Neversink

by Barry Wolverton

  For once Lockley directed a withering look toward Algard, instead of the other way around. The rest of the colony seemed both embarrassed and irritated by Lockley’s chiding.

  “But I understand,” said Lockley. “After all, I am an auk. Moreover, I am a puffin. So I understand as well as anyone that you are all afraid. But I also understand that our ancestors sacrificed much so that we could live independently. Have you already forgotten the Great Auk’s message before Egbert’s party? That we should all be proud of what it means to be an auk? To not take our blessings for granted? Well, that’s exactly what we are doing by letting the owls plunder our waters! Have none of you noticed the dwindling bounty when you take to the sea to fish?”

  Many in the crowd looked at one another and quietly nodded.

  “This isn’t just about fish smidgens or the burden of paying a tax to the owls. This is about respecting ourselves and our way of life! Don’t Make Waves!” Lockley squawked again. “Well, I say there comes a time when you have to make waves!”

  The crowd gasped.

  “Look at that pile,” said Lockley, indicating the mound of fish near his house. “The big lump of evidence that the owls own us. Our stinking pile of shame!”

  Egbert, for one, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He hasn’t used a single important-sounding word!” But Ruby shushed him.

  “What do you propose we do?” said Algard.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” said Lockley. “I want each of you to grab a fish and chuck it back into the ocean. To tell the owls that the blessings of our waters are sacred, and not to be pillaged! As of right now, Neversink pays no fish tax to owls—with or without hats!”

  No one moved. Not Egbert, not the auks, not even the snowy owls. Astra, for her part, watched with something close to curiosity, it seemed. As if she simply wanted to see what happened next.

  Which was this: As the colony of auks just stood there, trying to grasp what they’d been asked to do, Ruby left Egbert’s shoulder and buzzed over to the fish pile. She found the smallest fish she could find, a tiny sand eel, pinched it by the tail, and with antlike strength lifted it into the air. The multitude watched in amazement as the hummingbird, sagging with her burden, swerving like a drunken bumblebee, managed to reach the water, whereupon she dropped the fish.

  Plunk.

  Lockley could scarcely believe it himself. Nor did he truly expect what happened next. Someone let out a scream and ran for the pile, and the next thing he knew, auks were chucking fish back into the sea by the dozens. Not every auk participated, but you couldn’t tell that from the roar they made. Even Egbert charged into the fray, colliding headlong with the pile like a flabby locomotive, plowing a huge swath of fish back into the surf.

  The fish party continued until the pile was all gone. Only then did an exhausted Lockley and his small band of revolutionaries stop and look at what they had done, and consider who they had done it to.

  Astra and Oopik exchanged glances and then flew off silently, leaving the colonists to wonder what their outburst would bring.

  That night, Lockley dreamt he was wrestling a prickly puffer fish in freezing cold water. He awoke to find his blanket gone and Ruby poking him in the chest over and over again with her needlelike bill.

  “Ruby!” he whispered, trying not to wake Lucy. “What the devil is it?”

  “Come outside,” she whispered back. “I need to show you something.”

  As he stumbled through his living room he looked wistfully toward the kitchen. “Do I have time for a cup of tea?” But Ruby was already through the door.

  “What time is it?” Lockley wondered as he stepped outside.

  “It’s almost dawn,” said Ruby. “Or dusk. I can’t tell in this crazy place!”

  The sun wasn’t yet visible, but an amber glow surrounded them, and the placid sea reflected the sky’s mixture of gray shadow and soft light. Lockley could barely make out Ruby’s iridescent green body winking in the twilight, but he could follow the tremendous hum of her wingbeats as she led him down to the water’s edge.

  “Ruby, what are we doing?”

  “What do you see?” she asked, hovering over the water.

  Lockley saw nothing, and said so.

  “Where are the fish?” Ruby asked.

  “Under the water?” Lockley timidly offered, wondering if this was a trick question.

  “Actually, I meant that rhetorically,” said Ruby.

  “Rhetorically?”

  “It’s a word I learned from Egbert. As best I can tell, it’s just a way for creatures who love to hear themselves talk to keep talking.”

  “Ruby…,” said Lockley, growing impatient.

  “The point is, the fish aren’t there!” she said, upturning herself and pointing her bill at the water. “At least, not as many of them.”

  “What makes you think that?” said Lockley.

  “Fur seals.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Fur seals,” said Ruby. “They fish mainly at night, and a family I’m friends with complained that the pickings were slim.”

  “Wait,” said Lockley, trying to get a handle on all this while still half asleep. “You’re friends with a family of fur seals?”

  “Do you think my life revolves around you?” Ruby asked.

  Lockley was speechless.

  “The point is, Lockley, I think something may have happened.”

  Lockley plunged into the water; he had to see for himself. Across the shallows he went, slowly descending the sloping sides of the volcanic island until he was flying through deeper and deeper water. The first thing he noticed was a surging current of cold water that normally didn’t channel this close to the island. He paddled through it, but he was at least fifty feet down before, finally, a small school of sand eels swam by, followed by a trickling of char.

  After a half hour’s fishing, Lockley returned to the surface and hopped back onto the shore. As he shook off the excess water, he thought to himself, with a mixture of fear and excitement, that his plan just might have worked after all.

  “What do you mean, there are no fish?” said Rozbell, with surprising calm. “You’ve collected no fish? The auks have caught no fish?”

  Oopik looked at Astra. Neither of them wanted to explain. Finally Oopik said, “Actually, Your Majesty, it would appear there are no fish to catch. In the ocean. Period.”

  “Let me see if I have this straight,” said Rozbell, his beak grinding ever so slightly. “In the whole ocean, there are no fish? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Not in Neversink’s waters, anyway,” said Astra.

  “How could there be no fish?”

  Rozbell glanced at his current supply of smidgens, his desire to consume with abandon suddenly conflicting with a desire to conserve. “Maybe it’s a trick,” he said, his eyelids beginning to twitch. “Their devious way of getting back at me…denying me my smidgens…mocking our food crisis by creating one of their own.” He began hopping from branch to branch now, talking to no one in particular. “No…being devious takes brains. No fish-eater is clever enough to think of that.”

  Oopik let out a short, shrill laugh. “You’re right about that, Your Majesty. The puffin and his friends who threw all the fish back into the sea—anyone could have told them such a show of ingratitude would have angered Sedna.”

  Rozbell alighted on a branch just above Oopik. “Sedna?”

  “Their goddess. The provider. A vengeful goddess, as the seabirds tell it.”

  “And you let them do it,” said Rozbell, barely loud enough for anyone other than Oopik to hear.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Rozbell darted to the other side of the owlery and perched facing the snowy owls. “I made you governors of Neversink to make sure the fish were collected and the smidgens were made! Not to let the auks exercise their rights of assembly and speech! Gewh, gewh, gewh!”

  His staccato syllables ricocheted off the trees; Rozbell’s house sparrows bega
n to flutter. Astra stole a glance at Feathertop, who began baring his tongue at the sound of his master’s overheated voice.

  Rozbell continued to sputter, and then his saucerlike eyes again fell upon the most recent bundle of smidgens to be delivered to him—the last bundle of smidgens to be delivered to him, if there were no fish to catch. You could see him processing this reality, his bushy white eyebrows jumping up and down. “This is your fault! You let this happen!” he said, turning on Oopik again. “I’ve never had your full support. Maybe you wanted this to happen!”

  Astra tried to speak up on her brother’s behalf, but he held a wing out to stop her. “Your Majesty, you know that’s not true,” Oopik said calmly.

  “Do I?” said Rozbell. He turned to Feathertop and uttered a chilling two-word command: “Kill him.”

  As the eagle stretched his massive wings, Astra spread hers too, a reflex to defend her twin. But it was too late.

  Feathertop launched himself at Oopik. The large owl left his perch as well, colliding with the eagle in midair. Astra felt the talons in her chest, the beak at her throat. And as Oopik died, she felt part of her die too. Her stomach churned as she watched Feathertop wipe the blood from his beak.

  “Traitors,” Rozbell muttered when it was all over. “That’s why I brought in Feathertop. Because you can’t trust an owl.”

  Then, to Astra he said, “You and Feathertop. Go and bring me the Great Auk. And while you’re at it, fetch the troublemaker as well.”

  “‘The Something of Sedna,’” said Lockley. “‘The Wooing of Sedna.’ ‘The Courting of Sedna.’ No, that’s not it. ‘The Splendor of Sedna.’ ‘The Haunting of Sedna.’” He began to get frustrated. “Fish brains! Why can’t I remember?”

  In case you were wondering, angering Sedna was not part of Lockley’s plan. Perhaps he should have foreseen it. But after all, thought Lockley, I’m not the Great Auk. He couldn’t help feeling some irritation at the old bird for throwing him out of the nest on this one. But now that it had happened, maybe he could use it to his advantage.

  That’s what had excited him when he confirmed Ruby’s fears. Even Rozbell can’t force you to make fish smidgens if there are no fish. Maybe the owls would lose interest in Neversink. Then the Great Auk could appease Sedna and restore their food supply. If there was suffering in the short term, it was the auks’ own fault.

  Appeasing Sedna. Lockley felt he needed to warn the Great Auk of this possibility now that his plan had made a bigger splash than intended. But as he made his way down the coastline, he realized he would seem more prepared if he could remember the formal name of the Sedna story first. For the love of fish, the Great Auk had just been warning Lockley about how the colony was forsaking its own culture!

  He had hoped that saying at least part of the name aloud would help him recover it. But so far, no luck: “‘The Source of Sedna.’ ‘The Creation of Sedna.’ ‘Sedna Under the Sea.’ ‘Sea for Sedna’…well, that one’s just ridiculous.”

  When Lockley arrived at the Great Auk’s nest, however, he soon had much bigger concerns. He found the nest empty, with broken tea cups, loose tea leaves, and various other personal items strewn about.

  He looked up in time to see what appeared to be the Great Auk, struggling as he was carried off in the talons of what could only be the enormous eagle under Rozbell’s command. A high-pitched bark caused him to turn around. The last thing he remembered was a white owl with a rock in its talon, and then everything went black.

  CAPTURED!

  When Lockley awoke, he found himself suspended from a branch in a cage made of twigs and thorny vines. He was surrounded by trees in a dimly lit grove and could see very little at first. Where am I? he thought, and as his eyes began to adjust, he saw the Great Auk suspended in an identical cage nearby. He then remembered the blow to the back of his head and felt the egg-sized lump that was there as a result.

  “I guess things didn’t work out quite as we planned,” said the Great Auk.

  He looks even worse than I feel, thought Lockley. He must have been handled roughly. “I suppose not. But it is closer to what I expected.” Looking around the grove, Lockley asked, “I don’t suppose you saw the murre Rozbell took from Neversink?”

  The Great Auk shook his head.

  There was a rustling among the leaves, and suddenly Lockley was confronted by an enormous pair of yellow eyes as Rozbell perched on one of the crossbars of his cage. The white shadow of Astra floated onto a nearby branch, and the hooded head of Feathertop was just visible in the dusky distance.

  “So this is the troublemaker,” said Rozbell in his rapid, clipped cadence. “I’ll deal with you later,” and he snapped his beak at Lockley, causing him to jump backward. Rozbell then flitted over to the Great Auk’s cage.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the law-speaker. The Wise One. The Repository of All Knowledge of Auk Lore. The Aged Leader of Neverstink! Wait, Neverstink would be a good thing. How about Everstink? Yes, that’s better!” And Rozbell hooted with laughter.

  “Why don’t you just call me Great Auk?”

  “I’ll call you whatever I want,” said Rozbell, his laughter dissipating in a fog of rage. “Now then, I’m sure you know why I invited you here?”

  “I don’t remember accepting an invitation to be caged,” the Great Auk said quietly.

  “Cage? These are our finest guest accommodations! You’re welcome to leave at any time—my friend Feathertop will show you out.”

  Rozbell hooted again as Feathertop swooped down, grasped Lockley’s cage with his massive talons, and shook it violently. Lockley fell backward, stricken with fear.

  “Now, old bird,” said Rozbell. “I know Sedna is behind the Mystery of the Disappearing Fish. And I know that you know how to appease Sedna. You must. It’s what old birds like you are for.”

  The Great Auk said nothing, and Rozbell had one of his house sparrows fetch him a scroll. “We have ways, you know,” the king continued, unfurling the scroll. “How does being tied to a tree while a pair of woodpeckers drum on your head grab you? Or we could tie you down, cover you with honey, then cover you with honey-eating insects, and then sic a honey-eating-insect–eating insectivore on you! One of those long tongues darting in and out all over your body—the tickling would drive you mad!”

  “You want to cover me with honey and insects for the sole purpose of tickling me?” said the Great Auk, which enraged Rozbell.

  “Do you want your colony to starve?” he screeched.

  “I trust the colony to care for itself,” said the Great Auk, “but if that tragedy were to come to pass, it would be preferable to living as an owl’s slave.”

  Rozbell became so overheated he started panting. From his own cage, Lockley could only admire the difference between these two leaders—one courageous and calm, the other a sputtering tyrant. He noticed that even Astra seemed to be looking at the Great Auk with something like fascination.

  “Astra!” barked Rozbell, snapping the snowy owl back to attention. “Describe for our honored guest here how the auks are starving, how they are begging for food, wondering why the Great Auk isn’t there to help them.”

  Before Astra could respond, Rozbell carried on. “I can picture them now,” he said, his tail flicking, “crying their beady eyes out, especially those ridiculous puffins with those weird little triangles for eyes….”

  “See here!” said Lockley. “Is that entirely necessary?”

  Rozbell stopped cackling and flew back over to Lockley’s cage. “I’d almost forgotten about you. What do you think about the old bird’s refusal to stand up for his colony?” he said, nodding his head at the Great Auk.

  Lockley could feel his legs shake as he tried to stare into the owl’s penetrating eyes. But he cleared his throat and said as confidently as he could, “I think the Great Auk is standing up for us quite well, thank you.”

  “Quite well, thank you!” mocked Rozbell in a high-pitched voice, and then he dropped to the ground and began
repeating the phrase over and over as he waddled in a circle, presumably making fun of the way puffins walked. “Quite well, quite well…gewh, gewh, gewh!”

  Lockley and the Great Auk looked at each other, knowing there was no telling what Rozbell would do next—and nothing they could do about it. Finally the pygmy owl flew back to the Great Auk’s cage.

  “Let’s be reasonable,” he said with rigid calm. “You help me appease Sedna, and then you and that one can go back to Neversink and live peacefully. Is the fish tax and a few smidgens really too much to bear?”

  “A few smidgens?” said the Great Auk. “A few smidgens, perhaps. But I believe you are the one unable to be content with just a few smidgens.”

  “Fine,” said Rozbell through a clenched beak. “A lot of smidgens. May I remind everyone that Tytonia faces a potentially devastating food crisis?” he added, spinning his head to the trees behind him before turning back to the Great Auk. “I’m trying to feed my flock. You’re willing to let not just owls starve, but your birds too!”

  Lockley had to admit Rozbell had a way with words. Twisting them, that is. But the Great Auk was unmoved. “As I’ve tried to tell you, I have complete confidence that my colony can take care of themselves. There are birds of great courage and determination there,” he said, looking toward Lockley. “Without me, another leader will emerge. In fact, perhaps it’s time that happened.”

  “How very noble,” said Rozbell. “Allow me to oblige you. Feathertop!”

  As Feathertop spread his wings, the Great Auk said, “I could make you a deal.” Rozbell halted the eagle for the moment, and the Great Auk continued, “That is…if you are genuinely concerned about your food supply, and not just using this as a chance to throttle Neversink. I would help appease Sedna, and for as long as Tytonia’s food supply is thought to be in jeopardy, Neversink, as an independent colony, would agree to supply you with fish—raw fish, not smidgens—until it is determined that the Sickness has not returned, or has passed.”