The Gracekeepers (7 page)

 

M
elia had not feared a storm since the day she'd met Whitby. All damplings have their own relationship with the sea, and Whitby's attitude was one of respect and acceptance, tempered with a generous helping of lust.

“The sea does not need us,” he would announce to Melia in the warmth of their bunk, bodies tucked together like spoons. “That fickle mistress, it's all the same to her whether we live to be a hundred or drown before we even take a breath. We're parasites. Eating her offspring, drinking her salty blood, cutting through the waves of her belly. We're living off her spoils. No wonder she wants to devour us all.”

“So we should give up and jump overboard?” Melia would tease back, clasping her hands with his, stretching their arms together until the joints cracked. “Let the sea have us?”

“You're assuming it's our decision to make, my love. She'll only take us when she wants us. I for one look forward to the embrace of the sea, when she decides that it's time.” At this he would wrap his arms around Melia, biting kisses along her shoulder. “Just think of her rhythm! Her passion! Her relentless, depthless wetness! Oh, sweet relief for this unworthy man!”

At this, Melia would clamp her hand over Whitby's mouth, but could never resist turning her body in his grasp, replacing her hand with her mouth. Then they would make love, pressed close in the narrow space of their coracle, moving together with the rhythm of the waves. Their bodies wound up speckled like eggs, white on tan, from the touches of one another's chalky palms. Melia took care to kiss every one of Whitby's scars, built up over their years of performances at dozens of different circuses. Other damplings were born and worked and died as part of the same crew, treading the same deck, hoisting the same sails their whole lives. But Melia did not need such ties; Whitby was the only home she needed. With their skills, it was not so hard to buy their way on to a new ship.

Melia could not remember whose idea it was to sow misinformation about their relationship when they joined the Circus Excalibur. They were not siblings and they were not married, and Whitby found it endlessly amusing that anyone could believe either. They were simply lovers, though there was nothing simple about that. They were aerialists, the two of them: many ways to fly, but only one way to fall.

Afterward, sweat-damp and tingling, Whitby would bury his face in her shoulder and whisper,
we are the sea
.

They had not had such an exchange last night after their drinking session in the mess boat. By the time they made it back to their coracle, they were so booze-slurred and woozy that they
could barely manage to tie their canvas shut and strap themselves into their bunk before their eyes closed.

In the abyss between waking and sleeping, Melia thought of her own relationship with the sea. She did not lust for the sea the way that Whitby did. But when he said to her,
we are the sea
—that made the most perfect kind of sense. She was the sea, and so was everyone else. We all come from the sea.

Melia had heard that in the olden days, when the world had lots of land spreading out over miles and miles in every direction, seas and lakes were called “bodies of water.” That made sense too. Her body was water, and Whitby's body was water, and Red Gold's and Ainsel's and North's and even the bear's—they were the sea, and so they could trust the sea. She wanted to tell Whitby this. But her tongue was too heavy to make the words. Sleep took over her thoughts, and she slipped away.

M
elia woke in blackness to the boom of Red Gold's voice projecting across the coracles. Over his voice there was an odd whistling, a screeching, and Melia's half-sleeping mind could not understand it.

TIGHTEN THE CHAINS
came Red Gold's shout, and there was a clanking of the chains that tied together the line of coracles,
HAUL IN THE SAIL
and there was a whoosh and thwack of canvas,
LASH YOUR OVERHEAD
and this call was almost lost in the wind, but still the phrase worked on Melia like an alarm, jolting her awake, her fingers scrabbling at the buckle of her bunk strap. It was the wind, the screech and whistle of the wind and the rain, and as she swung upright she felt how the boat was rocking and dipping in the rough waves.

In the dim light she could make out the shape of Whitby reaching for the canvas overhead, his knees bending and ankles rolling as he moved with the deep sway of the coracle. She staggered over to him. Her narrow legs felt as flimsy as seaweed, but she knew her arms were strong enough to fight even the roughest swell. Rain blew through the gap: the canvas had come unfastened and was flapping in the wind like a panicked bird. Melia was instantly soaked, and fought to keep her feet steady on the slick inside of the coracle.

Working together in the darkness, they yanked the canvas tight and knotted it shut. There would be no point in lighting a seal-fat lamp; the sea was wild enough to knock it from its hook, and if the canvas caught fire then there would be nothing to protect them from the rain.

When the canvas was secure, Melia went port and Whitby went starboard, running their hands over the shelves lining the coracle's curved sides. Straps and buckles and strips of canvas kept everything flat. It was impossible to see in the darkness, but they knew the shapes of their belongings well enough, and could feel that nothing was missing. Melia tightened the buckles so that things could not knock together and break. Rainwater sloshed around on the deck of the coracle, but there was nothing to be done about that now. They could drain it all in the morning when the sun came out. She kept sidestepping round until she bumped into Whitby at the end of his half-circuit. Done.

Overhead tight, belongings secured, they were safe. They lay back down on their bunk, frozen and sodden from the rain.

“Thanks,” whispered Melia to Whitby.

“For what?”

“For keeping us safe.”

“You're always safe with me, my lass. Besides, I knew I had to patch that gap up quick-smart. Wouldn't want that saltwater to get in here and cause damage, now would I? Just
think
about your hair!”

“You mean your hair,” said Melia.

“Of course I do,” said Whitby. “I have to stay beautiful for my women.”

Melia sat up, pulling away from him in mock offense. “Women plural, is it?” But she could not keep the laughter out of her voice; could not even pretend to be annoyed at Whitby.

“You and the sea.” He pulled her back down into his arms. “You're better company than she is—but me and that briny temptress, we're like this.” Whitby crossed his index finger over Melia's so they were intertwined.

As if in answer, the sea sighed and boomed against the hull. Melia felt the gentle scrape of coracles on either side and knew that they were all safe now. The coracles seemed to be tiny, fragile things but they had been through many storms, bobbing up among the roughest waves, weathering the wind and salt-spray like miniature fortresses. The sea had never tried to claim one of them. Perhaps she did not bother with such small prey.

Melia turned to face Whitby, pressing herself into his body to lessen her shivers, and listened to the waves and the wind shriek and boom against the hull. In the center of a storm, it was easy to believe the old superstitions. The gods of the deep, hungry for revenge; the earth as a flat plane, with the seas tipping over the edge into nothing. Here Be Dragons.

Melia smiled and rested her damp face against Whitby's shoulder, letting his heat dry the rain from her forehead. Colors and shapes began to flicker behind her eyelids as she drifted into sleep. She'd weathered worse storms, and lying awake all night
would only make her tired, less able to carry out any repairs in the morning. She let herself drift.

A wave boomed against the next coracle—North's coracle, and wouldn't her poor bear be frightened by all this noise?—and Melia pictured its motion behind her closed eyelids. Cresting the wave, tugging on the taut chain, righting itself on the swell. Safe, like always. Even as it thudded into the side of their coracle hard enough to knock her teeth together, she knew it was safe.

Under the sea's tantrum, she heard another sound. Slosh-suck, slosh-suck: the rhythm of the waves, but closer and clearer. She opened her eyes to check that the canvas was still tight.

The boat tipped on the waves, and Melia saw a small circle of stars; it tipped back and the stars were gone, replaced by blackness and the slosh of water. Melia understood what had happened before the words could form in her mind. A crack. There was a crack in the hull. Their coracle was sinking.

“Whitby!” Melia's fingers scrabbled at the buckles of the bunk strap. “The hull!”

Melia crossed the coracle on her knees so she wouldn't fall, the thin layer of water numbing her legs. She lit a lamp and held it high. Whitby was out of bed, reaching for scraps of oilcloth, reaching for the tin of tar, his movements calm and precise. She held the lamp closer to the hull. The crack was the size of an egg, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Whitby could patch that.

But, but. The oilcloth was too small. The lid was stuck on the tin of tar. And with each swell and push of the waves, the crack widened.

Whitby held the scrap of oilcloth to the weeping hull, but now it was not big enough to reach the edges. Melia grabbed another.

Lid, tar, fingers, oilcloth.

It was not enough.

It would not stick.

They were still on their knees, the water now halfway up their thighs, salt-stinking and dark. Melia felt sure that the coracle was sitting lower in the water. Panic blurred her thoughts. Her legs were numb. The light from the seal-fat lamp jerked against the sides of the coracle: her hands were shaking, and knowing that they shook was not enough to make them stop.

“Hush now,” murmured Whitby over the shriek of the wind and rain, and she realized that she'd been making a sound of distress, a low moan in the back of her throat, the same pitch and beat as the waves.

Whitby turned away from the hull, eyes casting around the coracle, looking for something that was big enough to patch the gap. Melia wanted to help him, but she could not tear her gaze away. As she watched, the crack spread wide as a yawning mouth, revealing a tumble of stars and the sea's white teeth. The coracle tipped into the swell of a wave. Water poured through the gap, knocking Melia and Whitby on to their backs in the freezing water.

“We can't,” said Melia. “It's too big. We need to get out.”

Whitby did not reply; Melia was not sure he could bring himself to say the words. He tugged down two loops of the long rope they used for their show and knotted them around their waists. Melia reached for the floats strapped to the wall, then realized it was a waste of time. They wouldn't make a difference in a sea this raw.

Their coracle was only the third away from the main boat, and their ropes were long enough to reach across North's and Ainsel's coracles—assuming that North's had not also been damaged in the collision. Red Gold would be on the deck of the
Excalibur
, but the stars might not be bright enough to let him see the coracle's damage beneath the dark water and white froth.

Melia threaded the lamp on to its hook—a burning canvas was now the least of their worries—and began untying the overhead. The knots were tight and her fingers were numb.

“Whitby!” she shouted. “I can't—it's too—”

And he was beside her, nimble fingers dissolving the knots, strong arms pulling back the canvas, calloused hands throwing the end of her rope out of the coracle and into the night. It thudded and splashed into the sea. Melia pulled herself up on to the edge of the coracle, wrapping the overhead ropes around one arm so that she wouldn't tip into the water. The coracle's edge was slippery with seawater and she overbalanced, jerking the coracle as she landed on her knees. The thud juddered through her bones—she didn't think that she had landed that hard, but still the impact seemed to vibrate through the coracle.

In the bleaching starlight she saw the outline of Red Gold, lashed to the
Excalibur
's mainmast. She waved her free arm at him, but he did not notice. Now that Melia was out, she could see how low their coracle sat in the water; how it was already beginning to drag down its neighbors.

A split of lightning arced across the sky, echoed by a deep grumble of thunder. It lit up the world, painting Red Gold's wide red face as white as bone. Melia's head spun. It was all unreal. Pale shapes. Etchings on burned wood. The ends of stories.

Red Gold raised an arm to hail her and she threw him the rope. He could not know what had happened to the coracle, but he knew that they were in trouble. She made sure that Red Gold had a tight hold of her rope, then reached down for Whitby's to throw that too. She could not find it.

“Whitby!” she shouted, but the wind stole his name. She
kicked her feet in the empty space of the coracle, trying to find him. “Whitby, stop trying to fix it! It's too late!” She ducked her head inside but couldn't see anything. She pulled some slack on her rope and dropped down into the coracle. All her breath was knocked out as she landed hip-deep in the icy water.

“Whitby, damn you to earth!” She groped around in the dark but could only find the sides of the coracle, her numb fingers bumping and scraping against the straps and buckles. Nothing, nothing. Then: a tug around her belly, pulling her backward through the water. She pressed her hands against the walls and screamed out Whitby's name. But Red Gold had the end of her rope, and was pulling her out.

As she came free of the water she kicked her legs out as hard and wide as she could. They caught things, dozens of things, soft things and shattering things, but she did not know if any of those things were Whitby. Around her waist the rope tugged, tugged, and it was so tight that she could not breathe, could not call again for Whitby. Stars wheeled above her. The sea raged in long, deep heaves. She tried to turn, to untie the rope, to signal to Red Gold. As she slid over the edge of the coracle it scraped a long graze of skin from her forearm. A wave spat saltwater on to the wound, but she felt nothing.