Cal grunted. “And you’re a chick who only listens to her pa.”
Moss narrowed her eyes at him: that one hooked.
“You’re the chick.”
Hadn’t Pa said that when Cal first arrived? Still a baby with much to learn. We will teach him.
But Cal was not a baby now. Now Cal’s thick, dark hair was not only on his head, and he was muscled and lithe, slinky as a skate. Sometimes Moss thought Cal was turning into something like the hunters in Pa’s storybooks.
Another cramp made her gasp. Perhaps it was the weather, making her so deep in paining. Once this brooding had blown over, other things would calm. Then she and Adder would play. Then they would know for certain about the land Cal had seen.
She unthreaded the braids in her hair and let it go frizzy, stretched her spine. She was about to leave when Cal grabbed her wrist, his eyes on the sky.
“Weather turns.”
She sat back down beside him with the empty pot balanced on her knees. Like this, maybe Cal and her could talk, fix whatever had gone stormy between them. She placed her temple against his shoulder, turned her eyes to where the clouds scudded faster.
“They’re darkening,” she said.
She felt Cal swallow. “You said once you’d make the land come back. You’d do it yourself.”
She smiled against Cal’s arm. She remembered, of course. Those dreams about being able to do the Experiment by herself! Sending out the flower-wind!
“Never happened, though, did it? Never proper learned the Experiment before Pa gave it up.”
“You saw him do it, though,” he said, rasp-soft. “Many times.”
She laughed. “You did too.”
“Some.” He took one slow breath. “So, what about if we try it again … if you do?”
Moss sat up to look at him. “You want me to do Pa’s Experiment? Now?”
He shrugged. “Could try. Maybe see the land that way.”
Moss looked over at the hut. No movement inside, no sounds. Pa had been fevered-out since early morn and would most-like stay that way ’til eve. And the cave was just up the path, not so far away; she could be back before the sun went down. Couldn’t she? She turned the thought in her mind like she’d turn sea snails in glowing fire embers.
“If the Pa can do this, so you can,” Cal said, urging.
Cal was already walking up the path. Moss half ran to match his longer strides, Adder at her heels. The winds were stronger, already Moss saw petals dancing there. Could the flowers know what she was about to try? Were they expecting it? When Cal turned to her, new wind made his hair stand up like marsh reeds.
“What the Pa got, anyway, that different from you?” he said.
Moss looked aside, into the moving trees. Pa had everything—the dreams, the stories, the legends. He remembered what life had been like in their old world.
“Why do you suddenly believe in it, anyway, Cal?” she said. “You’ve never thought Pa’s Experiment worked before.”
“Not saying I do now.”
“You’ll have to help. Like I used to help him.”
She thwacked a branch sideways at some unruly vegetation, and then flinched like the plant did. She thought of what Pa might say if he knew what they were doing. The Experiment was what he’d dreamt up. Would it even work without him?
“Autumn winds,” Moss murmured, watching the swaying trees, their leaves departing like birds from a roost. “The beginning of winter storms.”
Maybe this new island weather was just that. Not flower-magic. Not connected to Pa or any of them. She thought of the bruise around Cal’s eye, the angry words shouted the other night. Things changed in autumn. Wild winds stirred up.
Cal held out his hand and, cautiously, she wound her fingers in his.
“Just a look-see,” she said. “Just a try.”
Branches moaned on either side of them, and Moss got a memory-flash of doing this as Small Things, too—though, then, they went to watch Pa do the Experiment, back when he was hopeful the world might change from his actions.
They leaned forward into the wind, breathing heavier when they got to the steeper part. Adder yipped how she did when Aster was nearby, though Moss could not see the horse in the trees. Maybe the horse was watching them, maybe she’d find a way to tell Pa what they’d done. They stopped to rest at the top, leaning against the cliff and facing the ocean. Tide was almost full-in. Far out, the sea was seal-gray, waves frothing.
“White horses,” Moss said, pointing them out for Cal. “Racing there. See?”
This was habit, pointing out the silver water at the tips of the waves, the place where the water broke. Moss always watched for real horses too, galloping toward the sand. Looked for another Aster. If it could happen once …
She looked for the land, too.
“Can you see it?” she asked.
Cal’s eyes watered as he looked. “Not yet.”
Winds were coming stronger, though; Moss felt them grasping at her hair. They pushed back Adder’s forehead, making her slit-eyed, sending her ears inside out. The stormflowers on the rocks were unfurling.
Moss bent to one flower, smelled its sweetness. She whisper-sang to it and invited its healing magic inside. She pulled off one petal and tasted it. Unlike the dried-out petals under Pa’s pillow, this flower seemed strong: good. She rubbed another petal against her neck, felt the warm buzz it left on her skin. She wanted another but felt Cal’s eyes on her also.
“Pa used to eat many before he’d start the Experiment,” she explained, picking another petal and pressing it to Cal’s hands. “You must eat some too, if you’re going to help.”
He did it reluctant-slow, scrunching his face.
“Still not sweet for you?”
“Not ’specially.”
She darted to pick more orange-gold petals and shoved them into her pockets.
“I’ve been wondering if that’s why Pa’s been sickening. The flowers are changing. Maybe they’re not so strong anymore, not working?”
Cal shrugged. “Maybe.”
They pulled the heavy cloth away from the cave entrance and went inside. Even in the gloom of the cave, Moss saw the vase on top of Pa’s experimenting table wobble from the wind, heard pages rustle. She took wood from the pile and laid a fire in the hollowed-out hearth. Rubbing stormflower petals together, she threw them to the sticks. A spark came. She pulled a flaming twig out, and gave another to Cal, and they lit the torches around the cave. As she did, she looked at the spines of the books, then over to the swirls and drawings Pa had made on the walls.
Perhaps this was what life would be like if Pa never healed—just her, and Cal, and all the stories Pa kept. She breathed in the smell of old pages, that pleasant musk-damp. She brushed a couple of spines with her fingertips. Was everything ever to know inside those pages? Or were there more stories to learn, somewhere?
She stepped across to a book, its belly pressed against the cave floor, its pages folded back like broken limbs. She picked it up and pushed it back on the shelf. Once, Pa would never have left a book like that. She felt such an urge to fix all this—to heal not only the rest of the world but their own island, too. If Pa were well again, if he did not hate Cal so … It had seemed so perfect here. Once.
“Come try the Pa’s Experiment,” Cal said.
She let him lead her to the table. Gentle-soft, she touched the glass vase that had come on their boat all those years ago, then took the fresh-picked petals from her pockets. She tore them and dropped them into the vase, just as she had seen Pa do. The air went sweet-heady. She uncorked and poured a little of Pa’s palm wine inside the vase, too, then found a scallop shell of sand from their cove and sprinkled that in.
“We need something of us,” she said, remembering how Pa always put something of himself inside.
Cal reached across and plucked one of her head hairs, then one of his own. He laid them next to each other on the table. Hers curled up instantly, sure-tight as a lugworm; his
stayed wavy and darker beside. They went into the vase.
“Enough?”
“Don’t know.” She spat into the vase like she’d seen Pa do, and motioned for Cal to do the same. Still, she squinted at the mixture.
“Blood?” she said.
She took Pa’s birthday knife from her skirt-waist and, first, she cut Cal’s finger with a tiny, quick movement. Drip-drop-drip over the vase, she held it. He sucked it after. Then she cut her own. Unlike Cal, she didn’t even flinch. She found a branch and stirred it all together.
“Pa would kill us if he knew,” she said.
But what else could they do but try? It was better than just brooding by a fire. Already the mixture was swirling fierce, bubbling and fizzing like she remembered.
“Like fireflies pressed tight,” she said.
“Like fire.”
Soon, she heard the high-pitched singing noise.
“Show us land,” she whispered to the orange mixture. “Make the flooding go down so we can see the other island. Make change.”
Inside the vase, the mixture came full-fiery. Cal pressed his nose close, watching careful, pulling her down to see too. Close up, the substance did not look like fireflies. Instead, the swirling inside the vase was fresh new wind. Whirring gold. Had she done it? She held the mixture toward Cal so he could smell it. He reeled back, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand.
“Alchemy,” Moss said. “When one thing changes to another thing.”
“Al-kuh-me.” Cal rolled the word in his mouth like it was a song.
“We’ve changed petals to air. Now that air will turn water to land. Maybe it will.”
If she tilted the mixture in just the right way, it looked almost the same color as the gold-glinting flecks in Cal’s eyes. Moss sniffed the mixture and tried to hold the sweetness in her chest. It fizzed there, waiting. She gave Cal more stormflowers, and took some too.
“Eat! Pa uses the energy to bring winds in.” Moss drew closer to the vase, almost cradling it. “He said that if these flowers were in the rest of the world, things would always be beautiful there.”
“I remember those tellings.”
She led Cal to the cave entrance, the vase held close to her belly. Perhaps, if she held it close enough, the paining would ease inside her. Before they pulled the cloth back, she took more stormflowers from her pocket.
“Last bit of fuel.”
She ate, then spat out the fibrous remains and gave them to Adder.
The wind rifled through their coverings. Cal took her hand and pulled her forward, until they stood shoulder to shoulder on the ledge, his eyes serious and searching on the horizon. The stormflowers on the rocks turned their yellow yolks toward the wind; pollen flew from their centers, making the air thick. Moss raised her hand like she remembered Pa doing, curled her fingers to beckon the building storm close. She prodded Cal to do it too.
“Concentrate on the stormflowers inside you.” She twisted her fingers. “On the buzz, the energy they give—think about a wind coming near. Imagine it coming. They’ll hear you.”
Cal rolled his eyes, unbelieving.
She prodded him again. “It’s never going to work if you’re like that!”
Moss watched the gray sea swirling, and there—in the distance—a storm formed. Had she done it?
“Pa used to talk about the floods when he did this,” she said. “He’d talk about rushing water, animals going under, drowning … things we escaped from. Do you remember?”
She raked her fingers through the air. A buzz built inside her as a small storm of its own. She thought about what might be out beyond that line—about exploring it with Cal. Tingling was all through her.
Still, she saw no land.
Moss opened the vase and let the flower-air go. They watched it sparkle.
“Go out to that storm wind,” she told it. “Make the land appear.”
But the flower-air was hesitant. It hovered before them, swirling into a ball. A part of Moss wanted to reach out and take it back. She felt it quaking, shivering away from the bigger wind. She gripped Cal’s hand. The storm’s pressure was hurting her skull.
“It doesn’t want to go,” Cal said. “Does not want to be forced.”
The stormflowers were screaming now, not singing. Cal backed off. But they had to keep pushing if they were going to see the land.
“A little more,” she whispered.
She willed that tender wind out, watched the purple clouds swallow it. But something wrenched inside her. Then Cal dropped his arms. Her shoulders slumped as she did too.
And the storm swept low and whined around the cliffs, away.
“Couldn’t do it anymore,” he said.
“Or me.”
They waited for land.
“See it?” Moss said.
“Not yet.”
“See it now?”
“No.”
“Did the flowers … work?”
“Maybe they never do.”
Moss looked at him: He was trembling, like how he did in deep water. Like how the flowers had felt inside her. The Experiment hadn’t worked, not how she remembered it. It had felt … wrong. Was that because Pa wasn’t there?
“Maybe it takes time,” she murmured. “Maybe we have to do it again, every day, like Pa used to. Maybe we haven’t eaten enough petals!”
Cal shook his head. “Maybe was wrong to try.”
Then he was gone, walking fast away. When she caught up with him, he wiped a hand rough across his eyes.
“They screamed!” he said. “Did you not hear?”
She nodded. “I felt it.”
She looked back at the water beyond the reef. No land. No change. No nothing but waves. And all those petals disappeared!
Cal moved away, watching remaining petals spin above his head. He raised his hands as if to catch and shelter them. Moss called after him. But he would not turn.
Still clutching the vase, she crumpled against the rock, watching him go. Her muscles still buzzed from the flowers inside. She felt as used up as fire ash.
And there was no land. Maybe whatever she had thought she’d seen with Cal was wrong. Maybe he was wrong.
Her chest heaved as it settled to deeper breathing. Moss opened her hand, felt petals settle there. She closed her fingers around them. No wonder Pa had stopped doing the Experiment. It took something from him. Took flowers from them all.
She shut her eyes, her body swaying. Maybe she could sleep and sleep and not care what she woke to … could sink down deep like Pa did. Maybe it would not be long before flooding came for them; ’til they were drowned-gone like the rest of the world. Perhaps the island could no longer protect them.
But when she went back inside the cave to return the vase, there—at the very corner of her—was something else. She turned her head. Nothing—nothing seen. But she caught a smell of something spicy and warm, cooked tasty-good. Like honeyed plantain, but different too. She looked about the cave for something roasting, but ’course there was nothing but books and fire embers. Nothing else burning. She shut her eyes and smelled it stronger. Spices. A hint of sour. Somehow familiar. What was it? Where had it come from?
She opened her eyes, looked around the cave again. Pa was not here, Cal had not come back. She turned to see the whole cave. And the smell went, quick as it came.
But something else came instead. Something else … flickered.
She sat down fast as she saw it, stumbling into the cave wall. For a second—there, at the edge of her vision …
She blinked.
There!
She grasped at the rock behind her.
A man. Standing over her. Curled over her. Dark hair. Shouting. There for a moment, then gone. He was angry.
She crouched away, pressed back into the wall. Sudden-fast her ear throbbed painful.
She remembered him. ’Course she did.
The man from the bottom of the ocean. But why again now?
She skittered across the
floor for the entrance. Eel-fast. Adder whined as Moss reached out for her.
“A vision … ,” Moss murmured, “… like how Pa gets sometimes.”
It must be.
From eating the flowers.
A waking dream.
But, still, there. At the corner of her eyes, flickering.
Like how Cal’s land flickered too.
It was making her spin.
She got to the cave opening, tumbling out. She shook her head hard. Then, cautious-slow, she breathed. The image of the angry man was fading now. He wasn’t out here. She gasped in the cold, good air, and pressed her face into her dog’s fur. First, stomach-paining; now visions too? Another sign she was getting sick like Pa?
Maybe the land Cal thought he’d seen had been a vision too. Maybe they were all getting sick.
Moss bent to give more tea to Pa.
“Cal’s still not back?” he said.
She shook her head. “Not even to bring fish.”
Moss lit one of their precious candles. Evening again now, and Cal not returned.
“Can’t face he’s been tricking us, maybe,” Pa said. “About the land.” Pa broke into another coughing fit.
“Reckon you can get up yet?” she said when he’d done. “You’ve been in bed four days.”
“A couple more. Leave me a stash of petals when you go out. Perhaps a strong burst will do the trick for this old soul.”
He tried to smile. She watched his face—grayer now and drawn down. Like Cal, he was disappearing too. She brought out a handful of fiery gold petals.
“Went collecting on the volcano.”
“Good girl. One strong-sweet burst to knock this sickness full-gone.” He reached up to brush her cheek. “If you’re so worried about Cal, we’ll go searching in a day or two. Once I’m better. We’ll take Aster.” He tapped her nose gently. “Wonder why he’s left so long?”
She bit her lip. She hadn’t told Pa of the Experiment they’d tried, had thought better of it when he was so weak … when she remembered him hurting Cal. She arranged the stash of the potent stormflowers on the blanket.
“Don’t eat them all at once,” she warned, avoiding the further questions in his eyes.
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