Drowned (9 page)

Even though it burns my tongue, I practically pour the chowder down my throat, it’s so good. I am not sure what Cordon has done, but this has a taste I’ve never experienced before. Every meal outside tastes the same, like fish and salt. When I’m done, my belly growls, wanting more. I wipe my chin and realize it’s wet, then look down and notice my stupid white garment has an orange stain down the front. Perfect.

“You’d best change before the princess sees you looking like that,” a voice says.

It’s Burbur. She has her cart with her and is placing little shell-and-seaweed sculptures at the center of each table. Ridiculous decorations. Considering all the ridiculous decorations I’ve already seen in my short time in the castle, that poor woman probably never rests.

“Change?” I ask. I was thinking I would find some water and try to wash it out. After all, I’ve only been wearing it a day. I’d worn my old tunic a thousand-plus tides without changing.

“Of course. You’ll wear a fresh garment after every formation. I’ve hung yours in your room.”

“But that isn’t—”

“It’s the king’s orders. Besides, pressed together with the commoners, our garments tend to get dingy and smelly.” She presses her lips together. “Now, go on, hurry. If the princess sees you, she will be upset.”

Muttering to myself about how unnecessary it all is, I jump to my feet and scurry up the formal staircase, trying to find my way back to my room. At the door, I pull back the curtain to find that all the little trinkets are back in place on the damp vanity. Other than a few wet spots on the stone floor, there’s nothing to indicate the room was underwater a short time ago. As promised, a new gauzy white garment is hanging near the doorway. It’s probably just my mind playing tricks on me, but it looks even shorter than the other one. I quickly change into it and realize I’m right—this one hits only my midthigh. I think of Star’s bare navel and wonder if this is the way it’s supposed to fit.

As I’m turning in front of the mirror, trying to stretch the material to at least graze my knees but getting nowhere, a form appears in the door. I know from the flash of pink that it is the princess. She’s wearing a scowl. “I must have forgotten to mention. After every high tide you must, immediately, come up to the tower to see if there is anything you can do for me.” She shakes her head. “Come at once. I require a bath.”

I follow dutifully at her heels as she leads me to the winding staircase to the infamous tower. There is a bell at the base of the tower, small, shiny brass. Here, the hallway is nearly black except for the light streaming through a small window, open only a crack. I inspect the walls, and then I realize that the window is not closed off. It is not a window at all. It’s simply a hole in the wall. There are markings surrounding it, and they remind me of my scars. Some are mere scratches, but others are deep, jagged slits, crisscrossing the wall, as if somebody had been digging away at it, trying to loosen the stones. Trying to make the tower fall?

“What is—” I begin, raising my finger to point, but she silences me with a loud shush. Her eyes linger on it for a moment, and she shudders, then hastens her pace up the stairs.

All of us commoners have seen this tower every day of our lives, but I know I am one of only two or three who will have actually had the luxury of going inside, so my heartbeat echoes in my ears as I climb. It’s dark here. We climb a dozen stairs, then a dozen more, and just when I think the passageway will never end, a cheerful light glows ahead. It illuminates the stone walls of the tower so that a white line of salt is visible; below this line the stone is worn and gray, dotted with a rainbow of mold, and above it, it’s polished and black. This must be where the tide reaches. I marvel at it, noting that we still climb twenty or thirty more steps before we reach an enormous black door, blocked by two royal guards. Star waves them away from the entrance, then steps aside and motions for me to open the door. When I do, I expect to see a small, simple room, slightly bigger than my own. But the room is so vast, I inhale sharply. “Tread lightly,” she instructs. “We don’t want the tower to be any more unstable than it already is.”

“Yes,” I answer. Everything certainly
feels
stable, but then again, it’s a still day. I imagine what it is like to be here when the wind is blowing hard, which is often during the evenings of Hard Season.

“These are my quarters. The king’s are through that door,” she continues, pointing to an ornate stone archway. “You are not to enter there or disturb him in the least. Just conduct your business quietly and be gone. Understood?”

I nod.

“You may come up to my quarters only after ringing the bell three times,” she says. “Three is your personal signal.”

“Bell?”

She sighs. “Down at the entrance to the tower. If I need you, I will ring the bell thrice. If it is clear for you to climb the stairs, I will ring you back once. If it is not, I will ring twice. It is necessary because we cannot have more than five people up in the tower at one time. There is my father and myself, and of course our two guards. When the medic is treating my father, you will not be allowed to come up.”

“I understand. But what if there is an emergency?”

She shakes her head. “The tower is very old, as you might note. In the past, people have tried to raze it, which accounts for the markings you saw in the stairwell.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“I’ve told you about the danger the royal family is in. Which is why I have guards outside the door at all times, even while I sleep. Like I said, more than five people and we fear the tower may crumble from the weight. Of course, we’ve never tested the notion, but then again, we do not have a death wish, now, do we?”

She smiles and, in one sweep, drops her robe and proceeds, naked, toward an enormous stone tub. Immediately I look away, but I catch the scent of lavender wafting from the suds as she sinks in. She instructs me on how to scrub her back and how to comb her hair gently as she lies there, so as not to disturb her daydreams. I fumble about nervously with my one hand and catch the comb twice in a knot in her hair, but she doesn’t scold me. Then she says, “Coe, do you ever daydream?”

I clear my throat. All my daydreams involve Tiam, and they’re so silly I’d never let anyone know about them. “Not really,” I lie.

She sighs. “Shame. I thought we could trade daydreams in our talks.” Then she clicks her tongue and settles herself deeper into the tub. “I will tell you my daydream anyway. Maybe it will inspire you. And then maybe you will be inclined to have your own.”

I bite down so hard on my tongue I taste blood. “Okay.”

“I dream that all the islanders who want to do us harm are gone. I dream that I have a hundred children, and they have hundreds of their own children. And we all live together, a peaceful royal race of humans, with no fear of danger.” She smiles wistfully, then looks at me, a look of alarm on her face. “Of course our servants will be there, and they will be happy to serve us because they will know they are valued. That means you, Coe. You would be safe.”

I nod lamely. Is she mad? It’s only a daydream, so perhaps it’s okay to think such fanciful thoughts. Surely she must realize that her children and children’s children will have no dry land on which to stand.

“Are you surprised to hear that I want children?” she continues. “I do. Of course it is selfish for an islander to have children. The island is overpopulated. But a royal having a child...well, that is a gift. People need the royal family to inspire them, to lift them up.” Her face turns dark. “It’s unfortunate that a few islanders seem to think we’re being greedy, when we are the ones who saved them. We allowed them to use our land, so many tides ago. The Wallows are benevolent, and yet the commoners seem to have forgotten that.

“Do you know how to make a child?” she continues, staring up at the ceiling as I wash her shoulders. “Of course you don’t. I will tell you. A woman lies down with a man, and they press their bodies together until they become one. When they separate there will be a seed, which will grow into a child in the woman’s belly.” She strokes her taut navel. “Isn’t that amazing?”

I nod, though in my knowledge, making a child is not amazing. It is fearsome and horrible, something we don’t talk about. We do not become familiar, but that does not mean that people completely ignore their primal, animal urges. Men have taken by force. To do so is against the law, and both the woman and the man are considered to be at fault, and executed—the man for the violent act, and the woman for the seed she might carry. No, making a child is not a beautiful thing.

“You are close with Tiam?” she asks, startling me out of my thoughts. Bringing him up so closely after talking about how to make a child, it makes me blush. I’d thought about lying close to Tiam a million times, but the closest we’ve ever gotten is standing side by side in formation. My throat tightens when she brings up his name. I wonder if she is so special that she can read my daydreams, without my having to speak them.

“No. Not really. We stand next to each other in formation.”

“Ah,” she says, her brow wrinkling. “He spoke so...intimately of you. I was sure you were close.”

Intimately?
What could that mean? The flutter inside me disappears when I realize. He’d told her about my ability to spy and my cleverness and that I was an excellent seamstress. But those were all lies. The “intimacy” we share is nothing but a lie.

After telling me several more of her daydreams involving her blissful royal race, her skin has pruned. She steps from the tub and instructs me to dry each of her limbs with a new clean cloth. As I’m drying her, doing my best not to gawk at her unmarred, pale skin, my eyes catch on something, just on her ribs. Slashes. Two on each side of her belly, in perfect symmetry. Deep ones, almost exactly like my own.

I’ve never seen them on anyone else before. Well, certainly not on any of the men, who go around bare-chested. Until now, I’d thought I was the only one.

I want to ask her about them, but she rushes me to comb out her hair, and when I fail to affix the ribbons in quite the right way, shoos me away and does it herself. “You can sew, though, yes?” she asks, annoyed, staring at my useless stump.

“Um...” I don’t want to say no because I don’t want to lose this job; but there’s no fabric around for sewing, so the best I’ve done was clumsily piece together two pieces of mismatched scraps. I’ve fumbled around so much I’m afraid I’m only inches from being cast back to the craphouse, so I say, “Oh. Yes.”

“Good,” she says, casting off the towel and strutting naked across the room. Again, my eyes catch on those scars. It amazes me that with all those fine fabrics she adorns herself with, she seems to like wearing nothing the best. I’ve always been ashamed of my scars, but clearly she does not feel the same way about hers. I quickly avert my eyes again, blushing. She pulls open a large door on a closet and retrieves something white and flimsy. “A servant started it before she stupidly lost track of time and was washed to sea. You can finish it. My wedding dress.”

I blurt out, “Wedding?”

She smiles. “Ah, I know, there hasn’t been one since well before you were born. I think the royal wedding of my father’s parents was the last, and that was so many tides ago that I doubt anyone on the island can remember it. A wedding is a union of souls. A man and a woman. For eternity.”

“No, I know what a wedding is,” I say, but all the while my body is draining of its energy. A man. The new king.

Of course! Tiam is going to be king. Of course he would have to wed Star. How could I be so dumb? That was what he was trying to tell me last evening, on the beach. He didn’t just vow to Wallow to protect Star...he vowed to marry her.

Star tilts her head. “Oh. And how do you know that?” she asks, eyes narrowing. She’s getting suspicious again.

“No. I mean...” Meaningless words and half syllables drift off my tongue as I no longer have the energy to speak. I knew it. Deep down, I always knew it. Tiam, Star. The two most perfect souls on the island. Of course they belong together. They’ve always belonged to one another. I was silly to deny that, to think that because the island was falling apart, everyone in the world would just fall apart with it.

She holds out the silky white pile of fabric to me, and I take it, though my hand is completely numb. Tiam is marrying a princess. And I will be putting together the wedding dress. Suddenly it is all clear to me. No matter what my position is on this island, it will always be the same: on the outside, looking in, constantly wishing I could be somewhere, or someone, else.

Seven

As the Wind Behaves

I
spend the next several tides learning the trade as Princess Star’s lady-in-waiting and coming to terms with the fact that in my new role, I will be constant witness to her life in the tower with King Tiam. Every time I see either of them, I think of them lying beside one another, pressing their bodies together so tight that they’re breathing each other’s breath. The thought makes nausea bubble in my throat.

Tiam tries to speak to me, but I can’t face him. Since Tiam told me about my father, I’ve only spoken to him in formation, and very curtly—“Fine, thanks, and how are you?” It lends an entirely new kind of discomfort to the already arduous task of standing shoulder to shoulder; whereas before we’d talk intermittently, now, mostly, we stand in silence. Maybe Finn is right that I should be distancing myself from him. And why should I care about Tiam, anyway? After all, he didn’t think enough of me to tell me about the marriage. Instead, I had to find out from her.

Every time I tend to Star, it’s more daydreams about her life with Tiam. I’m constantly reminded of the sad truth that awaits me when he assumes the throne, so much so that I often wish I was Craphouse Keeper again, and occasionally I even want to jump from the balcony onto the stony shores below.

One morning, after a particularly excruciating bath where Star imagined what each of her and Tiam’s children would look like, I walk out to the platform a little too early for formation. But being outside the castle, I can breathe again. I sit with my feet dangling over the edge of the platform, feeding Clam a bit of seaweed and watching the people lining up for the morning meal. Since we spend so much of our lives on the platform as it is, a person sitting atop it
before
formation is kind of odd. Most people dread going to the platform, detest it, run away from it when all the turmoil is over. That’s probably why people notice me. I see Finn heading back toward the compartment from the beach, wrapping up a fishing line and carrying a few nice-sized bluefins over his shoulder. He looks up, shielding the sun from his eyes, and waves. Then he drops the fish off with Ana and starts to climb the rungs of the ladder to meet me.

“Hi, there, Coe,” he says. “What are you up to, up here?”

“Oh, nothing,” I say, pretending as best I can that all’s right with the world. Not as if I can tell him about my Tiam troubles.

“You look sad. Everything all right with the new job?”

I guess I’m not doing a very good job at masking my sorrow. “Yes, it’s fine. I’ve just been thinking about what you said about the royal family. And Tiam.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I didn’t mean to be so negative about Tiam. I know you are friends. I’m sorry.”

“I always thought everyone liked Tiam,” I say.

“It’s not that people don’t like him,” he says softly. “But this season, he’s been a little, shall we say, difficult to deal with. He’s just learning the trade as a fisherman, and yet everywhere I go, he’s there, trying to prove himself. If we pull in twenty fish, he’ll pull in forty. If we tell him something can’t be done, he’ll still try it, because he has this air that he’s better than everyone else.”

I don’t say anything. That does sound like Tiam.

“And recently he’s been dragged to the castle in the night, just like you were. We all thought he would get in trouble for his antics in formation, but instead, nothing happened. And when you were dragged to the castle in much the same way, only to be made the princess’s head servant...” He bites on the edge of his thumbnail. “Well, I think the king is up to something with Tiam.”

“Like what?”

He tries to look me in the eye, but I falter, instead staring at the tower. “You know, don’t you? Tiam is going to marry Star. They’re going to try to make him king.”

Hearing the words outright makes my body quiver. I think of him and Star together in the tower, making perfect babies and having the life I’d only dreamed of. My eyes begin to blur with tears, but I squeeze them back. “Yes,” I finally say.

I cringe. Why did I say that? Tiam has done nothing but protect me. The moment the word is out, I want to swallow it back.

“You like that idea? You approve of it?” he asks.

“He’s a good person.”

“He is. Nobody denies that. But not all good people should be king.”

“Is that what everyone thinks? That Tiam should step aside and let you be king?”

“Most definitely. It has nothing to do with Tiam. Unrest has been brewing for a while. Right now, the people hate Wallow. They hate the old regime and want to make a clean sweep, and that means anything that the king wants, they don’t. Tiam should realize this and concede,” he says. “But he won’t.”

I look at him. “You asked him?”

He nods. “It appears he will not go down without a fight.”

I gasp. I’d known for so long about Tiam being king, but he’s also been an agreeable person. Someone who would do what he could to preserve the peace. “Did you really talk to him? Tiam is reasonable, Finn. He would listen to you. And if the people really did want someone—”

“Coe. I told you. We’re past that now. He’s not budging on this.”

“So...what does this mean?” Finn is grinding his jaw, telling me exactly what it means. “Finn. You can’t fight him. If you go against the king’s wishes and fight him, there will be chaos. The whole island will—”

“I am not sure chaos can be prevented, unless Tiam backs down,” he says. “Which is why I wanted to talk to you. If Tiam does not bow out quietly, it can only get worse. I know you two are close. Can you convince him?”

Me? I think of how hopeful he’d been, talking about becoming king. “I’ve never been able to convince Tiam of anything.”

He nods solemnly.

I bring my hand to my chest. I can’t breathe. “Please, Finn. You know my dad wanted to preserve peace at all costs. You know he never would go against the king, even if he didn’t agree with him, because if we don’t have peace—”

“That was then. The Wallow on the throne now would love us all to die. He’d probably feed us to that spoiled princess of his.” He pauses. “Coe, be careful. I see the way that Mutter and some of the others look at you, and...you’ve always had enemies because you’re the weakest and the smallest. It’s already so easy for them to hurt you, but if they think you’re in allegiance with the royal family...”

I know this. I shiver.

He reaches into his bag, pulling out a little piece of fishing line. He starts to twist it every which way, then hands it to me. It’s in the shape of a perfect heart. “Do you know what that is?” he asks me, his voice soft and awkward.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s fishing wire.”

He gives me a look. “No, I mean, the shape?”

I wonder what he means. I do know the shape, if only vaguely. Kimmie, the first girl who wrote in the journal I carried, was fond of putting them everywhere. What surprises me is that he knows. Maybe there is more to him than I thought. “Of course. It’s a heart.”

He nods. “My mother had a pendant with that shape on it. I never knew what it was. It was actually your father who told me.” He clears his throat. “It’s a symbol of love. Do you know what love is, Coe?”

I stare at the little wire heart. “Yes. It’s caring for someone more than you care for yourself. But...that’s dangerous.”
Unless you’re royalty,
I think bitterly.

He takes my hand in his, and I can feel the callouses, the wear from his long days tending the nets and lines. When I look at him, his eyes are serious. “Not always,” he says. “I happen to believe that the sea can swallow us all it wants...but what really would signal the end of civilization is losing the ability to love. Your father knew that better than anyone. When we stop caring about each other, that’s the end.”

“Most of us already have,” I say.

“Not me. Coe, I made a promise to your father to watch out for you.”

Buck told me he had made assurances, and often I’d see him talking to Tiam and Finn, as if they were his own sons. I imagine the three of them standing around a fire, sealing the pledge with handshakes.

I’m startled from my imagination when I hear his voice: “Coe. If I were king, I’d want you to be my queen.”

I think about Tiam and how I’ve always wanted to hear those words, but from him. But he never wanted me, only Star. Ethereal, perfect Star. The pain of that is like a dagger in my chest. I find myself moving closer to Finn, as if there’s some unstoppable force pulling me toward him. Maybe I just want to be wanted, and it doesn’t matter by whom. “Why?” I murmur.

“Because I want to take care of you,” he whispers, pressing the wire heart into my palm, which is moist with sweat. My pulse quickens. He knows these words are what I—what all of us—have been craving. He knows he is offering me something that is just as precious as dry land.

Then there is a noise below, on the rungs. People have begun to climb for formation. I stand spear-straight, and he does the same, then whispers, “Think about it.”

I move away from him silently, and am halfway to my spot when I open my curled hand and find the wire heart in my palm. I touch it with my finger, telling myself,
I can do this. I can live. I can be okay without Tiam.

I whisper those words over and over again until I think I finally believe them. By then, everyone is standing in their place and high tide is close.

But it can’t be. It can’t be, I realize, as my maniacal chanting slows to a stop. And I’m left with a giant hole, as if something is missing. Something so basic but so necessary, like the air I breathe. And then the realization comes crashing down on me like the waves. I can’t live, and I can’t be okay. Ever, as long as I live in this world.

Tiam.

Fern grabs my hand and finds the heart there, but she doesn’t ask what it is. “Where is he?” she squeaks instead, moving her head side to side. More than a head taller than her, I have a better vantage point, but already the bodies have closed in around us, pressing together so that the smell of lavender is drowned out by the stench of sweat and seawater. But that’s not the reason I’m having trouble breathing. The reason is the one gaping hole to my left, one that has never been there before, as wide as the ocean. Despite us all pressing together, I feel alone. Open to attack. Clutching the heart, I try to think of Finn, but instead all I feel is the cold damp air on my left side, where Tiam should be.

Shortly after, the whispers begin. Did he become the latest scribbler victim? Did he fall asleep somewhere and miss formation? There are only so many places on the island one can hide, and nobody has seen him for most of a tide.

Today the ocean is calmer than usual. When it bears down on us and reaches the edges of the formation, Mutter whoops. “Number three is gone. Let’s all move to the right one space.”

I glare at him, and at that moment the horn blares above us. We all look up, and from our position just the tops of three heads are visible. From the sparkling jeweled crowns, I know the king and princess. And beside them is the blond hair and tanned forehead I’d know anywhere.

Something in my throat tastes sour. I know I should be happy he’s safe, but seeing Tiam and the princess, together, I feel lonelier than ever.

Everyone looks up silently, shielding their eyes from the sun with their hands. I exhale slowly as the princess calls down to us. “I know it will come as a shock to all of you, but my father is dying.” She pauses dramatically and waits for the gasps, but either they’re muffled by the wind or, more likely, everybody already knows. Star knows little of how fast news can travel down here.

“And what will we do?” someone calls up to them.

“I will be marrying Tiam, a commoner like yourself, at the evening of the next full moon. The king has given us his blessing, and most importantly, he has given Tiam rule over Tides.” She pauses. “He is reaching his sixteenth Hard Season, and so, he will be your king.”

This news, though clearly not a surprise, sends shock waves through the platform. It’s almost like high tide striking all over again.

“He’s not our ruler!” Mutter shouts. Vixby pumps his fist angrily in the air. Someone shouts, “No!”

Everyone is staring up at the balcony. So I feel heat rise in my cheeks when I search among the angry faces and see Finn, his eyes on mine. His face is strangely calm, as if to say,
I told you nobody would accept this.

The horn blares again, which is our signal to bow before them. I look around, but I already know what is going to happen. Nobody even attempts to bow. Not a single person. Well, Mutter does, but it’s with a mocking flourish. The horn blares again, but voices rise in protest to meet it. Tiam’s face is stone, as if he expects it, but I’m frozen, unable to believe that this is happening. That this is what the rest of our world has been reduced to. I want so badly to show him that I’m not like them, that I accept him, but Finn is looking at me, and I can hear his voice.
You have enemies.

Suddenly, rocks bounce off the edge of the tower with a thud, and sand showers down on me, stinging my skin. People are throwing sand and whatever they can get their hands on. The tower is too tall for them to do any damage, but nevertheless, the royal family retreats without another word. The last thing I see is a flash of pink cape, disappearing beyond the balcony.

I’m completely dazed as I trudge out of formation with a few others, who are still muttering with their heads down. “I’m not letting him tell me what I can and can’t do,” Vixby mutters to the men beside him. They crowd together, whispering, until I can’t tell what they’re saying. I’ve never before cared to be a part of the crowd, to know the secrets they share.

Now, I realize, I’m too afraid to know.

* * *

As I’m lying on my mat in my quarters the following evening after formation, I keep thinking about Finn’s words.
If I were king, I’d want you to be my queen,
he’d said. I think of my father. I’ve been spending many sleepless moments wondering what my father would tell me to do in this situation, and I still don’t know. I know that he liked Tiam, and that he liked Finn, too. I know that he taught me to respect authority. But I also know he’d want me not to be stupid, to do whatever it took to keep myself alive.