Sarah said, “Your moment of truth Beckett, go read the edict!”
Jeffrey asked, “Do you need me to go get your copy?”
Beckett said, “No, it’s memorized by now.” He added, “I hope they aren’t combative.”
Dan stuck his head around the corner. “Combative Nomads—what are they going to do, splash you? You’ve got this.” He untied his apron to follow Beckett up the steps.
Beckett climbed out to the deck and was instantly blinded again.
Stupid sun.
Captain Aria stood at the railing of the upper deck by the bridge looking through binoculars. “Looks like about eight, it’s a small group. Heading northeast.”
Beckett followed her gaze and yes—hazy, blurry, far away—eight Nomads. Standing on their boards, straight up and down, it was majestic really, like they walked on water.
“Can we get closer so I can speak with them?”
“Sure, you have your edict after all.” She offered the binoculars, but he held up his bandaged hands with a laugh.
She handed the binoculars to Dan and returned to the bridge. The ship’s sails turned, shifting its direction, and the motor roared to life.
Chapter 51
Buzz said, “There’s a ship headed this way.”
Odo turned to look. “Does that look like Navy?”
Buzz said, “No, something else entirely.”
Odo said, “Keep paddling, they’re probably just passing by.” After sometime, Odo said, “I was wrong, they’re headed right to us.” Then louder, “How about we slow down and rest and allow them to catch up and see what they want.”
Buzz said, “They’ll probably read that edict again, and I can’t promise I won’t go ballistic.”
River said, “Now, now, they think they’re helping, they think settlements are a good idea; you can say no without causing trouble.”
Luna listened to this exchange with heavy thoughts. She had grown past worrying about settlements and futures and that had been a relief. Were protective measures a good idea? She didn’t have to worry about it, because she wouldn’t live long enough to meet her future, but now...
Did she need to worry again? To plan?
She watched her paddle create a small spinning eddy beside her board. Odo and Buzz would talk to the ship. All she had to do was sit and rest and wait for her orders to paddle again.
Chapter 52
Dan was giving Beckett all the wrong kind of information. Like, “Yep, there’s eight,” and, “old guy keeps looking at us,” and, “the young man, second from the left, is staring us down, he’s going to be trouble. He’ll be the splasher.”
Beckett said, “I’ll just read the edict, ask if they need any help, offer—or I don’t have supplies, so I’ll just—”
“They have supplies, look at the boards, they have piles.”
Beckett asked, “Really? Can I see?”
Dan held the binoculars to Beckett’s eyes. There were piles of packs. The packs looked like the packs from his Outpost. The binoculars shifted and he could no longer see.
Beckett looked to the right, following the Nomads’s route. He supposed they could be coming from his Outpost. It was south east of there, and if they had his packs, that meant they had read the edict.
Now he felt stupid demanding that they listen to him. “Um, excuse me. I get that you already grabbed the food and filtration systems and that you’re aware that they’re for helping you get to the mainland, east of here, but I see you’re headed north. So I’m sure you won’t mind if I pull up beside you in my ship and read the edict to you, again. Or better yet, recite it, because that’s how big a dork I am. I’m a dumbass. You can see by my hands. It was heroic, but still, injured hands. I get spoon-fed now.”
The ship approached closer.
Dan said, “Five men, three women.”
Beckett leaned on the railings and watched the group across the distance as they slowly came into focus. Something about the young woman, the person fourth from the left, made his heart stop, and then thud double time.
The figures were still dark, but her shape could almost be...Could it?
The ship slowed. Beckett leaned forward, cocking his head, squinting, “Dan, can I see through the binoculars again?” Using his gauze-covered hands he guided them approximately close.
Anna.
That was Anna. Head down, watching the water. Whoa. Right there.
Anna.
“Anna!”
He pressed against the railing, “Anna!” and, “ANNA!”
He stepped up on the lowest rail and waved his arms, “Anna!”
Dan said, “Shit dude, you know that girl?”
Chapter 53
The ship got closer and closer until the voice became noticeable. Someone on deck was yelling.
Luna looked up. A man with white stumpy paddles for hands was waving frantically.
The boat slowed to a stop and clearly, unmistakably, “ANNA!”
Beckett.
Beckett was on that ship.
Buzz said, “Anyone knows why the Stiffneck is yelling Anna?”
Luna was dazed. “Beckett?” Her voice barely audible. She had been staring at the water’s surface and looked up to see Beckett, like an apparition, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, or likely to be, or—it had caused her to feel dizzy. Confused.
He yelled across the distance, “Anna, it’s me, Beckett!”
She repeated, blankly, quietly, “Beckett?”
Buzz and Seggy started laughing.
Buzz asked, “How come he thinks your name is Anna?”
They laughed harder.
Luna’s breath caught in her throat as Beckett threw a leg over the railing.
Chapter 54
Beckett didn’t think. Like going in after the whale, his automatic reflexes kicked in. He climbed over the railing. There wasn’t a rope ladder, but it was just as well, he couldn’t hold on to one, anyway. He wrapped an arm around the top railing, pushed away with his legs, shoved and jumped. He was horizontal. Arced out and away, arms spread,
and down,
down,
down,
landing belly first
with a giant and mighty smacking sound.
He pulled to the surface, clutched his stomach, moaned, grabbed some quick breaths, located Luna’s direction, and swam toward her with even, impressive strokes, if not for the big, white, round bandages at the end of his arms.
Chapter 55
Buzz and Seggy absolutely doubled over in laughter, hugging their sides, and asking each other, “Did you see that?”
“Oh man, he jumped!”
Seggy clapped his hands, “Smack, ouch, that must have hurt!”
They laughed some more.
Sky asked, “Is that Beckett, the Beckett?”
Luna stood still, immobile, staring at the now swimming Beckett.
None of this made sense. She couldn’t get enough information to her brain to even begin to catalogue this whole experience, it was so entirely bizarre.
She asked again, “Beckett?”
Between strokes, his head bobbed up. “Anna, wait,” though it was unnecessary, she couldn’t move, she could only stand dumbly, wondering, staring.
He took in water and coughed. “Wait, I have to—”
Chapter 56
He stroked twice more, right up, and tried to grab her board with his non-gripping hands, causing it to rock precariously and for himself to slide off and under. He pulled back to the surface and lunged the top half of his body onto her board.
Luna collapsed to her knees and grabbed the sides of his face. “Beckett, what are you—”
“Anna, I needed—”
Buzz and Seggy broke into laughter again. “He thinks Luna’s name is Anna!”
Beckett looked in their direction and back at Luna.
He felt ashamed.
If she hadn’t been holding his face, stroking down his temples, he might have stopped treading and collapsed under the surf
ace and away. “Your name is Luna?”
“Beckett, what happened to your hands?” Her voice broke, “Are you okay?” He looked different, displaced and harmed. She had believed him safe, it had been the only thing she knew with certainty.
“No, I’m not okay, Anna, I—I saved a whale.”
“You what?”
“I saved a whale. That’s how I got hurt, and I came to find you on a boat and—” This all seemed like such a mistake. He couldn’t make sense of what was happening. She had been in danger; he had been certain of it, but she wasn’t, and so he was talking about the whale, the irrelevant, not important at all whale.
Through it all she held his face, cupped in her hands.
Staring into his eyes, with trembling lips, she asked, “You came for me?”
That part seemed real, he focused there, on her trembling mouth. “I came for you. Why didn’t you go east, Anna, I mean—” He smacked his hand on the water in frustration. “Why didn’t you go east?”
“I couldn’t. I just...” Tears welled up on her lower lid. “I was alone and I was so scared and you...”
Beckett pulled up higher on the board. He placed his bandaged hands on both sides of her face and pulled her in and kissed her.
He kissed her and she kissed him. Pressing and desperate. Then she kissed him on his chin and his cheek and sobbed beside his ear. Face pressed into the side of his neck she held on until she pulled back a bit and rested her forehead against his lips. “I was so scared.”
“I know,” he said.
“I wanted it all, just like you said, but I couldn’t have it, because I...” Her head drooped.
He dropped his face beside hers, his mouth to her ear. “Because why?”
Luna couldn’t find the words. How to explain that she believed him and loved him and wanted him and still paddled the other way? It was unexplainable because she hadn’t truly done it, not consciously, she had just given up, and the paddleboard had pointed the direction it wanted to go. As if no one was on board.
She pressed her face into his shoulder as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Because I died.”
He said, “I don’t understand, what do you—”
She collapsed all the way down, her head bowed, nose pressed to her board. She whispered, “I died and I couldn’t stop dying and I didn’t want to stop and so I just let go.”
Beckett needed to see her face. Her tiny voice, her desperate words, were freaking him out. He tried to pull her chin up, but she was curled tight around her knees—and his bandaged hands, his stupid fucking bandaged hands caused him to slip off the board and he had to remount it, splashing water all over Luna, and generally being a total ass at literally the worst time.
After a minute he got the board to stop rocking, and he rested his mouth on the back of her head and kissed it and then turned his face and rested his cheek there. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I could do everything differently I would.”
Her voice was small. “You didn’t know, I didn’t tell you.”
“Aw Luna, you told me in a million ways, and I wasn’t listening. I should have listened. I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t want you to die too.”
He nodded, rustling his unshaven cheek in her hair. “Yeah. Of course. You died alone, all by yourself. I see that now.”
She raised her head by degrees and gave him a small sad smile. “I did accomplish that one thing.”
He said, “You did, you saved me. I didn’t die, but see, now I’ve come to find you—to save you.”
She cast her eyes down and nodded. “To save me,” she repeated. “I don’t know if I’m still here.”
Using the tips of the fingers on his right hand he raised her chin to look into her eyes. “I came to find you, because you aren’t dead, Luna, you aren’t, you’re flesh and blood and ocean-goddess and you’re alive and you found me and now I’ve found you, it means something all this finding. It means something big. You know?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “What’s your family name?”
“Saturniidae.”
“You aren’t dead, Luna Saturniidae, you are alive and I love you and I need you to stay alive, to stop letting go.”
Tears streamed down her face. “But I’m so scared and I don’t know how to face it anymore. Living.”
“I know, I’m scared too, but you’re alive. Stop letting go because you’re breaking our hearts and there’s been too much of that lately. Please don’t. Please come home with me,” he searched her face, “please.”
Chapter 57
Her thoughts were spinning through everything he said—Beckett loved her, Luna Saturniiddae, and her thoughts kept coming back to this one thing, Beckett was on a boat in the ocean. He had done that for her. He had jumped.
He had done what had been impossible for him to do.
She nodded, and quietly said, “Yes.”
“Yes, Yes? You will?”
Luna raised up, tearstained and red-eyed.
“Me and you?”
Luna nodded.
“And I can’t tell you how it works, maybe you’ll hate it at my mountain house, but we can figure it out, okay?”
“We can figure it out.”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
Beckett looked into her eyes nodding, they paused for a minute like that, staring into each other’s eyes, nodding.
Then Luna threw her arms around his shoulders, setting her paddleboard lopsided. It dumped her on top of him, pushing him down into the water, both submerged. When Luna resurfaced she said, “Your pants are down.”
He smiled sheepishly, “They came down when I was swimming, and there’s literally nothing I can do about it.” He held up his sopping, wet, gauze-hands. “It’s making it hard to tread water having my pants at my knees.” He looked over his shoulder at the ship where the crew stood at the railing watching.
Dan yelled down, “Quite the full moon out today, Beckett!”
Beckett called over his shoulder. “I’ve got other things on my mind, Dan!”
Luna swam down and tugged his pants to his waist. She surfaced, climbed onto her board, and dangled her feet over the side.
Beckett tried to climb up beside her, but his hands were useless, the board shifted crazily, and his pants were coming down again. “Well, I’ll just lean here.” He propped one elbow across the board his other arm on her knee.
“What happened to your hands?”
“There was a whale. God, it was so magnificent. Truly. And I helped the crew cut a rope that was tied around its tail, but I got a rope burn on this hand and a clean slice, fifteen stitches, on this hand. And you aren’t going to believe it, I was in the water with it, touching a whale!”
Luna nodded, “I believe it, I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.”
He smiled, “I had the crew thinking I was pretty heroic, but now they’ve seen that belly flop earlier...”
“It was the most heroic bellyflop ever seen, in the history of the world there has never been a more heroic bellyflop.”
He said, “I missed you.”
She said, “I missed you too.”
“So you can come on the boat. You can bring your paddleboard. When the ship docks, we can go to my mountain house and we can figure everything out later.”
Luna smiled down at him. She stroked down the side of his face and leaned down and kissed him on the lips. “I can’t Beckett. See all these people? They found me and I convinced them to trust me and I got all these packs from your Outpost—”
“I see that.”
“—and they can’t carry them all. I made a commitment, I have to follow through and get the packs to the—”
Beckett said, “I understand, I get it, and then you’ll come?”
“Then I’ll come. I’ll come along the coastline, with due haste.” She grinned.
“I love you. Come, come fast, be safe, okay?”
“It will take us the rest of the day to get the packs back to their group
. Tomorrow I’ll leave, it should take me about five days. I’ll be there in six days.”
Beckett shook his head. “I won’t be there, I have twelve days still before the ship goes back to dock, but don’t slow down, please. Be there when I get there and I’ll come and get you from the settlements.”
“I’ll go fast. I promise.”
“Good. Thank you.” He sat treading water for a minute staring in her eyes. “I have to say goodbye again?”
“This isn’t like last time, but yes. I have a lot of paddling to get these packs to the group.”
Beckett smiled. “Okay Luna, yes.”
He started back-floating and flutter-kicking away.
“I’ll see you soon Beckett, I will.”
He laughed, flashing his full dimpled smile. “I know you will.”
“Really?” She stood and projected her voice as he kicked farther and farther away. “Because overconfidence isn’t usually your style!”
He tapped the side of his temple. “You said we.”
She smiled, picked up her paddle, and soft-paddled against the current that was twisting her away.
He called across the expanse, “I also know you have to come, you have a responsibility, a commitment, and it’s too big to shirk.”
“A what? What are you talking about?”
“You have to bring me my great-grandfather’s watch!”
Luna looked down at her wrist and then smiled broadly across the deep ocean between them. The sun was bright, the visibility clear.
“I love you!” she said.
“I love you too.”
Chapter 58
He made it to the ship and looked up.
Captain Aria called down, “Okay, Romeo, hold your horses, we’re sending down the sling for you.”
A few minutes later the sling, on a pulley system, was lowered, and Beckett was instructed to flop into the loop of fabric and hold on with his shoulders and arms as it lifted him up and out of the water.
Leveling Page 13