Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) (19 page)

“Me too. Maybe I was supposed to forget everything
that happened to me. I don’t remember the Incident. I don’t even know if I had any family to lose, but I can’t help but think that maybe I’m better off not knowing.”

“But such a big part of you is missing, Jordan. Six years of your life. Can you live with that? Can you live with sacrificing that amount of time just so you don’t have to relive memories that might be a bit painful?”

“Maybe I protected myself from whatever memories I had. What if the only way I could live with myself was if I couldn’t remember it?”

Anne nodded. “It’s called repression. But like all things, it’s better when it’s relieved. You spent one day on the land, and it woke something up deep inside you, Jordan. You have to let it out. Out there on the land your past is waiting for you to discover it. It triggered a window into your past. You should climb through it.”

Jordan shook his head. “It’s in for a long wait. I have no intention of spending another night on the land. The truth will have to remain buried forever.”

“Nothing ever remains buried forever, Jordan. Tonight is proof of that. These visions, whatever they are, won’t stop until you remember. You’re on a rollercoaster, and there’s no getting off till the end.”

The knife etched a single notch into the hull. Stan blew into it and brushed the plastic flakes clear with a finger. It was the fourth notch on board Big Daddy. Jordan sat to one side
. He curled another wafer from the wooden horse he was whittling. Jessie sat on the prow, looking out at the horizon. The clouds stifled the sunlight and created a sombre, dull mood.

Anne approached and spoke in a low voice. “I need t
o talk to you both about Jess.”

“What is it?” S
tan asked, pocketing his knife.

“Whatever Jess has, it’s not shock.”

Stan frowned. “How do you know?”

“Shock d
oesn’t usually last this long.”

“How long does it usually last?”

“Minutes… A few hours at most.”

“Do you know what it is?”

Anne shook her head. “The closest thing I can think of is locked-in syndrome, but it’s different. She reacts to stimuli and she can walk and move her hands and eyes. Locked-in syndrome is a vegetative state.”

Jordan frowned.
“How long will she be like it?”

“I have no idea. Days, weeks.”

“Years?”

Anne spread her hands. “There’s just no way of knowing. But I’ll tell you this: if there’s another storm while she’s like this, she’ll stand no chance.”

They shared a concerned look. Jessie still sat, having not moved a muscle, fiddling with her necklace.

“Why does she do that?” Jordan asked. “Play with the necklace like that.”

“Nervous energy. Impulse. I’m not sure. It might be the only way for us to gauge how she’s feeling. This is a frightening experience for her.”

“It’s a frightening experience for all of us.”

E
tched into the table top was a map of the world. An inscription read:

THE INDIAN OCEAN.

A lantern swung gently with the movement of the sea, casting shadows around the room. The Indian Ocean was a vast body of water that stretched all the way from India in the north to Antarctica in the south, and hugged on either side by Africa and Australia.

Jordan
traced a finger from the UK, along the French coast, Portugal, around Spain, down past the continent of Africa, around Cape Town and past Madagascar. It was an intimidating distance from their current location.

There was a soft knock at the door. Stan peeked in. “Sorry if I’m interrupting.
”

“No, no. Come in. I was just,
ah...”

Jordan moved between Stan and the table to block the map fro
m his view, but it was too big.

“Planning a wee trip?”
Stan asked.

“Brushing up on my geography.”

“It’s always good to expand one’s knowledge.”

“
Was there something you wanted, Stan?”

“No. Well, yes. It’s Mary. You see, before she died she said something to me, and it doesn’t quite make sense. It’s like she gave me just half a message and I was wondering if you could help me…”

“How can I help?”

“This will probably sound strange, but did she say anything to you?”

Jordan pursed his lips together in an expression of concentration. “No, I can’t say she did. Most of what she said I couldn’t really make out.”

“So, she did say something?”

“Yes, but like I said… very hard to understand.”

“What could you make out?”

Jordan blew air out of his mouth. “Just a few words here and there, really. Nothing meaningful.”

Stan nodded, clearly disappointed. “I thought so. It was a long shot, I suppose. Well, don’t let me keep you.” Stan moved toward the door.

“Just out of interest,” Jordan said, “what did she say to you?”

Stan smiled. “Oh, nothing meaningful.”

Jordan watched Stan’s departing back, then returned to looking at the map. He shook his head. “Impossible.” Then he paused, looking at the map again. He looked up.

“Stan, wait!”
Jordan moved round the table to the door. “Stan?”

After a moment, Stan’s head popped round the corner. “What is it?”

“Can you come in here a minute?”

Jordan traced his finger through the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt, where there was a thin strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean
.

“Was there ever a canal built across Egypt? For boats to cross from the Mediterranean?”

“You’re talking about the Suez Canal?”

Jordan’s heart skipped. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Built in 1869. A remarkable piece of engineering. Did you know it took ten years to construct?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Are you all right? You look a bit pale.”

“I’m fine. In fact, I feel better than I have in a long time.” He placed a hand on Stan’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Stan. I lied to you. Mary did say something to me before she died.”

Stan’s voice was almost a whisper. “What did she say?”

“Let’s go find Anne and Jess. It was meant for all of us.”

Jordan
sat bent over his knees, his hands together in his lap in the main living area. Stan, Anne and Jessie were sat on the leather sofa facing him.

“Are you sure that’s what she said?”
Stan said.

Jordan nodded.
“Word for word.”

“The Indian Ocean?” Anne said. “I don’t even know where that is!”

Jordan spread a map out over the table and pointed it out. “It’s a long, long way…”

“It’s not as far as you might think,” Stan said. He pointed to Egypt and ran a finger from the north side of the country to the south. “Around here there’s something called the Suez Canal. If we could get to the entrance
, we might be able to sail across Egypt and emerge on the other side in the Indian Ocean. It would save us months of sailing around Africa. And any potential pitfalls.”

Anne frowned. “Why would she want us to go there?”

Stan shook his head. “That, I can’t explain.”

“Have you ever been there before, Stan?” Jordan asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure? She talked about how beautiful it was.
How would she know that?”

“I honestly don’t know. Maybe she saw it on TV. Or read about it in a magazine.”

Anne pursed her lips and looked directly at Jordan. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”

“I was worried.”

“About what?”

Jordan chose his words carefully.
“We all loved Mary. As a wife, as a mother. It would be easy to follow what she said without thinking.”

“We’ve talked about sailing to calmer seas before. Why are you nervous now?”

“Because we weren’t serious then. It was a fantasy. We were never really going to go anywhere.”

Anne folded her arms. “Maybe some of us did mean it.”

“One thing I’m sure we can all agree on,” Stan interrupted, “is that it’s not safe here.”

“I’m not so sure,” Jordan said. “Why would the Indian Ocean, or anywhere else, be any safer than here? What’s the use of travelling halfway round the world to do what we’re already doing?”

“Mary was always saying how we should go on a little trip to better waters,” Stan said with a smile. “Maybe she suddenly remembered the perfect place.”

“What we’re talking about here is more than just a little trip. It’s a journey halfway round the world!”

“There is another reason she might have said it,” Anne said. She looked nervous. “There have been reports of people at the end of their lives, particularly at the end of a long illness, where their synapses fire off randomly in the brain.”

Stan shook his head. “No.”

“Mary might have accessed some random piece of information she saw once.”

“What are you saying?” Stan said. “That it wasn’t her? That it was just random words?”

“No, I’m not saying that-”

“I don’t believe that. I
can’t
believe that.”

“All I’m saying is she might not have been in complete control.”

“She was in control when she was speaking with me. When she told me-”

“When she told you what, Stan?”
Jordan asked.

Stan turned away. “Never mind.”

Anne frowned. “The thing that I’m struggling with is understanding why she chose the Indian Ocean. A place she’d never experienced before.”

Stan’s eyes pricked up. “Wait… She has experienced it. I just remembered.”

“You said she hadn’t been there before,” Jordan said.

“She hasn’t. But her
brother
has. He was an oil rig worker. He was stationed over there for the ten years leading up to the Incident. He sent us letters every month, letting us know how he was getting on.”

Anne leaned forward. “What did he say about it?
”

“He loved it. Said the water was emerald blue and the fish were more numerous and delicious than anywhere else. He said the sea was calm all-year round. And…” Stan’s eyes twinkled. “There were almost never any storms.”

Anne closed her eyes and smiled at the thought of it. “Sounds like heaven.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” Jordan said. “You guys, if we make this decision – if we decide to go to the Indian Ocean – you know what it means, don’t you? We’ll be leaving everything we know here behind. Everything we’ve grown up with. There’ll be no coming back.”

Stan shook his head. “Oh, Jordan. Everything we know is already gone.” His lip trembled. “There’s nothing left for us here now.”

“We’ll need to do a lot of planning. We’ll need maps,
emergency food, medical equipment – if we can find it. And we’ll need the right boat.”

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“Big Daddy is okay for short trips, but a thousand mile journey? We’ll never find enough fuel. We’d need a sailing ship. And weapons. There might be pirates or traders along the way. Or something else we’ve never encountered before. We’ll need spare parts in case we break down. That’s not to mention if we don’t run into a storm on the way. Who knows what’ll be lurking on the journey?”

“We’ll take supplies with us,” Anne said.

“And if we run out? We’ll be stranded.”

Stan stood up and raised his voice. “What would you prefer? We wait out here for the next storm? The last storm killed half of us, Jordan. Half! The next time it might all be over.”

Jordan kept his voice low. “We’d be risking our lives for something that may or may not be out there. How do we know the Indian Ocean isn’t worse than it is here?”

“Clyde – Mare’s brother – worked those rigs for ten years and not once did he see a storm like the one we saw
.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s any safer there than here. What if we’re wrong and the Indian Ocean isn’t what we thought?”

“So that’s it?” Stan said, throwing up his hands. “Is this how it’s going to go on? Waking up each day and finding another one of us dead?”

“It’s always been that way,” Jordan said. “It was like that in the Old World, and it’s like that now.”

Stan slammed his fist on the table, causing a plate to slip off the edge and smash on the floor. He pointed at Jordan with a stiff finger. “That’s not true, and you know it. There used to be a reason to live. To go on. I might not have one anymore, but you all do.”

The necklace in Jessie’s hands rang frantically
as her fingers worked overtime.

“Stan, calm down,” Anne said
.

“No, I won’t calm down. Don’t you see? Mary was right about one thing: we can’t stay here
. We can’t risk another storm.”