Unchosen

by Katharyn Blair

  You will be the muse that launches ships, she’d say to Vanessa. You will lead armies, and men will fall at your feet, she’d say to Harlow, who’d roll her eyes but love the sound of that.

  And you, your faith will save the world.

  I would nod, forcing a smile on my face even as I would think to myself that if I needed any proof that fortune-telling was bullshit, I just got it.

  An older woman named Carolyn would always bring us frosted lemonade from her RV and let us sit under the canopy her husband, Ed, set up. She claimed to be related to Anne, through her mother’s side.

  She would pucker her lips, mention how the lemonade needed more sugar, and then rehash the story of Anne’s death, though my sisters and I knew it by heart.

  Her ship was overtaken by Spanish privateers. After a harrowing fight, Anne’s crew knew they were overrun. There was no escape. And, for pirates, no quarter. The captain of the enemy ship took a liking to Anne. He said she had kind, gentle eyes. He wanted to take her back to Spain with him. He promised riches. He promised comfort.

  But what he was really promising, all women know, was a cage.

  Vanessa always had the grace to look mildly concerned during this part of the story, which nicely balanced Harlow’s obvious nail-picking indifference.

  And Anne was not one for cages. She’d already climbed up from the pit of Tortuga, where she was sent as a child along with hundreds of France’s other unwanted children. She’d earned her life through blood and sweat. No way she was going to let some royal mustachioed ass-kisser take it from her. So she climbed up on the bow of the ship, and he was enraged that she dared turn her back to him—on what he offered. He called to her and ordered her to look at him.

  You will look at me when I’m talking to you, he said.

  Carolyn would pause, letting the anger build in all of us. No matter how many times we heard it, that part always made my shoulders tight with rage.

  Look at me.

  I’d heard it before. All women have.

  So Anne did look at him, Carolyn continued. And she said—

  And we’d join in, because we’d heard the story so many times.

  You will not choose my end, for this heart is mine.

  And, with a sword’s flourish, she threw herself into the sea, where no man dared follow her.

  She took no guff, Carolyn would say.

  That’s one way to put it. Because Anne didn’t just give herself to the sea. She cursed it. The members of her crew told the story for years to come—how her eyes blazed red as she stood on the stern of the ship, hands on the ropes. How the sky darkened as she shouted, and how her throat seemed to glow with the weight of her rage as she spoke the fateful words:

  Come find me in the depths! she screamed. Write redemption on my bones. What bid my heart now turn to stone.

  Some people said it was just a legend—something nice her crew invented to make her death seem more fitting. Others said she was simply driven mad in those last few moments.

  Either way, the legend was born.

  T-shirts with the phrase were hung at booths—Come find me in the depths.

  Plays with kids in pirate costumes carried on the legend. Harlow and I would walk by the stage at the center of the festival and see the children’s program ending with a little girl, no more than six, yelling the fateful lines through the lisp of her two missing front teeth.

  Nothing could make Harlow laugh like hearing Write redemption on my bones coming out of the mouth of a kid.

  “This place is ridiculous,” she’d say, even as a genuine smile slunk up her darkly painted lips. Because there was something in the words that stretched across the oceans and through the centuries: the power of a woman tightening her grip around her life, even as the world sought to pull it away from her.

  Magic wasn’t real. We all knew that. But the story haunted me, and I’d think about those words as I wandered through the convention hall alone. Still, they echo through my mind.

  You will not choose my end, for this heart is mine.

  Harlow could get up in front of hundreds, plug in her guitar, and sing. Her lyrics were personal, and her voice was like liquid metal. Vanessa could launch her body toward a vault, power over it like some sort of ninja, do two and a half flips, and stick the landing.

  At night, I prayed that I could be brave like them. Like Anne.

  And every day, I woke up just as I had been the day before. It was easier to believe that her strength, just like her magic, was just a fantasy.

  But that changed the year some amateur treasure hunters aboard the SS Magdelena found the remnants of a ship that legend said belonged to Anne. And that would usually excite people like my dad, who lived for finding shipwrecks. But he shook his head gravely when he told my mom about it over dinner. Some members of his department had asked the treasure hunters to allow them to study the ship, but they’d refused.

  The way they talk about her, Gabby, my dad said. I didn’t know if he was talking about Anne or the ship, and honestly? I didn’t really want to.

  They found treasure, all right. Coins and jewels and gold. But they found something else—more than they bargained for. A rib cage, perfectly preserved in the midst of the coral and brine—and in the middle of it was something no one expected: a ruby, the size of a heart.

  Se racheter was carved in the fourth rib. My dad told me it was the French word for “redemption.”

  That night he was up till dawn. I remember seeing the shadow of him pacing under the door. Everyone had written Anne off as a legend. A myth.

  But now there was evidence that she was more than that.

  The scientific community begged the treasure hunters to wait—that they could have the ruby, but could they please let them examine the rib cage first.

  But the treasure hunters didn’t care. The very next day, they put on their diving gear and went down to get the ruby. And when they found that the ruby was too big to fit between the ribs, they did something my dad couldn’t believe—

  They snapped them in half.

  And after they’d taken everything of obvious value, they left.

  Scientists came in after that to pick up the scraps that the hunters had discarded. The ribs were the most interesting part. They thought it was art—something done in Anne’s honor that could confirm her historicity.

  They didn’t realize it wasn’t art about her.

  It was her.

  And the carving on her rib? After testing, they determined it had happened before she died. No one could explain how that was possible.

  They could not have known what they were unearthing. Not when they brought it to the surface, and not when they popped champagne and congratulated themselves for the biggest treasure recovery in thirty years.

  All that was ever seen of the Magdelena was a video recording—the captain’s log that was wired to the nearest station. The cartographer was the first to show symptoms—purple around the iris.

  The last emission from the Magdelena was from one of the treasure hunters. His singsong voice was high, lilting, laced with manic laughter, the purple in his eyes like seeping ink from a broken pen. They played it on the news, and my mom listened to it once before announcing that she wouldn’t let it be played in her house again.

  Come find me in the depths

  Write redemption on my bones

  What bid my heart now turn to stone

  The greed will seep

  The poison run

  Until then breathes

  The Chosen One

  Then, the tape went dark. The speakers filled with static. Then screams. Then, one last sentence:

  She is reborn by water on the night of blood.

  Find her, and she’ll find where the heart lies.

  She alone is the end.

  More laughter, then static.

  And when some researchers found the Magdelena, they found an empty ship—the ruby, now called Anne’s Heart, was gone.

  I always thought
that if I found out magic was real, it would be to the tune of some sweeping musical score.

  But that’s not what happened. When I realized magic was real, I felt sick.

  From the looks of it, we all did.

  Because, unlike the rest of the world—we’d heard that rhyme before.

  Chapter 5

  HARLOW AND DEAN KEEP ARGUING IN A COMFORTING thrum, one that I tune out as we wind up the hillside. We turn a corner, and I peer around a line of overgrown trees. A wall of mismatched wood rises at least fifty feet high. As we pull closer, I can see guards pacing along the barricade. I recognize a couple of them—Tace and Marvin are on the western side, mirrored bands covering both their arms.

  Harlow presses on the brake, and whatever argument they are having pauses as a line of bodies swarms out of the slowly opening gate. They all carry huge blades, their mirrored bands and bracelets glinting in the sunlight.

  Harlow opens the console between the driver and passenger seat and pulls out three strips of thick black cloth. She tosses one to Dean and then sends one back to me. It lands in my lap.

  Dean sighs, and Harlow shoots him a death glare.

  “I know, I know,” he says, reaching it up and tying it over his eyes.

  I know better than to argue. This is how we stay safe.

  Someone hits the hood of Harlow’s car with an open palm, and we all open our doors.

  “Hands up, guys,” a deep voice says. I recognize it—Kyle.

  I tie the cloth around my eyes. Years ago, the darkness would have scared me. Now there’s a strange comfort in it. For a moment, while I’m completely vulnerable—I’m also safe.

  “In a minute I’m going to pull the blindfolds off you. You’re going to keep your eyes down, do you understand?”

  Dean sighs. “Kyle. We do this every damn day.”

  “She doesn’t,” Kyle replies, and his black jacket lets out a soft swoosh as he obviously gestures to me. “And I’m not going to stick a knife to someone’s throat without being very explicit.”

  “You don’t have to put a knife to her throat at all,” Dean growls, a low threat in his voice. “None of us would do anything to put this place at risk—”

  Irritation spins in my gut like nausea, and I shake my head. “I’m fine, Dean. All of you. I’m fine. I don’t want any special treatment. This is the protocol.”

  I don’t need him sticking up for me, especially not in front of Harlow. I don’t need the way his gruff voice makes my knees weak and my heart flip over. I don’t need it at all.

  “Dean. You’re first,” Kyle says. I hear the soft whisper of fabric, then a pause.

  “Clear,” Kyle says finally.

  Then he steps closer to me.

  “You ready, Char?” Kyle asks me. I nod. He reaches back and pulls the blindfold from me. I keep my eyes shut tight, and I feel a guard step forward behind me, reaching around to position a blade a few inches from my neck.

  “You may look down,” Kyle says.

  Slowly, I open my eyes and look down. Kyle holds a small mirror at my waist level. He tilts it, catching my gaze in the reflection. The warmth of his brown eyes stares back at me, inspecting my irises for a moment before he nods to the watchman standing next to me.

  “Clear,” he says, and the guard steps away from my back, taking the knife with him. I let out a sigh, trying to make it as quiet as I can. I’m sure everyone can see the fear on my face, but that doesn’t mean I want to make it obvious.

  I watch as they pull the blindfold off Harlow. She looks down, her eyes shut.

  “Commander,” Kyle says by way of invitation, his wide hands holding the fabric with an odd sort of reverence. Harlow opens her eyes and peers down into the small mirror. He nods to her. “You’re good.”

  She claps him on the wide shoulder as she walks past, signaling for me to follow her.

  I follow her, my eyes locked on her leather-clad shoulders as she saunters ahead of us. Her shoulders are meant for this—straight back, even. With the weight of the world resting on them, without a care.

  I should know by now that those are the moments when Harlow shines—the ones when fear overtakes everyone else and she alone manages to keep her feet. It was that way in those days after the Crimson first started and we built the walls around this place, making the Palisade. We’d heard that eye contact through a mirror was safe—but Harlow was the first one to test it, earning everyone’s respect in the process. She’d always liked being the one to do things other people feared.

  As we walk through the settlement, people incline their heads toward my sister. They ask her questions—clarifying shifts and double-checking perimeter watches, and I look around at our settlement, which is a small portion of the neighborhood we were able to wall off. Our old school is at the middle, with a block of houses in every direction.

  When a woman with black curly hair and hole-filled jeans calls to her, Harlow turns to look at me. “Check on Nessa?” she asks, reaching a hand out to me. It is force of habit that I reach back and squeeze, but I am thankful for it. Sometimes I need to feel like a sister, and not a soldier.

  I know we aren’t done discussing the headdress. She’ll rip into me later. But right now I have to find Vanessa, and I have a feeling I know where she’ll be.

  My younger sister is perched on the balance beam, the dim light from the stormy sky filtering in through the high gym windows. The morning feels like days ago, but it’s still only early afternoon. She stands at the far end, high on her toes with her arms up by her ears. She takes a deep breath, lowering her arms as she bends in a slight crouch before launching herself backward. Her hands find the four-inch-wide beam, fingers splaying perfectly as her legs open in an even split in the air. One foot finds the beam again, and she rotates upward before throwing her body back once more, executing the same move but bringing her feet to the beam at the same time before throwing her body up into a backflip.

  I’ve been at enough meets to know this combination by heart. Back handspring step-out, back handspring into a back tuck.

  Vanessa wobbles slightly but keeps her balance. She wears a black sports bra and tight spandex shorts, and her stomach glistens with sweat. Only in the end of the world would my little sister still have six-pack abs.

  “I’d give it a nine-point-four,” I say, my voice echoing through the gym. She pivots on her toes, eyeing me as she turns.

  “Ridiculous. My feet were flexed, I could feel it,” she counters. Vanessa will never be satisfied with her performance. She is a perfectionist to the core. Her brown eyes drop to her feet, as if she can figure out why they’ve personally betrayed her.

  I walk into the gym, my sneakers squeaking on the wooden floor as I eye the balance beam. Our school used to have a gymnastics team, and Dean had found the beam in the storage locker when we’d set up camp. Vanessa had shrieked with delight, even though Harlow and I weren’t sure about the structural integrity of something that had been packed away for years. But no matter how hard we’d tried to talk her out of it, Vanessa had kept pleading with Dean to set it up.

  I spot the bruises on the back of her calves. “Harlow warned you about the beam, Ness.”

  She glares at me as she works her way to the far side of the beam. “Harlow has no room to talk about things being ‘too dangerous,’” she snips, stopping to take a deep breath. She lunges forward, twisting into a round-off back-handspring double layout. She over-rotates the landing on the eight-inch pad lying on the floor and winds up on her back.

  “Dammit,” she huffs, hitting the mat with her palms. I step on the mat and look down at her. Her eyes flash. “Don’t even say it.” She adjusts the straps of her sports bra, revealing the red mark on her side. It has the puckered look of a fresh scar mixed with the beauty of a tattoo.

  Se racheter, it says.

  She sees my glance, and quickly readjusts the bra to hide it.

  “I don’t have to say it. You already know. Don’t put me in the middle, Ness. I hate lying to Har
low and she’s already pissed at me enough right now,” I continue.

  “Harlow isn’t the boss of me.”

  “She’s the boss of everyone,” I shoot back. “And I kind of agree with her on this one. Staying in shape is one thing, but if you get seriously hurt, Nessa—”

  “Losing my edge is worse than getting hurt,” she argues. “I am not going to start from scratch when this shitstorm ends. You think Natalia Drake stopped training?”

  I stick my hand out, but she doesn’t take it. She just glares up at me until I let it fall to my side. Natalia Drake, Vanessa’s rival on the balance beam—the one gymnast who always came at least a tenth of a point from my sister’s score.

  “I don’t even know if Natalia Drake is still alive. And neither do you,” I snap.

  Something flickers in Vanessa’s eyes, a ripple in the dam that holds everything back. It is a feeling I understand well, even if I don’t work it out by throwing myself around on a narrow piece of metal covered in leather.

  “She’s alive,” Vanessa says, pushing herself to her feet. “And she’s nailing her double-back dismount.” Vanessa shoves past me.

  I don’t know what to tell her, because I’ve said it before. It’s what we all know, a truth that hurts Vanessa too much for her to really look it in the face. It is a truth her guarded face dares me to say right now.

  She doesn’t like that we worry about her. It reminds her that Harlow and I almost lost her once.

  With a lithe, feline movement, Vanessa swings back onto the beam. I block the dismount mat, staring at her. She glares back at me, a strand of dark hair falling out of her bun and into her eyes.

  She lifts her arms, arching her back in a quick stretch, but I see the quiver in her, the unsteadiness that I’ve just kicked up. The truth is, I don’t want her to lose the fire that made her one of the best gymnasts in the state. I don’t want to see her drive leached out of her by this place. I want her to remember Natalia Drake, and to keep doing the thing she loved. The world demanded she give up, and she didn’t. The same tenacity that made her come back over and over after falling off the bars or beam is the same tenacity that would get her through this. And I wish I had the kind of faith she did—that this is all just a shitstorm that will eventually blow over.