Drowned

by Nichola Reilly

  I know soon everything will go hazy, I will no longer have the energy to fight and life will leave me. I keep fighting, thrashing my arms and legs at her, but it’s little help. She is solid as stone.

  I wait for the end.

  And I wait.

  I think maybe, in my panic, my sense of time has been distorted. That though it seems as if tides have passed, it’s only a blink of the eye. But soon I am quite calm, and as I open my eyes and see everything in greenish hues, I realize something. My mouth is open, and I can taste the sour water flooding down my throat.

  I am breathing underwater.

  I am breathing underwater!

  Finally, the pressure on my shoulders releases, and I surface. I don’t gasp for air. I don’t need to. I am perfectly fine. I stare at her, unable to speak. Her composure is completely unruffled. That I can do this clearly isn’t news to her. I wait for her to explain, but she says nothing. “How did you know?” I ask, crawling out of the water and slumping onto the ground beside Fern.

  Fern’s mouth is hanging open. “Coe, I counted to two hundred twelve! How did you do that?”

  Fern doesn’t know that she could have counted to two thousand and twelve, and I would still have survived. She’s shivering, so I grab her hand and wait for Star’s answer.

  “The markings. On your ribs. I noticed them that first day I saw you, before you had your bath. Didn’t you ever notice them?”

  Water is dripping down the end of my nose steadily, tickling it, so I wipe it away and clench my teeth to keep from chattering. “What markings? You mean the scars?”

  “They’re not scars. I don’t know exactly what they are, but they let you breathe in water. And they also make you quite a fast swimmer. Have you not noticed mine?”

  Though Star loved to prance about naked, I was usually too embarrassed to look at her for any length of time. But, yes, the one time I did look at her while I was bathing her, I’d noticed the lines under her breasts. Now it makes complete sense how she was able to dive from the balcony and swim to the basement. “You mean, like fish have? You mean...gills?” I ask, so stunned I start to shiver, too. “But...how? How do I have gills? Are you saying I’m part fish?”

  Star whispers, “It’s the mark of a supreme class of beings.”

  There she goes, spouting off the “supreme class” nonsense again. After this stunt, I want to leave her here, to go my own way, despite Tiam’s promise, but something makes me stall. “Wait. Are you saying I’m part of the supreme class?”

  She nods.

  “That is ridiculous. Twelve tides ago I was cleaning a craphouse,” I mutter. “First you say I have gills. And now you are saying I’m—”

  “I always suspected,” she says. “But I knew it the moment I saw the lines on your ribs. But what I find even more unbelievable is how you didn’t know.”

  “But I’m not. They’re scars,” I insist, looking down at my body. I never spent much time studying myself, afraid of what I’d see there. Scribbler scars everywhere. And the swell of my breasts made it difficult to see the area directly beneath them. But could it be that those lines crisscrossing the skin there were not scars, but gills? How could it be all this time that I was part fish, and I never knew it? “Buck Kettlefish is my father. My mother died when I was a child.”

  “Your mother did not die,” she says. “Our mother did not die. She had to leave.”

  “‘Our’ mother? You mean we’re—”

  “Sisters. Of course.”

  “But that’s— You look like a princess, and I am...strange.” I look down at myself, at my dirty tunic, my scabby skin and stump. I can’t believe that this girl who has spent her entire life holed up in a tower, away from me, could know anything about my life.

  “We’re half sisters, which means we share a mother, but have different fathers. You look like our mother. She had quite beautiful black hair and the palest of skin, as white as the moon. Her eyes were pink, too. Her name was Aliah.”

  Aliah. I think of the Dark Girl, the ghost with the darkest hair and whitest skin who had once roamed the castle. Was that Aliah? Was that my mother? Then why had she gone? Why had she left me?

  Suddenly, I’m back in the seashell room, lying across that enormous seashell bed as someone with pale skin and black hair smiles above me, tickling my stomach. Her black hair, smelling of lavender, tickles my face. Corvina... Corvina... she calls, and her touch is like the gentlest breeze. I’m only a baby, and yet I feel safe, warm, happy—emotions I’ve never known before, or I haven’t known since. Too soon, reality floods in, and I’m back in the cold, dank cave, with Fern and Star staring at me as I pull myself spear-straight. But now I know everything she is saying is true. Breathless, I whisper, “You’ve known this all along?”

  “No. I was just as shocked as you are, when I learned the truth. My father only told me about the underground city when he learned he was dying. But the rest I figured out on my own. I am not as stupid as some might think.”

  “And why was Aliah sent away?” I ask, my voice rising.

  “I do not know.” She sighs, annoyed with my questions. “Why don’t we find a way out of here, and then you can ask her?”

  I’m distracted by a light swirling in the distance. Tiam runs up behind us, stopping short. His eyes narrow when he sees me, dripping wet and looking as if I’ve seen a ghost. “What did I miss?”

  I’m so stunned, I don’t even know how my mouth forms the words. “Oh, just something about how only royals can pass and how my mother is alive,” I mutter. “Oh, and I can breathe underwater.” I look at Star. “Did I leave anything out?”

  Fern pipes up. “Star’s your sister!” she squeals.

  I nod. “Right. That, too.”

  Tiam studies our faces with an amused expression, which slowly fades to disbelief as he realizes I’m not joking. “Wait. How long was I gone?”

  Star studies her fingernails and says, quite unimpressed, “It’s true.”

  She explains to Tiam everything she’d already told me. But I don’t hear a word she says. All I can think about is Aliah. Aliah, who is our mother. Our mother. I whisper those words to myself, but the more I form them on my lips, the stranger they sound. As Star speaks, Tiam’s eyes search out mine, widening with surprise at times, but never once leaving mine. It is clear he didn’t know, either. When she is done, he whispers, “Coe? Are you okay?”

  I am too stunned to reassure him.

  “Coe,” he asks, coming close to me. He takes a lock of my hair and sweeps it out of my face. “Coe? Talk to me.”

  But I’ve lost the ability to speak. The only thing that registers is Star’s eyes narrowing behind him. I flinch away. As much as I crave it, he can’t be doing this, touching me. Not now. Not ever again.

  “Coe?”

  “Stop. Let’s...not talk about this anymore,” I snap. “Please.” I can’t let these thoughts distract me, because I know if I begin to think about them, I’ll likely be consumed by them. Finn may be coming here any moment, and I need to concentrate on the task at hand. “We have to get out of here.”

  Tiam reluctantly nods and turns his eyes toward the dark corridor, shining the light as far as it will go. “Is this passage...”

  “It’s blocked by water,” I say.

  “It’s not a problem for you and me,” Star says. “We can swim it.”

  Swim it? I survey the black water. It looks so uninviting, I’m shocked Star would even agree to attempt it. But she did manage to swim in the ocean, with scribblers and a heavy undertow. Compared to that, this will be easy. “It’s too dark.”

  Tiam reaches down with his light and places it underwater. “Look. The fire doesn’t go out,” he says.

  “Okay. I think the passage is only flooded for a short way,” I say, pointing at the map. “The dotted line is w
here the water is. But over here, maybe it’s dry. So I’ll swim out and see what it’s like.”

  Star doesn’t argue. Tiam opens his mouth, but clamps it closed again, clearly frustrated. Again, it’s not as if he can take my place.

  “I’ll be fine. Fern, when I go under, you start counting,” I tell her, smiling to hide my nerves. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

  I wade out as far as I can, then signal to Fern to begin and slide under the water. The light illuminates a short distance ahead of me, so I push off the bottom and start swimming. I don’t notice that I’m moving any faster than a scribbler might, but then, I’ve never actually challenged one to a race. In the water, without an undertow, even without a hand, my arms propel me forward through the green water, so quickly that everything blurs and fades around me. I open my mouth and drink the water in; it’s salty and vile, but it has no power over me. I cannot believe that I spent all my life in fear of the ocean, when it never controlled me.

  Up ahead, at the top of the passage, I see a light. And suddenly the path begins to curve upward. I swim until I am standing, and straighten my body. I am in the frosty air once again. The walls of the passage look much the same as they had on the other side of the blockage. I’m not sure how much time has passed, so I quickly reverse direction and go back.

  When I surface, Fern applauds. “One twenty-three!” she says proudly.

  “How was it?” Tiam asks.

  “Fine. Not bad at all. I couldn’t see much when I got to the other side. But that’s got to be the way.”

  Star wrinkles her nose but doesn’t say anything.

  “So half of one twenty-three is about sixty. You can definitely make that,” I tell Fern. “You can count past a hundred.”

  Fern says, “But I don’t know how to swim!”

  “I know. I’m going to swim with you.” I turn to Tiam. He’s putting on a brave face, but I can tell he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. “Star can swim with you.”

  He clears his throat. “I can make it on my own. You guys worry about yourselves.”

  I don’t know what he’s thinking. He can’t do it alone. Swimming comes naturally to me, for some reason I still can’t understand or believe. It’s not so easy for Tiam and Fern.

  I wade closer to him. “Let me take Fern and Star first. Then I will come back for you,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t go down there. It’s too closed in. I’ll never make it.”

  “No, you will,” I say. “It’s not too far. The corridor never gets narrower than where we are now.”

  “No, but the water. It makes everything feel tighter. And did you look at the map? After this, the passages get smaller and smaller.” His hands tremble. “Look, just go without me.”

  “I’d never do that. If you don’t go, I don’t,” I say. “I’m coming back for you. All you have to do is hold your breath and keep your eyes closed. All right?”

  He closes his eyes for a long moment, then nods, swallowing his pride. “All right.”

  I take Fern by the hand and wade out with her. Star follows, and I hand her the light. “Breathe big,” I tell Fern, and she does as she’s told. Then we all sink under, and I start to pull Fern through the circle of light that Star is shining ahead of us. It’s easier than I thought; Fern is practically weightless. As I swim, I count to myself. Thirty-two-one-thousand. Thirty-three-one-thousand. I look back at Fern’s face, her cheeks bulge, but her expression is relaxed. Fifty-nine-one-thousand. Sixty-one-thousand. I look up but cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. Am I counting faster than Fern had been? I turn back again; her brow is beginning to crease with worry. I push farther, kicking my feet furiously. Seventy...

  And I see it. The light.

  Sighing, I pull Fern until she’s standing in water up to her neck. She takes in such a large breath that she begins to cough. I push her toward the shore, and she paddles clumsily until she’s sitting on its edge. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and grins. “We made it! That wasn’t so bad. Tiam will do it, easy,” she says, surveying the cavern. Star shines the light ahead, and it’s more of the same. Dark stone walls, filled with crevasses that might or might not be passages.

  I take some breaths to calm myself, then bid them farewell and head back through the passage again. I’m hoping that after two more trips, I’ll never have to travel this route again. When I surface, Tiam is standing there, feet in the water, hands on hips. The look on his face is troubled. “You’ve come back for me again,” he mutters.

  “Of course I did,” I say.

  “I don’t think anyone else in Tides would. They’d have given up on me by now.”

  I shake my head. “You always told me not to listen to people when they called me Scribbler Bait. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you.”

  He smiles at me, cupping my face in his hands and pulling my mouth to his. I give in for a moment and then try to push him away, but the desire to draw him close wins out. “No,” I say, but my voice is weak. “We can’t.”

  “Coe, I’ve been thinking,” he says breathlessly, running his lips down my jaw to my neck. “If I make it through this...”

  “No if. Of course you will. It will be easy.”

  “I’ll tell Star. When we get to this new place, if it exists, I’ll let her know. It’s you I want. If I’m what you want, that is.”

  I gasp as he nibbles on my shoulder, wondering how he could even ask that question. This is what I’ve always wanted. I feel as if I’ve entered one of my perfect dreams. “Star will be so upset,” I whisper.

  “Let’s not think about that right now,” he groans, kissing me again, this one so deep and long I nearly forget who and where I am. He traces a finger on my lips. “You never get out of breath when I kiss you.”

  “Star says I have royal blood,” I whisper. “Isn’t that crazy?”

  He laughs softly into my ear. “No, Your Most Grand and Benevolent Majesty,” he says, making me giggle. I know this is a dream. I don’t think it is possible to be this happy awake. If I could, I would stay in this moment forever. It seems as if everywhere else, danger waits for us. Only here, with him, I feel completely safe, safer than I ever have. He must sense it, too, because he says, “What are you thinking about?”

  “About the new land. I’m wondering how it will be.”

  He nods. “I know. Me, too.”

  “It’s underground! It must be so strange. I wonder how they even breathe. Star says the people there are different. Do you think they will accept us?”

  He shrugs and squeezes my hand. “I guess we’ll find out.” He pulls it to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “Coe. It’s like all those wishes I made... Those crazy, stupid wishes... They’re all coming true.”

  I smile through my tears, tears of happiness and relief. “I know.”

  We separate, the inches between us feeling like miles as the chill from the air begins to settle on my skin again. Then we wade down the passage together, to our waists. Tiam pauses, preparing to take that final breath, and in the silence of that moment, a heavy, uneven pounding sounds in the corridor behind us. At first I wonder if it is just the new tide coming in, the ebb and flow of the waves above us. But as it gets louder, I recognize it. Footsteps. Many of them. An army, maybe.

  We both whirl at once. Orange firelight reflects in the black water. Someone is coming, coming up fast. I tighten my grip on Tiam’s hand. “Tiam. I made a horrible mistake. I left the grate to the laundry chute open,” I say.

  He cranes his neck to see in the dark, but it’s only outlines. I know who leads it. The new king of Tides.

  “Let’s go. Just close your eyes, okay? Think positive thoughts, and I’ll do the work.”

  “Right.” He takes a deep breath and as the light in the corridor grows more in
tense, I grab his trembling hand and pull him under.

  And we swim. Even though he weighs more, I have less trouble pulling him along as he’s stronger and faster than Fern. He moves beside me as if he, too, were made for living underwater. As this is my fifth trip, everything is familiar. The stone walls, coated in green moss, the bits of rock and rotted wood planks at the floor of the passage. I open my mouth and let the water flow through me, and though my only thought should be getting to the other end, getting free, in a small flash at the back of my mind, it occurs to me that the water swirling through me is washing away all trace of Tiam on my lips.

  And maybe that’s why I go slower. I falter. I still can’t see the light up ahead, so I know we have far to go. This is no time to panic. I look back at Tiam for reassurance. At my hand on his. Our hands fit perfectly together, the ridges and folds conforming to one another, two halves making a whole.

  I think about the new world, thrilling at the thought of us, together. Of him wanting me as much as I’ve wanted him. It seems almost impossible to believe that these dreams of mine could come true. And yet here we are. So close.

  His eyes are closed, his face strangely serene despite his fear. He looks as if he is sleeping. I wonder what thoughts are going through his head, what positive thoughts he’s thinking to calm himself. I wonder if he’s thinking about me.

  His eyes flicker once, then open wide, wider. I try to smile at him, to motion to him to calm down, but it all happens so fast, and by then there’s no return. His face is pure terror, something that’s so foreign on him, I quickly begin to feel it, too.

  All at once I’m aware that my grip on his hand is loosening, and then I feel only his fingertips on mine. And then he slips away.

  Twenty-Three

  Falls the Shadow

  “Tiam!” I open my mouth and scream but it’s drowned out by the water rushing through my body. The light sinks slowly to the ground, landing in the soft dirt. I kick off the mossy wall, propel myself downward and pick it up, shining it feverishly in all directions. There’s nothing behind me, nothing farther down the corridor. The light only illuminates a small green-tinged circle around me, but he’s nowhere. Vanished.