Wonder at the Edge of the World

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Wonder at the Edge of the World Page 20

by Nicole Helget

“The elephant bird,” Captain Abbot says. “I shot it.”

  I know something about the elephant bird. What? Think. Think, I tell myself. Then I remember. “That’s impossible,” I say. “The elephant bird went extinct in the early seventeen hundreds.”

  “Impressive intellect,” says Captain Abbot. He pours himself a generous glass of wine. “Your father was impressed with that bird, too. And, like you, he doubted that I shot this one. But shoot it I did.” He takes an appreciative swallow of his wine. “I wish now I hadn’t, of course. I was young then. Brash. Didn’t understand how the ends of things can come so suddenly.” He drinks again. “You look like your father, I suppose you know.” He gazes at the bird forlornly, as though he’s sorry. Then his face changes to something else, anger or jealousy, maybe. “I admire that bird,” he says.

  What does that mean? I wonder. I pinch my lips together and will Captain Abbot to keep talking.

  “And your father,” Captain Abbot continues, “asleep now for the long duration. How I admire him for that.” He drinks again and settles into his chair.

  I clear my throat. “How did you know him?” My voice sounds soft. I’m afraid to talk, but I want to know about my father.

  The chair groans with the captain’s every movement. “Well,” he says, “that is an interesting story. And I have to admit, I wasn’t too pleased to meet him at first.”

  I don’t want to do anything that would interrupt a story about my father.

  “Despite my reputation as a reckless lunatic, your father came looking for me once the head was in his possession. It had begun to drive him mad. Showed him treasures all over the world. Again and again he’d sail, leave your mother and you girls behind. Always searching for the next great discovery. The boys, your brothers, died and died again. But still he sailed. After the third boy was gone, he came to me with the head.”

  I’m stunned Captain Abbot knows so much about my family. How much of our lives did Father share with him? And the bad thoughts I’ve had about Father lately. Were they correct? Did Father crave treasures and discoveries more than us? More than me?

  “You’d better settle in. This is a long story.” Captain Abbot scratches his chest. “Itches afterward,” he says with a faint smile, referring to where he shot himself. “Now, let’s begin. The cannibal tribe had told your father the same story they told me.”

  “Which was what?” I ask.

  “I’m getting to that part,” he says. “Patience.” He removes his boot and shakes out dust. He removes a holey sock and shakes it out. “Can you darn?” he asks me.

  I shake my head.

  He slaps the sock onto his leg a couple of times, and then he stretches it back over his foot. His leg runs with red and purple veins like I’ve only ever seen on very old women. I think I might die of old age myself before he ever finishes this story.

  Captain Abbot replaces his boot and begins his story again. “They told me, and told your father, that once a child with three heads was born unto them. The child had one body but three minds. It grew and became a witch doctor with the powers of prophecy and healing. But the minds began to disagree and argue, each thinking it was more powerful than the others. The heads bickered and fought late into the night and early every morning. The body of the three heads grew weary. One day, the heads argued so violently that the body threw itself off a cliff to silence the voices. When the rest of the tribe discovered the witch doctor, body broken at every bone, the mouths of the heads were still moving. They carried the body back to the camp, cut off the heads, shrunk them, and stitched closed the eyes and mouths. But as you know, that didn’t silence them.”

  Captain Abbot pours himself another glass of wine. He drinks.

  Keep talking, I think. Tell me all of it.

  “The tribe kept the heads for a time. They revered them as sacred objects. Why they gave away each of them is a mystery to me. I can only speculate that the heads’ howling drove them mad, the way it drives you mad. But you’ve done well not to obliterate it. I was not so wise.”

  “What happened?”

  “At first, I rarely used it, rarely held it. But the Medicine Head increased its calling. Eventually, I was holding it daily. I began to misuse its magic. Peered into the past too often. Looked into the future too much. Used it to find riches, exploit people. Ruined my family. The more I held it, the more I wanted to hold it. Finally, its cries drove me senseless, and I threw it into a fiery volcano. And then I became as I am.”

  I look at him. I think I know what he means. But I want to ask anyway. “What do you mean, ‘as I am’?”

  “Infinite,” he says. “On and on. Forever.” He holds the glass in his hands and swirls the wine.

  I swallow. “Where’s the other head?” I ask. “You said three. I have one. You had one. Where’s the last?”

  “Destroyed as well,” he says. He drinks. “By me.”

  Those words seem to slap me in the temple. “Well,” I say, “then you can destroy mine, too!” I’m practically shouting. “I mean, as long as you’re already suffering the consequence of destroying the first, you may as well destroy mine.”

  He smirks, but then his face falls deadly serious. “That’s what we thought, too,” he says. He coughs. “But the head doesn’t work that way.” He drinks again. “I could, but the consequences for you would be the same as the other.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Who had the other head? What happened to him?”

  “Not him,” Captain Abbot says. “Her. Nova had the second head, given to her by the tribe while she was aboard a different whaling expedition.”

  “Nova?” I ask. “You mean she’s like you? Forever?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Yes, sadly. Yes.” He groans. “She’s not as old as me, of course, but she’s beyond a century. I’ve lost track myself.” He strokes his long beard. “The head chose her and she used it. Once she held it, the head claimed her. So it didn’t matter that she gave it to me to destroy. She was its target regardless. I imagine the same would apply to you, even if I or Nova destroyed it for you.”

  Poor Nova.

  “She’s watched her husband, her children, all age and die.” He sighs.

  I think about the handprint on Nova’s chest.

  “When your father found me,” he says, “and told me of his encounter with the cannibal tribe and the gift of the head, I told him the same. And before we could determine what to do with it, he was running for his life to Kansas. So you see, I could destroy yours, but you would pay a terrible price.”

  I think about Mother and Priss. And then I wonder about Greeney. “But how does Greeney know about the head?” I ask.

  “Why, don’t you know?” asks Captain Abbot. “Greeney was your father’s apprentice. He was there when the tribe gave your father the head. Half as intelligent, half as good, he thought that if the head was his, he could surpass all your father’s great discoveries.”

  “He killed my father,” I say.

  “I know that,” says Captain Abbot. It seems as though his face grows smooth and soft. “But what I wouldn’t give to have the gift of death. I know it’s hard, Miss Wonder, for you and your family. But death is that looming event that makes every experience before that point sweet and urgent.”

  My neck is tight again. Like I might cry. I gulp the tightness down.

  “Be happy for your father,” he says. “Look at me.”

  I do. I take in his ancient face, lined with misery and apathy.

  “Would you have wanted this for him?” he asks. “I’ve got no curiosity left. No wonder for the world. Every day I am only weary. Each day, I can think of nothing more than driving myself to the deadliest places and chases. What have I got to lose? But still, nothing, no one excites me. Life without death is a dreary, endless tedium. Do not destroy the head.”

  I shake my head. “I wasn’t going to,” I say. “I mean, I’ve thought about it, but I wouldn’t. I’ve got a different idea.”

  He nods. “I assume
you’re thinking about the coldest, loneliest place in the world,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say. “Antarctica.”

  “Now, why didn’t your father think of that?” He leans back and pats his stomach.

  “He did, but he ran out of time,” I say.

  “I see,” says Captain Abbot. “He left a great responsibility for you, Miss Wonder, but also a powerful mind with which to conquer it.”

  CHAPTER 30

  We sail on toward the cold waters. Months—I’ve lost count of them—pass. The whales we take become bigger with each catch, and I grow used to the violence of it. I participate in the butchering and rendering. I work. I receive approving nods from Nova. Forevermore, I will appreciate the oil I use, the light I need. Now I know the animals’ sacrifice. I understand the workers’ toil. But the men seem happy in their work. They grin, pleased, at the stacks of oil barrels in the hold. Still, they want more. They want every barrel filled to its brim. Every drop means another coin.

  The captain hasn’t spoken to me again. Eustace is busy, growing up and growing away from me. He follows in Nova’s shadow wherever she goes and learns much from her. I miss him. But I understand. I am changing, too. The patience I once yearned for has grown ripe in me. Most of the time, anyway.

  One morning, I wake and can see my breath. It’s freezing aboard the Xerxes. From somewhere in the deep recesses of the ship, Nova has found and issued everyone a variety of coats, capes, hats, mittens, and shawls collected from anywhere and everywhere to keep the crew warm. Some of the men are dressed so that they look ready for field work in Kansas, in short cotton coats, plain in color. Other sailors look as though they are ready for dinner and the theater, with long woolen tailcoats and top hats made of silk. Others are wearing women’s lacy shawls tied around their heads like scarves. One man is wearing a woman’s layered skirt over his own pants. Nova has given me a simple cotton bonnet, which makes me think of Priss. I put it on without back-talking. Then Nova pulls a long, hairy white fur from a trunk.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “Yak fur,” she says. “Very warm.” She ties it around the bonnet and winds it around my neck.

  When I ascend the hatch, everyone seems agitated. We are hundreds of miles off the coast of South America. Nova begins scrubbing the insides and outsides of the rendering cauldrons. She nods toward where Captain Abbot stands, with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the sea.

  “He’s close!” Captain Abbot keeps repeating.

  The ocean appears still and silent. Who’s close? But I, too, have that strange tingly feeling, as though something’s about to happen. Just as I did all that time ago, before I found the dead snake, before I found Father hanging from the tree. Something is about to happen. I remind myself to breathe calmly. But my breaths are short, and soon my ears ring and my fingers tingle. Stay calm. I walk the deck to find Eustace, who is near a whaleboat, stringing harpoons. A heavy buffalo cape hangs over his shoulders and down his back. He’s wearing some kind of animal fur on his head. He’s beginning to look a bit feral, a bit like Nova in that way.

  My fingertips tingle, and not just from the cold. I’m not breathing right. Exhale slowly, I tell myself. And I do.

  “Hey,” I say to Eustace.

  “Hay is for horses,” he says. Then he adds in a whisper, “The captain’s been pacing back and forth all day and all night, I think. I haven’t seen him go into or come out of his quarters in days.” Fob appears from behind Eustace’s legs. I lean over and give his nose a scratch. Fob moans. He’s got his tail tucked between his legs. He’s fearful of something.

  “Keep your eye out!” Captain Abbot shouts.

  I look out, but I can’t see a thing. The air is so full of ice crystals that I can’t even see the horizon. It’s as though the ocean and the sky are one.

  Eustace points out to where I’m looking. “What’s that?” he says.

  “Where?” I say.

  “There,” he says. “Way out. It looks like another ship.”

  I stare and stare. “I don’t see anything. Maybe your eyes are playing tricks on you.”

  Eustace ignores me. His cheeks go tight. His jaw clenches.

  But then, above us, the lookout on the mast shouts down, “Captain! Captain! Thar he blows!” He’s pointing far out over the other side of the ship.

  All morning the clouds have spun gray and wispy, and now they are building black and threatening. Captain Abbot and the rest of the crew run to the rail and cup their hands around their eyes. We rush over, too. I look. Still, I see nothing. But Eustace says, “I see it. I see it! A whale!” When he says that, Nova springs into action. She runs to the whaleboats, and she reaches in to check her harpoon.

  Captain Abbot calls, “He’s a sperm! Let’s get him! Bring plenty of ropes and spears. He’ll put up a fight, the old son of a gun. He will!”

  “Eustace,” Nova calls, and he goes to her.

  I squint again. I don’t see anything except the waves, the horizon, and the angry sky. I’m sick to death of that scene. But something must be out there, because the whole ship is pulsing with action. I search and search to see what everyone else sees.

  And then there he is.

  A plume of white water blasts into the air. A smooth gray back breaks the waves. Without the water spout, you might never know that it’s the back of a whale. You might think it’s only another rolling wave, so beautifully does it blend in.

  “I’m coming, too!” I say. This time, no one objects. I feel pride swell up in my chest. I go to the whaleboats, which are being lowered by ropes and pulleys into the roiling water below. I think about the sharks I saw and the miles of water beneath us, but I still climb into the whaleboat with Eustace and Fob and Nova.

  Eustace hands me an oar, a much smaller one than any of the others. Only months ago, I would have shouted at him. Not this time. This time, I take it and trust that he’s given me the responsibility I can handle. I dip the oar into the water and row in time with the other sailors.

  Nova sets her oar aside. She perches at the bow with her harpoon in hand.

  Once out of the shadow of the Xerxes, we loosen the ropes that held us to the ship, and the men above pull them up. Now it’s just us, this boat, the ocean, and that whale out there. Then the rain starts. Soft at first, but it quickly falls in thick sheets. The wind picks up, too.

  “Row,” orders Nova. The other whaleboat is near us, and as we approach where we last saw the whale, Nova directs the crew. I look over the side into the water and wonder if he’s below us. It occurs to me that he could be right there, under me, and I get scared a little.

  Then I feel a tremor beneath my feet.

  “Did you feel that?” I ask. They all ignore me, but Nova touches the bottom of the boat and stares over the side. The ocean has gone strangely quiet. The waves that once rocked us to and fro have calmed. The rain now falls hard and straight down, like ropes dropping from the sky. It feels like something is about to happen.

  The whaleboat begins to rattle. Nova leans over, and her eyes widen.

  “Oh no!” she says. “Hang on!”

  Instead of hanging on to something, I lean over the edge to see what she’s seeing.

  It’s like a white mountain rising from the deep blue depths, surging closer and closer. I bend over farther to get a better look. What is happening? The ocean seems to be growing underneath our boat. And the next thing I see is water rushing ahead of it in a great push. Then I see the head of a whale, a leviathan. He’s a sperm. With a head like the engine of a train.

  Before I can move or speak, I feel a huge crash as the whale rams into our underside. The whole whaleboat is hoisted into the air. I am like a Kansas jackrabbit being tossed around by a wild dog.

  “Hang on!” Eustace yells. “Stay with the boat!”

  But I lose my grip. I’m flying away from the boat and the crew in it. Time seems to go slowly. I’m in the air. The whale is in the air. He’s the size of three or four railway
cars. He’s beautiful. My yak fur flies away. There, too, goes my bonnet. I am flying and free.

  “We’ve been stove!” Nova shouts. She’s watching me. “Mark where she lands!” I am so high, I look down and see the whaleboat. The ocean seems a lifetime away. I am weightless. It seems like I should be able to take in a deep breath, fill my lungs, sprout wings, and fly. But then I am coming down again, coming down quickly. The whale has dipped back into the water. His fluke disappears beneath the surface. And it seems like the ocean is rising up to meet me and swallow me like the giant jaws of a whale.

  Then, from my toes to the top of my head, I am shocked by freezing cold water. Stunned still.

  I sink. Water fills my boots. My clothes pull me down and down. I do nothing but suffer the cold, like a body full of hornet stings. I hear nothing but water gurgling in my ears. Water rushes up my nose and flows down my throat. The salt burns. I am frozen and on fire at the same time.

  In my head I’m saying I’m overboard. Help. But no one hears those words because I can’t say them aloud. I’m all spun around. I try to calm my thinking. Finally, I kick my legs and doggy-paddle my arms a little. Then a little more, and a little more.

  I see a twisting underwater column. It’s like a cyclone. It’s coming toward me and there’s no way to avoid it.

  Suddenly, I am spinning and spinning inside it.

  A whooshing noise rushes past my ears. The whale has created his own whirling wake and I am in it, twisting. I spin and spin and I am certain that this is how I will die. I had to come all the way to the ocean to finally see a cyclone, I think.

  That’s when I remember my tornado dream.

  I put out my arms, and they create resistance against the spinning water. It presses on them, but I feel myself slowing down. I fight to keep holding out my arms. I’m so tired, I think it might be OK to put them down and drown. But then I think of Priss and Mother and Ruby and Eustace and even Fob. I don’t stop.

  I slow. Finally, I stop spinning in the water. I just hover there. But now I don’t know up from down.

 

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