Across The Sea (29 page)

Lily took Michael’s hand and he
pulled her into the water with him.

The last of the cave’s hill
sank below surface.

Large air bubbles floated
up.

Lily turned. Mica’s head popped
out of the water behind them.

“Lily…” someone called out.

Lily turned again. It was
Captain Strick.

“It’s all right,” he assured
her.

The waves carried them up high
toward the dark sky and then back down low. Mica was pushed further
away.

Lily swam toward him.

“Mica!” she screamed.

“Lily!” Captain Strick yelled
after her. “We must remain together!”

* * *

Bodin looked up at his wife as
rock showered down around them. Rosalie smiled sadly.

“Keep running,” she said to
him. “Save yourself.”

Bodin shook his head. “I don’t
want to. All the years that I have been on this island, searching…
I now know…” He choked, tears glistening his eyes. “I now know...
it was for you. I was always searching for you.”

“You were searching in the
wrong place.”

“But I’ve found you. I’ve found
you now.”

“We were always with you. We
would never leave you. You just keep pushing us away.”

“We’re together now. I’ll stay
here with you now.”

“Bring them home, Robert. Bring
them back to their families. You cannot abandon them now. You know
this.” She smiled again. She appeared happy this time, as she
finally said, “Be who you truly are.”

Bodin looked up into his wife’s
beautiful face. How sad to have to leave it now. He stood.

BRRAAAAAAAAAAAA
!

The ground shuddered again.

Bodin swung his arms out to
maintain his balance, and ran, the last of Atlantis falling to bits
around him.

* * *

Corallo was gone.

Captain Strick swam toward
Lily. Another wave lifted him high and then down low. He searched
through the heavy rain. He was alone.
Lily
? He saw someone.
Dressed in dark clothing. Their head was down, as if looking into
the sea from the surface. He soon realized who this person was: a
dead English sailor. A few more bodies floated up to the
surface.

But where are the other
survivors
?
Where is Lily
?

“Mica!” he heard someone cry
out. “Mica!”

Lily
.

Captain Strick turned and swam
in the direction he believed he had just heard Lily from.

Another wave lifted him. Up
high, he saw her, alongside Mica, down low.

The wave brought him back down
and lifted Lily and Mica.

As the wave brought Lily back
down, Captain Strick swam up behind her.

“Please Mica,” she pleaded.
“Please keep swimming. Something’ll float up soon.”

The horse is drowning
,
Strick thought.
He’s exhausted himself.

What Michael had not told Lily
was that Mica would not be able to keep swimming for an extended
period of time. It was too tiring for a horse not trained to
swim.

In time
, Strick thought,
it shall be too exhausting for us as well.

Mica’s eyes widened as he
panicked. With all four limbs, he beat against the water.

“Help me!” Lily yelled. Strick
turned to her and saw that she was looking straight into him. “Help
me do something!” She turned away and moved to swim closer to
Mica.

Captain Strick reached out with
one arm and grabbed hold of her.

“Let go!” she screamed.

“His legs are kicking!” Strick
yelled back. “He’ll hurt you!”

“I don’t care!”

Strick pulled her tight against
him. Lily shrieked, “Let go!”

“It’s all right,” the Captain
said, with a quiet voice. “It’s all right. You can’t save
everyone.”

“I made him a promise,” Lily
replied. “I made him a promise that I’d take care of him on the
water.

“Mica!” she cried out. “Mica,
I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Mica.”

* * *

Amongst the waves, Francis could
hear Lily crying. Tears came to his own eyes as he looked at
Michael beside him. “It was all for nothing,” he said. “Eventually,
we’ll all drown. Or freeze. It was all for nothing.”

Michael, with Alianna treading
behind him, put an arm around his little brother and pulled him
close. “It was not all for nothing,” he said, smiling. “I got to
see you again. I never thought that I would ever see you again. It
was a miracle. It was a miracle, Francis. And you created it. From
nothing.”

Through tears, Francis smiled
back.

They heard Mica yelp, and Lily
cry louder.

* * *

Mica swallowed water, and his
head lowered... beneath the surface.

Lily looked away; she could not
bear to see this.

POWOOSHH
!

Water splashed high, as if a
volcano had just erupted from beneath the sea.

Captain Strick looked up and
saw a small ship shoot up bow first from under the water.

The craft landed onto the
surface with another loud splash.

PAWASSSHHHHH
!

Two pairs of greyish white
orbs, six feet in diameter, were attached to either side of this
ship. Her masts were lowered and tied down horizontally. The cabin
door flew up and a towering, broad-shouldered man bolted from
inside. Captain Strick, who had almost allowed himself to feel hope
at the sight of this ship, now felt deep, heavy disappointment.

“Bodin!” he yelled. “The horse
is drowning. Please. If you can. Please do something.”

Without pause, Bodin, with
undue speed, cut away two orbs from the ship.

And dived into the water
himself.

Captain Strick was baffled.
What is he up to?

Bodin’s head popped up from the
water very close to where Mica had just been. Mica’s head soon rose
from the water as well. Two orbs had been fastened to him and he
was now floating. And still full of life.

Bodin pulled on a rope
harnessed to his own body and reached out to Lily with his other
hand. A tall wave lifted them all high.

Captain Strick looked on,
concerned.

Lily did not reach out to
Bodin.

“Please,” Bodin told her, as
the wave brought them back down low. “Trust me.”

Another wave lifted them back
up, and Strick pushed Lily forward with one hand.

Bodin took her in his left arm,
and looked Captain Strick in the eye.

“Hold on to me,” he instructed
Strick, as Lily wrapped her arms around Bodin’s thick neck.

Strick swam closer, and from
behind, placed his hands on Bodin’s shoulders.

Pulling on the harness, Bodin
carried them back toward his ship. Lily saw then that the orbs
keeping Mica afloat were tied to another rope which was secured to
Bodin’s vessel.

Moving Lily to his right arm,
Bodin ascended a rope ladder up the hull of his ship. Captain
Strick climbed up behind him.

Once on deck, Bodin set Lily
down and knelt before her. “When did you last see Francis?” he
asked. There was desperate haste in his voice.

“He was with us when the island
sank,” Lily answered. “He’s still alive.”

Bodin stood, and as he walked
toward the cabin entrance, he whipped his head right, then left,
sweeping the surface of the ocean.

“His brother and the Dream
Finder are also about,” Captain Strick said.

“Francis!” Bodin shouted, so
sudden and loud that it made both Lily and Strick jump.
“Francis!”

Bodin reached into the open
cabin entrance and pulled out a telescope. He put it to his right
eye and looked out at the stormy, dark sea and the heavy rain
fall.

“Francis!” he boomed again.

“Francis!” Lily yelled, also
gleaning the water for her friend.

“Francis!” joined Captain
Strick. “Francis!”

All they saw were high
waves.

“Francis!” Bodin barked again.
“Francis!”

Captain Strick thought Bodin
sounded like a man who was about to fall apart but he yelled on
with him. “Francis!”

Ploshhhhh
.

Strick turned, startled. Bodin
was no longer on deck. He looked down at the water.

He spotted three heads up high
on a wave. Soon a fourth emerged.

Bodin.

* * *

Bodin grabbed onto Francis.

“Everyone!” Bodin shouted.
“Hold on to me!”

Michael, Alianna and Francis
all put their arms around Bodin, and Bodin pulled on the rope of
his harness.

As they reached the ship’s
ladder, Francis grabbed on and climbed ahead. Bodin helped Alianna
take hold of the rope and pushed her up. Captain Strick, Lily and
Francis all grasped onto her and helped her aboard.

Michael boarded next, and
finally, Bodin, his long hair and short beard dripping wet.

Francis looked up at him. “You
decided to come over to our side after all.”

Bodin looked down at him. He
tried to smile, but Francis could see that in the tall man’s
glassy, translucent eyes, Bodin appeared shaken.

Bodin turned, undid a few
knotted ropes and then wound a winch which raised his masts. He
walked to the base of the erect masts and secured them with screws.
He then hoisted his soaked sails.

They sailed off through the
rain and waves.

Bodin, next, pulled Mica in.
Lily stood right behind him in the cockpit.

Francis watched as Mica came up
behind the boat on the floating orbs. Bodin bent down low toward
him.

He grabbed Mica’s reins and
pulled.

Mica put his hooves forward and
jumped, managing to climb aboard into the cockpit.

The rain was but a mist in the
grey sky now and the high waves were gone.

Lily pet Mica on his nose.

“My father once told me that
Robert of Dreighton never truly existed,” someone said behind
Francis.

Francis turned around. He saw
Michael and Captain Strick standing, and Alianna sitting on one of
the side benches.

“He told me that they had
exaggerated the actions of one man,” Captain Strick continued, “to
make England believe that it once again had heroes. Heroes to have
faith in. He said that the real Dreighton had let it all go to his
head and was never the same man again.”

Francis was not so sure but he
thought he could see water in Captain Strick’s eyes.

“I can see now,” Strick added,
“that he lied.”

Francis turned back to Bodin as
Bodin attempted another smile and then rubbed his hand against
Mica’s wet coat, soothing him.

Francis focused on Bodin’s face
then. Bodin did not look so scary or ugly anymore. Perhaps, this
was how, years and years ago, everyone had seen Sir Robert of
Dreighton.

On the way to Alianna’s island,
the island of Alantalee, Captain Strick remained in bed,
recuperating. He told Lily his recuperation was more for his heart
than for his body. He had seen all of his men die, he told her, for
the selfish aims of so few. Kenworth… he had begun to say. He had
known Kenworth since childhood… His eyes watered when he spoke this
and Lily, who had been playing games with Francis and Michael on
deck, knelt at the side of his bed and hugged him.

When they arrived to Alantalee,
many of the men on the island waited for them on the dock with
swords and crossbows, ready to kill anyone in sight. They raised
their weapons as they caught sight of Bodin behind the wheel. The
Dream Finder soon stepped out on deck and raised her arms.

“Everyone aboard is good,” she
told the men, who were elated to see her. “They are only here to
make certain that I am returned safely.”

All the children from the
island came rushing onto the dock. “Alianna! Alianna!” they all
cried.

Several men helped Alianna
disembark as she stretched out her arms toward all the children
gathering around her.

Francis disembarked next. The
short man with the lofty, fuzzy hair and wild, bushy beard was
there to help him.

“You kept your promise,” he
said. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” another man added,
bowing.

As Francis walked down the dock
behind Alianna, all the men said thank you, including the proud
acrobat who had chased after Ratwell the day Alianna had been
taken.

The islanders invited them all
to stay for a few days to replenish and rest. Bodin never left his
ship that first night. The next morning, when Francis and Lily
walked down to the dock to bid him good morning, the ship was gone.
Francis felt a scourge of disappointment. And a deep sadness.
Later, Michael told him that it was better this way, for once they
returned to England, if Bodin had remained with them, he would have
been placed under arrest.

The rest of their days on the
island were very happy. The weather was beautiful and Francis and
his brother and friends were all treated as heroes. After two days,
Captain Strick felt better. He sat outside the small home where he
was staying and watched as Lily rode Mica about the village. It
made him smile to see her so happy, so charged with vitality. He
had seen too much death and destruction as of late. Seeing Lily
still the same, still the source of such fire, made him feel hope
again.

All of them enjoyed many
performances from the acrobats and singers and musicians. The
acrobats even took some time in the afternoons to teach Francis and
Lily some tricks. Francis, Lily and Michael all made many new
friends.

On the fifth day, the HMS York,
a Royal Navy ship, sailed in, and the master aboard, Captain
Bongard, listened to their stories with wide-eyed shock. Francis,
teary-eyed, bid goodbye to Alianna as she hugged him close and then
he, along with Michael, Lily, Captain Strick and Mica all boarded
the HMS York to be returned home to England.

* * *

In London, all four were whisked
away to Admiral Strick’s office. Admiral Strick, a silver-haired
man commanding the frame of a blue blooded warrior, appeared quite
stern to Lily. She was shocked at how unaffected he seemed at
seeing his son alive and well. They were seated at a long table
with many other senior officials and politicians and asked many
questions. The men all wanted to know the fate of the Acadae. None
of the survivors at the table knew anything for certain, although
Michael and Captain Strick stated that they had believed Bodin when
he had told them that he had let the Acadae sink along with the
rest of Atlantis. Admiral Strick squinted with deep suspicion at
many of their responses. All the officials and politicians at the
table were very keen for clues as to the present whereabouts of
Bodin. At the end of the meeting, Admiral Strick informed Michael
that he was being placed under arrest for suspicion that he had
absconded with the Acadae for his “clandestine” group, The
Watermark.