Migrations(63)

“The batteries will help. But the water’s only enough for a week,” I say softly. “I’m with you. I’m with you to the end, as far as we can go, but if you have a plan, Ennis, then now is the time for it.”

He squeezes my hands, dwarfing them inside his own. “Franny,” he murmurs, “you frightened me,” and then he kisses my forehead.





24

The Saghani, THE COAST OF ARGENTINA MATING SEASON

Once it was mild here, even in summer. Now it’s much warmer than it should be. The climate has always been ruled by the Antarctic, who stretched her cool fingers north to stroke this fertile coast. Now her reach is much shorter, for she is much smaller. We’re a long way south when we turn into a cove and let our engine rumble to a halt. Not far from us lies “the city at the bottom of the world,” as Ushuaia is known. No fishermen come to this cove, Ennis says, only luxury holiday yachts and sometimes locals who want to swim. Fishing has been banned here for centuries. It is where our captain always meant to reach before surrendering to his failing vessel, the only place he knew of that is private and hidden and maybe, just maybe, will allow us to remain undetected while Léa and Dae get what they need to fix the boat. Turns out he did indeed have a plan, and the extra water got us here.

Anik delivers the crew to shore in his skiff, while Ennis and I wait on the Saghani a long way out, far enough to watch for any approach. Rearing above is a dying forest and the magnificent Martial Mountains, once covered in snow, but I can’t turn my eyes from the ocean, not now, not when we are so close.

It’s my thirty-fifth birthday today. I don’t tell Ennis. Instead I pull free the bottle of French wine Basil has stowed in his cabin.

“Let’s drink this,” I say, returning to the deck.

Ennis glances at it and laughs. “He would murder you.”

“I’ll buy him another.”

“That’s a Domaine Leroy Musigny pinot noir.”

I stare blankly.

“It’s worth five thousand dollars. He’s been saving it for twenty years.”

My mouth drops open. “Now I really want to drink it.”

Ennis grins, while I put the wine back.

We play cards to while away the time, and we don’t drink five-thousand-dollar wine but we do drink forty-dollar gin and it goes down a treat. The sun only begins to set at 10:00 p.m., tracing the remarkably blue sea with delicate threads of gold. The little boats lining the shore light up, winking on one by one and turning the world fairy.

“My in-laws drink that sort of wine every night,” I say with my third double warm in my mouth.

Ennis whistles long and slow. “You must have had a few nice drops in your time then.”

“They bring out cheaper stuff for us. We wouldn’t appreciate it.” He grimaces and I laugh softly. “The funny thing is that we probably wouldn’t. At least I wouldn’t.”

“Niall might?”

“Yeah, he might. He’d pretend not to, though.”

“I think I like Niall,” Ennis says.

“He’d like you, too.” That is a lie. Niall hates fishermen, unreservedly. “He’ll be jealous when he hears about all of this.” Another lie. Niall has never wanted to adventure for the sake of it—he only wants to save the animals.

“Haven’t you been writing him?”

“Yeah, but…” I shrug.

“There are other things to write first.”

“Guess so.”

“Apologies?”

I hesitate, then nod.

“Don’t apologize too much, kid. It’ll bleed you dry.”

“What if you’ve a lot to apologize for?”

“Once is enough for anything.”

I suppose that’s true. It’s impossible to control someone else’s capacity for forgiveness.

“Why did you name her Raven, Ennis?” I ask.

He runs his hand over the wood of the railing, rough against smooth. “Because she flies.”



* * *



As soon as the others are back with the parts, we work through the night and all of the following day, helping Léa and Dae as much as we’re able. There are so many bits and pieces to fix that it seems never ending. I grow more anxious by the minute, eyes always darting back to the water, waiting for the approach of maritime police. If anyone reports the commercial vessel for putting down anchor somewhere it shouldn’t …

I have taken on Ennis’s desperation to be apart from land, to be only adrift, always.

By the second night there’s no more to be done. Léa has ordered a part from a mechanic on land and all we can do now is wait for it. So we drink. Malachai’s nervous energy is so heightened he can barely sit still. Basil is crueler than normal. Léa is surlier. Ennis more silent. Anik is exactly the same as he always is, while Dae is left to muster what positivity remains and enough of a shred of cheer to make us play cards.

I don’t know what I am.

Hours pass. I am counting them, almost, even though there is no point in it whatsoever. We don’t turn on any lights, but sit on the deck lit only by moonlight. And to Dae’s credit, he gets everyone involved and he relaxes us enough to laugh at his bad card tricks. Even Malachai calms down and tells us a story about the pranks he used to play on his sisters. As we laugh it comes to me without source or explanation that I feel one with them. Against all odds, I feel happy with them, and I know I could belong here, on the Saghani, if only in another life.