Once
Page 6
Page 6
“What about the bookstore? There’s work to do,” Maeve said. She stepped over the slippery rocks and into the shallows, letting her hiking boots get wet.
I just kept rowing, my body relaxing with each yard I put between us. “Trina knows I’m not coming in. She said it’s fine. ”
Maeve crossed her arms over her chest. She was the most muscular of the women, with a chiseled stomach and legs thick from running. “Be careful of the current! And sharks! One was spotted yesterday in the bay. ” I cringed at the mention of sharks, but it seemed unlikely, more like a desperate attempt to keep us tethered to the dock, in her sights. She stood there, feet planted in the water, until we were nearly a hundred yards out.
“Can we talk now?” Arden asked, when I set the oars back down. Heddy settled into the bottom of the boat, her paws outstretched, and Arden planted her feet on either side of the dog’s shoulders.
Maeve had pulled binoculars from the cart and was peering through them, following the boat as it drifted with the current. I smiled, let my hair out of its bun, and waved. “She’s still watching us,” I said. “Stop scowling, Arden, will you?”
Arden threw her head back and laughed, a deep throaty laugh I’d never heard before. “Don’t you see the irony in all of this?” she asked, smiling now, her expression strange, creepy even, because it didn’t match her words. “We’ve traveled all this way to get here, to escape Headmistress Burns, all her lies. This feels oddly familiar. ”
I knew what she meant. I hadn’t gone back to sleep the night before. Instead, I’d lain awake imagining what would happen if Maeve found out I knew her plans for me. She believed Califia was my final destination, that I would never leave—that I couldn’t. If she thought I had any desire to run away, she might send word to the City of Sand to let them know she had me.
“When Caleb and I came here we thought it was the only place I’d be safe. ” I looked down at my hands, working at the calluses on my palm, thick from time spent reinforcing the low stone wall behind Maeve’s house. “It seemed like my only choice then, but now …”
Over Arden’s shoulder, I could still see Maeve on shore. She had dropped the binoculars and started back up the path, turning to check on us every few steps. I was trapped. Out on the bay, closed in on three sides by high rock walls, a hundred eyes were always watching me, wherever I went. Across the bay, San Francisco was just a tiny, overgrown mound of moss. “We have to get out of here. ”
Arden stroked Heddy’s head, gazing beyond me. “We just need time. We’ll figure something out—we always do. ” But for a long while neither of us spoke. The only sounds were the waves lapping at the sides of the boat and the gulls calling high above, their wings beating against the sky.
AN HOUR PASSED. THE BOAT DRIFTED WITH THE CURRENT. I was relieved when the conversation turned to lighter topics. “I hadn’t named her yet,” Arden said. She stroked the dog’s head as she spoke. “I just didn’t think we’d be sticking together very long, and I didn’t want to get attached. But then she sat down in front of the fire and I stared at her. And it hit me. I knew just what I should call her. ” Arden pressed her palms against her face and pulled down, making her cheeks look like thick jowls. “Heddy—after Headmistress Burns. ”
I laughed, my first real laugh in weeks, remembering Headmistress’s sagging face. “That’s a little unfair to Heddy, don’t you think?”
“She understands my sense of humor. ” Arden smiled. Her eyes seemed softer, her pale cheeks pink from the sun. “I used to hate dogs. But I wouldn’t have survived without her. She saved me. ” Her voice went up a few octaves, as if she were talking to a child. “I love you, Heddy. I do. ” She held the dog’s face in her hands and rubbed it, planting kisses on the soft fur of her forehead.
I’d never heard Arden speak that way. The entire time we were at School she’d built a reputation of hating everything—the figs they served with dinner, our math requirements, the board games stacked in the library archives. Arden had prided herself on being separate from everyone else, on relying on no one. She had, for the first twelve years that I’d known her, insisted she was not like the rest of us orphans at School—she had parents waiting for her in the City of Sand. It wasn’t until we found each other in the wild, and Arden became ill, that she disclosed the truth. There were never any parents. Her grandfather, a bitter man who died when she was six, had raised her. Those words—I love you—took me by surprise. I had thought they simply weren’t in her vocabulary.
I let the dog sniff my hand, ignoring my nerves as my fingers approached her mouth. Then I petted her head, stroking her muzzle and ears. I was about to run my hand along her back when something knocked against the underside of the boat. I gripped the sides and looked at Arden, the same thought in our minds: a shark. We were over a hundred yards out in the bay. Maeve was no longer watching us, and the water below was menacingly black.
“What do we do?” she asked, peering over the side. Heddy sniffed the bottom of the boat, growling.
I froze, my hands tightening on the gunwales. “Don’t move,” I said. But the boat rocked again. When I looked over the side, a dark mass was right below us.
“What the hell …,” Arden muttered, pointing into the water. Then she started laughing, her hand covering her mouth. “Is that a seal? Look—there’s more!” Another appeared next to it, then another. Their slick, brown heads popped up from the surface then ducked quickly below.
I loosened my grip on the boat, laughing at myself, at the panicked thoughts of Maeve and Califia, of imagined sharks. “They’re all around us. ” I leaned over the edge, letting my fingertips graze the water. There were nearly ten seals surrounding the boat, their friendly little faces peering up at us. A tiny one flipped over and swam on its back. A few yards away, a larger one with long white whiskers let out a yelping bark. Heddy barked in response, scaring them all below the surface.
“Don’t mind her,” Arden called, looking happier than I’d seen her since we’d escaped. “Heddy, you scared them. ” She wagged a finger at the big dog.
The seals took off into the bay. The tiny one looked back, as if apologizing for his friends’ rude behavior. “Nice meeting you, too!” Arden called, raising her hand in a wave. Heddy let out another loud bark, seeming satisfied with herself.
The seals kept going until they were just tiny black dots on the surface of the bay. The sun didn’t seem too bright anymore. The birds were welcome visitors overhead. Sitting in the boat with Arden, I forgot about Maeve and whatever she was planning back on shore. I was with my friend. We were out on the windblown water, alone and free.
six
WHEN WE RETURNED TO THE DOCK, THE SUN WAS LOW IN THE sky. The restaurant that had become Califia’s de facto dining hall was livelier than it had been in weeks. I parted a tangled curtain of vines and ivy, exposing the restored interior. A long bar jutted out from one wall. Wooden tables and benches were crowded together in the center of the room, covered with the remains of boiled Dungeness crab, sole, and abalone. A two-foot-tall statue of Sappho was perched on a shelf in the corner; it had earned the place the affectionate nickname “Sappho’s Bust. ”