Girls at the Edge of the World

by Laura Brooke Robson

  “There was land before,” Sister One says. Her voice is quiet, and though today’s meant to be her party, it’s the first I’ve heard her speak. She reaches for the napkin underneath the teakettle. “It was just underwater for a while.” She pulls the edges of the napkin so the cloth lies flat against the table, then scrunches the corners together. The fabric in the middle rises in a bend. I picture land sinking into the earth. Rising up again in bends and valleys and ridges.

  “So that man,” I say, finally feeling the first dawn warmth of understanding, “the Skaratan scholar. He thinks that polar bears lived on Kostrov—or whatever this land used to be—before the last Flood?”

  “He does seem to think that,” Katla’s father says.

  And finally, I understand.

  According to Captain’s Log, the Floods wipe out all life, except for humans and their ships and whatever else is on board. New animals are born at the depths of the ocean, appearing as the waters recede.

  The scholar wants to prove that polar bears aren’t a Post-Kos’s Flood creation. The scholar wants to prove polar bears—and who knows how many other animals—lived, swam, moved, survived, all without us knowing it.

  “And they arrested him?” Natasha says.

  “For trying to disprove Captain’s Log,” Katla’s father says.

  To say there are old polar bear fossils in the bogs is to seek an untruth in Captain’s Log. Hence the heresy. Hence the arrests.

  We pull on our cloaks and light our lanterns. We’ve only made it three steps out the door when Sister One hurries after us.

  “Da wouldn’t say anything, but his back’s going bad again.”

  “You’ve tried the willow bark?” Katla says.

  “Not working,” Sister One says.

  Katla nods. “I’ll try to get medicine.”

  A pause. “Thank you for the cards,” Sister One says. “And the compass.”

  “Happy birthday,” Katla says.

  “And thanks for the dress, Natasha.”

  Katla looks over at Natasha sharply. Natasha doesn’t meet her gaze. “Don’t mention it.”

  “Lovely to see you again,” Sofie says.

  Sister One’s teeth catch her lip. She leans forward on her toes like she has something more to say after all this time of not saying much. In the end, she just watches us go.

  Once we’re out of earshot, ensconced in a bubble of lantern light, Katla says, “You gave Sini a dress?”

  “I outgrew it,” Natasha says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Has she started taking flying lessons again?” Sofie asks.

  “No,” Katla says. She shoots Natasha a dark look. “I told her not to go back once we found out we were off the fleet.” To me, Katla says, “She was really good. She would’ve auditioned for your spot, but she had a nasty fall a few weeks before it. She missed a leg wrap and tumbled through the middle of her silks. Not that it makes any difference now.”

  Softly, Natasha says, “I’m sorry, Katla. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

  “A few more.”

  We walk in silence for a moment.

  I try to decide if I’m brave enough to ask the question on my tongue. Finally, I say, “What’s your family’s plan?”

  “For the Flood?” Katla says.

  I nod.

  “Well,” Katla says, “there’s Plan A, where we find some abandoned ship and pile on board with moments to spare, but seeing as they hardly have enough food to last a week, let alone a year, and a person can’t survive on just fish for that long, my hopes aren’t high. Plan B: The government gets their act together and expands their fleet to save every last Kostrovian.” She pauses. “Okay, that was a joke, but I’ll keep going. Plan C: Storm One never comes, the ocean doesn’t swallow everything. It feels about as likely as anything else.”

  I think of Sini rising on her toes, the better to watch us leave. I think of what it must have felt like to see me, the girl who took a spot in the palace that could have been hers, sitting at her kitchen table.

  “Sometimes,” Katla says, her voice as dark as the fog-drenched sky, “I wonder why we don’t all just jump in the ocean now and save it the trouble of killing us later.”

  Sofie loops an arm through Katla’s. “Because of Plans A through C.” She loops her other arm through mine. “Now, at the risk of sounding like Ness, stop acting so terribly bleak.”

  Natasha’s gaze meets mine.

  I swallow. Then I extend my arm to Natasha.

  She hooks her elbow around mine. Her breath mists the air in front of her lips. Our hips bump.

  The four of us walk in a tight line along the wooden platform above the boggy earth. Our footsteps echo on the wood. I keep expecting to see a carnivorous plant or a serpentine lizard or a polar bear skeleton. But no: just the slender shadows of tree branches and the faint glimmer of lantern light reflected between blooms of algae.

  Plants closing up after Storm Eight. Birds and lizards disappearing after Storm Five. The boglands are doing something. Preparing for the Flood. I don’t know how. But something is happening.

  When I feel a drop of water land on my nose, ice cold, my heart falters in its beating. I’ve spent so long counting down to Storm Two. Looking forward to it. Seeing nothing at the end of it. But that one lonely raindrop is enough to scare me.

  Since when have I been afraid of the storms?

  What does it mean, that I might be afraid to die?

  33

  NATASHA

  The morning after I visit Katla’s family, the sun shines too brightly through my window. When I throw open my curtain, I see why. The first snow of the year covers New Sundstad.

  I meet Ness, Gretta, and Sofie in the kitchen. Although I don't think Gospodin has noticed me yet, I'm staying committed to my promise of attending services at Our Lady. I make a promise to myself that he will today. I’ll go talk to him afterward, even though I’m still shaken from how badly our conversation at the ball went.

  When we step up to the stove, René gives us each an extra-big helping of porridge.

  He shakes his wooden spoon at me. “The storms finally scared some sense into you, eh? Extra porridge every time you go to Our Lady, lazy girl.”

  I’m left unsettled at this moralistic bribery, but at least I’m unsettled with extra porridge.

  Ella walks into the kitchen, then, glancing around like she’s not quite sure she’s in the right place, or maybe like she’s looking for someone.

  It’s hard to believe she’s the same girl who auditioned those months ago. Any semblance of baby fat has hardened to muscle. Her skin glows with new, well-fed health. Even her smiles are a little more believable than they used to be. Today, her curls are loose around her face.

  “You’re up early,” I say.

  She shrugs. Her eyes are pinned to mine. I wonder if she’s thinking about the walk back from Katla’s last night, her arm linked in mine. “Couldn’t sleep. Kept having dreams of plants trying to eat me.”

  “Spooky,” I say.

  I smile when Ella sits down next to me. Last night, at Katla’s house, I wasn’t stupid enough to think that Katla and Sofie wanted me there. But Ella was no more distant than usual. And the thought that they might not hate me forever—seas, I’ve been lonely.

  “Ella!” Ness says. “Finally. You haven’t been to a single service with us yet.”

  “I, uh . . .” She glances around. “Usually go on Sunday nights instead?”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Ness says.

  Gretta narrows her eyes suspiciously.

  “You’re coming with us today, though, right?” Sofie says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Come with us.”

  She glances over her shoulder, as though Katla might stomp in at any moment to heap judgment upon her. Then: “Okay. Sure.”r />
  “Oh, lovely!” Ness says. “Let’s all put on our mittens and hurry over so we can get seats.”

  Outside, the air is thin and crisp. The sky is lavender-gray, and when I inhale, the insides of my nose tickle with frost. Snow, a full foot of it, has settled into the cracks of the city, bringing everything into sharp contrast. All the little details, usually lost in a blur of stone and soot, are sharp with icing white. Ness leads us through it, her hair bouncing merrily as she walks.

  I’ve traded my slippers for a pair of fur-lined boots. When they break the crust of frost lining the streets, it crackles like a bear season bonfire.

  I don’t realize Ella is watching me over her shoulder until she says, “You look like you’ve never seen snow before.”

  I grin, trapping my lip under my teeth. I take aim at a chunk of ice and kick it down the path to Ella.

  She catches it with the side of her own boot—borrowed from Katla, I think—and kicks it back.

  “Natasha loves snow,” Gretta says, “because it makes her hair stand out even more.”

  I smile. I do love snow; my hair isn’t the reason.

  In snow, New Sundstad starts to resemble the cities from Tamm’s Fables. It feels less a sinking rock and more an enchanted kingdom of the kind my mother dreamed. It’s not easy to believe in fairy tales in a city of ash and Flood. But in the snow, it’s different.

  Ella turns her chin up to the sky. A stray flake spins toward her. She sticks out her tongue and twists in circles underneath it, tracking its spiral, until lands in her mouth. She frowns. “I thought that was going to be more satisfying than it was.”

  “Now you look like you’ve never seen snow before,” I say.

  “When I was little, I took a trip to the mountains with my family,” she says.

  “Which mountains?”

  “In Terrazza.” She says it fast, then even she looks surprised at her answer. And then, quickly: “But I moved to Kostrov years ago. So I’ve dealt with the snow here before.”

  Terrazza. I feel like I’ve asked so many questions so many times, and she’s masterfully evaded all of them. I’ve asked this very question before. The last time, she told me she was a reanimated corpse from the boglands. But now I have this tiny mote of truth.

  I sift through my memory, trying to find anything useful about Terrazza. I know it was hit particularly hard by Storms Ten and Nine. I know it’s famous for fertile farmlands and a few snaggletoothed mountains. It’s farther south than Kostrov or Grunholt or even Roen, distant enough that the palace isn’t as full of visitors from Terrazza as it is from nearer nations.

  Then I remember all at once. The butcher’s shop underneath my mother’s apartment. A Terrazzan couple owned it.

  I remember the butcher’s wife laughing, teaching me how to say Hello, and Thank you, and I would like an apple, please. I part my lips, straining to remember the feel of the word on my tongue.

  Finally, I find it, and in Terrazzan, I say, “Hello.”

  Ella’s face blooms with a smile, too startled to wear her usual mask. “Your accent is terrible,” she says.

  “Hello,” I say, again in Terrazzan, because I’ve forgotten how to say Thank you.

  I carry a warmth in my stomach for the rest of our walk, and it keeps out the chill better than my new cloak. Adelaida gave it to me as a gift after I danced with Nikolai at the ball. As if I needed to be bribed. By the time we reach Our Lady of Tidal Sorrows, I’ve almost forgotten why we’ve come. When I see the imposing shell-and-sea-glass building, the warmth snuffs out.

  I’m not here to talk to Ella and revel in the snow. I’m here to show Gospodin I can be a good, sea-fearing queen.

  The square in front of Our Lady is packed with people. The closer we get to Storm One, the bigger these crowds seem to get.

  “Will all these people really fit inside?” Ella says.

  “Services have been filling up lately,” Ness says. “That’s why Mariner Gospodin had those word trumpets installed.” She points to a copper horn fixed to the side of the building. Underneath is a podium, and as I watch, a man climbs the stairs and lifts the horn off the wall. The horn seems to be connected to some sort of long tube, coiling inside the building and out of sight.

  Ella points to the man. “Who is he?”

  “That’s the echoman,” Ness says. “He listens to what Gospodin says through that tube, then he repeats it to all the people who don’t get seats and have to stand out here. Doesn’t that sound like a fun job?”

  “No,” I say. “It’s freezing. Let’s be the people who do get seats.”

  Ness gets on her tiptoes to see above the crowd. “Drat. This is why I wanted to get here early. Come on, let’s keep pushing.”

  Finally, we clear the threshold. I glance around.

  The ceiling is vaulted, wooden beams meeting in a triangular peak. It feels like being inside a ship. Long blue curtains run from the ceiling to the floor of every wall. All the jostling bodies raise the temperature thirty degrees. I pull at the neck of my new wool cloak.

  “Do you come here often?” Ella asks.

  “Recently? Yes. Before that . . . ?”

  I could go months without going. On the anniversary of Kos’s landfall—the biggest holiday in Kostrov—it’s all but mandated that you celebrate. I sat in the last row and played lexicant with Katla on the back of a song sheet.

  That’s one of the things I remember being most surprised about in Our Lady: the paper. Song sheets. Pamphlets. Copies upon copies of Captain’s Log. I’ve heard of newspapers closing down and publishers forced to let books fall out of print, saving trees to build ships instead, but Our Lady exists in a world above such scarcities.

  Ness forces her way through the crowd. She smiles prettily at an already crowded pew until the people sitting there sigh and squeeze closer together. Gretta eyes the crowded bench and breaks off to meet up with her family. I end up wedged between Ness and Ella on the wooden bench, with Sofie on Ella’s other side. We’re pressed together from shoulders to hips to knees.

  “Cozy,” Ella says. “I feel spiritually warmed already.”

  I laugh and look at her, but I turn away again just as quickly. We’re in such close quarters that if I don’t face forward, our noses will brush.

  When Gospodin walks through a door by the dais, the voices hush.

  Ella points at the door. “What’s that?”

  “Gospodin’s apartment.”

  “His apartment is connected to Our Lady?” Ella says. “That sounds awkward. I wouldn’t like to think Kos was looking over my shoulder every time I bathed.”

  “Shh!” Ness says. “It’s starting!”

  I try to settle into my seat and behave, but I’m tense and fidgety. Gospodin wears a pristine white cloak. His hair is somehow roguish and intentional at the same time. I wonder if he’d have half his following if he weren’t so handsome and self-assured. I don’t remember who was Righteous Mariner before him. Maybe it’s a rule that they’re always dashing.

  He stops at the dais. The building is open on that end, I realize, though the breeze doesn’t reach us this far back. The dais sits on a balcony overlooking the ocean. Around Gospodin’s shoulders, the pewter sea tumbles over itself.

  Gospodin lifts a copper funnel from the dais and holds it near his mouth. That must be the other end of the word trumpet Ness told us about.

  “Today,” he says, “New Sundstad was cleansed.”

  The hushed whispers evaporate. Ness leans forward, elbows dropping to her knees.

  “Just as the snow paints the city anew, alive with fresh possibilities, the next Flood will cleanse this world. It will cleanse our very souls.”

  Ella leans toward me, her breath stirring the loose hair at my ear. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I dip my head to hers. In the quietest whisper I can manage, I
say, “It means that the ocean will do a nice culling of anyone who doesn’t donate enough.”

  “I didn’t know the ocean was such a miserly ass,” Ella says.

  I can’t hold in a snort. Ness shushes me.

  My eyes snag on Ella’s knee, twitching against mine. Her whole body is taut. I can feel the tension running down the length of her leg. She has her wrist laid across her knee. She runs her opposite thumb across the edge of her palm. I catch a glimpse of the siren from underneath the hem of her sleeve.

  I know I’m supposed to pay attention to Gospodin, but I feel myself sliding back into old habits. His words begin to fade behind the distant washing of the waves. I’m distracted by a bead of sweat rolling down the back of my neck. Whenever Ella moves, shifting against my leg, it’s all I notice. My stomach is hot.

  Then, quite suddenly, everyone around me is clapping as Gospodin says, “Let no one take your hope away from you!” Then he’s waving and stepping off the dais.

  I blink and shake myself out of my trance.

  “My butt hurts,” Sofie says. “Can we get tea on the way back?”

  “Is that going to help with your butt?” Ella says.

  “No, they’re unrelated.”

  “Great,” I say. “We’ll go get tea, right after I say hello to Mariner Gospodin.”

  “You don’t just go say hello to the Righteous Mariner,” Ness says.

  “Sure you do.” I get to my feet. My sleeves stick to my arms with sweat.

  “Tasha,” Ness says.

  “I want to meet him too,” Ella says.

  I blink. Ella has already slid into the crowd of people and begun making her way toward the front of Our Lady. I have to hurry to follow her. Ness lets out a loud sigh behind me, but when I glance over my shoulder, I see she’s pushing after us.

  It’s colder at the front of the room, closer to the open balcony. When we make it all the way forward, Gospodin has his back to us. I hear a snippet of his booming, earnest voice, and as I step closer, I see to whom he’s speaking: a narrow young woman with a sage-green frock and the perfect posture of someone used to being watched. Sylvia, the Keeper of the Purse’s daughter. I haven’t seen her since the ball. I study her as she nods at something Gospodin says. Sylvia is pretty and expertly made-up in the sort of way that flattens her age: She could be fifteen as soon as she could be thirty. When she spots me, she smiles.