The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(32)
“But you see why I want to know what’s going on?”
“Your friend should know,” said the womi. “She should know.”
“Know what?”
“Lots of crossings. I don’t know why but I know that there are lots of crossings. It’s a good time to be far out in the islands. Wouldn’t want to be on the mainland now.”
“Tian Xia worlders coming to Di Shang?” asked Nell, stunned
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’re almost at Stoot. Your friend is going to be busy. You shouldn’t bother her about me.”
“I’m nay going to turn you in,” said Nell. “I just want to know what’s happening.”
“I don’t know,” he said, backing away from her. “Lots of crossings, that’s all I know. I just want to be out of the way, see the coral. I’m not powerful, you know. Di Shang is a safe place usually but not right now.”
Nell let him walk away from her swiftly. “Good luck!” she called after him, but he didn’t reply.
~~~
The big boat didn’t stop at Holburg, so Nell had to get off at Murda and pay one of the fishermen to take her across. From Murda, Holburg looked like a dense green hook or a beckoning finger laid flat on the surface of the water. The fishing vessel bobbed on the bright foaming waves and it was late afternoon when they docked in Holburg’s harbour. Everybody who saw her as she made her way through Holburg Town stopped to say hello and asked for news of the city, so it took her some time to reach the dilapidated white house with chipping paint and a broken fence. There was not much winter to speak of in Holburg, just a pleasant cool wind, and the front door was wide open. She could hear the sound of the television inside and her brothers talking loudly over it. Nell was the youngest of five. Of her four older brothers, Danil and Som were still in school. Marik had graduated from high school last year and manned their father’s cigarette and magazine shop now that their father had become one with the sofa. Alban, the eldest, had bought a fishing boat last year, married pretty Marti Somerset, and was building his own house. For now, the happy couple lived in Marti’s uncle’s van, whose engine had given out six years ago.
Nell dragged her bags into the front hall and called, “I’m back!”
“Nell’s back!” roared Marik, in case anybody had missed her announcement.
Her mother Onni came bustling in from the kitchen to embrace her. Onni was a mass of pale flesh with fair, wispy hair and tiny, startled eyes. She had grown up on Holburg, a romantic, dreamy girl without much sense of the world beyond, and as a grown woman she seemed bewildered by, if not actively averse to, what had happened to her life. Nell felt a confused mixture of impatience and protectiveness towards her mother, while Onni was rather in awe of her clever and beautiful youngest child. She hugged and kissed Nell several times and then ushered her into the sitting room, where her father Gladd took up half the sofa.
Gladd had been a big noisy boy and had become an enormous silent man. He had a bit of brownish hair stuck to the top of his sweaty head. His chins rolled down his neck and became mounds of chest and further mountains of belly. He did not care to leave the sofa anymore and so there he remained. He was a bit puzzled by Nell’s sudden fame as the first islander to win a scholarship to that fancy school in Kalla but it pleased him insofar as it must mean she was doing well. And so when he saw her he grinned. Nell kissed him on the cheek. He raised a fat hand to pat her hair. Her brothers nodded and smiled shyly and dragged her bags up to her bedroom for her.
Ander Brady, the chief of police, was sitting in the tattered brown chair they referred to as “the guest chair,” drinking a cup of coffee. He greeted Nell cordially and asked her about school. Ander, unlike most of the islanders, had actually been to the mainland and even to Kalla. It was well known by everybody except, apparently, Gladd, that Ander had long ago been very much in love with young dreamy Onni. Older than she, he had joined the army for a few years while she was still in high school, writing to her every week, but when he came back she was married to Gladd, for reasons nobody but Onni would ever know. Devastated, Ander had gone back to the military and become a war hero. Upon returning, he and Gladd struck up an unlikely friendship and he was the only person really who ever sat in the guest chair. Ander didn’t look like a war hero to Nell. He was rather overweight, with a receding hairline, big pouches under his eyes and a shy but affable manner. Still, the fact remained that he had on his mantel more medals than anyone in Holburg had ever seen.
Nell politely told Ander a bit about her school. Onni stood behind her nodding enthusiastically as if to confirm what Nell was saying and Gladd stared open-mouthed at the television. Tiring quickly of her own story, Nell glanced at the television and saw a dashing, uniformed man speaking at a podium.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Lah, that’s General Malone!” exclaimed her mother, delighted to be able to provide some information. “You know, the one who disappeared for nine years!”
Nell looked even more closely when she heard that, realizing he must be the General Eliza had found in the Arctic.
“Something going on, aye,” mumbled Gladd. It was not usual for Gladd to say something and so they all paused to take this in respectfully. Then Ander explained, “In the last twenty-four hours, they’ve confirmed a great many Tian Xia attacks. Nay just in the Republic, but all over Di Shang.”