Flowers for the Sea Read online

  Her excitement has noticeably dwindled and the clutch of alarm encircles my heart. “What is it, Ket?”

  Ket doesn’t answer, just leans forward against the countertop and breathes audibly. I sit up.

  “You will be the first, Iraxi,” she says, her voice unsteady.

  “And this vexes you?”

  I watch her arms tense as she battles between truth and propriety.

  “So many have lost. Their bellies. Their children. Their lives.”

  “And why not me?” Again, she does not answer directly. “Or rather, why me?” My question curls up like my smile against her torture. I straighten my dresses and ease towards the edge of the table, letting my legs dangle and swing like a carefree child. I think of the swing my family had hanging from the willow tree on our land. The feel of the thick blades of green grass between my toes. The near-sharpness of the breeze against my face. My sister’s laugh. My mother’s playful scolding. My father’s—

  I shake my head of the useless memories. Stop the fanciful movement of my feet.

  “I often wonder the same, dear Ket,” I say, my tone much weaker than I’d intended.

  Apparently, my reveries have affected Ket enough to make her turn with pity in her eyes. Anger engulfs immediately. But I hold back. Until she speaks again.

  “It is the will of the gods, Iraxi,” she says passionately. She takes my hands in hers and I am too tired to snatch them back. Her touch is twice as tender as before, draining me of my will to escape this stinking room. “You have been blessed—”

  “You call this a blessing?” Again, my voice fails to convey my rage, and to my horror, there is a prickling sensation against my eyelids. My vision becomes blurry and Ket’s expression softens further, eyes like mine peering out from concern and, dare I say, affection. As momentary as it is, I find myself relishing the attention. The realization sobers me and I swallow the self-pity and fortify my anger, snatching back my hands. “This is an affliction. I have been damned to be a mere host to a parasite who promises not salvation but burden. This thing will be the death of me, Ket. The death of all of us.”

  Instantly, the warmth and concern from Ket drop deeper than the depths below the beast that houses us, and I shudder from the change. Revel in it.

  “You may go now,” she says, her gaze still in mine.

  Though my heart is aflutter, I cannot find the strength to smile with glee. I slide from the table onto swollen feet, roll my ankles until they enliven once more, then shift my way towards the curtain.

  I blame the pinch of regret in my belly on the parasite draining me dry.

  * * *

  I tire easily, yet rest is elusive, and I do not dream, haven’t since boarding this insipid ship.

  My hammock, once a refuge from the violent waves, now leaves impressions upon my sensitive skin, rope burns and patterned abrasions like tattoos dedicated to the new life I did not want. My sleep is dreamless and exhaustive. I have developed a distaste for it, often going days without it until I drop from the inevitable weakness that is my body.

  Still, I do not dream.

  The waves have calmed, but I do not trust it. I climb into the hammock, feeling silly as I try not to flop out of it, then settle with a makeshift pillow under my lower back, another under my neck. I wiggle and squirm until I’m out of breath and my body has had enough. Sleep takes me in increments.

  I cannot say I dream now. Perhaps this is a hiccup in memory, a gestational belch of rotting hopes and fantasies.

  But I can see him clear as day. My first and only. Amit. There, on the cliffs near my home.

  We lived away from the rest of the village, a small house on a great hill surrounded by fields of lush green grasses and four copses of fruit-bearing trees. One lime halfway up the hill, one orange right next to it, one loquat at the edge of our yard, while the last, the one closest to my windows, perfuming my childhood, adolescence, and young womanhood, was a pomerac tree, bearing only three months out of the year. Its deep, ruby red skin covering stark white, tender, sweet flesh was a treat I’d nauseate myself on summer after summer.

  Until it stopped.

  I watch the first tree blacken and shrivel before me, witness as its death infects the others rapidly, almost angrily pulling it towards the still-lush, still-green grass. I have no idea as to why this is happening while all other life continues to flourish around me, around us.

  Amit.

  I turn from him, hoping to capture fruit, only to grasp at disease. In seconds, the entire copse is gone, shrunken and hugging its remains against a tiny patch of charred soil. Behind the dead copse lies my house. What had started as a hut built by the broad back of my grandmother grew by my father’s hands into a cottage, sprouting a second storey when me, then my sister, then my brother were born. My sister and I shared quarters the size of my room on the ship. Back then, I’d complained of suffocation. Now, I choke on the emptiness.

  A slice of heat sears a line of pain just above my right brow. I hiss, my fingertips dabbing at the offending cut only to come back dry, my brow whole, the residual ache pulsing its way deeper into my skull. The tap of a pebble against glass forces me to look up and into the window of the room my sister and I shared, and it is then I see it. Them. Like fish heads bobbing in a milky stew.

  My brother, his tiny brown face devoid of the inane joy he carried with him like a scent.

  My father. Burnt caramel poured smooth over a stature so strong, so ramrod straight-backed, he intimidated those feet taller.

  My sister. Fine-boned. Willowy. The very thought when grace is uttered.

  My mother. Sweet goddess among us, my mother.

  I fall to my knees as they huddle against the window, faces stoic, yet hands slapping against the spun-glass pane. Pale palms fold into black fists as the room behind them ignites. I stare. I stare, wide-eyed and mouth agape, not a word, not a breath easing past mine lips. Silence has rendered me stupid as my brother’s skin bubbles and pops, as my father morphs into ash, my sister’s face melts like loose wax away from wet muscle, and my mother . . .

  My mother stops pounding. Presses her palm to the glass. Her eyes in mine.

  She is saying something, her thick lips, lips like mine moving with the conviction mine lack. I can see the clean ivory of her teeth, the pink of her fat tongue as words form, but for the love of these godsless skies, I cannot hear her.

  “Mother,” I whisper.

  And then she is gone. Along with my brother, my father, my sister.

  The house folds around them, the fire neatly snuffed as the first storey eats the second and the ground swallows it all.

  Behind it all is a sunset so hot, yet so beautiful, I gag on its radiance.

  A hand clasps my shoulder, but I do not turn.

  His lips brush mine ear as he says, “I have loved you as long as I’ve waited and I wait for no one, nim. They want your blood. I shall deny them no longer.”

  He is not Amit. I know him, I despise him, but like a wisp of smoke on a foggy morning, his name escapes my consciousness, bobbing below before I can grasp the meaty letters.

  I turn. And I awaken with a gasp.

  To dream of my family was enough, of Amit too much, of him a sin to my personal doctrine, but it is the stab of pain in my side that has truly awakened me.

  Nausea pushes me from the hammock in a sloppy thud against my knees. The impact rattles deep in my gut and I hiss through the cage of my teeth, stifling a holler no one would hear, regardless of its strength. I balance myself against the bunk and stand, bit by agonizing bit. I waddle from my quarters, thinking of rushing to Ket, but a sudden wave of shame burns enough for me to change course, heading up the winding staircase towards the light of day. The hum of afternoon prayers teases renege, until a fresh twinge seizes a muscle along the left side of my belly and encourages me upwards. I am nearly light-headed from lost breath when I am finally above. I spread my legs and bend over, my hands on my knees, waiting for the cramp to pass, but it worsens
instead. A groan leaves me before I can bite it back.

  Whispers replace chanting, yet no one approaches until Amit stands from his patch of cloth and rushes to my side, a callused hand on my lower back, his thumb finding the single hole amongst my dresses to caress my skin. I shudder at the contact, close my eyes, breathe as deeply as my belly will allow.

  “Are you well, Iraxi?” Amit asks, and I’m tempted to knock his knee out of place.

  “I will be,” I say instead. “Give me a moment.”

  He shifts away but does not release his hold and I’m thankful to the point of tears. Yet I say nothing and wait until the moment has passed before standing upright and shirking his touch. It ignites something in me I find harder to ignore, the longer he is in contact. The feeling is not new; Amit has always managed to awaken me, even back on land where we played as children and sneered at one another as teens. But it is not a welcomed feeling for me. I feel . . . unmoored. Uncertain in my movements and thoughts and expressions. Dulled yet acute at the same time.

  It puzzles me that I still feel this way, years in.

  But I don’t like to hurt him so I move away, stay away from him as often as I can. Including now, scurrying towards the other end of the boat, to the bleached oak sun chairs situated at its rear, where the most breeze would be on even the most still of days.

  I don’t make it.

  Hirat stands in my way, once-thick and -corded arms crossing his once-barrel chest. He is a shadow of his physical self, but his ego still supersedes any perceived physical weakness. He silently commands this boat, directs inhabitants with a mere nod of his head, a twitch of an eye, like now. That silence pushes at the weakness in Amit, and I am left cold yet again. It is a sensation I should be most acquainted with Amit, yet and still I find myself fighting the sting behind my eyes.

  A rise from the cloth in Hirat means prayers are over, despite the lack of an offering. He strikes fear into these people, all of them. Except in me. Perhaps his irritation with me begins with the acquiescence to the power I hold, the power to crumble nations and now the power to save our humanity. Perhaps he hates me just as much as I hate him. Yet and still, I feast on his vulnerability, on the tears he cries while still inside me.

  That softness is what I want. I want to destroy him. And destroy him, I still can.

  “You should not be here, my dear Iraxi,” he says, the endearment like spoiled meat on his tongue. His face sours as he meets my gaze. “The sun is too bright.”

  “I need air, Hirat,” I say, standing taller. The forced position irritates the twinge and I wince. Hirat reaches for me, but I back away in time. “My quarters stifle me.”

  A range of irritation flashes across Hirat’s pretty face and I staunch a smile. Oh, yes, he is still pretty. Always will be, I fear. The alpine cuts of his cheeks and jawline. The pout of his delicious lips. The strong, wideset nose. Mop of dark full curls blowing in the soft breeze. The curls I’d had in my grip two weeks ago as he pumped into me mercilessly. The last time we’d rutted.

  But I do not miss him. My hatred of him has blossomed into disgust.

  Yet my body betrays me as he tugs me to his side, dragging me away from the others who’ve gathered around to ogle at my affliction. Or, even worse, continue to pray to a god long dead.

  “Has Ket seen to you?”

  My attempt to reclaim my arm and volition is met with an angry tightening of my lower belly. I want to cry out, but Hirat’s grip rivals with my pride, the only thing I have left. We’re nearly halfway across the boat when I look behind us to see Amit still watching rather intensely. I wonder briefly what he thinks of this display, what he thinks of the roundness of my womb, what fills it. Does he wonder about me too? About me and Hirat and what it has or hasn’t produced?

  “Has she?” Hirat’s hold tightens and I look away from Amit.

  “Yes,” I say, breathless. Between the pain and the forced walk, my strength is dwindling fast.

  “And what has she said?”

  The muscle tightens like a band being wound from the middle of my back, its span at the base of my belly, pulling, pulling, spreading until breathing is nearly impossible.

  “What did she say, Iraxi? I don’t have time for your games!”

  The pain sharpens and my eyes roll into the back of my skull. I struggle for breath.

  “Is the child ready? Will it be born healthy?”

  It feels like slivers of ice, diffusing from my navel and crawling over my flesh, digging deep and hard until there is a distinct spasm within the cavern of my womb.

  The child. It moves!

  As if to confirm, a stone rotates its way across my guts, shifting organs, pushing bits out of its way. I spit up and fall forward, Hirat falling with me, catching me.

  “Iraxi!” For the first time, he sounds concerned for me, not just for this child, but for me, for the spasms wracking my body, for the guttural sounds emanating from me. “Iraxi, please! Speak to me!”

  But I can’t. The stone has tripled in size, spawned in equal parts until they’re not, the largest pushing upwards and against my stomach. I spit up again.

  And mine eyes are opened against mine will.

  It is then I see it; thick, muscled tendrils the colour of fresh purple bruises rising upwards from the blue-green ocean, hovering, crowding all sides of the boat, ready to cave in and crush us, yet holding fast. Waiting.

  From above, a bird thrice the size of our finest vessels, black enough to blot out the sun, casting a chill over my entire being that makes my very soul tremble. Bright, marble eyes stare down at me, the same purple of those tendrils swirling in the hard glass globe of the orb. It opens its beak and releases a caw loud enough to draw blood from my ears.

  I let out a scream to match.

  “What is it? Iraxi, please!” Hirat pleads with me as my voice goes harsh. He doesn’t stop my scream, doesn’t clamp a hand over my mouth like the few times we’d rut so hard, I’d nearly cry out.

  He just holds me. Close. To his chest. Takes my weight as my knees fail, guides us both to the freshly scrubbed planks. Holds me tender. Caresses my face. And damn my eyes, but they sting again and I think of the one time, the once we did not rut but we made something like love.

  I’d avoided him for days afterwards. But he found me again. Or I sought him. I don’t remember.

  “Speak to me, my love. Please,” he begs, and I feel a shift, a pressure emanating from behind us. A pulse of anger, of jealousy. I feel it lick at my flesh and the child moves towards it, shoving organs, shoving me out of the way to press against my already-tight skin. I feel as though I could burst from my side, my skin burning until it cools mysteriously, like the numbing prelude to a gory finish. I suck at the sky, white light threading through my vision, my back arching off the wood.

  Hirat’s long dark hair brushes my cheek, curls looser than mine tickle my nose, his desperate whispers prickling my ears. The sensations pull me from the painful haze, my eyes focusing on the upside-down images ahead of me and Hirat, whose lips have now taken to brushing against my neck. I see Amit standing there, fists tight and at his sides, his eyes on the contact of Hirat’s mouth to my skin.

  The child rams upwards, stretching my navel, splitting the skin in a fine line straight up and down the hill of my belly, stopping at sternum and mons, the pale cream of chunky fat visible just before the blood pours forth.

  It is not fact, but justification, the only one I can imagine for this amount of agony.

  This must be death! I want to sing its hymn, draw it nearer, yet I have no strength left to yell out, and the black I so desperately wish for only flirts with the edges of my vision.

  “Iraxi!” A high-pitched whine obscures the rest of his words as he screams in the direction of the others while I, in turn, am mesmerized by the look of him, by his passion, his desperation as he commands those around us for my benefit.

  The child reaches for him, opening me further.

  I feel each digit of those pronounced
fingers as they roll against my muscle. Feel one point up. And dig.

  “Iraxi, stay with me, love, stay with me,” he says, stroking my face, his ragged fingernails pulling at the few hairs exposed from the edges of my headwrap, the few hairs left upon my scarred head and at once I yearn for the taste of him. I want to ask, but the hymns still fail me. I want to laugh at my foolish desire to die, giggle at how simple and naïve it was before this moment.

  Somehow, I know death will not be my release.

  I am lifted into the air and the child falls against my spine, my muscles contracting around the movement. Like the time of my bleeding, yet worse. The sky, now blue and empty of the giantess bird, slips away from me as I am taken under, winding and turning and twisting until we’re at the very bottom, rushing towards that mildewed partition, and I feel the hot burn of spit-up as it raises up and out and back into my nostrils.

  I do not want this. I do not want the stinking dark corner of this boat. I want the air, the too-bright sun, the overwhelming salt smell of the bloody sea riddled with overripe fish and decaying brittle bones.

  The child demands it. Physically. Reaching for it. And for what the child wants, my body begs for the sweet release of its command by utterly and wholly supplying its wish.

  Hirat places me on the table, wipes at my face with a stinking cloth, and Ket drifts above me, all disappointment and anger and resentment from just moments before gone, replaced with something I don’t immediately recognize.

  “Iraxi, what is it you’re feeling?” she asks, her voice hardly steady.

  I open my mouth, yet nothing escapes but sour breath and a pathetic wheeze.

  “She hasn’t spoken since the scream—” Hirat begins to report.