Ivory and Bone(64)

This is my last thought as a wave hits me hard from behind, scooping under me and lifting me high into the air. When the wave drops me, I roll hard to my left and plunge headfirst into the sea.

Under the water or over the water, you have to stay calm. The terror of drowning out here all alone, of my lifeless body strapped into this kayak as it floats out to sea—these thoughts threaten to crowd out all others. But I push them away. I let in the voice of my father instead, teaching me how to right myself in a capsized kayak. You have to stay calm.

I remember that the kayak is like a garment I am wearing, not a boat I am sitting in. I move my body and the kayak moves with me. With all the strength in me, I strike at the water with my arms, my cupped hands churning the sea into a cloud of bubbles all around me. You’ve capsized so many times before, I remind myself. This time is no different. I shift my legs as far to one side as they will go and twist my hips sharply inside the boat. All at once the edge of the boat flips and my head breaks the surface of the water.

I’m upright. The rain still falls in cold sheets and the waves still slam into me from all sides, but I can breathe.

My paddle has drifted away, but I spot it. It’s not far off—carried by the current away to my left.

My left—the direction I thought was east—the direction I thought was the shore side of the boat. No wonder I couldn’t see the point before I rolled! I wasn’t lost; I was looking the wrong way. The boat must have turned full circle; I was so completely confounded by the storm.

I beat against the water with my hands until I finally reach the paddle. I know I’m lucky to have retrieved it, I know I’m lucky to have righted the kayak fairly easily and to have had my sense of direction restored, but I cannot keep a creeping dread from taking hold. I am drenched—the apron of the kayak that wraps around my torso, my parka underneath—every part of me above my waist is soaked through with freezing water. I know what can happen if I get too cold. Disorientation. Confusion. Slowed movement and slowed thoughts. I could even lose consciousness.

The fear taunts me, provokes me to search the shoreline for a sheltered place where I could pull in and wait out the storm. I imagine quitting—abandoning my purpose for coming out here, giving up on the idea of warning your clan—and just saving my own life by getting warm and dry. I can’t believe how strong the pull is.

I paddle until my arms grow stiff. Even then, even after the muscles burn and strain with every move, I paddle still. I rest when I can, but as soon as I stop moving a shot of cold runs through me and my whole body shudders. And so I press on, still scanning the shore for a place to rest, still dreaming of abandoning my goal, yet knowing all along that I cannot stop as long as my mind stays alert. As long as I remember that I am doing this for you.

You.

Water surrounds me, so much that it blends into nothingness. My mind’s eye takes over, and I remember the sight of your face the first time I saw you. I remember the power of your features—so determined, so resolute. I hold that image in my mind—the thought of your sharp eyes and soft mouth, a contradiction on the face of a girl who is a study in contradictions. I think I will tell you that when I reach you. Yes, when I finally arrive at your camp, I think, I will tell you that you are a study in contradictions.

The image of your face that first time I saw you slips away, as my mind sifts through all the different memories I have of you. Unbidden, it stalls on the moment after you killed the cat—the moment you looked at me with so much condemnation in your eyes. How you must have hated me—a Manu hunter raising his spear, a perfect echo of the Manu hunter who took your mother’s life.

From that moment forward, every time I’ve seen you, I’ve noticed something guarded in your eyes, a darkness that wraps around you like a shadow. And now I understand it. . . . I understand that you were guarding your heart, making sure that no member of the Manu ever caused you pain again.

Out here in this kayak, hurrying to your camp, my heart aches at the thought of the day your mother died and your own clan rushed into kayaks and fled our shores. If only I could go back, if only I could stop the hand of Tram’s father, if only I could protect your mother and change the violent history between our clans.

But I can’t. I can’t change the pain you suffered in the past, but I can do everything possible to prevent the pain you might suffer in the future.

And so I press on. My arms ache and my shoulders burn with pain, but I press on. I have no other choice. If I stop, I could die.

If I stop, you could die.

The starkness of this truth startles me, illuminates an awareness in me of something I could not—or would not—acknowledge before.

I cannot let you die, because I cannot face a future without you.

Against a background of blurred pain and fear, this truth stands out so plain, and now that I see it, I cannot divert from the path that leads to you.

A steady beat taps against my shoulders, my back, the top of my head. Drops of rain have changed to drops of ice. I remember the summer sun just yesterday, the bees I spotted a few days ago. But winter isn’t ready to give in completely, and this ice storm is her way of making that known.

Focus on warmth, I tell myself. I think of the soft glow inside my family’s hut, the warm look in your eyes as you offered me a gift of your own honey.

Your honey—I try to remember the texture, the crisp sweetness, the way I could almost taste the heat of the sun in my mouth. My clenched hands ache with cold and blisters burn on my palms, but I push those sensations away and fill my mind with the memory of that taste—the flavor of sunshine and warmth.