The Vast and Brutal Sea: A Vicious Deep novel (The Vicious Deep) (8 page)

I scream for hours.

At least, when you’re falling off a cliff as tall as the Empire State Building with nothing to cushion your fall, it feels like hours.

Perhaps I should rethink words like “forever.”

I feel like I’m sifting through the air, screaming until my throat is raw. I hate this. I hate Grumble. I hate, hate, hate heights.

But the one thing I hate more than this free fall is that I lost control. I let him get to me.

With all the strength I can muster, I flip myself over, facing the oncoming ground, my arms waving like a flightless bird. I can see myself in the reflection of the ground, and as it comes closer and closer, I’m relieved it’s water.

This is not to say that belly flopping doesn’t hurt. I choke hard, swallowing a mouthful before my gills flare open.

This is not the ocean.

This is not a pool.

But I taste the salt and I’m overcome with a loss I can’t shake. Images appear in the water—faces that seem like ghosts made of light. I kick up, running my hands along the stone wall to find some sort of opening. I’m inside a sphere. A goddamn fishbowl.

“Mom?”

I see her. Her stomach is unnaturally big—I know she’s pregnant, but I left hours ago and she had only just found out. I’m going to be a brother. My folks are going to get another chance. She’s trying to swim up. Her red hair floats around her, and I see my dad. His glasses float off his face and into the dark. I scream for them, but when I swim, they get farther away. Someone yells my name, and I flip around and swim to the other end of the sphere. I push my hands on it.

Then I’m surrounded by familiar faces—Angelo, Bertie, Coach. They materialize around me holding their necks, their cheeks full of air.

It
isn’t real.

I repeat that over and over, but being surrounded by my drowning parents shakes me. It’s like I’m retreating into a part of myself, shrinking into a useless, helpless kid.

Then it happens. My gills shut. My legs rip, bloody and raw, and I join them. I join my family in drowning.

There’s got to be a switch somewhere. Then the bottom becomes black, a void sucking everyone downward.

I hold my breath until I’m sure I’m blue. I grab my mother’s hand, and she, in turn, holds on to my dad’s. I try to pull them up, against the current taking us into that darkness.

“Let go, Tristan,” she says.

I shake my head. Her hand feels so real in mine.

“Please,” she whispers.

But I hold on. I hold on to my mother’s hand as my vision starts to blur because my fear isn’t falling. It isn’t the dark or heights or Nieve. My fear is this.

“Let go, darling.”

“I can’t!”

“You have to.”

It’s not her, but it’s her voice, soothing and familiar, singing to me. And I remember, before I was chosen, before I was grown, when she held me and pushed away the darkness that crept in my room. I remember that my dad always said her voice could change the world. Her voice made everything feel right.

And so I close my eyes and let go.

As soon as I let go of my mother’s hand, I get pulled upward until I breach the water’s surface. I float on the river by the inner ring. The air is sweet with pollen and laughter.

My body is frozen. I don’t want to even paddle. I want to let the river take me away.

“Cousin!” Brendan yells. He walks to the bank and extends a hand to pull me out. “You’ve found the falls.”

I make to run my hands though my hair but then remember. Plus side of a buzz cut is less time air-drying. Brendan pats a dry hand on my wet back.

“Grumble threw me off a cliff.” He did something to me. My mind is a mess of thoughts and voices and the dark shadows he keeps rubbing in my face. Those aren’t his fault though. They must have always been there.

“Ah, spirit quests,” Brendan says. “My father made me try once. Couldn’t get over the first hurdle. But d’you know what I’ve decided?”

“What?”

“I was never lost. My father always told me I could do great things, if only I changed my ways. Yet, deep in my heart I know all the great things I’m meant to do in my life, and I can only accomplish them as the terrifyingly handsome merman you see before you.”

I shake my head, though I can’t help but laugh. “So I’m lost?”

“No. You’re just a very long way from home.”

“At least you’re having fun,” I mutter.

“Worry not, dear cousin.” He taps his temple, stepping close enough so that I can hear him whisper. “You carry out your mission. Leave the rest to us.”

He turns and, with a flourish of his hand, directs me to the falls he’s been talking about. The green grass is lush and radiant, and the flowers bloom with light. Strange glass animals perch on boulders. Naked and see-through guys and girls jump from the top part of a waterfall. From this far I can see black marks of tattoos, and I wonder if they’re anything like the trident on my spine.

Dylan is kissing the guy who challenged him at the armory. And then it hits me.

“Oh,” I say. “Oh! That’s what he meant by stethos!”

Brendan elbows me.

“Sorry, I just put two and eight together.”

“You were right, Tristan,” Brendan says, resting his hands on his hip bones. His eyes are closed and his chest expands with deep breaths. “There is something about this place.”

The soft spray from the waterfall feels nice. At the bottom of a fall, the river forms a small basin where the young girls and guys swim lazily, freely.

“The Goddess Falls are the most beautiful falls on this plane or any other. And there are some truly beautiful places in this world. There’s a lagoon in Galapagos that is the closest thing to paradise I’ve ever seen. But this…” he says, his face full of wonder as he runs to his new paradise. “This is better!” he shouts.

Brendan grabs a blue-haired girl around the waist. She stands on her toes, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him. Then together they jump off. She lets go, dissolving into a splash. He flails like a baby bat that can’t control its wings. But it doesn’t seem to matter because he bops back out of the water unscathed, with the blue-haired girl attached to him once again.

I look at the waterfall. What makes it so much better than any other place? What makes it so special? It’s not very high—certainly not after the cliff Grumble pushed me off. But the thrill is not about the height. It’s about the redheaded merman who chases them off the ledge.

Fine, I’m jealous.

Not of the blue-haired girl.

Not of my cousin Brendan.

Not exactly.

It’s all of them, really. I’ve never been this—alone. And with my girl being held hostage by my enemy, yeah, I feel pretty damn shitty.

I want to be mad at Brendan because he’s so happy when we’ve had so many of our friends die. But maybe there’s a reason merpeople don’t leave behind traces of their bodies. It’s so that they won’t mourn. So they can move on faster. That has to be it, right?

Music fills the Goddess Falls. It comes right out of the air—the long, weeping vines trickling with water, the birds flitting about as if they could sing for always. There’s a different kind of magic in this land. It’s as if there isn’t a care in the world, and I bet if I let myself, I’ll forget about my own cares. About getting out of here and being the hero of the day.

Like Dylan. He’s been here for nearly two weeks, and I’m not convinced he’s ready to go back.

I hold my toe over the ledge.

“Cousin!” Brendan shouts. “What’s taking you so long? Jump in!”

The girls around him echo him. “Yes, jump in!”

But there’s something I have to do. It’s whispering in the wind. “Maybe later!”

They boo and call out my name as I turn around and walk away.

I know I’m right. There is something about this place. It’s perfect. It’s eternal. And if I’m not careful, it won’t let us go.

“It’s not polite to stare,” I tell Isi. She’s watching the frolicking in the Goddess Falls from behind a tree.

I wonder if she’s pissed off that her daughters are so attached to Brendan.

“I’m not staring,” she says indignantly.

“I’m sure you can jump right into the fun.”

She ignores my jibe and uncrosses her arms. Her long, white dress is dirty where it trails on the ground. I want to ask what she was doing last night at the edge of the woods. I don’t know much about religion, but it looked to me like she was praying. I decided it’s not my place to ask so I leave it alone.

“I wanted to walk you to your next session,” she says, heading away from the music and laughter behind us.

I want to say that I’ll find my way, but all I see is tall tree, slightly taller tree, tree that looks like all the other trees.

“So, do you normally let your emotionally unstable warrior shove your visitors off a cliff?”

I think she chuckles, but it could also be the squirrels in the trees.

“Only when they ask,” she says. “You asked to be trained. So you are being trained.”

“I guess I was picturing a montage with a sweet eighties hair band in the background and my friends cheering at the finish line.”

She stares at me blankly, all, What planet are you from?

I’m from Brooklyn, lady.

“Just out of curiosity,” I start. “How many days are we talking about? I’m in a ‘places to go, sea witches to kill’ kind of situation.”

“You have just faced your greatest fear,” she says. “But you still haven’t discovered patience.”

“It’s hard to be patient when lives are in your hands.”

“Nieve has been patient, and look where it’s gotten her.”

“Yes, because I should take life lessons from a mass murderer,” I say, but I’ve clearly offended Isi. She clenches her jaw and keeps her eyes trained on the path ahead.

“Hey, where does the oracle go? Every time I go by her tent, she’s not there. Do I need, like, an appointment?”

Isi’s eye twitches a little. I can’t get a read on her. I think she likes me better when I don’t ask questions. “The Tree Mother makes her presence known when she feels it is needed.”

“So no?”

“No.”

“Hey, what else can you tell me about the Naga? Is its saliva poisonous like a sea dragon’s? Can it breathe fire? Can—”

She holds up her hand to cut me off. The topic of the Naga ruffles her. I guess if a monster was picking off my people, I’d be short tempered too. I think of Nieve. See her face when I close my eyes.

“Tristan, please know we are preparing you to fight her.”

“Got it.” I say it to appease her, not because I do, in fact, have it. I’ve seen this thing in the flesh, and while I know anything can be killed by chopping off its head (I hope), I want more details. Details they aren’t giving me. “I won’t fail you.”

She moves aside a curtain of weeping vines, letting me into the armory. She takes my chin and looks into my eyes. “I believe you.”

•••

I walk into the armory and training grounds. When I turn around, Isi is gone.

An obstacle course has been set up overnight. Round stones where car tires ought to be, tall poles lined like monkey bars. A large barrel is full of spears with glass arrowheads, and beyond that, a really big target for them to hit.

Yara jumps in front of me, hands on her hips, that defiant grin on her face. She’s painted a series of rectangles and circles on her body. Up close I can see the tattoo on her shoulder, a perfect circle with a wavy line through the middle.

“Am I supposed to be painted too?”

She smirks but tries to hide it by turning around and walking away.

“Is it too much to have a conversation? You know, ‘Follow me, guys!’”

She comes to a stop. “If it would please you to have me treat you like a pup, I could do as you ask.”

I don’t respond, and she keeps walking until we are alone in a field. I take in the trees, the pristine bright greenery of it. It almost makes me feel at ease, and I’m afraid this is going to be one of those “inner peace” moments.

“Just so you know, I hate yoga.”

Then Yara gets into a crouching position, hands at the ready, urging me to strike.

“I can’t hit you. You’re a girl.”

Standing in the clearing, Yara screams, springing at me with a kick that leaves me breathless on the ground.

I roll over and cover my face with my hands as she brings down the side of her hand on me. I block it. Hot damn, she’s strong.

“I am no girl, Land Prince.”

“No offense, but you’ve got all the girl bits.”

She laughs but doesn’t stop advancing. My dad taught me never to hit girls. That’s not what men do, ever.

“I’m a warrior,” she says, “and if you can’t fight back, you will hurt.”

She chases me down, along an offshoot of the river. I block, block, block, and she brings her strikes with more precision each time. It’s like she finds the spots that bruise the fastest and then digs into them.

“I admire you sticking to your human code.”

“Morals, my dad likes to call it.”

I grab her wrists in the air and squeeze. She’s surprised by how hard I hold her. She pulls, but I don’t loosen my grip. She turns to their little magic trick, the melting thing. Soon I’m grasping water, and she slips through my hands.

“That’s cheating,” I say as she resumes solid form.

“Your code will get you killed. Assume I want to kill you. Assume everyone is out to kill you.”

“That’s called paranoia.”

I lean back so far to avoid her punch that my thighs burn as I hold the pose to keep from falling backward. I throw my weight forward. Yara moves back to kick. I grab her leg before it hits my thigh and flip her so hard that she smacks into a tree.

“Yara?”

She doesn’t move.

I race forward and kneel down to her. Her head hangs slack, untucked hair from her braid covering her eyes. I reach a hand out to touch the pulse on her neck.

She grabs my arm and pulls me forward.

Few types of pain are as bad as hitting your face smack into a tree. I can feel my septum crack. Blood gushes into my mouth.

“Only assume your opponent is not getting up if you have a sword through their head.”

“What about their heart?” I say.

She shrugs. “Not everything has a heart in the same place.”

“Can you go all see-through again so I can see where your heart is?”

Yara goes to the stream, but first she shoots me an evil glare, much like the girls in school. I lean my head against the trunk, moving the blood down my throat. Yara comes back and kneels beside me and drops the handfuls of water on my head.

“You’re a tough chick,” I say. “And I mean it in the best possible way.”

“I’m not a chick.” She stands over me. “I am Yara, maiden warrior of the River Clan.” She holds her hand out. The bleeding has stopped. I take her hand and stand in front of her. No weapons. Just the strength of our fists. She leans back. Her stance is strong. I realize she leans too much on her right side. I can use this.

She motions me with her fingers. “Again.”