Read Online Above the East China Sea: A Novel by Sarah Bird - Free Book Online
Authors: Sarah Bird
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door, and I forgot all about the letter and most everything else.
I turn back around and keep swimming. The seawater is cool and leaches warmth from my body. My arms and legs feel noodly. I wear out easily these days, since I don’t—can’t—eat or sleep much. If I swim out any farther, I won’t have enough energy to go back. Should I turn around or keep swimming? I stop and dare the ocean to make the choice for me.
My back is turned on Okinawa, on Kadena, on my latest group of Quasis. The vast dark of sea and night sky swallows me up. I am alone. The only person on earth who really knew me, who would really, truly care if I vanished, is gone. That awareness starts to pull me down. I tread water for a few seconds and panic shivers through me.
This is a bad idea. I have to turn around.
The panic adrenaline gives me a jolt of energy and I think I can make it back to shore. Then, suddenly, in the black night two orbs of shimmering light appear. They’re the eerie bluish green of phosphorescent waves. They hover around me, one on each side, like guardian angels. They’re so oddly companionable that the panic vanishes. An unexpected peace fills me with a warmth like five tequila shots, and the words “Stop struggling” form in my mind, like a command spoken by my sister, who always took care of me. I let my body go still as glass and sink down under the waves. The orbs follow, dimly lighting the water around me. As the dark sea closes in above my head, I have one last thought:
Codie, if this isn’t what you want me to do, if this isn’t what you yourself did when you enlisted, send a sign.
But no sign comes. I go down so far that the moon shrinks away to a tiny pearl far overhead. My lungs scream for oxygen. The phosphorescent orbs wobbling beside me show me how easy it is to breathe water. All I have to do is exhale the dead air in my lungs and breathe in and it will all be over. In the same instant, a swoosh of water swirls up against me and the shadow of a large sea creature passes by. Drowning is one thing, but I do not want to be eaten by a shark. I flail at it, and my hand hits what feels like the rounded edge of a heavy table. It’s solid as furniture and not sandpapery the way sharkskin is supposed to be. Then the shadowed thing tips its head up toward the last glimmers of moonlight penetrating the dark water and I see the hooked profile of a sea turtle. She hovers directly in front of my face so that the beat of her flippers lofts my hair up and down.
Codie has sent a sign.
I struggle to rise to the air. But I’m too far down. I fight toward the surface, but a wave like a giant fist slams into me, holding me down, pushing me farther and farther back under. It bashes my head against the reef at my back, and, with a crack that shoots a bolt of pure white pain through me, the film in my brain stops.
TEN
Anmā,
where are we? The water is gone. The girl is gone. Why did the wave put us here?
Because the
kami
willed it.
Where is the girl?
The girl is where the
kami
will her to be.
But we need her.
The
kami
know that. They will bring her to us again.
ELEVEN
The next thing I am aware of is rolling over onto my side and vomiting up roughly ten gallons of seawater along with another couple salty gallons that pour out of my sinuses.
I sprawl on the gritty sand, too exhausted to even roll over, until a chill sinks into my bones. I hoist myself up on wobbly arms and see that I’ve been spit out on a steep patch of deserted beach. The sand is smooth except for the tracks left by a handful of busy crabs. I can’t see any marks from where I came ashore. It’s like a giant hand has dropped me here. Cliff walls jut up all around, caging me. The tide creeps closer, and I realize that very soon I’m going to be trapped. Codie didn’t save me just so that I would be battered to death against a cliff. I study the stone walls locking me in and search for a way out.
The moon is operating-room bright over my
I turn back around and keep swimming. The seawater is cool and leaches warmth from my body. My arms and legs feel noodly. I wear out easily these days, since I don’t—can’t—eat or sleep much. If I swim out any farther, I won’t have enough energy to go back. Should I turn around or keep swimming? I stop and dare the ocean to make the choice for me.
My back is turned on Okinawa, on Kadena, on my latest group of Quasis. The vast dark of sea and night sky swallows me up. I am alone. The only person on earth who really knew me, who would really, truly care if I vanished, is gone. That awareness starts to pull me down. I tread water for a few seconds and panic shivers through me.
This is a bad idea. I have to turn around.
The panic adrenaline gives me a jolt of energy and I think I can make it back to shore. Then, suddenly, in the black night two orbs of shimmering light appear. They’re the eerie bluish green of phosphorescent waves. They hover around me, one on each side, like guardian angels. They’re so oddly companionable that the panic vanishes. An unexpected peace fills me with a warmth like five tequila shots, and the words “Stop struggling” form in my mind, like a command spoken by my sister, who always took care of me. I let my body go still as glass and sink down under the waves. The orbs follow, dimly lighting the water around me. As the dark sea closes in above my head, I have one last thought:
Codie, if this isn’t what you want me to do, if this isn’t what you yourself did when you enlisted, send a sign.
But no sign comes. I go down so far that the moon shrinks away to a tiny pearl far overhead. My lungs scream for oxygen. The phosphorescent orbs wobbling beside me show me how easy it is to breathe water. All I have to do is exhale the dead air in my lungs and breathe in and it will all be over. In the same instant, a swoosh of water swirls up against me and the shadow of a large sea creature passes by. Drowning is one thing, but I do not want to be eaten by a shark. I flail at it, and my hand hits what feels like the rounded edge of a heavy table. It’s solid as furniture and not sandpapery the way sharkskin is supposed to be. Then the shadowed thing tips its head up toward the last glimmers of moonlight penetrating the dark water and I see the hooked profile of a sea turtle. She hovers directly in front of my face so that the beat of her flippers lofts my hair up and down.
Codie has sent a sign.
I struggle to rise to the air. But I’m too far down. I fight toward the surface, but a wave like a giant fist slams into me, holding me down, pushing me farther and farther back under. It bashes my head against the reef at my back, and, with a crack that shoots a bolt of pure white pain through me, the film in my brain stops.
TEN
Anmā,
where are we? The water is gone. The girl is gone. Why did the wave put us here?
Because the
kami
willed it.
Where is the girl?
The girl is where the
kami
will her to be.
But we need her.
The
kami
know that. They will bring her to us again.
ELEVEN
The next thing I am aware of is rolling over onto my side and vomiting up roughly ten gallons of seawater along with another couple salty gallons that pour out of my sinuses.
I sprawl on the gritty sand, too exhausted to even roll over, until a chill sinks into my bones. I hoist myself up on wobbly arms and see that I’ve been spit out on a steep patch of deserted beach. The sand is smooth except for the tracks left by a handful of busy crabs. I can’t see any marks from where I came ashore. It’s like a giant hand has dropped me here. Cliff walls jut up all around, caging me. The tide creeps closer, and I realize that very soon I’m going to be trapped. Codie didn’t save me just so that I would be battered to death against a cliff. I study the stone walls locking me in and search for a way out.
The moon is operating-room bright over my
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