Migrations(32)

It was utterly mad. And still. I had not one doubt, not one question, nothing but a sense of inevitability. This had been designed and I would ruin it one day but for now it was mine, and his, and ours. Niall didn’t see it that way, but instead as a choice I’d made. He said Franny Stone makes choices and the universe bends. She makes her own designs and always has; she is a force of nature and he the quiet thing that looks on and loves her for it, even then, still now. Funny, that. For to me it always felt as though I were the one following him.

Niall told me on our wedding night, as we gazed into the wild Atlantic, that for him it was because he’d dreamed of me before we met.

“Not you, exactly. Of course. But something that felt as you did that night in my lab, when we touched the gull. And then again when I watched you save the boys from drowning. It was so familiar. I recognized you.”

“What did it feel like?”

He thought for a while and then said, “Something scientific.”

This, I accepted—a tad disappointed—was his cynicism. But I was wrong. It remains to this day the most romantic thing he has ever said to me, only I didn’t know that until much later.

UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL GALWAY, IRELAND FOUR YEARS AGO

They think me asleep but in the dark I hear their soft voices.

“We don’t know what really happened.”

“She confessed. She said she was trying to do it.”

“She was in shock. It might not count.”

“It better fuckin’ count.”

“Do you understand how far she walked?”

“Don’t be going soft ’cause you went to school with the bitch. She’s bound for bars and you getting torn up about it won’t help.”

“I’m not torn up. I just don’t understand it.”

“Aye and that’s a good thing, Lara—you’re no killer.”

I roll over, longing for sleep, but my wrist is shackled to the bed and the pillow is lumpy and my feet, oh god, my feet burn and burn and burn and they said I might lose some of the toes and still it’s as nothing to the screaming, ravening burn of my mind.

The Saghani, NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN MIGRATION SEASON

Something shrieks.

I jerk upright, woken by the high-pitched grind of metal against metal. Ennis is talking quickly into an intercom, more urgently than I’ve heard him.

I climb to my feet in the small captain’s office to find that the storm hasn’t yet passed. It rages on, as violent as it’s been all day. It takes me a moment to register what I’ve heard Ennis say.

“—nets are going in, prepare stations. Repeat—we have fish, nets are going in.”

“Now?”

Ennis glances at me and nods grimly. The Saghani is barely holding anchor in the gale-force winds and I can see ten-foot waves crashing onto the deck. It will be slippery as hell down there, the simplest thing in the world to be washed overboard. On Ennis’s monitors I see sonar circles that measure the depth of the ocean and any change of volume. There’s a red spike to which he points that I assume indicates a large body of marine life two hundred meters under the surface, although I could be wrong because he doesn’t explain.

Through the wall of rain I can barely see the crew members venturing onto the deck, just their bright orange overalls and parkas. They are wearing white helmets today, and they move quickly into action, hauling the cables into place and connecting them to the nets. It is Anik who seems to be in the most danger as he is lowered down onto the rocking sea in his skiff.

“He’ll be killed,” I say.

Through his radio Ennis is in constant communication with Daeshim on the deck, who relays everything that’s going on and takes orders from his captain.

“He’s down!” Dae reports. “I’m checking the winch cables now. Ropes are going out. Everyone stand clear! Bas—”

The radio goes off. I saw it: Basil slipped. I lose sight of him for a moment and then spot him again, clinging to a piece of rigging.

“Report, Dae,” Ennis says calmly.

“He’s all right, Skip. He’s up.”

Ennis studies a different monitor closely.

“What’s that one?” I ask.

“Sensors on the net so I can see where they are.” He goes for the radio again, but this time it’s connected to an earpiece in Anik’s ear. “You good to give me a wider loop, Anik?”

“Roger that, Skip. It’s … rough down here … my best.”

“Fuck,” I breathe, closing my eyes. I can’t see Anik’s skiff through the storm. He’s down there somewhere, tossed about and trying to maneuver the enormous one-ton net on his own.

“He’s fine,” Ennis says. “He’s got it. We’re in place. Dae, get him back in.”

The men work quickly to haul Anik back onto the boat and then they rush to deal with the catch, pelted by rain and wind and waves. It’s a kind of nightmare and it feels surreal to be up here out of harm’s way, watching. I feel wrong.

“Pursing,” Ennis warns, and starts to work his controls. “Nets up.” He goes slowly and I feel the boat tilt alarmingly. “Fuck,” he says, so softly I almost don’t hear it. “Big catch.”

“Skip, I got a lotta strain on the block,” Dae reports. “The cables are stretched to their limit.”