Iceling Page 21

  Stan is sitting, stick straight and rigid, staring straight ahead with his mouth half-open and his eyes peeled in shock.

  “Stan?” I say, and he doesn’t answer, and then my heart starts to flutter, and then, slowly, I brace myself and turn to face whatever horror he’s seeing.

  But then my jaw goes slack and my eyes go wide, because the thing that Stan sees is what I’m looking at now too.

  A floating dock. And tied up at the side: the boat.

  THERE IT IS, a real boat, and it’s right in front of us, and it’s not made from old planks and empty plastic containers, and it’s going to save our lives. And it has a ladder on the side.

  And even though it only takes a few more minutes of paddling and Iceling life support to get to it, it takes forever to get to it.

  But then we do. We’re all paddling, stupidly, our hands in the freezing cold water, the Icelings slapping them away even though we keep putting them back in, and now we’re here. The dock is square-shaped, and like the boat, it also has a ladder, which we grab on to one after the other. The boat is bigger than an SUV—definitely big enough for all of us—and I guess Stan can predict from the model that it’ll have bunks inside. It has a motor and sails, just like Bobby said. And if there’s fuel on board, we can get somewhere on that combined with the fuel we brought and the sails.

  “So . . . does anyone know how to drive a boat?” asks Emily.

  “Stan does,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Stan. “I can pilot this. I can get us where we need to go. Assuming Lorna knows.”

  “I’m really sorry, you guys. I could name a place, I could think of somewhere that might make sense. But I have no idea what the hell Bobby was talking about.”

  “Think, Lorna!” cries Emily. Like that’ll help.

  “Trust me, I have been. In between worrying whether or not we’d make it to the boat alive, and about what’s going on with Callie, or about how the hell she and the others kept us alive, or anything that’s happened since yesterday—which is a hell of a lot—I’ve been thinking about where we need to go next. I don’t know. Maybe once we’re on the boat, when I’m freaking out a little bit less, maybe I’ll figure it out then. For now, we can go south. Somewhere that’s the opposite of here. That’s the only thing I know for sure—that I want to get away from here.”

  “South sounds good,” says Stan.

  Almost as if he understands us, Ted starts climbing up the ladder on the boat. We follow his lead, and he’s helping the rest of us up, which is when I notice that Stan needs the most help. Emily and I trade a look that lets me know she has noticed too.

  “He dove for us,” whispers Emily to me. “After the first blast.”

  Oh, God. That’s when he must have gotten hurt, saving us all again, and because it’s all I can do right now, I just send her a look that I hope says, We’ll keep an eye on him together.

  It’s not until we’re all in the boat that I realize how freaking weird this is, this boat that fits seven people comfortably, tied to a floating dock in the middle of an Arctic sea, like it’s been waiting here for us. Sure, Bobby said he left it here, that he did it on purpose during recon, but for what purpose? And why didn’t anyone from his team pay it any mind? It seems like a pretty big thing to overlook—especially when it’s tied to an area they didn’t want anyone coming out of alive. I understand what a terrifying thought this is and acknowledge it completely, but right now my body won’t let me be terrified. Maybe I already used up my daily allotment of terror, or maybe my body just knows that right now it needs to be solely focused on staying alive and getting the hell out of here and its survival instincts are completely blocking out all of its fear instincts.

  Stan takes the fuel containers and goes to explore the inner workings of the boat so that we can get going right away, while Emily and I explore every other aspect of the craft to determine what kinds of supplies our guardian angels or demons have left for us here. In a trunk down in the lower level we find a whole bunch of towels and blankets and dry clothes—sweatpants and sweaters and fresh woolen socks. In an unlocked metal locker we find a whole bunch of food—ready-made emergency meal type things, packed in tins and foil bags.

  “Jackpot,” Emily says.

  “Stan!” I shout. “You have to come see this!”

  Stan limps over, and his eyes go wide and he smiles, and then he practically collapses on the floor beside us. We sit there on the floor of the boat and we eat like we’ll never eat again. It tastes awful—like budget prepackaged health food meals, but drier and staler than usual. But it’s filling, and it’s warming me up, and some part of my brain is saying, Hey, all right, things are gonna be okay, and I’m actually listening to it.

  The Icelings pick apart the rations to try to see what’s in them, and they eat things they find. Ted pops a whole fun-size candy bar into his mouth. Wrapper and all. He winces. I noticed he’s limping, and his eyes have been wired, but now he looks sleepy and exhausted.

  Emily and I pause in the middle of eating to change into the clothes we found, but Stan doesn’t pause until he’s downed two of those emergency meals. Once we’re all changed and shivering a little less, we dare to look inside our pockets and Emily’s backpack to survey the damage. Both Emily’s and Stan’s phones are completely wrecked, but Emily still tosses them in a sack of basmati rice we find in a cardboard box in the back of the locker, “Just in case.” She zips open her sodden and soaked backpack, which is completely full of Luna bars. Stan smirks.

  Since I’m my father’s daughter, I had my phone packed in a weird plastic case that’s supposed to be waterproof. I pull it out and it seems mostly dry, but the battery’s dead. I have no idea if my charger still works or if there’s anywhere to plug it in.

  I’m still hunting around the boat for an electrical outlet when I notice Callie sitting down on the floor of the boat, leaning against the side wall and looking out across the sea. The other Icelings join her, and then I do too. Stan and Emily follow, and we all sit together, and we watch the island burn.

  We watch those weird trees burning from the roots up, the ice that cakes their branches turning into steam, which then fizzles out and dies. Those hills, craggy and rigid in places like mountains, are crumbled and all aflame with a fire that probably started with the jet fuel from the crashed drones and was sustained by the final blast that shook everything down at once. The hills are lit up like a sunset, or like hundreds of sunsets. We can’t see any people, but I know we’re all looking for them. I know we’re all hoping we don’t see any people, in whatever state anyone over there could possibly be in, but that we’re all also hoping that we do see some people, because despite all the fire and ash we can see from our little haven in the sea, we still have no idea what actually happened over there.

  “Could anyone have survived that?” Emily says.

  “No,” says Stan without a single pause.

  “Jane, Bobby, the army,” I say. “The Icelings . . . those kids . . . all of them . . .”

  “They’re dead,” Emily whispers.

  We stand there, stunned, the fire playing off our eyes like a song. The Icelings are just staring. Then they look away. They can’t, or won’t, watch this anymore.

  Suddenly and without any words of warning, Stan grabs hold of Ted, buries his head in his shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Ted,” he says. “I’m so sorry. You saved my life, Ted. You saved my life so many times—the bear, the soldier. From drowning and hypothermia. And I’ve done nothing for you. Nothing that even comes close.” I have to stop looking at him now, because it hurts too much to listen, to see Stan start to cry, but it also hurts too much to keep looking at the island, so I just inch myself closer to Callie and stare down at the water below lapping sadly against our boat. “You’re my brother,” Stan goes on, still talking into Ted’s shoulder, his voice muffled. “And I can’t do anything excep
t be so completely sorry. I’m sorry for when I hit you because my friends couldn’t come play, and I’m sorry about when I told you hated you—I don’t, I don’t hate you, Ted. And I’m sorry about Mom. I’m sorry she left, and I’m sorry about Dad, about everything about Dad, and I’m sorry about everything. All of it. And it doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t mean anything, I know that . . .” And then he just slowly goes quiet, his voice giving way to quiet sobs and gasps.

  I look up. Stan is still buried in Ted’s shoulder, but Ted is still staring at the burning island. He stares at the place he came from, his home, a place he’d seen before, when he opened his eyes for the very first time sixteen years ago, but probably didn’t remember, and now he’s finally seeing it, for real, and it’s on fire. Everything in and on and beneath it, everything that makes it a place, burning. His face is screwed up like he’s crying silently, but he’s not. He’s just watching it. His eyes are wet, perhaps just from the wind, and his jaw is set, and he stands, staring. And when Stan finally lets go and looks up at his brother’s face, he still keeps standing, the expression on his face unchanged for what feels like forever.

  Then Ted lifts his arm. He lifts his arm, still staring at the island, eyes still wet, the reflection of the flames burning in them. And then he takes his lifted arm and puts it around Stan, and then he holds Stan to him. And they stay like that.

  And now Callie is burrowing up to me and holding on to Tara, who is holding on to both Callie and Emily. And Emily is crying, and now I’m crying too.

  And Greta is alone. And though I have no way of knowing, when I look in her eyes, I just feel that she’s looking for Bobby, waiting for him to come back. And then Tara looks over at Greta, then Callie looks over at Greta, and then they both let go of us. They go over to Greta, and one after the other they touch her on the shoulder, and the expressions on their faces don’t change: They set their mouths in lines; they still won’t look. But my face changes, and Emily’s does too. I see the way I feel reflected in Emily’s face: We’re alive. We brought our sisters home, and they found new sisters, real sisters, and then their home got blown up. And despite that, they saved us. And now we’re here. And we all need each other now. Regret, and awe, and fear, and pride, and terror—it’s all mixed up there.

  And then Ted collapses.

  FOUR DAYS LATER, and Ted is barely breathing.

  Stan, we’re not so sure. He’s piloting the boat, refuses to teach me or Emily how so that he has an excuse to be stuck there at all times. We’re going south. We haven’t spoken in two days. Nobody knows what to say, and Stan won’t talk. He checks the rigging, he leaves a steady course to check on Ted for a couple of minutes at a time. He checks our course, he checks on Ted. He checks the engine, he checks on Ted. Ted, who carried us all here. Ted, who saved us from a bear.

  Ted, who sometimes scared the hell out of me, is dying. No part of me wants to believe this, but what choice do I have? We can’t pretend anything anymore. We stopped having that luxury when we saw plants carrying babies bursting out of the ice while our government tried to blow up an island.

  I don’t know why it’s happening, and I really hope I’m wrong. But what I think—what I feel—is that Ted is maybe going to die soon. And I don’t know what’ll happen to Stan when he does. I don’t even want to imagine it. These past couple of nights, Callie has come to sit with me on the deck while I watch the stars dance across the water, somehow without drowning. Emily tries to talk to Stan, and when that doesn’t work, she comes and sits here too.

  I want to try to tell you what I think about when I sit here and look out.

  I want you to imagine that when you were very young, you were taken from your home. Really imagine it. You’re barely old enough to be able to recall a home, a family, an unparalleled warmth and deep-down knowledge that you belong. You can’t remember too many things about your home or the people who were there, but you can remember just enough—just enough of a feeling about the place—that you know it is your one and only home, and the place you are now is not your home. And then imagine living your whole life with the soft sadness of being so far away from that home—and the less soft sadness of not being able to tell anyone about how you hurt, because even if you could, they wouldn’t understand—but also with the hope and trust that, one day, in some better future, you’ll be able to return to that home again. And then when that day finally comes, when you can finally go back to that home that’s been the one bright beacon in a life that is otherwise filled with a lot of murky, lonely darkness, you’re so happy. And then you get there, and the people you were born with get there too, and you’re so happy. But then it’s gone. In the worst way possible, it’s gone. And now it’s worse than before, because that little bit of hope that makes all the pain maybe tolerable has been snuffed out. And you know you’ll spend your whole life trying to understand this, to understand yourself, trying to tell anyone at all why it is that you hurt, but you’re scared because you’ve never been able to before, and you’re pretty sure you’ll never be able to now. Now that your home is gone for good and there is no place in this world that you belong.

  Really. Imagine it. You are a person who hurts. Deep down and forever. Because something, when you were very young, was taken from you. And there’s nothing you can do about it. And you dream of that home you can just barely recall every single night. You wake up sweating so hard, like your whole body is crying, like every single inch of you is wracked with sobs, and you can barely stand to move, and you lay there like that, not wanting to sleep, because when you sleep all you see is the home you’ll never get to see again. But at the same time you’re terrified of never seeing it again, and you hate yourself for not wanting to sleep, for not wanting to see it. And then, slowly, after years and years of this, you just sort of stop dreaming about home. You sleep more easily, you wake up every morning and feel emptier than you thought possible, in ways you can’t even begin to articulate to yourself, let alone to another person. And you start the whole process over again, of trying to tell people, in the right words, the right tone of voice, the right body language, what it is that hurts you, what it is that pains you, what it is that feels so unrelentingly absent from your life, why you don’t ever feel like anything resembling whole.

  But you can’t.

  You can’t ever get the words out. The people in your life, they’re there every day, and while you know they care about you because of the looks they give you and the way they keep poking you to get up and join them even when you’re so sad you can’t even move, they’ll never be anything but strangers. You can’t ever seem to know them, and they can’t ever seem to know you.

  It’s the same for everyone you meet. Even when you get a glimpse of some kind of connection between you and someone else, you can’t figure out what it is, what made the spark, or how to hold on to it. And they can’t seem to do this with you either, and you’re more or less completely alone.

  And then one day you start dreaming of home again.

  You don’t sweat, you don’t cry out, and it doesn’t hurt. You’re floating over it. It’s not the vicious, gut-cutting sensation of being able to see things from your eyes, from your memories. It’s like you’re above everything, floating there, seeing where you came from, where you belong, and you can feel, somewhere deep down, that your family is there. That people who understand you are there, and they’re waiting for you.

  And then you wake up.

  You wake up, and you can remember the dream of home, but you can’t do anything about it. But you still try. Every day you try to find a way to get back there. And every night you dream of it more clearly than before. You dream bigger. You dream like the movies. You zoom in, you zoom out, you focus on specific details so that you capture their essence exactly as it’s meant to be captured. You see boats, and trees, and gardens, and mountains, and lions and tigers and bears. And you also see where you live now, where this life you’re stuc
k in has stuck you, and how far away it is from where you need to be. But because you can see all of this, you can see how to finally get home.

  And then you do! You get home! You get home, and you see your family, and you see the land that made your life possible, and the whole world comes rising up to greet you. And your heart feels full up with everything. I mean everything. You can hardly stand how alive you feel right now, how connected to all of this you feel, to life, to the lives of others, to the whole entire world.

  I want you to imagine having gone through all of this.

  And then I want you to imagine watching it burn to the ground.

  Your aching heart, your fallen face looking back at you in the mirror: That’s what my sister looks like right now.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WE’RE FIVE DAYS out. Ted’s below deck, and it doesn’t look good. His breathing is ragged and shallow—when he’s even breathing at all. His skin is paper-white, past pale. Like the life’s being drained out of it. His hair’s turning yellow and brittle at the edges and crumbling up and away and off. When Stan goes down to see him, everyone else leaves, even the Icelings. Like they know. I try to look at him, but he doesn’t want to look at me. Not now, anyway.

  Stan is working with an average of maybe four hours of sleep a night. And that’s spaced out throughout the night, too, in increments of fifteen to thirty minutes. He doesn’t want us to get off-course, and he still won’t teach anyone how to do anything without him. But Emily and I just let him. There’s nothing else we can do. I think he’s putting everything he has into this, into having a skill that might be able to get us somewhere. I think it’s all he can think to do, all he can do, right now. He needs to be needed. He needs to feel he has a purpose. He needs to keep going.