Read Online The Blue (The Complete Novel) by Joseph Turkot - Free Book Online

tent doesn’t want me to come back up—it clings to me, a magnet to my skin, and wraps around me tighter. I sink, and then, the next wave of water rushes in and I hold my breath. The weight of the sea and the shock of its temperature strip me of thought. The world goes quiet and the calls from above disappear, and I think that maybe the ice didn’t break out from underneath the tent, like I thought—it was the seal—he came in the night, nabbed me by the arm, and pulled me all the way to the edge, driving me back into the icy sea. Playing for keeps this time, knowing I don’t have another jacket to lose. But then the darkness lifts, a momentary vanishing, and there’s gray light, and the hollering again, soft and muffled. I kick and thrash and try to rise up, fighting death with all the fury I have left in me, and at last, from numbness, I am above the water and there’s Russell. He’s pulling the canvas tent away from my head. Uncoiling it where it tried to mummify me. And then, he’s down on the ice, lying on his belly, his arm extended over the lip of the floe. Tanner! Grab on! he shouts. I extend my frozen fingers and he grabs onto them. And in a wash of white burning I’m pulled against the ice, hard over the edge of the berg, grinding through my sweater, and then I spill onto the hard surface of ground again. Solid floe and air to breathe. I open everything wide, mouth and nose, and draw in torrents of air, over and over, until my lungs feel like fire. The sky is above me, light and gray and empty. Becoming less and less fuzzy. I wait for a single flake of snow to hit my cheeks, but there are none left to fall. And when I hear a splash, I spin my head where I lie, and that quickly, as fast as it had disappeared, my horror returns.
     
    I see that the ice really did split apart right beneath our tent, but Voley didn’t make it out of the water. And Russell’s in now, chasing after him. I throw my two fists into the top snow and push up—every bit of energy I have to get to my feet—and by the time I stand up, I can only watch helplessly. Russell paddles through the six foot lead of brown toward Voley. But Voley’s already slipping under because it’s too cold. Each time he surfaces, his head darts around, like he’s desperately hoping for something to bite onto. But there’s nothing.
                Frantically I look around for a spot to jump across the new crack, somewhere the ice didn’t get too far apart, so that I can get around closer to Voley. But the gaps are all too far, as if the split wanted to separate us from each other. I run farther, searching for some way across, and with each pounding beat in my chest I hear another mad splash, Russell’s or Voley’s, I can’t tell. I keep my eyes on the white near my feet where the flow shelves off and turns into the sea. Six feet wide gap. Seven. Six again. Five. But then the slit narrows and there’s a spot to jump across where there are only three feet of water. I run as hard as I can and leap, more than enough to clear the gap, and land smoothly. The wind drives against my dripping body and stings, trying to force me to stop running, but I can’t. From the corner of my eye, I think I catch the seal—watching us, calmly taking in our life-and-death struggle. But he’s far away, two floes off, far enough that I just ignore him. I cut my path back toward the floe’s edge closest to Voley. When I make it there, Russell dips underneath the ocean. At first I think he’s drowning too, but then I realize: he’s trying to get under Voley’s body and shove him up, high enough to spill over the raised floe shelf. Then, in his powerful burst, Voley softly clears the ocean surface, but barely goes any higher. And I realize. Russell can’t do it. He’s not strong enough anymore.
                I reach the ridge and kneel down, hanging over the sea and yelling at him to shove up harder. Again! I tell him, and I send my arms out like