Storm-Wake

by Lucy Christopher

  Leaving the hut, she saw the sea was only a little calmer than the night before. Used to be, once the Experiment was over, the winds Pa summoned went away. Now Moss still felt those winds, getting under her coverings, cold-cold-colder than she’d ever remembered. This storm wasn’t finished with them yet.

  But still, no flickering land.

  Moss drew her coverings tighter and grabbed a cooking pot. She tipped out deluge from earlier rain. She hadn’t forgotten Cal’s words about elvers under full moon. As she started to walk, the pain in her belly came again. Like the storm, that hadn’t gone either. She wished she could gallop Aster on the hard shore, race this slow thinking and deep paining gone. Moss moved from the grass path to the pebblestones at the top of the dark beach, stepping careful. She smelled the flowers, still open; felt them, pulling.

  Swirl with us. Run. Play.

  They beat her blood fast. As the wind picked up and taunted her too, she clambered over rock pools to get to the tide-line. Somewhere beyond the horizon, there might be buildings and trains and people and dancing and so many dogs. There might be answers for every question she’d ever had. Or there might be nothing but water. Maybe she’d never know which.

  She remembered one day at these rock pools, moons and years ago, when Pa had scrunched her curls and touched the tip of her nose, smiling wicked-fun. He’d shown her anemones and sand crabs and fish that looked like gems.

  “There are a thousand more things in these pools that we can’t see,” he’d said. “Secret things! Just because you can’t see a thing doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  She had parrot-laughed, and Pa had laughed too.

  Now Moss breathed out slow. It had been so long since Pa had been so simple-happy. She stared out past the reef. Maybe they could build a proper boat, one that couldn’t capsize. If they were all together, maybe it wouldn’t matter if they forgot their island.

  She scanned the shoreline for treasure from last night’s storm. Seaweed. Two dead crabs. Mussel shells. The seaweed, in places, looked like dark hair spread out. That made her think of the angry man from the cave and the sea—his dark-tangled hair. She imagined him washed up here, bloated and pale, imagined looking into his dead, dark eyes. She kicked an empty mussel shell, imagining she was kicking him away instead.

  Adder darted ahead, then back again, and then circled around Moss so close as to make her stumble.

  “Daft creature,” Moss told her. “You are mad with a mood.”

  Adder growled, mock fierce, wanting to play, full up with energy from the storm. Moss flicked her fingers at the air in the way Pa had taught her to send unwanted spirits away. Any more of anything inside Adder right now and she would be all wild dog. Moss brushed off some stormflower petals that had settled on Adder’s tail, then grasped the cooking pot tight against the wind and aimed for the far end of the cove. She heard the waves as she walked.

  Go … oo …

  Stay …

  Go … oo …

  Stay …

  “Make up your mind,” she told the water.

  Island’s full of voices. Pa had said that many times. And when she stopped to listen, she heard them right enough.

  “Pity they never give me any answers, though!”

  But maybe … maybe if she asked …

  She picked up stones from the shore and aimed one far to reach the deeper water. Adder went mad behind her, whining and skidding, wanting to fetch but not enough to get cold.

  “Go on, then,” Moss told the sea. “Tell me what you hide. What’s out beyond the reef?”

  She curled her wrist, ready to send another stone flying. She skimmed it hard, and Adder barked and spun and chased her tail in frustration. The sea roared back, but if it was an answer, Moss could not understand it. Adder leapt at a bat and Moss pulled her down again.

  Stroking her dog’s velvet ears, Moss remembered Pa’s words on the day she’d met Adder: Six weeks old and already a killer. Eaten all her littermates and left only herself. Moss ran her finger down the dip of Adder’s snout. The dog’s tongue lolled, eyes shining.

  “Come on then, killer,” Moss whispered. “My wild, bad girl. Elvers time.”

  Adder followed Moss’s heels, then raced ahead to where the stream became salt water, followed it up the beach with nose down to where the grass grew and the water was fresh enough to drink. She guzzled loud. Moss bent to drink too, using the cooking pot as a cup, her eyes already scanning for elvers.

  That was when the cramp came. So much harder than before.

  She cried out, clutched herself. The pain dug like a flint knife. She held her breath, crouched over. Let the pot fall to the edge of the stream. Once she could draw breath, she gathered her skirt, left the pot behind, and stumbled toward the trees. Adder was beside her already, wet nose against her fingers.

  Moss did not have time to get to the outhouse. She squatted where she was, pulling down her smalls at the side of a thick-trunked pine that she held on to for balance. She was leaking. There was something dark. Blood! It was everywhere. Between her legs. Soaking her smalls. On her hands now, too. She shoved Adder away as her dog caught the scent of it. In places, it had clotted dark.

  Was this sickness too?

  She had asked the sea for answers, and this was what it had returned.

  Sickness … more sickness …

  Quick-fast, she checked the rest of her body. But there was no more blood, anywhere. It was only coming from that one spot in her. The female spot. It smelled like deep earth. Did not smell like sickness.

  Moss took one shaky breath, pushed Adder away again. She pressed her hand to her stomach when the cramps came back. She tried to breathe deeper. The pain did not get worse. Maybe this would not kill her; not right away, anyway. She took off her smalls and bundled them in her hands. Then she wiped herself best she could, using her smalls and some thick succulent leaves. No more blood came. Wherever it was coming from inside her, it was not coming fast. Maybe she needed stormflowers to heal it proper. She took one more shuddering deep breath, then stood.

  That was when she saw Cal.

  He was on the beach, at where the stream turned to salt water, near where she had been crouching for water and elvers only a little while before.

  He was watching her.

  Stumbling, Moss backed up against the tree. A rushing feeling was inside her, pressing at her cramps.

  “What are you doing?” She reached to feel tree bark, solid behind her. “Were you spying? Following me?”

  Cal eyes went flash-flashing, like darting fish in water. And when the cramp came again, she remembered his knife through fish guts, silver-sharp.

  “Not following,” he said. “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  He watched her like she should know. She wanted to crouch against the tree again, sit back down in the dirt. Wanted Cal’s hands on her cheeks like they had been the other night. He was closer now. Had he seen her bloodied smalls, still balled in her hand? Did he know what’d caused them?

  Cal sucked in air, rolled it around his mouth. He tilted his head like the dogs did. “Blood?”

  His breath was between them. Even in the dark, she saw the gold in his eyes, the worry in his face.

  She nodded slow. “Think it’s sickness like Pa’s got?”

  He tilted his head again, thinking. Then he leaned toward her. She thought of the tip of his tongue against her skin, his lips on hers. Winter storms, she reminded herself, stirring everything up. Things will settle come spring. Gentle-soft, his arms came round.

  “Maybe we’re all sick,” she said, pressing her forehead to his. “Pa’s not woken proper, and I’ve got blood. You and me both saw visions.”

  “Visions?”

  When Cal frowned, she jumped in fast. “The land you saw.”

  Cal chewed his lip, considering. “That’s not vision.”

  Another cramp came. She breathed out slow, took a step back from Cal to find the tree again. But Cal was looking at the blood
on her hands, at the dirtied smalls she was tucking into her skirt. She saw the tip of his tongue on the edge of his lip, tasting the air. Investigating. Closer up he came, until she saw how his scale-skin shimmered in moonlight, silver-black, and ’til she felt his heartbeat—two thuds, two more. He threaded her bloodied fingers through his.

  “You must come with,” he said. “We must go now. I must show you.”

  Cal pulled her hand, leading her from the pine trees, pointing out a path. Moss dug her heels in.

  “What are you doing, Cal?”

  Sudden-fast, Cal placed his palm across her mouth. “He will hear.” Cal looked back to the hut, sweat on his lip, his fingers tight-painful on her cheeks.

  He will take you. In a storm. He will take you from me.

  Pa’s words in her head … in the flowers’ song. His warning about Cal.

  And now Cal’s hand firm across her mouth. His other hand firm around hers. She raised eyebrows at him.

  “Pa has secrets,” he hissed. “I have the look-see to prove. You must come, must trust.”

  He glanced over his shoulder again, still holding her tight. But Moss bit his fingers. He took his hand away fast, and she glared.

  “Stop it, Cal! You’re getting crazy-whirred as him! I’m not just going because you say!”

  That made him step back, made his eyes dart. She tasted his salt-skin on her lips.

  Then, very faint, the ground trembled. It was so soft-soft at first, Moss did not full feel it. Though it built steady ’til its shake made her look up. Back at Cal, then up to the volcano.

  No smoke, though. Not like there was sometimes when the volcano rumbled proper. But there was trembling there, still—in the ground, in their skin. Again it came. And again. Like the island had shivers.

  Cal stepped from her farther. “Another sign you come with?”

  From camp, she heard Aster whinnying. She turned to see, and Cal spat on the ground beside her.

  Pa staggered out from the hut, roused by the shudder too.

  “If you do not come now,” Cal whispered, “the Pa will stop you.”

  Still, she pulled back. “Stop forcing me!”

  It was too late for leaving, anyway. Pa had seen them. What was Cal even thinking? As Pa stumbled toward them—unsteady as a newborn pup—she saw how wide his eyes were, his pupils like pebblestones. He must have taken all the flowers she had left on the bed.

  “Come,” Cal said again, quieter.

  But, like this, she could not leave Pa. And Cal knew it right-sure.

  When Pa arrived, he took her wrists. His eyes went wider when he saw the bloodied smalls in the waistband of her skirt. His eyes darted to Cal.

  “What did you do?” Pa’s voice was dangerous-low, his eyes narrowing.

  “Cal did nothing!” Anger swirled in her chest. Why did he always think Cal was to blame?

  Wind picked up around them, stirring and gathering where she stood. It whooshed toward Pa, clawing his hair. Again, she felt flower-buzz inside her, a little like how it’d felt when she’d pulled the storm across the sea.

  Pa stepped toward Cal. “You were always trouble. Ever since you arrived!”

  Even in the dark, Moss saw the gold-glinting anger in Cal’s eyes, the unspoken hiss on his lips.

  “No, Pa,” Moss said. “Cal didn’t do this. I think I’m sick like you.”

  Pa hesitated. The real Pa was there—Moss saw him—inside this sick-fevered man. There was a battle going on to listen to him, though.

  “Sickness?” Pa shook his head. He drew a line in the sand in front of Moss, separating her from Cal. “You do not take her,” he said. “You do not hurt her.”

  Pa was frowning deep, trembling. Sickening and maddening.

  “Come with,” Cal said again, urging Moss with fire-eyes.

  Cal looked so strong now and angry. Like this, Cal could hurt Pa—hit him back. Did he want to?

  Again, the ground shivered. But when Pa stumbled, it was Cal who caught him.

  “I know what you hide,” Cal said.

  Pa turned, pulling away, shaking as if the storm were full inside him. “You know nothing. You never have!”

  Part of her hated Pa now, how he’d changed and sickened and had made them all go splinter-weak. But she still felt the clamp of Cal’s hand over her mouth, too.

  Cal looked at her steady, eyes glinting in moonlight. Come with, come with. So clear what those eyes were meaning.

  But instead, when he opened his mouth, he said soft:

  “I know a way off the island.”

  Lightning started, glowing the trees. Moss strained to see Cal’s figure hunching away. When the sky flashed, she saw him weaving and dodging the storm. What had he meant … a way off the island?

  That land out there? Another vision?

  Pa grabbed her wrists, splayed open her bloodied hands. He pulled her down toward him. “Cal hurt you, it’s finally true, Moss?”

  When Moss looked down at her hands, she saw that blood had dried dark in the crevices of her fingernails. But it wasn’t Cal who had done this! She shook her head. Though when she looked back at Pa’s glaze-fevered eyes, it didn’t feel like she had his sickness either. She snatched her hands back.

  Blood.

  Like how Adder had sometimes.

  Jess too.

  And now—stupid-slow—she understood. She clenched her fingers to fists, growling. ’Course it hadn’t been sickness like Pa’s!

  “What I’ve got’s natural, Pa,” she said, sighing.

  He blinked at her, waiting.

  In the books in the cave, she’d read about females bleeding. She’d seen it happen with the dogs growing up. Blood meant she was growing too, could be mating. This blood was not to be worried about. Why hadn’t she realized it before? And why had it come now, besides? Why not earlier?

  “No, Moss.” Pa shook his head. “That wasn’t meant to happen; you weren’t meant to bleed like this …”

  She pushed herself across the sand, up onto her feet again. He knew what she was talking about! But then, why … ? She stepped away from him.

  Pa been wrong.

  Pa got secrets.

  Was this one of them?

  But Cal had secrets too.

  Or maybe neither of them had anything. Just visions. Just sickness. But this, her blood, that was real.

  Again, Pa shook his head. “You weren’t meant to get sick, Moss. Not ever.”

  “It’s not sickness, Pa!”

  “No.” He bowed his head slow-weary. “But I asked the flowers so you wouldn’t get bleeding. You weren’t meant to grow, not so quick, not yet.”

  She paused. Her working out of it was right—this were her natural bleeding—she knew it. But Pa was talking parrot-sense! She bent over him, her words coming through her teeth.

  “Did you stop what was natural in me with flower-magic?”

  He did not answer.

  She felt in his pockets, found fresh-picked stormflowers, and tossed them to the wind. When he went to stop her, she said, “No more, Pa!”

  “They make me well!”

  “I don’t think they do anymore. I don’t think they make any of us well!”

  Moss could see stormflowers in how he stared at her, in how he looked slight to the sides of her face rather than direct in her eyes. She remembered how the Experiment had made her skull-storm sick, too, had given visions. She remembered the angry man in the cave and in the ocean.

  Wind was getting firmer. Soon, thunder joined it. Somewhere, a branch fell. The island sounded like it was breaking. Once, Pa would have gone up to his cave and made a mixture to calm the weather. And once, he had asked the flowers to stop her bleeding. To keep her as a Small Thing. She could’ve slapped his face!

  Moss turned and walked. She did not go back, even when Pa coughed so hard it was like he’d lose all breath. Leaves rained down, and creatures screamed. Maybe she should find Cal, find the truth in what he said. But now what she wanted true-most was space from the
m both.

  Moss pulled her coverings tight-close and walked the narrow cliff path, taking the way that ran next to, though lower than, the path that led to Pa’s cave. She watched the moon make writhing monsters from the waves, not horse-shaped this time. She thought of the creatures trying to shelter under that thrashing water, hiding deep in the reef. Wondered about floodwaters coming for them all.

  She climbed down to the smaller path that led to the warm pools. Here, she had a view direct to the ocean. The tide was racing in, clawing at rocks. If Pa didn’t move off the beach soon … She squinted to find him: too dark. Sure-certain he’d get back to his bed without her help?

  She didn’t care!

  She swallowed the guilt, bending to stroke Adder, who was skidding and skittering on wet rocks close behind. She held her arm out for Adder to lean against as she climbed down a sure slippery bit.

  “You be safe,” Moss warned.

  Adder licked her hand. The dog would not fall.

  “Promise me?”

  Adder gave another lick.

  “Daft thing.”

  This movement felt good, this stretching of muscles. She thought of the blood, still leaking from her, maybe staining the skin at the top of her thighs. Adder was shivering. The warm pools would be good for them both. In the water, she could think. She could make a plan.

  Secrets … secrets …

  That word on the wind again. That glimpse of more in Cal’s eyes.

  On the smooth ledge below, Moss dropped to all fours, crawled spiderlike across wet stone. Ahead, she saw that most of the rock around the pools was covered in seawater from the storm.

  “Stick close, Adder.”

  It would only take one big swell and they could both be pulled from rocks this slick. She reached out to grab her dog by the scruff. When a stone bounce-bounced along the rock ledge and over the edge and Adder barked, Moss grabbed her tighter. Her dog would not follow, not without Moss coming too. With her free hand, Moss pinched hard the base of her dog’s tail to remind her of where they were.

  “Do not lose your mind.”

  They skidded together across the rock platform until blood was scraped from Moss’s knees and palms. Quick-fast, she checked the caves. Cal could’ve come here—it was somewhere they used to come as Small Things, after all. But there was no sign. She sheltered, crouched at the entrance to the biggest cave. The winds howled back. So where was Cal hiding? Where was this secret way off?