Salt & Stone Read online

  Harper’s nose scrunches. “Guy told you to get us all below deck, but you went against him?”

  Harper seems to think about this for a moment. Then she opens a cabinet door and retrieves another blanket. She lies down on the floor and closes her eyes. I lie nearby, rethinking my idea to separate the girls and boys, because surely they have free cots in the crew’s quarters we could use. I also think about Harper’s daughter and what it must feel like to lose a child.

  “Hey, Harper,” I whisper. “Thank you for coming back. It means a lot to me. But … sometimes I wish you wouldn’t have. I hate thinking that you’re risking your life for my sake.”

  She balls the edge of her blanket and lays her head on it. Her eyes stay closed. “You helped me win in the desert. So I came back to help you win.”

  It doesn’t take long for Harper’s breathing to grow heavy. I didn’t tell her what my plan was regarding the Brimstone Bleed, and she didn’t tell me what she thought about everything I revealed. But her kindness toward me said she’s thankful for the information. Perhaps I need to consider who I should tell next.

  As my body relaxes, I replay the decision Jaxon made, how he saved his new Pandora instead of Harper. She didn’t mention it, but it must have hurt terribly. What I hate most about the whole situation is that I understand Jaxon’s decision. I made him think I didn’t, but I do. He wants to save his baby sister. And I would have wanted to save anything that could help save Cody. It’s more than that, though. Each Contender is paying a price for something our ancestors got involved in, but the Pandoras are innocent in all this. I can’t say I was furious when Jaxon pulled that animal from the sea, even if I want to pretend I am.

  I roll over, hating myself for this internal admission. Hating that I’ve grown attached to these creatures when I should focus on how they can help Cody, my brother. My brother, who once took the fall when Mom discovered I’d stolen a glass unicorn figurine from a tourist shop and who spent the next few weeks talking about a unicorn’s prowess to drive the point home when we all knew … he was a dirty liar and I was a thief.

  I think about how, for my birthday, my then eleven-year-old brother dragged my ice cream cake from the freezer and into the car, and when it melted, said my dad must have forgotten to bring it in. Cody was mad at me because I told Mom he got in trouble at school when I swore I wouldn’t, so maybe I deserved it. When I wouldn’t stop crying over my melted cake, Cody attempted to make me a new one and nearly burned the house down. He never said he was sorry, and neither did I. We didn’t have to.

  I wonder what Cody would say to me if he were here tomorrow. What would he say to his little sister, who has blood on her hands, who’s commanding Pandoras and navigating a deadly sea and trying to survive an impossible race?

  What would my brother say to me on my seventeenth birthday?

  I tell Olivia the next morning that it’s my birthday. Why, I will never know. Maybe because she’s wearing a frown like it’s the hottest thing on a fashion week runway. Maybe because she insists on skipping breakfast. Or maybe it’s just to get her out of bed, period.

  “Get out of bed, Olivia.”

  “No.”

  “Get out of bed or I’ll push your elephant into the sea.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Please get out of bed? For me?” My gaze slides to the ceiling, and I sigh. “Get out of bed because it’s my birthday?”

  She sits up, cautious that I’m toying with her. “Is it really?”

  I grin, and she immediately jumps to her feet and begins bouncing up and down on the mattress. “It’s your birthday! We’ll have a party!”

  “What? No.”

  Mr. Larson waddles into the captain’s quarters. “Need to use the restroom. Other one is full.”

  “Hey, Mr. Larson,” Olivia sings. “Guess what? It’s Tella’s birthday.”

  I protest as the girl runs through the open door and tells everyone within earshot that it’s my birthday. Mr. Larson humphs and disappears into the latrine.

  Standing in front of a foggy mirror, I run my hands through my short curly hair and try to rub some life into my seventeen-year-old face. After Mr. Larson gets out of our bathroom, I use some of the toiletries we found in the hold to brush my teeth and wash the salt from my skin. I give myself a full twenty minutes to groom, feeling a bit like an archaeologist, like I’ve scavenged some lost luxury.

  I remember thinking it was strange that the people running this race equipped us with so many tools to survive this leg of the Brimstone Bleed, especially toiletries. After last night’s storm, I now believe it was a decoy. They wanted us to feel safe, to throw us off guard, so that the storm they probably knew was coming blindsided us. I can picture them bending over oceanic weather forecasts, watching a delicious storm cell develop not too far from where they were planning to drop us.

  Take them here, one of them would have said. And make sure they feel cozy before that storm rolls over them.

  I shake my head. Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe I just want a reason to excuse our lack of preparation.

  When I finally appear in the doorway, Monster pushes me onto my back and Madox leaps onto my chest and licks my face. So much for my makeshift bath. Braun appears and pulls Madox off me, though a part of me doesn’t want him to.

  “Hey, Tinker Bell, it’s your turn to keep watch.”

  I’m not sure what he means until he shoves the binoculars into my chest. “For flags?”

  “Yep. You’ll do it from up there.”

  Braun points to the lookout near the top of the largest mast and hands me a can of pears and maraschino cherries with a fork stabbed into the syrupy pulp. He pulls once on my right ear for whatever reason.

  “You all right?” I ask. “Look a little green around the gills.”

  He touches a hand to his stomach. “Seasickness. It’ll pass, hopefully.”

  I touch the hand covering his stomach sympathetically and then turn to climb the ratlines. I realize when I’ve reached the top of the mast that I left my breakfast on the deck, not that I could have climbed with it in my hand anyway. My belly grumbles as I hold the binoculars up and gaze out across the water.

  I’m not sure what I’m looking for beyond a blue flag. There’s so much water, so much sky, that I can’t imagine finding anything amid the preexisting blue. It seems as if the flag would blend in with its surroundings. Harper said we were sailing between a cluster of islands, and I figure since the flags must reside on them, we might have to eventually disembark to explore. I guess my job should be to search for which island to try first.

  Below me, the Contenders shuffle across the deck: chatting with one another, unfurling sails, instructing their Pandoras. At one point, a ball of fire shoots from M-4’s jaws, and then Monster sprays a gust of wind from his paws to offset the blaze. The Contenders laugh at this. I lift the binoculars and inspect the happenings on the ship’s deck closer.

  Jaxon’s Pandora, the iguana, has several red gashes across her back from the other Pandoras’ abuse. Even now Willow’s rat scurries toward the iguana, nips her, leaps back, and then repeats the bullying. FDR-1 huddles in a corner and flinches each time the rat gets close. I wave my arm above my head and call out to Jaxon, trying to make him see that his iguana needs him. He spots what’s happening on his own and rushes to Rose’s side. With the toe of his shoe, he kicks the rat away.

  I lower the binoculars, my heart heavy from the exchange. When I glance up, I nearly stumble over the side of the lookout. Harper’s Pandora is perched on the rope ledge, cocking her eagle head at me. My hand flutters to my chest in surprise, and I laugh.

  “Hey, there,” I say, nerves lilting my voice. Pandoras are loyal only to their own Contenders, and if they believe you’re a threat, they’ll respond accordingly. I back away from the regal bird, and for the second time nearly tumble over the side to my death. Perhaps that’s the point of this visit.

  When the eagle doesn’t do anything rash, I try conversing with h
er again. “Um, thank you for always helping Harper … bird.”

  RX-13 cocks her head in the opposite direction, much the way she would when eyeing prey. I spot the longer, forward-facing talon on her foot and decide it must be two inches long. And sharp, very sharp. I swallow.

  The bird opens her wings in the salted air and flaps them. I find myself reminiscing over seeing a bald eagle at a zoo for the first time. Mom had brought me by myself. It was a girls’ day, she said, and I could go wherever I wanted. Well, I knew Cody had wanted to go to the zoo, so that’s where I picked. You know, so I could rub it in over dinner that night.

  Sibling love: It’s complicated.

  The way I remember it, I think I looked at the bird for about two seconds while Mom explained that it was the national bird, blah, blah, blah, before asking, Where are the tigers? You said we could see the tigers.

  Now that I gaze upon RX-13, I decide it must be horrendous for a bird to live in captivity. Not able to soar into the sky and hunt. I can’t remember a single hour on this boat, except during the storm, when the eagle hasn’t floated above us. I gingerly reach my hand out, holding my breath as I do so, and pet the eagle’s velvet feathers once. Then I jerk my hand back and look for missing fingers. Wouldn’t Olivia be excited if I joined her nine-digit club?

  When I realize the eagle may not be here to commit premeditated homicide, I reach out a second time and stroke the bird on her back and her head and beneath her intimidating beak. “You know she loves you, right?” I tell RX-13. “She just has a hard time saying it. You’re a good Pandora, and she needs that right now.”

  The eagle accepts my affection for a bit longer before she takes flight. I gasp at the bird’s power when she takes to the sky. For a few seconds, I watch as she flies into the distance, so far away, I can hardly see her. I wonder where she’s going, maybe to hunt for fish or maybe simply to explore. I raise the binoculars and watch until RX-13 becomes invisible, literally. A moment later, the invisible eagle splashes into the ocean. Doesn’t seem like a fair fight to the fish.

  My brow furrows when a question occurs to me. Where does she eat the fish? I didn’t see her return to the boat with a catch even once yesterday, which means she’s eating it elsewhere. Since I don’t spot the hint of land in the distance, I decide there must be something else. My muscles clench with excitement as I return to my binoculars. I search everywhere but don’t find what I’m looking for. Still, I have an idea, and that’s more than I had before Harper’s Pandora showed.

  When I let the binoculars drop, I’m startled to find the eagle hovering above me. Something is in her talons. She drops it before I can recognize what it is. A startled scream escapes my lips, and I cover my head. Wetness splashes my shins. I glance down and see pear and maraschino cherries splattered on the floor of the lookout.

  A grin overtakes my face. “You brought this for me?”

  The bird dips her head toward the spilled food like she’s waiting for me to pluck some off the dirtied platform and eat it. When I don’t, the eagle hops onto the floor and gathers a pear quarter into her beak. Then she jumps back onto the lookout’s ledge and stretches her neck over my head like she’s about to … to …

  “Oh no. No. You cannot baby bird that pear to me, RX.”

  She shoves her beak closer to my mouth, but I jerk my head to the side, laughing.

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, but that’s simply not happening.”

  The Pandora squawks until I pet her, communicating that it’s nothing personal. Then she steps off the ledge and free-falls toward the deck, landing an arm’s length away from Harper. I can’t stop the warmth spreading through my body. Though the morning carries an unrelenting chill, I barely feel it through the joy. With my heart full, my mind glides easily back to the question I’d been puzzling through. It occurs to me then, and the answer is so obvious, I don’t know how I missed it.

  My family went on vacation to Florida once, and in order to arrive at our destination, we had to ride a ferry. We threw bread to overzealous seagulls, and as we got farther into the ocean, I spotted a fat sleeping seal lying on a buoy. My dad inclined his head and said, “Those are markers for ships. They help them navigate safely.”

  “Does that animal help, too?” I’d asked.

  My dad laughed from somewhere deep in his stomach and scratched his short beard. “Yes,” he said, “the animal helps, too.”

  I snatch the binoculars and press my face against them, renewed hope blossoming in my gut. Wind whips through what little hair I have as I peer across the horizon. I look long past the moment I realize there are no buoys to see. When Jaxon crawls up the ratlines and says it’s his turn to search for flags, I’m still hesitant to end my hunt.

  I tell him my plan and add, “I think you can find anchored buoys closer to land. So even if we find one and it doesn’t have a flag, at least it’ll tell us we haven’t navigated too far from the islands.”

  “You think base camp is on an island?” he asks.

  “I do.”

  “Tella, do you think Harper will ever forgive me?”

  I help Jaxon into the lookout before I answer. “I think she’s already forgotten it.”

  He fills his lungs and releases a heavy sigh. “You know that isn’t true.”

  I’m not sure why I do it, but I find myself pulling Jaxon into a hug. He’s so much taller than me that my head smashes into his armpit. It’s not a pleasant experience. “You didn’t see the iguana in the water last night, Jaxon,” I say quietly. “You saw your sister.”

  He releases me. “That’s right. You have to tell her that.”

  I climb over the side, and Jaxon holds on to my arm, ensuring I have hold of the ratlines before letting go. “I’ll do my best.”

  Jaxon smiles and retrieves the binoculars from the floor. “What’s with all the fruit, T-Pain?”

  I laugh and descend the rope ladder, proud that my hands don’t sweat as much as they did on the climb up. When I reach the main deck, a pair of arms wrap around my middle, throwing me off balance. I barely regain my stance before Olivia circles around me, throws open her hands, and exclaims, “Welcome to your birthday celebration, Tella Holloway!”

  A drum starts beating.

  A booming opera-style voice lifts over the rumble of the drum and into the midday sky. Braun grabs my wrist and guides me away from the ratlines and into his arms. He raises my right hand into the air and places my left at the base of his neck.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asks, referring to my shoulder.

  I tell him he’s not.

  Cotton beats on an overturned rain barrel, a thousand-watt smile on his face, and Mr. Larson raises his voice to a new level of awe. He sings a quick, foot-tapping song, and Braun spins me in circles so that the world blurs.

  “What’s he saying?” I ask, referencing Mr. Larson.

  Braun shrugs. “Beats me. Said it was a celebration song. It’s Italian, I think.”

  I run my left hand quickly over Braun’s shaved head as I would a dog, and he rumbles with laughter. His smile is a nice one, and he’s not a bad dancer, either. “When is your birthday, Braun?”

  “Summer baby,” he replies.

  “If I were to get this summer baby a gift, you know what I’d get him?” I ask. Braun tilts his head. “A day at the spa. Get those nails a real once-over.”

  The tractor-sized dude feigns shock and puffs his chest out. “I don’t care about my nails, Tella. I’m a man. Men don’t care about such things.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.”

  Braun dips me low. “You know what I’d get a fall baby for her birthday?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A dance with an amputee.”

  Braun swings me out, and Olivia grabs hold of my palm. Now I’m dancing with the girl, and as I skip around the deck with her, Mr. Larson makes a fist and places it at his stomach, really getting into the lyrics. There’s emotion in his eyes I’ve never seen before,
and it reminds me that he’s a human being with layers, even if he only shows us the crabby one.

  Harper sits along the railing, RX-13 next to her, and M-4 lies on his back a few feet away, lion belly to the sun.

  “I have a surprise for you, Tella.” Olivia’s hair is wild from the open air, and her round face becomes even rounder as she beams up at me. “Wait here.”

  Olivia lets go and turns to retrieve this surprise, but stops short when Willow appears from inside the crew’s quarters, a cake in her hands. Olivia’s face falls, but she tries to maintain a smile through her disappointment.

  “This is your birthday cake,” Willow says. “We made it for you.”

  Olivia opens her mouth to object, then closes it. I hug the ten-year-old close and kiss the top of her head. With Madox and Monster shuffling behind Willow, I take the cake and hold it up. Mr. Larson stops singing his opera song and a new song begins. One I’ve had sung to me for sixteen years. Now seventeen.

  Happy birthday to you, happy birthday …

  The cake is made of packed meats, and slimy gravy is drizzled over the top. A lit candle as big around as a magic marker is plunged in the center, and the whole thing sits on a flimsy, round dinner plate. It’s the worst birthday cake I’ve ever seen. It makes me so happy, I could burst.

  “Make a wish,” Harper says from the railing.

  Madox cozies up to my bare calf, and Monster stands on hind legs and makes everyone nervous. Cotton’s bull snorts, and Olivia’s elephant raises her trunk, and all the Contenders watch me with kindness.

  I raise the cake a bit higher. I want to wish for all of our loved ones to heal and for Cody to have never gotten sick and, okay, maybe I wish for a spa day with Mom, who I miss so very much. But since it’s my birthday — and I want to believe in the power of wishes — I hope for something that might actually come true: