Child of a Hidden Sea Read online

“Gale, child … name’s Gale.”

  “I just wanted to know where I came from. Gale.”

  A cough that was very much a laugh. “And here we are.”

  “What do you…” But Gale had passed out, once again becoming dead weight.

  Just swim, Sophie. It’s a delusion, remember? Kick, rest, kick, all in your mind, Kick, kick, rest. An aunt who’s a street-fighting ninja? Wizard of Oz windstorms that dump you in the ocean? Has to be a delusion.

  Please, let me wake up in hospital. Is that a bedsheet?

  No such luck. She’d caught a thread of seaweed with her arm.

  She pulled free.

  Another tangled her feet.

  The weeds were moving.

  Up and down the glimmering path of winged bodies on the water’s surface, green-sheathed bubbles were rising, bean-shaped floats dotting a growing thicket of stems. Seaweed: it formed a carpet, highway-wide and blistered with the buoyant, air-filled pods. Bristly stems clung to Sophie, winding around her legs, around Aunt … Gale?

  The weeds raised both women, the camera case and all the fish who’d come up to feast on the moth migration. Water streamed out of Sophie’s hair and her dress and she shivered, suddenly chilled. Gale’s weight came off her arm. The pain in her shoulder ramped up a notch.

  The fish, lifted out of water, thrashed as they suffocated. A pelican landed on the cushion of weed and plucked one of them up.

  Brown pelican, Sophie thought, pelecanus occidentalus, perfectly ordinary. Maybe this is the Gulf of Mexico. But how?

  Entangled, afloat, apparently safe, Sophie stared at the tons of gasping fish as insects dropped in a twinkling rain around her and bats chittered above.

  A jerk—something was towing them.

  She kept her good arm locked around Gale, in case any of this was real. The way things were going so far, whoever was reeling them in would probably decide to throw them back.

  CHAPTER 2

  The first thing their rescuers said to Sophie was the same thing as Aunt Gale: “Sezza Fleetspak?”

  They were out in small wooden sailboats, rickety eighteen- and twenty-footers with patched sails, whose crews were frantically hauling in the rising seaweed and its catch. A bucket brigade of adults sorted the thrashing fish; anything shorter than arm’s length went over the port side. The larger ones they clubbed to death and transferred below.

  Pre-adolescent kids clad in undyed, lumpy sweaters worked at stripping the moths’ wings, trimming off their glow-bulbs and dropping the bodies into vats that stank of hot vinegar. Guttering motes of chitin flickered at their feet, which were mostly bare. A third group sliced the seaweed into arm’s-length strips as they hauled it up, popping off the floats and storing them in crates. Nothing was wasted.

  No garbage, Sophie noticed. The dense mattress of vegetation should be full of plastic grocery bags, water bottles, and other refuse; the oceans were full of floating and submerged trash.

  “Fleetspak? Sezza Fleetspak?”

  The grizzled woman directing these words at Sophie was already examining Gale’s wound, tearing her jacket and shirt aside to reveal the knife, embedded just under a rib.

  “English,” Sophie replied. “Español? Français? Russki? Anyone?”

  Blank looks all around.

  “Guess we can’t communicate.” She crouched by Gale, taking her hand. The knife had a leather-wrapped handle, she noticed, and a familiar brand name.

  The woman—the ship’s skipper?—barked orders. One of the crew vanished below, reappearing a minute later with a threadbare blanket and a steaming cup. Sophie let him drape her—the wind was icy—and took a careful sip of what turned out to be hot fish broth, flavored with dill.

  By now, the skipper had improvised a pressure bandage for Gale’s wound. She picked through her pockets and found a small purse, made of reptilian-looking leather and worked with unfamiliar letters.

  At the discovery, the woman stiffened: whatever the thing was, it was bad news. She looked at Sophie before removing it—as if seeking permission? Sophie nodded, holding out a hand. The woman passed it over.

  “Looks like it might be watertight,” Sophie said. The pouch had a clamshell shape and pursed lips with interlocked zipper teeth. Sophie ran her finger over the closure, looking for a tab, and the zip separated, releasing with a sound that was almost a sigh.

  She could feel the crew’s eyes on her as she reached inside.

  The first thing she pulled out was a badge.

  It had the look of a police badge: shield-shaped, with a stylized sun stamped on it. It was made of an unfamiliar substance; it had the weight and hardness of metal, but looked like a polished piece of wood—fir, maybe, or birch. Ordinary Roman letters were pressed or carved into it. A couple of the words looked familiar—arrepublica, athoritz. Republic? Authority?

  The sailors’ attitude, already disapproving, seemed to darken.

  At this rate, they’ll chuck us overboard. She turned her attention to the next item, a silk scarf so fine she could see through it, like a veil. It was an oceanic chart—currents and islands were printed on the almost weightless fabric. There were no familiar landmarks, no X to mark any particular spot.

  There was a USB flash drive.

  “Any chance there’s a computer aboard?” she asked, but the skipper looked at the disc key without recognition. Sophie swapped it for the biggest thing in the purse, a cell phone, charged up and flashing “No Service”. She held it up and, again, got blank expressions.

  The bottom of the pouch held some golden coins and a platinum Amex card bearing the name Gale A. Feliachild. There was a laminated picture of a younger Gale, standing with Sophie’s birth mother and a teenaged girl. A cousin? Half sibling?

  Beatrice’s words came back: Get out, go now—you can’t be here—get away from me, you viper. No, I won’t calm down, I’m not answering questions. Go, go and don’t come back!

  “Is my being here something Beatrice did—she sent me away?” Nobody answered her.

  Right, and how would she do that?

  How much time have I lost?

  Where on earth am I?

  She fought down the panic by focusing on the pouch again. The last thing in it was a dried chrysanthemum, carefully wrapped in waxed paper. More than half of its petals had been plucked.

  She opened the paper, catching a faint whirl of peppery scent and dust. Just a flower, then.

  “No answers here.” She replaced everything but the cell phone, taking one last look at the photograph as she closed the flap of the watertight leather satchel …

  … which promptly chomped itself back together.

  Sophie let out a little squeak as the ivory zipper teeth sealed, the leathery lips of the purse tightening over them. She nudged her finger between them again, feeling for wires, and the movement reversed. It sighed, again, as it flapped open.

  She closed the purse, and it zipped itself shut.

  “Oh, wow. You guys seeing this?”

  Sullen glares from the sailors. They were probably deciding whether to tie the anchor to her ankles or her head when they dropped her in the drink.

  At least they’d fed her first. She tightened her grip on the blanket, and drank more of the broth. Her shoulder and wrist were working up a deep ache that matched the rhythm of her heartbeat.

  The skipper reached a decision. She clapped her hands and the ship disentangled itself from the fishing effort. A teen used tattered white flags to signal to the next ship. Turning to port, they set sail for the island, whose cliffs were outlined in starry white by the survivors of the moth migration.

  They made good speed—the wind, at their backs, was rising.

  Sophie tucked the clamshell pouch into her camera bag, and held Gale’s limp hand. Her pulse was faint but steady. She fought back a sense of wrongness as she did so, a weird feeling of falseness, as if she was pretending to be attached to this woman and all these people knew letter. Head down, she rested, breathing slowly, monitoring her su
rroundings and not quite dozing. The ship sailed around the moth-starred edge of the escarpment and into a shallow bay.

  Sophie’s relief at being in port—despite all evidence to the contrary, she had been imagining a hospital for Gale, phone service and Internet access—was short-lived. The people coming out to meet them looked as emphatically poverty-stricken as the sailors. Their village—a collection of shacks made of scavenged ship beams and driftwood, mortared with seaweed-colored muck—ringed the rise of land sheltered by the bay. There wasn’t a single electric light or cell tower; what illumination there was came from crude torches. Gaps and breaks in their teeth suggested they had little access to modern medicine.

  The skipper had Gale transferred to a lifeboat, and gestured to indicate that Sophie should follow. The others were unloading, packing seaweed, fish, and barrels of brined moths into other boats. They were careful but hurried, moving with an air of urgency.

  Sophie didn’t need to speak the language to know they were spooked by the storm—it was blowing up out there—and concerned about the other fishers. The kids were ordered ashore. A couple protested, and were overruled.

  Hostility brimmed in the glances everyone was giving her.

  The skipper grasped Sophie’s hand briefly before she clambered aboard the rowboat. “Feyza Stele kinstay,” she said. Gibberish, but her tone was reassuring.

  “Thank you,” Sophie replied. She put her hand on her heart and the message seemed to get through. Straightening, the captain replied with a formal-looking bow. Then she was on the choppy waters of the bay, in a rowboat with her injured aunt and four burly sailors.

  “Do you want me to…?” Tapping the nearest sailor, Sophie mimed a willingness to row. He pointedly set his foot on the spare oar.

  Face it, sofe, nobody wants anything from you.

  “Be that way. My arm’s hurt anyway.” Behind them, the preteen kids were rowing themselves ashore. People were waiting, on the beach, to meet them.

  They pulled up onto the sand, the sailors leaping out to tow the rowboat up beyond the reach of the waves. The biggest of the men lifted Gale like a baby.

  “Watch her injury—” But one of the others had clamped onto Sophie’s elbow, manhandling her in the opposite direction.

  “Ow! I want to stay with her! Where are you taking me?”

  No answer. He hurried her along, up to a boardwalk, then a crude staircase cut into the rock. His grip on her elbow was like a granite cuff; struggling just ground her bones against each other.

  What now?

  Not drowning had been such a relief she hadn’t even thought about who her rescuers might be, what they might want. She fumbled for Gale’s pouch—if I flash that badge, or offer him the coins …

  She stumbled as her escort jolted to a stop in front of the biggest of the shacks.

  “Bastien,” he boomed.

  Sounds from within. A willowy man with limp flaxen hair and gapped, soft-looking teeth opened the door, spilling candlelight out into the rising breeze.

  The man looked from the sailor to Sophie, then past them to the sky, the signs of the rising storm. He uttered a single phrase, in a soft voice, and the sailor let Sophie go.

  She didn’t wait for an invitation, plunging past them both on shaky legs, collapsing onto a bench on the far wall. The men conversed in the doorway; then the sailor left, and she was alone with the blond.

  Him I can fend off. Even by the starved standards of these islanders, he was twig-thin, unhealthy looking, pale where they were weathered.

  He looked at Sophie, assessing her. After a moment he opened a trunk, pulling out a slate and a piece of chalk.

  “Bastien,” he said, pointing at himself.

  She felt a trickle of relief. “Sophie.”

  “Bastien,” he said again, and now he wrote it: “Bastien Tannen Ro.”

  He offered her the chalk.

  Sophie wrote her first name.

  “Sophie…?” He tapped the two names after his first.

  “My whole name?”

  He tapped again. “Zhillscra.”

  Feeling stupid, fighting tears, she wrote: Sophie Opal Hansa. Age twenty-four, lost at sea, she added mentally.

  “Tanke, Sophie,” he said. “Din sezza—”

  “No, I don’t know your damned Flitspak,” she snapped. “I’ve got three languages, bits of anyway. You can’t speak any of ’em? I mean, you look like you’re the educated guy, right? Teacher? Scientist? You should be speaking English and applying for foreign aid and … I’m ranting now, aren’t I?”

  Why not rant? She wasn’t in danger of drowning anymore. She was lost, miserable, and, apparently, a prisoner. Gale might be dying.

  Outside, the wind howled, louder now.

  “Seriously. You need Yankee dollars,” she told him. “Those leaky, scavenged-wood tubs … nobody should be out chasing fish in this weather.”

  He gave her bad shoulder a sympathetic pat, then threw a brick of what looked like pressed kelp on his smoky, makeshift hearth. He made a thin tea, putting it before her in a shallow black bowl.

  She took a sip. Whatever it was, it was bitter enough to make her sputter and spit it back. Bastien promptly took it away, setting the bowl on a marble table next to his trunk.

  “Look, I—”

  He held up a hand—wait. Then, opening a tiny larder, he came up with a carved wooden cup of water and an earthenware jar of pickled moths.

  Sophie shook her head. “Not hungry.”

  He pointed at a rough bed in the corner. “Fezza dorm?”

  She retreated there, curling up near the stove. Bastien fussed with her confiscated tea, dropping in dust from a vial of saffron-colored powder, then grinding golden, beeswax-scented granules into the mix.

  Could be worse. He doesn’t seem to want to “fezza dorm” together. She checked the cell phone she’d found in Gale’s purse. Still no service. She punched in Bram’s number, an oddly comforting ritual, and composed a text message:

  Losing my mind. Send doctors with straitjackets and Haldol. LOTS of Haldol. Sofe.

  The phone generated an immediate reply:

  Message will be sent when you return to service area.

  She’d last seen her brother five days ago, after the two of them put their parents on a plane to Italy.

  Sophie had decided their vacation was a chance to take another good look through Mom’s stuff, to see if she could find any clues that might lead back to her birth family. She had assumed Bram would want her to drop him off so he could go dive into the latest pile of research.

  Instead, he’d just finished a paper and was restless.

  Bram in a mood to play was too much of a temptation to pass up. They’d gone for burgers, and then he’d wanted her opinion on a mountain bike he was thinking of buying, and by the time they’d chewed over the pros and cons of that he’d run into a couple friends who were doing a stand-up comedy show as a benefit for a neighborhood family who’d lost their house in a fire.

  The two of them had agreed to be the comedy test audience for the show’s final rehearsal. That turned into Sophie getting pressed into providing musical backup—she’d taken guitar for a while, in school. They were at the comedy club all night, with her strumming and Bram alternately waiting on tables and “playing” the tambourine.

  Wind slammed the flimsy wall of the shack with the strength of an angry bear, jolting Sophie back to the here and now. The storm was building.

  She traced a finger over her case. There was no point in taking the camera out: the light was bad. She could click through her shots from the past three days, two hundred stalker pics of Beatrice, her husband, and Gale. But that would waste battery power. Tomorrow—if she didn’t get put to sea in a raft or forcibly married to the King of the Starvelings—she might get a shot of one of those moths in its pre-pickled state.

  Power down. Years of hiking, sailing, caving, and climbing had taught her to catch up on her rest when there was nothing else useful she could do. She
closed her eyes, made a halfhearted attempt to meditate, and drifted into dreamless sleep.

  Clinking woke her. She opened her eyes to see Bastien had finished measuring and mixing the contents of his tea bowl. He flipped an hourglass-shaped timer and stared at the chalkboard with Sophie’s name on it. Humming, he sketched letters from the unfamiliar alphabet below the letters of her name. Translating it? His lips moved as he worked. “Zooophie. Nuh. SSSSohhhfeee.”

  When he was satisfied, he dug in the trunk, this time coming up with a conch shell about the size of a softball and a tool—was it made of ivory?—that reminded her of a dentist’s pick. He lit two lanterns, brightening the room around the table. Then, taking a deep, meditative breath, he began to carve.

  Great. Now it’s hobby hour?

  “Bastien—”

  “Shhh!”

  She took out Gale’s purse again, touching the zipper and watching it open itself. She dumped its contents, examining the seams, looking for wires or magnets, feeling the weight of it, listening to the purr of its teeth locking together. She’d have to cut the thing up to figure out how it worked.

  She examined the gold coins. They were a set, of sorts—each had a ship on one side and an unfamiliar flag on the other. Words, too, in the Latin alphabet: Sylvanna, Tiladene, Redcap, Ualtar, Wrayland …

  Land, she thought. Names of states? Towns?

  Places she hadn’t heard of. Coins she’d never seen before. They had the weight and softness of real gold, but who minted with gold these days? How remote would these places have to be—Viemere, Tiladene—for her to have never heard of any of them?

  There was so much here she didn’t recognize—wildlife, cash, these place names, if that’s what they were. She knew what Sanskrit looked like, and Arabic; she could recognize Cyrillic text and Chinese characters even if she couldn’t read them. But Bastien’s alphabet—the one stamped onto the satchel, the alphabet he was using, even now, to score beautifully calligraphed words onto the conch shell—she’d never seen those characters.

  She saw he’d inscribed the translated version of her name onto the shell.

  That can’t be good. Maybe it was a bridal gift. She eyed the flimsy wooden fork he’d stuck into the jar of moths. That nice sharp pick might make a better weapon if she had to defend her virtue.