Race to the Bottom of the Sea

by Lindsay Eagar

  “But what about our work?” Fidelia said. “All our research is here, in Arborley.”

  Aunt Julia took the bowls to the sink and scrubbed them clean. “There is no more work. The collection is going to the university, remember?”

  “It was my work, too,” Fidelia challenged, and for the first time since that horrible night, she let herself think of Grizzle. His long, torpedo body; his eyes, black buttons; the five gills slit into his rubbery skin; his jagged smile. A shark still waiting to be tagged, and tracked, and named. Her spine tingled.

  “Ida and Arthur were trained, accredited scientists.” Aunt Julia’s mouth was a long, serious line. “You are just a girl.”

  Fidelia squeezed her fists into tight little balls so she wouldn’t explode.

  Just a girl, whose gadgets rivaled anything you’d find in Adventures in Science Engineering. Just a girl, who had dissected her first guppy when she was two. Just a girl, who six weeks ago discovered a new species of shark. If she gave up now, she’d always be a footnote to the late Dr. and Dr. Quail.

  “Listen,” Aunt Julia said carefully. “You can still continue your research from the mainland, if you like. Science isn’t only about field studies, after all. We’ll order some new science books for the catalog —”

  “No! No more books! Stop trying to make everything better with books!” Fidelia pushed away from the table, her chair falling back with a clatter. The fat cat meowed in protest.

  Fidelia loved books — of course she did. But there were some things a book couldn’t give her. The smell of the sea, salt burning in her nose. The chill of spray on her cheeks. The sound of whale pods harmonizing as they floated, shifting continents in the watery blue.

  “Can’t you see I’m trying to keep you safe?” Aunt Julia burst out. “To lose Ida and Arthur is bad enough. To lose you —” Her voice broke. She sank into a kitchen chair, covering her face with her hands, and wept.

  Fidelia held her breath until her own tears ebbed and the lump in her throat melted. “I don’t want a new life,” she said. “I want my old one.”

  Aunt Julia wiped her damp cheeks with her wrists. “Well, it’s gone.”

  Fidelia walked to the windowsill. Her observation book was still there, still closed. She touched it — a layer of dust came off with her fingers.

  Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust … The minister’s words from the funeral came into Fidelia’s mind uninvited. She remembered all the people who had come to lay the Quails to rest — scholars and amateur biologists, bird-watching hobbyists, and the sailors …

  The sailors. Their heads had looked so tiny without their nautical caps — oily hair smoothed back in respect, sea-battered faces twisted in grief when they trailed past the caskets.

  Sailors who had taught Fidelia how to spit-shine her boots, sailors who slipped fragrant oranges into her hands on her birthday. Surrogate aunts and uncles, all of them.

  And she’d been avoiding them, hiding in the library like a moray in a reef, because she knew if she looked in a sailor’s eyes, she’d feel that sudden coldness at both her sides without her parents there — without Arthur cracking his salty jokes, Ida laughing like a happy goose.

  Without the two of them, did Arborley even feel like home?

  “I think,” Fidelia said, “I’ll go to the house and start packing.” She tucked her observation book and binoculars into her bag, a habit as old as she was.

  “I’ll come with you,” Aunt Julia said. “Let me grab my umbrella.”

  “No.” Fidelia slipped her bag over her shoulders, right in its place — crossing her body like a banner.

  “You’re upset —”

  “I want to go by myself.” She let Aunt Julia look at her face. “Please.”

  “Be home for dinner,” Aunt Julia finally said.

  Then Fidelia turned and ran down all three flights of stairs, and when she pushed open the library doors, the scent of the ocean hit her like a riptide, sudden and violent. She swallowed the sea air, a frigid shock to her lungs. Her quarrel with Aunt Julia faded to a hidden alcove in her mind as she headed through the silent town, braced for the storm.

  Fidelia walked down the cobbled street past the ink emporium, past the chemists’ shops, past the drapers. An elaborate new sea chart was displayed in the window of the lithographers’ shop. Fidelia crossed the street; it couldn’t even tempt her.

  She scampered right past the road that would have led her to the boardwalk, her neck cemented forward. The last thing she wanted was to bump into anyone who might try to talk to her.

  The sound of the Book and Bottle’s laughter and fiddles dwindled as Fidelia went the opposite direction, down Hemlock Avenue. Then it was as quiet as open water.

  Evidence of the Undertow’s spiteful winds were everywhere. The poplars lining the canal were blown back, angled like pens scrawling on paper. Windows and doors were still bolted shut; every shrub was a hen with ruffled feathers. She glanced down just as rain started plink-plinking the surface of the canal, shattering the water’s mirror image of the gray cotton-down sky.

  She turned the conversation with Aunt Julia over and over in her head like a found coin. Could Fidelia really thrive in a new habitat? Could she live without the sea surrounding her on all sides? Without the native star-apple trees that grew in the green spaces between buildings? Without the promise of tide pools mere minutes from her front door?

  Her boots clomped easily through the puddles in the street. They were grade A, rubber-soled black flenser boots, staples in all three Quails’ wardrobes. “You’ll never know when you’ll need to chase a specimen through a bog,” her mother had said, and wisely so. Last year, Fidelia and her mother were tracking a marmalade frog, and the critter had led them through a mile of swampland before settling on a stump. The Quails had kept up just fine — thanks to the boots.

  Oh, Mom. Fidelia swallowed away the hurt that swelled like a wave inside her, and tried to ready herself as she turned down Oleander Road.

  The shingle-style canal houses were tall and narrow, with thick white wooden trim like frosting on gingerbread houses and yards full of tangled ivy. Every house’s door was painted a different color — robin’s egg blue, daffodil yellow, grass green.

  She stopped in front of a house with drawn curtains, its door the color of a goldfish. A signpost above the mailbox said Quail in bold lettering. Before she could lose her nerve, she charged up the front stoop, honeysuckle taking over the terra-cotta brick stairs. She found the hidden key to the front door beneath the loose shingle under the bay window, held her breath, and went inside.

  It wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be, to see the home she’d shared with her loving parents. But then again, things weren’t as dramatically different as she’d expected them to be. The parlor was freezing, only ash in the fireplace. Her mother’s tea set was still arranged on its cart in the bay window, the stack of her favorite ginger cookies as stale as stones.

  A thin layer of grime coated everything, including her parents’ Gilded Iguanas — but not even the dust could reduce the awards to mere trinkets. The weak noon sunlight poured through a crack in the kitchen curtains, hitting the Gilded Iguanas like a flashlight. Right there, right between them — that’s where she would have put her own award. And she would’ve put one of Grizzle’s massive teeth on the shelf next to it.

  Grizzle … The shark cruised through the shallows of her mind, and her shoulders sank.

  All the things she’d lost — Grizzle, her parents, her home, and now Arborley itself — stacked themselves on her back, the load unbearable. Maybe it was a good thing that her parents’ collection had been left to the university. Less things, less burdens, less tangible memories. The house itself would be gone, too — sold to new people. Maybe even to a nice fishing family, someone who would love the five-minute walk to Stony Beach as much as the Quails had.

  Maybe Aunt Julia was right. Maybe it was time to migrate somewhere new, away from Arborley. To rebuild.

&n
bsp; She ran a finger along the brim of her father’s favorite boater hat, still on the chaise lounge where he always tossed it as he came through the front door. Ida would pretend to shake hands with the hat rack and say, “Arthur, dear, may I introduce the two of you?”

  Fidelia closed her eyes. She didn’t believe in ghosts; she was only interested in things that could be observed, measured, collected. But this house was haunted in a different way. Haunted by memories: Ida Quail’s voice chirping in the hallway upstairs; Arthur Quail banging around in the garden shed, getting the equipment ready for an early-morning field study.

  There was a sound above her, in her parents’ bedroom.

  What was that?

  Another sound — someone was walking upstairs.

  Fidelia grabbed a whale bone, held it up as a weapon.

  Her parents’ bedroom door squeaked.

  She stopped breathing. Could it be —? Was there a chance —?

  “No,” she whispered, and repeated it in her mind, like a chant.

  No. No. Her parents had drowned. The constables had recovered the bodies. There had been a funeral.

  No. It couldn’t possibly be… .

  Footsteps started down the stairs. She tightened her grip on the whale bone.

  During the Undertow, anything could happen.

  “Mom?” she called weakly. “Dad?”

  She took a step forward — and a steel-strong hand clapped over her mouth from behind.

  Fidelia screamed, but the hand trapped all sound. She threw kicks. Punched. Hacked with her arms to no avail. She was lifted like a sack full of freshly caught cod and thrown over the person’s shoulders.

  Fidelia’s captor carried her upstairs, her boots bumping against the banister as she thrashed like a gator caught on a line.

  She was dropped unceremoniously in the armchair in her parents’ bedroom. Many a night had been spent in this chair, on her mother’s lap, her mom murmuring a lullaby to soothe Fidelia out of a nightmare. Now two strong arms pinned her there, more terrifying than any bad dream.

  “Keep her there,” a man growled from a corner of the room. It was so dark that Fidelia could make out only his silhouette; the shutters blocked what little late-November light there was. “Tie her up, if you have to.”

  She’d been in bad binds before. There was the time she got her hair caught in the snap of a wolffish. Or the time she’d accidentally ingested a poisonous water lily. But she wasn’t out in the wilderness now, dealing with plants and animals — these were people. And she had no idea how to handle them.

  “Yes, Captain,” said the man holding Fidelia in a deep, molasses-dipped voice.

  Captain.

  Fidelia knew every captain who came through Arborley’s port. She racked her brain, trying to match a face to that gravelly voice… .

  “Get a fire —” the captain started, then burst into dry coughs.

  A woman said, “Captain, are you —?”

  “I’m fine,” the captain grunted. “Just get a fire lit.”

  A match struck, and suddenly a golden light filled the room, the hungry flames devouring the logs in the grate.

  Fidelia blinked, her eyes adjusting.

  A woman crouched on the Quails’ rug, tying a rope around Fidelia’s ankles. She wore a pair of rolled-up men’s knickers and a billowing blouse. A red scarf wrapped across her hairline, keeping her white-blond hair out of her eyes. Her face was hard and tanned, cheeks weathered by wind and sun, and her brawny forearms were covered in blue-black ink: rows of solid lines wrapped around her wrists like bracelets, and a swallow, flying across her left hand.

  “Nice boots,” the woman said with genuine admiration. “Rubber?”

  Fidelia didn’t answer; she was trying to place the woman’s accent.

  The man who’d carried Fidelia up the stairs now came around the front of the chair and lashed her wrists together with a length of that same itchy rope. He was tall, dark-skinned, and broad, with biceps as big as grapefruits. His bald head reflected the firelight, and his thick eyebrows knitted themselves together like one fuzzy caterpillar as he worked. A tiny canary jewel was pierced into his nose — a common fashion in the southeastern islands.

  “What do you want?” Her words came out sounding stronger than she felt. “Why are you tying me up?”

  They ignored her, knotting their ropes. The man went to the Quails’ dresser and opened a drawer.

  “You won’t find anything valuable in there.” Despite her fear, a curl of scorching rage flickered in Fidelia’s chest — how dare these strangers come into this house? How dare they touch the Quails’ things? “Unless you’re interested in shark sperm samples.”

  “You hear that, Charlie? She fancies you a cat burglar.” The woman snickered.

  The man slammed the drawer shut and glared at Fidelia. “Give me your scarf,” he said to the woman. “Let’s gag her now and save us all a headache.”

  “Enough.” From the shadowy corner of the room, the captain spoke. “Where are they?”

  His voice … quiet and steady, but tight as a plucked wire. It sent chills along Fidelia’s skin, scurrying like shore crabs along the sand. “Who?” she said, trembling.

  “The unsinkable Dr. and Dr. Quail — where are they?” the captain said, every syllable crackling.

  “They’re … They’re …” Fidelia stammered. “Gone.”

  “Gone where?” the captain said. “On holiday? Moved? Retired?”

  The captain stepped forward, and a blaze of the firelight caught the profile of his face.

  Skin so pale it was almost lavender, but wind-burned and rough. One black sideburn curving along a sharp jaw and a scraggly black beard. One silver hoop earring, half a stern mouth, and one blue eye, burning like a moonstone.

  The other half of his face remained concealed in the darkness.

  “Speak, girl!” he commanded.

  Fidelia started, even in her bindings. “They’re … they’re dead.” A stone dropped into her stomach. There. He’d made her say it.

  The news seemed to physically wound him — he bowed his head, shrinking back into the darkness.

  “How?” he said softly. “How did it happen?”

  “The Undertow,” Fidelia whispered, then frowned. “I don’t understand. Did you know them?” He must have; why else would he care that they were gone?

  The captain exhaled a gust of air. “I knew of them — let’s put it that way. And they knew of me.”

  He knew of them? “Well, I’m their daughter,” she said. “If they knew of you, they certainly never bothered to mention it.” She strained against her ropes. “My parents might be gone, but this is still my house.” At least for the moment. “I demand you get out.”

  “Their daughter,” he mused. “Interesting. And judging by the way you stink like a dried-out porpoise at low tide, I’m guessing you share their unusual passions?”

  Fidelia raised her chin. “And you stink like …” She sniffed, her well-trained nose picking up a mixture of gunpowder and salt, ocean brine stuck in wedges of wood, a crate of limes. The smell of a harbor. The smell of a sailor. A captain.

  He turned to her, the rest of his face illuminated by the hearth, and Fidelia gasped.

  The captain had one brilliant, frighteningly blue eye, which seemed too rich to be natural — vivid as a sapphire. But his left eye … Fidelia wondered how an eyeball could cling to a skull like that while still respecting the laws of gravity. The iris was carbon black, an endless mine shaft. Scarlet liquid held the iris aloft, a black dot awash in a stormy sea of blood.

  “Not the most beautiful shade of red, is it?” he said. “But we all make our little sacrifices for the Queen’s Own Navy.”

  “You’re in the navy?” Fidelia said.

  “Was,” he corrected. “I served three years.” He fingered the scarred skin around his eye. “This was courtesy of an artillery ricochet. At least I was left with my head, which is more than most of the naval commanders can say.”
>
  He took a seat across from Fidelia in her father’s favorite reading chair. There was an unnatural calmness about him, as if he were in command of every molecule in his body.

  Quite the opposite of Fidelia, whose pulse hammered with warning shots: danger, danger, danger …

  “If you’re going to kill me,” she said, “do it fast.”

  “Kill you?” The captain raised his eyebrows. “You seem like a smart girl: If I wanted you dead, why would I tie you up?”

  Fidelia immediately thought of the dozens of poor creatures she’d seen on fishing lines, twisted up, left to slowly die, gills flapping desperately. Was she heading for a similar fate? “Then what is happening?”

  “To be straightforward,” he said, “I’m here for a Quail. I came for your parents, but since they are …”

  Fidelia braced herself for the word.

  “… unavailable, I’ll be taking you.” His black eye was a tunnel; she felt like she could fall right into it and be lost forever.

  “You’re kidnapping me?” Fidelia flexed against her ropes.

  “Call it what you —” He broke off, coughing. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Who are you?” she whimpered. “Why are you doing this?”

  The captain pointed to his own chest. “Merrick the Monstrous. Terror of the nine seas. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Suddenly, Fidelia’s insides tangled like vines. “You’re a pirate.”

  Merrick’s smile was crooked, his gold-capped teeth gleaming. “I’m not just a pirate, Quail. I’m the pirate.”

  “Pirates,” Fidelia whispered. Her entire body flooded with adrenaline; if it weren’t for the ropes binding her to the chair, she’d be running back to the library. Oh, why hadn’t she stayed on the couch with the cat?

  “But you said you hurt your eye in the navy,” she said.

  “It’s a naval injury, one way or another,” Merrick said. “I served three years as an officer before I decided on a career change. All pirates have seedy backgrounds. Mine is easily the seediest.”

  “Cheapshot Charlie,” the woman said, gesturing to the bald man, “and I’m Bloody Elle, since you asked,” the woman said. “At your service.” She bowed so deeply and dramatically, Fidelia knew it was meant to mock her.