Fathom (25 page)

Sam came sneaking back to the tarp. He picked up a corner and whispered out the side of his mouth, “We’re almost there. But I’ve got to ask you, what do we do when we get there? How are we going to move her, and . . .”

And his eyes gathered enough light to show him what the tarp concealed.

Nia blinked out at him, her eyes big and bright although her face was dusted with the crumbs of her shell. She was still having trouble breathing, but she was learning fast, sucking at the air like a newborn baby snuffling after a nipple.

“As you can see,” the creature said. “We won’t have to move her anymore.”

“C-cl-clothes,” Nia said, her eyes never leaving Sam’s face. And even though her voice was thin and cracking, she managed to put an order into the broken word. “Clothes,” she said again, more clearly.

She folded her arms across her breasts and drew her legs together, folding them beneath herself.

“Okay.” Sam nodded. “Okay,” he said. He released the edge of the fabric, then picked it up again for one more look before dropping it and running.

Nia and the creature heard Sam’s pattering footsteps hunting around on the deck, stumbling from edge to edge in search of a suitable garment—or any garment. As long as he had a task, he was all right. The man needed nothing except instructions.

“Y-you . . . never . . .”

“I never what?” the creature asked.

Nia fought with her own throat, and wrestled with her own lips. “Whuh-what kind . . . of shepherd.”

It shook its head. “That’s not important.”

“It must be,” she said, and it was her first full sentence. “Or el-else . . . you would’ve told . . . me . . . by now.”

“But it’s
not
important; it’s only interesting, and that’s not the same thing. Right now, we must confine ourselves to that which is relevant to our circumstances—which is to say, things that will continue to keep you alive.”

“What . . . about . . . you?”

“Me?” it said with a touch of surprise. “I’m not altogether certain that I’m capable of dying. Or, if I am,” it added, “then there’s precious little that you or I could do against such a force that could harm me.”

“What . . . about . . .
him
?” she asked, nodding her head toward the deck.

“Him? Don’t let yourself become too fond of him. He’s been useful thus far and we’ll keep him around as long as we can. But let me be direct: He is not a priority.”

Nia didn’t like the sound of that. She also didn’t like the sound of Sam’s slapping feet, searching prow to stern across the ferry for something that would cover her. And perhaps it had been a strange thing to ask of him, but even given the change, and the time, and the astounding set of events that had led her to the rickety wooden craft, she couldn’t pretend that it didn’t matter.

Likewise, she couldn’t pretend that she was clean yet.

The shell’s residue was worst around her body’s natural creases, under her arms, behind her knees, and between her legs.

She wanted nothing more than an hour of privacy with a bathtub, but she imagined that no such luxury would be forthcoming.

Sam skidded to a stop beside the tarp tent and shoved a wad of
clothes underneath. He didn’t pick up the fabric to see how his offering had been received; instead, he offered his apologies through the barrier.

“That’s all I could find. I’m really sorry, it’s not much and it’s old and it’s dirty.”

“Better than nothing,” she replied. And then, because she hadn’t meant to sound short or ungrateful, she said, “Thank you.”

“Better,” the creature told her.

“What?”

“You’re speaking better already. I think you’re going to be all right.”

Nia unrolled the clothes and found a man’s linen shirt with long sleeves, a pair of pants that were almost as long as she was tall, and a scarf for her hair. The shirt had once been white, but even in the dark Nia could see that it was browned around the seams. It smelled old, and dusty, but clean.

She pulled it on over her head because it was big enough that she didn’t need to unbutton it. The pants she kicked aside, for they were more trouble than they’d be worth. The shirt hung almost to her knees, anyway.

Taking the sleeves one at a time, she rolled them up above her elbows.

A few minutes of fumbling and a triumphant grunt later, and Nia was as dressed as she was going to get. She wished for shoes, but, as her mother used to say, “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”

Nia would walk, and she’d do it barefoot if she had to.

When she was finished, she pulled her body away from the creature’s—and, since it did not appear to take offense, she brushed bits of its composting flesh off the shirt.

They were still sitting together, under the covering of the canvas sheet, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver. Sam was
perched on the rail beside them, or so Nia thought from the telltale whisks of his shoes against the boards.

The timbre of the waves was changing, becoming shallower or faster, indicating in some understated way that the water was less deep and that the end of the trip was near.

“What are we going to do?” Nia asked slowly, but loudly enough for both Sam and the creature to hear her.

Sam made a little noise like he wasn’t sure, or maybe he was shrugging. “I’ve already paid for the trip, so hypothetically, we can make a run for it as soon as the ferry is tied up. I mean, I don’t even know how—” He searched for a pronoun to indicate the creature and decided on the masculine. “I don’t know how
he
got on board in the first place.”

“I’ll find my own way,” it promised. “You two, get to shore any way you like. She’s strong enough to run, or jump. If you’re fast enough to keep up with her, then I suggest you do so.”

“How fast can she go?”

“Much faster than you, but she doesn’t know that yet. I’ll have much to teach and tell once we’re away from the water.”

Nia pushed out one of her feet, not kicking exactly, but getting the creature’s attention. “You keep saying that. Away from the water.”

“Of course I keep saying that. Don’t you remember what you met the last time you went into the waves?”

“I remember,” she said, which was more true than not. But she didn’t remember perfectly, and much of what she did recall, she couldn’t understand.

“The sun had set and the water was black, like it is now. I do not think that the water witch knows your whereabouts, but my suspicion is no guarantee. And back there, on the other shore”—it waved its enormous hand—“an ignorant flock of sheep stands upon the pier, crying out to her.”

Sam wrinkled his face into a frown. “To the—what did you call it?”

“The water witch. She has a name, but I won’t be accused of calling her, not when there’s an excellent chance she might hear me. And if those fools back there think that she’ll grant any peace or prayer they offer, they have much to learn about the way the universe works.”

“Or the way you work?” Nia asked.

“Hush, now. I’m leaving.”

Sam heard that part and it frightened him. “What?”

“We’ve arrived, and I cannot risk a leap across the water. If even a speck of mildew should fall, then she will know I’ve passed this way. The less she knows of our escape, the better.”

“Someone knows we’re escaping?” Sam risked lifting the tarp, and seeing that Nia was clothed, he didn’t put it back down. “Someone other than those guys?” He jerked his head toward the distant shore.

The creature thought about it for a moment. “If she doesn’t know yet, she’ll learn soon enough. Those damn fools have accidentally called her correctly this time.”

“What?” Nia pushed the canvas up over her head, giving herself more room to breathe.

The creature made an impatient little sound and then reached for Sam’s shirt. It pulled Sam under the fabric and held the man’s face close to its own so it could speak quietly. “They’ve been trying to summon the water witch, because they are damnably stupid, and they do not know what she’ll do to them when she answers.”

“Trying?” Sam stammered.

“Trial and error, thus far entirely error—which is why they survive to chase us now. But they’ve done something right this time, and the call has sounded. It’s a pitiful squeak of a summons, barely more than a cough, but she is bound to answer it. She’ll go
to them, and they know about us, so we need to be as far away from them as possible. Do I make myself understood?”

Sam nodded. “Understood,” he repeated.

It released him and tossed him backwards, out of the sheltering tent and into the open air.

The ferry bumped itself gently against the dock, and somewhere up above, Mel was slinging a rope to secure it.

The creature stood to its full height, and the tarp ballooned around it until the covering flew free and fell away.

Nia rose to her feet. She was not shaky anymore, and she could breathe without struggling. Her hair hung in heavy, brittle tentacles that swung down to her thighs. She was covered in dust, black flecks of earth, and peeling strips of the lingering stone shell. But she was standing.

She stretched and flexed, rocking on the balls of her feet to test her legs.

“Now,” the creature whispered fiercely.
“Go.”

It crumpled to the deck, dissolving into a pile of mulch and broken twigs.

Nia grabbed Sam by the hand, and with a leap that surprised no one more than herself—she bounded off the ferry and crashed down onto the dock.

What You Pray For

A
nd all the while, for all its stuttering incompleteness, the call was sounding.

And all the while, in the distance below the black waters, something was struggling against the summons. Something huge and angry was preparing to respond even as she was pulled up to the pier where the little ferry docked itself day in and day out.

She was coming because she was furious and possibly frightened, because she had been brought to the surface twice in as many nights. Prior to those events, no one had been ignorant enough or stupid enough to attempt a call in a thousand years, and now she was at the beck and call of the tiny and corrupt.

It did not matter that the success was all but accidental. It did not matter that the call was only partial and imperfect.

It mattered that there was a call. It mattered that someone or something believed it ought to have control over her. Arahab did not agree.

So despite the fragile and fractured nature of the song, the old thing with a thousand names gathered her strength—and there was much of it to gather—and she pulled herself into the Gulf of Mexico again, and across it. She followed the melody’s little lasso and let it lead her, for it was too feeble to force her.

Her fear was this: that someone was experimenting, and learning.

A fragment of a song that had first been sung when the sky was divided from the water was not enough to compel her. But the whole song, and assisted by a focusing object, and cast into the brine with
intent
 . . . that was something else altogether.

If someone knew a part, then the whole could yet be gleaned. If someone knew even the basest germ of the facts, then the rest could be grown as if from a seed.

Unless she put a stop to it.

It was much better to cut it off now, while the will of the practitioners was weak and imprecise.

As she closed in upon them, she used the eyes she could gather—a snoozing pelican that awoke with a start, a jumping fish that slapped itself against the surface. She borrowed the sharp face of the nearest dolphin and bade it rise enough to spy.

Two people. No, three. One was a woman.

And the alpha of them, a man with a candle that burned a flame as short as a fingernail, knelt on the wooden slats in his semicircle of borrowed power and chanted wordlessly. He murmured the shape of the notes and they fluttered around him.

“Something’s happening,” Mrs. Engle said, more to herself than to either of her companions. “I don’t like this,” she added, even though there was something inside her that very much
did
like it—all of it, the uncertainty and the power both.