Max Tilt: Fire the Depths

by Peter Lerangis

  “Opera ice?” Max said.

  “Groaners,” Basile replied. “Anyway, we could have approached underwater and avoided all of this, but I thought you might like to see it, eh?”

  “Max, look—little penguins!” Alex said.

  To their right, a battalion of small black-and-white birds had crowded onto a big, flat ice floe, fluffing their wings and staring at the Conch. “Actually they’re puffins,” Max said. “Much smaller than penguins. Penguins only live in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  They waddled, dove, preened, and argued as if the Conch weren’t there. “That’s my kind of life,” Basile said. “Take the periscope. You’ll see our destination. And not a moment too soon. We’ll need to pick up some fuel while we’re docked.”

  Alex looked into the periscope and moved it around. “I see a cluster of buildings . . .”

  “Keep your eye out for elephants,” Max said.

  “Eh, wha—?”

  Basile was interrupted by a low rumble, like thunder. To their right, a section of the cliff moved. It separated from the wall and began sliding down, as if the wall of a giant skyscraper had suddenly come loose. Even as it was falling into the water, it sent up a wild, gigantic spray, sending out a wake that made the Conch rock sharply.

  “Hooo-ha!” Basile cried out. “First time this old man has ever seen the calving of an ice shelf.”

  Max watched the ice topple into the water in an explosion of foam. It was the size of a small town, sinking and rising in slow motion, shedding waves of water each time it surfaced.

  He was speechless.

  “Happens mostly in the summer, when the sun weakens the ice,” Basile explained. “Nowadays it’s been happening more and more, though, as the northern ice mass diminishes—”

  “We do not need a lecture on climate change!” Niemand’s voice bellowed from behind them.

  Alex and Max turned. Niemand stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. His usually neatly combed hair was flying out in all directions, and it looked like the silver streak had become wider. A salt-and-peppery beard stubble had spread across his face, and his eyes were slitted and red.

  “Somebody needs his beauty sleep,” Basile said.

  Niemand strode across the room and brought his face to within inches of Basile’s. “Perhaps you have forgotten who signs the paychecks here. The ride has become awfully unstable. Is there any reason we’re not underwater—the way a submarine has been constructed to travel?”

  “I wanted the kids to see the show!” Basile said. “And if you don’t like it, put on a suit and swim.”

  Niemand narrowed his eyes. “My patience for you runs thin, Basile.”

  Basile’s laugh seemed small and forced. “Come now, Stinky, we’ve been talking like this for years—”

  “The dorm room is not a workplace,” Niemand said. “I demand respect. Do not tempt me to find another captain among the seaworthy Greenlanders.”

  “Yes, sir, of course, sir,” Basile said with a wry grin.

  Turning on his tasseled slippers, Niemand strutted back into the hallway.

  “I take it back,” Basile murmured. “He doesn’t need sleep. He needs a psychiatrist.”

  28

  MAX hadn’t been this cold since Dugan Dempsey poured ice down the back of his shirt last February.

  Stepping up out of the Conch’s hatch, he couldn’t stop shivering. They were anchored in the cove of Piuli Point. Two of the village’s dockworkers had brought small motorboats out to greet them. Niemand, Basile, and Pandora were on one. Alex, André, and Sophia had climbed into another. Max was the last to board.

  Standing on the submarine deck, he felt his teeth chatter. A round-face, smiling man reached up from the second boat, handing Max a blanket. “I’m Qisuk. Welcome aboard.” He was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a baseball cap.

  Max felt like he needed three down coats. “I’m M-M-M—” he said, before finally giving up.

  He took a seat next to Alex and across from André and Sophia. As the boat puttered toward shore, the Conch retreated into the distance. Looking behind him, Max could see a set of low buildings. Wisps of smoke rose from their roofs into an icy white-blue sky.

  “Your first time in Piuli Point?” Qisuk asked.

  “Yes,” Alex said.

  “Are you coming to see the meteorites?” he continued.

  “The what?” Alex said.

  Qisuk smiled. “For a little place we have an awesome gems and minerals museum. For generations the Inuit have collected meteorites. Some of the densest material on earth. A dog-sized fragment can weigh three tons. Meteorites were considered sacred to the early settlers of Piuli Point.”

  “Does P-P-Piuli mean ‘m-m-meteorite’?” Max asked.

  Qisuk laughed. “It’s the way our ancestors pronounced the last name of the American explorer, Robert Peary.”

  “The first guy to reach the North Pole?” Alex asked.

  “The first white explorer, yes,” Qisuk said. “Well, unless you ask the descendants of Frederick Cook. Cook said he got there first. Although in truth, the Inuit had most likely been there many times over the centuries. Probably by accident. I mean, who would want to be stuck up there?”

  “In a f-f-few decades, with climate change, it’ll be all w-w-water anyway,” Max said.

  “Your lips are purple, my friend,” Qisuk said. “My sister owns the clothing store on the dock. Let’s get you some warm new togs that fit. And a cup of hot chocolate.” He winked. “We’ll put it on the bill to Niemand Enterprises. It’s not often we have a submarine visiting us, up here in the boondocks.”

  He guided them to the dock and lashed the boat tight. Max’s legs shook as Qisuk helped him out. As they headed for the shop, Max looked out to sea at the Conch. Its periscope, windows, and antennae were floating like a giant alien crocodile.

  “Take the stairs down one flight,” Qisuk said, “and tell them to outfit you Greenland style.”

  As Alex descended, Max pulled out his phone. They may have been way on top of the world, but he had roaming cell service. He sent a quick text to his dad—everything ok. you hang in there!—and headed downstairs.

  A half hour later, he was wearing a brand-new flannel shirt, a wool sweater, lined oilskin pants, thick boots, and a down coat with a fur-edged hood. As he emerged from the lower level, he saw Alex outfitted exactly the same. “We match!” he said brightly.

  Qisuk was at the cash register, in an argument with Niemand about prices.

  Alex grabbed on to Max’s hand. “The others are still being fitted. Come.”

  They rushed out of the store. The sun was already brushing its bottom against the horizon, and the clouds above were a mesh of bright reds, oranges, and yellows. Alex darted down the snow-covered street. They ducked into a small parking lot near a food market, which contained as many snowmobiles as cars.

  “We brought Stinky and his gang into our confidence, because we had to get here,” Alex said. “But from now on, with the rest of that message, it’s just you and me. And we need to move fast. Because the sun is setting.” Reaching into the deep pockets of her down coat, she brought out two flashlights and handed one to Max.

  “At this time of the year, in this place, the sun sets all night long,” Max replied. “We’re near the North Pole.”

  “Good point,” Alex said. She reached into her inner pocket and pulled out the Verne booklet. “Anyway, the next clue is ‘Upon entering the cove of the cook’s competition, look for the bump on the elephant’s forehead.’ Breaking it down, I’d say we rely on the only word that makes sense.”

  “The?” Max said.

  “Cove!” Alex led Max out of the parking lot. They followed the road that led from the shop down to the water. Stores on either side were closing for the evening, and shopkeepers smiled and waved through their windows. “Do they know who we are?” Max asked.

  “I think they’re just being friendly,” Alex replied.

  At the end of the road t
hey made a right onto the path that curved along the dock. They were alone now, and the air was eerily silent except for the lapping of water onto the shore. Alex peered at a sign that said Piuli Cove. “Bummer. I was hoping that said Cook’s Competition,” she said with a sigh.

  “Are there any other coves here?” Max asked. “Maybe Verne is talking about some kind of food competition? Which implies some kind of restaurant—?”

  Alex spun to face him. “What if he didn’t mean a restaurant? When is a cook not a cook?”

  “I hate riddles,” Max said.

  “When it’s a last name, Max! Remember what Qisuk said?”

  Max nodded. “The other explorer, right? The guy who said he got to the North Pole before Peary . . .”

  “His name was Cook! So ‘Cook’s competition’—that was Peary.”

  “And Peary is Piuli!” Max said. “So the cove of Cook’s competition is . . . here!”

  “Exactly,” Alex said, sneaking a look at the mysterious passage. “Now . . . ‘look for the bump on the elephant’s head.’”

  Max glanced around. “Elephants live in hot climates. Unless they’re traveling in a circus, I guess. Or in a zoo.”

  “I don’t see a zoo,” Alex said. “Do you?”

  Max glanced up the hill toward the small village. The scent of fireplaces gave the air a crisp, cozy feeling. Beyond the settlement, the houses gave way to fields of snow. He glanced to the right and left, along the seacoast. On either side of the cove, the earth rose up to distant jagged rocky peaks that loomed high over the water. Some were dotted with caves, and others seemed like mountainous ice sculptures, pounded into strange shapes. Just beyond the ones to the south, Max remembered seeing the giant wall of the ice shelf. Piuli Point was a sheltered cove, a valley between giants.

  Alex was already trudging down the dock, looking around for clues. But Max’s eyes fixed on a high, windswept peak just beyond Piuli Point to the south.

  “Alex . . .” His voice was sharp and brittle-sounding in the thin northern air. So he yelled her name as loud as he could.

  She turned and came running. But he didn’t turn to her. He didn’t want to lose sight of what he had just seen.

  Instead, he just pointed upward. Towering beside the sea, as if standing guard against marauders from the south, was a ridge that outlined the profile of an elephant.

  29

  IN about a quarter mile, the houses and shops gave way to snow-covered fields, where low-slung buildings of tin and wood dotted the landscape like resting cattle.

  And then the road just ended. Trails of footsteps led away in all directions. Max and Alex stopped. Snow had begun to fall lightly. The path to the elephant-shaped ridge was maybe a half mile through pure snow. To their left, the Atlantic Ocean stretched to the horizon.

  Alex glanced over her shoulder, back toward the village. “By now they must have noticed we’re gone. They’ll be coming. And we’ve left big, fat footsteps to guide them.”

  “Not if the snow covers them up,” Max said.

  They took off across the field. The snow sloughed away from their boots like granulated sugar. Max stepped quickly. Walking in the snow was a piece of cake compared to slogging underwater in a Newtsuit.

  Max’s body was warm except for his nose. He could see beads of ice forming on the furry trim of his hood. He squinted against the setting sun. The icy elephant peak was a hulking mass of grayish-black shadow against the crimson sky. It seemed to undulate as they moved closer.

  In the silence and sameness of the snow, Max had no sense of time. It could have been an hour before they reached the base of the peak, or maybe ten minutes.

  Alex was breathing hard. “This . . .” she said, gesturing to an upward-sloping path swept clear by the wind, “looks like the trailhead up the mountain.”

  They both stopped to rest. The silence had given way to the violent crashing of waves. To their left, at the base of the elephant mountain, was a sloping hill that led to another cove. This cove hadn’t been visible from Piuli Point, and it couldn’t have been more different from that calm harbor. Blocks of ice choked the inlet, sending white chunks to the shore on the crests of mighty waves. They crashed with the noise of colliding boulders.

  The wind hit Max’s face like a thousand hornet stings. “Only one way to go,” he said. “Up.”

  “Where are we now?” Alex shouted into the wind. “Can you tell which body part of Dumbo we’re on?”

  She was about twenty feet ahead of him, creeping sideways along a sheer vertical sheet of ice. The path up the peak had become narrow, the wind stronger. Alex was swinging her flashlight along the path’s edges, and the going was slow.

  Max had been trying to keep their bearings, but it wasn’t easy without maps. And he hated calling the elephant Dumbo. “I think we’re at the top of the elephant’s leg!” he called out. “I see the trunk from here!”

  “I hate this,” Alex shouted. “We need climbing gear! And . . . and an antiwind shield!”

  Max dug his boot into the path’s icy gravel, inching closer to his cousin. “The higher you go on a mountain, the worse the wind,” Max said.

  “What?” Alex shouted.

  As Max leaned forward, his foot slipped. He felt himself sliding downward, his heels scraping the ice.

  Alex screamed his name as Max’s back slammed against the wall. His feet jammed on a small ledge, stopping the slide, but the momentum made his upper body lurch forward. He flailed his arms, screaming.

  As his left hand smacked back on the ice, he felt fingers gripping his wrist. “Gotcha!” Alex said.

  Max dug his heels in. He could feel his knees shake.

  “Can you hold on?” Alex shouted.

  “Y-Y-Y—”

  “Don’t look down!”

  Max looked down. The cove stretched out in an imperfect U shape directly below, its waves battering the rocky shore.

  “Stop screaming!” Alex cried out.

  “I’m screaming?” Max said.

  “Yes! I said I have you. Can you turn?”

  Max wiggled his body around. Alex was leaning over the ridge path, holding on to the whitened stump of a dead tree that had once grown out of the mountainside. Max’s gloves were thick, but he managed to dig his fingers into an exposed crag in the rock wall.

  “You can do it, Max . . .” Alex said.

  Slowly, taking deep breaths, Max hoisted himself back up to the path. As he stood, trying not to panic, he felt his breaths coming in deep, hysterical gulps. “Th-Th-Thank—” he stammered.

  “Dude.” Tears were running down Alex’s cheeks. “I thought you were a goner.”

  “Me too.”

  “Don’t worry. We are going to stand here until you’re feeling like a human again. Just . . . breathe, Max. Collect yourself.”

  Max closed his eyes. Do not look down . . . do not look down . . .

  The wind whipped his face, but there was a hole in his glove now, and his fingers were feeling the cold. He thrust his hands into his pockets and said, “I’m good. Let’s go on, before I get frostbite.”

  “Slowly . . .” Alex warned.

  They inched along, feeling the ground carefully before planting their feet. Max glanced upward. They were approaching the top of the elephant now. From this vantage point, the area that looked like a bump on the elephant’s head was clear to see—a deep rocky platform in front of a small cave.

  The path switchbacked twice above them, growing slightly wider until Max and Alex could walk forward instead of sidling along. As they stepped in front of the cave, Max swallowed deeply, staring into the blackness.

  “Hallelujah,” Alex said.

  “It’s—dark in there,” Max remarked.

  Alex took a deep breath. “After what we just went through, Max, I am not scared of some little old cave.”

  Caaawwww!

  A black-winged bird shot out from the shadows, buzzing the top of Alex’s head. She shrieked, diving into Max, who fell onto the platform. “I c
hanged my mind.”

  “We have flashlights,” Max said.

  “I dropped mine while pulling you up,” Alex said.

  Max took out his flashlight. Arm in arm, he and Alex stepped inside. Out of the snow and wind, the sudden silence jarred them. Max’s ears rang. His flashlight beam settled on a cragged, uneven wall maybe twenty feet away. The cave floor had been worn smooth, and the ceiling vaulted upward to a dome about three times Max’s height. “Echo!” he shouted.

  “Stop that, you’ll disturb the bats,” Alex said.

  “I hate bats,” Max replied.

  “They speak highly of you,” Alex said.

  “That’s not funny. That’s so not funny.” Max moved farther in. The walls were smooth and seemed to be sweating with some slimy material, and he ran his fingers along it. “Candle wax?”

  “Or the fat from animal sacrifice,” Alex remarked.

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Seriously, Max, it looks like some kind of ritual was practiced here.”

  Max’s eyes were riveted on a black hole in the wall, just above eye level. It was about three feet square, as if it had been chiseled out of the rock, and it went in pretty deep. “Maybe this was part of the ritual.”

  As they moved closer, the flashlight picked up a faint golden glint from deep within the hole. “Is there something in there?” Alex asked.

  “Give me a boost,” Max said.

  He stood directly beneath the hole and lifted one foot. As Alex cupped her hands beneath his boot, Max tucked the flashlight into the hole, then pressed his palms down onto the inside of the hole for support.

  The rocky surface dropped a fraction of an inch. “That’s weird.”