But there’s no sign that anyone inside the ship recognizes her. After a short while, the ship ascends into the clouds and vanishes.
Callie tilts her head and frowns. “That’s weird. Could have landed on the shore, at least. But maybe there’s no good place.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t your friend,” I suggest, turning the boat around and aiming for the bay. “It may have been the Plood.”
Callie is still staring up at the sky. “I think that was the saucer we lived in. It was all dirty and overgrown. But I can’t be sure.”
The sail goes limp and doesn’t seem to be helping us go the other way.
“They wanted to look at you, anyway,” I growl as I adjust the sail, hoping to make it work. “But that could be said for everyone on Xren.”
Callie helps me with the sail, but the wind is blowing from the wrong direction and it just won’t work. We take the sail down and grab our oars to paddle instead. Going this way, the current helps us and we reach the village before the sun sets. Boys gather and ask about how it worked.
“It floats,” I tell them as Callie and I climb up on the platform. “And the sail works very well. At least going with the wind.”
Callie stops and stares out to the ocean. “So weird to not land. I’m sure Theodora would have done that.”
I put one arm around her shoulders. “Likely it was a Plood ship. They came low to see if they could steal you, but then they saw me and they changed their minds.”
“Maybe,” she concedes. “But I still want to go and see if Theodora is there. And now the boat is done.”
I can hear the tension in her voice. She’s still worried that I will postpone the trip.
“We’ll start tomorrow at sunrise,” I state. “There are no storm clouds. No splix run. No Day of trade. There is a charcoal burning, and a Lifegiver will soon be ready to have the boy taken out, but we may be back in time to see it. If not, there will be other chances. So, no excuses this time.”
Callie takes my hand, relief in her eyes. “Tomorrow is a good time. We’ll prepare tonight.”
We pack baskets of food, both splix and things that other tribes traded to us. We bring large pots of water and juice, as well as a box of fresh fruit and a spare sail.
That night our lovemaking is slow and tender, and then Callie falls asleep in my arms.
I know that when we get to the place and her friend is there, she may want to stay. That may not be as bad as I feared before. We have a boat, and we can go back and forth to the village if we have to.
I lie awake a while longer, listening to the steady rhythm of her breathing and the clucking of the waves against the platform poles. Tomorrow we sail toward whatever waits along the coast. To her past, certainly our future.
But tonight she is here, warm against my chest, her hand curled loosely over my heart as if to make sure it remains. I once thought strength meant holding fast and never yielding. Now I know it is this: choosing, and being chosen, and daring the wide horizon together.
When sleep finally takes me, it is not with fear of losing her, but with the certainty that wherever the wind carries us at sunrise, we will face it side by side.
EPILOGUE
- Callie-
The current is against us, but the wind is at our backs. Still it takes us well over a day to sail to the beach, and then we sail along it for a while until I think I recognize the trees.
When the boat scrapes against the sand, I jump out into ankle-depth water and grab my pack. Crat'ax pulls the boat up on the beach as far as he can. “Is this the right place?”
“Yep,” I tell him. “There are footprints in the sand.”
He frowns. “Those could be from any Small.”
“But they’re not.” I walk carefully towards the clearing with the saucer. This is definitely the right place, but I’m nervous about what I might find. I don’t like that the saucer that hovered over us on the ocean didn’t signal, or at least fly to the shore to land. I made sure whoever flew it could see me, and I know the saucer has cameras and screens to show the crew the surroundings.
We walk past the little sliver of jungle between the beach and the clearing, and then my heart sinks in my chest.
“The Plood ship is gone,” Crat'ax says calmly. “Your friend made it work.”
“I guess so,” I manage, numbed by the anticlimax.
