She never came back. He waited and waited and watched the sky, for days and months and even years. She never came back.
He hated her.
9
“HE HATED HER?” asked Pip. “Because she didn’t come back? But maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she tried and she couldn’t.”
“But he never knew whether she wanted to come back or not. Yes, it’s possible she wanted to return and couldn’t. But maybe, instead, she got to the first world and forgot about him. Maybe she never loved him at all. He never knew for sure,” Jupiter said. “There is a little more to the story, a piece I’ve never told anyone, not since I saw it happen all these many years ago.”
Pip waited.
Jupiter folded his hands and said, “The old Raft King, our king’s father, went out to the edge of Raftworld the next day—the day after Amelia left.” He was telling it like it wasn’t a story at all, like it was just information. “He knelt down on the edge of the dock and stuck his head into the water and talked to the fish.”
“He did what?”
“Didn’t you know? The old Raft King had the gift of talking with sea creatures. Like you. He’d plunge his head into the water and find out what was going on in the finny deep. It was a grand skill for a Raft King, let me tell you.”
“Can our Raft King . . . ?”
“He doesn’t have any magical skills. None at all. Amelia did—with birds—and the old king did. But their child had nothing.”
Pip nodded. The Raft King sounded a little like Kinchen, who had to put up with Pip and Old Ren both having gifts while she had none. For the first time it occurred to him that this might be a burden for her. That it might bother her.
“So the old king talked to the fish, and the dolphins told him that they’d seen Amelia fly into a storm, riding her flock of birds. That she’d soared into the storm and gone back to the first world through a doorway the storm had opened. They didn’t know anything else, except that she had gone back to where she’d come from.” He paused. “At any rate, that is what the old king told Putnam, who was standing behind him on the dock. He turned to his five-year-old son and told him that his mother was gone, that she was safely in the first world again, and that he shouldn’t expect her back. And he gave the boy a hug and that was the end of it.”
“The end of it?”
“The end of them talking about it, at least as far as I know. Neither Putnam nor the old king ever mentioned her again in my presence. Our Raft King, Amelia’s own son, doesn’t want to hear stories about her. I fear that when I die, she’ll be forgotten.”
“Not on Tathenn,” said Pip. “We still talk about her. Of course,” he said, “we say she turned into a flying creature . . .”
Jupiter nodded. “My point exactly. She was a real person. And she hurt Putnam terribly when she left. I could see that in his face that day. It’s never really gone away, that look.”
The two sat in silence for a moment, the garden humming and trilling and rustling around them.
“So you told this story . . . ,” said Pip.
“Yes.”
“. . . because you think the Raft King might want to go to the first world. He might think it’s possible because Amelia did it. He might even want to find Amelia.”
“You’re a perceptive kid.”
Pip could feel himself flushing.
Jupiter continued. “Amelia would be very old by now, if she were still alive. But he’d at least find out what happened to her, maybe, and why she never came back as she promised.”
“The king thinks that I can help him find a way to the first world because Venus found a way here. But I don’t have the same walking gift as Venus. All I can do is talk to fish.”
Jupiter nodded. “Maybe he thinks the fish know something about how to find a doorway to the first world.”
Pip thought about it. The Raft King wanted to go to the first world. Why not? Raftworld could name a new king, after all. The people would miss him—it was clear at the dinner that people liked him—but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he left. “So . . . I should help him? Maybe if he’s so unhappy here, he should go. Right?”
Jupiter spread out his hands. “It’s not just him. I have a suspicion.”
Pip felt something drop in his stomach. But he wasn’t sure why.
“Do you see it? How he might be thinking to solve our population problem?”
Pip shook his head slowly, puzzling through the stories he’d heard.
“How he might be thinking of the Venus story as a model for himself?”
And then Pip saw it. Venus leading her people. “He’s going to bring everyone there? To the first world?” His chest tightened with panic. “But I don’t want to go. I want to stay in this world. And see Kinchen and Old Ren again.”
“Then perhaps—perhaps you don’t want to rush to help the Raft King figure out how to leave, and how to take his people with him. Perhaps you want to stall, until—” He shrugged expressively and spread out his hands.
“Until what?”
“Until we can figure out a way to stop him.”
Pip sagged. What could he do? He wouldn’t even recognize the Raft King the next time the king changed his clothes. Anyway, how could he stop the king from doing whatever he wanted—especially with all those guards around? Pip put down the bread, stomach churning with worry.
“You don’t need to stop him by force,” said Jupiter, as if he could read Pip’s thoughts. “It would be enough to change his mind.”
10
ALL THE REST of the morning, Pip knew he should have been thinking about what to say to change the Raft King’s mind: what argument to make, what logic to win the king over. Jupiter had seemed to think that he, Pip, could actually do something.
But instead, what kept intruding on his thoughts all morning, as Jupiter gave him a leisurely tour of the neighborhood—interrupted with rest breaks for elderly joints—was Pip’s own life and how he’d lived it up to this point. And how he might live it differently in the future.
It was a fact that he didn’t recognize faces. All his life, it had made him uncomfortable to be around crowds—in the market, on the docks, anywhere. So he’d stayed home; and Kinchen, eager to protect her little brother, had encouraged this choice. Old Ren thought hiding was a bad idea but, being somewhat hermetic himself, hadn’t pushed Pip to meet people.
The thing was, Pip liked people. He liked talking to Jupiter and the other adults at the dinner, and the various rowers, and he’d like to meet kids, too, and he liked learning about how people on Raftworld lived their lives; and, he decided, he loved traveling. Especially by water. Other than missing Kinchen and Old Ren—and worrying that they were frantic—he was, in fact, having a wonderful time here.
Pip wondered whether it would really work—as it had worked with Jupiter—simply to tell people that he didn’t recognize faces, and then he could ask them to introduce themselves each time he saw them. Would people think he was crazy? Or would it really be okay? He’d spent so much of his life trying to hide his face blindness and being ashamed of it that he didn’t know how he could shout it out to everyone around him.
And if it did work, then what? He’d help the Raft King? He shook his head, and Jupiter, on one of his periodic bench breaks, glanced up inquiringly. “Nothing,” said Pip.
But it was something. As he and Jupiter strolled, and the old man pointed out the various houses, listed the types of plants in the gardens, and named the birds that fluttered and stalked around them; as Pip stood on the slightly undulating Raft and felt the ocean breathe beneath him; as Jupiter nodded at and Pip waved at various people they passed on their meandering; as they sat together on benches along the way and lifted their faces to the sun and felt the breeze rustle their clothing—as all of these things happened, Pip thought about how much he was already coming to love this world, this nat
ion where he was really just a visitor. It felt like—not like it was his home, because that was back on the Island with Ren and Kinchen—but like it could be a home, and a good one at that.
And then he thought, I love this place, too. And I do have a special talent. Maybe I can make a difference. He and Jupiter were seated once again on a bench, resting Jupiter’s hip. Pip leaned back with his eyes closed, taking long deep breaths of the sea air.
Someone cleared his throat—someone with a deep rumble in his chest. Pip opened his eyes to see a man in a purple cape: the Raft King, probably. He nudged Jupiter, whose eyes were closed, and the old man opened them and said, “King.” It was an address to the powerful ruler as much as it was a label for Pip’s benefit.
And at that moment, he felt something—something powerful deep inside him, the small secret part of him that hadn’t been scared when he was kidnapped—swell and burst into flower. This was his adventure: to be himself without fear, and to change the Raft King’s mind. And he could do it.
“I’ve been looking for you,” the king said, throwing his shoulders back. “People told me you were out wandering around, both of you.” His features indistinguishable against the bright sky, he towered over them in an almost silhouette.
Jupiter shaded his eyes to look up. “We’ve had a busy morning,” he said agreeably.
Squinting up at the king’s dark outline, Pip felt small, like a toddler about to be scolded. It wasn’t a good feeling. He stood up quickly, as tall as he could, and moved so that he wasn’t looking at the king against the sun.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. His voice was tiny and high, not the way he wanted to sound. He cleared his throat.
“Of course.” The king stooped forward, hands on thighs, to speak to Pip. Their heads were almost the same height.
“About Raftworld. I think—I think you want to find a portal. What are you planning?”
At that question, the king jerked upward, sputtering, “What business is it of yours?”
Jupiter said, “Now then—”
But before he could say any more, Pip answered, as firmly as he could, “It’s my business if you’re asking me to help you. I need to know what I’m helping with.”
“I make the decisions around here.” The king puffed out his chest and stood tall.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Jupiter. Now he rose, too, though not nearly as smoothly as Pip had, and rested one hand heavily on his cane, the other on Pip’s shoulder. “I’ve known you since you were born, Putnam, and you’ve never been one for megalomania. Don’t start now.”
(Pip didn’t know what megalomania was, but it sounded bad.) “You don’t get to decide everything,” Pip said. “Your job is to lead—but to lead people who can see where they’re going and agree to it.”
The king glowered. “I want you to talk with the fish,” he said to Pip, “and find out where a portal is.”
“Okay,” Pip said slowly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jupiter’s head swivel rapidly toward him, and as Jupiter’s grip tightened on his shoulder, he almost grinned at the old man’s surprise. “I’ll talk to the fish,” he said again to the king, more deliberately. “I’ll help you.” And he meant it. “But I’m also helping Raftworld. So: I’ll ask the fish if they know where a doorway is. But I won’t ask them where it is. Not yet.”
“What’s that?” said the king, his unmemorable face suddenly displeased. He turned to Jupiter. “Did you put him up to this?”
His big hand relaxing its grip on Pip’s shoulder, Jupiter shook his head, smiling.
In his best commanding tones, the king barked, “Young man. Ask the fish where the door is.”
“No.”
The Raft King’s head jerked back in surprise. Pip had startled even himself. Jupiter patted his shoulder, a congratulatory tap. And Pip saw that he didn’t have to change the king’s mind all by himself; he just had to make it so that people could talk with the king—so that all their voices would be heard. He said to the king, “We need to talk first. You and me and all of us. Jupiter. The people of Raftworld. We need to know what you’re planning to do—before I tell you how to get to a doorway.” Pip waited. He’d said his piece. He would help the king, but he’d help Raftworld first.
The Raft King stood a long time, glowering, his cape rippling back from his broad shoulders. Finally he nodded. “Okay. Go ask the fish if they know. Ask if it’s possible to get there. Then we talk.”
Thus on a sunny summer morning, the Raft King, Jupiter, and two guards strolled to the edge of Raftworld, where Pip knelt, plunged his head into the water, and talked to the fish.
He was there a long time.
PART THREE
In Which We Take an Enormous Detour That Will Eventually Lead Us to Our Destination, I Promise.
The First World, Summer 1978. South Vietnam.
A Small Village in the Mekong River Delta.
Three Years After the Fall of Saigon.
1
THE IMPORTANT THINGS to know about Thanh1 were that, although he was twelve and old enough to do an adult’s work, he was so scatterbrained that he sometimes hitched the water buffalo incorrectly, and so daydreamy that he often forgot which rice field he was supposed to be working, and so incorrigible that even though he promised to do better next time, every new day was a new adventure in messing up. Now he was even failing at running away.
Next to him in the muddy reeds near the river—one of the many that ran through the Mekong Delta—his sister, Sang, was fuming. “If we get out of this alive, I will kill you. Stupidhead.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but he could hear the frustration in it. She’d been gone all evening, bringing a mended dress to an important customer, and while she was gone, Thanh was supposed to gather their things and wait for her in their agreed-upon spot.
He’d remembered to hide and wait for her, but he’d forgotten everything else: the cooking pot, their good knife, the bag of rice, the xoi vo they planned to eat before they boarded the boat, their extra clothes. They had their parents’ rings in their shirts, and Sang was wearing their mother’s necklace. But the knife and pot and clothes and food—he’d left them all behind.
“I guess you forgot the pomelos, too?” He could barely make out her words.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head and did not answer.
Around them in the dusk the air held the aroma of rice, and water buffalos made quiet night noises somewhere behind them. The river gently tapped the shore—it was a still evening, with only a light breeze—and somewhere far upriver, paddles slapped the water lightly as a fisherman pulled a late net home. Voices, homey and indistinct, carried across the water. If you sat here, Thanh thought, in the dark under the coconut—if you sat here all night long and it was a night just like this, and the quiet lasted, unbroken by gunshots—then you might be able to fool yourself into thinking that the terrible long war in Vietnam had never happened, that the Americans had never arrived (and left), that North Vietnam had never invaded the South, that South Vietnam had never lost the war, that the southern capital city of Saigon had never fallen, that your parents had never died, and that you lived with them and your sister in a little house in a sleepy village in a peaceful delta where rice flowers scented the air and fruit trees bloomed and fish jumped to your net and fighting never came.
That was a story he’d like to tell.
But before he could completely lose himself in the fantasy, the reeds rustled. Next to his sister Sang, Uncle Truc materialized, with his youngest child—nicknamed Rúa, The Turtle—on his hip. Uncle Truc was immediately recognizable even in the dark, because he was tall and lean; and his right shoulder, which had been badly broken during the war, slanted lower than the left. Dodging police monitors, he’d spent the day in hiding in order to meet them now, and Thanh felt a rush of relief that he was here, and that he’d somehow
managed to bring The Turtle, too.
The baby was asleep—she’d been given drops of medicine to make sure—and her head lolled to one side, her chubby face slack, her fuzzy hair damp against her head with sweat. At two years old, The Turtle was really a toddler, not a baby, but she didn’t speak beyond a few words yet, and because of her twisted foot she didn’t walk, though she was good at scooting across the floor. Sang reached out and took her, tying The Turtle onto her hip with a long cloth Uncle Truc handed her.
Uncle Truc was not their real uncle; he was their neighbor and their parents’ close friend—and the nearest thing they had to a father since their own father had died.
He nodded at Thanh. The moon was a sliver, and Thanh could barely see him even now that he was so close.
In the darkness Sang sighed, and Thanh knew she wasn’t going to stay mad at him. After all, as she said almost every day, he was the only little brother she had, and she was his only big sister. They had to take care of each other. She’d forgive him. She always did.
But Thanh knew he’d disappointed her, and the sour taste of it stayed in his mouth. If only he could stop himself from daydreaming all the time! All day long, the story had lived in his head so vividly. Out in the rice field that morning, Thanh had thought about the tale he’d someday—maybe years from now—tell of how they’d escaped from their village, how they’d rowed down the giant river, how they’d left behind the house and Sang’s sewing business, how they’d arrived somewhere—America, he hoped—where they’d gotten an education and made something of themselves.
And that was where the daydream petered out, for how could he get an education? He was no good at anything except telling stories to himself—which was not a job one could make a living at.
A Crack in the Sea Page 10