Salt & Stone Read online

  I wish that Cody is happy today.

  The small flame swooshes out, and Mr. Larson instantly breaks into a new, even livelier song. Contenders clap along, and Madox barks. I swing the fox into my arms and dance one-handed with Olivia. Later, Olivia tries to dance with Harper, but she shrugs her off. Even Braun and Willow can’t get the Contender to her feet. Eventually, Cotton calls Braun over and shows him what he’s doing on the drum. After Braun takes over, Cotton stretches his tall frame and strides in my direction. A knot forms in my throat as I’m remembering what he told me about his sister, wondering how awkward it would be to dance with him now.

  But he bypasses me and squats down to speak with Harper in a hushed tone. She shakes her head vehemently, so Cotton does what he must — he slides one arm beneath her knees and the other beneath her arms, and he carries her out onto the deck. She beats his chest and yells at the top of her lungs, but it’s no match for Mr. Larson’s seasoned vocal cords.

  Braun is barely able to continue his drumming, he’s laughing so hard, and I’m laughing, too. But I’m also wondering where Guy is. We argued last night, and this morning I saw him only from a distance at the helm. Is he so upset with me that he won’t even attend my birthday celebration? Not that I care. Birthdays happen every day for people across the world. And Guy? He’s just a dude with a handsome face. And a sick body.

  A half hour later, Braun climbs the ratlines to relieve Jaxon, and I offer the Pandoras my birthday cake. They rush at it like they’ve never seen food a day in their lives. I remember Titus once saying in the desert that his bear hadn’t lost an ounce of weight while he himself was shriveling away. But that doesn’t mean the Pandoras don’t need to eat from time to time or that they don’t enjoy it.

  The iguana doesn’t try to compete for the meat cake, and so I bring her a taste instead. She flicks her tongue toward it and then eats a small bit. I sit down and stroke Rose’s back, avoiding her injuries from the other Pandoras. It breaks my spirit to see the creatures hurting one another this way, and I wonder what it is she can do that causes them to worry.

  I spot Madox leaping around Cotton’s bull, trying to engage him, but the bull wants nothing to do with my black fox. Madox doesn’t give up easily, though, and when I glance over again, I see my Pandora offering Y-21 the last piece of birthday cake. The bull snorts like the smell is revolting.

  My fox has certainly gained confidence over the last several weeks. I still remember when he first hatched. I was asleep by the fire Guy’s Pandora lit, and in the dead of night, I heard the first crackle of his eggshell. Madox came out covered in green slime, and I sang to him, hoping he would recognize my voice. He spent that first night asleep in my lap, and the next day fleeing from chimpanzees with me by his side. As I watch him now, tongue draping from the side of his mouth, I think about what Olivia asked.

  I wonder where they take the Pandoras they don’t use anymore.

  I’ve often dwelled on what happened to Ransom’s raccoon, DN-99, after Ransom left for home. One day the raccoon was there, and the next he was gone. Perhaps I’m being naïve. Maybe I know exactly what happened to DN-99. The people running the Brimstone Bleed certainly don’t care about our lives, so why would they treat the Pandoras any differently?

  My eye catches on the red spray-painted stripe down Rose’s back. I remember the way that man dragged her away like she was disposable. Surely they’ve marked other Pandoras when we weren’t paying attention, and I can’t forget how they asked us to kill one another’s Pandoras to enter the desert base camp. So the question remains: What happens to our Pandoras after the race?

  Nothing good, that much I know.

  BK-68 plods over and stares at me, breaking my sudden glum mood. “Are you going to hypnotize me?” I ask.

  “Don’t let it do it,” Braun yells down from the lookout. “Blasted pig mind freaks me all the time.”

  “Is that right?” I ask the pig.

  The pig grunts as I scratch under its chin. Something tells me it can only hypnotize someone when the Contender it’s targeting is off guard, otherwise we’d all be on our knees petting the Pandora and declaring it the Pig King.

  BK-68 nibbles on my red wristband, and I pull my hand back, laughing. “Haven’t you had enough to eat, pink pig?”

  “Have you had enough to eat?” a low voice asks.

  I find M-4 sitting behind me, panting. Beside him is Guy.

  “The cake vanished before I could get any,” I say. I continue petting the pig until a wide, strong hand lowers.

  “Dance with me?”

  My stomach flips. I’m furious with him, and yet if I show my anger, it’ll only prove how childish he must think I am. Also, his hand looks clean and warm, and I want so badly to feel it in my own.

  Before I accept his offer to dance, I get to my feet and rub my hand through his lion’s mane. I want Guy to know I’m not in any rush to dance with him and that maybe his Pandora is more interesting. M-4 jerks his head back and shows his teeth, but I don’t miss the way the big cat’s eyes soften.

  “Blow me a hot-air balloon, won’t you, cat?” I coo to the lion.

  The Pandora gazes up at Guy like I’m crazy. Guy nods his head, and the lion roars. When he does, a flame ball shoots from his jaws. The fire is comforting in a strange way. It makes me feel alive. I don’t believe I’ll ever see the day when watching a Pandora do something extraordinary doesn’t turn my world upside down, however briefly.

  I take Guy’s hand.

  He leads me to the deck, and Mr. Larson softens his voice, bringing an upbeat song to a close. The bulbous man mutters something to Jaxon, who’s now on the drum, and then straightens his back. This time, when he sings, his words open like a rose to the sun. I don’t understand what he says, but it feels like strolling through a field of despair, like finding true love on the other side of the world and never holding that person in your arms. It makes my chest ache in a maddening, uncontrollable way, and if Guy weren’t holding me so close, I might not find the will to stand. I never knew music could affect me in such a manner until this moment.

  Until Guy’s cheek caresses mine.

  Until his hand spreads across my lower back and his thumb traces the ridges of my spine.

  I’m not sure what the other Contenders are doing. I don’t know if Cotton has released Harper or if Jaxon is watching the two of them sway with a heavy heart. But I know that the dark stubble along Guy’s jaw has returned. I know the Pandoras have quieted and that if there was such a thing as an apologetic embrace, this is it.

  As we dance, I think back on that silver-sequined homecoming dress I never wore. I envision it on my body now, with a delicate pink corsage decorating my wrist. I put Guy in a tux and a disco ball over our heads. My best friend, Hannah, is there, and all my other friends, too. After this, Guy will take me to a party. I’ll spend every second of this entire night with him because for the very first time, Mom said nervously, “No curfew.”

  My feet follow Guy’s, and I smile when I realize he’s humming along with Mr. Larson. There’s no way he knows this song, but it tells me he likes this kind of music, full of torture and loss. Guy Chambers told me on a dark night in the jungle that he has three younger brothers. He told me he has a cousin who loves the smell of lemon and that he himself likes the way a newspaper crinkles when the pages turn.

  I know he wants others to think he doesn’t care about his appearance but that in actuality he’s embarrassed of his mangled left earlobe. Guy enjoys the quietness that settles over his house in Detroit right before dawn. He likes building things with his hands, even though he’s not terribly good at it, and he prefers a freshly sharpened pencil over a ballpoint pen any day.

  I know these small things about Guy, but the music is new.

  Guy’s hand slides up my side, grazing my rib cage and tickling the skin beneath my wet suit. His fingers caress my neck, and my head pulls away from his chest. My arms stay upon his shoulders as he takes both hands and wraps them aro
und my face. He doesn’t tell me happy birthday. He doesn’t offer a cake made of meat or a song sung in an Italian tongue. He simply closes his eyes and breathes out. In that exhale, I hear the pain he holds inside. It seems to match Mr. Larson’s lyrics, and I suddenly understand why he hums along.

  “I’m stronger than you think, Guy Chambers,” I whisper. “Strong enough to handle whatever it is you’re keeping from me.”

  The muscles in his shoulders tighten, and he licks his lips. “Tella …”

  Guy opens his mouth to say more, but there’s no time for that.

  Harper screams.

  Mr. Larson quits singing, and Jaxon stops beating the rain barrel drum. Overhead, I hear Braun calling out, asking what’s happened. It’s Cotton who gets to her first, but Harper shoves him away much harder than necessary. I rush to her side and see what has her worried.

  Her eagle has the iguana cornered and was no doubt antagonizing the creature yet again. This time, though, the eagle appears to stumble as if dazed. Somewhere behind us, Olivia’s elephant blows through her trunk and startles us all. Harper rushes toward her Pandora even as Cotton tells her to stay back.

  RX-13 dives toward the iguana, upset at something the iguana must have done. This time, we don’t miss the exchange.

  The moment the eagle’s beak snaps over the iguana’s back, the oversized lizard arches her side. Rose’s long, powerful tail whips across the space between them and pops into the eagle’s side. It sticks there for a second before falling to the deck. Rose’s mouth hangs open, and the heavy pink beard under her jaw puffs out.

  Harper reaches the eagle and pulls the bird to her, but the eagle is furious and wants revenge on the iguana who finally learned to stick up for herself. The eagle tries to take to the sky to hover over the lizard, but she crashes back to the deck and shakes her head, disoriented.

  “What’s happened to her?” Harper cries. “Why is she acting funny?”

  Jaxon scoops the front half of Rose into his arms. “Your Pandora deserves whatever happened to her.”

  Harper’s fists clench, and she gets in Jaxon’s face. “Why? Because she threatened the Pandora that Tella gave you? How about me? Did I threaten your Pandora? Is that why you left me in the ocean?”

  Jaxon’s cheeks redden.

  I pick up the iguana’s tail gently and inspect it. The tail has a tiny spike at the end like her back does, but I know it doesn’t belong there, not on an ordinary iguana. I push the side of the spike with the pad of my thumb, and soapy white liquid oozes from the tip.

  “Rose has injected the eagle with venom,” I announce.

  Harper laces her hands over her head and watches RX-13 stumble around the deck. “What will it do to her?” She looks at each of us, frantic, and then reaches down to comfort her Pandora. “I can’t lose her. I can’t.”

  What happens next is like a thin white line dividing two parts in time. There’s before, and after. There’s the brittle security of a ship beneath our feet, and then there is the wild, unpredictable churning of the sea.

  It goes like this:

  Harper is reaching for her Pandora.

  Cotton is reaching for Harper.

  Jaxon is turning his shamed face to the deck, and Olivia is touching a four-fingered hand to his arm.

  Guy is striding toward a wheel that’s been long neglected, and I’m holding an iguana’s tail.

  Mr. Larson and Willow are out of sight and may very well be in the hold.

  Braun is above us all, so he must have the best view. He must capture every millisecond of pandemonium when the ship explodes, and debris fly into the air, and water comes rushing in as if to say —

  I shall finally claim that which is mine.

  The first thing I do when the blast goes off is to hurry to the hold. We’re going down; there’s no question about that, and we won’t be able to access any food or water once the ship sinks. So I run.

  I find Mr. Larson inside the hold, but not Willow. He’s on his back, blood oozing from his right ear, but it doesn’t take long to get the portly man to his feet and up the stairs. Water blasts into the hold, and already much of our equipment bobs in the current. I reach the dry side of the hold, where some of our supplies are untouched, and my mind races with what to take and how.

  I fumble over everything, touching each item in turn, trying to decide what’s important. A tickling sensation shoots up my ankles, and when I spin around, I find that the water has already reached this side of the hold. The sound of the water pouring in is deafening, and I wonder what Titus would say about his beloved ocean if he were here to see it now. Hammerhead, his father called him.

  I grab the first large yellow bag I see and unzip it, thinking this will work perfectly to fill with food and water. When I feel the sticky, rubberlike material inside, I realize I’ve happened upon something even better — a life raft. I search the area and locate the other two yellow bags. I grab those and the two red bags, too. Almost everything is floating in water at this point, which is the only way I keep hold of it all. I berate myself for not searching the bags before now. We’ve only been aboard the ship for twenty-four hours, but we should have been more meticulous. I bet Guy knows what’s in them.

  As if he read my mind, Guy blows down the stairs. “Tella, where are you?”

  Fingers of fear climb the rungs of my spine when I realize the water is to my hips. “I’m here. We need these bags.”

  Relief floods his face. He leaps into the water and powers through the tide. “I’ll get them. Just get above deck. You can’t be down here.”

  Some of my fear dissipates when I spot Madox jog down the stairs. My fox hesitates before choosing to take the shape of Guy’s lion, which is in the water next to Guy. My Pandora, now dressed as a lion, swims toward me.

  I place the red bags’ handles into his jaws. Take this above deck. Show them to Harper.

  Guy snatches another one of the yellow bags and drags it after him. He tries to grab me with his other hand, but I jerk out of his grasp. “Now’s not the time!” he snaps.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I do know we have to get the other two life rafts. “M-4, take this bag above deck,” I instruct. The lion paddles next to his Contender without making the slightest move in my direction. “M-4, please.”

  The lion swims forward and takes the bag’s straps in his mouth. I wish I had a camera to photograph the surprise on Guy’s face. No, I’d like a chalk drawing. An old, Dutch master–style oil painting, with half his face in dark shadow. Maybe a gaudy frame to hold my prize.

  As the water gushes higher, I spot Monster tripping down the stairs. I want to tell my grizzly bear it’s too dangerous to be down here. It’s the same thing I should have told Madox when the water was still waist high. But I won’t have the arm strength to pull the third yellow bag up the stairs, especially when it’s soaking wet. So I call for my bear as Guy hollers at me to come on. As soon as I get the straps of the third bag in Monster’s jaws, I take hold of his back and hang on as he pulls me toward the steps with ease. Sunshine burns through the open hatch with such cheery enthusiasm, instilling a false sense of confidence.

  What bad thing could happen in daylight? the child in me asks.

  Cotton is at the top of the stairs. He sees Guy swimming toward him. He sees me hanging on to Monster’s back, and he sees the water gushing into the hold with unstoppable hunger. He sees all of this, and he backs out of the hatch and disappears from view.

  The lion makes it to the stairs and bounds sideways up them, dragging the yellow raft bag behind him. Guy reaches the stairs, too, and stretches an arm toward me as if he can somehow will Monster to swim faster. I grab any canned items I can with one hand and gather them to my chest.

  We’re almost there. Monster’s claws brush the remaining exposed stairs, and he fumbles for footing. I spy Madox in the hatch, a pleading look on his face. I’m already ticking through the Contenders and their Pandoras, forming a plan for how we’ll get everyone
into the water and onto the rafts safely, when I hear the splashing.

  The surging water makes a constant static noise as it impregnates the hold, greedily devouring anything it can find. But this sound is different. It stands out from the background like a red-headed woodpecker along the trunk of an old oak tree. My ear has slid over the sound time and again, but now that I’ve heard it, I can’t unhear it.

  “There’s something in the water,” I yell to Guy.

  His eyes widen with panic when he sees that I’m hesitating. “Just come up the stairs, Tella. We can look from here.”

  I turn back to the water.

  And then I see exactly what it is I’ve been hearing.

  An alligator thrashes in the current, his short front legs clinging to a pallet of sliced mandarin oranges. Margo’s Mandarins: In their own juice!

  Mr. Larson left his Pandora behind. He knew the animal couldn’t swim, and he left him anyway. I push away from Monster without a second thought and swim toward the alligator. I’m almost to him when I spot the ivory teeth protruding from his jaws and pinching the tight green skin around his mouth. I wish I had an alligator treat or something to lure him toward me without actually having to touch him. What do alligators eat?

  Oh.

  I tread water for a second and pull in a deep breath. Guy yells from across the hold, and from the sound of it, he’s already leaping back into the water. The sea is rising rapidly inside the hold, and it’s cold, much too cold to tolerate for long. So I do what I must — I make a grab for the alligator.

  The beast snaps at me, and I scream. Then I bite down, knowing I can’t waste time, and grab for him again. He must know I’m his only hope, because this time he allows me to grab under his neck. I hold his head as high as I can and whisper soothing words into what I hope is his ear. For good measure, I also whisper a few please don’t death roll me, please don’t death roll me requests, too.

  I swim toward the stairs, propping the Pandora’s shockingly heavy head over my shoulder, using the water to bear his weight. When Guy tries to take the animal’s head from me, V-5 snaps at him and not in the way he did me. My snap was a restrained warning — Guy’s was a death certificate.