Pip nodded. Several more Raftworlders passed by, staring.
“The Raft King told the people not to bother you,” said the left. “He told everyone he’d be picking up an esteemed advisor at the Islands who would solve our overcrowding.” His narrow voice sounded doubtful.
“If the Raft King says Pip will fix things, then Pip will fix things,” said the right-hand man. “Not that things need fixing.”
Pip tripped on another seam, this time righting himself before one of the men caught him. The left man made a “huh” sound under his breath. And Pip understood—and agreed. How could he solve any problem so huge? He carefully stepped over the next seam. Everything was foreign here, and suddenly nothing seemed like an adventure anymore. And he missed Kinchen and Old Ren.
• • •
ALMOST AS BAD as missing his family: Pip couldn’t see the ocean, not even a glimpse, and this made him jittery. Although he could smell its fishy sharpness, hear occasional slaps against the rafts’ bottoms, and feel the rhythmic rocking of the interconnected rafts, he couldn’t actually see the water. Or touch it. Old Ren had said that Raftworld was huge, but Pip hadn’t realized it was so big it would feel like a lurching island. The ocean was there, under Raftworld’s skin, but he couldn’t reach it and talk to it.
However, there was a lot here to grab his attention, especially now that the sun was fully risen. The gardens, even as crowded as they were, were impressive. Raftworld squeezed more out of each inch of space than the Islanders did, that was for sure. Stunted trees with tight green apples grew in giant pots, next to flats of beans and multicolored peppers, tomatoes of different shapes and sizes, leafy greens and flowering herbs, round melons and gourds. Small land birds hopped; butterflies fluttered; bees buzzed. The brightly painted and heavily carved wood houses—even crowded as they were—nested inside the gardens, their windows peeking out like eyes beneath the arching vegetative brows of their lintels. Small canoes and coiled ropes lined up tightly but neatly outside doorways and under trees.
Every now and then an otherwise empty raft held a red shack, undecorated and gardenless, water barrels and axes at each corner of the building. “What are the red buildings for?” Pip asked.
“Those are the cooking houses,” the left-side rower said. “With ovens.”
“Why all alone on the raft?”
“In case of fire.”
Pip immediately understood. On a wooden world, any uncontrolled fire would be a terrible thing. To cut the risk of accidents, people cooked their food only in these red houses. But that would mean no fireplaces in their homes—and no heat, either. That sounded like a cold way to live.
“But how do you keep warm in winter?”
The rowers looked at each other and smiled at the question. The right-hand man answered. “We head north. We stay in the warm year-round, mate.”
Of course. Raftworld could follow warm weather. Pip felt silly for asking, and he walked in silence for a few minutes. They passed more people who gave them curious looks but did not talk to them.
How large this world was! The air grew more still as they walked farther and farther in, crossing raft seam after raft seam, until he thought they surely must have passed the middle and be headed out the other side. But just when the air was as flat as it could be, and the sun sat high in the sky, and Pip felt he couldn’t possibly walk any farther—not even the length of one more garden plot—they arrived at a red cooking house somewhat larger than the others they’d passed. Up close, Pip could see that its paint was beginning to peel—but the building itself looked sturdy and well built. Its lower windows had been boarded over, and the door had a lock on the outside. The two rowers guided Pip to the house, where the right-hand man pulled out a key and unlocked the door. “Here you are.”
“Um . . . why is there a lock?” asked Pip.
“Safety,” said the right-hand man. “Don’t worry about it.”
The left-hand man frowned but didn’t say anything.
Before he stepped in, Pip took one last look at Raftworld. The houses blazed with color around him, and the gardens pressed themselves around the buildings, green and buzzing. “Wash and change,” said the right-hand man. “Rest. We’ll be back for you in a few hours.”
Pip went in, and the lock clicked behind him.
2
AFTER HE’D washed in the big kitchen sink and changed into the much-too-large Raftworld-style clothing set out for him, and sat for a long time listening to the water pat the bottom of the raft, two muscular, dark-skinned men came to take him to the dinner.
“We’re back,” said one: it was the right-hand man, his voice scratchy with his cold.
The other grinned at Pip. “We were expecting someone taller when we laid out those clothes.” The left-hand man, with his flatter voice and longer vowels.
“I’m ready,” said Pip.
• • •
THE DINNER was fancy, just as the Raft King had said. There were twenty or thirty people in a courtyard near the dock, seated on cushions at low tables in the dusky outdoors. Planters of small cherry trees surrounded them, providing dappled shade as the sun set. If he hadn’t seen the crowded houses and gardens farther in, Pip would not have thought anything was wrong with Raftworld: this outdoor dining room was airy and open, scented with cherry blossoms.
As the rowers predicted, the Raft King wore a sky-blue cape; and the two men had pointed him out when they entered the courtyard. Pip wasn’t expected to know anyone else, which certainly eased the tension—though he realized that he would soon be expected to recognize people and remember their names. He stood to the side until a rower (one of his two? He didn’t know, since the man didn’t speak to him) motioned to him to sit at the central table, across from the Raft King himself.
Dinner was served immediately, and the food was good: fruits of all kinds, spicy greens and root vegetables, fish (which he did not eat), and warm, delicious bread with a green tint and a slightly vegetable taste. Someone must have been working in one of the red kitchen houses all day to prepare such a meal.
During dinner he focused on eating things in the right order—studying his neighbors and imitating them—and listening to the talk around him. The Raft King mostly ignored him, talking with other advisors about the hydraulics issue (as he called it) and then halting discussion when it became too heated, promising to resolve the issue soon. “Anyway,” he said, “the boy is going to advise us tomorrow. So let’s not worry about it tonight.”
One of the important-looking grown-ups at the king’s table said, “He’s a child. How can he help us?” The others nodded as if they had the same question.
Pip sat up straight and tried very hard not to look stupid or babyish. But really, he had to agree with the advisors.
“With his magic,” said the Raft King. “Now eat.”
The advisors gave one another worried looks and small head shakes. The one who’d asked the question shrugged and murmured, “We’ll discuss this again after the ‘magic’ doesn’t work.” Everyone began to eat, and the talk turned to music and tapestries and flowers and, finally, stories. Pip wasn’t sure who was who—or what their roles were—but these seemed to be important people at this table. And they seemed to love their king—they weren’t deferring to him out of fear or with resentment. They chatted, and agreed sometimes and disagreed other times; they occasionally interrupted one another (and their ruler); and there were even some shared jokes that seemed to have long histories behind them.
Finally, the Raft King called for the storyteller, who had been sitting several tables over. An old man rose and made his way over, leaning heavily on a cane as if his hip hurt. He had white hair, not as long as Old Ren’s but much thicker and tightly curled, pulled back in one fat ponytail at the base of his head. His face wrinkled in all the places that suggested he smiled often. This man at least—with his shoulder-length white hair an
d his cane—would be easy to identify.
As the old man approached, the Raft King called out, “Jupiter, let’s have a tale.”
Jupiter, thought Pip. Old man with white hair and cane. Storyteller.
Jupiter nodded but did not speak. He seemed to be waiting for something.
The Raft King said, “Something to entertain our guest.”
The old man nodded again, then turned to look at Pip for the first time. And when he did, his face crinkled into a smile before falling back into calm. “A young man,” he said, with a slight emphasis on young, “from the Islands. What kind of story would you like?”
Pip thought. On Tathenn, the storyteller would choose the story, because he or she knew best what was appropriate and right to tell. “Well,” he said, “it’s summer, so maybe . . . a summer story?”
Jupiter frowned slightly, and Pip felt he’d given the wrong answer, so he added quickly, “Something about magic gifts? Since that’s why I’m here?”
At that the old man nodded crisply. “Magic it is. I’ll tell the story of Venus and her gifts.”
Pip forced his face into a smile. He’d heard the story of Venus many times from Old Ren—it was one of Old Ren’s favorite stories, one that Ren knew well, almost as if he’d been there himself—and Pip was a little disappointed that here in this new country he’d have to hear the same tale again. Why not something new? But he hadn’t specified, and it was clear that Jupiter wanted to tell this story.
The old man set his cane to the side, stood up tall, and raised his arms to encompass the whole courtyard. His voice filled every nook, deep and full. “This is the story of what happened to Venus after she was thrown from the slave ship.”
3
THIS IS THE STORY that Jupiter told:
It was the 29th of November, 1781, and Venus was on the Zong slave ship. The ship was sailing for the Caribbean slave islands; but Venus was not. She was about to be thrown overboard. You know this part, right?
• • •
PIP NODDED. He knew this part. Old Ren had told him the story so often and so fully, he almost felt like he’d heard it straight from Venus herself.
• • •
DO NOT WORRY. That was what she told her companions as they awaited their death. I do not worry about Venus, and you do not worry about yourselves. They crouched in the women and children’s cabin, tied to one another and waiting while the crew ate supper before tossing them over.
“Drowning!” the woman next to her had whimpered, shaking with fever.
A woman farther down the chain snorted. “We won’t drown. We’ll be eaten by sharks first.” It was not a comforting thought. People who were well enough to produce tears were crying.
“Listen,” said Venus urgently. Not everyone could understand her; only a handful of the fifty-five humans chained together spoke English more than a few words, and maybe another dozen spoke languages in which she could make herself plain. In all the tongues she could muster, she said, “Listen! They will throw us overboard; we know this. Here is what you must do. Hold hands. Ignore the ropes, and hold hands. Tight. I will help you. We will go to the bottom together. I think—I think it will work.”
The woman next to her shook, her face glistening with fever. “I heard of people like you,” she said in a voice round with awe. “Are you—are you what I think?”
“I can do it,” replied Venus. “I think I’ve done it before, for myself. And I will try to do it for you, too. But we must stay connected, always connected.”
Up and down the line, the women and children whispered to one another, translating where possible, gesturing when words failed.
The fifty-five were thrown overboard. They clasped hands as they hit the water.
• • •
THE FIRST THING Venus did, upon plunging into the water with the other fifty-four women and children, was talk to the sharks. She didn’t tell the hungry predators to go away; she simply told them to Leave my people alone.
For that is what she suddenly knew: that these were her people. As soon as her face submerged, in the second before she talked to the sharks, the realization hit her. These people she’d never met before the slave ship, these sick and maybe dying people who held her hands, these were her people. And she would do everything she could to save them.
She would have spoken to the sharks even if she hadn’t understood that these were her people. But who knows if the sharks would have listened? It was always her brother who was best with sea creatures. As twins they shared their gifts, but hers was the walking and his was the talking. The sharks were the trickiest part of her plan; when her brother refused to play sick, she knew it was up to her to talk to them. Worried about the reach of her powers, she told the creatures something not too hard: she told them that they were already full. She didn’t command them anything, like “Go away.” Just suggested: “You don’t want us”—which, sickly as the people were, was probably true.
The sharks circled idly, lazily.
The people sank.
Venus looked at the line following her into the deep. She couldn’t see the end of the chain, only that it went on—it seemed—to eternity. All holding hands. She peered through the murky water, her vision gradually clearing as they drifted deeper, the light coming to her as it did in her dreams. She did not feel cold. She did not need to breathe. She watched as her companions filtered into focus, and then, finally, she knew what she had hoped. Her plan was working. No one struggled. No one flailed. Her gift flowed outward to all of them, as if they were one creature, as if her magic were blood and she the pumping heart. They moved as one.
When the people finally touched bottom, the light gifted their skin a greenish cast and their rags flowed like fancy robes, cleansed already of vomit and snot and sweat. The water breezed through them. Hills rolled out in dunes. Venus dipped her toe in the sand and swirled it, puffing up a cloud at her ankles. The people spiraled around her like a snail shell. Everyone held hands.
One person bowed to her, and then another and another—everyone. She shook her head, but still they bowed.
Then they looked up at her with the same question on every face: What now?
What indeed. Venus had no idea; she felt fourteen and lost—not a leader. The woman next to her squeezed her hand, hard, and she gasped with the almost pain of it. A last bubble of air left her mouth and floated upward. All around, other bubbles followed hers as everyone released their last breath. A little girl five or six people down from Venus screwed up her face to puff out that last bit of Zong.
It was the little girl’s face, so harsh with the effort of spitting out that bad air, that persuaded Venus to lead. The people needed someone. They were under the water where she had taken them. It would be okay. Venus pondered for a moment, listening with her gut to what the ocean was telling her to do. And she felt it: the pull to go forward, the pull she always felt underwater, the pull that led her every other time toward land and safety. Now it was tugging her toward—the slave ship.
Finally she understood. She knew what she needed to do.
Venus pointed up with her free hand, to where they could no longer see the boat, and then gestured forward. They needed to follow the ship. Her uncle was not among her fifty-five. And her brother, refusing to play along, was not here. And there were others, many others. They needed to follow.
She led them—away from Africa, toward the West Indies—and the people considered; and the people followed. They rippled along the bottom of the ocean in waves, one step for every ten or so they might have taken on land, as if gravity had little force in their lives anymore. Occasionally the sharks would drop down to point the way, then drift upward again. The people walked. Her people.
Venus was their leader.
• • •
AFTER VENUS and her people had followed the Guinea boat for almost a day, leaping and drifting along
the ocean’s bottom in their elongated strides, they were joined by forty-two men, all of them fettered together in a line, and all holding hands. Forty-two more thrown overboard, forty-two more saved. Uncle Caesar, feigning deep illness aboard ship, had miraculously revived upon touching water, whereupon he led his fellows to the bottom, just as Venus had done the day before. The people numbered ninety-seven in all, nearly one quarter of the original number that had crammed onto the ship and rotted next to one another, now stretching their limbs and holding hands. They formed themselves into two long chains, Venus and Uncle Caesar walking next to each other and the others trailing them like a jellyfish tail, or the tentacles of a sea monster. Because Uncle Caesar’s gift didn’t extend to speaking with fish, and he didn’t experience any urge telling him where or how to go, he deferred to Venus’s lead. She could feel in her gut what they should do.
They followed the slaver. She didn’t understand why they continued this course, for she and her uncle couldn’t save any more people. If others were thrown overboard the next day or the next, they wouldn’t reach the bottom alive. Surely no one was left up there to hold their hands and save them—except her brother, and he had made it clear that he wasn’t going to play sick and get himself thrown over. He wanted no part of anything. No bowing to the slavers, none at all.
Yet the ninety-seven walked the bottom, following the ship like its deep, deep shadow. And the next day, the impossible happened—in a world of impossible. Thirty-six more arrived—alive—at the bottom. Venus’s brother, the one called Swimmer, led them.
Some of the people were fettered, others not, but all held hands, pulled downward by Swimmer. Aboard the ship, twenty-seven ill men and women had been chained to one another and tossed. On deck with nine healthy men, seeing what was about to happen to these sick and knowing there was no Caesar or Venus to help them, Swimmer had taken action. He’d roused his companions, and they had swarmed over the rails and plunged, nine of the ten holding hands as he’d instructed, one turning back to the ship. The one was lost, of course, fished out of the sea and returned to the Zong. Swimmer led the rest, diving down after the bubbles rising from the twenty-seven drowning people, and sinking toward them like the stone he was.
A Crack in the Sea Page 7
