“Stunning?” I ask. No one has called me that before. “You mean...frightening?”
He laughs. “I mean beautiful.”
Beautiful! No matter how hard the waves pound against the sides of the platform, even if I get carried out to sea today and the scribblers make me their evening meal, I know I won’t be able to stop grinning like an absolute fool. I do my best to try to control it, but a few seconds later I always find the edges of my mouth creeping up again. The last thing I want to do, in formation, when everyone can see me, is look like a lovesick idiot.
But this time I don’t try to press closer to Fern to avoid him. This time, when his body presses against mine, I press back, wanting to feel every inch of his skin against me. I pretend I’m doing it innocently, and at first I think he doesn’t notice, but then I feel him leaning in toward me, and his breath is warm on my shoulders. He inhales deeply, taking in my scent. If I turn, our lips would touch. I imagine the feeling of his lips, warm, soft, saying my name over and over again. The thought sends a wave of tingles over my bare arms, down my back, everywhere.
I’m jarred from this euphoria when someone suddenly screams.
The whispers begin. I sneak a look at Tiam, but now he’s facing the other way, standing on his toes, trying to see what has happened. He is one of the tallest on the island, so he has a better chance of finding out than anyone else in the center of the platform. That’s the one negative thing about the center. Even though we are safest, we are always the last to know when bad things happen.
It’s Hard Season. And things are like this during Hard Season. We expect it.
I grab Fern’s hand, and she presses against my thighs. “Tell me one of your stories,” she says.
“Okay,” I say, relieved to have something to take my mind off the havoc around us. I try to think of one from the book I’ve never told before. “Once upon a time, there was a cook named Gretel, and her master never did give her enough to eat. One day, he was having a guest over for dinner, which is the evening meal, so he ordered her to make two roast fowl for the—” I stop and answer the inevitable question on her lips. “Fowl are birds. Like seagulls. Anyway, she makes these two birds for dinner, but as the night wears on and the guest doesn’t arrive, she ends up eating them herself.”
I hear someone whisper, “On the west side! At least twenty!” and I clutch Fern’s hand tighter. Someone jabs me in the back, and I stumble forward. Clutching tight to Fern, I steady myself.
Fern, thankfully, is absorbed in the story. “Did she get in trouble?”
“You’ll see. Unaware that the feast has been eaten, her master goes outside to sharpen his knife to cut the fowl, and while he does, his visitor arrives at the door. Clever Gretel says to him, ‘Shh, go back as quickly as you came! If my master catches you, you’ll be in a terrible fix. He invited you to dinner so he can cut off your ears. Listen, you can hear him sharpening his knife.’”
Fern’s jaw drops open. “But that was a lie.”
The new moon climbs ever so slowly into its perch in the sky, a silent witness to our panic. People are muttering under their breaths, final prayers in the darkness. Voices rise, and I know what this means. The crush will begin. Bodies push against one another, closer together, into the center. Elbows and hands come at us. We stand at the very edge of our spots, at the exact center of the platform, so near to one another that we can barely breathe. But that is not enough. I suck in my stomach, tilt my chin upward, toward the star-filled, peaceful night sky, and draw in the cool air. Our spots are being usurped, and we may be squeezed to death in the ensuing panic. I bring Fern in front of me and drape my body over her as a shield, as she presses into my thighs. A breeze blows a spray of salt against my bare arms, making me shiver. It is too close.
Tiam wastes no time moving behind me, acting like a barricade between me and the horde. He pushes back against them, groaning. “Get back!” he shouts, and I can feel every muscle of his back against mine.
People are whispering along with the crashing waves, but I bow my head low to Fern’s ear and try to remember where I’d left off. I try to keep my voice calm, but it’s shaking as I finish the story: “You’re right. And then while the guest hurried away, Gretel ran screaming to her master, ‘Alas, you invited a fine guest. He stole the fowl!’ The master rushed after the thief, knife in hand, crying, ‘Stop! Let me have just one!’ and the guest thought he meant an ear, so he ran faster than ever, until he reached home and bolted the door.” By this time, Fern’s eyes are wide. She’s still waiting for more, so I add, “The end.”
Fern grins. “She was pretty clever.”
“So are you. That’s the name of the story. Clever Gretel.”
“I like that one,” she says.
It feels like an eternity before our bodies are no longer crushed together. Before the tide finally begins to go out. By then, the moon has risen to its height in the sky. Another tide survived.
I turn to Tiam, who was just conversing with Ana, behind him. “What happened?”
His face is stone. “There was a large wave on the west side. Ana says we lost twenty. Maybe more.”
“Oh!” I gasp softly. I begin to ask who, but Tiam is talking with someone else.
I exhale a few times, but I can’t stop myself from shaking. Never has a tide been that terrible. Never had I felt so close to being crushed like that. I’m about to step out of my circle when Tiam suddenly turns back to me. “What are you up to now?”
I whirl around and blush, speechless. Truthfully, I’m not sure how to answer the question. Star never told me what I should do. I suppose I am expected for training. Or maybe I’m supposed to be roaming about among the rest of the commoners, eavesdropping. But my legs are wobbling so much that I can barely stand. “I—I don’t know,” I answer.
“I wanted to see if you’d come scavenging again with me. I want to try the east side this time,” he says with a small smile. I know that he sees me shaking, and that smile is for my benefit, to make me feel at ease. “No scribblers on the east side.”
“But...it’s dark,” I say.
“Full moon,” he says, pointing skyward.
“Oh,” I say, feeling dumb. I wonder if backpedaling will make it too obvious that I’m dying to accept his invitation. After all that’s happened in the last formation, I’m still shaking. I don’t want to be alone. Out of everyone on the island, no one can comfort a person as well as Tiam. It scares me to think that right now, I need him. “Well, I guess I could go for a little bit.”
“Hey, good,” he says with a grin.
He climbs down the rope and is waiting for me as I descend the ladder. I have to press my knees together so he can’t see up my dress, even though it’s dark and he isn’t the type to look. The second I jump from the last step, I realize he’s holding out a hand to help me. Clumsily, I fall into it, then into him, and we both stumble backward a little before he catches me. Once again, his face ends up inches from mine. I look away first, wanting to bury my head in the sand.
“Thank you for protecting us today,” I say once we are farther away. “In formation. I was afraid this time we were done for.”
He nods. I know he doesn’t think he did anything special. It’s just what he does.
“Who...who did we lose?” I ask, my voice still shaking.
“Mostly scavengers, a couple fishermen, too. They’re counting the survivors right now. If that’s right, that leaves only about 470 of us.”
I try to breathe normally, but it’s as if a heavy hand is holding me underwater.
He notices, because he says, “Coe. You know as king, I’ll try to think of something. I will. I won’t be like Wallow and just sit there—”
“Is that what you—what people—think about him?”
He looks at me, an odd expression on his face. “Of course.”
; “But Wallow is good,” I protest, although my voice is weak, faltering. “He has kept us safe.”
“You have kept you safe. He’s useless,” he mutters. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
There is a wall I’ve built around myself. Of certainties. Things like the rule of the Wallows. Of Buck Kettlefish. Of a heaven after death. These things, knowing they were there for me when everything else fell away, comforted me. Everything else didn’t matter. Everyone else, I avoided, just as they avoided me. But gradually, that wall has been eroding, much like the platform, and now, as I stare at Tiam, I feel more exposed than ever. “Is that what people say? But the Wallows saved us, so long ago....”
“That was some Wallow a million tides ago. Everyone here says that this Wallow is a do-nothing nobody. If he weren’t already dying, someone would probably try to kill him.”
I gasp. The wall is crumbling, almost as if he’s pulling it down with his bare hands. I shudder, feeling my ankles weaken. “But who’s saying that?”
“Everyone.” He studies me. “When Buck was here, things were different. He respected the king’s rule. And people respected him. So he kept the peace. But lately, the unrest has been growing. And everyone—”
“Everyone? But in assembly—”
“People don’t talk about it in assembly. They know the royals have their spies. But there are whisperings. And everyone—”
“Including you?”
He looks away. “I understand where they’re coming from. Your father knew he had to keep the peace because there was no alternative. But I think even he knew that Wallow was weak, that he doesn’t look out for us.”
I shake my head. “But you need to stop it. I can’t believe this. The princess said the same thing to me, but I didn’t believe it. Because it can’t happen! Chaos will reign, and we’ll—”
“I will stop it. When I become king, I will take care of them. I won’t be like Wallow.” He must see how flustered I am, how my world is crumbling, because he pats the top of my head. “Coe. Calm. Everything will be all right.”
The pat is something my father would have done, and yet when Tiam does it, it sends shivers right down to my toenails. I am glad it’s dark to hide the flush in my cheeks. “How can you say that? Twenty people—”
“I have ideas. Trust me.”
I stare at him, doubtful. We do not trust. But, oh, how I want to. When I look into those eyes, I almost believe that we’ll be safe and live happily ever after, like in one of my fairy tales.
“What are you revealing to me this time?” I say when we’ve walked a few moments in awkward silence.
He cocks his head. “Huh?”
“We’ve never gone scavenging together before, until this morning. The last time we went it was because you were dying to tell someone that you were going to be king. So what’s up now?”
He smiles. “All right. Great. If I’m going to be king, I think I’ve got to stop being such an easy person to figure out.”
“Well, smartest person on the island, and all that.”
“Oh, right.” He laughs, such a mesmerizing laugh that I barely notice when he changes the subject. “So, how was your visit to the castle, really, genius?”
I know there’s something he wants to tell me, something he’s having a hard time with. And a big part of me is frightened of what it could be. Part of me just wants to go on talking with him, laughing, like two friends, forever. So I say, “Interesting. Frightening. I’m not supposed to talk about it outside, though.”
“I know, but I’ve been there, too. So you can tell me.”
He doesn’t have to twist my arm. “It was amazing,” I gush, words bubbling forth like floodwaters. “Just incredible. I never imagined it would look like that. Not in a million tides. I can’t believe that I—that we—are going to be living there.”
He laughs. “You act like it was your first visit to the palace.”
“I told you, I was too young to remember being there before. And guess what? I have my own room, with my own bed. Can you believe that? But I’m a little scared about the ghosts,” I admit.
“Ghosts? That’s a bunch of bunk.”
“Well, I don’t want to wake up to find the Dark Girl standing over me.”
“Dark Girl?” He laughs. “I remember that legend. Haven’t heard it in a while, though. She probably found a nicer place to haunt.”
We walk on for a few more strides, when I say, “Why did Star think I could sew her dresses for her?”
He shrugs. “Why, can’t you?”
“Of course not!” I say. I’m sure I don’t have to show him my stump to get him to understand why. “I mean, I can do just a few stitches to piece my clothes together, but not real sewing. I don’t think anybody on this island can sew anymore.”
He smiles. “Oh. I may have told her that. My mistake.”
“And she also thinks I know everything about the island’s people. That I can be this spy for her. She’s going to throw me off the balcony when she finds out you lied.” I sigh.
“No, she won’t,” he says. Then he turns to me. “Look, I really didn’t need to convince her of anything. She asked me about you first. After I got done talking to the king, she took me aside and asked me what I knew about you, and if you were, as she put it, a good sort.”
“She did? Really?”
“And so I told her you were the worst sort of ocean scum there is, and that even Mutter would make a better lady-in-waiting.”
I narrow my eyes at him until he laughs.
“Come on, Coe. Really. I told her that you were a perfect choice. So what if I embellished some things? The truth is, she had her eye on you from the start. Just do your best.”
Easy for Tiam to say. He’s always excelled at things on his first try. He could probably do any or all of the jobs on the island, so he doesn’t understand a person like me, who is fit for none of them. I bet he could even sew. “Maybe she won’t need any dresses for a while, and I can practice,” I offer weakly, feeling every inch of my lost hand. “But spying... Why did you lie about that?”
He doesn’t answer, just looks at me in a kind, sincere way. In my dreams, there’s desire in the way he looks at me. But in real life, it’s much more sterile. The look says, Because you are pathetic and helpless and wouldn’t last a second on the outer edge of the formation.
“Oh,” I say. I suppose I should be happy that he even cares. It’s more than most would do. Toward the horizon, the castle is straight ahead of us, in the distance, glowing pink in the moonlight. “Star’s very...interesting.”
“I know,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. “She’s always been a little dramatic. Don’t you remember when we’d play together? She’d always pretend to hurt herself whenever she was losing a game. We never finished anything.”
I give him a blank look.
“Okay, okay. You don’t remember,” he says with a laugh. Then his face turns serious. “I promised Wallow that I would look after his daughter when he is gone. That’s what his largest concern is.”
I can tell from the wrinkle above his brow there’s something more, something he’s not telling me. “Okay...” I prompt. That’s when I see a bunch of builders rushing down shore with a good-sized piece of driftwood. They dance excitedly around it before hauling it off toward the platform. “Look at that. That’s a good find.”
“I wish...” He stops, and his face turns even darker. “Coe, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to let you know that they’re starting to build the new ship today.”
“Sure,” I say. I’d expected they’d start any day now. After all, my father has been gone for a season and a half. And they should keep building ships, in case he doesn’t come back. “That’s all right.”
He runs a hand through his long hair so that it sp
reads over his shoulders, something he only does when he’s anxious, which is rare. Then he reaches into his bag and pulls something out. It’s a blue I know well, and it’s more tattered than the last time I saw it, as if it had a fight with a bunch of scribblers. I gasp.
“It’s his, isn’t it?” he asks.
I nod. My father never went anywhere without that blue kerchief. He’d tie it around his neck and use it to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Or he’d pull it over his head to keep the hair out of his eyes. “Where did they find it?”
“It washed ashore today.” He takes my hand and gently pools the fabric into it. It, like everything, is damp. “I thought you should have it.”
“Oh. Thanks,” I say calmly, even though the world’s crashing around me. And to think only a heartbeat ago I’d been having stupid, stupid daydreams that Tiam had asked me to go off with him because I was special to him. When, really, all he wanted to tell me was that everyone who ever cared about me is dead.
“It might not be his, anyway,” he offers, but I know he’s just saying it to make me feel better. Material is hard to come by these days, and another scrap of material that faded sky-blue would probably be impossible to find.
“It’s his,” I answer.
“He may just have lost it. He may still be—”
“You know he isn’t,” I say. My limbs feel numb. My one hand, holding the fabric, doesn’t even feel like part of my body. I don’t think my heart is beating anymore. “Everyone who goes out on Explores never comes back. You know that.”
He says, “But everyone isn’t Buck Kettlefish.”
I know he’s trying to comfort me, but the words bounce off me as if I’m wearing a shell. I just stand there, dumb, as if I’m in a nightmare. Unable to do anything.
“You know,” he says gently, “I never really put too much faith in the Explores until your dad left on his. Because even if an explorer did find a way out, did find civilization somewhere else in the world, there was nothing to get that person to come back to save the rest of us.” He looks up at the sky. “But when your dad went on his Explore, I had this feeling. Like finally, something’s going to happen. And that piece of material doesn’t change my mind. Don’t let it change yours.”
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