The Doorway and the Deep

by K. E. Ormsbee

  “I feel rotten,” said Eliot.

  “Don’t,” said Lottie. “You didn’t know.”

  But she could tell that Eliot was still feeling bad about it, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, just like there was nothing she could do to stop Oliver from feeling guilty or make Fife speak to her about what had happened in Sharp Bend.

  The grass turned to heather, and the beach stretched before them—a narrow strip of white sand and black rocks, edging the coast as far as Lottie could see. Waves crashed on the surf in a gentle lull. Lottie’s lips felt puckered and briny.

  Lottie had visited the coast of Kemble Isle twice before. Once, Mrs. Yates had taken her to a fund-raising tea at a seaside resort, which might just as well have taken place in the middle of New Kemble, since Mrs. Yates refused to let Lottie venture out to the beach. The second time, Lottie and Eliot had concocted a bike trip to the beach that took four hours longer than they’d anticipated and ended with Mr. Walsch driving out to pick them up after dark.

  Lottie had never seen a coast so pristine as this. The beaches she’d visited had been made of dirty sand, bordered by condominiums and hot dog stalls. But this beach was desolate. There were no houses or docks or people. As Lottie took her first step into the pillow-soft sand, she got the feeling she was trespassing on a very fine estate without the owner’s knowledge.

  Fife floated to Lottie’s side, awe in his face.

  “I didn’t know it looked like this,” he said.

  “What?” said Lottie. “Have you never been to the beach? I thought you’d done everything, Fife Dulcet.”

  Fife smirked. “Practically everything.”

  “It’s so empty,” said Adelaide. “The Southerly beaches Father took us to growing up were much prettier than this. Weren’t they, Oliver?”

  Oliver, still black-eyed, said nothing.

  Dorian stopped ahead and squinted at the horizon.

  “What do we do now?” Lottie asked him. “Where’s the ferry?”

  Dorian turned to the Barghest. “Well? This was your route, dog. Where to now?”

  But even the Barghest looked uncertain.

  “I have never used the ferry,” it growled. “I only know it is the safest route for the Heir of Fiske.”

  “Well, it’s the only route now,” said Dorian, “considering she can’t cross the waters any other way.”

  “Why not?” asked Eliot. “I mean, isn’t there a boat rental place or something?”

  “Not on this part of the coast,” said Dorian.

  Lottie turned to Oliver. His face was painted with poetry.

  “The poems say there was once a great naval battle here between Northerlies and Southerlies,” he said. “It was the bloodiest confrontation in the Great Schism. Thousands lost their lives to the sword, and then a great squall splintered the remaining boats to pieces and drowned the soldiers. Many sprites said it was Nature’s curse on all the bloodshed of war, and from then on, the western coast was considered cursed, from the tip of the Wilders to the Northerly Gate. It’s said that the only seacraft Nature will not drag into the depths is the ferry, since it’s not run by sprites proper, but by a nix.”

  Everyone had gone very quiet. Adelaide made a low, disgusted sound.

  Oliver shrugged. “That’s what the poems say, anyway.”

  “Sorry,” said Eliot, “but what’s a nix?”

  “A sprite who has bound himself to the sea,” said Dorian. “Legend has it they sacrifice their souls to know all the sea’s secrets. They can never leave the water.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” asked Fife, snorting.

  Dorian gave Fife a sharp look. “I’ve heard enough from fellow soldiers to keep me wary.”

  Lottie walked nearer the shore—so near that the water stained the tips of her boots.

  “Well, there’s no sign of a ferry here,” she said. “We should send our gengas out in both directions and have them report back.”

  “Yup,” said Fife, pulling Spool from his pocket.

  The yellow kingfisher swooped down the shore. A lavender finch flapped in the opposite direction, sent off by Adelaide’s hands.

  “Barghest,” said Lottie, turning to the creature. “Do you see that pile of rocks up the coast? Go inspect it, please. Maybe something’s hidden behind it.”

  But the Barghest remained where it was.

  “I would not advise that course of action,” it said. “Better not break up our company.”

  “Hey!” cried Eliot, who stood a little way down the coast. “Look at this!”

  Lottie and the others joined Eliot where he stood. He was pointing at one of the jagged rocks that dotted the sea. It was wide across, and words were carved into it in boxy script:

  TO THOSE WHO SEEK THE WATER’S FAVOR

  WHOSOEVER ROWS AGAINST THE FLOOD,

  OF SORROW HE SHALL DRINK.

  WHOSOEVER GIVES OF SORROW SHALL NOT SINK,

  GRANTED PASSAGE TO THAT OTHER SHORE.

  WHOSOEVER GIVES OF BLOOD SHALL BIND HIM EVER TO THE SEA

  AND WALK THE LAND NO MORE.

  “Oh, it’s a riddle!” said Adelaide. “I’m very good at these. Let me think.”

  “Is this it?” Lottie asked Dorian and the Barghest. “It says ‘granted passage to that other shore.’ So, what, is it a ferry you can only take by solving the riddle?”

  “Seems like,” said Dorian. “The nix are known for their schemes and wiles.”

  “Um,” said Fife. “So remind me why we’re trusting them to carry us across the sea?”

  “I never said I trusted them,” said Dorian. “There’s a reason I’ve never traveled this way. This was all the Barghest’s doing. Direct your questions to it.”

  “Shush!” said Adelaide, waving them to be quiet. “We should be trying to figure out what it means.”

  Lottie, too, was staring intently at the rock, attempting to make sense of its words.

  “Gives of sorrow,” she said out loud. Then, “Gives of blood.”

  “It seems to me,” said Adelaide, “that if you do the first thing, you will drown in the sea. No thank you. And if you do the third thing, you’ll be bound to the water, same as the nix. How dreadful. So it’s the second thing we want to do. If we ‘give of sorrow,’ whatever that means, we’ll get safe passage on the ferry. Well. Don’t you think?”

  “Maybe,” said Lottie, “ ‘give of blood’ literally means to drop your blood in the water.”

  “That would make sense,” said Oliver. His eyes no longer shone black but dark yellow. “The whole curse started because of bloodshed. Many poems say that the wounded sailors didn’t drown, but by bleeding into the sea became the first nix. Now, perhaps, anyone else who drops their blood in the water will become like them.”

  “Then what does the second line mean?” asked Eliot. “Instead of blood, you give what to the sea? Tears?”

  Fife snickered. “You mean you’ve got to stand on the shore, crying into the sea? How melodramatic. Sounds like one of your Byron poems, Ollie.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” asked Adelaide.

  Fife shrugged. “How’re we supposed to get someone to cry, though? Tell them a sad story? Punch them in the stomach?”

  “Honestly,” said Adelaide. “Nothing so violent. I’m sure I could manage without any help.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could, Miss Priss.”

  “Fife, cut it out, would you?” said Lottie, irritated. Then, to Adelaide, “Do you really think you could?”

  Adelaide nodded stiffly and approached the water’s edge. She placed both feet in the shallow water and closed her eyes, bunching her face into a contorted expression.

  Fife was laughing. Dorian gave him a sound whack over the head, and he hushed up. The rest of them watched in rapt silence.

  It took nearly a minute, but a teardrop finally appeared at the edge of Adelaide’s right eye. Then another, at her left. Then yet another, and another. Slowly, they wound down her cheeks, and
Adelaide tilted her chin toward the water so the drops could more easily fall into the sea. Each drop clung to her skin for several seconds, then plopped into the water. Lottie had lost count of how many tears Adelaide shed by the time she wiped her cheeks, opened her eyes, and looked up.

  “Well?” she said. “Do you think that’s enough?”

  Dorian shook his head. “There’s nothing left but to wait and see.”

  So they waited. They waited minute upon minute, watching the surface of the water. There were a couple times Lottie swore she saw something moving, but it only ever turned out to be the foaming roll of a new wave. They waited, and waited, but they saw nothing.

  “I’m not sure tears is right.”

  Lottie was surprised to hear Eliot’s timid voice break the silence.

  “I have another idea,” he continued. “What if ‘gives of sorrow’ doesn’t mean tears at all? What if it just means that whatever you drop into the ocean has to cause you sorrow?”

  “You mean, you have to sacrifice something to the sea,” said Lottie. “Something that means a lot to you.”

  Eliot nodded.

  “Well, what have any of us got that fits that description?” asked Fife, throwing his hands up. “We’re traveling light here. There’s nothing on me I care that much about. Definitely nothing that would cause me sorrow, or whatever.”

  Lottie dropped her hand into her coat pocket. Her fingertips touched the silk handkerchief and, beneath it, the solid form of her mother’s ring. Sacrificing that would certainly cause her sorrow, but Lottie wasn’t sure she could. The ring was all she had of her parents that she knew they had touched and cherished. But no one else here knew about the ring. She didn’t have to tell them.

  “We still don’t even know that it’s going to work,” she said. “It might not be a riddle at all. Or maybe it used to be, and it doesn’t work anymore.”

  But no one was listening to her. Their attention had shifted while she’d been weighing the worth of her ring. They were all staring at Eliot, who had approached the water’s edge and was holding out a thick bundle of papers in his hands. Lottie realized immediately what they were: all the letters from his father.

  “Here it is!” he shouted at the water. “Something precious. Something of myself. You’d better grant us passage now.”

  “Eliot, no!” Lottie cried.

  It was too late. With great force, Eliot threw the letters out to sea. Lottie watched, aghast, as they fluttered down to the water. There, they bobbed on the rocking surface until, much sooner than Lottie expected, they slipped entirely from view.

  All was silent. Moments passed, long and agonizing. Lottie scanned the surface of the water, looking for any sign of a disturbance, something out of the ordinary. But time crept on, and more time still, bringing with it restlessness.

  Lottie ran to where Eliot stood, his gaze still fixed on the sea. She took his hand in hers.

  “Eliot,” she whispered. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  He shook his head, eyes still focused on the water. “Yes, I did. For once, it’s something I could do.”

  Silence hung about them for a minute more.

  “W-w-what are we supposed to do now?” Adelaide finally whispered.

  “Ask the dog,” said Dorian. “It’s the one that led us this far.”

  The Barghest snarled at Dorian.

  “Does anyone else have an idea about what the riddle could mean?” asked Oliver.

  Fife shook his head. “I really thought the sorrow thing was right.”

  “I guess we wait until Spool and Lila return,” said Lottie, her face downcast. “We’ll see if they were able to find any sign of the ferry and then—well, if they don’t, I guess we’ll just have to go back the way we came.”

  “You mean, take my route.”

  Lottie heard the triumph in Dorian’s voice.

  “I only chose what I thought was best,” she said defensively. “You don’t have to—”

  “Lottie!”

  She stopped short. Eliot was pointing at the sea. Lottie turned around.

  Something was happening. Bubbles were rising in the water. The bubbles turned to froth, and the froth grew thick, and the water began to spiral around the froth in a magnificent way. Then something appeared at the very center of the spiral. It heaved out of the water in one great surge, and water sprayed in every direction, reaching all the way to the beach and spattering Lottie and the others. Lottie wiped the salt water from her eyes, transfixed.

  The water began to settle. The spiral slowed, loosening its arms until it disappeared entirely. The froth faded away. All that remained was what had emerged from the water, now a solid and visible thing.

  It was a boat, small in design. Its sail looked to be made of nothing more than gossamer. A single person stood inside—a man, dressed in a cape the color of sea foam. His face was turned to the sky, and he wore the oddest expression.

  “Right, then, Dorian,” said Fife. “Got that sword at the ready?”

  “Is that one of them?” asked Eliot. “Is that a nix?”

  “Don’t know what else it could be,” said Dorian. “Stay close, all of you. We still don’t know if he’s friendly.”

  Lottie didn’t budge. She remained next to Eliot, her boots touching the water. She saw now the reason for the nix’s odd expression and upturned face: he was blowing at the sail. With each heave of his shoulders, the boat moved more swiftly toward the shore. It was soon so very near them that the nix dropped something large and fork-shaped over the edge—an anchor, Lottie guessed. Then he jumped into the water, which came up to his knees, and sloshed toward them, hands on hips.

  For a sprite rumored to have sold his soul to the waters, he looked remarkably unremarkable. His features were plain, his build not particularly fat or skinny, tall or short. The only thing even slightly out of the ordinary about him was the shimmering cape that covered him from neck to toe. Rather than pool about him in the water as a normal cape would do, the material stayed close about his legs, as though it were a part of them. He stopped when only his feet remained in the water. At least, Lottie assumed there were feet under that cape . . . .

  “You!” he called, pointing at Eliot. “You have summoned me for passage, have you?”

  “Um,” said Eliot. “Um.”

  Lottie squeezed his hand.

  “Have you, or haven’t you?” demanded the nix.

  “I—I have,” Eliot said. He shifted in what looked like an attempt to stand tall. “I want you to take me and my friends to this place called the Wilders. Have you heard of it?”

  The nix took a good look at Eliot. He took a good look at the others. Then he laughed.

  “Impossible,” he said. “Have you seen my boat?”

  Lottie had. It was small. Very small.

  “Not a passenger more than three,” said the nix, wagging his finger at Eliot. “Choose two companions, if you like, but no more than that will I allow. Too treacherous to carry all of you.”

  “But that’s hardly fair!” Lottie cried.

  “I made neither the riddle nor the boat,” the nix told Lottie. Then, turning back to Eliot, “Choose your companions.”

  Eliot turned to the others and whispered, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You heard him,” said Dorian. “If you don’t want to have thrown away all those letters for nothing, I suggest you pick two companions. Me, because I’m the only one who knows where to find the addersfork. And I imagine you’d like the other one to be Lottie.”

  “Yes,” Lottie said quickly. “I need to be near him. In case . . . anything happens.”

  To Lottie’s surprise, Eliot looked annoyed. “It’s not like my limbs are going to fall off in your absence, you know.”

  “I—I know,” she stammered.

  But—though Lottie didn’t admit it out loud—she had her fears. She had known, ever since the boat capsized in the River Lissome, that something could easily separate her from Eliot. She didn’t kn
ow what might happen once they reached the Wilders. She only knew that, so long as she could, she intended to keep Eliot by her side.

  Eliot faced the nix again. “Dorian and Lottie,” he said. “Those are my two companions.”

  “So be it,” said the nix, making a low bow in their direction. Lottie got the feeling he was mocking them. “Thus the passengers will be: Dorian, Lottie, and—what was your name, little one?”

  “Eliot Walsch, sir. And, um, what are we supposed to call you?”

  “When I was called something,” said the nix, “I went by the name of Sigeberht.”

  “And I thought Dorian was bad,” muttered Fife.

  “Tell us, Sigeberht,” said Dorian, “how long will it take your boat to deposit us at the cove of the Wilders?”

  “I’d wager three hours at most,” said Sigeberht. “What you want there I shudder to think, but it’s not my place to ask. Now, we’ve squandered enough time gabbing. Board my boat, and let’s be on our way.”

  “This wasn’t how I pictured things going,” Lottie told the others. “I’m sorry. The whole point in heading to the Wilders was not splitting up, and now we’re splitting anyway.”

  “There’s a village called Darrow,” said Dorian. “It’s farther inland, but not more than a mile back. Find the inn marked with the black diamond and show them this.” Here he handed Fife a circular pendant on a red cord, fished from his pocket. “That’s your pass for free room and board. Don’t expect frills. We’ll be back within a day.”

  “What?” said Lottie. “That quickly? But I thought—”

  “Within a day,” Dorian repeated.

  “Sounds like a good plan to me,” said Fife. “We’ll lounge about in bed while you all fight off dragons and goblins.”

  “Oh, stop it, Fife,” said Adelaide. “You’re making Lottie nervous. Look, she’s positively shaking.”

  Lottie looked down to find that her arms were, indeed, trembling hard.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just the cold.”

  Oliver was staring at her with sharp green eyes.

  “Exultation,” he said, “is the going of an inland soul to sea. Bred as we, among the mountains, can the sailor understand the divine intoxication of the first league out from land?”