by Heidi Heilig
There was a chill and a stillness; then Mr. Hart released my hair. I sagged to my knees and pushed myself down to the earth, among the loam and the leaves. My palm was sticky against my face, and I smelled the tang of blood and something else, a whiff of cold earth and damp stone and dry moss, but I did not look, I did not dare. Blake had warned me about the Hu’akai Po. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t silence; it was the sound of a hundred souls holding their breath.
And I could no longer hear Mr. Hart.
I reached out blindly, tentatively, groping through the empty space beside me where he had just been, but I found nothing. I was relieved; I was appalled. I closed my fingers around a handful of dead leaves and crushed them in my fist to stop my hand from shaking.
I lay there shivering, water seeping up from the soil and into my clothes, along my forearms and elbows and knees as I pressed myself into the ground, until the mournful conch sounded once more, until I felt the rhythm of two hundred feet passing me by and fading away, until the Hu’akai Po vanished beyond all hearing and the only sound was my heart beating in my throat.
And my father’s voice.
“Nixie?”
I crawled over to him, staying low, finding my way with my hands, too scared to open my eyes. I touched his hand and he grabbed my fingers, crushing them in his own. “Are you all right?” I whispered, afraid to speak too loud, and he wrapped me in his arms.
“Oh, God, Nixie.” His breath was hot on my neck as he clutched me tight. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m still here,” I said, half to convince myself.
“And Hart?”
“Gone. They took him, Dad. The Night Marchers. They—” I couldn’t finish the sentence; Slate had tightened his embrace, squeezing the air from my lungs. But there was nothing more for me to say.
“Good,” he murmured. “He’s lucky it wasn’t me.”
I heard footsteps then, and I couldn’t help myself, my eyes flew open. It was Kashmir, and he was propping up Blake, who had blood seeping through his coat. I scrambled to my feet. “Are . . . is he—” I started, but when Kashmir stopped, Blake slumped to his knees, and I didn’t wait for an answer to the question I couldn’t bear to ask. I pulled off Blake’s jacket and groaned at the sight of the blood soaking his side.
Kashmir handed Blake over to Slate, wincing through his own pain, but he shrugged me off when I reached for the big powder burn on his stomach. “Yes, yes, my shirt will never recover,” he said, pushing my hands away and holding his side like he had a stitch. “Come, we’ve got to get him to the ship. See if we’ve got something to help him. Where’s the gold?”
I glanced back at the ground—the hollow where I’d huddled beside Mr. Hart—but the bag had disappeared too.
Slate propped Blake up with his shoulder, and I wadded his jacket and held it to his wound as we stumbled and slid down the mountain. I kept an eye out for torchlight along the way, half afraid the Night Marchers would return, but they had disappeared completely. We moved as quickly as possible, but by the time we reached the waterfall, Blake was pale as bone in the white moonlight, and despite my efforts to staunch the blood, his shirtfront was soaked with a slick like black ink. He wouldn’t make it to the ship; he wouldn’t make it down the hill. And even if he could, I had no idea if the mercury would kill him or save him.
Why had I let the caladrius go? I couldn’t take my eyes off Blake’s face, and I remembered how he’d blushed, his cheeks bright pink, when he’d first shown me this spot, this sacred place he loved so well. My heart pounded above the sound of the waterfall, roaring in my ears.
“Wait,” I said. “Stop. We have to stop.” Slate stumbled to a halt, and Blake fell to the ground. I gazed up through the pearly clouds of silver spray drifting down to the round mirror of the pool. The healing pool. “Here,” I said, desperate for hope. It had to work. There was no other option. “Bring him here. Lay him in the water.”
Slate lifted Blake and staggered to the bank. He didn’t ask the questions that were in his eyes—he was breathing too hard to speak—as he knelt down to lower Blake gently into the pond.
The white of Blake’s shirt seemed to glow in the reflected moonlight, but soon his blood clouded the pool. My heart sank. I reached in—the pond was frigid, and I pawed at the water, at his shirt, at the blood as it drifted like mist. I found the ragged hole in the cloth and reached in, gingerly, fearfully, but the skin beneath was smooth and whole.
I started laughing, crying—joyful, hysterical—and I pulled Blake from the water and clutched him close, soaking the front of my shirt. Then Kashmir’s hand, warm on my shoulder; I reached up to grab his fingers. “Come, amira. We have to go.”
We met our warriors back at the clearing, and they fell in line behind us. Blake was still unconscious, but with Slate and me supporting him, we managed to make our way through the city to the boat. We were joined halfway back by Billie, who nipped at my ankles hard enough to draw blood before Kashmir picked her up, whining and wriggling, and carried her clamped under his arm.
A few brave souls were peering out their windows as we passed through town, so I pulled Blake’s gun from his jacket pocket and fired it into the air; shutters and doors slammed as the sound of the shot echoed in the street. As we boarded the junk, I heard shouted commands from the vicinity of the palace. Had the Royal Hawaiian Guard managed to escape their barracks? We cast off as quick as we could, dumping Colonel Iaukea unceremoniously on the pier—but even under full sail, we seemed to inch toward Hana’uma as dawn began to paint the sky pink. Still there was no pursuit from the American warships in the harbor, and I wasn’t surprised. Mr. D and his friends were well connected.
I clenched my fists as I watched the city grow smaller and smaller behind us. The league had won, though they hadn’t gotten the money. Of course the annexation of Hawaii had never been in doubt—but now I was complicit in the monarchy’s downfall. I would be reminded of that every time I had to bail the bilge.
Blake was still so pale. I checked his breathing, although Billie, who lay pressed against his body, growled when I came close. His chest rose and fell, the motion shallow but steady. Beneath the rags of his shirt, there wasn’t even a bruise.
Kashmir approached, walking gingerly. He’d stripped bare to the waist, and he was still holding his side. Peeking out beneath his fingers was an ugly weal, red and purple.
“Oh, Kashmir—” I reached toward him; I couldn’t help it.
“Ah ah ah!” He shied away from my hands, but then he smiled wryly. “I’ll be fine. My worthless carcass will recover.”
“Don’t, please.” I put my hand to my mouth, then down to the pendant at my throat. “Don’t joke about that. Not right now.”
His smile softened. “Of course, amira. I’ll be fine,” he said again. Then he turned his gaze to Blake and raised an eyebrow. “Damn. He looks better off than me.”
“Yes, you were both very brave,” I said, suddenly angry at the memory of my fear. “And very stupid!”
“Not as stupid as he was. I had a vest on.”
“It’s not a competition!”
“What’s not a competition?” Blake said, his voice soft and slurred. I swallowed the bitter taste on my tongue. Billie half stood, then sat again, then stood, her tail vibrating.
I knelt down beside him. “Nothing. How do you feel?”
He tried to sit up, but I pushed him down gently. His hand crept up along his ribs. “How . . .” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I thought I was . . .”
“The healing spring,” I said. “The one you showed me.”
“The spring? It works?”
“It does. On your map, at least.”
“On . . . my map?”
“Yes. The one you drew . . .” My voice trailed off. Did the healing spring exist before Blake drew it? Had he brought the Night Marchers into being? Was this version of Hawaii the real one, or only a fairy tale he’d told? “I don’t know, really. Just rest now.�
�
He nodded vaguely. “I’m cold,” he said.
“Here.” I picked up his stained jacket from the decking and shook it out, pulling it up to his chin. Then I saw it, in the pocket where he’d always kept his sketchbook: a tightly folded piece of paper, one corner brown with blood.
“I took it from the fireplace,” he said. “It was atop a pile of kindling.” I unfolded it gently. It was creased, but it was whole. HAPAI HALE, BLAKE HART, 1868. The map of my mother, and I, the anchor. The page trembled in my hands. It was so fragile; I could destroy it in an instant. Kashmir met my eyes, a question in his own, but I wasn’t ready to answer. I folded the map carefully and slipped it into my own pocket.
“Where are you taking me?” Blake asked then.
I hesitated. “We’ll make sure you get home.”
“Home?” he said. “Where is that?”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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After what seemed like hours, we arrived at Hana’uma Bay and came alongside the Temptation. Bee threw a line over the bollard and leaped over the gap, taking me by the shoulders and inspecting me closely. Once she was satisfied I was unhurt, she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. Then she pushed back to arm’s length, clapped me on the back, and went to help Slate bring Blake over. Kashmir climbed after them, leaving Rotgut and me standing there on the deck of the junk beside the general. I surveyed the contingent with regret.
“I’m sorry I can’t bring them home.”
“Maybe it’s better that way,” Rotgut said.
“How so?”
“Well, in their case, home is a tomb. Given the choice, I know I’d prefer to stay under the infinite stars.”
“Maybe so.”
Side by side, we sailed the two ships into the indigo waters past the bay, where the coral skirt ringing the island ended and the lava shelf dropped off and the seafloor plunged away a mile and more. When we reached a likely spot, I stood before the general, hesitating.
When I had envisioned this scheme, the warriors had been an abstract, faceless force to stand behind me for backup, or between me and trouble. But, as was so often the case, the reality was different than what I’d imagined. In doing their duty, they had created a debt in me. I wanted to thank them, to honor their journey, but would it mean anything to the soldiers? They were only made of clay. Then again, perhaps the same could be said of all of us.
“Thank you,” I said finally, because it felt right, and the general saluted, putting his fist to his chest. I did the same. “You can rest now.” He inclined his head, bringing the mark on his forehead to the level of my eyes. I used my thumb to remove the five. As I turned the “me/not” into a smear of soot, the light went out in his eyes.
Then, simultaneously, the fifty-three remaining warriors reached up to drag their hands down their own foreheads, and their lights went out forever.
Then we set about smashing the warriors to potsherds while Kashmir went to work on the hull with an ax. It wasn’t long before we climbed back aboard the Temptation to watch the remains of the 54 sink beneath the blue waves. Would someone find it someday and wonder what had happened? The sea was wide and we were over deep water, but there were no guarantees.
Rotgut laughed a little. “Such a sigh!”
“Well, it was nice while it lasted.” “The power?”
“The loyalty.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I need to speak to my father.”
He was there in his room, sitting with Billie on the floor beside the bed. Blake slept behind the single remaining curtain; I’d forgotten to take down the flag before we’d scuttled the junk. Slate looked up with wide eyes when I came in. I almost went back out when I saw he’d pulled his box out from under the bed, but he stopped me with a question.
“What’s that?”
I blinked, surprised; I’d pulled the map from my pocket. I turned it over and over in my hands, gently, like an egg about to hatch. Then I held it out, thrusting it toward him. “This is it. This is your next map.” He took it but did not unfold the paper. “Before you go, I . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence, but I took a breath and opened my mouth, willing myself to speak, although when I did, I didn’t say what I’d meant to. “We’ll need to get him back to Nu’uanu, first.”
“No,” the captain said, but his voice cracked. “No. The boy asked to stay.”
“And you said yes?”
Slate twitched one shoulder in a half shrug. “He saved your life. How could I send him away?”
He still hadn’t unfolded the map, so I took it back and unfolded it myself. I opened my mouth again, but it took several long moments before the air would leave my lungs. “This one won’t work any better than the others,” I said at last. He took a breath, as if about to speak, and I hurried on before my cowardice caught up with me. “At least . . . at least not as long as I’m on the ship. I’m already there.”
I went to the table. It was easier to talk when I couldn’t see his face. “You can’t go to a place where you exist. Joss told me. It’s something about Navigating. That’s likely why none of the others worked. For you to go back, we need to part ways.” I laid the old map down over the new map of Hawaii, the father’s over the son’s. “She wouldn’t tell me whether or not you’d be able to change the past. So I suppose my leaving is a gamble for both of us.” Slate whispered something. I turned back to him. “What?”
He cleared his throat and spoke again. “I said, don’t go.”
“Slate.” I ran my hands through my hair, then dropped them to my sides; it was a gesture I’d picked up from him. “You’re not listening.”
“I am, Nixie. I wasn’t before, but I am now. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You have to, Slate. You have to choose. You can’t have both.”
“I—I am choosing. I can’t . . . I don’t want to—I am choosing you.”
“I don’t believe you. You say that now, but in a few days—”
“No, I swear to you—”
“Slate!” He snapped his mouth shut, and Billie startled too, her ears perked, suspicious. I paid her no mind; I unclenched my fists, trying to breathe, and gestured to the box on the floor. It was battered now, the lid askew, one hinge bent. “I know you, Captain. I know about inevitability. This is an addiction. You won’t stop.”
“Everything comes to an end,” he said softly, in an echo of what Joss had told me weeks before.
“Yes. We were nearly killed, Slate.”
“Nixie, I would never—”
“But you did. We were all nearly killed, and if it wasn’t for your obsession, none of us would have been there in the first place. In fact, if it weren’t for your obsession . . .” My voice trailed off. He wasn’t meeting my eyes, but there was a look on his face, and my mind was racing again. Everything comes to an end, it was true . . . Joss had said so much that day.
There is always a sacrifice. Slate had told me much the same thing in the carriage; sometimes you have to let something go to take hold of something else. I had thought he was talking about me.
Joss’s sacrifice, I knew. It was like the myth of the phoenix; if not for her fiery death in 1886, she never could have risen from the ashes and gone back to 1841, to start a life, to have her daughter—my mother—to introduce Lin to the captain.
But to escape Qin’s tomb, she had needed us to deliver the map of the aftermath of the fire. My father could never have made that trip; he hadn’t grown up steeped in the mythologies that made it possible for me to bring us to the emperor’s mausoleum. Besides, I had done it—had already done it, Joss had said.
Of course, if we hadn’t needed the soldiers to help with the robbery, I’d never have taken us to the tomb. If I hadn’t gone to the tomb, Joss would never have escaped. If she’d never escaped . . . I stared at the map. “If not for your obsession,” I said to my father, “I wou
ldn’t be here at all.”
He gave me a pained smile, more like a grimace than a grin. Then he put his hand on the map and traced the bloodstain at the edge. It cut right through the name at the corner. The silence between us was infinitely deep. “It does work, you know,” he said then. “Eventually.”
“What does?”
“This map, 1868.”
“Dad—”
“At least, Joss thinks so.” I must have looked surprised, because he laughed, short and bitter. “It was years ago. She told me my future. My fate. I didn’t really take her seriously until—well.” His eyes were far away, but he tapped his finger on the map. “She says I’ll spend my last months there.”
“Your last months?”
“In the time before I . . . arrived. To take you aboard the ship. She said I die of an overdose, believe it or not.” He laughed again, like it was funny.
“Do you believe it?”
His smile twisted. “Sometimes.”
I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat; everything Joss had told me about my future, she had seen in her past. We were both quiet for a moment. It was nearly impossible to force myself to speak, but I had promised to let him go. “Do you want to try it?”
His face paled. “Try . . . this map?”
“I wish we hadn’t scuttled the junk,” I said. “But if you leave me ashore, I can find my way. I’d like to stop in New York first, but if you can’t wait, I understand. And I’d like to take some of the other maps, if you won’t need them any longer. Although if Joss is right, you won’t need anything but this, really.” I nudged the box with my foot. “As usual.”
“Nixie, please—”
“Don’t deny it, Slate. This is what you want.”
“It’s not all I want!” Slate kept his voice low, but it was fierce, and Blake stirred on the bed. “If we part ways, we will never see each other again.”
“I can live with it if you can,” I said, jutting out my chin as though it was a dare; it was all I could do to pretend that his response would not matter.