
One is praying to God and is in too much shock to move.
One is kicking to the surface and trying to climb out of the doorway. He’s the most frightened, and his heart is black and heavy within his chest.
Only one inside the vessel welcomes death. It speaks a name.
My name.
Anda, it says. I’m ready.
Chapter Fifty-Five
HECTOR
My head is barely above water.
The cabin is sideways and filling with lake water fast. So fast. I mean, this is what I’ve begged for, and yet—the real rawness of it drives into me with terror. My heart beats hard, almost within my throat, threatening to choke me. I pull on my wrists behind my back, and they swish helplessly only two inches through the water, tethered to the railing behind me. I thread my right fingers into my left, needing to hold on to something. I wish it were Anda’s hand, but right now, I’m all I’ve got, and it seems like a shabby second-place prize. It doesn’t matter; in a little while, I won’t be alive anymore.
“Oh God,” I sputter, the water splashing into my mouth. “Oh my God, oh God.”
I thought this was what I wanted.
It is, isn’t it?
The captain is yelling, trying to get his meager crew out of the ship. One of the officers is chest-deep in the moving water, pasty-faced and bleeding profusely from his forehead. He can barely see with the salty blood staining his eyes. The captain helps to push him out the flapping cabin door and he’s swept straight out, as if swallowed whole into the lake. I wonder if he’ll survive. But then I remember that Anda’s out there. I know his fate almost as clearly as I know my own.
The other officer is hanging on to the side rail (now our ceiling), his fingers fumbling with slippery ring of keys to the handcuffs. He’s breathing so hard that he can’t speak. His hand is shaking. If he’s not careful, he’ll drop the keys. I watch the glint of wet metal shivering in his grasp. They’re tiny and laughably simple, like a kid’s toy keys. I’m surprised I can focus at a time like this.
“Give them to me!” the captain yells.
My uncle is about five feet away, freaking out and greedily gulping air. His eyes are so wide that the whites surround his pupils. He looks at the captain and me. He’s neck-deep in water now and splashing hard to keep his body afloat, even with the life vest on.
My uncle’s eyes lock onto mine, wild with fear and panic. But the way he clings to the door, I can tell—he’s not afraid for me. He’s afraid for himself. Somewhere behind those brown eyes, there’s nothing. They’re empty. There were times that I thought there was enough between us to keep us floating. Enough to make me feel real guilt for getting us in this situation. But it’s never been enough.
Suddenly, a huge wave crashes over us and we all pitch to one side again. My head goes underwater, and I hear nothing but a roaring surge against my eardrums. I feel the ship pull my wrists down behind me. The metal digs into my flesh. Seconds later, we pitch to the other side. My head emerges from the roiling water. I’ve been given another chance at a few breaths.
“Get out! I’ll uncuff him!” the captain yells at my uncle and the other officer. He grabs the keys from the other officer, whose face is an openmouthed expression of shock. When they don’t move for the door, he screams, “Go!” The officer yanks at my uncle’s vest.
My uncle doesn’t hesitate. He and the other officer reach for the doorway. They start swimming through it.
My uncle doesn’t look back.
The captain’s hair is plastered against his forehead as he looks up and takes a huge inhalation. He dives beneath the water, his hands fumbling to search for the cuffs. I feel metal jabbing at my hands and wrists. He can’t find the keyholes. He comes up for air, gasps a few times, and dives down again.
Another wave crashes over us, and I’m under the water. The whole ship lurches hard, so hard. This time, it doesn’t right itself, and the metal groans like a sick whale. I feel the captain’s hands still fumbling against mine. Suddenly, one of my wrists is able to pull free. There is a faint snitch against the metal around my other wrist, and it too is released. He grasps my hands to pull me up, but I don’t know which way is up anymore.
Suddenly, his hands are yanked away.
I try to open my eyes, but all I see is boiling water, bubbles and confusion. I can’t see the captain. I’m being pulled down with the ship as it recedes beneath the furious waves. Pressure squeezes painfully against my eardrums.
The captain is gone.
My uncle is gone.
I try to look above me, but there’s nothing to see. So I shut my eyes, even as my heart wants to burst inside me.
Chapter Fifty-Six
ANDA
The two crew members are bobbing on the waves, bellies full of water. Already their lungs have liquid deep within their spongy recesses.
It has begun.
There is an unmeasurable momentum in the storm, and it’s beginning to escape my grasp. Mother’s energy anchoring it all, making it solid and unstoppable. Hector’s uncle floats where the boat took its last gasp of life before sinking. He claws at the water, so desperate to stay afloat. He screams for no one but himself.
Hearts bleed their oily whispers of truth when I’m near. As victims die or face its dark mirror, their dreams infect me. So here is the truth. I have tasted all flavors of terror before, including the bright flashes of sweet regret, but his is nothing but acrid and corrupt.
Deep in the waters, Hector is still trapped within the ship. The captain has lost consciousness, his body cradled against the ceiling of the cabin. One more minute like this, and his mind will be beyond retrieval. But Hector is still alive. Barely. He’s waiting for something.
Thunder rumbles and forces its voice into my head.
Anda. Why do you pause? Finish it.
I reach out with my hands, feeling the full power of the water, the wind, the sky, the air. They throb in my temples and heart, begging me to bring this to fruition.
End it.
Hunger and craving war with another sensation, raw and pulsating within my chest. The lighthouse. My father. Hector. All these have nudged this facet alive. Life, and the worthiness of the fight. The lighthouse had opened me to the thoughts and hearts of those I’d taken for so many years. It was always easy to smother their wails for mercy under the insistence of my own hunger. I hear them now with a clarity I never could. I feel them. It makes me cry out in agony.
Mary, one of them thinks. Mary. I wish we could have had more time. I wish we could have had one more day.
The other weeps for his captain. Joe. Please be okay. Where are you? Let’s have that one last beer, right? Joe. Joe. Joe.
Hector’s uncle slaps the water away from himself. It’s over. He’s gone. He’s gone. It’s better this way. But his father. Oh God, his father.
And the last one. Hector. At first, he’s silent. Even his silences are exquisite. And then, finally:
Go ahead, Anda. What are you waiting for?
He is anger and despair all at once, daring me to claim my birthright, what I do best. But no—it’s not just a challenge. It’s a question.
What am I waiting for?
Chapter Fifty-Seven
HECTOR
The need for oxygen is excruciating, clawing at my ribs. The water buffets my body, even as I fall deeper and deeper. My throat constricts and spasms, refusing to let the water into my lungs. The pressure threatens to implode my eardrums. I curl my fingers into my palms and squeeze.
So this is what it’s like to drown. It’s far worse than what I imagined.
Is it, Hector?
My eyes fly open.
I would gasp if I weren’t almost dead already. Even though blackness etches at the edge of my mind and my heart wants to burst from my chest, I can see her. She hovers in front of me. White hair, barely swaying in the water. The same pixie face, the same honeyed skin clouded by the swirling water. And yet I hardly recognize her.
Her eye sockets are black and gruesomely void, a complete absence of light or humanity. Her lips are closed, and black te
ndrils snake from her onyx fingertips, up her arms, to her neck, like some terrible disease has rotted her from the outside in. Her feet are black too, as if dipped into tar. She’s terrifying. There is a purpose to her terror, too—she’s showing me what she is for a reason. There is no poetry here, nothing vaguely romantic about this side of her, no matter what I’ve thought or understood. But I’m not afraid.
Go ahead, I say in my head. Whatever I have, whatever was worth anything—it’s yours. Some good can come out of this. You can have me.
Anda’s thoughts claw their way in, a razor scraping against steel.
Yes.
Her black eyes remain vacant. I can’t see what’s in their depths. Her hands extend toward me and wrap oh so gently around my neck. They’re burning hot and sear my skin. She comes closer, and I see oblivion in her features.
The darkness of her eyes seems to expand, becoming larger than both of us. It fills my vision until there is nothing but nothing.
Yes. It’s over.
I smile as the darkness fills me and annihilates my last thought.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
ANDA
I know what has to be done. It is nature. There is no choice, and there is no judgment.
My hands thrill to be around his neck, to feel the waning of his pulse. His eyes are half closed. He’s lost consciousness. I salivate, wanting to consume what’s left fluttering inside his body.
Distant memories shake within me. A palm against my skin. A kiss that tastes of chocolate. Cool scissors against my scalp. Scraping a razor against a sculpted male cheekbone, too beautiful to endure. An invitation to be hurt, offered willingly.