Drowned (23 page)

“No if. Of course you will. It will be easy.”

“I’ll tell Star. When we get to this new place, if it exists, I’ll let her know. It’s you I want. If I’m what you want, that is.”

I gasp as he nibbles on my shoulder, wondering how he could even ask that question. This is what I’ve always wanted. I feel as if I’ve entered one of my perfect dreams. “Star will be so upset,” I whisper.

“Let’s not think about that right now,” he groans, kissing me again, this one so deep and long I nearly forget who and where I am. He traces a finger on my lips. “You never get out of breath when I kiss you.”

“Star says I have royal blood,” I whisper. “Isn’t that crazy?”

He laughs softly into my ear. “No, Your Most Grand and Benevolent Majesty,” he says, making me giggle. I know this is a dream. I don’t think it is possible to be this happy awake. If I could, I would stay in this moment forever. It seems as if everywhere else, danger waits for us. Only here, with him, I feel completely safe, safer than I ever have. He must sense it, too, because he says, “What are you thinking about?”

“About the new land. I’m wondering how it will be.”

He nods. “I know. Me, too.”

“It’s underground! It must be so strange. I wonder how they even breathe. Star says the people there are different. Do you think they will accept us?”

He shrugs and squeezes my hand. “I guess we’ll find out.” He pulls it to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “Coe. It’s like all those wishes I made... Those crazy, stupid wishes... They’re all coming true.”

I smile through my tears, tears of happiness and relief. “I know.”

We separate, the inches between us feeling like miles as the chill from the air begins to settle on my skin again. Then we wade down the passage together, to our waists. Tiam pauses, preparing to take that final breath, and in the silence of that moment, a heavy, uneven pounding sounds in the corridor behind us. At first I wonder if it is just the new tide coming in, the ebb and flow of the waves above us. But as it gets louder, I recognize it. Footsteps. Many of them. An army, maybe.

We both whirl at once. Orange firelight reflects in the black water. Someone is coming, coming up fast. I tighten my grip on Tiam’s hand. “Tiam. I made a horrible mistake. I left the grate to the laundry chute open,” I say.

He cranes his neck to see in the dark, but it’s only outlines. I know who leads it. The new king of Tides.

“Let’s go. Just close your eyes, okay? Think positive thoughts, and I’ll do the work.”

“Right.” He takes a deep breath and as the light in the corridor grows more intense, I grab his trembling hand and pull him under.

And we swim. Even though he weighs more, I have less trouble pulling him along as he’s stronger and faster than Fern. He moves beside me as if he, too, were made for living underwater. As this is my fifth trip, everything is familiar. The stone walls, coated in green moss, the bits of rock and rotted wood planks at the floor of the passage. I open my mouth and let the water flow through me, and though my only thought should be getting to the other end, getting free, in a small flash at the back of my mind, it occurs to me that the water swirling through me is washing away all trace of Tiam on my lips.

And maybe that’s why I go slower. I falter. I still can’t see the light up ahead, so I know we have far to go. This is no time to panic. I look back at Tiam for reassurance. At my hand on his. Our hands fit perfectly together, the ridges and folds conforming to one another, two halves making a whole.

I think about the new world, thrilling at the thought of us, together. Of him wanting me as much as I’ve wanted him. It seems almost impossible to believe that these dreams of mine could come true. And yet here we are. So close.

His eyes are closed, his face strangely serene despite his fear. He looks as if he is sleeping. I wonder what thoughts are going through his head, what positive thoughts he’s thinking to calm himself. I wonder if he’s thinking about me.

His eyes flicker once, then open wide, wider. I try to smile at him, to motion to him to calm down, but it all happens so fast, and by then there’s no return. His face is pure terror, something that’s so foreign on him, I quickly begin to feel it, too.

All at once I’m aware that my grip on his hand is loosening, and then I feel only his fingertips on mine. And then he slips away.

Twenty-Three

Falls the Shadow

“T
iam!” I open my mouth and scream but it’s drowned out by the water rushing through my body. The light sinks slowly to the ground, landing in the soft dirt. I kick off the mossy wall, propel myself downward and pick it up, shining it feverishly in all directions. There’s nothing behind me, nothing farther down the corridor. The light only illuminates a small green-tinged circle around me, but he’s nowhere. Vanished.

Panic. He can’t live underwater for much longer. Not the way I can. And without light it’s impossible to tell up from down, or which way is out. He can’t survive like this.

Nononono,
I scream in my head, kicking idly in circles as I swing the light around. How could I have let him go? Why couldn’t I have held on tighter?

I can see the opening to the passage behind us, hazy through the water, lit by orange torchlight. It must be Finn and his men. In the blackness, without light, that’s the only thing Tiam would have seen. We’re too far from the end of the passage, where Star and Fern are waiting. His only chance is if he went back toward the torches. I have no other choice. I have to go back, too.

I swim back to where the floor rises, then walk along the floor until my head is on the surface. I blink the water from my eyelashes and see a figure standing in the water, his smile a nasty slit, his metal spear glinting in the torchlight. Finn.

I turn away from him and see Tiam at his feet, hunched over and defeated. He’s breathing hard, chest heaving, dripping hair matted against his eyes. He grabs his side and coughs again and again, but doesn’t attempt to look at me.

Finn slowly saunters up to me. He’s with two lanky men I recognize as fishermen, not the same guards he was with earlier. It takes me a moment to realize that his two hefty guards would never fit down the small chute, but it doesn’t matter; each fisherman has his own spear. There are several other bodies in the background; the light glints off of their spears. In the torchlight I can also see that Finn’s face is dark and raw in spots from the fire, the once sun-streaked stubble on his chin now crisp, a chunk of white skin hanging loosely off his nose. It doesn’t seem to bother him. “So, this is where the exit is,” he says.

“There’s no exit,” I mumble, helpless.

“I’ve had enough of this, Coe,” he growls, jabbing the spear into my ribs. “It was a surprise to find that Tiam was alive after all this time. But it explains perfectly where you’ve been. You’ve been lying to us all along.”

I turn to Tiam. But I have no other plan. No ideas. I point to the flooded passage, all the while hoping Clever Gretel will provide me the inspiration I desperately need. But my mind is blank, my body tired and wasted. “It’s not that way. We just tried it. Flooded.”

Tiam finally speaks up. “Leave her alone, Finn,” he growls, still breathless.

Finn scowls at Tiam and presses a spear against his neck. “Or you’ll do what?” But Tiam’s eyes are focused on me, intent, unblinking. He’s trying to tell me something. But what? I take a tentative step forward.

“Coe, your light was flickering. Let me fix it,” he says, his voice stilted. He motions to my portable light.

I’d almost forgotten I was carrying it. I hand it to him, wondering what he has in mind. I don’t remember seeing it flicker, so I can only hope this is part of a grand plan to save us all. He crouches down, reaches into his bag and begins working on it. Then he screws the top on it again and hands it to me. “Should work better now.”

“What are you—” Finn starts.

“Relax, they’re just lights.” Tiam takes one out of his bag and hands it to Finn, who lowers his spear and does just what I did. He inspects it for a while, turning it over in his hands, trying to figure out how the damn thing works without emitting any heat. And in that moment, Tiam mouths something to me.

Help Fern and Star. Don’t worry about me.

What is he talking about? Is it possible he doesn’t know that I’ve spent precisely every moment between every tide worrying about him?

Finn smiles, still taken with his new gadget, oblivious to the change in Tiam. The muscles in Tiam’s chest and shoulders tighten, his jaw sets. His eyes dart between Finn and my own eyes. Finally, they settle on me, almost lazily. “Coe,” he says. “R-U-N.”

I stare at him. And maybe it’s that all this time I’ve had this image of us going to the escape together, but my knees suddenly buckle.
Don’t worry about me.
He wants me to go. Without him. I shake my head, but he doesn’t relent. Before I can open my mouth to protest, his voice echoes through the chamber, full of fight. “Now!” he shouts, and lunges for Finn.

It all happens so fast, I stand there, frozen. “No,” I say, over and over, as he and Finn topple to the ground, Tiam delivering punch after punch to Finn’s already raw face. But immediately, the other guards are on him. And I know the odds aren’t good.

I want to help him. I want to tell him that I’ll wait for him, that I would never go anywhere without him. I couldn’t. And yet I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking he tried it, and it’s impossible. He can’t make it through the flooded corridor. But there is one way for him to feel useful again. And this is it.

Just then, two of Finn’s guards charge me. I’m no match for two of them. Either I run now and live, or let them take me and die. I know those are the only choices. And so I take the light, run down the hallway and plunge into the black water.

Twenty-Four

Not with a Bang but a Whimper

E
verything
about this feels wrong. What am I doing? As I swim, I look over my shoulder
until the light of the torches disappears. He’s gone. I left him. There were a
dozen of them, only one of him. And I left him. Why? I could have helped him
fight.

But we were outnumbered. And I know what Tiam would say if he
were with me.
Keep going. Don’t look back. Better just one
casualty instead of two.

I don’t know how I keep pushing forward when everything—the
only thing—I want lies behind me. My vision blurs, and I’m sure it’s because I’m
crying. My body trembles as I move through the cold, taking the water in,
letting it flow through me. Washing every trace of Tiam away. Only heartbeats
have passed, yet I already know that this was the most important decision of my
life, and I made the wrong choice. I already know that as long as I live, that
will be the moment I replay time and time again in my head, wishing I had the
chance to do it over.

When I arrive at the shore, Star and Fern are sitting there,
huddled together, studying the map. I crawl out and collapse beside them,
sobbing.

“I left Tiam,” I whimper, and once the words are out I know
that I will never see him again. And I know that Tiam was wrong to let me go
alone, because the moment I left him, my world ended. We both died.

Fern’s sweet face goes white, and her lip trembles. Star
squeals, “What do you mean?”

I don’t answer. I can’t bring myself to talk about that
horrible moment. I just lie there on the ground, wanting it to suck me in and
bury me forever, in the same passage where Tiam will meet his own end. At least
that would be a fitting final chapter to the story of Tiam and me.
Together, apart.

“We have to get him! We can’t leave him!” Star shouts, malice
in her voice.

I don’t want to move, but somehow I pick myself up from the
soft mud and say, “Finn and his men. I don’t think they can make it through. But
in case they can...we need to go.”

“Leave him? Just like that? But he’s my beloved!” Her face is
twisted, giving her an ugliness I never thought possible. Her breath comes out
in short bursts, and tears form in her eyes. “We can’t go. Not until Tiam is
with us.”

I’m too tired to fight her. “Then you go back for him. But
they’ll kill you. There are a dozen of them. If not more.”

She contemplates the flooded passage for only a second before
slumping onto the muddy ground. “We’re done for,” she moans between sobs.

“What are you talking about?” I whisper, my voice flat and
toneless. “The map goes on for a while, but we can make it. We just follow it.
And if Finn and his men come through, they’ll never be able to find their way
without the map.”

“You don’t understand,” Star moans. “He was to be my husband,
my protector. I love him. I
need
him.”

I look at the ground. She makes it seem as if she’s the only
one. As if I don’t need him. As if I discarded him on the other shore like a
piece of seaweed. Maybe it stings so much because she’s right. I spent all my
days wanting him, and yet I just left him. Too easily.

I take Fern by the hand. Fern. She is all I have to live for
now. She is the reason I must go on. I squeeze her close to me as we walk, not
wanting to ever let her out of my sight. Star points the way with her own light,
and I follow with Tiam’s. It makes a strange rattling noise as I move, in time
with our footsteps. We continue through a maze of doorways, on and on, but Star
doesn’t falter. She doesn’t speak, and I wonder if it’s possible she could be
feeling as terrible as I do. We’re sisters, after all. Even if we are so very
different. We’d been raised in completely different circumstances. But maybe we
have more in common than I know.

This is my family. And I’ll protect them with all that I am,
because I know Tiam would have done the same.

* * *

I cannot say much about the rest of the journey. I crawl
inside myself, just a walking, breathing corpse.

Just as Tiam had predicted from the lines scraped into that
map, the passages narrow considerably. We stop to rest twice, or three times,
but even rest does not revive me. There are many wrong turns, even with the map,
scrapes and bruises from the rocky, craggy walls, frightening, ghostlike sounds
and movements in the darkness that prove to be only our imagination. With every
obstacle, I am reminded of what Tiam would have said or done to make things
better. A thousand times, I hear his voice in my head, feel his lips on
mine.

And then...

“The map ends here,” Star says softly, awakening me from my
daze.

We come to a giant slab of thick, solid metal. I think of the
opening that Kimmie wrote about in the journal—big, steel, carved into the side
of the hill. There is a small door to its side, and words scratched into a
plaque nearby.

BLACK MOUNTAIN

EMERGENCY CONTAINMENT UNIT II

ENTRANCE

PROPER ID REQUIRED

I read the words to Star and Fern.

“Oh, my goodness,” Fern whispers, squeezing closer to me. “This
is it?”

I nod. I try the door. It opens with a creak, grinding on its
hinges as if no one has ever opened it. But someone must have, thousands and
thousands of tides ago. Aliah. Our mother.

I peer through the darkness. There’s a light glowing in the
distance. Someone is there. Star walks forward, ahead of me, making her way
through the dark passage. Toward light. Toward a new world.

Behind her, I take a deep breath, all the while feeling cold
and distant, as if watching this amazing moment in the history of our people
happen to others, not me. Because I guess in my heart, without him, I’ll always
be on that island, waiting for the end. Tides was never where I belonged, and it
never belonged to me.
He
was my world, and I
abandoned him. Before, the thought of escape sent a thrill through me. But now
my heart is still. Dead.

As if it senses the fact, my portable light suddenly goes out,
casting me into darkness.

I shake it, and it rattles noisily. The light does not return.
It’s rattled ever since Tiam “fixed” it. Curiously, I turn it toward the ceiling
and unscrew the top, the way he’d done. And then I reach inside.

Behind the dead bulb, my fingers brush against something
strange. Tilting it over, I scoop out a handful of milky pearls. The stones are
warm from the light, and they melt pleasantly into my palm.

Tiam’s pearls.

My
pearls.

I pool them in my fist and press them against my heart for a
moment, then follow Star into the new world.

* * * * *