Iceling Read online

  Oh my God.

  Cabana boys.

  Oh my God.

  I know where we’re going.

  I run up the stairs as fast as I can. Stan and Emily look up at me, like “Hi, Lorna, did you figure it out?” Guess what, guys, I totally did.

  “We go to the Galápagos.”

  They’re still sitting, but they’re staring up at me, as though to ask, “Um, what?” And I’m grinning like a genius who just discovered something I didn’t know I knew, which was that I know where we’re going. I know where to find more Icelings.

  “The Galápagos?” says Stan finally.

  “The Galápagos,” I say.

  Tara and Greta come up from below deck, which I choose to interpret as a heraldic sign of my discovery. I know it isn’t, but still.

  “Why?” Emily says. “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s where my parents are.”

  “Let’s try again,” Emily says. “How do you know?”

  “Listen,” I say, and then I tell them.

  I tell them about how it was my dad’s research crew that discovered the Arctic Orphans. I tell the story he tells about the boat and the infants, which they’d all heard before, but maybe not exactly like this. I tell them how, just one night after I saw Stan at the hospital the night Callie had her scariest fit yet, my parents took me to dinner to tell me how proud they were of me for taking such good care of Callie. That they were so proud, in fact, that they’d decided to leave Callie home alone with me while they both went off to the Galápagos to investigate a bizarre meteorological/seismic confluence. I tell them how, after that dinner, my dad got all funny, almost trancelike, and told me a story—a memory—about how when he found Callie and the other Icelings, he saw a trembling field of ice. And that the sky was purple and yellow, and it smelled like lightning, but he couldn’t see any. He asked me if I knew what lightning smelled like, and then he told me, “Don’t. Don’t know that.”

  “He told me—like he’s always told me—that he found them on a boat. But everything he described—”

  “It’s what we just saw,” said Emily. “On that island. That’s . . . that’s what . . . wow.”

  Stan’s and Emily’s eyes are wide. Because now we all know. We know that the weird new details my dad slipped into his old story after the restaurant were what actually happened when they found the baby Icelings, and the boat story was just a cover for that. The trembling field of ice, the sky going purple and yellow while the clouds moved with a mind of their own to shine the sun down on a field of baby Icelings. It’s the same thing that happened when we found the baby Icelings, only the ones we found never even had a chance.

  “So do you believe me now?” I ask. “That if that’s where they are, then that’s where we should go? Because if the unusual activity that they’re there to study is at all similar to what we just saw . . . then that must mean there are more of them there. Right? If that’s true, then we have to go. That’s where Bobby wants us to go, that’s why he said I knew where to go. I don’t know what will happen when we get there. It’s not like we can save anyone, but . . .”

  “No,” Stan says, cutting me off.

  “What?” I say, terrified and, frankly, totally shocked that he’s not even going to consider it. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, wait, no,” he says. “No. That’s not what I meant—I didn’t mean no. I meant no, we can’t not go there. But also no, we can’t think that by going there we’re not going to be able to help. Not after seeing what we just saw, going through what we just went through.”

  “All right then,” says Emily, her smile wide. “Let’s do it.”

  Stan starts charting the course. He asks if I know which island, and I remember my phone. I finally got it to charge, and miraculously it still turns on. But I can't call or text anyone or do much of anything else with it either, because the only apps that open are the ones that don't require access to Wi-Fi or a cellular network, neither of which we have out here. But I do have the address of where they’re staying and where their office is, written down in my notes app. I bring it up to Stan, and he grins at me, then puts his head back down to complete the course.

  “We’ve got a plan, kid sister!” I shout triumphantly at Callie. I know she doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but after I say it, she smiles. And I don’t know if it means what I want it to. But right now, I don’t care.

  And then, down below deck, a phone rings.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “WHERE THE HELL is this phone?” shouts Stan. He’s running down the stairs faster than Emily and I can run down the stairs, which we are also doing.

  We’re pulling apart the beds, flinging boxes of cereal and tins of rations all over. There’s an upended jug of water on the floor, and in the haze of all this frantic looking I indulge in a half-formed thought about how I hope the cap doesn’t come unscrewed, sending all that drinkable water all over the carpet.

  The phone keeps ringing, each new ring sounding to me like a gun going off, except we can’t see the gun or who’s shooting it. RING and we flinch. It’s not on the table. RING and we shudder. It’s not in the cabinets. RING RING and we gasp. It’s not on the floor.

  It’s in Emily’s hand.

  “I found it!” she shouts.

  She hands it to me, a brightly colored satellite phone just like the one my parents have, and I spin around to Stan so that we can all answer it together.

  Except Stan’s not there when I spin around. He’s by Ted’s bunk. And the phone is still ringing.

  “Hey, Ted. Hey,” he says, gently trying to shake loose a look from him. And the phone’s still ringing in my hand, and my hand is shaking. “Hey, Ted. Hey,” Stan says again, and tears are streaming down his face, and Ted’s not doing anything. Callie and Greta and Tara come running down. They stop in front of Ted and stare and reach toward the floor with claw-like hands, and as I watch them I name what it is they’re doing: weeping.

  The phone’s ringing. It’s ringing and ringing. Emily takes it from my hand and sets it on the table, and we let it ring for a little while longer until it stops on its own and goes silent.

  TED DIED IN his sleep tonight, while all around him we flung open the inside of this boat, looking for a phone that kept ringing. Whoever left us the phone is a mystery, the answer to which is residing on the other end of the call we missed.

  Stan’s kneeling beside Ted. We put our hands on his shoulders, and he looks up at us in response to our touch, but then turns his face away again. His face is dry now, and his eyes are red. “Ted’s dead,” he says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else.

  Oh, Stan. We move to sit down by him, but he gets up. “I’m okay,” he says.

  “Okay, no I’m not,” he tells us once he’s up. “Wait,” he says. “The phone call . . . did you get it?”

  “We found the phone,” says Emily, flicking her eyes at me, “but not in time. Whoever it was hung up, and it’s been silent ever since. It’s on the table,” she says, pointing. “In case they try back.”

  “Oh,” he says. He kneels down again and puts his hand on Ted’s shoulder, then moves his hand to Ted’s face. He stares at his brother, his dead brother, for what must feel to him like forever.

  Emily and I go above deck. Stan isn’t alone. We’re still here. But Ted’s gone. And whatever Stan needs, we just have to find a way to be there for him.

  He lets loose a scream like I’ve never heard.

  FINALLY, AFTER SITTING up with Ted for so long I start to worry he might never leave, Stan sleeps. Emily and I stay on the course he made and taught us how to follow.

  He wakes up, at sunset, announcing that he needs to use one of the two lifeboats and some of the gasoline. Emily and I look at each other, both knowing without asking that he’s going to use them to give Ted a burial at sea. It seems like somethin
g he needs to do himself, but we stand by in case he needs us.

  “One thing that always calmed Ted was Vikings,” Stan says. “Looking at actors dressed as Vikings on TV. Touching books about Vikings. So I’m giving him a Viking funeral.” His hands are shaking as he tries to pour the gasoline on his brother, who is lying really peacefully in the small lifeboat. I dart my hand forward and help him hold the can steady. Emily grabs the rope that lowers the lifeboat. Stan’s got some matches. His hands are trembling as he and Emily carefully lower him down. Ted’s in the water now, and Stan takes a deep breath.

  “Ted,” he says, “I wasn’t the best brother. And maybe sometimes you weren’t either. I was scared of you, and a lot of the time I resented the hell out of you. But I always . . . I always loved you. You’re the only brother I ever had. You were a loner, Ted. A rebel. And you saved my life. The only reason any of us are here right now is because you were strong enough, and smart enough, and had a heart big enough to save our lives. And I miss you. I really, really miss you.” He clears his throat and wipes his nose on the back of his hand. He lights a match and flicks it below into the lifeboat, the flame carrying what we can remember of Ted’s life off into the great beyond.

  It catches quick. The flames stretch and grow and dance over the water and our eyes. Greta and Tara are standing by Stan. Callie takes hold of my hand. Emily’s crying. I’m crying.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE SUNSETS WE can see from this boat are so beautiful you wouldn’t believe them. Which is nice, because sunsets—the way they shiver their way down into the edge of the water while all the warmth leaves the world—are pretty much all I’m comfortable talking about right now. Sunsets and sunrises. I can talk to you about sunrises all day, how they come up over the water all pale yellow and dusky blue, like the sea is the lip of a table, or your life. How the water extends and multiplies the just-woke sun’s glow. You see things like this and you can understand how people once thought the ocean was the edge of the world. You see how you could entertain the notion that, if you sailed out a little bit farther, everything would just fall off.

  After two weeks out here, I’m starting to think those the-world-is-flat fanatics might have been on to something. From where I’m standing, the horizon looks exactly like the edge of a map nobody’s figured out how to survey yet. Maybe that’s where dragons are. Maybe we’ll be swallowed up by something too terrifying to even put into a sentence. Maybe that’s what dragons are. Maybe we’ll learn something new about ourselves, and maybe we’ll die. Maybe we’ll end up in the Galápagos after all. Maybe turtles will swim up to us—Icelings and all—with tropical drinks and snacks balanced on their shells, and nobody will shoot anybody, ever, forever. Maybe my parents will take our side, and we’ll bring down the government together, or at least get them off our backs. But maybe I’m just seventeen years old and terrified. And maybe all of this is a dream with no edges to tell me where it stops and the world begins, like a horizon line hidden by sky and water that are the exact same shade of blue.

  Except that I know that it isn’t a dream. And I can always make out the horizon, no matter how monochrome everything gets. And every time I open my eyes, we’re still on a boat, aiming for the Galápagos, where the government has sent my parents to hunt for another group of Icelings on behalf of the government, which just tried to annihilate us along with an unknown number of others.

  We didn’t get to that phone in time. Or we did, but then we saw Ted, and Stan mattered more than the phone ever did. We don’t know who called. Maybe it’ll ring again, and whoever’s on the other end will tell us something terrible or wondrous. Or maybe it will never ring again, and we’ll just keep going like we were ready to before we even knew anyone had a way to reach us out here.

  It’s been over two weeks since I told Mimi and Dave that I’d call them as soon as I was safe, and I have to force myself not to think about how worried they must be that they haven’t heard from me. I miss Dave. More than I thought I would. And I miss my life. And at this point, I’m pretty much positive that there’s no going back. That whatever happens after this, that’s the rest of my life now. There’s no option that’ll take me back home, to the time when Callie was just solidly weird and nothing more, and Jane was just a creepy doctor who lacked social skills, and my parents were just nerdy people who loved me. Because Callie’s a plant person. And Jane murders children. And my parents stole Callie from her home, from her family, from her whole entire life. And that’s my whole world now, and I’m not even sure I have a place in it.

  STAN TELLS US we might have enough fuel to make it, but that it’s a good thing that this boat also has sails, just in case. He thinks we’re maybe about halfway there. He wants to make sure we keep some reserve gas on the boat no matter what, so when there’s a good wind, we ride that, even though we move at roughly a third of the speed that we do under the engine. But Stan would rather get there late than not get there at all.

  Stan tells us this in a steady monotone, and Emily and I agree that he must be in some kind of shock. Like a sort of fugue state. Like he needs this project, to make an elaborate plan for our voyage at sea, because now that Ted is gone he needs another reason to keep going. But Emily and I are worried about him. Because I look at him and all I can think about is how grief will change things in you. It’ll change how you see things, and how you think you used to see things.

  The boat is quiet now with Ted gone, and the solitude between us makes the whole world feel urgent. Like it’s a bomb covered in water and land. Like our heartbeats are ticking out the seconds until we meet the next horrible thing that will rise up to bite our heads off. And the longer we’re on the boat, the more time we have to start to wonder if maybe we’re walking into the same trap all over again.

  “Even if we are,” says Emily, “at least it’ll be warm.”

  Stan doesn’t turn from the wheel, but I can still see his cheek move up in a fraction of a smile, and I feel I could kiss Emily right now for making that little joke.

  IT’S NIGHTTIME NOW, and it’s clear out, so I set myself up next to Callie, and we lay down under the stars, and I tell us stories about them.

  My eyes catch on these two stars, one small and bright, one big but softer and more glowy than the other, side by side in the sky and linked by a delicate chain made of tiny twinkles. Those two stars, I tell myself and Callie too, if some part of her can listen, are two girls who grew up together. Though they’ve never spoken, they are like sisters, and they love each other very much. They love each other so much that they are bound together—not in their hearts, but literally by a rope tied around their wrists by a stranger. Because they’ve never spoken, they can never get unbound, so they’ve just adapted to life like that. But eventually, one of them will die. And the one left behind will carry the other’s weight around with her forever.

  IT’S NOW BEEN sixteen days since we got on the boat. We cross the days off on the wrong month on a calendar that’s three years old. Nineteen days ago was the last time I slept in my own bed, the last time I woke up with anything resembling a sense that the world was something I understood.

  In the distance there’s a storm. There are these strange clouds way, way off, acting like they have a mind of their own, storming along all heavy and low. I look at them and can’t help but think about everything we’ve seen, everything we know.

  Callie knows about the storm too. I’m sure of it. She keeps milling about on the deck with me, sticking her nose up to the sky, like there’s something in the air she can smell. Like there’s something she can hear, way off in the distance, that she needs to get to.

  I go below deck. I stand in the doorway and lean, holding the top of the frame with my arms, and I sway a bit. I ask Stan and Emily if they’ve noticed the clouds too.

  “Yes,” says Stan immediately.

  “Yeah,” says Emily at the same time. Then they look at each other. Then they look at me. We
don’t even need to specify which clouds we’re talking about. We know which clouds we’re talking about.

  Stan gets up, slips past me, and jogs over to adjust the engine.

  “He’s going to speed up,” says Emily. “I don’t know if we have the fuel. But he was saying he thinks we’re a few days out. Like, maybe no more than three. Maybe less now.”

  We follow him up to see if we can help, but we don’t make it up.

  Because, below deck, that phone. It starts to ring.

  THIRTY

  EMILY’S THE FIRST to the phone. She snatches it up immediately and presses the green button, because we’re not going to let ourselves miss it a second time. Stan rushes down from above and joins us, and we all stare at Emily as she puts the phone to her ear and says, “Uh, yes? This is the . . . uh, boat speaking. Who’s calling?”

  My heart starts pounding as I stare at Emily while she listens to whoever’s on the other end of the phone, and Stan edges up closer to her as if to try to listen too. Emily’s brow furrows up, and then her face lights up in either shock or realization, and I’m doing all I can not to reach out and grab the phone from her, and right when I think I can’t hold out any longer, she thrusts the phone out to me.

  “I . . . it’s for you,” she says.

  “Hell—” I start to say, but I cut myself off, because I realize that the person on the other end of the line is still talking, and at first I think whoever this is must still think Emily’s on the line, but then I stop thinking that entirely when, half a second later, I recognize the voice.

  “. . . and anyway, sport,” says my father. “Like I said, I’m just leaving you this voice mail to check in, ask you to call back, see how things are.”

  What? Why the hell is my dad calling me on this creepy satellite phone hidden on this boat? Why is he pretending this is a voice mail? “Dad,” I say, “what the—”