Water & Storm Country

by David Estes

  Finished with Shadow, I rush from the stables, brushing past Remy when he steps in front of me. “Hey!” he says, but I don’t stop.

  Even the open air outside the stables doesn’t ease the heaviness that is now draped over me like a pile of blankets. The air smells of rain, earthy and green and moist. A heavy storm might delay the Riders’ departure, but the darkest clouds are still miles away, so I can’t count on the weather. I pass Gard, who looks like a mountain next to me as he stomps by, his thick, black robe swirling around his feet. He wears a frown, but that’s not unusual for him. Frowning is expected of a war leader.

  Just as I arrive at our tent, my mother emerges, wearing her own dark robe, which is open at the front as she clasps her sword belt around her waist. “Mother, I—” I start to say, but then stop when I see the expression on her face when she notices me approaching.

  She looks sunken, like the earth has pulled every part of her face down a little. There are shadows under her eyes and tearstains on her cheeks. I’ve never seen my mother cry. Never. Riders don’t cry. She told me that herself. One of her many lessons. And now she’s crying, like some scared little child. She’s fought the Soakers a dozen times in her lifetime. Are the Icers so powerful they would scare my mother to tears? This woman, who I’ve idolized since the day I was born, who’s supposed to be the strong one, the person I want to be like, driven to tears by fear?

  I can’t help the seed of anger I feel in my belly. It’s small at first, but then sprouts a stem, which shoots upward into my chest, splitting into several branches which yield red, hot leaves and burning fruit. The fruits of rage.

  I’m so angry I’m trembling.

  Her belt clasped, she reaches for me, both arms extended, beckoning me into their folds. “Mother, no—why are you doing this?” I say, backing away a step.

  She flinches, as if surprised by my reaction to her affections—but she has to know how ridiculous she’s acting. “I want to say goodbye,” she says, her voice weaker than someone stricken with the Plague.

  “Why were you crying?” I demand, my hands fisted at my sides.

  She shakes her head. “Your father—he got upset.”

  “Riders don’t cry,” I say, dimly aware that people are watching us now.

  “It wasn’t—I wasn’t—”

  “I thought you were strong,” I say. My voice comes out as a plea, and I feel the burning fruits of rage dropping like pinecones, bursting into a flood of emotion, welling tears into pools just behind my eyes. I grit my teeth and hold them back. My mother may be weak, but I won’t be. I’ll be better than my master.

  “I am, Sadie,” she says. “You don’t understand.”

  But I do. I do. “I’m coming with the Riders,” I say, keeping my voice even.

  The most unexpected expression flashes across my mother’s face, there and then gone, like a falling star in the night sky. Not anger, or sadness, or surprise; no, none of the emotions that would make sense.

  For her expression showed only one thing:

  Hope.

  ~~~

  The hope I see in my mother’s eyes is no more than a flicker of light on a distant horizon.

  “No,” she says, and she’s back, my mother—the Rider. The wind has dried her tears and I’ve hardened her jaw, and she doesn’t reach out to me again.

  This is my master, the woman who can’t be argued with, the woman with the power to give and take away. As much as I want to go with her, I don’t try to argue, knowing full well it’d be fruitless. “Be victorious,” I say, using the standard pre-battle Rider words.

  “I will go with honor and strength,” says my master, who’s now also my mother again.

  At arm’s length, we clasp each other’s shoulders. “I’ll train double for you while you’re gone,” I say.

  She laughs, but it’s more airy than usual, more high-pitched too, but her face and eyes are still strong, so it might just be the water in the air. “Keep your father safe,” she says.

  “I will.”

  I watch her go, the last of the Riders to make their way to the stables.

  “Come inside, Sadie,” my father, who’s emerged from our tent, says behind me. I turn, take in his wet face and bleary eyes, and I have to look away, because his sadness suddenly hits me like a punch to the gut.

  I never realized Jala was such a good friend to my father.

  ~~~

  With the rain misting down around me, I watch the Riders go, galloping north under heavy black cloud cover, dark shadows against the plains.

  Just when I’m about to return to the camp, one of them turns, looks back. A fist squeezes my heart and my throat constricts, because I know—

  —without a doubt in my mind—

  —I know.

  It was my mother.

  I’ve watched her ride into battle many times before, and she’s never turned around.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Huck

  “Captain Montgomery,” my father says with a warm smile as he steps across the planks between The Merman’s Daughter and The Sailors’ Mayhem.

  The two men shake hands like old friends as I watch from afar, standing next to Hobbs, Barney closer than I’d like on my other side. Although there’s no way my father wouldn’t be able to see me, he doesn’t offer even the slightest glance in my direction.

  “You’ve improved your ship’s speed, I see,” my father says. “You were still the last ship to arrive, but we didn’t expect you until nightfall.”

  Jeb smiles broadly. “I’m glad you noticed, Admiral,” he says. “Sometimes the only way forward is through threat and punishment. We sent three men to the brig just today.”

  A heavy wad forms in the back of my throat. How dare he—

  I take a step forward, fully prepared to set the record straight, but Hobbs stops me with a strong arm across my chest. “It would be unwise to interrupt,” he says. “Do not fear, Lieutenant, I’ll provide a full report to your father. You’ll get credit for what you’ve accomplished.”

  I look up at Hobbs’ scarred face, my eyes wide with surprise, both because he’s going to vouch for me and because he called me Lieutenant for the first time. I offer a smile but he just glares down. “You can wipe that smile off your face, boy, you’ll also get credit for what you haven’t done.”

  My smile fades and the face of the bilge rat girl appears in my mind. Letting a bilge rat—and a girl at that—mock me without repercussion won’t impress my father in the least. I can only hope that my leadership with the oarsmen will be enough to overshadow my weakness.

  I stand at attention as my father finishes his formalities with Jeb. The captain steps aside and pretends to busy himself with giving orders to a few of the men who’ve stopped to watch.

  My turn, I think. I watch my father approach, his every move commanding attention.

  Not once do his eyes touch upon mine.

  “Lieutenant Hobbs,” he says, standing right in front of me. “Will you walk with me?”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” Hobbs says. They break away, cross the main deck, and climb the stairs to the lofted quarterdeck.

  I’m invisible.

  “Don’t worry, Lieutenant Jones,” Barney says, “Lieutenant Hobbs will tell ’im what you did.”

  I nod vaguely in Barney’s direction, but I don’t say that Hobbs telling my father everything is exactly what I’m worried about. Then, looking down, I stab the tip of my boot at the spotlessly clean deck, seeing the pretty face of the mean bilge rat in the shine of the wood. Why didn’t I stand up to her like I stood up to Webb?

  “Is that the Lieutenant Jones?” a faraway voice shouts.

  I look up excitedly when I hear the familiar voice. “Cain!” I say, not caring that my overzealous reaction is likely not becoming of a lieutenant.

  Cain’s dark hair is tied in a ponytail, leaving his face visible save for the beard that’s grown slightly longer in the two days that’ve passed since we parted ways. He leaps from the pl
ank and embraces me, slapping my back hard with his palm. “How’s life on the dreaded Mayhem?” he whispers sharply, looking around with comically wide eyes, as if there might be sea monsters lurking in the shadows.

  I laugh, look up at him. “Not as bad as I expected,” I say.

  “The rumors are flying already,” he says with a wink.

  “What rumors?” I ask, following him across the deck.

  I match his stride as he makes his way to the fore decks. A white-winged gull passes overhead, catching my attention. As I walk, I follow its flight to the main mast, twisting my neck around. A brown bulge hangs on the thick wooden column. The gull continues flying, but I settle my gaze on the brown lump. Not a lump, or a bulge—a person. A brown-skinned bilge rat, clinging to the mast with one hand, bare feet wrapped around the wood cylinder, her other hand clutching a brush, scrubbing at the salty mast as if cleaning it might save her very life.

  Her long, dark hair hangs down in waves, billowing under the strength of the breeze. She looks down and sees me, and our eyes meet, and I know I’ve stopped walking while Cain continues on, maybe answering my question, maybe not; I don’t know, I don’t care, because the bilge rat smiles at me and she’s really very pretty, with striking features that I can’t seem to look away from.

  I smile back, despite how she mocked me in front of my men, how she ruined any chances of me winning my father’s respect, because something about her just makes me want to smile.

  She raises the hand with the scrub brush and my smile drops, though I don’t know why. And I’m frozen to the deck, watching the smiling girl, waiting for her next move, captivated by her.

  She whips her hand back and throws the wooden brush, and I know I need to get out of the way, because it’s coming hard, end over end, and her aim is good, but still I can’t seem to lift my legs, because she’s still smiling—behind her act of violence she’s smiling.

  I try to cover my head with my hands, but it’s too late, and the wooden brush handle cracks me in the forehead, knocks me back into something, the railing or a barrel or something else.

  My minds whirls and explosions of light pop and burst before my eyes and then all goes black.

  ~~~

  The wind whips my hair over my ears and around my face. The salt stings my cheeks but I’m smiling because I’m going to meet my mother on the fore deck. She’s promised to watch the sunset with me. Already the sky is changing from red to deep purple, splashing orange and pink around the pillow-like clouds.

  But wait.

  Mother’s already leaning on the railing, but her gaze is downward, into the sea, rather than up at the breathtaking colors of the water country sky. All that lies in the churning whitecaps is death.

  And I know.

  I know.

  Because I’ve been here before—and it’s what some of the men on the ship call “salty memories”, when you see something for the first time, but it’s like you’ve seen it before, maybe many times, and it hits you so hard it’s like a punch to the face. And I want it to stop—please stop—because I know how this one ends—how it always ends—how it has to end.

  Blood in the water.

  The smile fades from my face and my lips and jaw feel sore, like they’ve smiled too much and need to rest.

  I’ve tried running, leaping, grabbing my mother just as she topples over the handrail, willing myself to be stronger with each subsequent effort. And each time he’s there to watch, my father, unwilling to help, disgusted by my failure as my mother meets a wet and silent doom at the hands of the sharp-tooths and the Deep Blue.

  I can still save her—can’t I? Why else would I have chance upon chance? Somehow I know it’s the only way to end this nightmare, to gain my father’s respect once and for all.

  Save her.

  Be faster.

  Be stronger.

  Be smarter.

  I realize I’ve been going about it all wrong. And it’s another one of my father’s lessons that marks the change in my thinking: “Speed and strength only get you so far. Brains set you apart from the common sailor.”

  I’m wasting time and any moment the big wave will hit the bow and my mother will be thrown off balance and she’ll fall down, down, down.

  But I don’t move because my brain tells me not to. I stand, watching. Waiting.

  And the wave never comes. Minutes pass and still she stares into the murky waters, which are quickly darkening to black.

  I’ve done it.

  I have.

  I walk toward her on tiptoes, afraid that my very footfalls might cause the ship to lurch, to buck her from its back like a Stormer’s horse.

  She turns and her eyes are red and wet.

  Somehow she falls, her eyes glittering with moisture as they catch the last rays of the dying sunlight. I’m too far away and, anyway, my feet are frozen to the planks, and all I can think is I saved her, didn’t I? but the answer comes from the side, when a shadow steps into view. Although the shrouded cloak of night has fallen over the ship like a storm cloud, my father’s eyes are clear and blazing in the darkness. They speak to me, and they say one thing:

  You failed me.

  ~~~

  “What happened?” the disappointed voice says.

  I’m awake, but I keep my eyes closed, careful not to twitch. Two memories twist and spiral through my mind: My mother’s wet, red eyes pinch at the back of my head, causing a deep ache that makes my neck feel like dried, salted meat; the brown-skinned girl’s brush spirals through the air, thudding into my skull again and again, until my forehead throbs and throbs like waves crashing over me. Two memories of very different kinds of pain.

  My father is nearby and I can’t face him like this.

  “Uh,” Barney says.

  “You’re his steward, aren’t you?” My father again, his voice laced with venom.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “So you should’ve been nearby, right?” Not a question—an accusation.

  “Of course, but—”

  “And yet you didn’t see anything, is my understanding correct?” My father’s question hangs above me like a knife. With each moment that the question goes unanswered, I can sense the blade drawing closer and closer, until its sharp edge cuts into my throat and I have to hold my breath. Barney will tell him everything, and the bilge rat with the pretty, brown eyes and the unpleasant disposition will be chucked overboard quicker than a big-chin catches a fish.

  “No, Admiral, I didn’t see anything,” Barney admits. I release my held breath out my nose, careful to keep it even and normal. Why I should be so concerned with the welfare of my attacker, I do not know, and I wonder whether the knock to the head has permanently dulled my senses.

  She’s safe for now, and so am I.

  “Lieutenant Cain—what do you have to say for yourself? I understand you were with Lieutenant Jones when it happened.”

  No.

  “I was,” Cain says, his voice firm and sure.

  No.

  “How did Lieutenant Jones end up unconscious with that mark on his forehead?”

  Throb, THrob, THROB! The pounding in my skull, which moments ago was dull, albeit it ongoing, begins cracking like a hammer, and a wave of nausea passes through me. I feel my lips start to quiver as I strain to choke down chunks of undigested food while maintaining the ruse of being asleep.

  “I don’t know,” Cain says, and my eyes almost flutter open in surprise. Surely he saw.

  Surely.

  “I was walking ahead of him, and when I looked back he was flat on his back, his forehead already starting to swell.” Could it be? No one saw what happened?

  “We must conduct a full investigation,” someone growls. Hobbs. “A vicious attack on an officer cannot go unpunished. The result would be mutiny.”

  THROB, THROB!

  There’s a scratching sound and I can picture my father stroking his beard. “And you will conduct this investigation?”

  “I will,” Hobbs says.


  THROB!

  “It will take a well-orchestrated team,” Cain says. “I would be pleased to assist, if you agree, that is.”

  “You’re suggesting my top two lieutenants remain on the Mayhem indefinitely?” To my surprise, my father’s tone—which has all the evenness of stating a fact—doesn’t match his words, which imply disbelief at such an impossible suggestion.

  “Admiral,” Cain says, “you know as well as anyone that The Merman’s Daughter could sail with half as many men. With some effort and a bit of luck, we’ll have the investigation wrapped up in a few days, at which time I can return to my post.”

  “I really don’t think—” Hobbs starts to say.

  “Done,” the admiral says. “Catch the attacker and bring him to me.”

  The door slams so loudly I swear it’s right next to my ear. My head pounds with the force of a ship carried onto the rocks by a water country storm.

  The world drifts away once more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sadie

  Sweat and burning muscles and sore bones are nothing compared to waiting.

  I’d train for a million more hours if it would mean my mother’s return. Barely a week has passed since the Riders left, but already my mind is past the point of distraction. When I eat, when I speak, when I rest, my every thought is of my mother.

  Is she alive? Is she fighting yet? Is she thinking of me?

  Although I know these questions are unfit for the mind of a Rider-in-training, they rise up again and again until I can’t concentrate on anything else.

  My father isn’t helping. He barely speaks, barely eats, barely sleeps. He’s meditating when I lay down to sleep. When I awake, still he sits, eyes closed, hands extended, soft hums and deep breathing rising from his throat. Did he sleep? Has he slept since she left?