Storm-Wake by Lucy Christopher
Then—after—he could give her his Birthday Surprise. He could say it to her as they walked, tell what he had found in the rocks far away. Then, soon, he would show it to her real.
He slunk to the door. Outside was black and star-full. Mid-night. Cold and bitey. The weather was gnawing at his skin too, like another pissin’ weaselmouse. The recent days been getting colder, colder than Cal had known. He spat. Something was turning the place rotten and pinched-tight.
But there was a hook in him. He felt it, in his chest. Leading him. Could not fight a hook like that.
He clambered down the hill. At Big Hut, he paused. Should he get her? When Moss was by sea at night, her eyes shone back the moon. She still laughed when her feet found water.
But the Pa was making noises like the growlings of wild dogs—dream, dreaming—he was deep in. Cal had seen him yesterday, pushing petals past his lips. The Pa had not thought anyone were watching. But Cal knew. Cal always knew. Cal thought of Moss beside the Pa, but only enough to imagine her down-soft skin the color of damp sand, and the smooth-cool of it. Her leaf-green eyes and her dark mess of hair.
Then he was gone again, lumbering on, into that cold darkness on silent, silent, quick webbed toes. He went for the cove, the sea.
He loped ’cross sand, slithered over slick rocks to get closer to the water. Was so black tonight, pitlike black, endless black. But … there was something there, on its surface, far out on that horizon line. Something … flickering. Like that flickering at the edge of his eyes. Like the image in the dreamings.
Dark water.
A shape.
Something in the waves.
Something in their waves.
Out there. Flickering. Solid. Then flickering.
Almost like …
Land?
Could it be?
Another island, like this?
Come back?
He’d heard Moss and the Pa tell the stories, had read Pa’s book. But for long time now he did not think Pa’s Experiment was anything more than a man throwing flowers to the wind.
The hook inside dug deeper, forced him to stay and squint at waves. Each time he thought he had it, the shape disappeared. Was it land? Or just treasure on tides?
His toes gripped round the rocks and he waited. Concentrated. He licked his lips, tasted salt in the air, and … something else. Earth? Sweetness? He shook his head to get a clear nose on it. Smelled harder. Something was out there, sure.
But the pain!
Again, he placed his fingertips to his head, as if to hold the thoughts in—or now, maybe, as if to tease them out. There were images, coming at him—memories from his dreamings. If he could hold these thoughts and see them … He shut his eyes, dug his toes into knife-rocks until he felt that pain and knew it was real.
When he had the courage for it, he pulled at the images, in the way he pulled fish from the nets. Slow-careful. So as not to damage them. So as to keep them whole and beautiful in their scales, glinting. And there—another image. Hiding firm in his brain. A memory.
He’d dreamt of a human, darker than Pa and darker than Moss. Dark like him. A stalker to his brain. A watcher. With mind’s eye, he saw.
Then Cal felt it—something in his hand. Skin. It was not the way Moss’s hand felt. This new hand were pulling him away.
Cal opened his eyes, looked down. There was nothing—no hand in his. He shook his head, making his vision dance. Could he be walking in sleep? Again, he dug toes hard on rocks beneath—this was where he was. In the cove. Nighttime. This was real.
But when he shut his eyes again, he felt it. A sort of … hand. In his. Pulling him to the ocean. Pulling him beyond. And this time, a sound. Whispers. They came at him in a rush of hissing.
Not sounds he knew, but they felt known … still.
He curled his tongue to copy. Then opened his eyes quick.
And—there—again.
Dark water.
A shape.
Something in the waves.
Out there. Flickering. Solid. Then flickering.
Almost like …
Land.
Right there. He had seen it.
He turned fast for Moss.
Moss sat up fast, though not so fast as to wake up sleeping Pa beside her. It came again—the shriek of a gull. Once. Twice.
At this time of night?
She crawled across the bed and slid out from the coverings, avoiding poking the dogs: They would only growl. She needn’t worry; Pa was too deep in fever dream, and nightmarish with it, to wake easy. She noted the sweat on his wrinkled brow, saw how his arms flailed: Did Pa ever dream soft anymore? Perhaps it was the oysters from earlier, causing this night-stirring. She, too, felt paining in her stomach. They had been nice, though: those fifteen oyster shells across the sand in a line, each to mark her new year. Earlier, she’d felt guilty that she had not left Cal one.
“He’s not here, so what does it matter?” Pa had said. “He can find his own, anyway. You don’t need to mother him all the time.”
Perhaps, with this tummy-paining now, leaving no oysters for Cal was a blessing.
Pa had carved her a knife out of flint and given it as a present. He had given her fifteen bird-beak kisses to the top of her head.
Now was Cal’s turn to give. It would be just like him to wait ’til Pa was sleeping. To wait ’til dark.
Moss listened to the snuffle of Pa snoring, and to a soft growl by Adder because she’d been woken by it. The shriek came again. It was more urgent now, like there was a gull about to batter the very hut down with its beak. From the beddings, Adder raised her head.
“Quiet, girl,” Moss told her young dog, warning her with her eyes.
They both knew there was only one creature making that shriek outside, and it was not any sort of bird. Pa snored louder, Adder grumbled harder. As Moss picked up the flint knife and tucked it into her clothing, she thought of Cal’s hut up the hill and how she could sleep there instead; how one night, soon, she might, curled tight to Cal like she used to be. Yin-yanged.
Last year, Cal’s birthday present to her had been a perfect-round, fat lizard’s egg. The year before, it had been the knowledge of where the wild dogs lived. And the year before that, a red ribbon found on the tide, she’d tied that around her wrist. Each year as he’d given, Cal had grinned like the sea under moonlight—silver-sharp—knowing that she liked his gift best.
Moss tiptoed to the door, throwing on a rabbit-pelt covering before opening it a crack. Cal’s eyes were glinting, level with hers. Even in the tiny space between door and wall, Moss saw the gold in them.
“Well, what is it?” she said. “Pa’s in dreaming, and you’re making a racket.”
She saw his gold-flecked eyes roll then.
“’Course he is,” Cal said soft, the lisp of his words on his lips.
He waited for her to open the door some more. She placed her hands on her hips. When he didn’t speak, she prompted him.
“Is this my birthday surprise? Being woken in the middle of the night to stare at your fish features?”
She was smiling at him, teasing him. He frowned before he shook his head.
“Birthday Surprise coming still. Promise. But this … is something else. New surprise. In water. In waves. Bigger.”
She opened the door wider. “Wash-up, then? Storm treasure?”
She checked the sky for clouds. Cal was gone before answering. Already, Moss was searching for boots, for skirts to go over sleepwear. They’d not had wash-up for many moons, supplies of all sorts were running short: They needed this badly. But the weather wasn’t moody enough for wash-up, was it?
She called soft to Adder, who reluctant-slow stepped from the bed, stretching out one leg at a time as she made her lazy path to Moss. Yawning, she butted her head against Moss’s legs.
“Come on, you’re not too tired to go running in moonlight, not too old like your ma.” Moss rubbed her dog’s silky ears. “Come on, my wild dog girl.”
“You’re not allowed to get old,” she told Adder, lifting her dark ear to whisper the words inside. Moss lifted her dog’s white ear to add, “Eat stormflowers! Run! Have babies at least!”
Adder licked her full across the face, her breath like dead mice. She stared back, steady as a challenge: There’d be no babies for her. Adder would be the only baby dog in their hut, even if she were a full-grown one.
“Well, Jess ain’t having any more,” Moss said. “And if she did, you’d only eat them again. Wild bad girl!”
Moss pulled on Pa’s old boots, stuffed with rags at the toes. She stepped out from the hut and closed it quiet-quiet-quiet behind her. She found Cal leaning against a tree, over behind the still-smoking fire pit, his dark, shaggy hair falling over his face. Perhaps she should cut it for him: It was as long as when Cal had been a Small Thing. Longer than the day he’d washed up.
Aster snorted, ghost-pale in the shadows.
Moss came to the horse and placed a hand against her. As always, Aster’s warm breath smelled like flowers. When she snorted, sparkle-air hung before her. “Didn’t see you giving me any birthday surprises,” she whispered. “Though I bet you know of some. Bet you know every spot where the flowers grow sweetest.”
Aster shifted from her touch. Moss looked away from her big, knowing eyes, found Cal’s eyes instead.
“This better be good,” she warned him. “It’s cold tonight.” She stuck her hand out for his, like how they’d walked as Small Things. He hesitated, frowning at her fingers.
“If you’re looking to see if I’ve cleaned my nails,” she began, “you’ll be looking awhile.”
Cal grinned and took her hand easy then. Like Small Things. Like always. She felt his fingers interlace with hers and the shock of his cold webbings against her knuckles. His hand was bigger than hers now. Weren’t they both once the same size? Wasn’t he once smaller?
“You will not believe,” he said, quiet. “Maybe the Experiment worked. All these moons he been right.”
“What are you meaning?”
“Wait-see.”
Adder was already racing ahead, spinning in circles and chasing things invisible. They followed her, leaving Aster where she always seemed most happy: closest to Pa. As they walked, Moss looked over at their cove—the fingernail of sand that was their beach, the foaming sea at its edge. There was a wind, pulling and pushing them, harder than she’d expected. Was it enough to draw in treasure? Cal yanked on her hand.
“Come on. Go fast now.”
They ran down the trodden grass path, with Adder spinning and racing around them. They clink-clinked over the pebblestones at the start of the cove, skittered over the seaweedy rocks, then soft-footed onto the damp sand before the sea. At the shoreline, Moss took off Pa’s boots, tied them by the laces, and hung them around her neck. She let the cold, dark water nip her feet. The sand was cold too, but she dug her toes into it all the same, never could help herself. She looked across, expecting to find Cal grinning at her, but he was still as he stood, looking at the far-water.
“You not see?” he said. “Out there?”
He unclasped her hand and took her head between his fingers, moving it to look in the same direction he’d been looking.
“What you found?”
“Look harder. Out near the line. Far.” Again, he pressed his fingers to her head until she moved.
Moss looked. There was nothing but sea and black and moonlight; Cal’s cold fingers on her neck behind her ears. A shiver was starting from those fingers and winding down her spine.
“You’re freezing me,” she said, pulling away. “Some surprise!”
Cal frowned harder, shoulders rolling forward. “Told you, this is not your proper birthday surprise. This is new one … better.”
He was moody Cal now. She reached for his hand again, but he kept it for himself.
“You really not see?” Cal said, soft.
Moss scanned the water, the shore. No storm treasure anywhere. She watched the silver water at the tips of the waves, looking for changes, just as she had on the day Aster and Cal had come.
“What am I meant to be seeing?” When Cal did not answer, she prodded him. “Come on, what?”
He coiled away. Rubbed fingertips to the sides of his head like he did when he was hard-thinking. “Dark shape in water. Big!”
Again, Moss squinted at Cal, but his eyes weren’t glassy, not drowsy from too much sleep. He was seeing clear.
“Maybe your eyes are better at looking?”
Cal rasped a laugh. “Had not thought of that. We get closer, then. Rocky Point.”
“Now?”
He nodded. “There you’ll see far out.”
“The water will be cold.”
Cal shrugged. “I can make fire after. Warm you.”
Cal was pushing her with his eyes. She loved his fires best, and he knew it. He could even get them going with damp wood in a storm, had a kind of magic like that.
“What makes you so brave now?” This time when she reached for his hand, he took it. She rubbed at a scar on his skin, tracing his tattoo scale pattern not even from looking.
Cal watched the ocean, considering. “Dark shape may be gone by day. Besides …” He looked at her sideways. “You will like.”
“Then tell me what this is before we get ourselves so cold!”
“Land.” Cal said the word so quiet that Moss was not sure, at first, if he’d spoken at all. He nodded at her, slow.
Moss stepped to him. “You see … what?”
“Dark shape. Out in the waves. Land.”
“Where?”
Again, Moss squinted at the horizon. She checked the tidemark to see if that had fallen back like Pa said would happen when the floods began to go. Nothing looked any different.
“Pa has not said anything … And he would know!”
Cal shrugged. “Maybe it comes back. Maybe is time.”
“You are dreaming, Cal. Trying to tease me.”
He pulled on her hand. “I see.”
Still, though, he paused at water’s edge before dipping toes in. She felt trembling in his hand. Still not too brave with the water then.
“If I am wrong, I find elvers for you each night,” he said.
Moss grinned. Cal knew elvers were her favorite snackling, even better than the sweetberry fruits at the base of the volcano.
Adder was already chest deep, tongue lolling with its tip in the sea; she lapped at salt water, then spat it out.
Moss took Pa’s boots from around her neck and placed them on the sand. “You have to promise something else. Two something elses.”
He nodded.
“You can’t change. Can’t merge back to water, or fish, or whatever it was you were before you came. You stay here with me, as Callan.”
He stood very still as he looked at her. “Don’t know how to change like that.”
And she knew this, but it was night, after all, and darkness was tricksy. Darkness was when the lizards roamed wide, and when stormflower scent was sweetest. It was often darkness when storms came.
Again, her fingers were running across the scars on his hand, remembering how she had tried teaching him to swim that first summer, and how he had trembled too hard to learn. She loosened her rabbit-pelt covering and dropped it on Pa’s boots.
“You sure? All the way to the Point?”
“’Til you see.”
The cold against her calves made her gasp, but soon the water wrapped her up, gave her that second skin she loved. Cal only paused a moment before stepping in after. Moss looked to the black ocean. Was Cal making this up? On days when Pa was feasted-drowsy on stormflowers, or had drunk palm wine ’til his cheeks went red, he’d say that Ca
As she waded out—her skin already numb and care-free—she kept looking for the land. If it had come, maybe Pa would smile like he used to. Maybe they would even … leave? Was that full-possible now, after so long?
Soon, the water went moon-full, shining silver to their faces. Adder’s seal-slick head was beside her, proper paddling dog, panting from cold. Moss called over her shoulder.
“What does this land look like?”
“It comes up and it goes down. It … flickers.”
“That doesn’t sound like land.”
Cal shrugged. “Maybe is something else.”
Moss moved faster then, near-swimming. She didn’t want what Cal had seen to be something else. Land, more than anything, might shake Pa from Blackness.
Cal caught her up, laced his hand tight in hers.
Moss shivered, and not from the cold of the water. She thought of Cal falling back, disappearing in a tide. She remembered when they both near-drowned.
“We rest here,” she said, pointing at a rock jutting from the water—the beginning of Rocky Point.
They scrambled up, Cal only letting go of her hand when he was secured tight, grasping the stone. Moss pulled Adder from the waves and held her on her lap, even though she was too big, and wet, and her legs draped everywhere. On the rock, Moss was warmer. Even here in sea, at night, these rocks stored the heat of the volcano. She brushed the back of her hand against the petals of a tiny stormflower, growing even there; felt it zing her skin. Cal wriggled closer, sapping her warmth.
“Follow where my eyes go.” Again, Cal pressed his cool fingers against her cheeks, moving her stare.
She leaned back into him, sharing body heat. And—there!—just for a moment … had she seen it? Was there something that had flickered? Just at the edge of her vision. Solid, then gone. If she did not turn her head too fast …