So the sun rose and they were still alive. Petrel leaned over the edge of the basket and watched the gray sea pass slowly beneath them. Behind her, Rain fed the firepot with scraps of wood, and Bran perched on Krill’s knee, talking about goats. His brown robes had been stuffed unceremoniously in a corner of the wicker basket, and he was wrapped in the Head Cook’s jacket. Everyone else wore the mittens and scarves that Rain had dug out of that same corner.
“Where are we going?” asked Fin, who was standing beside Petrel.
“I don’t know.” She looked over her shoulder. “Rain, can you steer this thing?”
Rain shook her head. “It goes where the wind goes, unless it is tethered to a ship.”
“In that case,” said Petrel, “we’re going sou’east.”
“Nothing sou’east of here except ocean,” said Sharkey. His lip was swollen, and he’d be covered in bruises tomorrow. But for now he looked happy.
Petrel gazed out over the water. “I hope the cap’n’s safe,” she said. “I hope Mister Smoke can mend him and that they can find the Singer and—” She broke off, shading her eyes with her hand. “What’s that?”
“What?” said Fin.
“Where?” said Sharkey, coming to stand next to them.
Petrel pointed to a dent in the smooth line of the horizon. She wasn’t even sure there was anything there. It was just a smudge, slowly growing bigger …
“It’s the Oyster!” she cried.
Krill dropped Bran like a hot fish fillet and hauled himself upright. “Where?”
“There!”
“Looks like a gull to me,” scoffed the Head Cook. But his face was wreathed in smiles, and he gripped the side of the basket as if he could make it go faster.
“Our courses won’t cross,” warned Sharkey. “They’ll go west of us unless they turn.”
“No,” said Petrel. “They’ll see us.”
“They will think we are the Devouts,” said Fin.
Petrel stared at him, horrified. “Then, we’ll have to show ’em we’re not,” she said. And she began to wave and shout, though the ship was much too far away for its crew to hear her.
“Dolph!” she screamed. “Missus Slink! It’s us!” She turned to her companions. “Help me.”
They waved until their arms were almost falling out of their sockets and their voices were hoarse from shouting. But the ship continued on its course. Petrel could hardly bear it. After everything that had happened, to see the Oyster sailing straight past, not knowing who they were.
Beside her, Sharkey said tentatively, “Would they pick us up if we were in trouble?”
“What do you mean?” asked Petrel.
“I—” He flushed. “You said I was like the Devouts—”
“Not anymore,” said Petrel quickly. “I don’t think that now.”
Sharkey nodded. “But you said that your people bend to help their friends. Might they also bend to help their enemies, if those enemies were in trouble?”
“What are you thinking, lad?” asked Krill.
Sharkey said, “I thought we might go down. Land in the water.”
“But we cannot swim,” said Fin. “You are the only one—”
“The basket will float,” said Rain. “Even if it turns over, we can cling to it. But if the Oyster does not pick us up, we will be lost.”
“Aye,” said Sharkey. “That’s the idea.”
Krill’s knuckles were white. “If Albie’s in charge, he’ll go straight past. Probably laugh in our faces.”
“He can’t be in charge,” said Petrel. “If he was, the ship’d be heading south, fast as it could go. It must be Dolph or Hump, or Weddell maybe.” She gulped air. “I say we do it. It’s either that or keep flying till we run out of firewood.”
No one liked that idea. Bran stuck his thumb in his mouth, his eyes enormous. Rain picked up the lid of the firepot. “We will have to cut the ropes,” she said, “at just the right moment. Otherwise, the balloon will collapse on top of us.”
Everyone nodded. She covered the firepot.
Without the heat of the fire to keep it aloft, the balloon began to descend. Sharkey and Fin sawed at the ropes, cutting them just far enough—but not too far—so they could be finished off at the last minute. The basket swayed. Petrel kept her eyes fixed on the Oyster, willing it to turn, begging it to turn.
“Grab hold!” cried Sharkey.
They hit the water in a long, bumpy skid, sending spray everywhere and throwing Petrel hard against Fin. The two children clung to each other as the balloon began to settle over their heads. Just in time, Rain whipped the lid off the firepot, and Sharkey hacked the final strands of rope apart, and the balloon rose up again, up and up into the sky—
Leaving the basket bobbing in the water.
They were all wet and bruised, but that didn’t matter, not now. All that concerned them was the Oyster, a couple of miles away and showing no sign of turning.
No one spoke. Petrel’s whole being was focused on the ship, on the wind turbines and the cranes and the familiar superstructure of the bridge.
Please turn, she begged silently. Dolph? Pleeeease turn!
She closed her eyes and imagined she was a gull and could fly across the waves and beat her wings against the bridge windows. She imagined—
“SHE’S TURNING!” roared Krill, in a voice that almost sank the basket.
Petrel’s eyes snapped open. And there was the bow of the Oyster, slowly coming around as the ship changed course towards them.
She didn’t realize she was crying until she looked at the others. Tears poured down every face—even Sharkey’s. They wept, and waved to the ship, and wept some more.
But as the Oyster came closer, Petrel wiped her eyes and said, “Soon as we’re safe, we’d better pick up the Sunkers. Don’t want to leave ’em there for the Devouts to catch again. And then we’ll have to see if we can get the Rampart afloat.”
Sharkey smiled at her. “And retrieve the boxes.”
“What boxes?” asked Petrel.
“Just—Sunker stuff.”
“Your folk’ll be pleased to see you, lad,” said Krill.
“Nay,” said Sharkey, his smile vanishing. “I don’t think so. I don’t think they’ll want me back.”
“Don’t see why not,” said Petrel. “’Specially when you got ’em out of the camp and all. But if they don’t want you, you can stay with us, along with Rain and Bran. And then—”
And then we turn south, she thought. That’s what I want, isn’t it? We could go back to our old course, as far from the Devouts as possible. And with any luck, one day we’ll spot a flock of pigeons, and there’ll be the cap’n, as good as new. And Mister Smoke riding on his shoulder.
The ship was so close now she could see folk standing at the rail. She waved frantically and heard someone say, “Is that Petrel? And Krill?”
“Aye, it’s us!” screamed Petrel. “And Fin too!”
There was a whoop of joy, and the next minute the rail was crammed with shipfolk, elbowing one another and shouting at the tops of their voices.
“It’s Petrel! Look!”
“Where’s the cap’n? I can’t see him. Can you see him?”
“Here, give way—I was here first.”
“Who’s the boy with the patch?”
“Where’s the cap’n?”
“Hey, Krill, cooking’s improved since you left. Ha ha ha.”
Two voices rose over all the others.
“Da! Da!” That was Squid, almost falling over the rail in her excitement.
“Petrel!” And that was Dolph, jumping up and down on the spot, like a bratling.
Krill’s grin was so wide that his beard looked as if it were about to split in half. Fin was laughing. Petrel felt like crying again, but she laughed instead.
Sharkey wasn’t laughing, and neither were Rain or Bran. They huddled in the back of the basket, glad to be rescued but taking no part in the celebrations.
Petrel thought of Bran when she first saw him, in the quarry. She thought of the whipping posts and the starving Sunkers, and the villagers she had seen, so thin and frightened that it hurt to look at them.
They’re Nothing folk, she realized, just like I used to be. Only there’s a whole country full of ’em!
And then she thought, We can’t just sail away and forget about ’em. That wouldn’t be right.
She took a long, slow breath and said, “We’ve gotta stop the Devouts.”
Everyone in the basket turned and stared at her. “I thought I wanted to go back to the ice,” she said, “but I don’t. Not yet, anyway. I want to bring back machines, so folk don’t have to wear ’emselves out carrying water and suchlike.”
“And feed ’em,” said Krill. “I’ve never seen so many hungry folk in my life.”
Fin was smiling. “And find my mama, so the Devouts cannot harm her. And the captain. And Mister Smoke.”
“Aye,” said Petrel. “And find the Singer too, like the cap’n wanted. And stop the whippings, and—and—” Her voice trailed off. There was so much to do, and she had no idea where to start.
They were right up against the ship now, so close they could feel the throbbing of the great engines. Four ropes slithered down, each with a strong hook on the end. Petrel and Sharkey jammed the hooks under the rim of the basket, then waved.
Rain started singing, quietly at first, then louder. Petrel joined in, and Bran and Fin and Krill. And last of all, Sharkey, so that as the basket rose slowly up the great vessel’s side, they were all singing at the tops of their voices.
“But will we cower, will we hide?
Will we lock ourselves inside?
Or will we hold ourselves with pride
And chase those ghouls away?”
And it seemed to Petrel that just as they reached the rail and fell into all those welcoming arms, a freak wind snatched their voices up and carried the song across the water towards land.
Where it fell upon a thousand starving villages like a promise.