The Gracekeepers Read online

  “Now,” he continued, hefting the lungs. “We’re going for a dive. I want to show you something.”

  “Ainsel, no. It’s late, and it’ll be dark down there, and…”

  “Go on. For old times’ sake.”

  From the coracle, the bear gave a wet-sounding snort. Ainsel let his eyes stray toward the sound, his eyebrows raised in a challenge. North hesitated.

  “Look.” Ainsel took North’s hand and pulled her out of the coracle, then took hold of her hips. He pushed her down so that they were both sitting cross-legged on the taut canvas. “Look up there.”

  He examined North’s profile as she tilted her head to the sky. In the moonlight she was almost pretty.

  She turned back to him and shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking at.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I see the sky. I see stars and the moon.”

  “Which star?”

  “All of them.”

  Ainsel leaned in to North so that their temples touched. Her heart was beating so hard that he could feel the pulse throb. He took hold of her chin, tilting it so that they were both looking in the same direction. “There. That star.”

  “The Pole Star?” she said.

  “The North Star.” Ainsel paused to let that sink in. “The North Star is the most beautiful because it’s always there. It can always show us the way. North—” He took her hands in his, gazing down at them as if he was too shy to meet her eyes. “Do you see what I’m saying?”

  North seemed to hold her breath. He could feel the nervous tremor in her hands and the quickening of her heart, thudding in her temples. “I don’t—there’s something I should tell you, Ainsel. Everyone will know soon enough.”

  “Later, North. We have time. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We’ve seen each other almost every day of our lives. We’ve always been there for each other. I really think we can make this marriage work. You’re my North Star, and I can be yours.”

  Before North had time to reply, Ainsel leaned over the side of the coracle and dropped the lungs into the water. They landed with a plimp, cupping air between the water and the glass sphere. He slid into the sea, shivering at the chill.

  “North,” he called, but she had already put on her heavy sea-boots and was slipping into the water after him.

  He tipped the lungs to refresh the air. He placed one over North’s head, making sure that it rested flat on the water’s surface, then settled his own lung. When it felt steady, he tied a long red string between his left wrist and North’s right wrist.

  “Now we can’t lose each other,” he said, the words echoing inside the glass sphere of his lung. North smiled uncertainly through the clouded glass. The moon reflected in the water’s surface, turning the world monochrome. Ainsel got a grip on his lung. When North was ready, they twisted their bodies in the water and kicked their feet off the outside of the coracle to force the lung underwater.

  Black, black, black in every direction. Ainsel’s insides shrank, rebelling against this dive down into blindness. It turned his stomach to feel the water close over him. The sea was an endless battlefield, and the deeper you went the worse it got, because everything that died had nowhere to go but down. In its darkest depths, the sea was nothing but an endless rain of bone, teeth, scales and flesh. Ainsel was not surprised that the revival boats preached about hell being at the bottom of the sea.

  But still he held on to his lung. Still he kept kicking. He hated the sea, but he knew that North loved it. She’d never settle to a life on land. But that didn’t matter—all that mattered was that she married him, and that Red Gold gave them what he’d promised. Then Avalon would come to him. It would be too late for his father to take back the house then, and he could live happily with his love forever. A proper landlocker family, with their proper landlocker baby. Once he had Avalon, everything would fall into place.

  He blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to adjust. There was nothing to focus on, no sense of scale; they might as well be in outer space. Vertigo overwhelmed him. His breathing seemed loud and wet in the confines of the lung.

  He turned to check on North; the light caught in the scratches on her lung, reflecting it back so that he could not see her expression. But she was still kicking, so he kept going. He knew that above them ranged the undersides of a dozen boats; that below them, the sea floor spread. He could see none of it, and it seemed that the entire world had fallen away. They were alone.

  Ainsel held his breath, trying to hear over the tidal beat of his heart. The sea brought back muted booms and the distant keen of whalesong. He held tight to the red string linking him to North. Finally, from the gloom, came the sound of bells.

  He opened his eyes wide, and he could see. Below his feet, moonlight slid off a rooftop. He took hold of his lung and pulled on the string, forcing North deeper. He wanted to tell her not to panic, to soothe her like he did for his horses, but he knew that the words would come out tinny and muffled.

  One moment they were floating aimless in the black of the sea; the next, a spotlight of moon appeared, and there was the city.

  Dim light bleached the world silver. Ainsel and North swam past mosaics of leering peacocks, enameled carriages shaped like swans, fish flickering through the eye sockets of giant carved skulls. Below them, the sea floor sparkled with shattered glass.

  Floating along the flooded streets, they opened their eyes as wide as they could. Together they tiptoed along the top of a tower and caressed the stone faces of gargoyles. Together they slid down the seawater-smoothed gutters of a church roof. Ainsel ducked into the bell tower to show North the enormous bell, whose sound had led them to the city. The clapper inside was too heavy for a person to move; only a strong current could cause it to chime. He led North further on.

  A horse’s head, huge as a tower block, loomed toward them with its nostrils flaring—but its stone ears had broken off and algae rimmed its eyes. Ainsel led North past the horse and onward through a menagerie of stone animals. He trod water while she ran her hand along the back of a deer, its antlers tangled with seaweed.

  Ainsel closed his eyes and the ruins became his palace. He passed through his burnished gates, the gold curlicues gleaming bright as the sun. He walked through rooms furnished with blue marble fireplaces and green satin carpets. He reached out his hand to his carved birds: at his touch, their enameled beaks opened to let out their clockwork song. Finally, he took his place on his wooden throne. He raised his head to receive his leafy crown.

  What more could be said? What could the sea provide that was more glorious, more noble than this drowned kingdom? No matter how wide the sea opened its maw, there would be some land it couldn’t swallow, and that land would always be superior. He knew North would not see it that way. She was a child of the sea, and she would never leave it. She would never understand his true place as lord of the land.

  But the city was large and the lungs were small. They had to leave now, or stay forever. Ainsel turned away from the sunken city and straightened his body in the water, kicking his feet to bring them back to the surface.

  He pushed aside his lung and gasped at the air. After the stale heat of his own breath, the harbor smells were overwhelming: soil, saltwater, the skin of strangers.

  Without a word, North removed her lung and used the canvas-ropes to pull herself back on to her coracle. Water sluiced off her body as she climbed. Ainsel threw the lungs up to her, one by one, then followed. He watched North as he climbed: she was leaning over the edge, wringing the water from her dark hair; she was peeping into the belly of her coracle; she was rearranging the ropes so that they didn’t dangle in the sea.

  North waited until he’d climbed the ropes. “It’s from before, isn’t it? It’s where people used to live when there was still land. That’s where you want to be, isn’t it?” she said.

  “My great-great-great-great grandfather lived there.”

  “And you want something real. Something
ancient. Like your ancestors had.”

  Ainsel nodded. Perhaps North understood after all.

  “But it’s gone,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “The sea took it.”

  “We will take it back,” he whispered. “We will make the new land our home. There will be Stirlings on the island again.”

  “Home…” said North. Or was it just the suck of the sea against ships? Her eyes drifted away from Ainsel and she dropped down into her coracle.

  He shook water from his limbs and closed North’s canvas. He tied the knots tight.

  —

  After the usual routine of performing and eating, Ainsel slipped away with a vague mumble about grooming his horses. The other circus folk bored and frustrated him: their small words, their small dreams. They would never be the lords of anything. They would never know real love.

  His coracle was the second largest, after the mess boat; it was easily three times the size of North’s, but that was as it should be. His horses could not be bundled into a tiny bunk like North’s beast. Ainsel needed space to prepare for his performance, to allow himself enough sleep, to sit quietly and contemplate his future. He slid into his coracle, leaving the canvas open to freshen the air.

  “Hello, beauties,” he crooned to Lady and Lord as he ran his hands along their necks. They snorted in reply, their breath hot and damp on his palms. Lady was a pure white mare, with a birthmark on her cheek the shape and color of a ripe plum; Lord was a beautiful silver-gray, his muzzle velvety black as if he’d been sniffing at charcoal.

  Both their manes were braided with green and silver ribbons from that evening’s show. Ainsel noticed that some of Lady’s were coming unfastened. Rather than try to tidy the braiding, it would be better to do it all over again. Lady’s mane could do with a rinse anyway. He pulled down his horse-brushes, filled a tin basin from the filter, and got to work.

  On the boats there was never quite enough space, just as there was never enough food or water or privacy. A dampling’s life was one of lack. Ainsel deserved better. And he would have better—he and Avalon, together.

  His heart was Avalon’s, from now until eternity. How strange that to be with her he had to marry someone else. What would it be like to have North for his wife, however briefly? His memory strolled through moments with North: the pair of them, six years old, prying abalone off salt-crusted rocks; sharing a pomegranate on a lazy, dozing morning; helter-skeltering across an eastern island, screaming half in terror and half in glee with a landlocker’s dog snapping at their heels; aged ten, playing doctor; fourteen, practicing kisses. In another life, perhaps he could have loved her. But not in this one.

  “Ainsel,” whispered Avalon into his ear.

  He jumped and tipped over the bucket. Water crept across the deck of the coracle, making Lady and Lord skitter their hooves and flick their ears.

  Ainsel soothed the horses, turning his back to Avalon so that she wouldn’t see his elation. His heart throbbed in his ears. He’d been alone with her only a handful of times, and it made his head spin. “My love. How I have wished for you to visit me again.”

  Avalon dug through the box of sea sponges, spreading a fistful across the deck to soak up the water he’d spilled. “I won’t be long. I don’t want Jarrow to notice I’ve gone.”

  “I knew you would come back to me.” Ainsel’s hands had stopped shaking. He turned to Avalon. Her night-black eyes, her throat as smooth as pearls: she was so beautiful he could barely look at her.

  “I haven’t come back,” she said. “I will never come back to you. Not in that way. I just need to speak to you.”

  Ainsel traced her lips with his finger but she could not summon a smile.

  “Enough, Ainsel. I told you, that won’t happen again. Jarrow mustn’t know.”

  “Are you worrying, my love? There is no need, I promise! Trust me, and I will give you all you want.”

  In the light of the seal-fat lamp, Avalon’s skin gleamed as white as a shell. Her black hair was still braided in ribbons from the performance; with a slow smile, Ainsel reached over to unfasten it. It came free, teasing Ainsel with the scent of jasmine. Avalon snatched her ribbons back, her nails scratching Ainsel’s fingers. “Stop it! I only came to speak to you—to tell you—Ainsel, you have to refuse the house. It’s mine. It should be for me and for Jarrow.”

  “Forget him. The house is rightfully yours, my queen. Yours and mine.”

  “Ainsel, don’t be ridiculous. Give up the house. You can have the circus, all of it. You can be the ringmaster.”

  “I don’t want to be the ringmaster. I want to be with you. Listen to me, my love. All I have to do is marry North, and my father will sign the house over to me. Then you can leave him and we can be together. It’s so simple.”

  “What about North?” asked Avalon.

  “What about her?”

  “You’ll be married, Ainsel. Do you imagine that she’ll quietly consent to live in the house with you and your father’s wife? Do you think she’ll go without a fight? Listen to what you’re saying. This plan is nonsense.”

  “When it all comes out, when everyone knows that you and I are in love, North is bound to leave. She can run the circus with my father. Or she can buy her way into another circus. Or she can take that mangy bear and jump in the sea. It really doesn’t matter. Since when did you care about North?”

  “I don’t care about her. There’s no point arguing about this because you can’t marry North anyway. She’s pregnant.”

  Ainsel couldn’t hold in his laugh. “The little north child! What secrets we all hold. It’s a wonder we don’t burst open with them all. Whose child is it?”

  “I don’t know. Whitby’s? Bero’s? Some dampling she picked up? She probably doesn’t even know.” Avalon pressed her hands to her belly, breathing deep. “Look, Ainsel. This is what matters. I can’t leave with you. I don’t want to leave with you. And you can’t have that house. You have to tell your father that you don’t want it. That you want to stay here and be the ringmaster.”

  Her words stung, but Ainsel knew she didn’t mean them. She loved him. She must, or why would she have crept into his coracle all those nights? Why would she have slid on top of him in the dark of his bunk, whispering sweet words in his ear, the length of her hair forming a curtain between them and the world? If she didn’t love him, why would she carry his child?

  “But I do want it,” he said. “And that’s not all I want.”

  He pulled his shirt off over his head, one-handed. Avalon looked away.

  “Please, Ainsel. Tell your father you don’t want to live on land.”

  “Oh, my love. There are lots of things I could tell my father.”

  He stepped closer to Avalon, so close that her bump pressed against him. Lady and Lord tapped their hooves on the deck of the coracle, and he took Avalon’s hands, holding them tight so she couldn’t pull away. Lady and Lord tapped again, and he pulled Avalon closer, slipping his arms around her—and no, that couldn’t be right, horses did not tap that way, and they could not reach to scratch at the canvas, and he had not fastened the canvas so how could they—

  “Ainsel?” called North into the coracle.

  “Wait, North! I’m—just wait!”

  His breath felt too heavy. Avalon stood in the center of the coracle, her hair wild, her eyes wide. “She mustn’t see me here,” she whispered in a panic. “She’ll tell him.”

  “Tell him what? We’ll say we’re just training the horses.”

  “Think, Ainsel! He knows that we always train the horses on deck, so why should we suddenly be skulking about down here? Don’t give her a reason to gossip. She’ll spread lies. She’ll do it on purpose.”

  “Here,” hissed Ainsel. He slid back the tin panel over the tack box and pushed her inside. The box was not tall and she’d have to crouch. “Sorry,” he whispered, and replaced the panel.

  “Come in.” He was pleased that his voice sounded steady—but then he realized he was on
ly half clothed. He scrambled around the damp deck for his shirt. “Ah—I was just changing. And I know you saw it all when we were kids, but we should save something for our wedding night.”

  North climbed into the coracle, and the gods of land and sea must have been looking out for Ainsel, because he even managed to grin at her. She smiled back, but it wavered.

  “I have to talk to you, Ainsel. It’s about the other night. Our dive.”

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  North hesitated, frowning at the deck of the coracle. Ainsel followed her gaze: sponges, pooled water, an upturned bucket.

  “Right. I spilled the water. While I was getting changed.” He bent over to collect up the sponges, dropping them into the bucket. Although it was impossible, he felt a sudden stab of worry that North would see Avalon’s fingerprints on the sponges. To him, the scent and touch and sight of Avalon permeated the entire boat.

  “Were you grooming them?” North nodded at Lady’s damp mane. “I’ll help you.”

  Ainsel forced his face into a smile and handed North a brush. Perhaps he could have explained why Avalon was in his coracle: to check the horses, to discuss their act. But he would not be able to explain why Avalon was hiding in the tack box. No matter how much North trusted him, he knew she trusted his father more—and if she saw Avalon here then she’d tell him, she’d run right out there and tell him in front of the whole crew. Jarrow would find out about his son and wife eventually. But not yet. Not before Ainsel had what he wanted.

  His heart thudded in his throat. He hoped that North could not see the vibrations above his collarbone. With a dry cloth he patted at Lady’s mane.

  North ran the brush down Lord’s withers, snowing dust on to the deck. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that place,” she said. “The flooded city.”

  “Yes. The landlockers know about it, but they won’t go down there. And the damplings don’t care.”

  “I’ve been thinking for a while now, ever since we were at the graceyard to rest Whitby—I was talking to the gracekeeper there—why are our choices land or sea?”