Now Cem understood. Ghanim was Feral. If Roman had known, he would have never allowed the fight to take place. The Feral could not defend themselves properly. They could not understand rules. Cem turned to go back and stop the fight from happening, but the shuffling and hissing were behind him now. Why had the ghost brought him here? Was it trying to kill him? Was being dead so lonely it needed a friend?

  The Feral were known for attacking on sight, unable to think through consequences, and there were so many Feral here now. Even so, Cem was not thinking about how to fight his way out. Instead, he was thinking about how much food they must need. In the dark, each individual Feral looked like a collection of sharp lines, concave and wasting away. Cem thought about Roman’s small stash of algae blocks. It wasn’t enough even for all of Roman’s gang, but Cem was overwhelmed with the need to help, and the knowledge that he could not do anything for this mass of children, all blank stares and snapping teeth.

  The Feral did not attack. Instead, they watched him warily, inching closer, but without the warning hiss. Cem moved over the rocks, dark and unfamiliar this far from the harbour. The Feral did not follow. Cem looked up to see if his ghost might help him back to his gang, but the balconies were empty. Cem hummed softly to himself to keep his panic at bay, only stopping when he realized it was Jessica’s song about the wind and the rain.

  Eventually, the house legs thinned out, and Cem knew he was closer to the harbour. He heard whispers and looked up to see a solitary figure with bright red hair sitting on one of the high balconies, legs dangling over the edge. Cem picked up his pace until a small hand slipped into his with a comforting squeeze and a sure arm swung over his shoulder: Sedef and Farooq, safety, home.

  “Is it over?” Cem asked. “Who won?”

  “Shen,” said Farooq.

  Cem shuddered. “Ghanim?”

  “Dead,” said Farooq, without elaboration, which meant it had been worse than usual. Ghanim’s body would be gone already, fed to the eels.

  Cem unwrapped himself from Farooq and felt his way out into the darkness. He needed to tell Roman what he had found. Maybe Roman could figure out what to do about all those Feral.

  Cem felt gingerly for the solid boulders, careful to avoid the gaps of dangerous water between them. He was so intent on not slipping that he did not hear that shh-shh of Shen sharpening his mussel cut until he was almost on top of the boy. Shen lunged at him, but he did not slice. He brought his face close to Cem’s and hissed.

  And Cem hissed back.

  He clamped his mouth shut and stumbled backwards. He had no idea where that sound had come from. He had no idea he could make that sound. Dashing over the boulders, he sang Jessica’s song to himself. The words formed easily in his mouth:

  “When that I was and a little tiny boy,

  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

  A foolish thing was but a toy,

  For the rain it raineth every day.”

  He could still speak! He could think… for now. How long had it taken for Nazli to go silent and Ghanim to fade?

  Poor Ghanim, lost and confused, stumbling along the boulders. Perhaps the boy had known where the Feral slept, or some animal part of him had clicked when he went fully Feral and he knew instinctively where to go. Or maybe the Feral needed help to find their way after they turned… Cem thought about that ghost leading him deeper into the darkness, not towards a trap or death. The Feral never attacked one of their own. Cem did not think he looked any different than the other members of his gang. He did not feel any different than he had yesterday. But the ghost must have noticed something changed.

  Behind each word of the song, Cem now heard a hiss in the back of his brain. He sat on one of the boulders, tired and frightened.

  Farooq and Sedef found him again. They must have been worried. Cem never wandered too far away from the group, and never alone.

  “Are you okay?” whispered Farooq.

  Children and adults avoided the Feral. Cem had never thought how lonely it must be until this moment, with Sedef and Farooq so close. He could not imagine sleeping without the comforting warmth of their bodies. He could not bear to think of his friends terrified of him.

  “No,” Cem whispered back.

  Sedef curled up and lay her head in his lap. Farooq lay next to him, arms around his shoulder and waist, head on Cem’s chest. Their breathing slowed as they slipped into sleep. Cem hugged them tight to him.

  He thought about the riot. Easy to blame everything – the lack of food, the turn to Feral in children too old to change – on one clear moment, one person. He did not think anyone else had seen Jessica push that sailor into the water. They only saw the splash and followed her example. But Cem knew it was all Jessica’s fault.

  CHAPTER 7 (JESSICA)

  Jessica did not see who dropped the ladder to the Upper Keep for her. No one wanted to be caught helping her. She tried to hate them, every last one of them, everyone in the Upper Keep who did no more than tolerate her or helped her just enough but no more. But it was hard to hate without a clear target in mind.

  Climbing the kelp ladder rubbed loose the skin on her palms and between her fingers and, at the top, she sat peeling the skin and letting her hate simmer down. The night breeze cooled the air and eased the humidity. Jessica murmured a melancholy tune, and her spirit rose with the familiar words.

  “And will he not come again?

  And will he not come again?

  No, no, he is dead,

  Go to thy deathbed.

  He never will come again.”

  “Jessica?” called Abraham. He sounded strained.

  The wind blew Jessica’s curls across her face, whispering of witches and premonitions. She clenched her teeth against the words of the song in case some playful emperor in the sky took them as a suggestion. She crawled in through the window, landing hard on her ankle, but did not let this slow her down. She dropped her sack and ran to Abraham’s side.

  “What is it, Father?” she asked.

  The lamp in the corner was lit, and the little flame wavered across Abraham’s face. He was exactly where she had left him that morning, sitting in the great chair she fashioned months ago from seaweed-stuffed plastic. The interior was rotting, but Abraham did not seem to mind the smell.

  “I… I can’t,” he said. “I can’t get up. I need to use the pot.”

  Jessica squeezed behind the thin space where the chair leaned close to the wall. She reached her arms around his back, hooked under his arms, and lifted him, easily. He was too light.

  “I brought algae blocks,” she said.

  He took stiff steps towards the pot in the corner. She looked away at the darkening view of the horizon as he aimed and missed. She wondered about everything she could not see. Everything that she would see, soon, tomorrow. Her father returned to the chair without her assistance. He would be fine without her.

  Abraham eased back into his chair. “You’re only quiet when you want something.”

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “My back’s sore,” he said.

  That was not what she meant. Sometimes he was easygoing because he had gone to a better past, before her mother died. Sometimes he was soft when he thought Jessica was her mother. Sometimes he turned mean.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  “Jessica, how could you be anyone else?” He gestured at her halo of hair. “Dasha did not sing. What were you singing?”

  Jessica sat by his feet. A child’s place, the crossed-leg student. But she was still Abraham’s child, no matter how long she lived.

  “Ophelia,” she said.

  “The flowers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sing it again,” said Abraham, closing his eyes. “I haven’t heard it in a while.”

  Jessica sang again. This song would never get her any food or friendship. No one on Venice Main wanted to hear the sad stories. It made them feel worse. But it made her feel better, with its mournful ache and easing sigh. It broke down the mask smoothed over her face and the stone wall built around her chest. It made her feel heard, even if her father looked like he had fallen asleep.

  “His beard was as white as snow.

  All flaxen was his poll.

  He is gone, he is gone.

  And we cast away moan.

  God ha’ mercy on his soul.”

  Jessica listened for snoring, but Abraham was not sleeping. She looked out the window again. Even harder now to make out the line between the deepening purple sky and the blue-black ocean. She grasped her star pendant between her fingers and ran it back and forth on the chain.

  “You didn’t leave soon enough,” said Abraham. His eyes were open, and he did not look calm anymore. He looked angry. He must have known already, before she came in. But how? Jessica pushed away but wasn’t fast enough. He kicked out, hitting her shoulder. He was too weak for it to hurt, but she scrambled away, fuming. She was not a child.

  “You can’t treat me like this!”

  Her shoulder stung, but it was no worse than getting jostled on the ramparts. Nothing like how he used to hurt her, in the years after her mother’s death.

  “You should have run away long ago,” said Abraham. “Do you stay because no one else wants you?”

  “It’s your fault!” she shot back.

  The children in Venice believed that anyone with white in their hair was a ghost from before the Flood, personally responsible for the destruction of the world. Jessica knew that the world had been flooded longer than Abraham had been alive, longer than his father had been alive. He was not responsible for the world’s pain, but he was at least partly responsible for hers.

  “Blame me for everything,” said Abraham.

  “You’re a horrible old man,” Jessica said. “I’m going to leave you and I’m not even going to think of you—”

  “It’s too late.”

  “It’s not too late!”

  She rushed towards him and gripped his arms to stop him raising his hand. She could not remember the first time she had hit back. She thought it would mean he would never hit her again; she was shocked when she learned she was wrong. He never seemed to mind, after their fights were over. She thought it made him proud to know she could give back as much hurt as she took. It made him feel better to know that the first time someone on the ramparts had struck her, she had not hesitated to strike back, harder.

  “You were always too weak for this place,” said Abraham. His eyes were unfocused, and his breath reeked of mould. She wrinkled her nose but did not turn away from the smell. She would not be weak for him.

  “I’m going somewhere better,” she said.

  “There is no place better,” said Abraham. “Every place has its own problems. Every place is looking for someone to blame. If you go elsewhere, they’ll blame you. They won’t stop to consider if you’re Jewish enough. Once they realize hating Jews is an option, they’ll hate you.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Jessica. “It’ll be better after I go."

  “You’re already gone.”

  “What?”

  “You’re already gone, Dasha,” he said.

  Jessica’s anger flooded away, replaced with a deeper pain. “I’m not Dasha,” she said, releasing his arms. “She’s dead.”

  “You still wear the necklace I gave you…”

  He frowned, like he knew something was wrong, that this woman who wore his necklace was not his wife. But then he turned away from the truth he did not want to see.

  Jessica grasped the pendant between her fingertips. Her mother’s necklace. A Jewish necklace for the woman who never tried to be Jewish. Jessica never had the chance to ask her mother why she did not convert; why she had married Abraham in the first place, when she had no desire to be part of the Upper Keep.

  Not that this had saved her. Dasha had died with the Jewish women of the Upper Keep in the massacre. When Abraham put the chain around Jessica’s neck, it had been sticky with blood; the star had stained her fingertips red. It took a decade of rain and wind to turn the necklace silver again.

  Jessica missed her mother. She missed her smooth hands braiding and unbraiding her curls. She missed resting her chin on her mother’s soft thigh. She missed how Dasha could quiet Abraham’s moods. She missed being a family of three. She knew that her mother was just as responsible as her father for making her half-and-half, two mismatched wholes that made one whole other. But her mother was not here, and Jessica could not bring herself to blame her.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  “Leaving me to die. Good. I always knew you would.” Abraham did not look so lost now. “I always knew you would run away someday. Figure out how to survive without me. That’s the important thing, right? Surviving. I hope you never come back!”

  “Shut up,” Jessica said, quietly. She turned towards the window. The breeze did nothing to soothe her.

  Eventually, she heard a sputter of snores. Abraham had fallen asleep. A lump stuck in her throat that she could not swallow down. Instead, she sighed it out.

  “And will he not come again?

  And will he not come again?

  No, no, he is dead,

  Go to thy deathbed.

  He never will come again.”

  Abraham’s snores continued after the final shaky note. She brushed the last tears from her cheeks and tucked her curls over her ears. They immediately popped back out.

  Jessica slipped out of the window and went along the balcony to a rope bridge leading over to the balcony of a neighbouring house. Within, a woman was faintly singing a prayer. Jessica moved on, crossing another rope bridge to a third house, then a fourth. Light rain began to fall. The houses clustered together here, and the curtains were drawn, protecting the inhabitants from the weather. There was no more singing. They were probably sitting down to dinner. No one would appreciate an interruption at this time of night, but Jessica still knocked next to the window.

  The curtain parted enough for Jessica to see one dark brown eye, and then the curtain swept open. Abby’s body blocked any view further inside, her large belly as effective a barrier as the curtain. From outside the house, Jessica could not see Abby’s one twisted leg, but she imagined it made standing up while so pregnant even more difficult. Abby was due, for at least a week now, and Jessica cursed that she was dealing with a heavily pregnant woman who had better reasons than hunger to be in a bad mood.

  “Did someone die?” Abby asked.

  “My father needs help.” Vague enough for Abby to keep the curtain open.

  “Is he sick?” she asked.

  “Who is it?” Abby’s husband Daniel called from deeper within the house.

  “He’s not sick,” said Jessica. “He’s just going to be on his own for a while.”

  Abby pursed her lips, making Jessica feel like a child. Abby was only a few years older but was mature in a way Jessica was not. Maybe it had something to do with being a mother. Abby already had two children.

  “Are you running off to Venice Main again with that boy?” Abby said.

  “I’m going to Fuji,” said Jessica.

  Abby’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

  “Nobody goes to Fuji,” Abby protested. “Nobody goes anywhere. How will you even get there? Why would you go? What about the riot? If the empress finds out—”

  “Andrusha, Luka, and I are going to talk to the empress,” said Jessica. “We need more food, and they need my help. I’m the most fluent in Diplomacy.”

  Luka had used that excuse to convince Andrusha to let her come, though Andrusha was probably as fluent as Jessica.

  “I need someone to check in on my father…” She did not say she was not planning to come back. No one would ever commit to taking on Abraham.

  “I have my own family to take care of,” said Abby.

  “I understand,” Jessica lowered her eyes and tried to look pathetic.

  Abby sighed. “I’ll have Ruben stop by every couple of days.”

  Ruben was Abby’s eldest. He was only six. But Abby seemed to think he was old enough to be helpful, so Jessica decided to believe her.

  “I was hoping for one more favour,” said Jessica. “Our jug’s empty. I won’t have time to refill it before I sail tomorrow.”

  Abby shuddered and spat at the mention of sailing. “I’ve already wrapped the desalinator,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “But wait here.”

  The curtain closed. Jessica heard angry mutterings inside. It didn’t matter if anyone protested: a mother’s decision was the final decision.

  The curtain opened.

  “Take this jug,” said Abby, thrusting it into Jessica’s hands. She almost buckled under the weight. “We have enough to last us until tomorrow. And Ruben can pick it up when it’s empty. And take this.”

  Several strips of gull jerky tied together with kelp twine. An extra loop in the tie slipped easily over Jessica’s hand, resting on her wrist.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” said Jessica. “We have pickles. And I got algae blocks.” Another gift she had no intention of paying back.

  “The kids were lucky hunters and I’m tired of gull,” said Abby. “Besides, we can’t survive on the sea’s gifts alone.”

  The sea’s gifts. The edible algae blocks were a breakthrough, but Jessica would hardly call the wild poisonous algae a gift. The sea gave waves that swallowed boulders and houses and people. It gave eels, their sharp teeth, the tearing and the blood. It gave mussels with sharp edges that sliced through ankles in accidents and through throats when children clashed with children. Those were the sea’s gifts.

  “You’re right, we can’t,” said Jessica. “We survive despite them.”

  The curtain opened wider. Omar, Abby’s father-in-law, appeared over her shoulder. He was almost as old as Abraham. Wrinkles like threads pulled at the corners of his mouth. His eyes widened, and he placed his fingertips against his lips.

  “Jessica! You look just like your mother!”

  Jessica blushed, and Abby flushed with her. Then a child started crying from inside the house. Omar rushed away from the window. Jessica shrugged off the apology before Abby could issue it and shuffled towards the rope bridge.

 

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