Storm-Wake

by Lucy Christopher

  As he got down farther, Finn heard a kind of humming noise too. Also the flowers? Different rules, Moss had said. A magic island. Maybe now he believed it. Either that, or this was all a seriously strange hallucination and they were all on it, tripping hard.

  He touched a flower as he passed, and it buzzed louder. Buzzed at him?

  Perhaps it wasn’t such a jump to see how a person might change to something different here. Become something unexpected. Like Moss. Or Cal. Become something stranger, like Pa. Become almost … magic?

  “The flowers want you gone,” Cal said. “They’re showing how, lighting the way.”

  Finn saw the whole path the flowers were lighting now, on either side like tiny beacons. All the way to a boat. The boat! He saw it clearly. It was so similar to the Swift—the make and everything!—it could have been the very same. He squinted to see it better. If it weren’t for a few different letters on the side and its faded color, he might not have even known the difference.

  An escape! If Finn could just get them past the rocks and the reef … was he good enough to do it? He’d have to sail with skills he wasn’t sure he had.

  Finn touched the petals of a flower growing from the wall. He watched as another flower stretched out to brush against Tommy’s legs, dew from its leaves settling on the skin between his mate’s ripped trousers. And as Finn passed, for an urge and reason he didn’t quite understand, Finn found himself saying … “Thank you.”

  The rumble came again, like there was a huge beast in the rocks, waking up, about to push through. Moss circled her finger in a spiral against the dusty wall … circling in, circling out. Circle, cycle … spiral. ’Til she was calmer, less sick. Tethered. Real again.

  They needed to go, that was clear. She should grab Pa and push him out of the cave. But there was another urge inside her, too, stirred up from the fire images. What else could she make visible there? What would this wind inside her create? It might be her final chance to see.

  If Pa refused to remember …

  If he had true-forgot …

  If he wouldn’t say …

  The flowers in the cave sang back.

  “True images,” she murmured. “Memory images.”

  Secrets, secrets …

  Quick-fast, she felt heat against her face, the flames reflected. She splayed open her outstretched palms. Wind whooshed around her, smashed something from the table. Pa made a sound that could’ve been a cry or maybe a laugh. Adder howled and the fire grew bigger. Hotter.

  From somewhere far away, she heard Pa warning. “No, Moss, no … You don’t want this.”

  Then the image came clear.

  She stepped back to feel the cave wall against her.

  And there he was once more.

  That angry man.

  Here again. Only a few paces away, taunting in the flames. Somehow, she’d thought he might be.

  He was clearer than the other images Pa had made, so clear he might step from the fire. Come closer. She wanted to shut-tight her eyes. She wanted to run, hare-quick. She made herself stay. Watch. This was what she’d asked for, wasn’t it? An answer. A truth. She’d expected this. As she faced him, his mouth opened to a shout. Like it had in her dreamings. Like when he’d found her at the bottom of the sea. Like in Pa’s cave.

  She gripped the rock wall tight. But she would not turn away, not like she’d done every time before. This time she had to know who he was.

  She locked eyes on him and he came, right out of the fire and into the thick syrup air. Moss slid down stone ’til she was crouched. Still, she watched. Heard!

  Useless!

  The word came from somewhere. Flower song? Memory-thought? The man?

  You ruined it!

  She trembled with the cave walls. This was only a vision—a part of her knew that. An image on the flower-smoke … come because she’d called it.

  Had she called it those other times, too?

  She made herself look. Made herself see.

  His hair was curly as well as dark. And his eyes were green—shocking green. Green like hers.

  She heard other words. Words that made her crouch—shiver—away.

  Not good enough!

  Will hit you if you do that again!

  The man’s arm was raised as if he might. She could feel where he would. On her face. Near her ear. It would go sting-paining.

  She pressed into the wall, away from his pointing finger. Leaned back so hard the wall stabbed her instead. And then …

  Another memory!

  Jab-fast!

  She shut her eyes.

  She was running. And he chased with brown boots. Toward a wooden deck where boats bobbed, following behind a black-and-white feathered dog tail. Running toward where Pa sat waiting, watching. On a boat. On the Swallow.

  Moss gulped air in the smoke-thick cave, couldn’t get enough.

  She knew who that angry man was. Knew it, but couldn’t let herself think it. Not yet.

  She could feel Pa’s hands on her arm, trying to soothe her, saying something she couldn’t understand. Could Pa see this image too? Did he know what it meant?

  ’Course he did!

  The picture in his book … he’d seen!

  She could not look at him. But she did not want to look at the angry man, either. She was caught between them both. She pressed harder against the stone, wanting to go so far into it that she was part of it. Part of anything that wasn’t this.

  Was this why Pa dreamt of floods? If the rest of the world was flooded, they couldn’t return here. The bad places would be gone, the bad people too. They’d never see this angry man again. Maybe she wanted floods too.

  “Moss!” She could hear Pa’s voice, feel his fingers on her arm, shaking her. When she turned to him, when she could blink and focus a little, she saw his wet, pale eyes. Blue eyes. Nothing like her eyes. His hair was so pale and straight and different. His face long and bony. Such high cheekbones. He was seabird while she was dog. He’d been wrong to call her Moss-bird all these seasons.

  Nothing like her.

  Not the same.

  Finn had been right. He’d seen it straightaway.

  “Who are we?” she said.

  Pa shook his head, backed away, his chest shuddering like the rock.

  She trembled too. The angry man was there, still, at the corner of her vision. But she couldn’t look at him now. Could only look at Pa.

  “Who are you?” Her voice cracked. “You’re not really … not really … ?” She gasped as if there were no air left.

  Why hadn’t she ever questioned it full? Wondered why she was so different?

  But he had told her stories. Had healed her wounds. Taught her how to fish and stitch clothes and make drawings seem real.

  He had told her lies.

  “It was what you wanted,” he murmured.

  Moss touched her ear where she still felt the sting, the throbbing from where she’d been hit as a Small Thing.

  Hit.

  This time, she didn’t need to look at images in the flower-smoke: The memory was already there, inside her, pushed up to the surface … Now, when she shut her eyes …

  She was the Smallest of Small Things again, smaller than she’d ever been on this island. She was running through a dark wooden house, skidding around corners, screaming. There was an anxious twisting in her belly, a feeling urging her faster. That angry man was chasing her. Shouting. Getting close. She tried to hide behind someone else, soft and spice-smelling; used that woman’s skirts to cover her face.

  The Angry Pa came anyway. He dug his fingers into her shoulder. Wrenched her so hard from the skirts that Moss tore them. She took those skirt pieces in her hand as she spun away. It made the Angry Pa worse.

  You did it on purpose!

  She did not have time to duck. She felt pain spread across her face like something spilling. Felt throbbing in her ears.

  Then there was no sound at all.

  Just the pulsing of blood.

&
nbsp; She looked at the brown carpet. Any moment she might fall into it. Maybe she would sink through, get away.

  To a quiet place.

  Gone.

  Far from him.

  Then the sounds came back. So much shouting. She curled away.

  You never know when to stop! Always one step too far! Sneaky brat!

  She ran to the door and pressed at the handle. It would not go down. And the Angry Pa came closer. She pushed, and pushed, and the Angry Pa reached out his huge arm. He would hit again. Hit harder.

  Now you’ll get it!

  His fist came close. She pushed on that handle. Push-push-pushed until …

  She was running again. Fast-breathless. ’Til she was chasing a dog with a black-and-white feathery tail. Passing trees and houses and sandy roads. Finding a harbor. Seeing a red boat, bobbing in a line with others.

  Until she reached a different man, one who listened when she told about storms coming. Who never yelled or hurt. Who did not think she was sneaky or bad. Who looked at her like she was … magic.

  Who was sick.

  She blinked. Looked back.

  Pa had Jess in his arms, standing with her above the fire as if wondering whether to put her there.

  Now a different image was on its flames. No angry man anymore, but still …

  An image of Moss, as she was as a Very Small Thing. She was curled in blankets on a boat deck, with Jess tight beside. A younger version of Pa stared at them both. He gave Moss a biscuit and she halved it with the dog.

  Moss remembered this, too. Another memory.

  She had stuck her tongue out, all covered in crumbs. And that Pa who was not yet her pa had tickled her until she laughed hard, and Jess had spun and barked.

  “Go home, little moss-eyed girl,” he’d said. “I need to find something—someplace far away. Can’t take you with me.”

  And Moss had stuck her chin out, stubborn.

  She remembered.

  When Moss looked up at Pa now, he nodded. He’d been watching this image too … remembering?

  He crouched down over his dog beside the fire, head bowed. Wind grabbed his hair; his bare skin beneath the flower colors paler than tern feathers. Despite the flames, he shivered.

  “I used to hide in your boat, didn’t I?” she said.

  Pa curled into himself, stone-quiet, hugging his dog.

  “Pa?” she whispered. “Do you remember?”

  As if he were a million years old, Pa nodded.

  “I used to play there.”

  “You made company with this daft stray dog.” His voice seemed to come straight from his chest. “I didn’t encourage it …”

  And she remembered this. All this.

  And then …

  And then …

  Then, one day …

  “You took me,” she said.

  “An accident,” Pa murmured, then added, “a happy one.” When he sighed, colored air came from his lips. It hovered before him, circling Jess in a rainbow halo.

  “You took me,” she said again. “I do not belong here …”

  Maybe she did not belong anywhere, to anyone.

  She felt trembles in the stone beneath her. She grabbed Adder to keep her close, mirroring what Pa did with Jess, heard things falling and smashing. What was happening outside their cave?

  “Who are you, then?” she asked again.

  “Pa,” he murmured. “Just Pa.”

  “You don’t have a name?”

  Perhaps he had forgotten it.

  He had lied.

  He had taken her.

  He was not her pa.

  He did not even know his own name.

  There were hot tears on her cheeks, even as she tried to smudge them away. Another thought struck her sharp. What was it he had called her, in the memory? “Little moss-eyed girl”? And if Pa didn’t know his real name …

  “Am I even called Moss?”

  When he didn’t answer, she asked him again. She shouted it!

  Something else smashed. She turned to see the door covering billowing out. But Pa was deep-down-deep, shaking-broken, not noticing. If she did have another name, perhaps Pa had forgotten that, too.

  Then the ground really shook.

  Lunging, she pulled Pa from a falling rock’s path. She clutched him as a gash opened up beside them, right through the rock floor. The cave was breaking.

  “Wait,” Pa said as she dragged him free, tried to drag him from the cave. “Wait!”

  Struggling, he turned back, Jess in his arms, eyes locked on the fire. Moss saw the serious-calm on his face, and then knew what he would do. Her throat went pinched, but what else could he do with her now? Slow-gentle and tear-cheeked, Pa leaned toward the fire. There, he placed Jess in the flames.

  “Dog dreams for the island,” he said. “Give something back.”

  Moss skidded backward, not wanting to see Jess burn on her pyre. She clutched Adder tighter so she wouldn’t look too. Then, with strength she didn’t know she had, she pulled Adder and Pa away. Pa moaned to leave Jess behind, but he came. They all came.

  Outside were more gashes in the rock. The whole island was shaking. Everything breaking. Had she done this, like Pa said? By wanting truth? No more stories?

  Pa stumbled to Aster, who was skittering on the cliff edge. Smoke was spreading out from the cave, billowing like a colorful skirt above them. Even now, there were images on that smoke, floating into the sky:

  Pa giving her food on the boat.

  Telling her stories.

  Pa with his arms tight around her.

  Pa making a tiny wind curl and dance in the palm of his hand just for her.

  Making her laugh.

  Healing her.

  Showing her stormflowers.

  She thought of spirals going in and spirals going out. She looked out to the ocean. Bird Island was back again, not flickering at all. Sudden-fast, she remembered what Cal had said on the Swallow.

  Maybe that land is not the one that’s flickering.

  Maybe they all were.

  Maybe it made a kind of sense.

  Pa turned to look at her, his eyes blinking fast—flickering, almost, too. “The island is breaking, Moss. Get safe.”

  Safe.

  The word sang on the air.

  But there was one last memory; she felt it build. She pulled at it, needed to share it.

  “One day was different,” she said. “Do you remember it too?”

  Pa was not on his boat when she’d run to find him. But she had stepped aboard anyway, her cheek throbbing, purple-bruised. On mouse-quiet feet, she’d climbed down into the cabin and crawled inside the cupboard where he kept his clothes. She hid. There, the Angry Pa would not find her. Would not know where she was. Not ever. Through a crack in the cupboard door, she’d warned the black-and-white dog quiet with her eyes. She’d waited. Did not crawl back out until the boat had sailed far gone.

  Moss felt the cold wind coming in off the sea. The rumble in the rock.

  She could remember now, hiding. Choosing this pa. The pa who healed instead of hurt. Who’d thought she was magic.

  Storm-woke. He’d called her that, too.

  Pa’s hands were on her arm. She touched his fingers. “Peter,” she said, soft. “Your name.”

  Pa stared at her long.

  “You came from England.” As she said it, she remembered sitting with him on the Swallow’s deck, all that talking. “Your grandfather had died and you were sick too. Sick in your mind. You said the storms were getting worse. The world was getting worse. You told me stories.”

  Pa wiped wetness from his eyes. Slow-gentle, he reached across to touch her face, on the side where her ear still throbbed even now.

  “I did not turn back,” Pa said. “When I knew you were there, hiding on my boat … I should have.”

  But Moss was thinking of his sketch, of the likeness in it. “And you saw him chase me?”

  He nodded.

  And that made her certain. “I
did not want to go back.”

  And this, she realized, was true. Moss reached up to Pa’s hand. “Saved, not stole.”

  Pa was shaking his head. But there was a spark of hope in his eyes now too.

  “Miranda,” he said.

  “Mir-an-da.” She tried it out. The word felt strange, did not feel like her.

  She pulled Pa to move. “I will tell the story. It will be all right. Trust me. It will be OK, returning to the rest of the world.”

  Spirals, spirals, moving out … coming real.

  She would make it all right. They both would.

  And Pa nodded. “OK.”

  It was time.

  He curled his fingers, beckoning to his horse. He sang the same two-note trill he sang to the flowers. Aster turned her head, ears pricked, listening.

  Before he leapt onto the horse’s back and held his hand out for Moss, he looked to the wild-churning sea.

  “I see it,” he said, gazing at Cal’s land. “It’s there.”

  Cal crawled quick-fast back up to the deck after making Tommy safe below. Rocks were crumbling, rain-falling. He untied salt-stiff knots that’d fixed that boat to the cave—set it free.

  “Take it gone!” he shouted to Finn.

  But from where the boat’s steer-wheel was, Cal saw Finn’s eyes were as spun-wide as Moss’s spiral drawings. The island groaned, sent more stones falling. Cal ducked one the size of a lizard egg, then caught it before it could crack a hole in the boards. He skittered across deck to shake Finn hard, ’til the boy focused back on the boat and what needed doing.

  “We all die if you do not move it quick!” Cal urged.

  Finn’s jaw was tight-hard; he would do it! There was fierce-calm in this boy now, more strong than Cal had seen before. He pressed fingers to his shoulder.

  “Tell me what to do, and I help.”

  Finn nodded. “Push the boat away from the rock sides! Don’t let the boat hit anything!”

  There was a sound like an animal—like a wild dog’s growl—as Finn made the boat move forward in a leap. Cal stumbled back at the noise, surprised when Finn laughed sudden-sharp.

  “Wasn’t sure that would kick in!” he shouted. “Seems this boat’s got a magic motor!”