This was his hope, in leaving, the reason he had agreed to run with Isika. He wanted peace. Maybe he would find it somewhere far from this village. He lifted his head, staring straight at his father at the front of the procession, and the peaceful feeling didn't fade.
The water of the harbor was dark and foreboding. Sending day after sending day, the Workers sent their children out into the black, rough sea, watching until the boats disappeared around the rocks into the open sea.
This is not the true way, Ben's mother had whispered to him at Aria's sending day. This is not the way of the True One. Remember it, Benayeem. At the time, he was crying so hard that he couldn't see. He didn't need her words to tell him that it wasn't right; the wrongness of it shook him like a leaf, drums that rolled and threatened tearing him apart from the inside. Not today. Today his eyes were dry and hard, his muscles tense. Ready.
The sending boat bobbed beside the pier, tied by a single fraying rope. Jerutha looked at Ben solemnly as he passed Kital to her, dismounting, then taking his little brother in his arms again. He carried Kital to the little boat and laid him inside, on the largest cloth, the red one for sacrifice. Isika and Jerutha arranged the sending cloths over him, taking care to wrap him loosely, so he could move if he woke up. The crowd chanted the dirge-like, mournful songs, beginning with the song of the goddesses and moving to the songs of sending.
Ben saw Jerutha tuck a small packet under the blankets, food for their journey. He would have to remember to retrieve it from the boat when they caught up to Kital in the water. Ben and Jerutha stepped back as the songs finished, and three strong men approached. They waded into the water and pushed the boat out toward the sea. They pushed it with great strength so the boat could reach the spot, beyond the small harbor breakers, where it kept going and didn't come back. Boats had washed back in the past, but the small boats were only for sending, never receiving. The children were sent again, and it was even more difficult the second time.
Kital looked small and pale in the boat, his brown skin lacking its usual warmth. His eyes were closed. Ben willed them to open. We will come for you, he told his small brother silently. Hold on, little one, we're coming. The men gave one last push with all their might and the tiny boat rocked for a minute, then righted itself and was pulled into the current corridor, drawn toward the opening in the rocks and the great sea beyond.
CHAPTER 6
Isika's arms and legs burned as she watched Kital's boat bob on the dark sea like a small toy. She met Benayeem's eyes. The next few minutes were very important. They needed to turn their backs as was the custom. They needed to lag at the back of the procession. They needed to keep Ibba beside them. And then, rather than filing back into the village, they needed to escape at the last moment, through Jerutha's brother's fishing hut, and race to the old boat hidden behind the rocks at the harbor's edge.
The crowd sang the last song, the song of loss, and Isika joined in, her heart beating a hard rhythm as the three of them filed slowly up to the sea gate with the crowd, walking back into the closed village. The sky was still dark. They needed it to cover them when they rowed into the sea. It was Benayeem's job to lock the sea gate, and the people were not allowed to look back at the harbor; this would save Ben and Isika. If the Workers didn't look back, they wouldn't see the children run. But the plan counted on the obedience of the Workers. Obedience had never been Isika's particular strength, so she didn't know if she could count on everyone else.
Her heart jumped as the fishing hut became visible. Now! She looked at Ibba and put her finger over her mouth. Ibba nodded, her eyes wide. She would listen. Isika caught Ben's eyes, and they ducked into the doorway of the fishing hut. It was small and bare, empty, with sleeping mats still piled on the floor. The open door to the harbor was at the far end of the room, a privilege held only by the fishing families of the Workers. They had access to the harbor when no one else did, and normally others would never dare intrude on their family ground. Jerutha had said that she would keep her brother away by walking back to the village square with him, but as Isika ducked through the doorway into the room, she heard a weak voice call out to them.
"Children?" Isika turned. It wasn't Jerutha's brother, but her old grandmother. When Jerutha was young and her mother had gone insane and wandered into the plains beyond the Worker village, Jerutha's grandmother had helped Jerutha raise the family. The old woman had always been good to Isika and the children. She was toothless and bent, but strong, kind in her strange way, bringing tea to their gate when someone was ill, pinching Kital's cheeks when he was small. Her eyes were shadowed in the dim light of the room as she lay on her mat beside the cooking fire. Isika kept walking, but she put a hand on her heart as they went to the door that faced the harbor, outside the walls of the village. The old grandmother silently watched them go. She didn't make a sound, didn't shout or raise the alarm. Isika remembered the old woman's strong hands, patting her shoulders or touching her face, and felt a wave of gratitude.
But they were almost at the boat and they needed focus. Isika saw it just ahead, nearly invisible in the rushes; an old boat that the family didn't use anymore. The three of them ran to the boat, the stones of the harbor loud under their feet. Isika hesitated for one instant, looking at Ben and then Ibba.
"Ready?" she asked, and at their sharp nods, she waded into the water. Benayeem walked behind her. Isika lifted Ibba into the boat and climbed in after her, settling herself onto the simple wooden bench. The wet wood creaked with her weight. Benayeem gave one strong push, then leapt in, and they were floating on the water, their very first time in a boat. It was scary, the wood of the boat creaking and swaying underneath them. The little thing didn't feel as though it was solid enough to support them. Isika gulped air as she fought to calm herself.
Jerutha had given Isika and Ben a short lesson in the garden. "You'll need to pick up the paddles, one for each of you, and grip them like this." She demonstrated, holding her two fists on the broom she carried so that the backs of her hands were opposite one another. "Put one on one side of the boat and one on the other, and dip them in the water, pushing back against the water to pull yourself forward. It's not hard, but your arms will soon grow tired. Try to do it together, you will go faster. And you'll need speed if you're going to catch Kital's boat."
Isika picked up the unfamiliar paddle and held it firmly in two hands. She worked hard at home and in the forest, and she had since she was small. She was strong. Benayeem was strong too, from building and digging.
"One, two, three," she whispered, and they dipped the oars together. Isika felt the push of the water against the oar and tried to lean into it, to pull forward like Jerutha had said. She lifted her oar and circled it forward, then dipped it again. She heard Ben do the same behind her. Ibba was silent, sitting on the seat next to Isika. The boat began to pick up speed.
Isika's stomach felt sick from all the energy and fear running through her body. She waited for a shout behind them, but none came, and they pulled the boat swiftly through the water, following the distant speck of Kital's boat as it disappeared around the rocks. Her arms burned and sweat collected under her arms and on her back. The sky was growing lighter, soon the sun would rise, and they needed to be around the rocks and out of sight when the harbor flooded with sunlight. She was breathing heavily and she could hear ragged breath from Ben.
"Where are we going?" Ibba asked. She sounded as though she was crying.
"To get our brother," Isika said, her voice straining as large gasps for air came from her. The sky got lighter and lighter and she could see the monstrous rocks that leaned over the opening to their harbor, like sharp teeth on guard dogs, sheltering the village from the fierce sea beyond. Isika and Ben pulled and pulled until they were even with the rocks. Behind her, she heard the shout she had been waiting for. It didn't matter, they were… out.
They paddled around the rocks just as she heard the alarm bells ring. Would the Workers send the fishermen out after them?
Isika didn't know. It would break the laws of sending: the seas were off limits until the next dawn after a sending, but then the children had certainly broken laws themselves. She had no way of knowing whether the Workers would pursue them. She looked around wildly for Kital's boat and spotted it in the distance to the south. The sending boats traveled quickly, built like leaves to carry children who weighed almost nothing.
They paddled toward him a while longer, and when they didn't see anyone coming, they had to sit back to rest for a moment. Isika gasped, amazement building in her as she looked around her. She had never seen anything so beautiful. Out here the sea wasn't black; it was a deep, strong blue, and it went into the distance blurring into the horizon. Behind them and on both sides for some time were the rocks and cliffs that hid the village from the sea, but farther along, to their left, to the south, she could see the faint outlines of trees lining the shores.
"Again," Isika said to Benayeem, though they hadn't rested long. Without a word, he began to paddle. The sun was up now, lighting the water from their backs, showing depths to the sea that they hadn't seen before. Isika felt fear and wonder, but she stayed focused. They needed to catch Kital's boat before it was swept away from them. It continued nodding along in a southwest direction, toward the faint line of trees on the shore, still drifting out into the sea.
They gained on the boat as they paddled. Ibba asked a steady stream of questions and Isika answered some, ignoring others. "Why are we going to get Kital?"
"Because we love him and we're not going to let him go."
"Whose boat is this?"
"Uncle's."
"Will we see Jerutha again?"
At that question, Isika gritted her teeth and paddled harder. They were gaining, they were getting closer. She could see the grain of wood in the small sending boat. She could see Kital's face in glimpses as the boat tossed in the water. They were going to reach him! It was working.
"Isika, let's rest," Benayeem said, his first words since entering the boat.
"Okay. But only for a moment," she said. She sat back. Blisters were rising on her hands and they burned as she dipped them into the sea, trying to ease the sting.
"What's that?" Ibba asked, and Isika looked up slowly, weary of her little sister's questions. Then she jumped, leaning forward to look, rocking the boat so that water splashed over the sides.
"Benayeem!" she said.
Boats approached swiftly from the south; long, graceful boats with both ends curving upward. Two men sat in each boat. Isika couldn't make their faces out. There was a strange mist around the boats. She gasped. Sea animals swam alongside these new boats, like fish, but larger; gray and smooth, leaping and diving. They were beautiful but terrifying because Isika didn't know what they were.
"Isika," Ben said, wonder in his voice. "What are those?"
"I don't know," she replied, absently, then in a flash she realized what was happening. "No!" she shouted. She had seen the purpose of the boats. They headed straight for Kital. "Paddle, Benayeem!" she cried, but she had seen it too late. Isika and Ben strained with the muscles in their thin arms, but the other boats were fast and reached him first. Isika could see the people now; four of them in two boats. One, a woman, reached into the sending boat and pulled Kital out, tucking him against her, and Isika saw with shock that the people had dark skin, like Isika and her siblings. The boats turned to the south again and rowed away as quickly as they had come. They hadn't once looked at the little boat in pursuit, perhaps blinded by the rising sun behind them.
"No!" Isika cried again. And then they wailed and shouted and screamed, rowing against the small waves the boats had left behind, rowing and rowing but never getting closer to the people who had taken their brother away.
PART 2
CHAPTER 7
They rowed all day, always south, in sight of the shore, so they could see if the strange boats had pulled up anywhere. Ben strained his eyes for any sight of the foreign boats. Ibba slept in the bottom of the boat. Isika laid her scarf over Ibba's face to shelter her from the sun. They rowed. Occasionally, they rested and ate a little of the food Jerutha had packed for them. Benayeem felt that he was in a dream world, overwhelmed by loss and the newness of everything, their sudden homelessness. They were lost and adrift; a fourteen-year-old girl, a thirteen-year-old boy, and their little seven-year-old sister. What good were they against the world?
"Who were they?" he asked his sister, but she had no answer for him. He had never seen people like that before, or boats like that, and especially never animals like the gray shapes diving around the boat.
"Ben," Isika said, her voice low. "Are they going to feed him to those animals?"
A chill made Ben's arms prickle. He felt sick. He glanced down at Ibba, but she was fast asleep, exhausted from crying.
"Let's not think about that," he said. "It's too horrible."
"Were they slave ships, then?" The Workers told stories about boats rowed by people who stole children to be slaves. Many parents didn't allow their children to go to the harbor. Shadowy people were known to paddle in from the sea and snatch up unwary children, taking them to large ships rumored to be filled with stolen children. No children had been taken from the Worker village for many years. Ben's father said it was because the sea gate was doing its job. Still, the slave ships lived in the children's nightmares.
"The boats in the stories have strange eyes painted on them," he told his sister. "Those boats didn't have paintings, did they?" Still, he felt nauseous at the thought of his brother being taken as a slave. He set his face and rowed harder. And if they reached the boats that had taken their brother? What would they do then? It didn't matter. He rowed.
In the late afternoon, as the sea was turning to gold, they pulled to the shore. Ben shook with exhaustion, and one look at his sister told him she had no strength left. He looked around. He'd never seen anything like the place where they landed. The shore was covered with a soft layer of pale golden dirt, which, when he looked closer, wasn't dirt, but a fine collection of the tiniest of rocks. They ran through Ben's fingers as he dipped his hands into piles of them. Ibba sat and began playing with the dirt immediately, scooping handfuls and letting the soft substance flow through her fingers.
"Sand," Ben said. "It's called sand."
Isika looked at him. "How—?"
"From the desert, Isika. You remember."
She stared at him, then laughed. "I remember dirt, brother."
"There was sand, too. And there was sand in the walled city." He met her eyes briefly, then looked away and tried to rub the soreness out of his arms. His back burned and his hands were torn up and covered with blisters, some of them bleeding. They were lost, they couldn't go back, and they didn't have Kital. He glared at his hands, wondering whether he could tear a piece of his shirt away to bind them in the morning, when he supposed they would keep rowing and searching for their brother. With his fingertips, he pulled out one of Jerutha's parcels out of his pocket, and found three helpings of the daily meal, wrapped in a banana leaf. His stomach wanted to eat right through his ribcage and continue on to eat everything in sight.
"Why don't you ever talk about those days?" Isika asked. Her voice was weary. She had asked him a thousand times. He didn't answer. He handed her one portion of food.
"Ibba, go wash your hands in the sea, then come back to eat," he said. As the little girl ran to do as he said, he looked up at Isika. She was still gazing at him, a stubborn look on her face, and he felt his own face soften as he saw her cuts and bruises again. He was sore from rowing. She must be sore from both rowing and being beaten, yet she hadn't complained. He admired her strength, but he couldn't talk about those times. He couldn't talk about before. If his mind even reached toward the past, his whole spirit flinched away, the drums chanting doom. He had learned to make a box of it in his mind, to keep any thoughts of that time tightly sealed away. It was the only way that he could have peace.
"I've never seen some of these tr
ees before," he said. She turned her head, following the direction of his eyes. There were three types of trees in their village—the losh trees they used for fuel; the yuci, a tall thin tree with curved leaves and pale bark that added no color to the landscape; and the banana trees, which offered the treasured fruit of their village. But these trees were different.
They had landed on a short, curved beach that bordered a jungle jumping with color. There were trees with wide leaves that were almost blue, and trees with thousands of tiny round leaves and long, broad branches. One tree was so tall that Ben had to tip his head back to see the top of it. It dwarfed the other trees, with branches that curved, snake-like, spilling from the tree's long limbs and circling up to climb again. Isika limped up the beach toward the tree. As she moved toward it, a large creature exploded from the leaves and leapt away, farther into the jungle. Ben didn't see what it looked like, he had only the impression of size and speed. Isika turned to Ben, her eyes wide.
"This place is alive," Ibba said beside him. Ben nodded. The animal had startled him, but he felt wonder, rather than fear. Ibba came closer to him and put her small hand in his. He winced as she brushed against his blisters, but didn't move away. She looked up at him, questions in her eyes. Questions he couldn't even begin to answer. The voices inside him were silent, a welcome rest. He wondered what it meant, that they were so quiet, but he relaxed into it, accepting the respite.
"Okay, let's eat," Isika said, walking back toward them. "Then sleep. We'll have a big day tomorrow—we have to find Kital. But we should sleep down here, on the sand. That jungle is a little too alive."
World Whisperer Page 5