Fathom

by Cherie Priest

  The cabin was only one room, with no privy and no sink, and it was dusty from disuse or neglect. Thin gauze curtains hung on either side of both windows. They weren’t closed, though, so for what little protection they might provide, Nia shut them. The material was scratchy and fine; she thought it might be mosquito netting.

  “I need . . .” She scanned the room, and her eyes settled on Sam. “I need to find a pump. I need to wash off; I can’t stand this.”

  “But we’re supposed to stay away from the water.”

  “We’re supposed to stay away from bodies of water,” she clarified, having absolutely no idea if she was telling the truth.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” When she moved, the edges of the remaining flakes dug into her skin and scraped it, scratched it, and attempted to pierce it. “There’ll be an outhouse somewhere around here, and there ought to be a pump, too. They have to get fresh water to the campgrounds somehow.”

  Sam was on the verge of offering to help her look, but she headed him off at the pass.

  “Stay here. It’s dark, and you don’t see as well as I do. Stay here so I’ll know where to find you when the . . . when, you know. When he catches up to us.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “But as you’ve already said, you don’t know where we are and you don’t know what’s going on. You don’t even know if you’re necessary, so if I were you, I’d hold my horses and clam up. If you really want to help”—and she knew that he did—“you can look around and see if you can find me some shoes. Or even some pants.”

  “Shoes?”

  “And pants. Or just pants. I don’t know what the odds are that you’ll turn anything up, but I’d appreciate it if you’d see what you can find.”

  “I’ll look around. And you’re not going very far?” It came out sounding afraid, which Sam didn’t like very much. He hated feeling like a small child whose mother was threatening to leave.

  “Not far, no. It can’t be far.” She held her nose up and sniffed, first left, then right. “The outhouse is back that way, I think. No one’s used it for a while, but it’s back over there. The pump will probably be near it.”

  “If you’re such a bloodhound, keep your nose open for the sulfur.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Sam pushed his glasses back up his nose and sat down on the edge of a squeaky cot. “Your nose is pretty good, and the fresh water here smells like rotten eggs. The water pump will reek of it.”

  Nia went back out the front door and drew it shut behind her, even though it didn’t lock and it provided only the barest, most limited protection from any element, real or imagined. She pushed the screen door shut as well. It squealed on a rusty metal hinge and slapped against the frame.

  She held still and listened hard, but heard no response from the night.

  Wet Away from the Water

  Crickets sang and small nocturnal things scampered to and fro beneath the canopy. A light breeze puffed intermittently from the ocean, bringing air that was sharp with salt and a few degrees cooler than the warm, heavy layer of atmosphere that clung close to the ground.

  And yes, there was a faint yellow pall around the edge of the air currents.

  Nia smelled the brown, bitter taste of eggs and fire, and she knew that the water pump was nearby. She found the pump with her nose, and then her hands. She felt her way down the corroded metal lever and, remembering not to move with too much force, she pried it up and pushed it back down.

  A whooshing gasp of damp, smelly air squeezed out.

  Again, she cranked the handle, and a third and fourth time before anything but old gases flowed.

  The water first slipped out in a trickle, then a stream. And then, if she kept one arm moving, it came out in a steadier gush. The contents of the well pooled around her ankles, soaking and sinking them. There wasn’t any soap, but Nia was willing to take what she could get—and if that meant she had nothing to wash with, then she’d make do. Now that she knew the well wasn’t dry, she could afford to get muddy.

  She pulled off the too-big man’s shirt and sat down, in the dark and on the ground, in the pond of stinking water.

  It didn’t fill up too swiftly, because the ground was more sand than dirt and it drained liquid away almost as soon as it could collect; but the longer Nia pumped, the more the water gathered and the deeper her improvised tub became—until there were inches enough to soak all the hair between her legs and all the stretches of untouched, shell-covered skin along her thighs. The added damp didn’t dissolve the remaining debris, but it helped to loosen it. When she picked at it, she noticed that some of her fingernails were impossibly long; they had grown until they were almost as long as her fingers, but they’d curled inside the stone cocoon and molded themselves to the curve of her hands.

  She bit them at the corners until they broke, and while she pumped with one hand, she filed the other’s claws against the rust-speckled pump until the edges were no longer so sharp that they could gut a fish. She alternated hands, continued to pump, and the puddle held steady enough to dip her. The rhythmic splash of the sputtering crank added its melody to the insects, the frogs, and the night birds.

  Her hair was beyond hope. She’d never had the nerve to cut it off before, but now the time might be nigh. Was such a style still popular? Did women still crop their hair tightly against their heads and wear it like men sometimes?

  As she slipped the scarf off her head and held the rocky, tangled locks under the stream, the bits and pieces of binding gunk washed free. Much like her nails, her hair had been growing all the while. And with nowhere to go, it had folded back upon itself.

  It was thick between her fingers, and knotty. She couldn’t comb her way through it with her hands, because it had become too dense. Even while wet, its texture made her think of the black men who came from the islands. Sometimes her grandmother had hired them to work the orchards, and she’d seen them there—climbing up ladders in their thin cotton pants, their exposed skin dark and shiny with sweat. Some of them shaved their heads until nothing remained but a shadow; and some let it grow long and kinked, rolled into natty tendrils that looked like the roots of a tree, or like cords of braided rope.

  That’s what it felt like, when she crushed a fistful of hair in her palm. It felt springy and strong, and the color was strange too—redder, golder, and even whiter, in strips and streaks, than it had been before.

  She rinsed all the hair she could, and when the worst of the dust had been cleaned away, she did her best to braid her mane back out of her face. The braid sat heavy and too thick down her back. Its ends dangled in the water around her hips.

  A bright spark of white and warmth flicked to life at the edge of her vision. She turned to see what it was and saw that Sam had found a lantern. The small room with the squeaky cot and the dingy curtains leaked light from its windows, but it was a pleasant, unobtrusive light.

  She heard the cot springs groan again, and she listened to the scraping patter of Sam’s feet as he moved about the cabin, opening drawers and pushing boxes.

  She leaned forward, pressing into the arm that was still mechanically moving up and down, her elbow mimicking the joint of the pump. With her free hand, she began to pick and pull stray pieces of shell and strips of rock out of the curled bush of hair that sagged heavily against her inner, upper thigh.

  It hurt, but not so badly that she stopped. She only wished for a pair of scissors or a razor to make the cleanup faster. It would have been wonderful to shave the last of the peeling mineral veneer off her skin, out of her hair. She would have done almost anything for a bar of soap or a rag, but all she had was an unreliable, ill-smelling stream of forcibly pumped groundwater.

  At last she felt like she’d done everything she could possibly do. She gave the lever another series of insistent jerks and built up enough water pressure to rinse herself off, then stood up. Her toes wormed into the milk-white puddle bottom, and she thought that mayb
e she didn’t need shoes so badly after all.

  The longer her skin was exposed, the firmer it grew and the less easily marred it became. When she noticed this, she felt a pang of fear that maybe she was returning to her statue-stiff state. But the skin still flexed when she commanded it. Her arms and legs and neck and waist twisted and bent smoothly without resistance or discomfort.

  She undid the loose braid that restrained her hair and let it fall in a wild spray, springy and ropy and wet. She shook her head and splattered the area around herself with drizzle, then stood up and retrieved her shirt. Rinsing and wringing, she squeezed out the worst of the damp and dusty dirt.

  With a flip of her arms, she billowed the shirt open and crawled back into it, even though it was wet enough to cling immodestly. It would dry. And there wasn’t anything else to wear, anyway.

  It was hard to decide that she didn’t care, because from leftover mortal habit she certainly did care. But caring and feeling the need to act were not the same thing.

  An idle, amused thought slipped quickly through her head. My mother would be embarrassed to death if she saw me like this. And then she went on to involuntarily wonder about her mother. She also thought about Aunt Marjorie, who had supposedly gone to live there with her mother, at the edge of the old grove outside Tallahassee.

  How long had it been since she’d seen them?

  Had they given her up for dead?

  Perhaps not. Perhaps up north in the shade and scent of the pretty white blossoms that sprouted on the knobby-limbed trees, her mother and aunt had held out hope on her grandmother’s farm. They might have been waiting all this time.

  Or they might not have.

  People who live their lives near water are often forced to come to terms with it—that sad fact that there aren’t always bodies to bury, and there aren’t always traces left to commemorate. Even if they never knew that Nia had rushed out into the tide . . .

  And she could feel it again, in terrible memory, the bath-warm water of the Gulf foaming up around her ankles as she ran headlong into the surf, into the water where Bernice didn’t know how to move herself.

  If they’d searched the island and turned up nothing from sandy shore to shore, they must have concluded that the ocean had taken her. And it is rare that the ocean returns its prizes.

  But sometimes things too firm to decay and too tough to be nibbled by fish will sink, and sometimes the tides will push them back out, regurgitating them the same way that an owl or a snake will reject the bones, shells, and spurs of the things it swallows.

  “So that’s me, then,” she said to herself. “Rejected, and unable to decay.”

  Her own voice stopped her. “Decay,” she said again, and there was meaning in the word that she couldn’t put her finger on. It was packed with significance—though she couldn’t tell precisely how.

  “Yes?”

  She jumped, creating a little splash in the puddle—which was almost gone. The soil that was more sand than dirt drank it up fast, and sucked it down in a filtering spiral, down to the rock below.

  “What? Oh, it’s you.”

  “It’s me.” The creature was standing beside the pump. It was damp in a comfortable way, like it enjoyed being wet for all it hated the water and the things that lived within it.

  “Are we—” She fumbled for the sentiment. “—safe?”

  “Safe?” It laughed, and chunks of debris fluttered down into the disappearing water. “Never. Not under any circumstances, ever again—if ever we were before. But for now, I think, we’re all right enough. The water witch has other problems to pursue. She is not looking our way, which is the best we can hope for. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Fine? Is that all?” It fashioned its leafy lips into something close to a leer. “I would hope that you’re significantly better than fine. You left Samuel in a cabin?”

  Nia was getting used to the creature’s random and obstinate shifts in conversation, so she ran with the flow of it and said, “Yes, where the light is. I don’t know if that’s safe or not, but as you just said yourself, we’re all right enough. And, bless his heart, the man can’t see in the dark.”

  “But you can?”

  “Better than he does. You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” it asked.

  “What I can do. You made me, and you have no idea.”

  It began to walk toward the cabin, and Nia joined its long-legged stride. “I didn’t make you. I modified you. I cannot create. I can only transform.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re back,” Sam observed almost happily. “Hey, Nia, I found some shoes.” Indeed, he lifted up a pair of work boots that were brown and rough, but sound. “They’re a man’s pair, but they aren’t very big. They were under the cot here, and . . .” And he faltered, trying not to notice that she was naked underneath her wet white shirt.

  “Thank you,” she said. She took the shoes and upended them, shaking them to see if anything would scatter out. She pulled back their tongues, loosening their laces, and wormed her feet down inside—where she found a warm flannel lining that was not too badly weathered or worn. The warmth of them she could have lived without, but the softness was pleasant, and it made her feel more civilized, somehow, to cover her bare feet.

  While Nia pushed her toes into position and tied the laces, Sam was sitting on the far end of the cot and trying not to look at the way she was shaped beneath the clingy wet fabric. It was already beginning to dry, but it was not so dried yet that the darker tips, angles, curves, and crevices were not readily apparent.

  To distract himself, Sam turned to the creature and asked it a question. “So tell me, um, Mister. What do we call you?”

  It turned the idea over in its head, considering a response but seemingly incapable of deciding on one.

  “Don’t you have a name?” Sam pressed. “Anything we could attach to you for simple communication purposes? She’s Nia, short for something longer; and I’m Sam, short for Samuel. But who are you?”

  “You bandy those names about too casually, Samuel. But it’s natural for you. A title does not bind you the way it binds some others. Other kinds,” it clarified. “I did have a name once, but I wore it as a title . . . and that name was stripped from me. By the time the first men first set ink to paper with their very first quills and sticks, I had already been exiled and unnamed.

  “So I began again. I scavenged, combing the vacant and unwanted areas between the points of power. I sought a new purpose and a new authority; I assumed a role that no one else wanted. Even if any of them had been aware that such a role existed, no one would have seen the value in it.”

  It was talking to itself more than to them. It scarcely seemed aware that they were still there, still listening, still waiting for an answer.

  “But there is power in the leavings of life, in the castoff of cells and the discarded refuse of growth. Something must feed it. And when it dies, something must break it down, something must cycle it again.” It met Nia’s eyes. “Or preserve it against that cycle.”

  “Decay,” she said. It was the same word that had earlier stuck in her mouth. “That’s what you’re talking about.”

  “Decay. The breaking down of things that once grew up. What could rise anew if the corpses of the old things did not nourish them? So, yes, you could call me Decay and you’d be correct. I break down, or I can prevent the breaking down. This is where I’ve found my niche, and recovered my strength.”

  It settled down lower, spreading its legs against the stones of the tiny hearth. It shrugged its massive shoulders and set its hands on either side of itself, leaning forward in a pose that was meant to convince and assure.

  “There is no more Death,” it declared. “Death as a task and title was undone, and its mechanisms were given to the elements. It was spread across the fire, the water, the force of the earth’s pull, and the passing of time. It was given away to the dominion of
others, and its own dominion was disbanded. But this left . . . gaps. It left possibilities, even as I felt that all possibilities had been removed.”

  Nia thought she understood, but the enormity of it choked her throat. This creature that called itself Decay had been demoted . . . from Death? She wasn’t sure where to begin her frantic wondering, so she listened instead, and hoped to hear something less heavy and hard to fathom.

  “But,” Sam pushed, “what are we supposed to call you? Have you no name? Nothing at all that we could use to mention you, or simply discuss you?”

  It nodded slowly and spoke without any hurry.

  “If I must give you a name . . . if only to close the question . . .” It was hunting for something, left or lost deep in its memory. “A long time ago, in this very place, there were primitives of your breed. They glimpsed me, and they invented stories to account for me. They called me—” And it emitted a string of sounds that were beyond Nia’s or Sam’s capacity to pronounce. “I believe it meant, He Who Feasts upon the Moss Graves.”

  At the end of this proclamation, silence filled the dimly lit cabin while Nia and Sam each tried to find a way to condense the small sentence into something that would fit in their mouths.

  “Moss . . .” Nia said. “Moss-feaster?”

  The creature visibly brightened, insomuch as a thing made from the rotting forest floor can do so. “Mossfeaster. Yes. You have your name now. Call me that word as you like, and I will answer to it.”

  Sam made a dubious face. “Is that a promise?”

  “It’s more like a prediction. Now,” it said, climbing to its feet and stretching to a height that almost hit the crossbeams of the ceiling. “Is there anything else we can take from this place? Anything else you might require?”

  “I’m thirsty,” Sam said.

  “There’s a pump out back,” Nia told him. “But otherwise, I think we’re finished here . . . if you’re finished here.”

  “Oh yes,” it said, stomping toward the door. “I needed nothing in the first place. The rest was for you, and for him. But now we need to move. We need to push ourselves farther, away from water.”