Aquifer

by Jonathan Friesen

  Water Rats. There’s no way I’ll be able to descend to them.

  “Is that a him or her?” I ask.

  “Our museum houses one female specimen.” She clears her throat. “And that statement you can believe.”

  “This is what the Rats have become? And my father … well, me … I go down and make an exchange with those things?”

  Wren hints a smile. “They control the freshwater rock bed we call the Aquifer. The last known source of water on this earth. You best make friends with the idea.”

  She gestures for me to come nearer. “But, of course, Rabal was most concerned with something he considered much more dangerous …”

  She points to a thick tome. I walk toward it. “A book.” My heart races. “Is this one dangerous?”

  “Only insofar as it leads you to another, and another, and perchance finally to the one book Rabal feared above all things.” The curator cocks her head. “Do you remember books, Luca?”

  Does she know? Has Lendi broken so soon?

  “How would I remember? This must be the last one in existence.”

  “Look here, my poor liar,” she whispers. “Can you read it?”

  I shake my head. “No, I can’t.” I blink, and stare at the strange cover. “T …”

  The curator nods. “Yes. The letter T. Keep going.”

  I rub my fingers over the scratchings. “T-O- … T-O-M … Tom S … S …”

  “Tom Sawyer. A book scratched, or written, by Mark Twain.”

  My mind swarms. “How do I know some of the letters? How can I sound out the scratches? Why am I so Other?” I breathe deep. “Why did they undo my fa —”

  I stare at Wren, whose eyes widen.

  “Undo?” She bites her lip and glances toward the arch. “I have more words to say, but I will show you instead.”

  She walks toward a small door, opens it, and disappears downstairs. I slowly follow her into the darkness, my hands grazing smooth marble on either side. At the bottom, the hall turns, turns again, and in the distance a light appears.

  I follow the glow and emerge in a room filled with a dozen easels.

  “Paintings.” I reach out my hand, and draw it back. “You painted that ceiling?”

  “No,” she says. “I only paint what I’ve seen.”

  She strides to an easel and whisks off the fabric covering.

  I step forward and gaze at a most beautiful image. I have watched the sun dance on the sea, and observed the sea offer back reflections of the sky’s splendor. I’ve seen the Northern Mountains, the high country where rare snows still dust the land in magnificent white. My position as Massa’s son has allowed me to leave the district from which most never venture.

  But I have never seen a sight like the painting.

  Created in cool blues and grays, with streaks of yellow crisscrossing the canvas, I am struck and settled at the same time. The subject of the painting is unclear, but it draws me, as did Father’s voice. I want to see it, whatever it is.

  “Tell me,” I say. “Where can I see this beautiful thing?”

  She removes the canvas from the clips that hold it taut, rolls it, and slips it into a metal tube. “As you like it, you may keep it. It is my gift to the Deliverer. But Luca, hear this. Everything, everything that happens — all your losses and your pains — all is because of this. Everything desires this.”

  She reaches the tube to me and I grasp the other end. We stand in silence, connected by this beautiful, mysterious object, staring at each other. Her eyes speak, and though I don’t know what they say, I can’t help but gaze.

  “I, uh, really should return to my agemates. They’re waiting for me on the steps, I’m sure.”

  “No. School was over an hour ago.” She releases the painting. “You are dismissed home.”

  I back toward the hallway and stop. “Could I quickly see the others?”

  “Yes. You can see them all.” Wren raises her eyebrows. “But not today.”

  “But this is my day. My one day at the museum. I come —”

  “Anytime you like. Deliverer’s privilege.”

  My spine tingles, and I clutch the painting to my chest. “When are you open?”

  “Whenever you knock.”

  “You better not say that.” I shift my weight from foot to foot. “I might come at midnight.”

  “Whenever you knock.”

  I stroke the tube. “Well, okay then. I’ll … uh … I’ll see you soon.”

  I dash up the stairs, bash my head on the marble overhang, and stumble into the Hall of the Old. I rub what will certainly become a mighty lump, but I hardly feel it. I feel something else, a warm else. An else I haven’t felt since Father left.

  I don’t feel so alone.

  I skip outside and down the stairs. It’s a distance to my house, but I don’t mind. My thoughts travel from the book to my painting and back again. I’m not sure what I would tell an Amongus — I’m wrinkling something fierce — but I feel light like I haven’t before.

  Tom Sawyer. He didn’t look like a dangerous boy.

  Yes, I decide, I should hurt more for Father.

  No, I decide, I should not spend so much time dwelling on myself.

  During the nights, the guilt of my selfishness overpowers. Noises were more familiar with him here. Moon shadow was comfortable and safe with him in his cot.

  But we hardly spoke. I hardly knew the man.

  I push his memory out when it forms, and focus on the Curator. Her words fill my days.

  Weeks pass, and soon Wren’s paintings line the walls of my cellar. My nighttime excursions to the museum fill my mind; whatever is taught in the circle of Sixteens is lost on me. I walk empty streets in shadow, her canvases hidden beneath my coat, feeling very much the pirate. Maybe this is how Seward feels.

  But I must take them. It’s a shame to conceal such beauty in Wren’s basement, where light can’t dance off the color and shade. Possession of a painting must warrant a debriefing. I’ve not heard of a prohibition, but there must be one. Living with Father has taught me the Amongus are never far away.

  I spend hours staring at Wren’s work, and during sleep her paintings invade my dreams, along with new sounds of her laughter and singing.

  Perhaps it’s some strange fume from the paint, but I’m okay with those intrusions. The sounds are so welcome to hear.

  “Luca?”

  I sit across from Wren on the top floor of the museum, where sunlight streams through the sky roof. “Would you like to learn how to read? All the words.”

  All the words of all my books. Of Dad’s special book.

  “Of course I would. But if the Amongus found out … I mean, that’s worthy of undoing, for most people.”

  She says nothing.

  “Aren’t you going to guide me or encourage me one way or —”

  “I’m going to let you choose. Your thoughts are precious. You don’t need mine on the matter.”

  Would I like to learn how to read?

  I remember Walery. He, too, offered to show me. He is likely undone. How could I place my new friend in the same danger? “It’s not allowed.”

  She pours herself some tea. “Outside these walls, true.” She stares up into the blue sky and then back down. “I may have a solution. I give you permission to forget how to read outside the museum. I will simply teach you to read inside.”

  I glance at her sideways. “Is that how it works?”

  “Absolutely not.” Wren sips from her cup and removes a book from inside a table.

  “Is that it?” I lower my voice. “You know, the really dangerous one?”

  She pauses, and then sets down her tea and the book and folds her hands.

  “Years ago, before our Great Thirst, before the countries had boundaries, and before the Great Wars … thousands of years before, rain fell. It fell with fury, and soon the rain from above joined with the waters beneath our feet, and this earth was covered, above the highest mountain. One family alone prepared
, was alone tossed by the waves, and alone survived the deluge.”

  “Who were they?” I ask, eyes wide. I can’t imagine that much water.

  “I don’t know.” Wren sighs. “But since I do not have the dangerous book, I thought I would at least tell you a dangerous story.”

  “So it’s filled with stories?”

  “Stories and prophecies. I only know a few, those remembered and those that come to me in the stillness. But enough on that for now …”

  Stories and prophecies.

  Wren reaches for her thin volume. Yellowed pages crackle as she pulls back the cover. “Even the safest of books are useless without the reading. Let’s meet the sounds.”

  I offer a slow nod. Wren writes the letters in her book. It’s amazing how quickly the shapes and curls form on my lips over the next hours. Scratches take on weight, purpose. One scratch plus another scratch equals not two, but one — one word.

  “Luca can lear … lear …”

  She underlines the words with her finger. “Just keep sound flowing through each scratch.”

  “Luca can learn to rea … read.”

  Wren smiles. “I will give you a reading test tomorrow. Unfortunately, it would not be safe to send this book home with you, so you’ll just need to repeat the sounds in your mind. I trust your memory.”

  I think about the books smelling up my shanty.

  “No problem. I look forward to the test.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Learning to read is tougher than I thought.

  That, or the books I rescued put up a tougher fight than Wren’s. There are few one-syllable scratches, and every page is a challenge.

  I dig for the thinnest book — a pamphlet, really — plunk down on a pickle barrel, and stroke the wrinkled pages.

  “The Consti … Constitution Act. Whereas the peop … people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, hum … humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite …”

  I blink and swipe sweat from my eyes. “Relying on the blessing of Almighty God. Whatever that means.” It’s tough reading, but I’m doing it. I pump my fists, and read the line again.

  People form the union. Not the PM or the Council of Nine? The people?

  I whisper, “If the idea spread, it would change everything.”

  Outside, the familiar sound of wash and motor.

  “Luca! Are you there?”

  Metal thumps gently against the dock, and my heart pounds. “Father?” I jump up. “Father Massa!”

  I race up the stairs, through the house, and burst out the door. “Father Mass —”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint, mate.” Seward holds up his arms and lets them flop. “Believe me, I’d give my arm to know his fate. But I do bring strange tidings of the man. Come aboard —”

  I already am.

  “Please speak!” I grab his long coat and yank. “Father’s not here. What happened to him? They told me nothing.”

  Seward loosens my fingers and leans back. “They know only what they be told. Lots to blame the Amongus for.” His jaw tightens. “Lots. But not knowin’ the truth can’t be held against ‘em.”

  “They publicly announced that he was fine, that he just needed rest.” I crumple down on the bench.

  “He’s not fine?” he asks. “There be more to their story?”

  I peer up at Seward, his lip bulging with baccy. Should I tell a pirate?

  “They told me something else in the tunnel.”

  Seward turns and spits. “They told you he was undone.”

  I jump up. “How do you know this?”

  “Because Mape just told me. Mape, the most unpleasant one of the lot. Sit down, I be speaking hushed as we go.”

  We float with engines off over the reef, and my muscles calm. Distance from mainland relaxes the heart, and thoughts flow more freely.

  “So listen to Seward through and through, and then you can add your piece.”

  I make a motion to zip my lips and glance over the sea, still and calm as glass.

  “Quite a sight, isn’t it,” he begins. “Not a breeze. Not a wave. Dead as recent business, and without restating the obvious, it’s a nasty one I’m in.”

  “I know. I helped you retrieve a group of un —”

  He grabs my fingers and lifts them up in front of his face. “This be one ineffective zipper.”

  “Sorry.” I motion for him to continue.

  “In the past months, I’ve only been asked to make two retrievals. One, you rudely interrupted. The second set was dunked the day before that … the day before Water Day, if you can believe it. The morning of their undoing, Mape told me the count. ‘They’ll be three men and two women.’ A few days ago, that’s who I bagged.”

  “He didn’t mention a child? I remember that march. I remember seeing a boy …”

  “You remember wrong.” He tongues his cheek and gently puffs out air. “An unfortunate trait for a Deliverer, I might be addin’. Only five there were. No child.”

  I pause and think about Walery. The events around his rescue and his stay in the shanty were so crazy; he could have danced through my imagination. I could have dreamed him up.

  “So fine, you found five,” I say. “Go on.”

  “I be paid by the head, or the body as it is. Mind you, the job is grim, and I pull no satisfaction from seein’ them that were undone, but it does keep me alive. But two retrievals in as many months? There’s no livin’ in that. And I have to wait the allotted thirty days. A month or more they must rest on the sea floor before I can winch them up and extract my fee from Mape.”

  I rub my shoulders. I could not do Seward’s job.

  “Then last night, after a day of honest thievery” — he points to three water casks — “I return to the wharf and he be waiting. Mape, that rat of a man. He tells me he has a special retrieval. Just one. ‘Not worth my time,’ I says. But Mape said he could change that. He offers thirty times the price for the extraction, and a year’s worth of credits for my silence. Luca, please understand, it’s hard to turn down that much —”

  “Father,” I whisper.

  “When he told me Massa’s name, it was all I could do to hold me supper in place. He asked if he should search out a retriever from Derby, but I pulled it together. ‘No, I be your man,’ I says. ‘I need the credits.’ But in my mind, I think, I don’t believe the body is Massa’s.” His voice cracks. “And I need to know.”

  “Not my father’s? Not undone?”

  “Luca, think it through. Would your father make an error?”

  “No, I always said he couldn’t —”

  “Even if he did, if he be punished, destroyed, the Watcher’s actions would leave this world in your hands. They don’t know how well you know the way, or even if you truly know it. Massa’s undoing is too big a risk. Unless … unless they pulled from his mind the path.” He grabs my arm. “Do you think they could do that?”

  “I … I don’t — No, he would give them the alternate,” I whisper. “He made me memorize it. It’s an alternate set of directions. ‘For use when pressed,’ he always said. It never made sense until now.”

  “Ah, Massa, they could not pull the path from you. An alternate.” Seward laughs aloud. “Arrogant, stubborn trickster of a man. They could not break you. Now I be sure of it.”

  My mind whirs. “How do you know my father?”

  “A different story for a different time.” Seward places his fingers nearly atop my eyes. “For now, I need these. I go to retrieve Massa, and a body I will surely find, but will it be his? You know it best. It will have been a month below. Bodies change, bloat. Sharks gnaw. I need to know if the man I retrieve is him. It may be a horrible sight, Luca.” Seward’s leg bounces. “But what if it’s not him? Would the risk of horror not turn to sudden joy?”

  Father Massa, alive! The possibility buoys me. “Take me.”

  One half hour later, Seward kills the engines three miles north
of Rottnest Isle and drops two anchors. The mainland is no longer visible in the darkness, and I wonder how this pirate can locate a floating spot with precision.

  “Don’t have the promised light rods, do ya?” He rolls his eyes. “We may need some renegotiating. Grab the winch arm with that pole.” He points toward the rear of the craft. “I like havin’ a mate. Should savin’ the world ever get boring, consider yourself hired.”

  “No chance.” My hands shake as my pole hook clanks against the magnetic claw.

  “Push it out.” Seward squints. “Left a little … a little more, there.”

  I unhook the pole from the arm, and Seward releases the winch, watches the claw splash into the water. Down, down it sinks, while Seward holds an orb over the surface. He stares at the sea, watching the ripples calm while the line slips between his fingers.

  “‘Tis right below us.”

  Slack doubles the rope, and it coils on the surface of the water. Seward holds up his hand. “Got it.” He slowly cranks the winch.

  Either way, what comes up will change my world.

  The surface churns and Seward pauses. “Not the way these things should be done. If it be him, this will heap pain upon pain.” He rubs his face. “You don’t need to be party to this.”

  I cock my head. For a pirate, Seward has a side I don’t often see; it’s something I don’t ever see, except in Wren, and in those last precious minutes with Father.

  Father.

  I swallow hard, nod, and step back.

  Seward slowly lifts the claw. The body lifts limp from the water, a small waterfall spilling down from the catch back into the ocean. Shackles of iron — a wrist ring, ankle rings, and chains — stick fast to the metallic pinchers, and Seward pulls the mechanical arm over the boat.

  My heart sinks.

  The face is already bloated beyond recognition, but the clothes and the backpack, they are Father’s.

  “It’s him,” I say quietly. And I weep. I’ve wondered when the dam would break. Each time it got close, the waters held back, but not now. Now they flow salty and loud, and I crumble into the bottom of the boat.