A Tear in the Ocean

by H. M. Bouwman

  Lurking outside the firelight, she listened for two nights to everything she could. Some songs she heard several times, wandering from place to place and finding different musicians singing different versions. Others she heard only once. All of them were magical, and many she memorized—or at least she memorized fragments, storing them for later, when she might pull them out and play with them.

  All the time she wandered and listened, however, she worried about getting caught. She kept scanning the crowds to see if anyone from home was there, hoping that word wouldn’t get back about where she was. Everyone liked her stepdad, who was loud and funny. They wouldn’t believe her. She’d run away twice before, to other village families, and both times they’d returned her to her joking, beaming stepfather, the nice man who raised his dead wife’s troubled and ungrateful daughter. Tathenn wasn’t big enough to hide her. She’d sail away and find her own island—something small just for her.

  The songs kept pulling her out of her memories and into the present. So many of them were new to her. Wandering through the bonfire parties, she felt almost as if she were stealing music to keep herself alive on her journey. And for wherever she settled at the end of her journey. She’d want these songs later.

  The second night, knowing she was going to leave the Islands, she stole real items, too—in the deep dark after the singing ended and everyone drifted to sleep. Only a few things: a rope that someone had left lying out, and a small net resting lonely on the beach. And a bowl someone had set aside for washup later. (She hid that in the hollow of a tree, to retrieve when she was ready to go.) She refused to steal anything she didn’t need—not even when she saw a guitar sitting completely unattended outside a tent. She told herself no and moved on, though her heart hurt to leave it there. She found a straight stick that looked good for carving—surely she’d have time while at sea—and put it in her pocket with her knife, promising herself she’d whittle something musical. The stick sang back to her from her pocket: a flute, please, and she slipped her hand into her jacket and patted the warm wood. Artie’s mom had taught her to play flute when she was little, though her hand-carved instrument had been smashed long ago.

  Artie stole food, too, but she didn’t manage to save any: she ate it as soon as she took it. Since there were tables of party treats just sitting around unwatched, it hardly even counted as stealing. Artie wanted to take some food with her on the boat, but everything sitting out was fresh, with a short shelf life—and each night the leftovers were put away. Besides, she’d lived all her life on food from the sea. Food was easy, and water, too. The sea gave these.

  The third night, her last, she stood outside the circle of the central bonfire. The Raftworld storyteller had been singing, accompanied by guitar and drum, and now was beginning to tell a story. Artie was only half listening, letting the storyteller’s voice wash over her as he slid from singing to talking. Something about mangoes.

  This story could be a song. She could hear the music in her head, feel it in her throat, twitching to come out. Artie wavered, almost ready to step into the light and share it—in fact, she had thrust her head forward and felt the heat and light in her eyes before she remembered herself and jerked back into the shadows. She needed to stay out of sight. She could sing to herself later.

  She clenched her fists and moved about the circle. Tonight! She was ready. The weather was perfectly clear and the moon was small, a sliver of a baby’s clipped fingernail in the sky. She would leave as soon as the storytelling was over.

  A boy about her age, on the other side of the bonfire, frowned. He was a Raftworlder, tall and thin and curly headed, slouching a little with the easy grace of the well loved. It almost seemed as if he were seeing her. Studying her. Artie backed up and froze. Why would he be staring at her? But he didn’t move or react; he wasn’t watching her, after all. No, he was listening to the story, frowning importantly.

  Even without his Very High Class expression on his face, Artie could tell he was rich. His clothing alone was probably worth more than her stepfather made in a year of fishing and trading. And when the boy started walking again, slowly moving around the circle, people parted and moved out of his way like he was a boat sailing through water.

  He was probably a pampered baby who’d always gotten whatever he wanted. No, that was unfair. He didn’t have the sneer of a spoiled brat—but he did have the air of someone who had no idea how easy his life was. She’d seen that before, even in the south, where life was grittier than up here in the city where all the rich folks and rulers lived.

  Eventually the singing started again, and she forgot the boy and wilted into the sound, joyful and sad at the same time, of the old stories being sung. Or maybe it was just that she felt the joy of listening mixed with the sadness of being unable to join in. The joy of eating along with the knowing, deep in her gut, that she’d never be full. She felt half-this, half-that. Like she was here but not here, listening and sneaking food all while remaining invisible to everyone around her—because they were all paying attention to their own lives and because she was so good at disappearing.

  The music stopped; the party was beginning to break up.

  She didn’t want to leave yet.

  It had to happen tonight. No one would even notice a boat gone until morning. She’d climb aboard a little rig pulled up on the shore and she’d sleep for a couple of hours, after which she’d leave, when the world had gone dark and people were finally sleeping. Then she’d have several good hours to find a current and get miles and miles away.

  She didn’t know much about sailing long distances—okay, she didn’t know anything about sailing long distances—but she had two things going for her. She knew small boats from all her years on the coast, and she’d always been a hardy sailor on her stepfather’s fishing boat. How tricky could it be to sail far out to sea?

  She crawled aboard the smallest, farthest-away-from-all-the-crowds vessel she could find and huddled in its tiny cabin, waiting for the sky to completely darken and the crowds to die down. The night had gotten cool. She wrapped her thin arms around her body and rubbed her ribs, trying to stay warm and also trying not to rub too hard on the bruises. Her stomach growled, loudly. She was so hungry. And so tired.

  And so, so ready to be gone.

  4

  PUTNAM. THE PRESENT.

  PUTNAM LEFT the shore and the little boat he’d seen there, thinking over his astonishing plan as he walked back to the tent. He could leave. He could sail away—south—and investigate the problem of the salt in the sea, and come back with information. With proof. Proof that his dad was wrong: too slow to act, too scared to do something to fix a problem.

  He slipped home through the crowds and the singing and the storytelling to an empty tent. Putnam’s anger rose again. His dad must be at one of the bonfires, making his nightly rounds with the people. The Raft King prided himself on listening to his people. But, Putnam thought, listening isn’t the same as doing . . .

  He, Putnam, was going to do. And he’d come back a hero, as someone who’d solved the problem of the bad water. He’d be a different kind of person—and someday a different and better kind of king—than his father. Not someone who stood by and let his son’s mother run off. Not someone who sat by while the sea turned to salt.

  He packed a change of clothes—warm, wet-weather clothes—and some dried food and a few empty water sacks to fill with seawater when he got to shore. It was crazy to carry water with you when you traveled on water, but he didn’t know how brackish the sea would get before he reached the source of the problem. It was possible that it would become undrinkable.

  Putnam slid out of the tent quietly. He didn’t leave a note. His dad probably wouldn’t miss him tomorrow; when the Session meeting started in the morning, his dad would simply think he was skipping it in a sulk, still angry about their argument. And when his dad didn’t see him at night, he’d just think he was sleeping in a
different tent with other kids. After all, Olu had invited him to a big sleepover only the day before. His dad probably wouldn’t even realize he was missing for a couple of days. And by then he’d be long gone.

  Putnam, his sack of supplies over his shoulder, stopped walking so suddenly that someone stumbled around him, muttering. He was about to do exactly what his adoptive mom had done when she’d left without explanation when he was five. There one day, and the next day gone. He’d seen her take off, and he’d thought for years that she might come back, but she never did.

  And his dad had shrugged and let her go.

  She didn’t even leave a note.

  He couldn’t be like that, not even if his dad deserved it. He had to leave a note, so that when his dad did notice he was gone, at least he’d know where his only child had disappeared to.

  And unlike his mom, Putnam would come back. He would.

  Hastily, he returned home, jotted a couple of sentences, and thrust the note under the pillow. There it would stay, safely undiscovered until the king got worried and searched his room. Putnam would have enough time to escape—and yet the note would help his dad not to worry too much.

  Although his dad would worry a little, of course. That couldn’t be helped. But it was the king’s own fault. If he’d agreed to do something about the bad water, Putnam wouldn’t have had to step forward. Really, he was saving the old man from embarrassment. Besides, his dad had said to stay out of the Session. Maybe he deserved a little worry.

  * * *

  • • •

  PUTNAM SNUCK BACK to the beach and stuffed his pack into the bushes, returned to the crowds, and joined a campfire until the partying died down and the moon set and the beach cleared. Then he retrieved his pack. On the beach, poking out from under a small pile of rocks, he left money to pay for the little boat he’d chosen; he wasn’t a thief. He crept across the dark sand and climbed into the boat. It was perfect: small enough for one person to handle, and in the center a snug cabin with a latching door in which he could store things and stay warm. He peeked in the cabin’s window—there were some tarps piled in the corner and a small heater in the middle.

  Pausing only long enough to lean his bag inside the cabin, Putnam rowed silently out to sea, loosening the sail when he was sure he’d gotten far enough from shore and it wouldn’t be spotted. He circled the big Island and headed south.

  South was new territory for him. Even though Raftworld traveled constantly, they never went much farther south than the southern tip of the big Island of Tathenn that the Colay people lived on, because the water and weather quickly turned cold—and Raftworld was a warm-weather country. So Putnam wasn’t familiar with what might lie in this direction. But the fish had said the problem was in the deep south, so that was where he would go.

  He didn’t know more than that: head south. But he was hopeful that things would become clearer once he got there. Wherever there was.

  * * *

  • • •

  AS MORNING DAWNED, he was well out of sight of the Islands. Best of all, he’d found a narrow current that was carrying him almost directly southward, and he’d gratefully taken down the sail—which he found hard to use anyway, as modern Raftworlders favored hydraulics—and simply rode the current, the sun shining on his face and the light breeze making the world seem brand-new. Everything was perfect. In the light of this calm blue morning, his journey felt like destiny. He stretched his legs out, pulled the food bag out of the cabin, and removed a loaf of bread, along with some plums, the only food he’d packed that wasn’t dried.

  As he broke the loaf open and dipped his nose to smell the rich yeastiness of Island bread, a noise behind him broke the silence. Not an expected noise. Not a birdcall, not waves splashing lightly against the boat’s side, not the creaking of the boat itself.

  A human voice. Angry.

  “Get off my boat!” said the voice, high-pitched and half strangled, the way a ghost might sound. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  5

  RAYEL. ABOUT 100 YEARS EARLIER.

  RAYEL STOOD on the path outside her fiancé’s fenced garden, frozen for a moment in the thought that he wanted her father dead and equally frozen in the uncertainty about what to do. Her mother, if Rayel told her what she’d overheard, would likely say Rayel was making up stories to avoid marriage. Her father was too interested in his books and birds and in believing his wife to take his daughter seriously. There was no one to whom she could turn.

  She rubbed her head in frustration and confusion, then tapped its largest bump, off to the side of her head—the one that made her look particularly lopsided. Usually tapping helped her think. This time it did not; it only reminded her of how ugly she was. How could her father possibly believe that Cathuu wanted to marry her?

  Then the light dimmed inside the house, and she knew that whoever was in there would be coming out soon. It wouldn’t do to be caught eavesdropping after such a conversation. She squared her shoulders and jogged down the path, taking care to be quiet while she hurried.

  She didn’t go home. Her feet took her to the docks almost without her even having to think. It was like they knew where to go.

  Her brain knew, too. A year or so ago, when she was thirteen, she and Solomon had almost run away. They’d gotten as far as the docks and then she’d backed out, scared of the unknown—and scared to bring Solomon into it. She’d thought he was better off on Raftworld.

  She shoved the memory down. Now she knew better. She had to leave, as soon as possible, in one of the little boats. In less than a week she’d be married. She needed to leave before that happened. If she didn’t marry Cathuu, he would have no reason to kill her father: he wouldn’t be next in line for the throne, being no blood relation at all to Rayel’s family.

  Somehow that thought made up her mind. She didn’t know how else to work against this awful man, but by leaving, she’d foil all his plans. She’d win.

  Not right this minute, though. She needed her own plan—or at least some supplies.

  Okay. She’d leave tomorrow. One day to pack and say good-bye to Raftworld. There was no one here she’d miss now that Solomon was gone, but she’d miss the world itself—the chickens and the small birds, the lush gardens, the water slapping lightly on the bottom of the raft day and night. The feeling of movement under your feet all the time, as if you were part of the world’s breathing—something no one on land ever really got to experience.

  Well, she’d still be on a boat. It would be okay.

  She just needed to figure out where to go—and for how long.

  She’d leave tomorrow night.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEXT DAY, late in the morning, Cathuu came over to have lunch with his fiancé—which is to say, her—and she called from her bed that she was too sick to get up.

  Her mother came to the room and stood in the doorway, peering into her dim room. “Get up right now, young lady. Don’t embarrass me.”

  “I don’t feel good at all.” Rayel coughed. “I think I might throw up.”

  “Well.” Her mother’s voice sounded like she didn’t believe her. “You can stay in bed today, without any food. I mean, you wouldn’t want to eat if you feel like you’re going to throw up.”

  Ugh. Rayel was hungry, too.

  “And you can’t hide from him forever. You’ll come to like him when you’re married. He’s a very handsome man. And he’s really going somewhere.”

  Sure. He’ll be king if he has his way.

  Rayel’s mother shut the door firmly and returned to the dining room. Rayel could hear her tinkling laugh mixing with Cathuu’s booming tones. Their voices rang through most of the afternoon.

  By evening Rayel was famished. She packed a few useful items—a change of clothes, a spool of string, a small scissors—but truly she didn’t have much in her bedroom that would be good for
living on a small boat.

  And for how long? She thought she’d try for at least a year. Maybe in a year she could return—maybe sneak back in the night—and see if Cathuu had married someone else meanwhile. He probably would. He was already nearly thirty years old. And if he were married to someone else, it would be safe to return, probably.

  It irked her to think that she was saving her dad’s life and he’d never know about it. He’d keep trusting Cathuu. She considered writing a note of explanation and leaving it on his desk . . . but knowing her father, he’d show it to his wife, and she’d say Rayel was lying, reaching pathetically for attention.

  That night when the housekeeper had gone and her parents were in bed, she snuck out of her room with her bag, ate the leftovers in the kitchen, and packed up dried goods for her trip. In the garden shed she took a fishing net, a pot and a bucket, a knife, and a few more items she thought she’d need.

  And then she escaped.

  She slid a small boat into the water and rowed and eventually raised the sail and headed away, not even sure where she was headed. Maybe to the Islands. There were other people there. Or maybe someplace with no people, to bide her time until she might return.

  To begin with (and because Raftworld never traveled far in that direction), she headed south. No one would look for her there. South was a place where she could disappear.

  6

  PUTNAM. THE PRESENT.

  SHE MUST have been hidden in the pile of tarps in the boat’s cabin, and now she stood just outside the cabin, screaming that she was going to kill Putnam.

  It was that girl. The one who had hovered around the fire, looking so abandoned and poor and bruised. And what did she just say? Did she really just threaten to kill him? She looked like she could barely stand.