Migrations(62)

“We need water,” I say. “Our generator is down and the pumps have gone. We need drinking water. Could you help us?”

He points to land. “A port, very close.”

“We can’t go there.”

The sailor looks confused. “It is very close. There is water on land.” He says something to his crew members and they return to their duties. The man strides away and that’s the end of the conversation.

“Fuck.”

“Now what?” Anik asks.

“What if we snuck on board?”

“See him?”

I follow Anik’s pointed finger to the man in the crow’s nest, watching us. “Are storerooms generally in the same place on all boats?”

Anik studies the boat and shrugs. “Near enough.”

“You go back to the Saghani. I’ll meet you there.”

“What?”

“I’ll bring the water.”

He snorts with laughter. “It’s nearly two miles away. More by the time you’re swimming. And how will you carry the water?”

There’s rope in the storage box. I haul it over my shoulder, wait for the lookout to turn away for a moment and then I slide quietly into the sea. I stay under as long as I can, resurfacing closer to the hull of the salmon boat. When I circle around, I find that there are multiple ladders extending down to the fisheries—most of the sailors have used them to disembark their boat and spread out around the circular farms, checking their fish.

I don’t wait around to make sure it’s safe—the Saghani is getting farther away every minute—I haul my waterlogged body and coil of rope out of the water and up the ladder. It’s quiet on board, at least. The fisheries look like seething pink tentacles curled into orbs. I pad, dripping, to the ladder and follow it down onto the mess deck. There’s no one in the galley, and no one in the storeroom, so I’m easily able to find the water containers—five-gallon carriers lined up along the wall. I also spot a store of batteries, and shove several into my sports bra. I can only carry two of the water containers, so I grab them and struggle out, straight into the approaching captain.

He stares at me, a salty thief dripping wet and shivering. Two of his men look equally astonished to see me.

I take a breath, heart jackhammering, and when no other words come to mind I say, “Please.”

The captain looks as lost for words as I am.

There is a long, painful moment and in it the Saghani travels farther away, it grows steadily more impossible that I will reach it again, but in his face I can also see an understanding settle, for he knows of the sanctions at play, everyone does, and then the captain steps aside with a gesture for me to pass. I sag in relief.

“Thank you.”

I haul the water up the ladder and my feet slap loudly on the deck. Tie one end of the rope around my waist with a bowline, link the other through the two container handles and finish them with the same. The bowline, I think, is my favorite knot. It doesn’t slip. Then step to the edge of the railing. This could be the stupidest thing I have ever done, anyone has ever done. I could be about to sink myself to the bottom of the ocean.

I almost laugh, almost stop breathing. But panic is an enemy. Any emotion at all can be an undoing. Slow your breaths, deepen them, time them to a metronome. Make your limbs calm and your mind quiet and in you go.

I don’t try to dive, as the containers would wrench me out of it. Instead I go straight down, hitting the water smoothly and kicking upward before the containers have even hit the surface behind me. They sink and drag me down with them and for one horrible moment I’m done, I’m dead and this is too soon, it’s unforgivably soon and all that will be left is a bloated floating thing tethered to the sea’s floor by her own chains and then I am kicking with all the power I can muster, dragging myself up to the surface with arms and feet. But I needn’t have worried about being weighed down: the containers of fresh water float. I settle into a rhythm, ignoring the shouts of the sailors who are watching this madwoman, ignoring everything except the feel of the water around me.

Mam always said it was only a fool who didn’t fear the sea, and I’ve tried to live by that. But there’s no way to conjure fear if it doesn’t exist. And here is the undeniable truth: I have never feared the sea. I have loved it with every breath of me, every beat of me.

It honors me now, lifting my limbs, making them light and strong. It carries me with it, embracing me as I embrace it. I can’t fight it. I wouldn’t know how.

From a letter Niall once wrote me:

I am only the second love of your life. But what kind of moron would be jealous of the sea?



* * *



Anik drags me into the dinghy with a lot of cursing and takes us the last few hundred meters, where we are met by the entire crew, including Ennis.

My arms and legs are useless, and I have to be lifted onto the boat. They wrap me in a blanket and carry me below, and they kiss my cheeks, each one of them, making me smile, and they thank me and I think they are shocked and it’s unnerving me.

“That’s enough, then. Leave me in peace.”

The sailors file out, all except Ennis, who stays.

I reach to take his fist, smoothing it into an ordinary hand once more. It is a thick, rough hand, with chipped and dirty nails, with scars.

His eyes meet mine.