Sarah Driver - Sea

‘Mouse, you witless sculpin!’ Grandma scolds, but laughter sparkles in her eye. ‘Don’t unsettle her so!’

I rush to her and grip her arm, peering at the hawk’s spiky feathers and up-to-no-good face. She’s got yellow eyes and a white crest like spilt sea-foam. She stares at me but no words come yet. I can sense the beast-chatter in her, though, and it stirs the wild-crackle in my blood.

‘Can I take her?’ I gasp, opening my palms.

‘Gently,’ Grandma says.

The fledgling settles her feathers against my skin and cosies her face up to my neck. It tickles and makes me laugh. Her heart drums wild against my frozen palms.

‘My granddaughter has claimed her thirteenth moon, and will take her place by my side at the next great Tribe-Meet!’ announces Grandma. ‘Let it be known the fire spirits named her hawk Thaw-Wielder.’

Folk begin to cheer, howl and clap. Sparrow wanders up to me and scuffs his boot against the boards. ‘She ent even half as good as Thunderbolt.’ His moonsprite flits around his head, shedding moondust into his hair. Her light shows up the jealousy in his wrinkled nose and stubborn chin.

I open my mouth to tell him what I think of that stupid moonsprite when Thaw-Wielder poos down my cloak. Sparrow laughs so hard he bashes into the mast.

How much of that stuff have you got in there? I ask the bird.

She stares at me and makes a soft peep that nearly sounds like lotslotslots .

Grandma smiles. ‘It’s good to hear the wildness of the beast-chatter in your throat, my girl. This hawk is lucky to have you.’

Heart-pride blazes in my chest. But I wish, fierce as anything, that Da could be here to greet Thaw-Wielder with me.

Tonight Grandma’s let me sleep out on deck with my sea-hawk, in the hammock Da uses when he takes the watch. Thaw-Wielder tucks her beak into her feathers and her sides rise and fall with tiny beast-breath. The only other life out here is the night-watchmen and the creatures lurking below the starlight-silvered sea.

In the light of the Hunter’s Moon I cradle the carving of our ship in my hands. Grandma’s words echo around my brain. There’s Stag’s blood in the Huntress , too.

Worms , croons Thaw sleepily. I fetch a pink wriggle-treat out of my pocket and she slurps it up. Wormswormsworms.

The tiny model of the ship has all three masts and jutting sticks for oars, though some of them must’ve snapped off. This ship belongs to me and my kin , I whisper to the snoozing hawk. Not that Stag. The wind rises and gusts suddenly, filling the sails, and the Huntress speeds along like she agrees with me.

I’m about to put the carving back in my belt pouch when my finger brushes a knotted lump in the wood at the base of the tiny fore-mast. I pluck at it. Thaw, lend me your beak and you can have lots more worms. Her eyes flick open and she looks where I’m pointing. She nibbles and drags at the knot with her sharp beak, and it extends into a thin cord.

Wormswormsworms? Worms? she asks, fanning out her wings and tail feathers.

Shh, wait! Frowning, I grasp the cord and pull.

My breath lodges in my throat like a fishbone. Beautiful, silken white blooms unfurl, attached to the miniature masts. They’re little white sails. My eyes fill with tears. We were meant to add the sails together, Da and I, but he must’ve finished the job without me.

I turn the carving over to look at the other side and suddenly I sit bolt upright, heart hammering. Thaw bursts into the rigging with a shrill hoot.

Etched in spidery squid ink around the edges of the sails are runes, delicate enough to look like decoration to eyes less sharp than mine. My eyes follow the symbols:

KEEP THIS HIDDEN, LITTLE-BONES.

I CANNOT RETURN, THERE IS GRAVE DANGER.

SEEK THE SCATTERED STORM-OPALS OF SEA, SKY AND LAND, BEFORE AN ENEMY FINDS THEM AND USES THEM TO WIELD DARK POWER.

TAKE THEM TO THE GOLDEN CROWN BEFORE ALL TRIANUKKA TURNS TO ICE, TRAPPING THE WHALES BENEATH A FROZEN SEA.

REMEMBER THE OLD SONG? THE SONG WILL MAKE A MAP.

KEEP YOUR BROTHER CLOSE BY YOUR SIDE, AND KNOW YOU’RE NEVER ALONE.

I WILL FIND YOU WHEN I CAN.

DA.

My heart flutters like a wild thing. A message from Da – I knew he was alive! Then his message starts to settle about me like a heavy cloak. The Storm-Opals are real? I thought they were just part of a story! My mind tries to catch hold of this new knowing, but it’s too big. There’s so much power in them Opals, Thaw! The story says they can bring all the Tribes together in peace, if they’re returned to the crown. How’d they end up scattered? And how am I meant to find them?

My eyes gobble the runes over and over. Wasn’t I just pondering the meaning of winning that ice-rune this morning and now here’s this message, talking about ice again!

Thaw-Wielder zooms down to land on my knee and stares up at me. Da used to sing me the old song , I tell her. But that was many Hunter’s Moons ago, when I was little. I search my mind, but I can’t remember the words.

She pecks my ear with her cold beak. Lift throat-warble to sky!

Reckon she’s telling me to sing, but I frown and shake my head. I don’t know the words, Thaw. And anyway, singing ent my strong point, mostly cos the beast-chatter clogs my ears all the time.

I pull the cord from the other side and the tiny sails collapse and disappear back inside the carving. I’ve got to keep Da’s message secret. Bear’s right; Da did leave the carving as a trail!

Trail! Old song. Worms? she peeps.

I stow the ship in my belt pouch and pull the furs up to my chin as I sway gently in the hammock, feeding worms to the sea-hawk.

For hours I lie awake and stare at the full moon, etching Da’s message onto my memory. I don’t mind keeping it hidden – for once I can have a secret, just for me. But how can a song be a map? And what kind of danger has kept Da from coming home?

When my eyelids grow heavy I’m restless. I know I should settle my bones good and proper, cos otherwise my spirit’s gonna pull free and fly through the night in a dream-dance. That’s what happens if my mind can’t stay still.

As I slip into the dreaming world, my spirit tugs against my body. Fright pangs beneath my skin; I fight, but it’s too late. I climb out of my sleeping self, cold night air brushing my spirit. I flit away from the hammock and fly below decks. Something drags me like the tide, towards Da’s cabin. But when I reach the door the din almost shocks me back to my body.

A man shouts and cries out like a frighted bab. I drift inside and the stranger’s there, asleep in Da’s bunk. A candle burns by his bedside – is he afraid of the dark? He thrashes and yells. ‘Lost. Dark. No! Gone. Almost had them. But I’ll find them again, can’t have been for nothing—’ Then he startles awake and stares about him for a long moment. ‘Who’s there?’ he barks. But he can’t see me, cos only my spirit is there, dream-dancing.

Darkness falls earlier every night, now this fearsome winter’s stirring. I watch through the porthole as the Huntress prowls past a stretch of ice-flats. These skinny sea-paths through the ice are perilous, cos the land-lurking Fangtooth Tribe rule this place with terror.