Daughter of the Deep(34)

A clinch knot tightens in my throat.

I remember the electric sensation travelling up my arm when I had gripped that weird robotic paperweight. My father had done the same thing before me. I can almost feel his warm, callused hand slipping into mine.

‘I knew about alt-tech.’ Ester shivers, which makes Top cuddle closer. ‘The board of trustees – they briefed me last fall. Not all the details, but about your family. And my family. I wanted to tell you. Keeping those secrets felt wrong … and dangerous. But the trustees control my inheritance, and the school. They made me sign a bunch of papers. If I said anything to anyone, even you … I’m so sorry, Ana. Maybe if I’d talked to you earlier, we could have saved HP.’

I want to reassure her, but my voice won’t work. Too many facts are swirling around in my head.

‘I’m the last of the Hardings,’ she says. ‘The Pencrofts died off a generation ago. The trustees don’t like me. After my aunt died when I was six … She was the last of the really great Hardings. I’m just … just me.’

The sadness in her voice makes my heart ache. ‘Oh, Ester –’

‘When I turn eighteen,’ she forges on, ‘they’re supposed to give me some control. But … you know, they might never. They doubt I’m capable. Now the school is gone. I need to rebuild HP. I don’t know how. I’m sorry if you hate me now, Ana. I don’t want you to hate me.’

I think about poor Ester living at HP since she was six years old. I knew about her aunt’s death. I knew she had no living family, just legal guardians, but I’d never appreciated how much pressure and responsibility went along with the Harding name. All her life, instead of being loved and nurtured, Ester had been watched over by a council of lawyers who loved and nurtured her money while monitoring her for signs of incompetence. At least I’d known my parents. I’d had them in my life.

‘Ester, I don’t hate you,’ I promise. ‘Of course I don’t. You weren’t allowed to say anything.’

Her lip quivers. ‘The others will hate me, though.’

‘No. And if anybody does I will put pink-ducky water wings on them and throw them overboard.’

She sniffles some more. ‘That was a joke, right?’

‘No. But no one will hate you.’

‘What about the trustees? I told you what I know. They’ll disinherit me.’

‘If the trustees give you any problems, I will personally kick each and every one of them in the groin.’

Ester considers this. She doesn’t ask if I’m joking. ‘Okay. That’s good. I love you.’

She says it with such a flat tone that anyone else could have missed it, or taken it as a polite, meaningless phrase, like How you doing? But I know she means it.

‘I love you, too,’ I say. ‘Can I ask you one more thing?’

She nods. As she strokes Top’s ear, I notice how badly she’s chewed up her cuticles.

I’m not sure I want to know the answer, but I ask anyway. ‘You said you knew what was going to happen to me. What did you mean?’

She frowns at the picture on the front of the book. A dark, jagged volcano rises from the churning sea. In the foreground, a drenched dog that looks very much like Top trembles alone on a tiny outcropping of rock.

‘When your parents found the Nautilus,’ she says, ‘they tried to open it. They tried to go inside. Your dad should have been able to do it. He was a direct descendant of Nemo. I don’t know exactly what happened, but something went wrong. That’s why HP was so careful with Dev. They didn’t want him to go near the sub until they understood –’

‘Wait,’ I say, my head spinning. ‘My parents’ death was an accident.’

‘I don’t think so.’ For a rare moment, Ester actually meets my eyes. ‘The Nautilus is dangerous, Ana. I think it killed your parents. I don’t want it to kill you, too.’





Over the next two days, I try not to obsess too much about Ester’s words.

I don’t succeed. At night, I lie awake thinking about my parents’ deaths. I imagine them diving into the creepy rusted-out wreck of a sub, only to get trapped inside, or killed by some ancient booby trap. I think about Dev, and how it must have torn him up to keep so many secrets. I have nightmares about the dark arrowhead shape of the Aronnax hurtling towards us underwater, cracking the Varuna’s hull in two.

During the day, I’m too busy stressing about immediate problems to worry about problems that might kill me later. Thank goodness for small favours.

Among the low points: we’re running short of food. We’ve needed a lot more than I thought we would, and we weren’t as good about rationing as I’d hoped. This makes me feel guilty that I sneaked an extra chocolate-chip cookie after dinner the first night. (What I really wanted was a fresh-baked gujiya dipped in hot chai, but desperate times call for desperate comfort foods.)

Also, I had to break up a fistfight between Cooper and Virgil. They got into it after one of them made a comment about – actually, I didn’t even care. I pushed them apart and did some yelling. This felt better than it probably should have. I was tempted to confine them to their quarters, but I need everybody working. Their fight made one thing clear: nerves are starting to fray.

Also, Dr Hewett’s condition continues to deteriorate. Franklin and Linzi have worked themselves to exhaustion keeping him alive, but they can’t say for sure whether he’ll make it another day. His blood pressure is low. His heartbeat is weak. His urine … I may have blanked out when they told me about his urine.