The Ghost's Child (10 page)

Very quickly they left the green water behind. The deep ocean is a dark thing, though its waves are hemmed with wedding-lace foam and it twinkles beneath the sun. For most of the time, the scenery is the same. Above Maddy, the clouds morphed and shifted, but always remained clouds. The water chipped and chopped and yawned, but always stayed infinite. She saw no other boats, though she scanned the distance ceaselessly. Wherever her journey was taking her, it was to somewhere no one else was sailing to, nor returning from. Such solitude made her feel like the last being left alive. The feeling was serene. The sky, the boat, the ocean, the planet: these things belonged to her now, and she to them, because there wasn't anything else. But occasionally an ink splash in the distance would resolve itself into a sea-going bird powering toward the horizon, and Maddy would shout with pleasure as it flew over the mast. In her sleep she would hear the beat of wide wings, and, reminded of Feather, sleep soundly.

Time passed quite distinctly at first; then it began to liquefy. The day and date became insignificant — what mattered was light and weather. Some days the
Albatross
raced, and Maddy was too preoccupied to think; other days the boat plodded, and her mind was free to ramble. She liked to lie between the thwarts and let the swell rock her into daydreams. She thought about her childhood, her dolls and dollhouse. She thought about the convoluted quirks of life. It seemed remarkably peculiar that, just because she had once seen a young man on a beach, she was now bobbing in the middle of the ocean. “Life,” she told the
Albatross,
“is full of caprice.” Very cautiously, and very infrequently, she allowed herself to dwell on the fay. In another life she would be home, building a nest of twigs for the fay. A good tall tree would be needed, safe from marauders. Some birds plucked down from their own breasts to line their nests fluffily. The sun on Maddy's face felt very hot and fluid, like honey dripping from a fat hive. She cuddled up in her nest, the pointy shade of the leaves shuffling across her cheeks. She heard the snap of canvas and the sound of something burning. Soon she would need to climb higher, into the cradle of the tree, and find a leafy branch to shield the fay from the heat and the bees.

And then Maddy would sit up with a start and stare around at the water, remembering who she was. She blinked away visions of waterfalls and sandstone cities. This confusion of her mind made her afraid. Looking about with fresh eyes, the lunacy of her situation terrified her. She was alone, she was thirsty and worn, her skin was raw with sea-spray. She was floating nowhere, in the center of nothing, with only the thin hull of a boat to keep her from sinking and disappearing, leaving nothing behind. She sat with her nails carved into the wood, and the indifferent ocean plashed in each direction for miles.

And then the cities would reappear on the skyline, and castles and lush woodlands as well, and Maddy would feel safe again, not lost at all, and gradually go back to sleep. She was dozing when a flying fish shot from the sea and landed, with a smacking sound, at the bottom of the boat. She yelped as the fish gasped and wriggled, flapping translucent wings. Recovering herself, she said, “Poor thing,” and lifted the pale body, and dropped it over the side.

The flying fish squeaked, “Thank you,” and disappeared.

Thereafter Maddy sat musing for a time, chewing her ragged thumbnail. A flying fish squeaking
thank you.

Bad weather trundled in later that afternoon, and lumbered after the
Albatross
like a bear. Maddy pulled on her oilskin and slipped her feet into Wellingtons. She rolled the drumming mainsail, secured the gaff and boom, and tied herself to the mast with a length of hawser rope. The gale hit the
Albatross
hard on the side, spun the craft in circles, yanked it into the air. Raindrops long as knitting needles speared from the sky. The ocean was thrilled by the havoc, and lurched anarchically. Maddy's sou'wester went overboard, as did her cooking pot. The sky was pitch, and gashed by lightning; loutish waves rose and slumped heavily as mud slides. At a moment when she was filled with desperation, Maddy opened her mouth and yelled for Feather. And half expected him to appear, because she wanted him to so much.

When the tempest had passed, the water was fatigued, and the
Albatross
traveled on evenly. Maddy spent the evening wringing out her stockings and bailing the hull. Far off to port, a great striped marlin leaped, its nose a sapphire javelin. Water fanned behind it, the sunset iridescent on its flanks. It sliced back into the ocean like the sword of a knight.

The following day Maddy was dreamily admiring a splendid onion-domed mosque that was floating as casually as an otter on the sea, and conducting a symphony being excellently played by an orchestra of pink-eyed, cat-faced musicians, when a green turtle bobbed its head from the waves and asked, “Have you seen a marlin around here?”

Maddy stopped conducting and peered overboard. “Actually, I have. I saw one yesterday.”

“Ha!” the turtle barked in triumph. “I knew it! He thinks he can get away from me, but he won't! He
won't
!” With that, it scooped the water and dived. Maddy sat and stared, pouting, but it didn't reappear.

When next a shadow passed the boat, Maddy shouted, “Excuse me!”

The shadow belonged to a mako shark, which propped its steely head from the water and clashed, “Yes? What?”

It was disconcerting to speak to so many teeth. “I was wondering,” Maddy fumbled, “if you know where Feather is. I need to ask him a question, you see.”

“Don't know, don't care,” said the mako, and vanished with a slash of fins. Stung by this rebuff, Maddy crawled underneath the thwarts to feel sorry for herself.

The next morning she saw a sunfish. Once, when she was small, Maddy had seen a sunfish caught in a trawler's net. The unfortunate beast, flat and round as a breakfast table, had attracted a crowd to the pier. It had had a sweet expression, Maddy remembered. “Excuse me?”

The sunfish glanced past its witch-hat dorsal fin. “May I help you?”

“Please, do you happen to know where Feather is? There's something I have to ask him.”

The sunfish looked askance. “Know the name, but can't put a face. I never
can
put a face — can you? What you want is a dolphin. I don't like to speak spitefully, but dolphins always think they know everything.”

“Thank you,” said Maddy; and sat back to wait for a dolphin.

But in fact she saw nothing for many days, and several times started to cry. The sun was too hot, the ocean too cold, the boat was never still. She was surrounded by strangers; she was utterly lost, her quest was ridiculous and futile. She was famished, her skin itched, there was nothing interesting to do. Sleeping, she dreamed of her plush clean bed, a bath filled with bubbly water. At the very worst moments she ransacked her heart, searching the clutter for solace. Searching, mostly, for a remnant of Feather — the timbre of his voice, the scent of him. Drooping and weary, she wove her fingers between his, and leaned against his shoulder.

Suddenly the nose of the
Albatross
plunged, hurling Maddy from her seat. Beneath the boat frothed a rumpus like a battleship going down. It was a humpback whale, breaching and diving. “Excuse me!” Maddy bawled. “Sir, you'll sink us!”

The whale raised its enormous gray head, water sluicing from its smiling mouth and down the grooves of its throat. Its voice, when it spoke, was harmonious. “My apologies.”

“Oh no, it was really my fault,” said Maddy. “Whale, by any chance have you seen Feather? I urgently need to ask him something.”

“Indeed I have seen your Feather,” replied the whale. “It was, mind you, some time ago.”

Maddy's heart somersaulted, she scrambled to the prow. “Did he say where he was going?”

“Regretfully he did not, no. And he was being blown about by Zephyrus, so he could be anywhere now.”

“Zephyrus? Who is Zephyrus?”

“The west wind.” The humpback rolled its tiny eye. “You might get some sense out of it, if you're lucky.”

Maddy thanked the whale for its help, and sat back to consider. It is one thing to converse with aquatic life, but quite another to address a wind. Night was coming, and she lay down on the floor of the
Albatross,
a blanket folded under her head.

When she woke, the sky was very black, and a girl as airy as an owlfly's wing was perched on the bowsprit, gazing at her. The girl wore a gown that was tattered and dripping; her arms were matted with seaweed. Maddy could see the moon and a scattering of stars through her gauzy chest. She sat up and asked sharply, “Who are you?”

The girl smiled furtively, batting her lashes. Her voice was trill, and unpleasantly breathy. “Just a lost soul who went down with the ship,” she said, as if she were ordering champagne. “There are so many of us, more than anyone can count. But we're all so bored with each other's company! We love to meet new people. This is a nice boat you have.”

“Thank you,” said Maddy. “Don't touch it.”

“What are you doing out here by yourself? You're so far from home.”

“I'm looking for someone,” Maddy said. “I'm perfectly all right. Please don't worry about me.”

The diaphanous girl pouted, and fiddled with her seaweed. “Come down and dance with us,” she suggested. “We have a ten-piece band.”

“Thank you but no,” replied Maddy. “I'm looking for the west wind — do you know it?”

The apparition's eyes widened into sodden circles. “Zephyrus!” she shrilled. “It was Zephyrus who sank our ship! Stay away from Zephyrus! Be warned, be warned, be warned!”

“Oh, for goodness' sake,” Maddy sighed, and lit the lamp, which caused the phantom girl to frizzle up like a hair in a flame.

The
Albatross
sailed on, in endless pursuit of the horizon. Maddy wondered what would happen if she somehow reached that elusive line. She would topple over the edge of the world and come face-to-face with — what? A land where trees walked, and people sprouted roots? Another girl, in another vessel, traversing an upside-down ocean? Is that what Feather had been thinking about, as he stared at the horizon — a place where everything was topsy-turvy? Maddy lay in the bottom of the boat, warbling tunelessly to herself, her thoughts riding the air like ribbons untied. She lifted a hand and began to lazily trace her important question onto the clouds.
How can you know
. . . Before she could finish, the clouds coasted apart, and the words plunked into the sea.

Her head was hanging over the side of the boat when she saw a scrawny viperfish slunk up from the deep. “What brings you here?” she asked.

The viperfish spoke through ludicrous teeth too big for its head. Its voice was lean and long. “Battle on. Kraken versus leviathan at dusk.”

“You wouldn't happen to have seen Feather? I'm looking for him. There's something he knows that I want to know.”

“I live at ocean's bottom,” replied the viperfish snarkily. “I don't get visitors.”

“No need to be ungracious,” Maddy said. “In that case, do you know where I'd find Zephyrus?”

“West wind? Probably be at battle. It likes biffo.”

Finally, something that sounded promising. “May I follow you there?”

“Aaaruggh!” screeched the fish. “Only if you don't dally! I can't stand waiting!”

So Maddy hoisted the sails and put the
Albatross
into a clip, sprinting in the wake of the lightning-fast fanged beast. Throughout the afternoon they raced toward the battle site. Maddy noticed other creatures streaming in from miles around — basking sharks, and schools of sockeye salmon; morays and herds of gigantic cuttlefish. Killer whales glided handsomely beneath the waves; auks dashed past in dozens. Leopard seals snapped their jaws as they flashed by the boat; stingrays wafted past like fainting spells. Maddy kept the
Albatross
tipped steep before the wind. White sharks and barracudas sniped at the boat's silhouette; in the sky wheeled a flock of jet-winged frigate birds. Jellyfish undulated on the ocean's surface, trailing sparkling stingers. It was a rough and cutthroat crowd, and Maddy held tight to the tiller.

She felt the battle before she saw it. As the sun began to droop in the sky, the ocean grew choppy, and the
Albatross
bounced. Soon the prow was lunging skyward, then pointing straight down; water flooded across the floor, and thumped the stern bullishly. Looking along the bowsprit, Maddy saw the ocean was boiling. She pushed the anchor hastily over the side. As the bolt of metal disappeared into the dark she saw a vast pale specter slip by: the white whale. It glanced at her without interest, the anchor spinning in the turbulence of its flukes.

Just then the water began to tear — Maddy clamped her arms around the mast. From the distant waves erupted a smoke-snorting monster, its brow bulky as a stagecoach, its chest a mountainside. It swung its armored head and roared, shooting scarlet flames into the sky, crisping the wings of a spectating rukh, which shrieked like a harpy in fury. The ocean seethed as the sea monster yawed about, its gaping mouth brandishing fortress-pike teeth. The leviathan was gargantuan and hideous, the most fearsome thing Maddy had ever seen. It stank of burning wood and rotting meat. Unexpectedly, the malevolent head was plastered by sinewy legs as thick as oaks and pied as death, which lashed from the water and suctioned to the monster's bulging jaws. The kraken held on mightily as the leviathan hauled it from the waves and flung the sleek body skyward, knives of water flinging everywhere. Round and around the two legendary creatures careered, the leviathan tangled in tentacles and bellowing, the kraken silent as a tomb, its huge eyes flatly reflecting the clouds and the sea. The ocean threw up cliffs of waves that crashed down in every direction. The giant squid beneath the
Albatross
changed color with enthusiasm; the killer whales breached, pluming water into the air. In the sky a flock of crossbow jaegers dodged and screamed hoarsely. The leviathan's jaws slammed together and lopped off one of the kraken's tentacles, which fell into the ocean, spurting fetid oil. The limb was instantly seized by a spangly serpent, which sped away jeeringly with its prize. The kraken seemed to feel no pain: it tightened its grip on the leviathan's head, buckling the monster's reptilian scales. The leviathan sucked down a cavernful of air, heaved it out as a torrent of flame. Maddy felt the heat punch past her, blocked her ears to its awful sound. The fire sheared over the water, sending a pod of walruses into woofing panic.