When Swimmer grasped the hand of the first drowning man as he thrashed below the water, dragged down by the chains, that man felt life and peace infuse him. It was better than air and more filling. In turn he grasped the woman chained next to him, and she the woman next to her, and she the boy next to her, and so on down the line of chains until all twenty-seven were sinking slowly, gazing around in wonder, and feeling for the first time since they’d been kidnapped—or stolen or sold or traded away—comfort. No one needed breath.
When these thirty-six reached Venus, she knew that this reunion was what she’d been following. All these people. Her brother, returned to her. Their gifts and their lives twined together again.
Uncle Caesar walked on one side of Venus, and Swimmer on the other. Swimmer rearranged his people into one long line, so that he and Venus could join their free hands. Once again they followed Venus’s gut, now away from the Guinea ship. South. The people trailed behind like long braids.
All told, 133 souls walked the ocean’s bottom. The water warm and full of light, the people no longer pained with hunger or thirst, none feeling sick, all quiet with the awe of a good dream. Venus led them. They walked.
4
“PERFECT!” CALLED the Raft King, clapping. Everyone joined in politely.
“I haven’t finished,” said Jupiter.
“It’s the right stopping point,” said the Raft King. “All about success. All about how you can rescue your people if you follow your gifts. All about how someone’s gifts with the water will save the nation. And how magic solves everything.”
“So many were left behind, too, on the slave ship—”
“That is all for tonight, Jupiter. Thank you.” The Raft King patted the cushion next to him for the old man to sit down and raised his water tumbler in salute. “Praise for success stories!”
People echoed, “Praise for success stories!”
Pip mouthed along with the toast.
“Praise for the new envoy from Tathenn!”
“Praise for the new envoy from Tathenn!”
Pip didn’t move his mouth this time, as he was pretty sure the toast was praising him, and he didn’t think it would be good etiquette to join in. (Also, he thought it was wrong to call him an “envoy” and imply that he was going to do something special when he was, in fact, no one important.
And: he was tired.)
When Pip yawned for the third time, just after the cheering finished, the Raft King seemed to notice him for the first time as him—as an exhausted kid, not just as someone who was being toasted. “You need sleep,” he said. “Kept you up too long. And you’ll have a big day tomorrow.” He motioned two rowers over—men who had been serving food all night. “Take our envoy to his bed. Mr. Pip needs sleep.”
“It’s just Pip.” Tired as he was, he wasn’t looking forward to the empty red house with the locked door. He slumped in his seat.
The old man, Jupiter, suddenly stood again, leaning heavily on his cane as he rose. “I would like to invite the envoy to stay with me.” His voice carried almost as much as when he had been storytelling. People paused their post-dinner conversation and turned toward him.
In the sudden hush, the Raft King shifted and scratched his nose. “That’s not—that’s not possible. He’s already settled in a perfectly good place. Nice and peaceful. Children need quiet.”
Jupiter tilted his head. “He’s staying—by himself?”
“Of course not. There’ll be someone standing just outside the door all night, in case he needs anything.”
Jupiter tilted his head to the other side. “Is this boy a . . . prisoner?”
The important adults at the table began to murmur to one another. So did the people at other tables.
The Raft King glared at Jupiter, who smiled mildly back at him. “He is an esteemed visitor,” said the king. “I just thought—he’d want some privacy. But if he wants to stay with you—”
“I do,” said Pip. Kinchen would probably say that he’d be better off by himself—where he couldn’t make a fool of himself and people wouldn’t know that he had the problem with faces. He himself wasn’t sure why he felt so strongly that he wanted to stay with this old man he didn’t know at all. But he did. Something about this man promised adventure—more interesting, anyway, than staying in a locked kitchen house all by himself. And he wanted adventure. He did. Also, the storyteller had a kind face. So he said it more firmly. “I want to stay with Jupiter.”
• • •
JUPITER LED Pip away from the dinner. Two rowers followed almost as if guarding them. Jupiter explained that he was one of the few Raftworlders to have a house to himself: his wife had recently died, and he had no children—and no apprentice. So he lived alone.
“I’m sorry about your wife.”
“Thank you.”
After a pause, Pip asked, “Why isn’t there an apprentice? Is someone already trained to be the next storyteller?”
“I’ve never had an apprentice,” the old man said. “There isn’t anyone in Raftworld—there hasn’t been in a long time, not since I was a boy—who has a gift for storytelling. There are a lot of people who tell tales,” he said with a little bitterness, “but no one with a real gift.”
“What will happen when—?” and then Pip realized his question could be considered rude.
“When I die? People will still tell stories. That won’t stop. But there won’t be a storyteller—one person with a special gift for it, one person who works to remember everything and to retell it just so. Maybe we’ll be reduced to writing everything down.” They walked a few paces in silence, Pip waiting to see if there was more. “So,” the storyteller finally said, “it’s lucky for you, because it means I have room for you to stay with me—for as long as you’re here. Which might be a long time.”
“He is going to send me back, right? After I help him?” If I can help, he thought but did not say.
“Well, that’s the tricky thing,” Jupiter said softly. “But we’ll talk more of that later.” He jerked his head back toward the rowers behind them.
“They’re fine,” said Pip. “They’re nice. They walked me here earlier.”
Jupiter gave him an odd look. “Not these two. Didn’t you notice? These are the Twins.”
Both Pip and Jupiter turned back to look. “He didn’t notice that you were twins,” explained Jupiter. “They’re our only set of identicals right now,” he said to Pip. “They look exactly alike.” The Twins grinned.
Pip said slowly, “Yes, they do look exactly alike. I see that now.” He considered telling Jupiter about his face problem, but Kinchen had forbidden it—though he wondered if it was really true, as she’d said, that people would make fun of him.
At the house the Twins said good-bye—and Pip noted their voices, so similar, fruity with a little sharpness at the back of each word. The Twins.
• • •
INSIDE THE TINY, one-room house, so small Pip suspected it had at one time been a gardening shack, Jupiter said, “You didn’t recognize the Twins as twins.” He quirked one eyebrow in a question.
Pip didn’t answer.
“At dinner it looked like you were memorizing—me, the Raft King, maybe other people, too. I saw you say long white hair to yourself at one point.” He leaned his cane in the corner and turned, one hand on the wall for balance. “Which is appropriate to describe me, of course, but not a usual thing for people to say to themselves.”
Pip stared at the ground. The wooden floor had been covered with a soft round rug that looked like it would be comfortable to curl up on.
“You don’t recognize people’s faces.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “I’m just—not smart.”
“What’s smart about recognizing faces?” Jupiter said in a sharp voice. “Surely you don’t think that’s what makes a person smart?”
/> “Well, no, but . . .”
After a pause, Jupiter said, “Thank you for telling me. I’ll be sure to remind you who I am when you meet up with me, so that you won’t have to worry about misrecognizing me.” Pip looked up, finally, into his unremarkable face. “There are several old men with white hair on Raftworld—one even uses a cane almost exactly like mine. I’ll tell you what—I’ll wear this trinket”—he pulled a red beaded bracelet out of his pocket and slipped it over his wrist—“and then you’ll know I’m me.” He fluttered his hand and the bracelet rotated and sparkled. “It was my wife’s. It’s a good excuse to wear it.”
Pip nodded. “My sister bleaches a stripe in her hair.”
“Smart girl. Smart boy, too. Now for a tour of the house.”
Jupiter showed him the partition behind which stood a bed and a little end table. “You’ll sleep here. I’ll sleep on the kitchen bench.” Before Pip could protest, the old man said, “That’s where I usually sleep, since my wife died.” In addition to the cushion, the bench had a rumpled blanket on one end.
“And your clothes.” Jupiter shook his head with a smile. “We’ll find you something more your size tomorrow.” He paused, leaning on the counter that formed his kitchen. “Is there anything you need?”
Pip thought. What he really needed was answers. And he didn’t think it would hurt to ask. “What am I supposed to do? And what do you mean that it would be tricky for the Raft King to return me when I’m done with—whatever I’m supposed to do?”
Jupiter smiled. “That’s a couple of hard questions, young man. I need to recline.” He hitched over to his bench, plumped up the pillows, and leaned back, legs straight out before him on the long wide seat. Pip took a cushion from a stack by the door and sat on the floor in front of him.
“That’s better,” said Jupiter. “My hip bothers me by the end of the day. And today was a long day. For you, too,” he added.
Pip waited.
“You want to know why you are here. It’s because of your gift. With . . . ?”
“Water,” said Pip. “I can talk to sea creatures. I put my face under the water, and the fish and I understand each other. I recognize them,” he added.
The old man’s face opened up in surprise. Then he nodded. “I see. Oh, I see.”
“What?”
“Why he wanted you.” He shifted his pillows around so that he could sit up straighter. “I have two stories for you, and I think they’ll answer some of your questions.”
Pip nodded. He liked stories. Kinchen always rolled her eyes when Ren told stories instead of answering questions, but she didn’t understand that the story was the answer. Pip did, and he liked the task of figuring it out. But he was tired, too. He picked up another pillow, made a little bed on the floor, and lay back on it to listen.
5
“BUT FIRST, a question: you’ve heard the Venus story before today, right?”
Pip elbowed himself up to look at Jupiter. “Yes, from Old Ren, back at home. I’ve heard it dozens and dozens of times.”
The storyteller nodded. “I’m going to tell some more, even though you already know it, because I think it will help you see what the Raft King is planning.”
• • •
THEY WALKED a long time, three lines of survivors, hand in hand in hand in hand, following Venus, Swimmer, and Uncle Caesar. How long? Time and distance disappeared down there, and there was just the walking. People grew weary but not exhausted, thirsty but not parched, peckish but not starving. So they walked, trusting Venus to take them all the way back home.
But she knew something they did not: there was no safe place in the world to which they could return. They walked and walked, past sunken ships, under sharks and dolphins, through families of small black squid, over endless dunes; and she did not lead them home.
The fetters fell off along the way—disintegrated, really, the rust melting the metal and chewing away at it so quickly, they could almost see the chains and shackles crumble. One day the people wore thinning, flaking, eaten-away bracelets, and the next day everyone walked free. Still they held hands.
After a long time walking on the bottom, Venus had—what?—another feeling. She couldn’t describe it exactly. Neither could Swimmer, but he felt it, too. He squeezed her hand; something was different. The sand slanted upward, and they began to climb. They walked uphill for hours, maybe—it was hard to tell how long, as there were no days and nights where they were, no sleep or eat, just peaceful walking and warm handholds and soft clouds of sand. Eventually, though, they left their light at the bottom and moved toward the daylight at the surface, until they were so close, Venus wondered whether she might touch the air if she jumped. The world above shimmered, a bright blue jewel.
Then, quickly, the light clapped away. Venus looked up again; the glittering sky above them flashed dark with storm. She and Swimmer glanced at each other and knew without discussing: they should head back down, away from the storm. Safer that way. They turned toward Uncle Caesar, and he nodded confirmation.
But when they folded back on their lines of handholding followers to retreat to the deep, that was when Venus felt it strongest. The urge to go up. This was the spot, right here. Right now. She couldn’t explain—she just felt as if she must go up, up into the storm. As if there were a door standing open, and they could slip through, but only if they hurried. When she looked at Swimmer, she could tell he felt it, too, at least a little.
Uncle Caesar did not feel the same urge, but he’d felt very little since they’d entered the water. He was old, and his gift was weaker than the twins’ gifts, as he had reminded them on many occasions. On top of that, he was sick. Here, in the water, he felt better—almost normal—but the truth was, he hadn’t only been faking illness on the slave ship. He had, at the end, taken ill. He felt no urge for anything.
When Venus refolded her string of people and continued up the sand, Swimmer and his line accompanied her. Uncle Caesar shrugged, turned, and followed with his own line, up and into the storm. He trusted his adopted children. He trusted them completely. They couldn’t swim, but by God they could walk.
• • •
VENUS, THE GIRL who traded slavery for death at sea and death at sea for walking, stood with her people beneath the raging storm, under the shallow water. The storm itself was an opening—she could feel it, in her gut—but to where she did not know. She only knew that once they went through, there would be no going back. This was their moment to decide.
With the water buffeting them, gaining force even as they paused, she turned to Swimmer and Uncle Caesar, the question on her face. What to do? Swimmer shrugged; although he spoke to sea creatures more fluently than she did, he did not feel the underwater land as deeply, and this doorway was dim to him. Uncle Caesar nodded, but it was a nod of acceptance, not a nod of direction: he would follow whatever Venus chose to do. It was up to her.
Venus turned to the person at her other hand, the fellow traveler whom she’d been gripping for so long, so many miles of walking through the bottom. For the first time, she really saw the woman. This person grasping her hand in such a firm, warm hold was substantially older than Venus, perhaps as old as Uncle Caesar. Symmetrical scars decorated her cheeks, and double holes dotted her heavy earlobes, the jewelry that had hung there long gone. Her hair clouded around her head, black and gray like a puff of pepper. The woman squeezed her hand, and Venus, realizing she was staring, lowered her head in embarrassment. The woman squeezed again, and Venus looked up to see a wide gap-toothed smile and a nod urging her to continue. Not acceptance, not confusion, not apathy or any number of other possibilities: pure joy. Both hands occupied, the woman pointed with her chin, upward and forward. Go on, she mouthed, still smiling. Go on.
And Venus turned back and led her people through the doorway she could feel but not see, up and into the storm. She led them into the second world. They emerge
d to air, struggled through the waves crashing to shore, fought to remain standing in the pull of the sea. They supported one another: they’d held hands for so long, they didn’t remember how to let go. Everyone would survive or no one.
When they finally gained ground in this new place, on the far side of this doorway to who-knows-where, they were spent, exhausted, used up. They crawled, still hand in hand in hand, into the brush and as much out of the wind and rain as possible, and they waited, half asleep, for the storm to abate. When it did, hours later, they slept the sleep of the dead.
In sleep, their hands slowly loosened and unfurled. Upon waking, when the people asked her where she had brought them, she told them the truth. I don’t know. I walked into an opening, and I led us through it to safety. I found where to slip through. It was—there was something sweeter on this side. The explanation felt broken, but she couldn’t find the words to describe the way the doorway had pulled her, how in the heart of the storm it seemed like the entrance to something safe and warm, almost like crawling back into the arms of the mother she could not remember. The doorway felt less like an exit and more like a return.
Someone asked her name. The people nodded; they wanted the names of those who’d saved them. She swayed for a moment, trying to remember. Before Venus, before Water-Drinker? Had she ever had a name of her own? The people looked to her brother, who answered without a pause: “Swimmer.” Reclaiming the name their uncle had given him, he folded his arms over his chest and stood silent.
A Crack in the Sea Page 8