Sydney nods. “It’s depressing even for me. Being your kin and all…”
Captain scowls at her. She stops.
“We care. That’s why we volunteer for the boat runs,” Danny says.
Jesse says nothing. He does not even look in my direction.
Danny’s ‘boat runs’ repeats in my mind while I visualize the empty platform. “The platform is for…
survivors
?”
Captain clasps my hands. “How much do you know about those who go missing?”
My brain slows. “They cut out their gills and are taken away.”
“They are taken to the platform. We sail out each week, and on the bad weeks, pick up your kin.” Captain squeezes my hands. “We try our best to save them.”
I hear the implied meaning in his words: We
try
, but do not always succeed. “You take them to the Land of the Black Sand?”
Captain nods. “There’s a colony set up there—”
“I want to go. You need to take me.”
He pauses. “Not everybody is the same, li’l mermaid. I don’t want to shock you before you’re fully recovered.”
Jesse speaks. “We take her. Today.”
Captain rubs his chin. “What if—”
“If you don’t want to come, that’s fine, but I’m taking her. Today.” Jesse adds, “The not knowing must be the worst. You can’t silence your worries.”
He understands.
“I’m in,” Danny says.
“Chey’s going to need support if the news is bad.” Sydney looks over at me. “I’m in, too.”
“Rachel’s never going to let us take the boat without a big ol’ community meeting. You’ll be lucky to leave by Friday,” Captain warns.
“So we go by truck. We don’t even return home,” Jesse proposes.
“Take the road to the Black Sands?” Danny’s eyes widen. “Are you crazy?”
Captain is silent for a long moment. “Danny and Sydney, throw our supplies in the hotel here, and fill up the back with anything they might need at the colony.” He shakes his head. “Li’l mermaid, you’re in for a heck of a ride.”
*
In the hotel, Jesse asks me to follow him. He leads the way up the stairs, to the balcony where we sat last night. He pulls out a chair for me, then sits next to me.
All we hear is the sound of the waves crashing. I wonder how much time passes; it is so hard to tell without the hues of the water to guide me.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says, staring down at his knees.
I am quiet, too. “Why?”
“Everyone we pull from the water is… so fragile. The sunlight takes time to work. Captain warned I might push you over the edge if I told you too much.” Jesse stares into my eyes. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
The feelings of betrayal, so strong a few minutes ago, dissipate into the salt-tinged air. The secrets of protectiveness differ from the outright deceit of the Authority. The former comes out of care—misguided, but care all the same; the latter forms from apathy toward others—complete disregard for the community wellbeing.
It seems important to repeat the words I said to Haku this morning. “I forgive you.” But I add, “No secrets anymore. You need to tell me everything.”
“I will.” Jesse holds me and runs his fingers through my braids. “No matter what you see at the Black Sands, I’ll help you through it.”
*
The road to the Land of the Black Sand twists and turns endlessly. We have been bumping along for hours. The views are beautiful: cliff-top views of the ocean; waterfalls around every turn; lush plants in every hue of green. The road itself is nauseating; large sections lay cracked and, even worse, missing.
Finally, Captain pulls over. “Road’s completely gone ahead. We hike in from here.”
We take a moment to pull on backpacks, heavy with supplies. Danny leads the way, and Captain trails at the end of our line. We walk silently.
After we turn a curve, an enormous tree appears alongside the overgrown trail. It reaches high in the sky, waving its branches around. Rather than having one solid trunk, hundreds of woody trunks weave and grow around the center.
“A banyan,” Captain says. “One of the last left on the island.”
Why are none named Banyan under the waters? How did our ancestors neglect to choose the grandest of all trees? I wonder if the Survivors come here, to sit amongst the tree’s roots and take in the smells of the forest. Has ’Bow seen this Banyan? Have my mother and my father?
“Someone needs to prep her for what she going to see,” Captain whispers, not softly enough to keep it from my ears.
“I will,” Jesse volunteers.
“We’re going to wash in the ‘falls. We’ll wait for you over the bridge.” Captain tugs on his backpack and heads down the path. Sydney and Danny trail behind him, hand in hand.
“What is so bad, Jesse?”
“Do you have kin who… were lost?”
The question throws me. I have spent so much time
not
talking about ’Bow and my parents that I never mentioned them on land. To be given permission to speak of them is freeing. “Everyone I care about: my parents, my best friend. I was all alone, except for Haku.”
He hesitates. “Do you know what happens without enough air?”
I shake my head. “We need oxygen to breathe. We have learned the importance of both lung breathing and gill breathing.” How carefully information must be doled out under the waters, carved to only show the necessary and desired.
“When your body’s deprived of air, even for a short while, it affects people funny.” Jesse looks away.
“No secrets.”
“Damages them.”
“Everyone?” I fight down the wave of sorrow that washes over me.
“There are a few that make it.” He takes my hand, squeezes. “Just prepare yourself.”
*
My anxiety builds as we hike. I barely glance at the waterfall we pass. Hope can be fickle; the feeling can sustain one during the darkest of times, but it brings risk, as well.
The opposite of hope is despair.
A decrepit bridge lies in the middle of the forest. Its wooden planks are rotted and completely gone in some areas. Repairs have been attempted. Newer boards, light with youth, cover the crumbling dark wood in some of the worst areas.
Who took the time to repair it? Was it Captain and his crew? Or could my father have laid his hands on this bridge? He was a pod mechanic, responsible for pod maintenance and repair; I have not thought of his specialty in years.
Over the bridge, the forest changes. The trees and vegetation remain on one side of the bridge, while the other side consists entirely of long, green sticks that rise high into the sky.
“Bamboo,” Jesse explains. “We’ve just entered the bamboo forest.”
The…
bamboo
… sways in the wind, leaning from one side to the other, then back again. The poles whisper as they sway; the sound is rhythmic, like the constant crash of the waves.
The bamboo appears fragile with the way it bows and curves, but the stalks are as hard as rocks. I wrap my hands around a stalk and visualize absorbing its strength. Maybe I appear delicate to Jesse and the others, but I can deal with whatever waits at the Black Sands.
Little droplets fall all around me, and the novelty of my first rain distracts me from my hopes… and my fears. As the water pings against my skin, my body becomes more and more aware of each one. Beneath the ocean, the water seems to disappear, while up here, these tiniest of droplets beg my constant attention.
I step out of the grove of bamboo and the sea appears, far below. Waves crash against the black rocks, spraying white foam and spouts of water high above them.
“How you holding up, li’l mermaid?” Captain waits at the cliffside. “Are you ready?”
Am I ready? I think back to all the dreams, the wishes, the imaginings from my last few years. All the times I dreamed of seeing my mother again; my wish that ’Bow be brought back to me; and my desire to know what really happened.
The cold lick of fear washes over me.
Please let them be all right. Please let my parents and ’Bow be among the survivors.
I imagine the bamboo again. No matter how fiercely the winds blow, they cannot knock me down. I will sway and bow to my disappointments, but I
will
not fall.
I breathe in, long and deep. “I am ready.”
20
Silent, we head down a winding path along the steep cliff. A beach, black as night, rests at the bottom. As we progress down the narrow trail, we can see people, still too far away to identify. I cannot help but lean over Jesse’s shoulder, trying to get a better view.
“If you need to leave, just let me know.” Jesse looks back at me. “I’ll walk you back up.”
The rain makes the smooth rock path slick. Peering down the steep cliff, there is only churning ocean and black lava rock. I focus on taking careful steps. As we near the bottom, the people approach. While I know they are all former members of Maluhia, everyone looks so different without their Skins.
“You came by land this time?” An older man approaches Captain. “Did you bring… more?”
“We’re on a special mission today. Brought our own li’l mermaid to see her people.” Captain steps onto the black sand.
Five or six gather around me, looking curiously. I scan the beach for signs of my mother, my father, ’Bow… but see nothing.
“Chey, is that you?” A woman steps forward. Her familiar blue eyes and her long, blond hair identify her: Brook, my mother’s closest friend. She disappeared a year before my mother.
“Brook?” I reach out and touch her face, to prove she’s real.
She reaches one finger to my intact gills. “You have your gills? How?”
Her neck bears the scars of the Unmentionable: thick, red raised ridges mark each side. I look around at the others who gather. Each bears the same ugly scars on his or her neck.
“Where is my mother?” I turn back to Brook. “Please tell me she is here.”
A single tear winds its way down her cheek. “She’s here.”
Joy—intense and new—fills me. My mother. I have found my mother.
Brook shakes her head as my smile widens. “She’s here, but…”
“Show me where my mother is.” I breathe, in and out. The not knowing is the worst, I remind myself. Having answers, no matter how hard, has to be better than not knowing.
Danny and Captain exchange glances, while Sydney turns to the ocean so I can’t see her face.
Jesse turns to Brook. “I’ll go with her. I assume she’s in the hotel?”
Brook nods and walks toward the back of the beach. Captain mutters curses in the direction of the sea.
Jesse takes my hand. His warmth quells the cold fear that races up and down my arms.
What has happened to my mother?
“Captain started the colony on this beach on account of the old hotel. Half of it bunks those who’ve been rescued. The other half serves… as a care home.” Jesse’s words help me focus.
Brooks leads us into the hotel, so much smaller than the Whaleside, and down a hall. The hall smells of the medical pod, back in my sector. Once a year, we would be summoned for a medical exam. After one visit, I peered into the newborns’ nursery: baby after baby waited for their gill implants to heal, so they could be released from the oxygen pod and into the waters.
As people pass from room to room in the old hotel, with charts and food and buckets, I cannot help but wonder:
why?
Everyone on this beach, all of the Survivors, were once babies in that nursery. Gifted with the ability to breathe under the waters—society’s most important advancement, we were told.
Why did they tear away the very part that sustained them?
We stop in front of a closed door. Jesse wraps his arm around my shoulders as Brooke opens the door. The bed lies empty. A chair rests near the window, and a woman sits in it, facing the ocean. Her dark hair is the same hue as mine, but shorn chin-length, not long and flowing like I remember.
I break free from Jesse and run to the chair. “Mama.” I grab her hands. “I came for you.”
There is no response. I look into her face, and my mother stares unblinkingly out at the sea. I run my hands down her cheeks, but there is still no response.
“Mama.” I throw my arms around her. At times, her body trembles, but she does not talk or move. I wish to feel her hands upon my back, hear her soft voice. Yet there is still no response.
I refuse to let the tears come. If I begin to cry, I may never stop.
It is unclear how much time passes before I am ready for answers. I hug my mother once more. “I’ll be back, Mama.”
I run past Jesse and Brooke. Retracing my steps, I make my way to the beach, then scan the black sands for Captain. He sits on a chair overlooking a jagged black rock that juts from the ocean.
“What is wrong with her?” My body shakes, but I breathe… in and out, desperate to control myself. Rain continues to drizzle so lightly I barely feel it, but a light mist forms on the beach.
“The ones who went without air the longest remain within a vegetative state. Some have passed, some never survived in the first place, but others just can’t respond.” Captain pats an empty chair next to him.