“I know,” I say. We’re both wondering the same thing.
When the villagers chanted to Odin for rain, didn’t he know they’d die without it? Yet he withheld it from them. He taught me how to make rain while trying to convince me to stay with him, to help him, but from what I remember, his one-eyed vision was narrow. He relied on his ravens to bring him information—ravens waiting for him even now.
Why do they wait? Why not fly away and live their lives independent from him? And didn’t Odin tell me he’d die if everyone stopped believing in him? Why, then, did he withhold rain for so long? A dead population can’t keep a god alive.
Maybe we’ve been fooled all along into believing the planet and its inhabitants need the gods. Seems to me it’s the other way around.
I feel like I might throw up, but there’s nothing in my stomach. Everything feels like it’s caving in on me, like the pressure of the sea is threatening to crush me.
I thought I’d be freeing Odin from his prison room, but I’m done with saving the gods. I could do it, I’m sure. I could reverse the action I took when I rehydrated Kumugwe, but what then? More childish, selfish games? I’m done with being a pawn in their games.
Kumugwe will have to find a way to release his brother from the confining space. They seem to be on good terms again, and it’s clear to me now they’ve been quarreling off and on for eons. Maybe Odin will float to the surface and evaporate his excess fluid once he’s touched by the sun again.
I don’t know. I don’t care anymore.
And maybe he needs to return to Asgard to keep the planet in balance, but maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it would be better for all of civilization if the gods just stayed out of our lives.
What a fool I’ve been, leaving my people, leaving my father so I could rescue the gods. Rescue the gods! Me, a pipsqueak with crazy powers! And putting Nick in danger yet again. What was I thinking?
The gods should have been working to rescue us, but they weren’t. They’re only interested in themselves. What have I done?
Maybe it’s time for the gods to die.
~ 25 ~
“CELESTE? LET’S GO. You look a little green, and not the nice glowy green. You’re not going back in there, are you?” Nick looks as uneasy as I feel.
“No! No. They can take care of themselves, right, Harmony? After all, they are gods.” I don’t even try to hide my sarcasm.
“Yes, they’ll be fine. They’ve been in worse situations before you showed up, and they’re always trying to outdo one another. It ends with laughter, and then they go back to their own routines.”
I’m such a fool. So these are just games to them. But I’m not sure how Kumugwe would have made it back to his castle and his routine without my involvement. Old Man Massive might have finally let him go. He could have rehydrated on his own with enough time back in his element.
The gods have been playing games with one another—and with innocent mortals. It makes my stomach turn again. But we should be on our way to the surface instead of sharing memories.
What’s the fastest way? What’s the safest way?
Harmony senses my distress—she must feel what I feel whether we’re connected by thought or touch—and she hums a tiny snippet of a tune. It sounds like a request to me, but it’s just a song. I need to remember what her songs can do, though. I need to remember how she lured me over the stinking water into her sandcastle a lifetime ago. Do I block my ears?
“Celeste, don’t be silly,” Harmony says, and although I want to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about, I do. “I’m just giving them instructions.”
“What’s she talking about, Celeste? Harmony, what are you talking about?”
I hear creaky, scratchy little noises behind me, where the hermit crabs are still standing. They’re the “them” she’s talking about. She’s giving them instructions. This is what they’ve been waiting for.
“You know. Instructions. Now, don’t either of you question me. Just close your eyes,” she tells me and Nick.
She can’t see us, so she must sense our hesitation, must know Nick and I are looking into one another’s eyes, both of us on the edge of panic, both of us questioning the other with some dread in our hearts.
She can’t see. How does closing our eyes make any sense?
“If you want to go home before my father changes his mind, that is. Do it now.” Harmony tilts her head, waiting for an indication of our compliance.
“Okay,” I say. Nick and I nod at the same time and close our eyes, though it feels contrary to what I should be doing—finding a fast way home—and the next thing I know, I’m careening through the water in a slick, glowing tube. Nick and Harmony keep pace with me in tubes on either side, and when I look behind me, I swear I can see a shiny black hermit crab at the far end of my spectacular tunnel.
We pass over deep coral reefs and sunken mountaintops and through schools of fluorescent fish and pods of dolphins and lumbering manatees, but as breathtaking as the speed and sights are, I’m still afraid we could be captured. And I don’t trust Harmony. Why would she have left Kumugwe, the only being—besides me, occasionally—who cares about her?
She’s smiling. She turns toward me, and in a horrifying vision I imagine her ripping through her tube and tearing into mine, stopping me before I reach my destination—wherever these tubes are taking us—and laughing at my trust in her, laughing with her torn eye sockets quivering in the water, laughing at the power I believe I have to stop her birth parents from destroying what remains of a planet they’ve already torn apart.
And I envision her waving a hand at Nick again, taking away his ability to breathe in this unforgiving environment—killing him.
Stop it, I tell myself. Calm down. She could have done all of this back at the castle if she’d wanted to.
A twinge of doubt lingers, though.
I turn away from her and look at Nick. He raises his eyebrows in a way that says, “What’s the matter?” Can he see lingering remnants of that terrifying vision in my face? I do my best to smile, but just as Odin could read my expression when I saw what had become of him, Nick can tell my smile’s not real. And I can tell he’ll do anything, everything, to keep me safe. This is what brings a genuine smile to my lips.
Just as he returns my smile, I feel myself tossed into the air, the dry, sun-soaked air, and I land on my behind with a dull thump in a soft mound of sand. Two more thumps and Nick and Harmony land on either side of me. Harmony is back in her legs.
I remember this beach. I see an enormous span of wall on the hillside where I threw this spear, my spear, into the silvery-pink water, and watched as it turned to turquoise. I point to the wall, a question in my eyes.
“Bridger built it,” Nick says. “Stopped a tidal wave. Oh, and Katie froze the wave before it hit, so I guess she’s to thank too. I keep forgetting you weren’t here then. It’s a long, long way around, but you could fly us over it faster.”
I remember plucking Bridger from the apple tree and the sorrow he expressed when his first little boat couldn’t save any lives. I’m not the only one feeling responsible for the fate of others, then. It’s a humbling thought.
Harmony holds up a hand. “Shhh! Lilith and Thurston are talking again. It’s echoey, but it sounds like they’re saying they’re not ready yet. They’re pleased with their progress. They started talking while we were in the tunnels, but the travel noise made it hard to hear.”
“Yeah, about those tunnels,” I say. “What exactly are they?”
“Those water tunnels,” Nick says, “are how Chimney and I found you. Well, they brought us to you. I don’t know how. Don’t you remember being in one? When I, you know, woke you up?” His copper cheeks glow. Pretty sure he’s blushing. I know I am.
“The hermit crabs are my friends,” Harmony giggles. She bows her head and plays with the sand, picking up handfuls and letting it sift between her fingers. She looks so innocent. “I called to them before leaving the castle with Nick,
and they waited for us. They spin the water tunnels from inside their shells and grab you with their claws. I told you to close your eyes so you wouldn’t be afraid.”
Just like in my dream. Hermit crabs with special powers.
But something doesn’t make sense to me. “Then, why were you in such a hurry to leave if you knew Kumugwe would just let you come with us?”
“I already told you. He could’ve changed his mind. He doesn’t really understand why I want to help topsiders, especially since they were the ones who threw me away.”
“Why do you want to help us?” Nick asks.
“Isn’t revenge for what they did to me a good enough reason? But no. I should thank them for tossing me into the water to a father who loves me and a home that’s more beautiful than anything I’ve seen topside. I’m helping because Lilith and Thurston broke the sea floor. They tortured a loving creature and they poisoned our home. I can’t let them do that again. They have to be stopped before I can return to my father.” She stops playing with the sand. She’s about to cry.
Can a person with shattered eyes cry?
Even though I feel her torment, she frightens me.
It’s time to return to the village. Do I bring her there looking as she does? I see the expression on Nick’s face when he looks at her. The young ones have endured so much, but this is horrifying.
“Harmony? Would you let me protect your eyes so when you’re ready for new ones, the area will be clean? There’s so much sand and dust and—”
“Of course.”
She bows her head again and allows me to tie my emerald scarf around her head, over the empty places.
~ 26 ~
I PULL HARMONY to her feet and keep hold of one hand. In my other hand is the spear. Were the sacrifices I’ve made and the danger I’ve put my friends in worth it for this metal inlaid stick of wood, this thing I’ll need to keep safe so it won’t fall into the wrong hands again, as it did with Sharon? I’d be a fool to think so, but I’ve been wrong before.
“It’s waiting, you know,” Harmony says.
“What’s waiting? Where?” I glance around the beach for lurking dangers and shiny black hermit crabs, but there’s nothing more than sand and water and darkening sky, and Bridger’s great wall on the distant hill.
“Your spear. It’s waiting for you to give it a purpose.”
Is my mind really that open to her? She smiles, and I shiver a little.
“You should give it a name,” Nick suggests. “Something impressive. Something powerful.” It looks like he’s searching for just the right name.
“Maybe we should get to the village and see how our friends are coming along with their plans first,” I say. Unless Harmony is lying about the scientists’ readiness, there will be time for naming and purposing my spear later.
“Yeah, you’re right.” He gazes over the land between the water and the wall. “Should we walk to the wall? Hard to believe this was all cracked open or covered in ooze not long ago.”
“Was it really not long ago?” That’s what I find hard to believe. I remember all the horrifying things that happened here—the pursuit of Sharon in her vulture form, the terrifying rescue of Thunder and Chimney and Orville from the fissures, Orville’s excruciating fight for his life and asking me to return him to the stinking waters—and here I stand, holding the spear I mistakenly thought had ended all the troubles for the survivors of The Event.
“Well, it did seem like forever while you were gone.” He shakes water from his sea-swept hair and takes my hand and Harmony’s. We start walking toward the wall.
When we get back to the village, there won’t be time for breezy walks on the beach.
I have a nagging feeling I should’ve already learned more about the scientists, but how could I have when even Sharon didn’t seem to know they were alive after they abandoned her? How could any of us have known what they were working on? And what are they working on, what’s the purpose of their creature army? They can’t be planning to destroy the planet—they wouldn’t be able to do that without ensuring their own deaths—but what, then?
I blame the gods. They should’ve known about these people. And maybe they did. Odin showed me the ooze returning to the sea during the time of fluxes. Did he know about the scientists’ cruel laboratory deep underwater? Wouldn’t he have told his quarrelsome brother about it?
Was it just another game to them, watching how mortals react to devastation? And here we are, on our own with nothing more than our powers. Powers we may or may not be able to keep. Who knows how long they’ll last if Lilith and Thurston can still cause ionic fluctuations from their new laboratory?
Nick looks exhausted—not sure why I’m not—and I’m eager to see my father and my friends. Enough trudging through shifting sand. I stop, and Nick raises his eyebrows. I smile, and he smiles back.
“If you don’t mind, let’s fly.” I wrap one arm around Harmony and guide her arm around my waist. Nick already knows how to hold onto me. How I wish it were just the two of us right here, alone on this beach. I look at him before taking flight and read the same wish in his eyes.
“I’m ready,” Harmony says, interrupting this beautiful moment. And she’s still wearing that smile. It’s hard to read a smile when there are no eyes to interpret it.
Part of me wants to leave her here, abandon her on this beach, pluck my scarf away from her and send her back to Kumugwe. Do we really need to hear what’s happening in the laboratory? We know it’s not good. We know Bridger is there—frightened and unhappy—with Sharon and Blanche too. We know the monsters will have weaponized limbs and will do as they’re directed.
And can we even trust Harmony to tell us the truth?
She could have killed us back in the castle, but she didn’t. She let me inside her, allowed me to remove the weaponized particles, leaving her sightless. The connection we have remains a mystery, but I can’t deny it.
And I can’t abandon her. I have to remember she’s a child who just wanted someone to play with.
Kumugwe wanted—wants—to protect her and keep her happy.
And Odin is an ancient god, looking for a companion.
What a world.
“Are we flying yet?”
She may be blind, but she knows we’re not flying yet. Nick squeezes me gently and nods, and I lift them both from the ground. It doesn’t take long before we’re over the village.
Ranger is the first to spot us from where he roams the perimeter, and he comes running as we land. He sniffs Harmony’s feet and she giggles. She reaches out her hands toward him, and he sniffs them too, but backs away before she can touch him. I see him looking at my scarf. He lets Nick pet him, and when I kneel down, he delivers a wee welcome lick under my chin.
“This is the child who walked from the sea,” Ranger says. “She left the village with the bad sister after you disappeared. I do not understand. Why is she here?”
He lets me hug him—I’m so happy to feel his full, soft coat again—and I see others coming our way when they notice us. “She’s here to help us,” I say. “Let’s meet with Orville and the rest and I’ll tell you what we’ve learned. It’s good to be back, Ranger. How’s Penelope?”
“You remembered her name.” He seems pleased. “She is strong. She will help as well.”
“Celeste!” My father calls from down the road and comes running. I meet him halfway, and enveloped in his hug, I feel safe again, safe enough to cry. “Oh! Don’t cry, Little Bear. You’re home now”—Home, he says!—“and everything’s going to be all right.” He holds me tightly until I stop crying. “Who’s the blindfolded girl? Isn’t that the scarf we gave you when—”
“Her name is Harmony, and she’s the daughter of Kumugwe. Her birth parents are the scientists we need to stop. They’re the ones who took you away from me, who took Mom away from me.”
More tears. What is it about my father that makes it okay to just be me again? I pull myself together. I can’t keep letting The Event�
�and my family’s drop into the fissure that day—haunt me. I still don’t know how my father survived the plunge that cracked our home and swallowed everything—but Mom and my puppy didn’t survive. I’ll probably never know.
At least I have him. There are no other fathers in the village.
Nick leads Harmony to where Dad stands with an arm around me, and soon we’re at the center of a murmuring crowd. Dad takes Harmony’s hand and pulls her gently toward him until he can put his other arm around her. He senses . . . something, or maybe it’s just the protective father in him. In any case, Harmony smiles. She feels safe too, at least for this brief moment.
“They’re back!” Chimney shouts from a porch and dashes toward us, and Nick grabs him and swings him around before releasing him to hug me. He’s grown taller since we left. That’s what my old neighbors always said about me when they hadn’t seen me for a while.
I feel old.
The crowd parts to let Orville and Riku through. It’s well past Last Meal, and I remember how the villagers used to circle the little pond and chant Odin’s name for rain. They don’t do it anymore. I was supposed to keep them believing in him. I was supposed to be his buddy.
“Has it rained since we’ve been gone?” I ask Orville.
“It’s a pleasure to see you too!” he says, and we both laugh at our awkward reunion. He opens his arms and wings—the crowd gasps lightly at a sight they’ve seen numerous times, because how could they not?—and while I hug him, he says, “Yes. It rained shortly after you left. A strange first question, I must say.”
So! It will rain without the sky god’s involvement. This reinforces my growing sense that we can survive without Odin’s interference. I’m about to explain myself when Chimney interrupts.
“Hey, Celeste, why is that girl wearing your scarf over her eyes?” He scrunches his shoulders and I can tell he’s trying not to stare at Harmony, but I can also tell everyone else is thinking the same thing.
I introduce Harmony with a vague reference to an injury requiring time to heal—so much time, and how will I even heal her? After briefly highlighting what everyone should know about our interactions with the gods and what we can learn through Harmony’s chip, I feel a growing sense of anticipation in the crowd.
Waterwight Breathe Page 11
