IN THREE more days’ time, all Putnam’s fresh food was gone—the bread, the fruit, even the carrots. He and Artie netted as much fish and seaweed as they could and dried them on the roof of the boat; this food would keep them going for a long time. What they needed now was more basic. Despite Putnam’s care, they were running out of water.
Putnam had lived on the ocean his whole life, and the ocean that he knew contained water—water you could drink. The idea of not being able to swallow what surrounded you—well, that was inconceivable.
But now, first gradually and then suddenly, the water was too bad to drink. Hoping he was wrong, Putnam tasted it once again, but it was so strong with salt and bitterness that he spat it out, retching.
Artie, whittling a stick into a flute, said, “Yeah. I tried it earlier this morning.”
He spat again, then took a small swig of their remaining water to clear out the taste.
“We don’t have much left,” she said.
“Maybe it’ll rain.”
“We need to find land.”
She wasn’t wrong. But as far as he could tell, there wasn’t any land nearby—which made sense, as the world was mostly ocean. The island of Tathenn—Artie’s homeland—was the biggest island in the world, as far as everyone knew. But then, Raftworld never traveled so far south; maybe there were more islands here, maybe even big ones with their own lakes and streams.
And maybe they’d happen across one.
And maybe that was one too many maybes to count on.
Artie brushed wood shavings off her lap. “Meanwhile, we should ration the water we have left.” She eyed the two jugs remaining—both of them somewhat brackish from being filled as the ocean’s taste worsened. “Or . . . we could head north.”
“No,” said Putnam. “If I’m going to figure out what’s wrong, we need to head south. Besides,” he said, trying to get his own way without sounding bossy, which was a fine line to stand on, “if people are looking for either of us, the only direction they won’t look is—”
“South,” she said. “I thought of that. No one’s looking for me. But they might be looking for you by now.” She sounded disgruntled.
“Are you wishing I’d stolen a different boat?”
She surprised him by not replying with an outright yes. “Partly. But you’re . . . not too bad. I mean, the food you brought was good. And you did think to fill the jugs of water.”
“Glad to know I’m so wanted.” Putnam could feel himself grinning. Artie was trying so hard not to sound like she liked him. But she did, at least a little. He could tell. “Well, I’m glad I got on this boat. You’re good company.”
She ducked her head. Pretended not to hear. But she did hear, and a little smile flashed across her face before her hair hid it.
LATER IN THE DAY, the sky cleared to a bright, bright blue, and the sun shone down and glinted from every wave.
They’d been at sea for five days. It had been getting colder as they headed south, but today was suddenly warm again, a last glint of summer before winter. They both lay on the deck, soaking in the rare sunshine. Artie had even shed her outer layers of clothing and was dressed only in leggings and a shirt.
For the first time since the journey had started, Putnam felt sluggish and tired, and the water stretched endlessly in every direction. Before he realized it, the boat had stopped moving.
When he took the oar to steer them back into the current, Artie was staring into the water, at a small bloom of seaweed. “Wait a bit?”
And before he could answer, she dove off the boat and disappeared.
He hadn’t wanted to stop. They should be heading south as quickly as possible. Cursing under his breath, he shoved the little craft farther out of the current and dropped the anchor. At that moment, Artie popped up with armfuls of seaweed. Putnam reached to take the plants and climbed on the cabin roof to spread them to dry. They would make good eating later.
When he finished, Artie was treading water, her wet hair pushed back. For once her whole face was visible, almost free now of bruises and filled out with close to a week of good food and sleep.
She looked—happy.
The water was shallow almost everywhere in the ocean, but here it was especially so, the anchor easily reaching the sandy bottom, which Putnam could see in the clear water. There was no coral in sight, but dark beds of seaweed dotted the ocean’s floor, and fish darted in and out of the grasses. Putnam saw a small octopus shoot from seaweed to sand, where it quickly changed color to match the floor—and disappeared from sight.
Artie dove and leapt in the water like a dolphin, rising to catch her breath and then shooting back into the water headfirst.
There was something in her face now that reminded him of the first time he’d seen her—at the bonfire. She came up again, gasping, and this time remained at the surface, swirling her arms to tread water. “Come in, the water’s fine.”
Suddenly Putnam recognized what it was that reminded him of the bonfire. Her face was lit up, glowing. At the bonfire, he’d thought it was a trick of the fire itself—that the fire had given its brightness to her as it did to anyone who came near it. But now he wondered. Maybe she had that glow inside herself, and sometimes it just leaked out—as it did now, in the warm light of afternoon, nowhere near a fire—because she was so focused on something outside herself, so alive to the world around her.
“You could have warned me before you dove off the boat,” he said. But that wasn’t what he wanted to say, which was: Why are you suddenly so happy? Why are you diving and smiling?
“Just a quick break,” she said. “Before the water gets so bad we don’t want to swim in it.”
“Sure,” said Putnam. Suddenly he felt happy, too, without being sure why. He tore off his shirt and dove in, resisting the urge to flip in the air on the way down. No need to show off.
ARTIE WAS RIGHT; the water was fine—not nearly as cold as Putnam had thought it would be, given that their nights were quickly becoming frigid.
When they both tired out, they floated near each other on their backs, faces to the last warm fingers of sun. Artie held an empty clamshell half the size of her palm that she’d found on the sand below the water. She seemed to be weighing it in her hand.
“Keepsake?” he asked, turning his head toward her to talk and hear. They were practically lying on top of the water, they were so buoyant. The sea itself was unusually still.
“I was thinking about keeping it for my luck pouch,” Artie said, studying the shell.
She wore her luck pouch even in the water—he’d never seen her take it off. “I used to think everyone on the Islands wore the pouches, but it seems like not too many people do,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s really only the southerners who dress in the old style anymore. And a few townspeople, I guess, but not many. It’s old-fashioned.”
“The governor,” he said, remembering.
She laughed, but not a nice laugh, and flicked her fingers to make a little splash. “Down south people say, the governor just wants to pretend she’s representing all of us. You know what’s probably in her luck pouch? Notes for her next meeting. She changes them out every night. And I think she keeps a comb in there, too, for fixing her hair. She’s just pretending to live by the old ways.” Artie flipped the shell on her chest and filled its tiny bowl with seawater. “But I guess she’s okay other than that.”
“She said—she’s really worried about what’s happening with the water.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. At the last big session meeting I was at.” He could feel a wave of shame wash through his body as he thought of his own dad’s reaction. “She wanted to do something about it.”
“Is that why you’re here? Because you were chosen by that council meeting to go and figure it out?”
Putnam stared up at the sky. There was not a single cloud there, not one. As if everything were clear and pure. Then he turned his head back to talk to her. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, they chose me to go.” It sounded true. And honorable. And much better than I ran away because I had a fight with my dad. Because my dad is a coward and bureaucrat.
“Wow.” Artie’s voice was suddenly smaller than usual. “That’s impressive. They must really trust you.” She sounded almost sad.
For a few minutes, they didn’t talk. Putnam thought about how the council didn’t trust him—not even enough to talk openly in front of him. As if he were only a child. And his father certainly didn’t trust him. (And now that he’d run away, Putnam certainly wouldn’t be trusted again for a long time.)
What Artie was thinking about, he didn’t know, but she was silent, too. Eventually, the two floated into each other, bumping shoulders.
Putnam was surprised—he’d almost forgotten for a moment where he was. Artie’s face, only inches away, closer than ever before, looked both tough and fragile. The bruises were almost faded away—now simply a greenish and yellowish cast under her skin. The swelling was all gone. Her face was alive with light and thought, the browns of her eyes so dark they were almost black. Close up, she was suddenly beautiful. Herself.
She stared back at him, blinked, and the spell was broken. She kicked her feet and propelled herself away, splashing Putnam at the same time. “What?” She sounded almost angry.
“Nothing.” He tried to remember what they had been talking about. “Just—well, yes, that’s why I’m traveling to the south. To find what made the sea turn salty.”
Artie’s angry look dropped off her face, and the thoughtful one came back. “There’s an Island story,” she said, swishing her arms lightly to stay up. Her legs floated out behind her. “About why the water is becoming salt.”
I never heard about this. “What is it?” And why hadn’t the governor shared it with the council?
“It’s a story I heard down south. When I lived there.” Her tone did not invite questions about her life, and Putnam didn’t ask. “One night this spring, at a bonfire. It was a new story.”
“Who told it to you?”
“A fisherman.”
Ah. Maybe someone who’d seen something. Island fisherfolk didn’t usually take their boats out far from the Island—at least, that was what Putnam had heard—but maybe this person had gone farther and found something out. Putnam was almost disappointed to think so. He wanted to be the hero.
“Do you want to hear it or not?” she asked.
“Yes. Of course.” Putnam pulled himself back to the present time and place. Everything would work out. She’d tell him something that would help him to understand what had happened. If only he’d thought to ask her sooner.
“Well, I’m not a storyteller, so I can’t make it all pretty like they can. I’ll just tell you the main points.”
“Go ahead.” He didn’t really need a story, anyway. He just needed an explanation of what had happened, and where to go to fix it.
“So. Long ago the sky and the sea didn’t touch. They were separate. There was a space of blue nothingness between them that they couldn’t cross. But the sky and the sea liked each other, and they talked across the emptiness every day. The sky would send rain down to keep the sea’s fish happy—brand-new water for them to play in and swim in and drink and breathe. The fish would come up to the surface and make little Os with their mouths, blowing kisses to the sky. And the birds—who nap each day on the giant sled that holds up the clouds—”
“The what?”
“It’s a winter story, so a sled holds up the clouds.”
“But—is the sled the blue sky? What is the sled?”
Artie pursed her lips, then said, “The sled is invisible, okay? It just holds up the clouds. So they don’t fall to the ground.” Then before Putnam could say more, she said, “It’s a story. Which you said you wanted to hear.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“So the birds heard the sky wishing to be closer to the sea. And since they could cross the nothingness, they swooped down to flutter the sea with their feet, telling the sea how much the sky loved her.
“The sky and the sea were best friends.
“But they wished for more. They wished not to be apart.
“One day the birds and the fish came up with an idea. They built a chain out of seaweed, a long rope connecting the sky and the sea, and they pulled until the two drew together, right through the nothingness, and touched. Held together by a gorgeous, thick green chain that went all the way up to the heavens and down to the bottom of the ocean. And the sky and the sea were happy.
“And then one day—”
“Wait,” said Putnam. “Will this story tell me what exactly is wrong and how to fix it? I mean, is it a real story about real things?”
Artie was quiet for a moment. “It’s a story about why things went wrong. It might not be real real. But it’s about real feelings.”
“Okay. But I mean,” Putnam said, struggling to think of how to say it, “is it true information? Or is it just—you know, a story? Like: here’s a little-kid fairy tale about the sky and how it loved the fish. Or are you going to say something useful?”
Artie was silent for a long time. Then she said, “Do you want to hear it or not?” She sounded mad, the kind of mad that gets thin tight lips, and even if he said yes, Putnam wasn’t sure she’d keep talking.
“I’m sorry. I was rude. I’d love to hear your story.”
She narrowed her eyes. “No more interrupting.”
“No more.” He crossed his hands on his chest in a promise and tried to look completely innocent.
A grin almost flashed across her face, Putnam was sure of it. Artie cleared her throat and continued. “Something went wrong. It wasn’t the birds, or the fish—it was something else, another creature, maybe even a human—no one knew exactly. But someone broke the chain that attached the sky and the sea, and the chain fell into the sea. And when the chain fell, it yanked part of the sky, and it pulled down the giant sled the clouds ride on—which is made of salt. The sled careened down the sky and landed in the sea, and it’s turning the sea to salt as it slowly disintegrates. That’s what the fisherman said. To fix it—I guess you’d have to pull the sled out of the sea.”
He stared at her. Seriously? “You know clouds don’t ride on sleds made of salt, right?”
“More like a toboggan.”
“They don’t.”
“I know that,” she said in a disgusted voice. “That isn’t the point.”
What is the point, then?
Artie was already climbing back into the boat. “It’s just a stupid story,” she said over her shoulder.
THEY DIDN’T talk the rest of that afternoon. Putnam was irritated—not angry, he reminded himself, simply irritated—that she’d told such a dumb story. That she’d told it as if it were true. Artie was, he thought, probably irritated—no, angry—that he hadn’t thought her tale was brilliant.
That night he stayed up late to navigate and star-watch, and then curled up outside the door to the cabin. Inside, a flute played quietly as he huddled to keep out of the wind. He fell asleep to its soft tones. Artie woke early, took one look at him, and told him to go inside to warm up. He slept the rest of the morning in the cabin. The heater made a big difference now that the outside was so cold.
At lunch, when both were properly awake and sitting in the cabin with their coats unbuttoned to the heat, Artie cleared her throat and said, “It’s stupid for you to freeze outside at night. You can sleep in here, too. You should.”
He felt like he should say no, but it had been so cold last night, his shins were still hurting whenever he touched them. “Are you sure?”
“I just said it, didn’t I?”
“Okay. Thanks.” Then, because he couldn’t resist trying to lighten the mood: “I appreciate you letting me in the cabin after I stowed away and all.”
“As long as you swab the deck every day.” She wasn’t smiling, but it was a joke. Not a good joke, but then again, he hadn’t given her a great deal to work with. They could improve.
“Yes, Captain,” he said.
They kept chatting, moving on to small things: Was cooked seaweed tastier than raw? What kind of bird would you want if you could have a pet bird? Things like that. And as they ate, Putnam marveled at how normal everything seemed. She talked to him like he was a friend, not someone she hated for stealing her boat, not someone she feared or admired because he was the king’s son. And he was talking to her like she was a friend, not someone who’d been beaten up and burned and starved, not someone who’d run away leaving who-knows-what behind. Just two kids having a normal conversation.
After lunch they went out on deck to check if there was anything to see—any land, any anything. There wasn’t. Just water all around, colder and colder, more and more salty, less and less friendly-looking.
Artie reached into her luck pouch and pulled out the shell, wrinkling her nose a little. She tossed it lightly in her hand and frowned.
“It’s a pretty one,” he said. It was. Even dry, the shell glistened, cream-colored with rainbows hiding in it.
She took one more look at it, then threw it in a high arc. It splashed into the water far from the boat and disappeared.
“Why’d you toss it? I mean, if it’s okay to ask.”
She chose her words slowly. “In your luck pouch, you’re supposed to put stuff that is important to you—really important—little objects you might carry around for years and years, and they remind you of the important things that happened to you or important things that you did. Good things.”
“Like what? What’s in yours?”
She shook her head.
Putnam waited.
“That’s not a polite question,” said Artie. “What’s in your luck pouch is private. Unless you choose to tell someone.”
“Oh. Sorry.” And he was. He’d just ended the longest and pleasantest talk they’d had yet.
“I’m getting cold.” Artie went back inside the cabin. The moment was over.
Putnam stayed outside for a while longer. There was truly a bite in the air.