The Gracekeepers Read online

  Callanish paused, perched on top of the guardrail. The island was so close. Two hours of swimming; maybe three. Maybe more. But what choice did she have? She inhaled the scent of oak leaves. She jumped.

  For two heartbeats she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could only feel the way the wind caught her and seemed to hold her, to lift her—

  “No!” Flitch was shouting after her, or maybe it was “Go!”—she couldn’t tell because the wind stole everything, all the sound, all the feeling, and she was an acrobat, falling from the heights of her sin, clad in scraps of nothing, with no need of a rope because the wind was safe, was holding her, would never let her fall, and—

  The sea. She was in the sea. The water held her but it was cold, cold. Too cold to breathe and don’t breathe, Callanish, don’t breathe because you’ll only breathe water and that’s called drowning. The sky was down—the sky was up—she kicked out, fought back, and she would have to give up because she couldn’t, she couldn’t—but the harder she fought to hold her breath, the harder grew the pressure from her scars, as if they were trying to open, to let her breathe water—but that couldn’t be, surely they weren’t really gills, just scars on her flesh from her mother’s knife, and that was not how it worked, you couldn’t just cut yourself open and expect to find gills under your—then her scars strained, and she knew she couldn’t breathe underwater but still she was, she was breathing.

  She was not drowning. The knowledge that she wasn’t drowning calmed her panic and she could think. The sea cocooned her in darkness so she couldn’t see—but there, look, there were the silvery pocks of the hail falling on to the water, and so there was the surface. She kicked toward it. The webs between her fingers and toes caught the water, displacing it easily. She pushed once, twice—and there was the sky, and her lungs stretched, and she could breathe air.

  On the deck the hail thudded, shattered, tore open skin—but here in the sea it scattered on the water gently, like snow on snow. Hailstones tickled her limbs as they sank past. Her whole life she had been afraid of the sea, terrified that it wanted to swallow her whole. And now here she was, and it held her. She felt something that she had not felt since that night in the circus coracle, her bare hand linked with North’s. She felt at home.

  Behind her, on the deck of the scrubbed and strange revival boat, Flitch raged and bled and called her name. But Callanish did not look back. She took a deep breath and swam for shore.

  20

  AVALON

  “Help! Jarrow, help me!”

  Was the canvas cover pulled back too far? Was it obvious that she had not really been in the coracle? Should she lever herself inside more—but that filthy beast might take a swipe at her feet, and she wasn’t sure she could get her feet on the slats, and it was tricky enough to maneuver when she was this big, and what if she accidentally knocked her son?

  “Jarrow, please! Help!”

  She steadied her feet against the coracle’s entrance and opened her mouth wide, ready to scream to the full stretch of her lungs, but as she pulled in a breath she heard the thud of feet and the roar of her husband calling her name. She felt a flash of annoyance that he had not appeared at the exact moment she called for him. What could he possibly be doing that was more important than saving the precious lives of his wife and baby?

  “Jarrow, Ainsel, North—someone, please! Help me!”

  There were still so many things that could go wrong. North could find the razor blade on the deck of her coracle. Avalon had planned to throw it into the sea after she’d cut her arm, but the sight of a dampling watching her from a medic boat anchored nearby had distracted her. In that moment of panic, she’d dropped the blade. There was no time to go after it, even if she dared to take her son anywhere near that nasty, violent animal. But it was fine. Even if North found it, what would she say? Who would ever believe her?

  “I can’t get away! I think it’s coming! Please help!”

  Avalon held in her scream and let out some whimpers instead, tearing her dress a little more. She bent her body at an awkward angle across the canvas, just as the top of Jarrow’s head appeared on the Excalibur’s deck. And there on his face she saw panic, and fear, and love, and it was all for her. She felt affection kick in her belly. Soon they would have their home, and it would all be worth it.

  “Jarrow!” she gasped. “Save me. The bear—it’s trying to kill me.”

  21

  CALLANISH

  Callanish was on the island. She was shiver-soaked, frantic, tired to the marrow of her bones: but she was on the island.

  By the time she managed to pull herself ashore, dawn was stretching out across the horizon. The island was awakening. But most of the windows in the nearby stilt-homes were still dark, so Callanish allowed herself a moment to lie on the wooden slats of the dock.

  She stretched her limbs, and it hurt. She blinked her eyes, and it hurt. She breathed, and it hurt. Her lungs throbbed with the air of the island, heavy with smells: leaves, earth, rain, wood, animals, grass, strangers, family. She kept breathing until it stopped hurting.

  Over the lip of the hill a landlocker approached. Callanish stood with her bare toes scrunched together and her hands behind her back to hide the webbing. She was ready with reasons. She had been thrown off her ship, her papers had been stolen, she had to leave her graceyard because…because…

  But she knew that none of it would matter, because now the landlocker could see her face.

  For a dampling it would be impossible to get on to the island. Stowing away on a revival boat, pretending to be a trader or a butcher: all pointless. They’d never get past the blackshore. But this was Callanish’s birth island. This is where she’d come from. The angles and planes of her face, a mirror of her mother’s, marked her out. Every landlocker here knew the face of every other landlocker here—including that of Veryan Sand.

  “You,” said the landlocker to Callanish, and though she had never seen him before, she knew his face.

  “Yes,” she said. “Hello.” She smiled, pretending that her clothes were not damp and her eyes were not bloodshot and her hands were not clenched into fists. “I have come home to visit my mother. I am going there right now. Goodbye.”

  She took a step. Her pulse throbbed at the base of her tongue and she tasted metal in her mouth. But she took another step, and another and another, and she was past the landlocker who was a stranger and not a stranger, and she was off the gangway and on the path leading up between the stilt-homes, and no one had stopped her. The stilt-homes seemed so flimsy, the salvaged metal walls tarnished, their spindly legs constantly sucked and battered by the waves. Their roofs were planted with short-rooted vegetables—lettuce and cabbage, radish and pepper—and the remaining leaves shuddered in the breeze from the sea.

  As she walked further toward the island’s center, the reclaimed land under her feet grew so steady that she felt dizzy. She carried on past the reclaimed homes, their wooden walls thin as fabric, their proportions larger and their roofs lower for maximum contact with the ground. Landlockers could buy these houses even if they weren’t native islanders, so she didn’t know who would be living in them now. If they were new to the island, they might not recognize her. There might be questions. Her steps quickened, and she walked as fast as she could without tripping into a run.

  Memories of her childhood home loomed up, faded as old paper: soaking in an herb-scented bath, her mouth watering for pepper-pumpkin soup, the song of the wind in the trees—then the shush of her mother’s footsteps, the burn of her mother’s knife…

  She had slowed almost to a stop, bare toes dragging in the dirt. It was fine. She was fine. This island was supposed to be her home, and what could be safer than home? She picked up her feet and kept walking.

  After all, she’d visited her mother before. Not for a while, true, but she must have visited since—no. There was no use in lying to herself. She had not returned to the island since the day she left for her graceyard.

&nb
sp; Houses and fences and face-framing windows flickered past as she walked. Finally the sun had made its way over the horizon, and Callanish was at her mother’s gate. Her house was on old land—the most valuable of all, reserved for native islanders. The ground held her feet so steady she thought she might fall. She stood with her hand on the latch.

  There were no flowers in her mother’s garden. There was no smoke from her mother’s chimney. There were no lights in her mother’s window. Callanish swung the gate, walked up the path, and opened the front door.

  “Mother,” she said. “I’ve come home.”

  Callanish knew that she should wait in the doorway until she was invited in. She knew that she should greet her mother warmly, should accept a cup of tea, should provide chatty updates on the noble and horrible business of gracekeeping. But she had come this far, and she could wait no longer.

  “Mother?” she called again into the house. “It’s me. It’s Callanish. Can I come in?”

  Still no answer. She went in anyway.

  “Mother? Are you…” She trailed off. The house was too small for hiding. Callanish saw immediately that her mother was not asleep in her straw-mattress bed, or fetching food from the pantry, or soaking in the huge tin bath. She was not pulling vegetables from the tiny garden pressed up against the back wall of the house. There was nowhere else that she could be.

  Callanish slumped on the bed, too cold even to shiver. The sea’s chill was deep in her bones, and she knew that the earth would never get warm enough to chase it out. In the center of the kitchen table sat a grace-feather; from her perch on the bed, Callanish could see how its green-blue colors had faded and its barbs were clumped and bent from repeated handling. The sight of it made tears clot at the base of her throat. Her mother knew her, and her mother remembered her, and her mother forgave her. So where was she?

  To slow her thoughts, she ran her hand over the wood of the bed frame, pressed her bare feet on the wooden floorboards, inhaled the scent of oak leaves from the trees at the…

  And then she knew where her mother was. She stood up and ran toward the woods at the center of the island.

  22

  NORTH

  Things were serious. The Excalibur’s crew huddled around the mess-boat table, but there were no dinner plates and no cups of fire. Everyone kept their gaze lowered—except for Jarrow. He looked at North. She kept her eyes down, the same as everyone else, but she could not help her expression. If her outside was anything like her inside, it was shifting between fear and anger.

  “Thank you,” Jarrow said, “for your time. You know why I have asked you here. You heard the cries of my poor wife—you heard the bear try to—you heard it.”

  North bit back her protests.

  “I do not blame North for this,” continued Jarrow. “As the bear’s trainer, she did more than could have been expected. Her bear performed beautifully every night, and we all know that her dance is of huge appeal to the landlockers. I wouldn’t say that it’s the only thing keeping the Circus Excalibur going, but it’s certainly—”

  Avalon flinched and sucked in a breath, tucking her bandaged left arm close to her body as if she’d had a flash of pain. North resisted the urge to launch herself across the table and snap Avalon’s arm right off her body.

  “But,” said Jarrow, “a beast is still a beast.”

  He rested his heavy hand on his wife’s shoulder and she tilted her tear-blurred face up to him.

  “We cannot let this incident pass,” he said. “There must be consequences.”

  “No! You can’t!” North was shocked at her own outburst. “That is, I—Jarrow, please. He didn’t really—he didn’t mean to hurt Avalon. And why was she even in my—”

  “Yes, North?” asked Jarrow with raised eyebrows. “Are you asking why the mistress of this circus cannot go wherever she chooses, whenever she chooses?”

  “No. Nothing. I just—he’s never hurt anyone before, Jarrow. You know that.”

  “He is a beast. And he will always be wild. I cannot risk anyone else being harmed.” Jarrow squeezed Avalon’s shoulder, as if seeking strength. “Tonight he will stay in your coracle. Chain him tightly. Tie his mouth shut. Drug him if you can.”

  North clenched her hands white on the tabletop. “Yes,” she said.

  “And as you will not be able to perform with your bear, you will be a part of the maypole instead. We must all earn our dinner.”

  North glanced up at him. She couldn’t, he knew she couldn’t, her bump was far too big now to be bandaged down.

  “Jarrow, please. I can’t. I’m—it won’t…” North trailed off. She hunched her body, trying to make Red Gold aware of her bump without pointing it out to the rest of the crew.

  “No excuses. You will do what I say. And after the maypole you can join the clown military. That will be the main act tonight, and tomorrow night, and every night until I say otherwise.”

  “Ah—” Cash coughed from the end of the table. “Ah, boss. You said we weren’t to do the military act in this archipelago. You said it would make the clams nervous. You said the military like to lurk around here. You said it might be dangerous. Remember? We haven’t prepped, boss, not at all.”

  “Then do your prep now. You have the whole day. Everyone will help you. Everyone will do what I say. No questions. In fact—” And here Jarrow glared around the room at each person in turn. “The next person to question an order will have a reduction in their rations. Another question means another reduction, and three questions means no food at all.”

  The reaction of the crew was immediate and negative: backs straightened, eyebrows lowered, jaws clenched. Even through her grief, North felt a bright burst of surprise. The crew often went against orders—the clowns in particular—but there had never been food restrictions before. There was little enough as it was.

  “You have your orders, crew. Go, now, and work on your acts. All the things you wanted to do that I said you could not—now you will do them. Tonight, we must upend this island. We must.” Jarrow raised his hands, as if to rest his head in them, then restrained himself. “Do you understand? We must shock. My wife is injured and Melia is not coming back—that means we’re down a horse-performer and we have no acrobats. And without the bear to please the crowd, this is the only way we will eat tonight. Now go.”

  He slumped at the head of the table. The crew filed out of the mess boat to prepare for that night’s performance.

  23

  CALLANISH

  The trees were dense, but Callanish barely slowed as she crossed from the fields to the woods. Beneath the oak canopy dead leaves carpeted the ground, hiding sharp twigs and dents in the earth. Within ten steps Callanish’s bare feet were scratched to bleeding, her ankles jolted and throbbing. Branches clawed at her hair, grabbing fingerfuls from the roots; she glanced back, distracted by the blond strands gleaming among the leaves. At least, she thought as she ran, she would be able to find her way out again: all she had to do was follow the stolen parts of her body.

  Thwick went a twig under her foot, and soosh went the fallen leaves, and cwit went a branch as it snapped off against her shoulder—and oh, the fear of the gods was rising up in her now. She hesitated, but it was too late. She couldn’t put the branch back on, so she might as well keep going. She picked up her feet and kept running. The trees were still ripping out her hair and the ground was still tearing at her feet but she was almost at the World Tree.

  “Mother!” she called, and the trees threw her voice right back. As she ran she bunched up her hair and tucked it into the neck of her dress. It wasn’t enough, so she raised her arms over her head to protect it, surrendering her skin to the sharpness of the branches. They stabbed, and they snapped, and the gods were angry with her: already she felt a constellation of splinters in her forearms.

  “Mother!” she called again—and with a gasp she broke through to the clearing, and there she was: her mother, Veryan Sand, standing naked and barefoot in the woods with her arms
stretched around the wide, rough trunk of the World Tree. She turned and looked at Callanish. Dew from the leaves glittered a silver fishing net on her hair.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m going to have a baby. Are you here to help me?”

  Callanish knew what she would see, but could not help glancing down at her mother’s belly. It was pale and puckered and completely flat.

  “Mother.” It was all that she could think to say.

  Veryan’s face split into a grin. “Yes!” she said. “I will be a mother. But not yet. First I must have this baby. And you must help me. It’ll come at any moment now, so we must be ready.”

  “Mother, it’s me.” Callanish took a step forward. “It’s Callanish.”

  Veryan stepped forward too, clasping her daughter’s hands.

  “Oh, that’s a beautiful name. Don’t tell anyone, but”—she lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning in, conspiratorial—“that’s what I plan to call my baby. Callanish Sand. Lovely, don’t you think? My baby is going to be blessed by the gods. That’s why I am having her here, you see. At the World Tree. So that my baby will be blessed. So that she will always be happy.” She turned away and stroked the tree’s bark, crooning a lullaby under her breath.

  Callanish pulled off her dress and put it over her mother’s head, rubbing Veryan’s arms to warm them. She shivered in her thin slip, trying to hide her shock at her mother’s chicken-bone limbs, her distant eyes, her twitching fingers. It took all her self-control not to snatch her mother’s hands away when she rested them maternally on her belly.

  “It’s not your time yet, Veryan. I’ll take you home now.”