by E.W. Pierce
A SMALL SKY THRU BROKEN STRANDS
E.W. Pierce
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
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On a tiny bit of land in the middle of the sea, Joha Mender watched the midnight sky for sign of his father. He didn't know how many days had passed, and he didn't let himself dwell on counting. It'd been a long time, and that was all he was willing to admit. But Pa would come.
The fire was dying noisily, sputtering on the last of the land's meager fuel source. He could burn his clothes if it came to that, he reasoned. The fire was his lone companion, and he did not relish the thought of facing the long, cold nights without it. Pa would come before it came to that.
His belly coiled tightly, painfully. Uncle Emmitt's pantry had been stocked amply, enough to see a careful person through a season, but now the cabin's shelves held naught but crumbs. Joha wished he'd been a little more careful in those first days. Tomorrow he'd have to go into the sea to get food, if he dared. He shivered. Pa would come. Pa would come.
Joha warmed his hands. The wind ruffled his long hair. Waves gently lapped rock; the tiny splashing noise was oddly comforting. Odd, because he'd feared the sea before. It hadn't been an irrational fear – even Pa was scared of the sea. The sea was where sky-people went to die.
The sea had already tried to kill him, once. After he'd realized he was going through the food stores too quickly, Joha had decided he should conserve the water reservoir as a precaution, and make use of the ample supply of water all around him. Drinking the sea water had left his throat parched, his tongue fat, and his head buzzing unpleasantly. The sea was dangerous and could not be trusted.
A metal fence as tall as Joha's chest encircled the island. The fence made sure nobody accidentally walked right off a skyland. Now it served as a protective barrier between Joha and the wide sea and all the things that moved beneath the surface.
In the sky, the Mother's milky eye was closed. He could not see White Skies, his home. But he knew roughly where it was, and he thought he could make out the outline of the clustered skylands. If Pa came, it would be from that direction.
He lingered until the fire was down to bright embers. Then, hitching his pants, he went inside Uncle Emmitt's cabin to sleep.
Pa was not coming tonight.
Tomorrow, Pa would come.
*
The stomach pains woke him, a horrible clenching of his guts. Joha went to the pantry, hoping somehow he'd overlooked some bit of food. He imagined a jar in the back corner on a high shelf, wearing a thick coat of dust, the contents doubtful. But it'd taste wonderful and would see him through another day.
Joha dragged a chair into the pantry and checked the highest shelves, but they were empty. He went outside and briefly basked in the glow of the morning sun, stretching. His pants slid toward his ankles. He snatched them up. Holding the waistband with a bunched fist, he crept toward the water and peeked over the edge. His reflection cautiously peered back.
Seeing his face in the water the first time had been a startling discovery. He still wasn't sure it wasn't some trick of the sea, trying to lure him to his doom. But it was impolite to ignore somebody while they smiled at you.
"Fine morning." Joha watched the reflection mouth the words. "Don't worry, Pa will come soon."
Joha-in-the-water grinned at him.
"I'm out of food. Might you have some?"
Joha-in-the-water stared back, eyes wide. He looked hungry too.
"I may have to try the sea today. Catch one of those silver or blue creatures. They look fast and slippery. But I've been working on something that might help. What? Did you think I just sat around up here all day? I'm a Mender, as I told you before. And Menders mend."
Joha-in-the-water nodded enthusiastically. He looked proud, but perhaps a bit doubtful. Fearful even.
"You will watch out for me, won't you? While I am down there?"
The boy beneath the water blinked.
Joha sank back onto his backside. Arms clasped around his knees, he regarded the sea. It seemed to go on forever. Maybe it did.
Overhead, the clustered skylands of White Skies seemed to touch the clouds. Golden sunshine gleamed off the metallic underbelly. Menders mended things, this was true. It was their chief business to keep the skylands floating as long as possible. The old peoples had created the skylands, and menders like Joha and Pa knew just enough to keep them afloat. Mostly.
Sometimes nothing could be done for a skyland and it had to be cut loose. Otherwise it'd drag on its neighbors, and on and on, until the whole city was feeling the strain. Cutting a skyland loose meant sending the family that lived there down to the sea. Joha had lost friends that way.
Menders had the most important job in the skylands. Pa didn't need to tell Joha that, but he always did. That's why Joha was up before the sun and stayed at mending until the light failed. Why he couldn't play with his friends. Why he didn't really have many friends.
The gnawing pain returned to his belly. It felt like his stomach had turned its teeth to his insides and was making a meal of it. Hunching, he moved to the far side of the island. Uncle Emmitt's diving machine was tied to a fence post, bobbing obediently at the end of the line like a huge domesticated silver creature. Constructed of the same dark metal as the cabins, the diver drank in sunlight and stored it as electricity. The oval windows were visible beneath the waves, looking like the eyes of a monster of the sea.
Uncle Emmitt didn't mend any more on account of his leg, which he'd lost before Joha was born. But a mender can more easily stop breathing than quit at mending, so Uncle Emmitt began tinkering in his workshop. It wasn't true mending, Pa said, and he was right. Mending meant taking something and fixing it, or at least keeping it working. Uncle Emmitt took old things and made them into something different and new. Most times, his inventions were pointless, solving problems that didn't really exist. The last few years, Uncle Emmitt had become obsessed with the sea and the secrets he claimed were hidden under the surface. Pa said the wind had worn the edges off his mind. Joha thought Pa was probably right, but it was hard not to get swept up by Uncle Emmitt's enthusiasm.
He'd gone to Uncle Emmitt's to help outfit the diver with portable floats, which Menders used to keep skylands in the air when they needed to tinker with their innards. His uncle was going to float the diver down to the sea and back home again once he was done dredging the depths. Pa would have forbid Joha's involvement, had he known. Joha had felt a secret thrill, stealing away from his mending to help with Uncle Emmitt's project.
While at his deceit – sometimes Joha wondered if it was because of it – the floats on Uncle Emmitt's skyland had failed. Torn free of its neighbors, the skyland plummeted. Joha had clung to the diver, afraid to move lest he be blown off the side. The skyland crashed to the sea, plunging under the surface in a chaos of bubbles and light. When the skyland bobbed back above the waves, Uncle Emmitt was gone.
Even after all this time, even now, when his life depended upon it, he did not like looking at the diver. It scared him, and it awoke complex feelings that twisted his insides into painful knots and drained away all his energy until he wanted nothing so much as to hide inside and sleep, and maybe never wake up again. But if he was to survive until Pa returned, he needed to use the diver. He could put it off no longer.
The serrated end of the diver's grasping arm protruded above the waves, glistening and sharp where the claw had shorn off in the crash. Welded to the arm wa
s the solution to his food shortage: a large, open-mouthed basket he'd mended out of re-purposed metal from the cabin, with a lid that opened inward but not outward. Once he trapped one of the sea creatures, it wouldn't be able to escape.
Working carefully on hands and knees, Joha clambered across the diver's top, all the while mindful of the waves slapping the hull just below his feet. He spun the hatch open and climbed inside. There were many controls – dials, switches, knobs. It was all equipment he'd seen elsewhere, bits that Uncle Emmitt and appropriated from broken machinery, and he thought he could sort out the basics. Part of being a Mender was taking something you didn't understand and figuring out how to make it work. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the hatch closed and initiated the dive.
With jerking start-and-stop motions, the diver slipped under the surface and into the shadowy underworld, its electric lanterns brightening the dim. Tiny bits of dirt spun lazily across his view as though caught by a slow erratic wind. Sleek, silvery creatures with unblinking eyes drifted in small groups; cousin to these creatures, a round blue-green variant the size of Joha's head passed close by the window. Joha cried out, his stomach clawing up his throat. The creature continued on unconcerned. Joha manipulated the controls for the arm and watched as the basket lifted and lowered. It was time to catch breakfast.
Joha spent hours chasing the creatures. Every time he closed on a group, they would disperse in all directions. It was frustrating and he wanted to quit, but there was only one way to soothe the hunger pangs. He adjusted his tactics, trying different angles of approach, different speed combinations. Once, a creature slid across the basket's lip before swimming away. Joha curled his fists in frustration and punched the seat with a shout.
A glimmer of something below, at the edge of the light, caught his eye. No creature this – it looked like metal. He descended for a closer look.
One of his portable floats lay on a rocky ledge, the metallic shell burst open lengthwise like an over-ripe fruit. Red and green wires snaked out from the opening. Scattered hardware lay glittering on stone. Joha was proud of his mending, but this was beyond him, beyond Pa, even. Once water got into a thing, it was impossible to get it out again.
There was no sign of the other float. He nudged the diver to the edge. The world dropped off into darkness below. Looking down the cliff, a sudden sense of dizziness washed over Joha. His chest tightened and he felt like he couldn't breathe. Leaning back into his seat, Joha angled the diver's nose for the surface, putting on all the speed the little craft could manage. Clusters of the creatures tried to avoid his path, bouncing off the diver's side, careening away from the windows.
In a rush of light and sound, the diver emerged from the sea, casting a fine spray of foam in all directions. The diver's arm was raised, and there in the basket was not one but two of the creatures. They flopped around, slapping their tails against the basket. Their mouths opened and closed. Joha wondered what they were saying to one another.
The creatures were still if not quite lifeless by the time Joha made the shore. Talking was beyond the creatures - they made no reply to Joha's attempts at conversation, nor did they try speaking with one another again. Joha waited until their shallow breaths gave way to stillness. Their eyes unnerved him - the creatures never blinked, not even in death.
Their skin was slimy to the touch. His stomach rolled as he took his first tentative bite. Gagging, he forced it down. Disgusting. He wished he had a fire to cook them over.
Joha looked at the limp thing in his hands, a small bite taken from one side. An overwhelming wave of emotion crashed over him, filling his eyes with stinging salt. The creature spilled from his fingers.
"Ppppppppaaaaaaaaa...."
Joha lay down and cried.
