by Patrick Ness
37
THOUGH HIS ROAR WAS MADE OF AIR, bubbles raging from his open mouth, it was loud enough to temporarily deafen me.
Nothing stopped my eyes, though.
Impossibly, even in this chaos, even with this unimaginable price, the Captain’s plan was working. Willem was dead, the sailors were dead, Demetrius, too, but as Toby Wick was momentarily distracted with putting me among their number, Captain Alexandra of the lost ship Alexandra hit him hard enough, fast enough, to buck him into the Abyss.
Blood flooded around her, so thick I could only see her tail churning against it, pushing herself further into him. I can only imagine that, upon seeing what he was, upon glimpsing the horror that had lured us here with clever tricks and clues, she knew she had just the one chance, the one landing of the weapon of herself.
For his hands were already reaching for her, his huge body twisting in the water to force her up toward the Abyss. He grabbed her small dorsal fin in one great hand, but then let go with another roar as the Captain must have struck something deep inside him, churning his guts with that shield on her nose, perhaps even with the rusty harpoon that men had left inside her.
He grabbed at her again, her tail in both his fists, the two of them spinning in the water as she continued to push and he continued to kick with legs longer than my former ship. They were becoming one in the water, the Captain disappearing inside him. He called out again as she hurt him, as his hands sought her.
And then he looked to me again.
Eyes larger than those of the giant squid we fought in the depths, a grotesque and broken nose, and those teeth that gnashed and bit at the water as if to chew it to pieces.
The devil himself favored me with his gaze.
What can I say about this? How can I explain it? The horror of him, but the power of him . . .
And oh oh oh, to my shame, to my bafflement, to my anguish, I was drawn. My will slipped away from me as I looked into those eyes, as one hand reached out again to me, not to catch me this time, just the forefingers beckoning me near.
To do what? Help him kill the Captain? Be killed myself? I did not know then and I do not know now. I only know that, with half my tail fin missing, with the very ocean turning to blood, with the bodies of my crewmates around me, I began to falteringly swim toward Toby Wick, answering his call, as if all my choices had been made for me and this was the final one–
But then he convulsed at another tear from our Captain. His hands went back to her, but he could not get her free, struggle though he might.
The blood was now coming from his mouth as well. He still fought as she tenaciously refused to let him go, digging deeper and deeper into him, causing him to roll.
And here is where I lost them. They disappeared into a cloud of thickening blood, growing farther and farther from me, staining the sea as they went. I tried to follow, but the wound in my own tail made me slow. I still tried, only stopping when out of the fury of blood emerged my Captain’s entire pectoral fin.
That was the last I saw of her.
That was the last anyone saw of Toby Wick.
So fast I could barely comprehend it, I was alone in an empty ocean, with my tail injured and no prophecy to be found anywhere at all.
38
IT WAS, AS YOU KNOW, AS YOU ALL KNOW, Captain Arcturus who found me, scenting blood in the water, fighting off the sharks that grew bold at my weakness. And though his words are regularly scorned because he spoke “mercy” to my Captain, it is also true that the war with men has been over since that day. A new peace dawned. Our pods were no longer slaughtered. Men’s ships no longer wrecked.
For all these long decades, peace has reigned. No formal treaty, no declarations. Just that most powerful cultural control of all: rumor. Even when no one would take Captain Arcturus seriously, rumors still spread, rumors of what had happened. I had told him the story but also that he must keep my name unknown, that I would not admit to being a part of it until the day it was necessary.
That day has come.
The bodies of Toby Wick and our Captain were never found. As the time has passed, as our strength has grown, as we have avoided men on the surface of the Abyss, as they have avoided us, the vividity of old rumors died away.
Now, new rumors have begun.
A rumor of the return of Toby Wick.
And perhaps that’s all it will take to bring him back.
This is why I never spoke before. A disgraced Captain like Arcturus would never be afforded something as powerful as a prophecy to his name. But a Third Apprentice, who became a Second Apprentice, who – I suppose – with the death of Willem and Captain Alexandra, became First Apprentice and even Captain of a destroyed ship? A whale who spoke with a man long enough to discover he was a baker, a whale who lost her mother and part of her tail, then watched everyone she knew die at the hands of the devil?
A whale who had nearly answered the devil’s own beckoning?
Oh, her name would carry prophecy down the ages. Her name would be the foundation for an inevitable future. Signs would be read. Hindsight would confirm those signs.
Who knows what new devils we might create?
And so now I tell you my story. Now is the time. For rumors swirl and oceans stir and in that maelstrom, I fear, devils will rise. Are rising. Have risen. The great trick of the devil is to make you want to see him. But it is only when you see him that you fear him. And by then, it is too late.
As, I fear, I might be. We are too eager to build devils. Is it only a matter of time before we are at war again?
So I beg of you. Take the name Bathsheba. Take it and place on it the prophecy of not going down this road. Take my name as the warning of where our fears will lead us, where the devils we make will destroy us all. Or take it as what might happen if a whale can learn the name of a man, and he can learn hers. And she can mourn at his passing. If this is possible, what else might be?
Take these prophecies, I beg you, take them in the shape of my broken heart. We have had these years of peace, why should we choose to abandon them? Why should you swim so quickly to break your heart alongside mine?
And yet here is news of a pod being massacred out in the deep ocean. A pod no one has seen but all have heard of.
Here is news of a new story beginning.
Let my name be the prophecy of how that story ends. Not in glory, but in death.
Take this name. Take Bathsheba and make it a story of peace.
For there are devils in the deep,
but worst are the ones
we make.
About the Authors
PATRICK NESS is the author of ten novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Release, the Chaos Walking trilogy, More Than This, and the #1 bestseller A Monster Calls, which was made into a major motion picture, adapted by Patrick himself. He created and wrote the Doctor Who spin-off TV series Class for the BBC, and the eagerly awaited blockbuster film of Chaos Walking—starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley—is scheduled to be released in 2019. Born in Virginia, Patrick lives in London.
www.patrickness.com
ROVINA CAI draws from a studio in a nineteenth-century convent. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators and Spectrum Fantastic Art and the Children’s Book Council of Australia. She has illustrated the picture book Tintinnabula. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.
www.rovinacai.com
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Books by Patrick Ness
Class: The Stone House
Class: Joyride
Class: What She Does Next Will Astound You
The Rest of Us Just Live Here
Release
And The Ocean Was Our Sky
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
AND THE OCEAN WAS OUR SKY. Text copyright © 2018 by Patrick Ness. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Rovina Cai. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2018 by Rovina Cai
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938254
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-286074-3
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-286072-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-287744-4 (international edition)
1819202122SCP10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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