The Doorway and the Deep (36 page)

“Eliot,” said Lottie, touching his hand, “Dorian's right. We should just move on.”

Eliot didn't notice the warning in Lottie's voice.

“What's the matter with all of you?” he said. “We just got our lives saved! Ollie deserves a standing ovation!”

“
No
.” Oliver said it loudly, coldly—in a way that made Lottie squirm inside. His eyes turned back to black.

“No,” he said again. “I don't want applause. I don't want to think about it. I don't want anyone to talk about this ever again.”

Dorian sheathed his newly cleaned sword.

“Then come on,” he said. “Let's move out.”

They headed for the coast. If Lottie had been paying full attention, she might have noticed the fresh, salty taste the air had taken on; she might have heard the squawks of gulls overhead; she might have noted the way the sun glinted off the distant blue water. But Lottie wasn't paying full attention. She was too distracted by Oliver's mood and Eliot's guilt and, on top of all this, a nagging feeling about Fife.

“I don't understand,” Eliot whispered to Lottie as they walked on. There were tears resting in his eyes. “Why is Ollie
so angry? If I could fight off enemies with my bare hands, I'd be proud. He's basically a superhero.”

“Oliver doesn't see it that way, though. He doesn't like hurting or killing anything.”

“Ooh,” said Eliot. “You mean, like, he's a pacifist?”

“It's more than that,” said Lottie. “I don't think anyone knows how guilty he feels when he uses his hands like that.”

“I feel rotten,” said Eliot.

“Don't,” said Lottie. “You didn't know.”

But she could tell that Eliot was still feeling bad about it, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, just like there was nothing she could do to stop Oliver from feeling guilty or make Fife speak to her about what had happened in Sharp Bend.

The grass turned to heather, and the beach stretched before them—a narrow strip of white sand and black rocks, edging the coast as far as Lottie could see. Waves crashed on the surf in a gentle lull. Lottie's lips felt puckered and briny.

Lottie had visited the coast of Kemble Isle twice before. Once, Mrs. Yates had taken her to a fund-raising tea at a seaside resort, which might just as well have taken place in the middle of New Kemble, since Mrs. Yates refused to let Lottie venture out to the beach. The second time, Lottie and Eliot had concocted a bike trip to the beach that took four hours longer than they'd anticipated and ended with Mr. Walsch driving out to pick them up after dark.

Lottie had never seen a coast so pristine as this. The beaches she'd visited had been made of dirty sand, bordered by condominiums and hot dog stalls. But this beach was desolate. There were no houses or docks or people. As Lottie took her first step into the pillow-soft sand, she got the feeling she was trespassing on a very fine estate without the owner's knowledge.

Fife floated to Lottie's side, awe in his face.

“I didn't know it looked like
this
,” he said.

“What?” said Lottie. “Have you never been to the beach? I thought you'd done
everything
, Fife Dulcet.”

Fife smirked. “Practically everything.”

“It's so empty,” said Adelaide. “The Southerly beaches Father took us to growing up were much prettier than this. Weren't they, Oliver?”

Oliver, still black-eyed, said nothing.

Dorian stopped ahead and squinted at the horizon.

“What do we do now?” Lottie asked him. “Where's the ferry?”

Dorian turned to the Barghest. “Well? This was your route, dog. Where to now?”

But even the Barghest looked uncertain.

“I have never used the ferry,” it growled. “I only know it is the safest route for the Heir of Fiske.”

“Well, it's the
only
route now,” said Dorian, “considering she can't cross the waters any other way.”

“Why not?” asked Eliot. “I mean, isn't there a boat rental place or something?”

“Not on this part of the coast,” said Dorian.

Lottie turned to Oliver. His face was painted with poetry.

“The poems say there was once a great naval battle here between Northerlies and Southerlies,” he said. “It was the bloodiest confrontation in the Great Schism. Thousands lost their lives to the sword, and then a great squall splintered the remaining boats to pieces and drowned the soldiers. Many sprites said it was Nature's curse on all the bloodshed of war, and from then on, the western coast was considered cursed, from the tip of the Wilders to the Northerly Gate. It's said that the only seacraft Nature will not drag into the depths is the ferry, since it's not run by sprites proper, but by a nix.”

Everyone had gone very quiet. Adelaide made a low, disgusted sound.

Oliver shrugged. “That's what the poems say, anyway.”

“Sorry,” said Eliot, “but what's a nix?”

“A sprite who has bound himself to the sea,” said Dorian. “Legend has it they sacrifice their souls to know all the sea's secrets. They can never leave the water.”

“You don't really believe that, do you?” asked Fife, snorting.

Dorian gave Fife a sharp look. “I've heard enough from fellow soldiers to keep me wary.”

Lottie walked nearer the shore—so near that the water stained the tips of her boots.

“Well, there's no sign of a ferry here,” she said. “We should send our gengas out in both directions and have them report back.”

“Yup,” said Fife, pulling Spool from his pocket.

The yellow kingfisher swooped down the shore. A lavender finch flapped in the opposite direction, sent off by Adelaide's hands.

“Barghest,” said Lottie, turning to the creature. “Do you see that pile of rocks up the coast? Go inspect it, please. Maybe something's hidden behind it.”

But the Barghest remained where it was.

“I would not advise that course of action,” it said. “Better not break up our company.”

“Hey!” cried Eliot, who stood a little way down the coast. “Look at this!”

Lottie and the others joined Eliot where he stood. He was pointing at one of the jagged rocks that dotted the sea. It was wide across, and words were carved into it in boxy script:

T
O THOSE WHO SEEK THE WATER
'
S FAVOR
W
HOSOEVER ROWS AGAINST THE FLOOD
,
OF SORROW HE SHALL DRINK
.
W
HOSOEVER GIVES OF SORROW SHALL NOT SINK
,
GRANTED PASSAGE TO THAT OTHER SHORE
.
W
HOSOEVER GIVES OF BLOOD SHALL BIND HIM EVER TO THE SEA
AND WALK THE LAND NO MORE
.

“Oh, it's a riddle!” said Adelaide. “I'm very good at these. Let me think.”

“Is this it?” Lottie asked Dorian and the Barghest. “It says ‘granted passage to that other shore.' So, what, is it a ferry you can only take by solving the riddle?”

“Seems like,” said Dorian. “The nix are known for their schemes and wiles.”

“Um,” said Fife. “So remind me why we're trusting them to carry us across the sea?”

“I never said
I
trusted them,” said Dorian. “There's a reason I've never traveled this way. This was all the Barghest's doing. Direct your questions to
it
.”

“Shush!” said Adelaide, waving them to be quiet. “We should be trying to figure out what it means.”

Lottie, too, was staring intently at the rock, attempting to make sense of its words.

“
Gives of sorrow
,” she said out loud. Then, “
Gives of blood
.”

“It seems to me,” said Adelaide, “that if you do the
first
thing, you will drown in the sea. No thank you. And if you do the
third
thing, you'll be bound to the water, same as the nix. How dreadful. So it's the
second
thing we want to do. If we ‘give of sorrow,' whatever that means, we'll get safe passage on the ferry. Well. Don't you think?”

“Maybe,” said Lottie, “ ‘give of blood' literally means to drop your blood in the water.”

“That would make sense,” said Oliver. His eyes no longer shone black but dark yellow. “The whole curse started because of bloodshed. Many poems say that the wounded sailors didn't drown, but by bleeding into the sea became the first nix. Now, perhaps, anyone else who drops their blood in the water will become like them.”

“Then what does the second line mean?” asked Eliot. “Instead of blood, you give what to the sea? Tears?”

Fife snickered. “You mean you've got to stand on the shore, crying into the sea? How melodramatic. Sounds like one of your Byron poems, Ollie.”

“Do you have a better idea?” asked Adelaide.

Fife shrugged. “How're we supposed to get someone to cry, though? Tell them a sad story? Punch them in the stomach?”

“Honestly,” said Adelaide. “Nothing so violent. I'm sure I could manage without any help.”

“Oh, I'm sure you could, Miss Priss.”

“Fife, cut it out, would you?” said Lottie, irritated. Then, to Adelaide, “Do you really think you could?”

Adelaide nodded stiffly and approached the water's edge. She placed both feet in the shallow water and closed her eyes, bunching her face into a contorted expression.

Fife was laughing. Dorian gave him a sound whack over the head, and he hushed up. The rest of them watched in rapt silence.

It took nearly a minute, but a teardrop finally appeared at the edge of Adelaide's right eye. Then another, at her left. Then yet another, and another. Slowly, they wound down her cheeks, and Adelaide tilted her chin toward the water so the drops could more easily fall into the sea. Each drop clung to her skin for several seconds, then plopped into the water. Lottie had lost count of how many tears Adelaide shed by the time she wiped her cheeks, opened her eyes, and looked up.

“Well?” she said. “Do you think that's enough?”

Dorian shook his head. “There's nothing left but to wait and see.”

So they waited. They waited minute upon minute, watching the surface of the water. There were a couple times Lottie swore she saw something moving, but it only ever turned out to be the foaming roll of a new wave. They waited, and waited, but they saw nothing.

“I'm not sure tears is right.”

Lottie was surprised to hear Eliot's timid voice break the silence.

“I have another idea,” he continued. “What if ‘gives of sorrow' doesn't mean tears at all? What if it just means that whatever you drop into the ocean has to
cause
you sorrow?”

“You mean, you have to sacrifice something to the sea,” said Lottie. “Something that means a lot to you.”

Eliot nodded.

“Well, what have any of us got that fits that description?” asked Fife, throwing his hands up. “We're traveling light here. There's nothing on me I care that much about. Definitely nothing that would cause me
sorrow
, or whatever.”

Lottie dropped her hand into her coat pocket. Her fingertips touched the silk handkerchief and, beneath it, the solid form of her mother's ring. Sacrificing that would certainly cause her sorrow, but Lottie wasn't sure she could. The ring was all she had of her parents that she knew they had touched and cherished. But no one else here knew about the ring. She didn't have to tell them.

“We still don't even know that it's going to work,” she said. “It might not be a riddle at all. Or maybe it used to be, and it doesn't work anymore.”

But no one was listening to her. Their attention had shifted while she'd been weighing the worth of her ring. They were all staring at Eliot, who had approached the water's edge and was holding out a thick bundle of papers in his hands. Lottie realized immediately what they were: all the letters from his father.

“Here it is!” he shouted at the water. “Something precious. Something of myself. You'd better grant us passage now.”

“Eliot, no!” Lottie cried.

It was too late. With great force, Eliot threw the letters out to sea. Lottie watched, aghast, as they fluttered down to
the water. There, they bobbed on the rocking surface until, much sooner than Lottie expected, they slipped entirely from view.

All was silent. Moments passed, long and agonizing. Lottie scanned the surface of the water, looking for any sign of a disturbance, something out of the ordinary. But time crept on, and more time still, bringing with it restlessness.

Lottie ran to where Eliot stood, his gaze still fixed on the sea. She took his hand in hers.

“Eliot,” she whispered. “You didn't have to do that.”

He shook his head, eyes still focused on the water. “Yes, I did. For once, it's something I
could
do.”

Silence hung about them for a minute more.

“W-w-what are we supposed to do now?” Adelaide finally whispered.

“Ask the dog,” said Dorian. “It's the one that led us this far.”

The Barghest snarled at Dorian.

“Does anyone else have an idea about what the riddle could mean?” asked Oliver.

Fife shook his head. “I really thought the sorrow thing was right.”

“I guess we wait until Spool and Lila return,” said Lottie, her face downcast. “We'll see if they were able to find any sign of the ferry and then—well, if they don't, I guess we'll just have to go back the way we came.”

“You mean, take my route.”

Lottie heard the triumph in Dorian's voice.

“I only chose what I thought was best,” she said defensively. “You don't have to—”

“Lottie!”

She stopped short. Eliot was pointing at the sea. Lottie turned around.

Something was happening. Bubbles were rising in the water. The bubbles turned to froth, and the froth grew thick, and the water began to spiral around the froth in a magnificent way. Then something appeared at the very center of the spiral. It heaved out of the water in one great surge, and water sprayed in every direction, reaching all the way to the beach and spattering Lottie and the others. Lottie wiped the salt water from her eyes, transfixed.