Drowned (22 page)

“How should I know?” Star says. “I’ve never studied it for any length of time, and it’s so dark here I can barely see a thing.”

“Let me get some more of those lights, just in case. You go on. I’ll be right back,” Tiam calls over his shoulder, already halfway up the corridor.

I drop Fern to her feet and yank the map from Star’s hands. It’s not exactly easy to decipher. There are no words, save for the B MT ENT at the top, and it’s difficult to see where we are in relation to where the red line begins. Where it ends is just the tip of an arrow. There’s nothing else. The beginning of the line is surrounded by what looks like a thick, wide corridor, which goes straight for some time. There the line becomes dotted. Then it becomes a thick red again, snaking through a maze of turns, and there it looks as if the corridors become smaller and smaller. “I think...I think we just go straight,” I say.

Star hesitates. “Perhaps we should wait for Tiam.”

I exhale loudly, annoyed. “We’ll just go on a little ways.”

She doesn’t move, just looks down at the ground. “It will do no good to follow that map,” she says. “We can’t all make it.”

Maybe it’s because I’m so busy trying to prod her into action that I’m only half listening, because the meaning of her words is lost on me. “What?”

“The passage. The map. It’s a very treacherous route,” she says. I’m about to tune her out, as I’m so tired of her snobbery, when she says, “Only royals may pass.”

“What? Is the passage guarded?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying what my father told me. All I know is that he told me that only certain people have the ability to make it through. I assume he meant royals, people of supreme worth.”

It’s so ridiculous to think that a passage could be open only to royals. After all, despite Star’s claims of her importance, I’ve known some commoners who were twice her worth. And yet it still plants a seed of doubt. Could she be right? “Well, let’s just see about that.”

Fern pulls on my hand. “We’re going straight?” her voice is mouselike. “Down there?”

I nod.

“But...” Fern’s voice quivers. “That way... We tried to go that way before.”

It hits me as I take another step. The map is leading us directly to the place where those horrible monsters cornered us. Where the corridor was flooded. Impassable.

Star begins to tremble, clutching her hands together in front of her. There is something else she hasn’t told me, and if it’s anything worse than what she’s already said, I am not sure I want to know.

Fern squeals, “We’re not going
that
way, are we?”

I massage her shoulder. “Yes, we are,” I say. “It’s better than where we’re coming from. I’m afraid things will be very bad for us if we stay.”

Fern shakes her head. “But the path...it’s...”

“We’ll find a way around it.” We take a few more steps, until we’re ankle-deep in the dank black water, and the path begins to descend sharply. I wade out until I’m waist-deep, until the iciness of the water makes it impossible to feel my toes, and study all the corners, but there’s no trick door in the wall, and not even an inch of breathing room at the top of the passage. It’s most completely blocked. I don’t think any royal would be able to find anything different. “This can’t be the way,” I say, studying the map again.

Star wades out toward me, and the back of my neck prickles. At first I am not sure why, but then I realize there is something strange about her expression. After a moment I realize it’s because she’s not grimacing or shuddering or squealing about the freezing water. She’s just walking, arms out, ever so gracefully, her face completely serene. As she nears, I think that she’ll peer over my shoulder at the map, to help me figure out where we’re going. Instead, she pulls the map from my hand and whispers, “I most definitely think it is the way.” Then I feel her hands, cold and silken, on my shoulders, a sudden, enormous downward pressure there...and then I am plunged fully underwater, where the world swirls green-gray.

Twenty-Two

Sunlight on a Broken Column

I
mmediate panic. Immediate shock. It doesn’t fully register that Star, Princess Star, is holding me underwater; the thought is somewhere in the back of my muddled mind, but the first thing I feel is terror. The second is the impulse to free myself, and I begin to thrash my arms at her wildly. But it does no good. Star is stronger than I ever would have guessed. The water is so cold, like a million pinpricks on my cheeks. The brine burns my eyes, and it feels oilier and thicker than seawater. She caught me so off guard that after only a few seconds I’m dying for breath. My mouth opens in a scream and all the air is forced out of my lungs. I push against her stomach, her chest, with my own body, but still she won’t let go. Her hand is wound around my hair, her elbows digging into my collarbone, as if all of her own weight is atop me.

She must know about me and Tiam.
Of all the ways I could have died, I never thought it would be like this. It occurs to me that for all I thought I knew about the princess, she has an infinite ability to surprise. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she
is
the better class of person.

I know soon everything will go hazy, I will no longer have the energy to fight and life will leave me. I keep fighting, thrashing my arms and legs at her, but it’s little help. She is solid as stone.

I wait for the end.

And I wait.

I think maybe, in my panic, my sense of time has been distorted. That though it seems as if tides have passed, it’s only a blink of the eye. But soon I am quite calm, and as I open my eyes and see everything in greenish hues, I realize something. My mouth is open, and I can taste the sour water flooding down my throat.

I am breathing underwater.

I am breathing underwater!

Finally, the pressure on my shoulders releases, and I surface. I don’t gasp for air. I don’t need to. I am perfectly fine. I stare at her, unable to speak. Her composure is completely unruffled. That I can do this clearly isn’t news to her. I wait for her to explain, but she says nothing. “How did you know?” I ask, crawling out of the water and slumping onto the ground beside Fern.

Fern’s mouth is hanging open. “Coe, I counted to two hundred twelve! How did you do that?”

Fern doesn’t know that she could have counted to two
thousand
and twelve, and I would still have survived. She’s shivering, so I grab her hand and wait for Star’s answer.

“The markings. On your ribs. I noticed them that first day I saw you, before you had your bath. Didn’t you ever notice them?”

Water is dripping down the end of my nose steadily, tickling it, so I wipe it away and clench my teeth to keep from chattering. “What markings? You mean the scars?”

“They’re not scars. I don’t know exactly what they are, but they let you breathe in water. And they also make you quite a fast swimmer. Have you not noticed mine?”

Though Star loved to prance about naked, I was usually too embarrassed to look at her for any length of time. But, yes, the one time I did look at her while I was bathing her, I’d noticed the lines under her breasts. Now it makes complete sense how she was able to dive from the balcony and swim to the basement. “You mean, like fish have? You mean...gills?” I ask, so stunned I start to shiver, too. “But...how? How do I have gills? Are you saying I’m part fish?”

Star whispers, “It’s the mark of a supreme class of beings.”

There she goes, spouting off the “supreme class” nonsense again. After this stunt, I want to leave her here, to go my own way, despite Tiam’s promise, but something makes me stall. “Wait. Are you saying
I’m
part of the supreme class?”

She nods.

“That is ridiculous. Twelve tides ago I was cleaning a craphouse,” I mutter. “First you say I have gills. And now you are saying I’m—”

“I always suspected,” she says. “But I knew it the moment I saw the lines on your ribs. But what I find even more unbelievable is how
you
didn’t know.”

“But I’m not. They’re scars,” I insist, looking down at my body. I never spent much time studying myself, afraid of what I’d see there. Scribbler scars everywhere. And the swell of my breasts made it difficult to see the area directly beneath them. But could it be that those lines crisscrossing the skin there were not scars, but gills? How could it be all this time that I was part fish, and I never knew it? “Buck Kettlefish is my father. My mother died when I was a child.”

“Your mother did not die,” she says. “
Our
mother did not die. She had to leave.”

“‘Our’ mother? You mean we’re—”

“Sisters. Of course.”

“But that’s— You look like a princess, and I am...strange.” I look down at myself, at my dirty tunic, my scabby skin and stump. I can’t believe that this girl who has spent her entire life holed up in a tower, away from me, could know anything about my life.

“We’re
half
sisters, which means we share a mother, but have different fathers. You look like our mother. She had quite beautiful black hair and the palest of skin, as white as the moon. Her eyes were pink, too. Her name was Aliah.”

Aliah.
I think of the Dark Girl, the ghost with the darkest hair and whitest skin who had once roamed the castle. Was that Aliah? Was that my mother? Then why had she gone? Why had she left me?

Suddenly, I’m back in the seashell room, lying across that enormous seashell bed as someone with pale skin and black hair smiles above me, tickling my stomach. Her black hair, smelling of lavender, tickles my face.
Corvina... Corvina...
she calls, and her touch is like the gentlest breeze. I’m only a baby, and yet I feel safe, warm, happy—emotions I’ve never known before, or I haven’t known since. Too soon, reality floods in, and I’m back in the cold, dank cave, with Fern and Star staring at me as I pull myself spear-straight. But now I know everything she is saying is true. Breathless, I whisper, “You’ve known this all along?”

“No. I was just as shocked as you are, when I learned the truth. My father only told me about the underground city when he learned he was dying. But the rest I figured out on my own. I am not as stupid as some might think.”

“And why was Aliah sent away?” I ask, my voice rising.

“I do not know.” She sighs, annoyed with my questions. “Why don’t we find a way out of here, and then you can ask her?”

I’m distracted by a light swirling in the distance. Tiam runs up behind us, stopping short. His eyes narrow when he sees me, dripping wet and looking as if I’ve seen a ghost. “What did I miss?”

I’m so stunned, I don’t even know how my mouth forms the words. “Oh, just something about how only royals can pass and how my mother is alive,” I mutter. “Oh, and I can breathe underwater.” I look at Star. “Did I leave anything out?”

Fern pipes up. “Star’s your sister!” she squeals.

I nod. “Right. That, too.”

Tiam studies our faces with an amused expression, which slowly fades to disbelief as he realizes I’m not joking. “Wait. How long was I gone?”

Star studies her fingernails and says, quite unimpressed, “It’s true.”

She explains to Tiam everything she’d already told me. But I don’t hear a word she says. All I can think about is Aliah. Aliah, who is our mother.
Our mother.
I whisper those words to myself, but the more I form them on my lips, the stranger they sound. As Star speaks, Tiam’s eyes search out mine, widening with surprise at times, but never once leaving mine. It is clear he didn’t know, either. When she is done, he whispers, “Coe? Are you okay?”

I am too stunned to reassure him.

“Coe,” he asks, coming close to me. He takes a lock of my hair and sweeps it out of my face. “Coe? Talk to me.”

But I’ve lost the ability to speak. The only thing that registers is Star’s eyes narrowing behind him. I flinch away. As much as I crave it, he can’t be doing this, touching me. Not now. Not ever again.

“Coe?”

“Stop. Let’s...
not
talk about this anymore,” I snap. “Please.” I can’t let these thoughts distract me, because I know if I begin to think about them, I’ll likely be consumed by them. Finn may be coming here any moment, and I need to concentrate on the task at hand. “We have to get out of here.”

Tiam reluctantly nods and turns his eyes toward the dark corridor, shining the light as far as it will go. “Is this passage...”

“It’s blocked by water,” I say.

“It’s not a problem for you and me,” Star says. “We can swim it.”

Swim it? I survey the black water. It looks so uninviting, I’m shocked Star would even agree to attempt it. But she did manage to swim in the ocean, with scribblers and a heavy undertow. Compared to that, this will be easy. “It’s too dark.”

Tiam reaches down with his light and places it underwater. “Look. The fire doesn’t go out,” he says.

“Okay. I think the passage is only flooded for a short way,” I say, pointing at the map. “The dotted line is where the water is. But over here, maybe it’s dry. So I’ll swim out and see what it’s like.”

Star doesn’t argue. Tiam opens his mouth, but clamps it closed again, clearly frustrated. Again, it’s not as if he can take my place.

“I’ll be fine. Fern, when I go under, you start counting,” I tell her, smiling to hide my nerves. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

I wade out as far as I can, then signal to Fern to begin and slide under the water. The light illuminates a short distance ahead of me, so I push off the bottom and start swimming. I don’t notice that I’m moving any faster than a scribbler might, but then, I’ve never actually challenged one to a race. In the water, without an undertow, even without a hand, my arms propel me forward through the green water, so quickly that everything blurs and fades around me. I open my mouth and drink the water in; it’s salty and vile, but it has no power over me. I cannot believe that I spent all my life in fear of the ocean, when it never controlled me.

Up ahead, at the top of the passage, I see a light. And suddenly the path begins to curve upward. I swim until I am standing, and straighten my body. I am in the frosty air once again. The walls of the passage look much the same as they had on the other side of the blockage. I’m not sure how much time has passed, so I quickly reverse direction and go back.

When I surface, Fern applauds. “One twenty-three!” she says proudly.

“How was it?” Tiam asks.

“Fine. Not bad at all. I couldn’t see much when I got to the other side. But that’s got to be the way.”

Star wrinkles her nose but doesn’t say anything.

“So half of one twenty-three is about sixty. You can definitely make that,” I tell Fern. “You can count past a hundred.”

Fern says, “But I don’t know how to swim!”

“I know. I’m going to swim with you.” I turn to Tiam. He’s putting on a brave face, but I can tell he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. “Star can swim with you.”

He clears his throat. “I can make it on my own. You guys worry about yourselves.”

I don’t know what he’s thinking. He can’t do it alone. Swimming comes naturally to me, for some reason I still can’t understand or believe. It’s not so easy for Tiam and Fern.

I wade closer to him. “Let me take Fern and Star first. Then I will come back for you,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t go down there. It’s too closed in. I’ll never make it.”

“No, you will,” I say. “It’s not too far. The corridor never gets narrower than where we are now.”

“No, but the water. It makes everything feel tighter. And did you look at the map? After this, the passages get smaller and smaller.” His hands tremble. “Look, just go without me.”

“I’d never do that. If you don’t go, I don’t,” I say. “I’m coming back for you. All you have to do is hold your breath and keep your eyes closed. All right?”

He closes his eyes for a long moment, then nods, swallowing his pride. “All right.”

I take Fern by the hand and wade out with her. Star follows, and I hand her the light. “Breathe big,” I tell Fern, and she does as she’s told. Then we all sink under, and I start to pull Fern through the circle of light that Star is shining ahead of us. It’s easier than I thought; Fern is practically weightless. As I swim, I count to myself.
Thirty-two-one-thousand. Thirty-three-one-thousand.
I look back at Fern’s face, her cheeks bulge, but her expression is relaxed.
Fifty-nine-one-thousand. Sixty-one-thousand.
I look up but cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. Am I counting faster than Fern had been? I turn back again; her brow is beginning to crease with worry. I push farther, kicking my feet furiously.
Seventy...

And I see it. The light.

Sighing, I pull Fern until she’s standing in water up to her neck. She takes in such a large breath that she begins to cough. I push her toward the shore, and she paddles clumsily until she’s sitting on its edge. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and grins. “We made it! That wasn’t so bad. Tiam will do it, easy,” she says, surveying the cavern. Star shines the light ahead, and it’s more of the same. Dark stone walls, filled with crevasses that might or might not be passages.

I take some breaths to calm myself, then bid them farewell and head back through the passage again. I’m hoping that after two more trips, I’ll never have to travel this route again. When I surface, Tiam is standing there, feet in the water, hands on hips. The look on his face is troubled. “You’ve come back for me again,” he mutters.

“Of course I did,” I say.

“I don’t think anyone else in Tides would. They’d have given up on me by now.”

I shake my head. “You always told me not to listen to people when they called me Scribbler Bait. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you.”

He smiles at me, cupping my face in his hands and pulling my mouth to his. I give in for a moment and then try to push him away, but the desire to draw him close wins out. “No,” I say, but my voice is weak. “We can’t.”

“Coe, I’ve been thinking,” he says breathlessly, running his lips down my jaw to my neck. “If I make it through this...”