Water & Storm Country by David Estes

Author:David Estes [Estes, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horses, war, pirates, storms, dystopian, strong female, country saga, dwellers saga
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Huck

Heavy. That’s the only word to describe the feeling inside me. There are so many eyes in my sleep. Mother’s. Webb’s. The bilge rat boy’s. All staring, staring, burning holes of accusation through my skin. “He’s the one!” they say. “He killed us!”

Although the Scurve seems to be under control again, Jade won’t talk to me, just clambers up the mast each morning, dead set on repairing every last tear in the sails without further assistance from me. I could go up, work alongside her, but why force something that’s not there?

As I eat alone in my cabin in a silence broken only by the intermittent creaking of the ship, I mull over what to do. More pointedly, I consider the information Jade gave me just before we stopped speaking. Fire country. The bilge rats’ home. Taken, abducted, tricked: brought to a place where they’re dogs—no, less than dogs: rats—forced to slave away, day in and day out, obeying orders from men who can barely look at them.

Was she lying, trying to gain my sympathy? In some ways I hope she was, so my father’s not a monster, so the world can become right again. But in other ways I’ll be sadder if she was lying, because that means I’m nothing to her, just a boy to be manipulated.

There’s a knock on my door and I look up, surprised. I asked not to be disturbed, choosing to take my evening meal in my cabin, rather than with the men, needing time to think.

“Yes?” I say, stabbing a potato with my fork.

Barney pushes open the door, a strange expression on his face. It’s one I’ve never seen before, a mix of what appears to be glee, embarrassment, and concern. The glee is in his eyes, wide and dancing; the embarrassment is in the extraordinarily crimson flush of his cheeks; and the concern is in his bent eyebrows and pursed lips.

“I asked not to be—”

“I apologize, sir, but I was sure you’d want to hear this.”

I raise the potato to my mouth, think better of it, and set my fork down with a clink, uneaten starch still stuck to it. “Go on.”

“You should help repair the sails tomorrow,” Barney says uncertainly.

I stare at him. “Are you giving me an order?”

“More like a message,” Barney says, turning to go.

“A message from whom...” Although the question is completed, it dies on my tongue, twitching at first, and then still. Barney closes the door softly behind him.

She talked to him?

To Barney?

No, not a question. She talked to Barney.

And I’ll be climbing the sails tomorrow.

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