A Tear in the Ocean

by H. M. Bouwman

  The cloudy stream was so salty she spat it back out, gagging. The clear stream, however, was pure and fresh.

  So: water, both for washing wounds and for drinking.

  And though the banks of one stream were salt-covered and dead, the banks of the other stream were covered with moss, enough to pack many wounds.

  She ran back to Putnam and slowly dragged the blanket to the river. Putnam bumped over every little hill and rock in the grass, but it couldn’t be helped. She knew she was long past the point where she could carry him. Exhaustion seeped into every bone in her body.

  Sheer willpower kept her moving. After positioning Putnam as close to the stream as possible and opening his clothing in back, she took the empty water sack and filled it, pouring as much salt water as possible onto the wounds. It would sting, but the salt water would clean the cuts.

  He barely even groaned, which she knew was a bad sign. When she used to clean her own wounds with salt water, they’d stung severely, especially the deep cuts. Putnam didn’t even open his eyes, didn’t flinch.

  She could see the cuts clearly now. Claw marks. Huge. Five long ditches, from his shoulder to his lower back, deep enough to put her pinky into all the way to the end of the nail, had she wanted to. He was lucky none of the claw marks were on his spine—they bit into tender flesh, but that was it. No bone showing.

  When she’d gotten the cuts clean—and they’d turned pink and bloody all over again—she packed them with moss, ripped his ruined cloaks into bandages, and tied them around him. Neither of them needed a cape in this warmth, and they were left with two blankets (her old cloaks, still bloody) to use for other things. She laid the bloody capes in the clear stream, weighted with stones, to wash clean.

  * * *

  • • •

  HOURS AFTER they arrived at the sunny underworld, Putnam was asleep on his side on the now-dry sled blanket, surrounded by rustling grass, as clean and cared for as possible. In addition to moss and fresh water, Artie had found some unfamiliar berries growing on a bush, and she’d tasted one—just one—and spat it out, feeling fine. An hour later, she ate one berry; it was delicious, and she still was okay. Later today she’d try a handful, and if that went well, she’d give some to Putnam when he woke. As she scouted the area, she also found carrots growing wild, their lacy tops inviting her to pull and find the food beneath, and mint running rampant as always wherever it landed, and finally a bush of cloudberries, which she ate by the handful, her stomach growling. She picked some for Putnam and placed them in a little pile on a flat stone about the size of a plate, on the corner of the blanket. Then she returned to the clear stream with the carrots and the lone water sack.

  On her way back to Putnam, full water container and freshly-washed vegetables in hand, she detoured to the tunnel they’d emerged from. How did the ice keep from melting?

  She placed her hand on it, expecting it to be cold and slippery with melt. Instead, it felt smooth and slick like a well-polished rock, and warm to the touch.

  It wasn’t ice.

  She scratched with her fingernail, then rubbed her fingers over the slightly oily surface so familiar to everyone on her island. It was gypsum, a rock easy to find there (especially in the north) and almost magical in its many colors and properties. Soft enough to be carved, strong enough to use for making statues and other objects. Sometimes translucent enough to use for windows.

  They’d started their journey in snow and ice; she knew that. She remembered the bitter cold. But somewhere in the deep of the tunnel everything around them had transformed. She remembered not feeling cold as the trek went on—even feeling warm as she’d pulled Putnam’s limp body the last part of the trip. She’d shed each layer of clothing to protect him, and each time the cave had warmed enough that she’d not died of cold. She hadn’t thought at the time what a gift that was.

  Of course, the cave hadn’t transformed because she took off her cloak. It just felt that way.

  On each side of the tunnel, the gypsum walls of the cave veered off into underbrush and tall grass and, above her, toward the sky—or what looked like sky, white and hazy. Shouldn’t it be night? But light glinted off the walls. She couldn’t see where the gypsum walls stopped going up and curved over to become ceiling. She looked out at the land. The trees were sparse—more like a garden gone wild than a forest—but the hilly ground made it impossible to see far.

  Her exploring didn’t bring her to any of the other walls of the cave—though she was convinced this place must be just that: a giant cavern that somehow glowed. And how did the light work? Did the gypsum somehow trap and enlarge it? Because it was so much brighter in this cave than it would be out on the surface.

  This world made no sense. The bears and their island, too. Or maybe the deep south made sense in its own way, and that was different from how the rest of the world worked. Maybe it had a different logic.

  Finally, with the carrots and water, she returned to Putnam, who was still sleeping. His face looked so calm, even full of bruises. She smiled. She’d been full of bruises when they met, and now it seemed to be his turn. He’d taken her in, and now she’d take care of him.

  Exhausted, she curled up next to him and fell asleep, the warm sunlight on her face.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN PUTNAM woke, he turned onto his back before he realized what a terrible idea that was. Gasping with pain, he rolled to his side, and then, slowly, hitched himself up to sitting.

  Several things occurred to him at almost the same time: first, his back was burning, and second, his face hurt to move. But his back: he’d never felt such pain. It felt like fire had been poured over his shoulders and run down.

  Next he noticed where he was: on the blanket, but no longer in the ice tunnel. Artie lay near him, asleep and curled into a little ball on her side, facing away from him as if guarding. The world around them was green and fresh, full of birdsong and squirrel chatter and bubbling brook and scented with mint and lilac and other flowers he couldn’t name.

  Then he thought: I’m so thirsty. And hungry. And as he thought these things, he saw the filled water bag and the carrots and the berries, so he ate and drank, saving some for Artie.

  By the time he nibbled his last carrot, everything had come back to his waking memory: the trip to the deep south; the bitter winter; the ice; the bears, the bears, the bears. Artie dragging him into the tunnel. The long tunnel. His deciding to sleep and to die.

  Was he dead? Was this the afterlife?

  He took another bite. If so, carrots in the afterlife were good. Very good. But wouldn’t the pain be gone if he were dead?

  Artie rolled onto her back and stretched her arms and legs out, basking in the warm air—so foreign to them for so long. Then, in a flash, her face became watchful and her body pulled itself in. Her eyes popped open, glaring for a moment before she focused on Putnam—and smiled. “Hey. You’re alive.”

  “I wondered,” said Putnam. “You’re sure we’re not dead?”

  “I’m sure,” said Artie. “I dragged you in here myself. It’s the end of the world, but it’s not anything worse.”

  “How?” He meant how does this world work? And where are we exactly? And a bunch of other things, too. But for once the words didn’t come to him. He gestured around him, and Artie nodded as if she understood.

  “I went back to the tunnel while you were sleeping. It’s not ice anymore. It’s gypsum. You know what that is?”

  He nodded, trying to understand.

  “We’re way underground, someplace warm. The good part is that there’s food here, and we won’t freeze, and there don’t seem to be any dangerous animals.”

  She meant the bears. It was a relief to be safe from them.

  “The bad part is . . . we might be stuck here.”

  He nodded again. The thought had occurred to him just before she sai
d it. There was no way they could get back up the steep slide they’d come down. “Well,” he said, thinking out loud. “We won’t believe we’re stuck until we’ve explored the whole place carefully. Unless you already did that?” He wondered how long he’d been sleeping.

  She shook her head quickly. “I was too tired. I just washed you off, and found food and water, and went back to the tunnel to look—”

  “You did a ton!”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Putnam realized Artie was probably thinking along the same lines he was. What if they were stuck in this cave forever?

  “There are worse places to be stuck,” he said. “Anyway, this is what you wanted, right? To get far away from Tathenn?”

  But that didn’t seem to make her happy. “I didn’t take us here on purpose!” she said. “I wouldn’t have done that to you. I wasn’t trying to get us stuck.” Her hands balled into fists.

  “I didn’t think you were!” Putnam leaned toward her, groaning a little as his back adjusted. “You saved me, remember?”

  “And you saved me.”

  Putnam grinned and winced at the same time. “Let’s not keep bringing this up over and over again.”

  Artie scooted behind him and gently pulled up his shirt and peeked at the wounds. “I can get more moss for packing. And maybe we should wash the wounds again.”

  “I think I remember that part a little,” said Putnam. “It really hurt. The water burned.”

  “Salt water’s good for wounds.” Artie’s gentle hands paused on his back. “That’s what you wanted,” she said, as if she were thinking something through. “You wanted to find the source of the salty sea.”

  She was quiet so long that Putnam wondered what her point was or if he’d missed part of the conversation somehow. “I did want that,” he said. “Do want it. And I’m sorry my exploring brought us here—I didn’t mean for that . . .” He felt terrible. This was all his fault.

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” said Artie. “Not at all. I was thinking of the water. There are two streams. One is fresh.”

  “And the other one is salt?”

  “The saltiest water you ever tasted. That’s what I bathed your wounds in last night.”

  “So you think . . .”

  “The source of the salt. I think we’re close to it. Maybe if we follow that stream, we’ll find it.” Still behind him, she gripped his shoulders, and Putnam could hear the excitement in her voice. “Even if we can’t get out, you can still do what you came to do. You can still save our world. You can stop the ocean from turning to salt.”

  “We can,” said Putnam.

  4

  PUTNAM AND ARTIE.

  PUTNAM WANTED to explore. His back and shoulders did not want to explore. His back wanted to die, it wanted to throw itself in a snowbank and freeze, it wanted an end to the constant burning and the sharp pain every time he moved. But he himself—his brain and heart—wanted to find the source of the salt, be the hero, make the world’s water drinkable again. And he would do this even if his back were twice as clawed up as it was now.

  At least, he thought he would. He certainly wasn’t going to find another bear and test that idea.

  He couldn’t see the claw marks himself, but Artie had assured him they were “impressive-looking.” Parallel tracks running from his right shoulder all the way down his back.

  He took a deep breath and felt the wounds stretch slightly. He and Artie were walking along the salty creek, having left behind the place where the sweet water forked into it. There was no path, but the land was all grasses and bushes and scattered trees, and except for the constant hills, it wasn’t too difficult to navigate.

  Around them the grasses rustled. There wasn’t a breeze in this place, exactly, but there was something more than a draft. Air was moving. And this morning, after the light dimmed for a couple of hours and then returned, he’d waked to a light rain, almost more of a drizzle.

  Artie interrupted his thoughts. “Ahead. Look.”

  They rounded a hill, and the sound of water suddenly increased to a dull roar. A waterfall.

  A waterfall, and next to it a tall willow tree. And something else.

  A statue.

  A statue of a woman.

  * * *

  • • •

  THEY STUDIED the tree and the waterfall and especially the statue. The waterfall, as tall as a tree and maybe twice as far across as Putnam could have jumped, caused a fine mist to linger in the air, leaving everything in the area wet and verdant. Artie scrambled up the rocks on the side of the cascade and stood on top, reporting that as far as she could tell, the river that fed the waterfall wound its way out of some nearby hills.

  The tree curved over the stream, casting restful shade all around the wide, pond-like area where the water foamed from its crash down the waterfall and before it began burbling away down the stream. The willow draped itself over the water almost like a woman pulling a bucket from the river for cooking, one limb trailing into the stream.

  Artie returned from her climb and together they studied the statue, which stood straight and tall in the spray from the waterfall, dripping. It was the figure of a girl, maybe a couple of years older than Putnam and Artie. She wore a simple old-fashioned dress, no shoes, no cold-weather gear. Arms at her sides, hands open. Something about the posture seemed wrong, as if she’d been told to pose. Uncomfortable. Putnam thought she looked angry, and then he thought sad, and then he thought—he wasn’t sure. All the mist condensing and dripping down her face made her expression impossible to read.

  As he studied the statue, he realized the problem wasn’t just that the statue was standing stiffly, but that, with the water running down it in constant rivulets, it had an odd feeling of movement to it. The overall impression was troubling; it unsettled him.

  He turned and walked away, but Artie called him back. “Did you notice . . . ?”

  “Notice what?” He looked at Artie, not the sculpture.

  “She looks . . . she looks like Raftworld. Like your people, I mean. Like Raftworlders.”

  He forced himself to look again at the girl. The waterfall misted her head, and water dripped down her cheeks in tracks. Artie was right. She did have a classic look about her—not Islander, with their straighter hair and sharper features, but Raftworlder, with tightly-curled hair, here pulled into braids, and a warmer (he thought) face. Well, maybe not warmer; maybe just a face he was more used to. Artie’s face certainly seemed warmer now than he’d originally thought.

  “She does look Raftworlder, right?” Artie said. “The braids?”

  Putnam nodded. “Old-fashioned hair and clothes for Raftworld. But yeah. I can see it.” He turned away again, wanting to get out of here, away from the misty water, away from the weird statue.

  “Isn’t that weird, though?” Artie said exactly the word he was thinking, but it sounded like she meant something different by it. “I mean, doesn’t it make you wonder? How she got here? Who carved her? And look—how is she even standing up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no base. For the sculpture. She’s just standing on the wet ground. How is she even staying up? How is she not falling over or sliding into the river?”

  The figure stood precariously close to the water, on the very edge of the stream. Sand shifted around her feet, and water swirled at her toes, but she did not shift.

  Not she, it. Just a statue.

  “It is strange to find a statue where there’s no people,” he said, cautiously agreeing. “I mean, I guess that proves that someone, maybe someone from Raftworld, arrived here a long time ago . . .”

  “And carved a statue?” Artie sounded almost accusing. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m tired.” And it was true. Putnam suddenly felt exhausted, like he couldn’t think clearly, and like he could barely take another
step. And he just didn’t want to talk about the statue right now. “I need to . . . find somewhere to sit.”

  Artie, who’d been crouching to examine the woman’s feet, jumped up. “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have thought. You need to rest. Let’s find a place to settle for a while.”

  “Away from the water,” said Putnam, shivering. The mist suddenly felt cold.

  Artie ran off and reappeared a moment later. “Just up here.” She led him uphill, away from the waterfall and the tree and the sculpture, to a warm sun-dappled spot in a meadow under some tall bushes, where she spread a cape-blanket and said, “Sleep. I’ll find some more food, and I’ll come back soon.”

  He nodded, so tired he couldn’t argue, couldn’t suggest that he’d look for food, too. Could only sleep in the sunshine.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHILE PUTNAM slept, Artie went exploring. First she found more berries and carrots, and then she found some small tomatoes and something that looked like oversize apples. She carefully picked two; she’d try them in small bites before letting Putnam eat any.

  She also found an aloe plant and broke off a couple of the fat, gel-filled leaves. When Putnam woke, she could help his back heal. Aloe worked wonders; she’d used it herself many times.

  When she went back to Putnam, he was still sleeping. She tied the food into a blanket corner and left. Just for a short time. Not for long.

  She returned to the statue.

  There was something that drew her back, and she wasn’t sure what it was. The expression on the girl’s face? The fact that she seemed like a Raftworlder? That she looked only a couple of years older than Artie herself? The hopeless set of her shoulders?

  The statue was in the same place as they left it. Of course it was. It was dripping with mist and spray from the waterfall. Artie stood in front of it, her heels in the shallow water of the stream, and looked it in the face. She was shorter than the statue, but not by a whole lot. The stone girl stared downstream. The water blurred her features, made her look sad. Maybe that was what was bothering Artie: all the mist made it look like the girl was crying.