The Stolen Child (24 page)

“Captain's quarters, for Abasi and Milima, and Dad's room,”
Arsha explained.
 

“
So how comes he gets a bigger room all to himself?” Rachael said.  Arsha made a frustrated sound.
 

“
He does all his work in there.  It's mostly full of books anyhow.”
 

“He's in there now?”
Rachael said.
 

“No,
h
e's up on the bridge, I think.  With the others,”
she said.
 

Following the stairs up
past the dining room, which Arsha referred to as the 'mess hall', they
came out in
front of a large door,
made of steel, with big wheel locks like something on a submarine.  
To their right, another narrow staircase continued upwards.
 

“
That leads out to the deck,” Arsha said, gesturing at the door.
  “The stairs go up to the bridge.  I think Micah has the tiller right now.”

“The tiller?”

“It's the wheel that steers the ship,”
Arsha said, with an exasperated sound.
 

“Oh.  The steering wheel.  You could have just said that,”
Rachael said, feeling just as frustrated as Arsha sounded.
  “Why do you
gotta
call everything weird stuff,
and then act like I'm some kind of idiot for not knowing what everything's supposed to be?
”

“
Because that's what it's called
,”
Arsha sighed.
  “You'll get used to it.”

“
Yeah, well I'm not exactly planning on sticking around that long,” Rachael snapped.
 

“
All right, you don't want to be here, I get it already,” Arsha replied, her voice rising as she threw her hands up in aggravation.
 

“
You think?” Rachael snapped back at her.  “Hey, here's an
idea, let's head up and ask your dad how long he's going to keep me prisoner for.  What do you think he might say to that?”
 

“Fates, would you just stop?  You're always acting like he's the bad guy, and you haven't even met him.”

“
Exactly.  I got knocked out, kidnapped, hauled away, and the guy who's supposed to be doing all this 'cos its what's best for me won't even give me a damn explanation.  I been here a full day now, and I ain't even met the guy, but you want me to be grateful for that?  Well screw you, and screw him,” Rachael yelled, feeling her nails digging into her palms.
 

“
Shut up.  Just shut up.”  Arsha's voice rose to a shriek.  “You're so horrible.  He's going to go to jail because of what he did for you, and you don't even care.  You don't care about anyone but yourself.”
 

The words hit her like a blow to the chest.  Rachael felt herself stagger back a step.
 

“
He's what?” she said, blinking.  For a moment Arsha just glowered at her.
 

“
I heard Milima saying it yesterday,” she said, her voice dropping to a low snarl.  “Him and Abasi, because of what they did.  Dad's probably going to prison, and Abasi will lose his ship... All because they broke a few stupid rules trying to rescue you.”
 

“
Good,” Rachael heard herself say.  
 

It was as if the word was past her lips before she even had a chance to think about it.  She saw the shift in Arsha's expression, felt something inside herself recoil at what she had just done.  Then a wave of white hot anger seemed to rush through her, surging up from her gut and spilling out over her tongue.   “Well it serves them both right.  Someone should have to pay for all this.  For all of what's happened.  They had no right to do none of what they did, and now they're
both
getting what they deserve.”

For a moment, the silence was deafening, as the girls stared at each other.  When Arsha spoke, her voice was barely more than a whisper.
 

“
You fucking bitch.”
 

Rachael could only stare as Arsha turned on her heel and stormed away, vanishing down the stairs to the lower deck.  Moments later she heard more footsteps from the stairway leading up to the bridge, and then Micah appeared, looking worried.
 

“
Hey, what's happening here?” he said.
 

“
Nothing.  Nothing's happening,” Rachael said.  For a moment he regarded her silently, as if trying to decide whether or not to press the point.
 

“
Well?” she snapped, her patience giving out on her.  “You got something to say?”
 

He scowled, but said nothing.  Rachael turned away, taking the stairs two at a time, just as Arsha had done.  She soon found herself down on the bottom deck, in the empty corridor between the cabins.  It was strangely quiet.  Even the distant sound of the engines barely seemed to register.  She pressed her fingers to her temples and leaned back against the wall.
 

“
Christ almighty,” she muttered to herself, “you really
screwed that one up.”
 

After a while she got to her feet and took a breath, trying to steel herself against what she knew she had to do next.
 

Arsha's room was empty, but a glance towards the far end of the corridor told her where the girl had gone.  The door to the hold was slightly ajar.  
In the dim light she wandered through the stacks of supplies.  Compared to the cramped confines of the rest of the ship, the hold seemed vast.  
T
he smaller vessel, suspended in its cradle
above her
, seemed a little like a beached whale.  
She saw the name painted on the side.  'Zephyr'.  She wondered what it meant.
 

At the far end of the room she spotted a ladder leading up to a small loft space.  When she reached the top she found a small nook, formed where the walls of the hull met at the nose of the ship.  Two portholes and a single lamp provided light to a space that had been
mostly
filled by a beaten up old couch and a pair of well worn armchairs.  
Arsha was huddled up against one arm of the couch, eyes red, wetness glistening on her cheeks.

“
Go away
,”
she said.
 

“
Look,
I just
wanted to
say I'm sorr
y,” Rachael said.  Slowly, she eased herself down into the nearest armchair.
  “I didn't mean it, what I said.  I was just... I didn't mean it.”

Arsha's eyes seemed to study her for a moment.
 

“Yes you did.”

“Yeah.  Alright.”  
Rachael pulled her knees up.
  “Maybe I did
a bit
.  But it wasn't right to say it, so I'm sorry
for that
.”

“
Fine
.  What's it matter anyway, if you're sorry or not?  Dad's still going to go to prison, and
Uncle
Abasi's still going to lose his ship, and Micah and Ilona won't have jobs, and everyone's going to leave,
and I'll just be...
”

As her voice choked off into a sob, Arsha wiped a hand across her reddened eyes, leaving a damp smear across her cheeks.
 

“
T
hey shouldn't
never
have come for me,”
Rachael said.
  “
Your dad, and the others.  
Even if they meant
right
and all
, even if I'd wanted 'em to... It
weren't
worth it.  
Not for me.
 
Putting
all these people through this.  Tak
ing
all th
o
se risks.  
And putting you in the middle of it and all.  He didn't have no right to do that,
”
she continued, growing agitated as she spoke.
  “Why'd he have you out there nearly getting killed and all
that
?  Why did you have to be a part of it?”

She saw the girl's expression shift slightly, anger turning to resentment.
 

“Because I asked to.  Because I wanted to help
you
,”
Arsha said, bitterly.
 

“Help
me
?  Why?”

“
I don't know.  Does there have to be a reason to want to help someone?”
 

Rachael said nothing at first, as she struggled to wrap her head around this.
 

“
Yeah, well, I don't want no help.”
 

“
Right, I get it.  You're tough.”  Arsha turned away, staring at the wall.  Stranded in the silence, Rachael gazed out of the porthole at the endless blue sky beyond.  She wondered how high up they were.
 

“
I guess it must be easier for you,” Rachael said, at last.  “Asking for help.”
 

“
What do you mean?” Arsha said, turning to her with narrowed eyes.
 

“
I dunno, it's just... You've got all these people around you, all this... Family.  I never really had that.  It must be nice, trusting people.  Being able to make friends easy.”
 

Though s
he couldn't say what sort of reaction she had been expecting, Rachael was completely taken aback as Arsha threw her head back and laughed.  It was a sick, bitter laughter that seemed to rattle in her throat, even as her shoulders shook with the force of it.
 

“
You... You really think I know anything about making friends?  I grew up on a ship.  My dad's an archaeologist.  I've never been more than two months in the same place, and most of those were in the middle of a desert somewhere.  You know why I really wanted to help you so much?”
 

Arsha turned to look her square in the eyes.  

“Because I honestly thought there was a chance that we might be friends.  Fates, how pathetic is that?  I mean, seriously.  This...” she gestured at the two of them, “This is the closest to making an actual friend that I've ever been in my life.”

Silence followed, broken only by the sound of the wind against the hull, as Rachael looked into Arsha's eyes and was met with only a cold challenge as the girl stared back at her.
 

“
Yeah,” Rachael shook her head, sadly, “you and me both.”  
 

To her own surprise, she found herself smiling at the
appalling awkwardness of it all.  With everything else that had happened, it seemed like such a foolish thing to get hung up on.
 

For a moment Arsha just blinked in surprise.  Then, slowly at first, she began smiling back, almost as if she wasn't aware of it herself.  Quietly, falteringly, they both began laugh.  Rachael felt the laughter grow, rolling over her in waves.  Each time it came close to fading, the sight of Arsha's expression seemed to set her off again.  In that moment nothing else mattered.  The past two days, the past few weeks, the past years, all of it fell away, and there was nothing but the infectious joy of Arsha's smile.
 

“
I really am sorry, for what I said before,” Rachael said at last, as she wiped her eyes and tried to put on a more serious face.  “I'm still not cool with your dad, or nothing, but you didn't deserve me laying all that on you.  You've been so nice to me, and I shouldn't have been so mean to you.  Especially not with all you've been dealing with.”
 

“
It's OK,” Arsha said.  “I guess you don't have a whole lot to feel good about right now.”
 

“
Not so much.  But thanks, for trying to help.”
 

“
Yeah, well, it turns out you're not completely horrible,” Arsha said, still smiling.
 

“
Did... Did you want to finish showing me around?” Rachael ventured.
 

“
Nah,” Arsha said, her smile widening.  “Let's do something fun.”
 

The heavy iron door made a clattering sound, as Arsha spun the wheel lock.  The girl kept glancing over her shoulder, at the stairway that lead up to the bridge.  Then they slipped through the doorway, and Arsha swung the hatch closed behind them, careful not to slam it.  They had stepped
into a room that was nothing more than a few feet of hallway with a door at either end.  The outer door, like the inner, was of heavy steel with another wheel lock.  Arsha turned to one side and pulled open a set of cupboard doors set into the wall.

“Here, you'll need this.”  

Arsha
thrust a
full length
coat into Rachael's arms.  She pulled out another for herself, and quickly shrugged it on.

Rachael fumbled with the heavy coat.  The cloth was stiff, with a prickly texture,
laden
with buckles and straps.  Cursing, she shifted around inside it, but couldn't get the massive thing to sit right.

“How am I supposed to wear this thing?  It's huge.”

“Give me a minute,” Arsha said.  “I just need to tighten it up for you.”  

She set to fussing with the various straps, tightening here and loosening there according to some strange formul
a known only to herself
.

“Try it now.”

Rachael shifted her arms experimentally.  She had to admit it really did feel quite comfortable.

“See?” Arsha said, a little smugly, as she set about doing up the clasps
on
the front of the coat.

“Hey, I can handle that by myself.  I'm not five,” Rachael said, fending the girl off.  “Just because I don't understand your crazy adjustable coats...”

Soon they were both safely ensconced, and Arsha pulled back the bolts on the heavy outer door.  Then she worked at the brass handle by the doorway, and with a clatter of spinning gears it swung ponderously open.  A
wall
of light burst through the crack and Rachael was hit full in the face by an icy blast of wind.  She pulled
the
goggles on and tugged the collar of the coat up around her face, suddenly glad of
both.