by Mandy Hager
She abandoned her futile battle with the tiller and clawed for Ruth's hand, tugging her across the slippery wooden deck. Lazarus and Joseph needed no such encouragement, and were scrambling towards what remained of their shelter. They tumbled in and huddled together at its centre, while their stores washed about them in total disarray. The roaring of the wind and the pressure in their ears was almost unbearable.
They could hear the churning vortex of the waterspout as it passed them by like a thousand demons released from Hell. When the roar finally died away there was a lessening of the pressure in the air and, despite the continued attack of the storm itself, all four found themselves smiling with relief that this ordeal was over. But it was not. Another huge wave had built behind them and now it scooped up the boat as if it were nothing more than feathers on the breeze. The hulls pitched onto their prow—suspended in an endless moment of impossibility—then, just as suddenly, completely overturned.
Maryam's lungs were near-bursting as, buried by furious water, she tried desperately to hold her last precious breath. But she was thrown against the shelter's timber frame, tumbled and twisted, minced and mashed, in a thick soup of flailing bodies and broken stores. Her hair streamed out over her face, tying itself in strangling tangles tight around her neck.
Just as she thought she could hold her breath no longer, she felt the boat flip over on its axis. Water streamed from the shelter as the craft righted itself on the roiling surface of the sea. Maryam crashed down onto the deck, her arm twisting under her, and somewhere close to her she heard a crack. Pain splintered her mind, and all else seemed to ebb away. Only in a fleeting moment of clarity did she register that the bone inside her arm had snapped.
Maryam could hardly think past the stabbing pain. Around her, the shelter lay in ruins. The wooden framing had splintered and the whole structure slumped at a precarious angle towards the prow. Their stores had been devastated, most of them washed away or broken as the boat had flipped. Ruth was bleeding from a gash on her forehead and Lazarus was retching up sea water; Joseph coughed so violently he surely risked expelling his lungs.
Nausea swept over her as she looked down at her left arm and saw the reddening lump where the broken bone pressed at the skin just below her elbow. When she tried to straighten it the pain was so appalling she nearly passed out and bright flashes of light fractured behind her eyes.
Around them the storm raged on, the boat tossed helplessly on the vicious waves. Without the shelter of thatching they had no protection from wind or spray, and Maryam felt a chill settling over her—her whole body was soaked and shaking, and nausea was rising up so fast she couldn't hold back the strings of burning bile that rose into her mouth.
Lazarus was the first to recover, ripping off his shirt and roughly tying strips around Ruth's head to stem the blood. Ruth's eyes were glazed, as though her mind had fled the scene. She sat amidst the slushy rubble, rocked at will by the seas, emitting an unearthly moan. As Lazarus worked to patch up Ruth, Maryam saw angry red grazes puffing up along the central line of his spine, and noted in a strange detached way how he winced each time his body twisted with the jolting of the boat.
Now Joseph was crawling over to Maryam, the ugly marks of Te Matee Iai so pronounced around his neck and chest the skin looked black. His lips were split and seeping blood, his eyes so bloodshot she wondered how he still could see.
“Are you hurt?” Joseph rasped. Up close she realised he was cut and bruised as well.
Maryam nodded, unable to speak. It took every scrap of concentration she had left not to scream out with pain. She forced herself to raise her arm, presenting it for him to see.
“Oh no! Is the pain bad?”
Somewhere inside her dazed brain she laughed. Bad? That depends on the scale. Was it worse than their predicament? Worse than everything she'd survived up until now? All she could manage in response was one tiny nod of her head. Yes, it burns just like the fires of Hell.
Behind Joseph, Lazarus had finished strapping up Ruth's head and was crawling towards the shelter's doorway, balancing himself on the shattered framing as he pushed his head out past the remnants of the thatch, straight into the full force of the storm.
He did not last long—the rain drove straight into his face—but he'd seen enough. He tipped back into the shelter and dropped his head into his hands. The other three watched him, preparing for the worst as he finally lifted his head. Shock bruised his eyes and washed him ghostly pale.
He cleared his throat, his Adam's apple sliding up and down several times before he spoke. “We've lost the mast. The big one. It's snapped right off.”
Maryam heard the words clearly enough, despite the roaring of the wind, but she couldn't really comprehend what he'd said. Lost the mast? What did that mean? She tried to think through the consequences but the constant lurching of the hulls ramped up her pain. She moved her arm, attempting to brace it more securely against her chest, but the torture was too much for her, wrapping itself in a tight band around her forehead and pressing at her brain. She cried out, unable to hold the well of agony inside her now. Then she blacked out.
Was it hours or days before she regained sufficient sensibility to think? She'd been locked in a nightmare daze, jumbled images washing in and out of her consciousness as the storm raged on. Day like night; night, lit up by lightning, just like day. Constant pitching and jolting. Thirst and hunger. Pain on pain.
When she finally managed to focus properly on the carnage around her, she registered that at least the others were accounted for and now asleep. Ruth's blood-smeared head rested in Maryam's lap, one hand stretched out and clutching at a bamboo strop, the other holding tightly to her sodden Holy Book. Joseph lay curled up next to her, his breathing shallow and laboured. He was bolstered against rolling by Lazarus, whose arm reached tightly around him even in sleep.
It was impossible to tell if it still rained; the gale was so fierce the spray drove horizontally into her face. The wild wind shrieked in her ears, and as the minutes blurred again into hours, its caterwauling conjured up a host of disconnected voices. Take this faithless whore and cast her out. Her father's voice, so clear she startled and cast around for him, before she realised how ridiculous that was. This is your fault, you stupid girl. That, she knew was Lazarus, and yet he lay there sleeping at Joseph's side. But the voices were so real, the hairs on her arms rose up as she heard Ruth's voice above the wind. I testify against you this day that you shall perish. Again, the proof before her eyes belied the phantom voice.
It was as if she'd died—been pitched through some terrible tempestuous limbo to a place where all the voices of her past laid bare her many sins. Perhaps it was the Lord Himself who now berated her, making her pay for her treachery towards Him by casting her straight into Hell. Was this the Tribulation re-enacted? Sent forth to punish her for her disbelief? She tried to pray, pushing past the consuming pain that dulled her mind: Forgive me, Lord—and, if you can't, at least somehow protect the others here and make them safe.
As if to answer her, lightning flared overhead, illuminating the wreckage of the boat. Beneath its cold, furious flash the faces of her friends transformed to masks—hollow-eyed death masks that left her accused of responsibility for their fate. Her chest ached with the burden of repressed sobs, yet she found she couldn't cry. Everything inside her had been sucked away, leaving only the husk of her, held together by her pain and guilt.
Dizzy and exhausted, she closed her eyes. Nanona! I am here! Her mother's voice! Only she knows my real name. Maryam spun around, certain the voice was right behind her, forgetting that she cradled Ruth's head in her lap. Ruth stirred and groaned, her eyes springing open and fixing on Maryam's face.
The only thing Maryam could think to do to soothe her was to stroke her blood-streaked hair, crooning wordless comfort as Ruth's eyelids flickered again and closed.
Maryam forced herself to focus on the real world, to take stock of their situation with her rational mind. Although Lazar
us was bruised and battered, he did not seem to have any major injuries that she could see. Ruth's head wound had clotted underneath the makeshift bandage, but the effects of the blow she'd suffered were less than clear. Somewhere in her memory Maryam was sure she'd learnt that if someone's head was badly knocked they shouldn't be allowed to sleep. She couldn't recall the logic of this now, just knew it was important to act.
She gently rocked Ruth's shoulder, and Ruth reared up, her head knocking Maryam's broken arm. The jolt shot stars of pain up behind her eyes, making her pant so as not to vomit all over Ruth's dazed face. Once she'd recovered enough to think again, she saw the exercise was in vain. Ruth had slipped back into her slumber and would not be roused.
Instinctively, she turned her attention to Joseph, whose chest was fluttering in time to his feeble, bird-like breaths. The skin around his lips was blue, his fingers so white they looked transparent in the scrappy light. She wanted to reach out to him, to wrap him safely in her arms and make him warm, but she just could not summon up the will to move.
Then a vicious gust of wind hit the boat side-on, shunting it sideways so that one hull teetered between the ridges of the waves. As the boat tried to right itself, a terrible splintering rent the air. The aft handrail ripped clear from the deck and flew into the sea, leaving only splintered fragments in its wake.
Forward, Maryam was stunned to see the figure of the warrior remained in its position at the prow. He was hanging in there for his life, slapped by waves and blinded by the whirling spray. How was it he'd survived, when destruction reigned all around? Had his ancient fighting spirit kept him safe? She didn't know. But she wished for a little of his spirit too, instead of the heavy pall of hopelessness that weighed her down.
She closed her eyes, overcome by drowsy seasickness as the boat pitched and rolled. I give up, she conceded to the Lord. Take me now.
It was pitch black when next Maryam woke. Neither the moon nor a single star was visible in the sky, but the wind and rain had stopped at last. The sea was still huge, its motion unrelenting, but at least now it seemed the worst had passed. She could barely make out the shadows of the other three, though she could still feel their presence close by—a kind of innate warmth that reached out to her soul.
“Is anyone awake?” Her voice was croaky and not at all like her own.
“Sister Maryam?” Off to her left, Lazarus stirred, and now she could make out his silhouette against the eerie iridescence of the white-capped waves.
“Are you all right?” she asked, relieved to hear another voice—one that was real.
Lazarus snorted. “I still live.” She heard him groan as he shifted towards her. “My back has taken the worst of it, but I don't think anything is broken, just badly bruised. And you? How is your arm?” The genuine concern in his voice made her want to cry.
“Right now it feels strangely numb.” She didn't dare move it: for the moment, the pain had gone. “And Joseph?”
Even through the pounding of the waves she heard Lazarus sigh. “He sleeps now, thank goodness. Did you hear him ranting a few hours back?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“It's the fever, I think. He was calling out to his father, Uncle Jonah, as if he were here.” She could see him a little more clearly now her eyes had adjusted to the gloom. He bent down over Joseph's sleeping form and spread his hand across his brow. “He's still burning up.”
“We need to get some water into him, to bring his temperature down.”
“I thought of that. But I couldn't find any containers.”
“We've lost our water?”
“Maybe when it's light we'll have more luck finding something in this mess.” He stretched his arms above his head, stifling another groan. “How is Sister Ruth?”
“I'm not too sure. You did a good job stopping the blood, but I'm worried that the blow to her head has done some harm. What do you think? Should we wake her or not?” The comfort of sharing her worries, even with Lazarus, was immense. Just to voice her fears aloud made them less hard to bear.
“Why? I don't think I could cope with her hysterics right now.”
Maryam bristled at his arrogance, but, in truth, she found she agreed with him. It was hard enough to keep her own swirling fears at bay. “I suppose you're right. At least while she is sleeping she's calm.”
For a while they slipped into silence. Maryam knew that if they had lost all their provisions—especially their water—they were doomed. But try as she might to put the thought from her mind, it seemed it would not shift now that she had placed it there. And it made her so thirsty thinking of it; her mouth tasted sour and her throat felt swollen and parched.
Joseph's weak voice floated up from the dark. “But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.”
“Joseph!” Maryam carefully shifted Ruth's head from her lap and crawled towards his voice. “You're awake!”
“Apparently,” he said. Despite the frailty of his voice, his irony gladdened her heart. But then he began to cough, so weak now he could hardly regain his breath between the spasms. Panting, he said to her: “I saw my father, Maryam. He was here.”
She was at his side, drawn by the immense heat that radiated from him, and bent down to kiss his dry, cracked lips, trying to ignore the pain that re-ignited in her arm. Joseph's breath smelt vile, as though dredged up from the grave.
“I'm sure I heard my mother too,” she said. Why argue with him, when his belief in his father's presence must surely have brought him comfort? She brushed his hair away from his forehead, feeling how his whole body shivered beneath her touch. “What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just knowing you're here is help enough.” She felt his hand brush her leg, and then his fingers caressed her skin. His touch still had the power to ignite the skin beneath his hand.
She longed to lie down beside him and seek the comfort of his body next to hers, but her arm was vulnerable to any movement. She had to secure it somehow, to reduce the shock each time she moved. The rope she'd used to tie herself to the boat would do, but it was still attached to the foot of the broken mast, and to retrieve it now, while it was still dark, was difficult and dangerous. She'd have to wait till dawn.
Instead, she propped herself against the leaning frame of the shelter, bolstering herself against the slapping of the hulls, and tried to doze. Her thirst nagged at her, tipping her into restless half-dreams in which she and Joseph stood hand in hand beneath the waterfall they'd discovered in Onewēre's lush jungle, her tongue out to lap up the spray. It was so cool, so fresh, so utterly quenching that she almost cried when she was jerked back to reality by the crashing of the boat. Her throat was so dry and bloated every attempt to swallow became a conscious act and felt as if she were trying to swallow down her own tongue.
The hours until dawn seemed endless as she drifted in and out of dehydrated sleep, and so it came as a surprise when she opened her eyes from another of her thirsty dreams to find the early morning sun now shone down on them from a cloudless sky. The seas had calmed back to a choppy roll, and Ruth sat awake beside her, staring blankly out through the ravages of the shelter at the empty sea beyond.
Now it was possible to see around her, the reality of their situation struck home. The boat lay in tatters: timbers splintered, bindings snapped, and the meagre remnants of their carefully prepared provisions lay overturned in waterlogged piles. She and her three companions looked as wrecked as the boat itself: battered and bruised and broken, soaked and adrift in hostile sea they could not drink.
Worst of all was Joseph, whose feverish face now clearly showed the markings of Te Matee Iai. While the others had dark rings of tiredness beneath their eyes, Joseph's skin was bruised almost to black. The purple rash had now consumed his neck completely, the skin blotchy and inflamed, and he was covered in deep ugly bruises, some as wide in span as an open hand. He did not seem aware of his surroundings, just
lay there on his back, his eyes half-closed as he struggled to breathe.
Lazarus appeared to be sleeping, curled into a ball that accentuated the bruising on his spine. As Maryam watched he shuddered, murmuring something she could not decode. His hand shot out, his fingernails digging into the sodden deck, before he dropped back into a more peaceful doze.
Ruth's plaintive voice cut through her thoughts. “I want to go home.”
Hysterical laughter bounced around inside Maryam's head. If only it was that easy. She reached over for Ruth's hand to comfort her. “At least we're all still alive,” she stammered. It was difficult to talk when each dry breath was forced. Water…That was what they needed now.
She struggled to her feet, the movement juddering her arm. She clenched her teeth against the pain and climbed through the wreckage to the outside deck. Amidst the debris, the mast lay broken from its splintered base. Maryam's stomach flipped: if it had fallen even an arm's length further over to the right, it would have landed right on top of them and crushed them all.
The sea was surprisingly tame after the fury of the storm. But there was little comfort in it. The ocean rippled endlessly in all directions, and there was no sign of land. Could they possibly still be on course, or had the storm pitched them into waters they did not know? There was no way of knowing. Maryam had no idea where the compass was and, until night fell again, they'd have no way to plot the stars.
She tracked the rope that bound her back to the point where it was tied, and put her concentration into freeing the knot. It was hard to do one-handed, her fingers fumbling as they caught on the swollen and frayed fibres. But at last she managed to unravel it, and hauled the rope back over to Ruth.
“I need your help,” she said. “I want to strap my arm to hold it still.”
Ruth nodded and proceeded to wind it around Maryam's body as she cushioned her broken arm against her breasts. She screwed up her eyes, breathing through her mouth to fight off the pain. Ruth worked as quickly as she could, eventually tying off the rope at the point where it looped back over Maryam's shoulder. Maryam kept her eyes shut, focusing on calming her breaths until the pain settled to a slightly more manageable ache.
