Flowers for the Sea Read online

  “I do not,” I finally say.

  “I heard you.”

  My smile spreads into a grin. Odd satisfaction fills my center. “Did you hide in the beans?”

  I hear him take a step towards me, yet I still do not turn around. The heat at my back competes with the setting sun ahead of me, of us. I am almost giddy.

  “I loved you once,” he says, and I find myself falling under the weight of his confession. My belly feels heavy, my shoulders as if I carry a grown man upon them. I close my eyes as the stinging begins. He takes another step and a shudder runs through me. Slowly.

  The child does not move.

  “I would have loved you forever, Iraxi,” he continues.

  I want him to stop, need him to fall silent before he says something foolish. More than he already has.

  “Our intimacy has stayed with me—”

  “Seal your mouth, Amit, before I slap you in it,” I snap, facing him. He recoils from me, black eyes wide, left arm raised as if I’d rain upon him in a flurry of strikes. “You did this. You. You denied me. I wanted you with the heat of a thousand lashes and you denied me. How dare you speak of love, you coward.”

  And it returns, the anger, the exposed teeth of betrayal, of, dare I say, heartache. The all-encompassing rage that has been my companion since climbing aboard this boat, my sole yet comporting ruck since this wretched affliction was cast upon me.

  My curse. Rendered for all to reap.

  I allow the heat of my fury wash over me, let it empower me, my limbs nearly floating with it, my heart pounding in my chest—my child hot within my womb. It moves angrily, scraping at my innards, shifting everything out of its way.

  Then stills.

  I feel no pain. My fury numbs it.

  There is a heaviness between my legs, running thick and warm down my thighs. A gust of wind presses my shift against me tighter, the viscous liquid acting as glue.

  “Iraxi—” Amit breathes, eyes wildly searching my face down to my apex and back again several times over.

  “Go,” I growl, stepping forward. The once is enough as Amit scrambles towards the hatch.

  My child shudders within me, mimicking my heart, then rushes forward, reaching for the sea, for the depths below, and I am close to obliging it. I grip the railing, preparing to swing one leg over when the splatter of a heavy wet hits the deck.

  The seizure to my middle hits hard and fast. I stumble backwards, my knees going loose, my feet losing purchase, and I’m floating until my back slams into splintered wood. Legs spread wide, blustery winds lift my dresses, expose me, split me. My smell lifts into the air and I gag, its strength contesting, beating the pungent sea.

  I push.

  It is pure instinct. Pure agony. Pure wrath.

  I push with everything in me, ignoring the sensation of being split apart. The stone moves forward with my coaxing, though I feel hardly effective. It moves on its own, with its own determination to lick at the salty air. I feel its arms reaching forward, spreading to make room. I feel it stand. I double forward with it, clawing at the air until my nails scrape at wood. I am on all fours, buttocks high in the air until the child wheels back, pushing me along with it. I sit on my haunches and throw my head back, mouth puckered for the darkening sky.

  More liquid hits the wood, yet I cannot see its consistency. It is warm against the chilling winds and I welcome it as I hug myself, not for affection but against the shiver. Call forth more with each push. The light of the sun slips away with haste, as if shying away from witnessing this birth. I do not blame it. The pressure, not the pain of the gore between my legs, has me laughing near hysteria, my cries erased by the growling sea. I feel my perineum come apart.

  And feel an arm extend. Its hand reaches up, slaps against the mound of my belly, fingers clasping for purchase.

  Then release.

  I stop pushing, let my hands fall against the wood, back to all fours. Let the boat rock my weakened body into complete submission. Night has fallen. Not a star in the sky to reveal myself to anyone or anything. Even the moon has forsaken me.

  The child finishes its own birth. I feel it plop heavily from between my thighs against the same planks my knees and palms dig upon. Hear the damp, thickened wheezing. Then a tiny cough.

  It is my time! I must break free!

  Silly with delusion, I walk on my hands, crawling awkwardly towards the bow, towards the end, mouth agape and leaking like a sick mutt. But my zeal is cut short by my own fragility, my body failing me. I fall to my side, my thighs taking the child with me, my shift still hiding it from view. I have no desire to see it.

  Breathing heavy, I close my eyes. The sight does not change. Darkness against darkness. But this is wrapped in a heady softness. I want to curl into it, curl into myself and let myself waste away in the womb of dark, wet velvet. What I hope to be the ease of death. I welcome it.

  Until I feel prodding.

  I split my legs once more and I feel pressure, an encouragement to my right until I am rotated fully onto my back. That I cannot assess if it is my volition or the insistence of this child chokes me with a flare of panic. Featherlight touches flirt with my skin here and there. A kiss to my thigh, a whisper to my mons, a poke to the cavern of my belly button. Then the distinct feel of something sitting atop my protruding stomach. I open my eyes.

  Only to be nearly blinded by the brilliance shining from atop my belly.

  My eyes adjust and it is then I see it. Her. My child. Sitting, back straight, feet tucked inward, eyes in mine. Swirling, glowing, bright purple without an iris to tame it. The swirls thicken, elongate, stretch beyond the barrier of the jelly to reach towards me, one from each eye. Straight ahead, they pause in their pursuit to embrace the globes of my breasts, initiating ministrations against my nipples, squeezing and kneading, the ache incomparable to my belly but annoying nonetheless.

  Until there is sweet release, rivulets of pale milk lazily crowding the dip between my breasts.

  The tendrils split yet again into four and continue forward, two caressing my cheeks, wiping my tears as the last stand tall, then pause above my eyes. They sharpen to the points of well-honed daggers, the gleam of their ends edging closer.

  The child giggles.

  And I scream.

  PART V: IMPRINT

  “GET HER AWAY FROM ME!”

  “Iraxi, please!”

  “No!”

  “You must calm down!”

  “Take her below! Infection is imminent. Wrap the child, Xira; keep her warm!”

  “No! Throw her to the depths! Leave her for the razorfangs. She will kill us all!”

  Amit had not fled from me but had gone to find help. He’d arrived with more onlookers than assistance, Hirat commanding the scene once he surfaced. Nonetheless, my panic bested him and his attempts to mollify it. When Ket arrived at his side, betrayal fueled my panic. Moving quickly, she cuts the tie between me and the child.

  “She is a daemon!” I insist as two men take hold of my legs. I kick at them, shove them off. My strength is remarkable, considering my insides are falling out of me. “She will destroy us.”

  “Is there anything to calm her? We cannot take her below like this!”

  “Remove the child, I said! Bring her to the bottom; she must be fed!”

  I shut my eyes against the chaos, wish for stillness, wish for the fate of my dead birthingfolk in labour. But I hear the child’s cries and terror fills me again. My eyes fly open and my limbs resume their desperate thrashing.

  “Kill her! Fling her to the seas of which she belongs!” I plea desperately. I hear several clicking tongues, admonishment and disgust all at once besting their justified fear of the darkness. They find comfort in judgment until the first screech pierces the air.

  Razorfangs.

  An elder’s arm is snatched clean from its socket before anyone moves towards the hatch. I holler into the dark, the call unrecognizable to mine ears. Yet it encourages something. There is a great crash fr
om the condemned end of the boat, the sharp crack of splitting wood pausing eavesdroppers’ need to flee. They all stare above me, beyond me and my bleeding body. Their eyes widen and I feel the air rush past us, the stench of death and salt heavy within it.

  I close my eyes. Breathe deep. And I feel it.

  I feel the height of it, the oil-slick plume of its hide. The insatiable hunger.

  My jaws snap shut just as the razorfang releases a call, a guttural, nasally squawk trilling the sky so loudly, every living thing deafens, muffled into a ringing silence.

  And the razorfang begins to stomp.

  “Below. Now.” The remaining passengers jolt awake. It is Hirat who commands this, and no one disobeys or hesitates. The larger of the two men who’ve wrangled me throws me over his shoulder, a grunt his only complaint as gore soaks through his clothing.

  We descend quickly, the wall of a man barreling our way down with hardly any regard to those ahead of us. People trip and others assist, but the line between selflessness and chaos becomes thinner with each rushed step. Ket is behind us, asking questions I can barely hear. The child is not with her, yet I can feel its nearness, its readying breath as panic begins to boil over around us.

  She, my child, she screams. A short burst, yet full, encompassing. Impossible for a fresh-born.

  And at once, the sounds of destruction cease. Yarrow pauses on the steps and I swing in tandem, drained and useless. My vision blurs as my eyes roll upwards, catching glimpses of the worn wooden steps, of mine blood staining them. Of more dripping from the tips of my naked, filthy toes. I watch one fall just before Hirat bellows above us while shutting the hatch.

  “BELOW, YARROW.”

  There is no pause in the big man now, but the jostling is too much for my wounded middle.

  The dark claims me just after the first storey.

  * * *

  We are floating dead.

  The power gears have been silenced, the quiet bleeding throughout the belly, and each deck is lit rather infuriatingly with small clusters of candles. The yawning dark beyond that dreadful moulding sheet.

  I blink once, twice, and see no difference. A flicker in the corner of the room snatches my attention, but my head, my body is slow to react. I lift my left hand, then the arm and stare at both until they are in focus. My left side, high up near my breast, aches and I am sticky with fluids. By the dark splashes, I am guessing most of it is blood. I feel myself clench and I am rewarded with a shriek of agony so bright, I can do nothing but gawp at the stiff air around me, lips smacking as they meet, then separate, meet, then peel apart.

  I am thirsty.

  “You are awake.”

  She is much less amused with me now, less patient. I have, after all, served my duty. Soon, it will be time for them to execute whatever plan it is they’ve conjured. I settle onto the wooden table, tired and ready to accept it all, lest it be death, I welcome it all the more.

  When the pain returns.

  This time, I shriek along with it, bolting upright enough to see Ket’s head betwixt my spread legs, shadows dancing along the smooth planes of her face as the candle below singes my hairs.

  “Keep still, Iraxi,” she grunts. “I am nearly done.”

  To push her point, she jabs the needle through my sensitive flesh again and I fall back to the wood, hands fisting around the edges. I bite my lips to stifle further morsels of her satisfaction, stabbing them tighter with each loop of the sutures. I do not know when she began nor the extent of the wound, therefore I don’t know when she’ll finish. I flatten my lower back to the table and I hear her kiss her teeth. A smile flirts with my gummy mouth.

  “Keep. Still.” Her hand holds my hip as if to command it into place. I want to scoff, but keeping silent has exhausted me. “She tore you good.” Amusement curls her words against my agony. Again, I nearly smile. “I’ve never witnessed such a rip. Six ways, Iraxi. Deep. To the muscle.” She is relishing in this recounting. For once, Ket understands me more than she wishes.

  “You’ve never witnessed any rip, dearest Ket,” I whisper. “Remember: I am your first. And most likely your last.”

  The room becomes electrified as I feel her breathing hiss against me. Instead of words, Ket retaliates with a particularly vicious stitching, one that even I can’t stay silent for.

  “I am finished,” she says before backing away and taking the candle with her. “Breathe slow and deep. I must clean the wound.”

  “Why bother?” I mutter instinctively.

  Ket stops fussing about the saltwater buckets and turns towards me. I keep my head turned away, my eyes searching for the fourteen holes in the mouldy sheet. The darkness closes in on the both of us as she holds her silence, yet I can taste her tongue as it rolls around her mouth, pushing back the fury, the hatred she’s had for me since the beginning. Since before.

  Go on, I dare her through the darkness. Go on and say it, my sweetest Ket. Fall in line with the rest of your kind. Call me what has been beating in your breast before you were even born.

  But instead she says, “We must keep you alive for the sake of the child. She will need your milk and your warmth for the next few weeks, at least. We . . .” She sighs and it is heavy with regret. “We do not have the nutrition necessary for a newborn to live beyond . . .”

  She fails to find the words, so I reward her honesty with the painful truth.

  “You want her to develop as healthily as possible, to become an eventual contributor. Perhaps even leader?” I say. I slowly turn my head, and this time, I cannot deny the smearing of a grin. “You want to ensure she is not useless, not a burden, isn’t that it?”

  The candle shakes in her hand, the glow catching the glassiness of her eyes. Eyes like mine. Eyes in mine. A single tear falls as her lips peel back but before she can release the cry of a banshee, the slur among it, the sheet is flung back with such flair, it tears from three of its rungs. The darkness feeds on our greed as the figure stomps into the room, Yarrow’s face finally revealed when he is nearly upon Ket and disappointing us both.

  “I must return her to her quarters. The baby awaits,” Yarrow grunts. My blood and fluids still stain his frock, and he is beginning to stink of it. Of me. I wonder idly if Hirat had given him the hasty directive.

  Ket calms herself for a silent moment, actively avoiding looking at me as she says, “I must clean her first. Wait outside.”

  “A bath is already prepared for her to your specifications. She must be moved now,” Yarrow insists, stepping a bit closer to Ket. Yet Ket is not shaken and I feel a spark of pride. Yarrow is a bit of a wonder on this boat, though on land, there were plenty of others his size. Muscle-bound and callused of hand, his type was never one to rely on for leadership beyond construction. Or settling brawls. He isn’t a stranger to being hired for intimidation. Once given a command, Yarrow obsesses until it is seen through. Old habits cling for sanity on this boat, and no one wants a man like Yarrow to let go.

  Ket stiffens her chin anyway, looking Yarrow in the eye. “The wound must be tended to differently, Yarrow. Her bath will be filled with blood, should you take her now, and I do not have the expertise to save her then. I must clean her, then you can take her. Now wait outside.”

  No room for negotiation. A move best for Yarrow. He lacks the capacity to think beyond an order. With a snort, Yarrow turns on his heel and tears the sheet completely from its rod, the dried palm rungs swinging uselessly in his wake. Not once did he look at me. I can’t help but feel slighted.

  “How brave of you, dearest Ket, bucking at an order like that,” I say, relaxing once more. The pain has eased into a dull throb. The deep breaths help.

  “Shut up, Iraxi,” she growls, slamming bowls and clinking jars of salve. “And don’t call me that.”

  “What?” I say, breathless. I am paying for a small chuckle in the form of eye-rolling agony. Reflexively, I clench my nether regions and I am tempted to turn to my side. The soreness stops me as sweat dots my forehead. “Do you
mean ‘dearest Ket’? But you are being such, caring for me and all, when I can practically taste your desire to throw me to the depths.”

  She stops, stiffens. But does not respond. After a moment, she returns to her mixing. Another and she’s turning to me, the candle back in one hand, a wooden bowl in the other. “This will sting, but once moulded to you, it should ease the pains in your lower belly along with your birth canal.” She sits down and scoots the stool closer. “Are you ready?”

  I do not have time to answer as the painter’s brush swipes against me, inside of me, pulling a scream from my throat so loud, I am reminded of my labour.

  Yet this pain does not compare.

  Another stroke and I am rendered silent, a lone tear racing down the side of my face as my back arches from the table, wood cracking in my grip.

  By the third swipe, I am delirious with fever, sweating profusely and muttering nonsense that even I can’t understand.

  “Thrice more, Iraxi.”

  I ignore the smile in her voice and give in to the black once again.

  * * *

  I blink once, twice, but again, it makes no difference.

  My thirst is quenched and liquid surrounds me, tepid, viscous. Up to my chin. A healing bath. One made with aloe and cactus, and I find myself amazed because I have not seen either in months, if not over a year.

  My dearest Ket holds secrets.

  I want to smile but the need to orient myself is stronger. My scalp is naked to the thick air surrounding me, a first in years, and the sensation isn’t entirely unwelcome. I sit up and find my body hugged by the liquid, nearly lovingly. My throat seizes, eyes sting. I cough at the sudden change, wincing slightly at a twinge against my ribcage, next to my left breast.

  And a dull, pulsing light tinged bright bruise-purple sets the corner of the room aglow. My room. My isolated quarters.

  Panic snatches my breath, and the bath, the room turns to ice around me. I sink back down in some sad attempt to hide myself, to hide the thick braids of keloided skin that has robbed me of my lush locks. The liquid squelches obnoxiously.