Chapter 7: Carry On

 

My hands could not sign without  fully functional tendons in the forearms, but my fingers could write. And so I did, etching two symbols.

The two men noticed the movement, the letters slurring over themselves without fine motor control: “King.” “Book.”

Yet my executioners did not understand. The small one, the one who held back could not read at all. The large man couldn’t read the language that I wrote, specifically. As he reared back his weapon, his partner had the wherewithal to ask what languages my would-be-killer could read.

In that modicum of communication, my death was stayed for a couple more minutes, because if they could read it, I could write it.

- A Frustrated Linguist.

###

Fifteen miles outside of Einhurst, in the slightly larger city of Knullsau, the hospital parking lot glowed yellow under the streetlamps of predawn dark. His shoulders almost concave, Kael plopped down shotgun next to Joshua in the County's Leyon Kapris, engine still running.

            "They ask any questions?" Joshua asked behind the steering wheel.

            "I'm sure they shouted something at my back," Kael grunted, hearing Pieter and Emilie stirring in the back seat; he had been loud enough to wake them up. "I told the Farmer to get out of town once he's patched up. Fingers crossed he takes our advice." The words hadn't left the air when Emilie nestled back into slumber.

            "And?" Pieter asked.

            "And how?" Kael sharply whispered-- a raspy kind of softness.

"We're heading north to the capital to grab a ferry. We'll be in Tyré before next nightfall. Are you coming, or what?" Joshua asked.

            "Coming?" Pieter choked on that possibility.

            Joshua said, "It's bad enough you were around when it all went down, not to mention that you're a Syche."

            "I don't—"
            "Shut it,” Kael hissed. “Both of you.”

"We're not playing the exposition game anymore," Joshua soothed. "It turns out I wasn't the farmer boy all along, it was you, Pieter. This is your call to adventure. We're your wizards. Well—Kael is your wizard. Come save the world from the forces of evil with us."

Kael rolled his bloodshot eyes and fumbled with the seat buckle. "We aren't trying to save the world. Disregard everything my brother is saying, in fact.”

"Never mind him Pieter, you gotta tell us. Are you coming?"

Peter grew quiet and slowly nodded. "It feels like I’ve been waiting for this moment. Sleepwalking through life and trying to satisfy an itch. I'll do it, I’ll come."

Joshua let out a cackling laugh. "Holy crap, I didn't think you would take me up on that. We're taking you home-- not on some adventure for your own amusement. Keep your head down, don't use those new-fangled powers of yours, maybe take a year off of school; all they have is your face. If those Dark Element guys show up, run. Maybe we'll see you again. But honestly, we probably never will. Have a good life.”

Kael placed his arm on Joshua’s seat and stared Pieter down. “Unless you use your powers the wrong way. I’ll find the time to come back if you make me.”

###

Seven Years Ago (Slightly before the last chapter that was seven years ago)

Far from the icy northern straight, a brick-shaped cargo vessel stacked high with its haul crested around the southern bend of Taerose and into Kidenian waters. Joshua Rasgard—the smaller child version—had slung a foot through each side of the railing. He stared down the hundred feet of space between him and the briny deep. The constant taste of salt on his tongue was making him nauseous.

They had sailed for almost a week now and would be reaching their new home soon. The old lady Agassa had pulled more strings, exhausted more resources to get them this passage than Joshua would have guessed, at least at that age. Give it a few years and nothing about the old woman would surprise him.

Front crosses and back crosses. Obtaining three sets of passports for Joshua and his family with different names and countries of origins. Booking planes, busses, and boats with every payment option known only to hike through the woods to yet another safe house, and then make for the coast a week later-- only to bargain on the spot for passage on a cargo ship with neither captain nor crew keen on the idea.

Perhaps best Joshua didn't know the full story for now, lest it influence his young mind already storming with every fool-romantic notion of mystery, intrigue, and adventure. Not that Agassa's deviousness wouldn’t have eclipsed any dime store spy trash.

So Joshua watched the waves for the seventh day straight, and for the seventh day straight his tears fell. He had inched ever closer to the railing every day until finally, today, he was brave enough to place a hand on the cold steel.

Today was like any other day during that work up. He made sure his family wouldn’t be around, keeping track of them the best he could through the kitchens, rooms, or wandering around the boat. Joshua also tried to predict the movements of the sailors on their shifts which was easier.

Today, Joshua was as meticulous as he could be because today was the day. He was finally brave enough to reach the rail.

Stifling his sobs, Joshua pulled his looped limbs free and squared his shoulders. With a trembling hand, he reached out and grabbed the top bar of the railing that stood at head-height. His foot slipped over and over until it found purchase on a lower bar. From there it was easy to get the other foot up. And then the hard part. Joshua leaned forward, putting his weight on his arms, getting his knee high as his left foot came up to the top bar and over. Wasn't comfortable, but his other foot was almost over now.

As ocean waves wracked tiny tremors through the massive ship, Joshua leaned ever more forward on the precipice. And his tears finally stopped. The wind went silent, he was at a point of perfect peace and equilibrium.

The fall seemed easy. Easier than going on with his life after that night. Others in his family had died after all, not just their mother. He was raised around death and his only resentment at the moment was the method. The past few weeks, he’d imagined something more meaningful: jumping in front of a bullet to save his brother. Or a stranger. Ending with a modicum of meaning to his life.

Now he realized those were two different motivations. He was free to leave this life on his own terms. To just disappear. His family would be sad, but that would be temporary. And even during that grieving period, he wouldn’t be around as a burden. Joshua was saving them from hurt.

He began to list forward.

"You idiot!"

A handful of the back of his shirt yanked backwards and evened out his momentum between safety and death. And then a small arm crooked around his neck and yanked him backwards, sending him tumbling onto the walkway. He hit the ground between his shoulders and uncurled to see his sister, Avonly, glaring down at him.

She was just over a year his junior. Blond hair, brown eyes that matched Joshua's own. She wasn't the angry one in the group of sisters—typically.

"Idiot," she repeated. "Ms. Agassa said that the fall would kill you, you know.”

Joshua shriveled like a wheel bug on concrete under the midday sun, curling in on himself there on the metal grating. Shame and fear flushed over him even as he felt a profound sense of relief swirling in his gut. It was confusing; embaressing. He tried to tuck his head into his body. "I'm fine. It's fine now."

Avonly wouldn't hear it. She grabbed him by his wrist and tried wrenching him to his feet. There would be a brief period of eight months in a couple years time where she would be both taller and stronger. For now, Joshua got to his feet on his own volition.

"You're hurting my wrist," Joshua moaned.

"Good."

 

Down stair wells, past kitchens and living spaces. Past a couple hallways of crew quarters into the dregs of the ship. Their quarters were as good as anyone’s except the captain, location aside. They surely could have gotten some storage space for cheaper, cots or hammocks strung out even further below, but Agassa wasn’t cheap. She paid bribes worth more than blood to both the holders of these rooms and the sailors those men would now have to bunk with.

With one final “Ow!” Joshua felt her grip loosen as she shoved him onto the bed.

“You,” she emphasized the word with both her finger and the entirety of her being, “stay here. I’m getting Ms. Agassa.”

Avonly skipped out and Joshua fell back, too exhausted to even worry what that conversation would entail. He stared at the ceiling and tried to detect the rock of the ship but could not. He hadn’t grown used to it, a ship this size didn’t budge unless a storm was brewing. He would have pulled further inwards and ruminated if he hadn’t caught another one of the newly named “Rasgard Siblings” staring at him from a crack in the door.

Almae ‘Rasgard’ was Kael’s full sister through and through. In any quantifiable way, Joshua would have called them carbon copies, twins born years apart. Despite this, Joshua and Almae never had the same rapport as Joshua and Kael. Three years apart meant more to a ten-year-old and a seven-year-old than later on. By the time ‘later on’ came, the moment was lost.

“What do you want?”

Almae remained silent, only half of her face showing. Joshua refused to ask again, putting them at a stalemate.

“You’re very sad,” the seven-year-old said. She slunk forward, tiptoeing into the room. He looked behind her, expecting to see their other sister, Noel, but she wasn’t there. Much like Joshua and Kael, those two were only apart on days ending in the letter z.

“We’ve all been sad,” Joshua said. True enough.

“She wasn’t your mother and you’re sad.”

The words stung like an accusation. “How many times did I call her mom? How many times was I invited to live with you guys?”

Almae didn’t seem to hear the words. She listlessly walked across the room until she reached the bed, at which point she stepped up and then over Joshua, putting herself by the porthole window. “You’re more sad than I am. It doesn’t seem. . . fair.” Almae turned on Joshua with her dark, coal black eyes. “Do you think something is wrong with one of us?”

Joshua bit his lip and refused to answer that one.

“I think I’m mad.”

“Mad at who?” Joshau stammered.

Almae blinked several times, blindsided by this question. Perhaps her first realization that anger could be sublimated, directed at someone who didn’t cause it. “Kael,” she answered curtly after comprehending the question.

“Kael?” Joshua asked, an immediate nod from his sister.

“You spent more time with Kael than me. Kael spent more time with Mom than me. We left home because of Kael; we’re on this boat because of Kael.”

“He’s your brother.”

No amount of words broke his sister’s scowl; she only looked back to the waves. “Ms. Agassa keeps telling me you’re my brother now, that won’t stop me from getting mad at you either.

Joshua looked to the open door, secretly hoping that Agassa would storm into the room, yell at him, beat him, any punishment other than this. But no one came, no footfalls rang down the metal hallways. It felt like a ghost ship with nowhere to turn to but the recent past.

            “I--,” Almae started, but thought better and stopped. “You know the best memory I have of my mother? She took me and Kael on a vacation—the one time she didn’t let you come.”

            “That was last year,” Joshua said. A nod.

            “I don’t know where we went. I don’t think we left the country. There were mountains and a lake. She taught me to swim. Kael already knew how, of course, and spent the entire time trying to get Mom’s attention, showing off how much better he was than me. As if that was the point. When we came inside, she let me use my powers to light the fire. I wasn’t even allowed to train with Agassa yet, so it was the first time anyone had asked me to use my powers. I think it was the first time I used them in front of an adult without getting yelled at.”

Almae quit talking and the silence resumed.

“That’s it?” Joshua asked. The story seemed on the uneventful side for being called a story.

“Mmhm. We did other stuff, but that’s what I remember first,” Almae said. “Your turn. Tell me about your best memory with Mom. Is it better than the time you spent with your actual mother?”

“You want me to tell a story?” Joshua asked, wishing his sister would turn so he could see her face. “Why?”

“I want to know who should be sadder.”

Joshua choked on the question. He didn’t know how to answer or if it was even possible to answer. It would be easy to say that any time away from his actual mother was a vacation, but that wasn’t the part that Almae cared about. Even if she hadn’t phrased it as a competition, Joshua didn’t want to speak about their ‘shared’ mother anymore.

The thudding of shoe sole on metal echoed down the hallway with an extra third thump-thump of a cane. Looked like he’d get off answering this question; with some luck, his sister would forget entirely.

Almae heard too, stood back up and walked over Joshua again, her back a solid wall between them. As she hopped off the bed and made for the door, he could have sworn he saw a slight dampness under her eyes.

“A lot of sea spray in the air,” Joshua mumbled. He couldn’t be sure his sister heard.

“What, upon the Body of the Avhnin, were you thinking boy?”

The parts of Joshua’s body that could retract did, and he felt like he was sucking into himself again.  Agassa rounded the corner.

The sea spray choked him.

 

Joshua awoke from a dream, spitting out the saline in his mouth, expelling air from his nose to get those driblets out. He had chosen to take a bench on the outside of the ferry. The four-hour ride between Sela and Tyré appeared to be in its intermediate stage as only ocean surrounded him. He got up, stretched, and tried to let that dream go, have it melt away into a slurry of images that would feel like déjà vu within the minute.

He’d go find Kael and Emilie, but later. Right now, Joshua needed to shake that image: standing on the rail as a child. The memory was bad enough on its own, but it also dredged up older memories, and those brought him to that singular memory—to that singular night.

And where did all of that lead? Right back here. Right back to the rail in front of him. Some things he couldn’t move on from. On good days, he could forget; let it melt.