Storm (6 page)

Aban might have liked The Male; he looked at mating the same way.

Aban.

I snake my hand through the straw that covers the floor, till it touches a coil of rope. The rope that hangs from the side hole is long enough to dangle clear to the water while still leaving a few loops here, on our deck. This is the rope I climbed to safety yesterday—or was it two days ago? I’ve slept on and off, and time never makes sense anymore anyway. Whatever, this is the rope that Aban should have climbed, too.

“Aban’s out there,” I say, as I’ve said so many times. When Queen and The Male first pushed me into the ship through the side hole, I told them about Aban. I told them he was on the raft, waiting for rescue. I said it over and over. I say it now. “Please. Rescue him. There’s so much you need to know about him. So much that’s important. Listen. Once when I complained to Aban about feeling clammy and dirty all the time, he crushed a handful of cedar needles, pinching them between his nails till the pieces were teeny teeny, and then he rubbed them all over me so I was deliciously fragrant till we had to leave the shelter of the tree nook and climb higher and the rain washed it all away. See?” I point at Queen, who has now rolled away from The Male. “See? You should rescue him. Once, after we mated, he said we needed a celebration because it had been so sweet, and he scraped and scraped at the cedar bark and filled his palm with little green bugs and put half in my palm and said we should eat
them all, all at once. And we did and I laughed—they were sweet! He said they made honeydew; he’d learned that from ladybugs. See?” I talk on and on, telling Queen and The Male everything about Aban, because I can’t do anything else. Every time I try to get to my feet, dizziness overcomes me and nausea rises in my throat. I’m exhausted and sick. The only thing I can do is lie still. And chew on the raw fish that Queen feeds Screamer and me.

And talk. “Please. Go down the rope. Fetch my Aban.”

Queen and The Male don’t understand a word I say—I recognized that immediately. I suspect they are smart creatures, but limited. Queen seems interested in everything. But The Male wants only to mate, and to please Queen. It’s Queen who saved me from The Male’s advances. As soon as I was on board, Queen examined me carefully, every part of me. I stayed completely still, too frightened to do anything but breathe. Then it was over, and Queen had determined to protect me. An instantaneous and firm decision. Every time The Male comes near me, Queen intervenes and offers herself. This has happened five times already. Queen’s so reliable, I’m not afraid of The Male anymore. Not really. Or I tell myself that, at least.

I finger the thick, hairy rope now.

Aban, Aban.

He’s adrift on that cedar raft.

I haven’t cried for him. I won’t cry. Crying means death. Aban can’t be dead. I hug myself.

Screamer stirs. The kit has already formed the habit of
sleeping through Queen and The Male’s activities, but he’s sensitive to my movements. He steps out from the little nest he’s made himself in the straw and stretches, his front legs long, his rear in the air. Then he leaps away.

Seconds later he comes hurtling back through the air, splat onto my chest. Queen, of course. Both she and The Male have decided that Screamer belongs with me. They won’t let him wander even briefly. Queen likes to pick the kit up by the scruff of the neck and dangle him before her eyes before she flings him at me.

All cats need to wander. Stupid Screamer. He should have raced faster while they were occupied. We are in an enclosure half the size of the main room of my family house, with poles separating us from the long corridor that runs down the center of this boat and from other animal enclosures on both sides. Cages, really. Screamer’s head is small enough that he could pass between the poles. So long as Queen doesn’t catch him. Well, at least it won’t be long till he’ll get his next chance, if only he recognizes it.

I push myself up on one elbow and look around. Queen and The Male are quietly chewing on squid tentacles. They don’t seem to like them, but maybe they are practical. Food is food, after all. Clearly someone has recently delivered this squid, and water too. I usually hear him. He clumps up and down the ladder to this level of the boat on sandals that must be made of wood, they’re so loud. He comes multiple times a day. I haven’t
managed to see anything but the legs and back of the mysterious food-monger yet, because I’m too afraid to peek out of the straw when he comes close.

He fetches water for us in the morning and the evening. He gets it from a side hole in this boat, like the one I came in through. But he doesn’t have to enter an animal cage to have access to that side hole, because there’s a break in the row of cages. It’s close, just after the next cage—I can see it easily from here. Once I watched him lean out that side hole and then lift in a bucket that sloshed water on him. Buckets must hang on hooks along the outside there, to collect rain.

He gets fish that way too. I saw him tug and tug on a rope hanging out that side hole, and then pull in a net full of fish. He filled buckets with them.

I bet there are several side holes like that, easy to get to from the central corridor. Whoever built this boat was smart—that way people don’t have to carry water and fish far.

I wanted to call out to the food-monger the first time I saw his brown legs descend the ladder. But Queen threw straw on me and then both she and The Male sat on me. So I understood: They were hiding me. The food-monger is dangerous. At least in their eyes. I will bide my time and decide for myself who’s dangerous and who isn’t.

I grab a fish from the pile of food and tear the skin from it with my teeth. I give the head and tail to Screamer and suck at the rest of it. I don’t recognize this fish. It’s not like the ones I
used to eat. I have no idea where we are, but it’s far from home.

Home doesn’t exist anymore.

Mamma, Papa, Barak, Talas, Amare. Hurriya, too. And now Aban. Nausea rises in my throat. I suck harder on the fish flesh to hold it down, settle my stomach. Then I cup my hands and dip into the water trough. Rainwater is sweet.

Within our cage on my other side sleeps a pair of antelopes. They’re tiny in comparison to the antelopes and mountain gazelles that I’m familiar with; these don’t even come up to my knees. They seem unreal—like toys someone has carved for a child. Endearing. Brown with white underbellies. The male has two straight horns aimed backward and up. Right now they stand, sides pressed against each other, but heads facing the opposite directions. Their nostrils widen now and then; their ears swivel at any noise. This is how they pass the day—in this restless sleep. I haven’t yet seen them bed down for a deep sleep. At night they wander our cage, moving almost constantly. But it’s just their way. They don’t seem afraid. They pay no mind to Queen and The Male. They pay no mind to the animals that are brown with striped legs and have strange clawed hooves or to the gray bats or to any of the other animals that live in here.

A shaft of light comes through the side hole in just the right way, illuminating these antelopes. It reveals a slight blue tinge to their coats. How unusual. I reach out to pet the closest one, when
Ack!
He falls and is dragged away, kicking. The rope in our cage is attached at one end to a ring in the floor. It
uncoils fast out the side hole. The poor thing is caught in it!

I lunge, but Queen grabs faster. She’s got the little male by a horn. She yanks hard. I hear a snap and a shrill whistlelike scream. Queen drops the little antelope into the straw. He struggles to his feet, but one leg hangs loose, awkward. He nuzzles against his mate.

Queen and The Male whoop and scream. They alternately lean out the side hole, then jump around in excitement. Oh! Could it be Aban?
Please, please let it be!
I manage to get to my feet without vomiting. I’m woozy, but I won’t fall—I won’t let myself—no! Queen and The Male still scream. I’m larger than them, but not as strong. Still, I push my way between them to look out the side hole.

It’s still raining, of course. The rain never ends. But down below there’s a new sight. Not a raft made of cedar branches with a man wrapped in a mantle. Not my Aban. My chest caves in disappointment.

But there is something. Floating debris. A roof and walls. Wooden bowls. The wreckage of a home that somehow stayed partially together. The rope has caught on this wreckage. And there’s something special about it all: It moves as though it’s alive; it writhes. That can’t be. I stare. Snakes! The wreckage teems with sea serpents!

Queen presses past me, out the side hole, and lowers herself down the rope.

“Don’t!” I call. “They’re poisonous!”

Queen doesn’t even look up at me.

I push on The Male. “Do something! Stop her!”

The Male just stares down at Queen. That’s what he did when Queen rescued me, too; he stayed close to the side hole. Maybe The Male can’t swim. Like Aban. But he should stop Queen anyway. Animals should know about the danger of snakes. How stupid could nature be, not to let them know that! Queen will die! I punch The Male in the shoulder. Then I pull back in horror at what I’ve done. But The Male only glances at me dismissively and looks down the rope again.

Queen hangs from the rope with one hand and both feet and slaps her other hand into the water, over and over. Finally, her hand comes up full; she’s caught a serpent around the throat. I can’t believe Queen’s luck; that’s the only safe way to catch a serpent. Queen hurries back up the rope.

What? “No!” I wave my arms. “No, no!”

The Male knocks me aside, and Queen jumps down from the side hole lip into the straw. She drops the serpent. Instantly it throws itself around erratically. Screamer hisses and spits. I scramble away backward on my bottom. The serpent opens its mouth wide. I see two short fangs and so many teeth—uncountable teeth—before it strikes. The fangs catch me on the foot. I shout in terror, but in fact the bite hardly hurts. How can that be? A fatal wound should be excruciating. I hate that snake.

The Male snatches up the snake and bashes it over and over against the ship wall till it stops moving altogether. For a moment, we are quiet, all of us.

I dare to eye my foot again. A tooth sticks up from the snake bite. I jiggle it out and watch my blood pool dark in the puncture wound. It hurts more now, a dull ache, but still not much. Why doesn’t it swell? Why aren’t I dead?

Queen takes the limp snake, opens its mouth, and looks within. The Male peers over her shoulder into that gaping jaw. Then she stretches the whole body before her face, holding each end in a fist. She squats and nibbles at the fat middle. She tilts her head back and her eyes meet mine for just a moment before she focuses on the snake again. She pushes the straw away with one foot and sets the snake carefully down on the wood floor. She sticks her fingers into the hole she nibbled and rips. A sour smell fills the air. Large shrimp come spilling out. Dead, but still whole. By the looks of them, they were a recent meal.

Queen and The Male feast.

Queen hands me a shrimp.

And I realize: This is purposeful, what these two do with the rope. Queen and The Male count on that rope to bring them oddities, to break the monotony of being locked on this ship in an endless rain. They were fishing when that rope caught on Aban’s and my raft. I am an oddity to them. I’m lucky they didn’t see me as food. I’m lucky they didn’t wonder at what might be in my entrails.

Who is more dangerous, Queen and The Male or the food-monger?

But the food-monger has clearly locked all these animals in here.

And Queen didn’t let the little antelope go flying to his death. She saved him. All he has is a broken leg. He’ll mend.

I touch my foot. It is still cool, still nothing but achy.

A bird swoops in through the poles of our cage and goes to pick up the snake with his beak. He gets one end, but the whole thing is far too heavy. He flutters stupidly, unwilling to give it up. A shrike, with reddish feathers on his back, pink on his belly, and that black mask over his eyes.

Screamer jerks his head toward the bird, alert and rigid. I’ve never seen the kit hunt. Does he know what to do?

Screamer leaps and catches just the tip of a wing as the shrike flies off and away out of the cage, leaving behind the snake. And a single feather.

Feathers bring good luck. I tuck it in my hair.

Queen and The Male have watched all this, but lazily, as though none of it matters. Maybe they don’t eat birds. Or maybe they’re just too satiated to consider another bite.

I stand. My foot hurts, but bearably. I go to the side hole and look out at the rain. There is nothing to see beyond the debris. I take the shrike feather from my hair and blow it away. It gets caught by the rain immediately and is gone.

Tears stream down my face. I hate those tears. I want Aban to catch the feather. I want it to bring him luck. But I know it’s too late. I knew it was too late even as I climbed the rope.

I sink to the floor and lean with my back against the boat wall. I hold up the shrimp Queen gave me and lure Screamer back to me with it. I share it with him, then close my hand over the kit’s head. He’s grown so much my palm only barely spans his face now. I know I’m doing it more for my comfort than for his. Maybe he knows too, for he doesn’t rebel as my tears soak him.

S
creamer slips out through the poles and disappears into the black. Apparently he’s grown up enough that his nocturnal ways are winning. Or maybe he’s noticed that Queen and The Male sleep most soundly at night, so he’s taking opportunities as they come.

I feel an instant loss. What if he doesn’t come back? But that’s stupid. Just the other day I was wishing him some freedom.

Besides, he’s right. This is our moment. I stand, but immediately the sensation of being obvious shakes me. A tall shadow is easier to detect than a short one. And I’m defenseless. I get to my knees and creep around our cage, avoiding contact with the other inhabitants, entirely silent. I grab every pole and give it a little shake. But always silent. Not a single pole moves. I go
around the cage again, testing everywhere. And a third time.