The Weight of a Thousand Oceans

by Jillian Webster

  Maia looks out across the ocean. She knows what is coming, and she knows there is nothing she can do to stop it.

  “Maia, this is something I have to do. He is the only family I have left, and he is up there all alone.” His voice breaks. “And it is all my fault.”

  “Lucas—"

  “I cannot stand the thought of him up there in those woods alone, waiting for me. It’s killing me. I let him and my mother down. I was weak. I left him. And now he has no one.” He turns towards her, grabbing her hand. “Maia, please.”

  She glances at him briefly, then looks away. “I know, Lucas.”

  “You are safe here. These are good people. They will take you up to The Old Arctic Circle. I will find my brother and then we will come for you.”

  “I know.” Facing him, she brushes a curl from his eyes. “I know this is something you have to do. As much as it hurts me, I understand. I could never ask you to stay. You wouldn’t be you if you continued north knowing he was all alone in those mountains.”

  Lucas holds her face in his hands. “I will not stop until I am by your side again, Maia. You are my life. You are my everything. I will find my brother, and we will come for you. Okay? Nothing can stop that.”

  Tears stream down her face. “I don’t want to live without you, Lucas.”

  “We will be right behind you.”

  “But it’s dangerous out there. What if something happens to you?”

  “It won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It will be okay, Maia. It will be okay because it has to be. I will carry him on my back if I have to.”

  “Lucas.”

  “I will do whatever it takes to be right back next to you. This boat will take you to safety. You can find us a good home, and I will be right behind you.”

  “I could come with you?”

  “Absolutely not.” Shaking his head, his face is resolute and stern. “I knew you would say that. No, it’s too dangerous.”

  She looks up at him. “How long?”

  “What?”

  “How long? How long will you have to travel now by foot?”

  “We are currently just outside the old United States. They are going to sail in a little and send me out on a small raft.”

  “A raft?”

  “It’s okay. I won’t be too far from land. I have a map and supplies. I will find Miguel and then we will head up to The Old Arctic Circle.”

  “How long, Lucas?”

  “I am not sure … maybe a year.”

  “Lucas—” She drops her head in her hands.

  He wraps his arms around her as she sobs. “I just don’t feel I have a choice. Please understand, Miguel is my family. I cannot fail him again. I could never start a new life with you up north knowing … please understand.”

  Maia pulls away. “Find your brother,” she says. “Find him and come back to me. Promise me you’ll come back to me. Promise me.”

  “I promise. I promise you with every last beat of my heart.” He kisses her and then he pulls away. Gazing down at her, he whispers, “I love you, Maia.”

  She closes her eyes. A fate worse than death. She felt losing him would be a fate worse than death, and she was right. “I love you too, Lucas.” She places her forehead against his. “I’ll love you forever,” she whispers. “And I will wait for you.”

  Forty-Nine

  Maia gazes into her reflection across the antique oval mirror on the wall. She smiles, sweeping away a red curl from her face. Reaching out a single hand to the glass, she traces the mirror image of scattered freckles across her cheeks, the curvature of her nose, her shimmering blue eye and then the green.

  As she pulls her hair off her shoulders, her jade necklace catches on a curl, then falls across her neck. She loosely braids her thick hair off to the side, then leans towards the mirror.

  The last time she stared at the reflection of her carving, she was sitting on the edge of her floating dock back in New Zealand, waiting impatiently for a fish that would never come. Huck, of course, stood watching from the shore. She had spent her entire life hiding from the light emanating behind her eyes, the same light reflecting back to her now. Never could she have imagined the journey that lay ahead. Never could she have imagined who she truly was. Not just a young woman from a small secluded island at the ends of the earth.

  No—more.

  So much more.

  A knock sounds from the other side of the door. Her curls fall and the light dims from her eyes just as Lucas peeks in.

  “Hi.” He smiles and closes the door behind him.

  “Is it time?” she asks nervously.

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. Lucas, I wanted to talk to you about what you saw … on the raft.” She sits on the edge of her bed.

  “Okay.” He settles next to her.

  Her cheeks prickle in anxiety and she pauses, wringing her hands. “I’m not really sure how to say this.”

  Lucas grabs her hand. “Maia, I saw everything. Everything.” He lifts her chin. “And I am still here. There is nothing you can say that will change how I feel about you.”

  She stands to face him. “Lucas, I am not who you think I am.”

  He smiles. “Okay then, who are you?”

  “I think … I might be … the soul of the earth—reincarnated.” Her cheeks flush.

  His eyes narrow. “What, like … Mother Nature? Or some sort of Earth goddess?”

  “No. Like … Maia.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t believe there has ever been anyone like me, although there have been myths. I think I have come to give a voice to all that have lived in silence. I am here to make a stand.”

  Lucas watches her through narrow eyes, his mouth slightly agape. “A … stand…”

  “I know it sounds crazy. I know.” She stares at her feet as the silence of the room closes in on her. “Please say something,” she finally manages to breathe.

  He rubs the back of his neck. “Okay, so … you are an ‘incarnation’ of the earth. And you have powers? Clearly, you do.”

  “I have … power over…” She stumbles on her words. “I think I may have power over the elements of the earth, but I’ve only experienced glimpses. I don’t fully understand it yet, but I’ll figure it out as I go. That’s all I know.”

  “Are you … human?”

  “Yes, I’m human. I’m still me, Lucas. I can still get hurt and I can still die. I still feel embarrassed and vulnerable and afraid. I still love.” She smiles. “My life is still my own.”

  Unblinking, Lucas glares at the ground. Their long silence is broken as footsteps pound across the floors above. The boat begins to slow.

  Lucas stands and walks over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I see you. As crazy as this sounds, nothing you have said surprises me. I was there. I saw your power. I saw everything. I have had a lot of time to come to terms with this when I wasn’t sure you would ever wake. I have told you before and I will tell you again—I love you, Maia. I am in this now.”

  Running her hands through his curls, she smiles through her tears. “You have me, Lucas. You always will.”

  The morning sun pours through the window of the small room. Lucas lifts her off her feet and she wraps her legs around him, kissing him tenderly as he carries her to bed.

  A knock sounds from the door. “Lucas?”

  “Yes, we are here!” Lucas yells.

  Maia’s head is on his chest. She closes her eyes in dread.

  “Come upstairs. There is something you should see.”

  Maia and Lucas quickly dress and head down the hall towards the stairs. He holds open the door at the top.

  As Maia steps onto the sun-drenched deck, the horror of their foreign surroundings steals the breath from her lungs.

  The boat is slowly weaving its way between a dense forest of half-submerged skyscrapers, rising like skeletons from a dark and stagnant ocean. The blinding sun glints
off their glass and a black and green slime creeps up the buildings from the murky depths below. A seagull soars beneath a tangle of low-hanging vines, draped between the buildings like cobwebs.

  “Lucas. Where—”

  “We are in the United States,” Lucas says quietly. “They used to call this place ‘Los Angeles.’”

  “This is America?”

  Maia gazes across the jungle of flooded high rises. Any abandoned floors not submerged beneath the water have been consumed by bushes and weeds. A few dark souls peer down at them from obscure corners behind busted windows. They flinch back like savage cavemen when seen.

  “There are people up there,” Maia whispers.

  “Don’t make eye contact.”

  As they continue to sail down the narrow corridors, the boat’s crew members scramble to clean the litter from tearing through endless draped vines. Jake leans over the railing to push their encroaching bow away from another building’s rusted antennae. A seagull lands on a moss-covered cross emerging from its church beneath the sea.

  On the deck below, a few crew members have been preparing Lucas’s raft. Claire carries over a large pack filled with supplies and drops it inside. Mario tosses a rolled-up blanket on top.

  “My whole life, I’ve dreamed about The Old Arctic Circle … Leucothea … before I even knew it existed,” Maia turns to Lucas. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and we are so close. And now you’re leaving. It doesn’t seem right to continue on without you, Lucas. It just doesn’t feel … right.”

  “Maia—” Lucas grabs her hands. His lips parted, it seems he wants to say something. He hesitates.

  Jake calls out, “Lucas! We can’t go any farther.”

  Lucas squeezes Maia’s hands. He glances back to his raft and the crew members waiting to help. Swallowing hard, he turns towards her. “I guess it is time,” he says.

  Maia nods her head, unable to look at him. Her vision blurs around the edges and a tear slides down her face.

  “Maia.” Lucas lifts her chin. “I promise—”

  She throws herself around him.

  “Lucas!” Jake calls from below.

  Lucas grabs her face, kissing her one last time. She wipes the tears from his cheeks. “Okay,” is all she can manage to gasp.

  Lucas opens his mouth to speak. Then shaking his head, he wipes the tears from his eyes before walking away.

  Trembling, Maia stumbles to the railing of the upper deck as Lucas runs to meet the crew below. Jake puts his arm across Lucas’s shoulder and they shake hands, exchanging a few last words.

  Maia grips the cold metal railing, feeling as if she is going to be sick. Lucas and Jake each grab an end of the raft and drag it towards the edge of the ship. With the help of a few others, they drop it overboard.

  Maia gasps as she sobs. A fate worse than death.

  Lucas glances up at her one last time. Stepping over the railing, he climbs down the ladder and disappears over the ship’s edge.

  Fifty

  Maia remains frozen on the top deck of the ship. The wind picks up, whipping her hair across her face as her trembling hands grip the railing. She keeps her gaze fixated on the water below the front corner of the boat, gasping when his raft finally appears.

  Heaving the paddles back and forth, Lucas rows farther and farther away, his weary eyes never once leaving hers.

  Her hand covering her mouth as she sobs, she watches as her love travels deeper into a foreign and dangerous land. This could be the last time she’ll ever see him. She could grow old up north, never knowing where he is—never hearing his laugh again, or listening to the beat of his heart as she lays her head on his chest. She may never know if he found Miguel. Or if he’s lying in a ditch somewhere, alone and in need of help.

  An intense, instinctive pull tugs deep within her gut. Calling her. Battering her from within like a frantic caged bird. It’s the same pull she felt when deciding to leave the safety of New Zealand for a treacherous journey across the unknown. The same strong impulse that urged her to jump from a pirate ship into an ocean of garbage. The same intuition her mother instructed she must listen to, whether logical or not.

  Trust the gut pull you feel and follow it above all else.

  And she knows.

  Her heart pounds so rapidly in response, it nearly bursts from its seams to scream at her face to face. You must go with him.

  She needs to yell out, tell them to stop the ship, get Lucas’s attention to turn around.

  Maia remains frozen. Get off this ship? This ship that will be delivering her safely to The Old Arctic Circle within the week? She has always known that is where she belongs. She knows that is where she must go. How could she possibly get off? No, Lucas will rescue his brother and they will come for her. She can make a home up north and wait for them.

  The thought of this crushes her. Wait? How could she possibly sit and wait for him? She came all this way to be a part of something far greater than herself. To find others like her and to join a community. To connect and build something from the midst of ashes and decay. A life was calling out to her, and it was her duty to find it.

  And find it she will. But what would any of it mean without love? She could go north and create a beautiful home, attend university, join this community where she would thrive … but what would any of that matter without Lucas by her side?

  His raft appears smaller now.

  The crew on the boat have hoisted the sails and the ship slowly moves back out of the drowned city. Maia rushes to the other end of the deck, keeping Lucas in her sight as the ship continues its full turnabout.

  Her gut is screaming at her. Screaming.

  “Stop,” she says quietly, taken aback as the words leave her mouth. Looking around, panic suddenly overtakes her.

  Jake yells orders at the crew and they pull at the ropes. The ship picks up speed from its grand white sails.

  “Stop,” Maia says again, a little louder this time. The ship turns a bend and Lucas disappears from her view. “STOP!” Maia screeches. “Stop! I have to get off!”

  The ship’s bewildered crew members glance between each other but the ship forges ahead. Maia races down the outside steps connecting the upper and lower decks. Turning the corner, she runs into Jake.

  “Maia!” He seizes her by the shoulders. “It’s okay,” he says, his face inches from hers. “Lucas will be okay. He’ll meet us up north. You’re safe here.”

  His greedy smile causes chills to run up Maia’s spine. She struggles to break free but his grip is too tight. Claire runs up to them.

  “Claire! I need a raft! Where is another raft?!”

  “There are no more rafts, Maia.” Claire’s face concerned; she reaches out her hand. “Come. You’re understandably upset. Let’s make you a cup of tea.”

  Horrified, every minute Maia spends on this boat is another minute Lucas rows away from her. “Let me go, please!”

  More crew members gather around them, whispering about this sudden hysterical woman they’ve taken on board. Claire and Jake grab Maia’s arms and lead her towards the cabins.

  “No,” Maia whispers. “No, no—this is wrong. This is WRONG!” Her world begins to spin and her legs give out.

  “She’s about to hyperventilate. Someone grab me a bag?!” Claire shouts.

  Maia frantically twists around, arching her back as Claire and Jake drag her towards the door leading downstairs to her cabin. “No. I have to go with him!”

  “Maia—”

  “You’re not listening to me!” An indignant anger burns from within. Maia digs in her heels and turns towards Jake. “Let. Me. Go,” she says through a clenched jaw.

  Jake turns with a smile but his face breaks with alarm. He releases his grip and stumbles back. “What the fuck?”

  Claire follows suit. “Jake? What—”

  Maia doesn’t waste a second. She rushes back to the railing, spotting Lucas’s raft gliding past the old church. She can still catch up. She turns back towards Jake an
d Claire. “I need another ra—”

  She stops. Jake’s face is now angry as he whispers to a worried-looking Claire. She nods her head and they slowly walk towards her, holding out their arms as if corralling a wild animal. “Maia, it’s okay. Let’s sit you down,” Claire sings in her most soothing voice.

  Maia twists where she stands. “Lucas! Wait!”

  But Lucas is too far away; he can’t hear her anymore. Her heart pounding, she grips the railings and steps over to the other side. Her toes jutting over the edge, the sheer drop below causes her head to spin.

  “Maia, don’t!” Claire screams from behind her.

  Maia breathes deeply, electricity surging through her veins. Whispers of yes! surround her and she releases her grip. Falling forward, she dives headfirst into the foreign waters below.

  Kicking to the surface, she gasps for air and a wild smile spreads across her face. She looks back to the ship in astonishment. The crew members run to the railings in alarm. Claire is yelling out to her but Maia turns her focus to Lucas. She places one arm in front of the other and begins to swim.

  Claire continues yelling, “Maia! Please, Maia, stop—”

  Maia dives beneath the surface. Gliding through the water, she opens her eyes to the submerged city below. This city … so familiar.

  This city…

  She stops. Her eyes dart back and forth as she scans the otherworldly scene: rusted-out cars piled in the streets, an overturned school bus ravaged by seaweed, a small school of fish swimming past ghostly cafés. The fire hydrants and parking meters and yellow dashes of street paint peeking out from the swirled layers of sand.

  This is the city from her dreams.