THE CROSSING
‘S top!’ I shout, but he is already halfway, reaching the dangerous scree towards the base of the cliff. Mari shoves her pillowcase at me and clambers up to meet him. I expect her to turn him around but she helps him navigate down.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘We don’t have time to take him back,’ says Mari, regaining her breath. ‘And we can’t leave him here. He’ll have to come.’
I stare down at the silent child.
‘It’s all right,’ I say softly. It looks like he is biting down on his thumb rather than sucking it. I reach out a hand and lay it lightly on the crook of his small arm.
Kidlat’s eyes flick rapidly from Mari and me, his breathing fast. I move closer and lay my other hand on his back, rubbing gently. Mari sits down too, and slowly, slowly, his breaths calm. He allows me to guide his hand out of his mouth and I see the tooth marks around the base of his thumb. His eyes fix on mine, and I know Mari is right. We have to go before anyone notices we’re missing, and it would be nearly impossible for him to climb back up on his own.
‘Listen, Kidlat. We’re going on a trip. You’re going to have to do exactly as we say, OK?’
He nods.
‘At least he’s only small,’ says Mari.
I bite back any meanness, though I am angry that he’s followed us. I want to get to Nanay as quickly as possible.
Kidlat sits on the beach as we ready Lihim, tying on the bedsheet sail and guiding the oars into their grooves. Mari helps Kidlat aboard and takes an oar in her good hand.
‘Ready?’ I say.
She nods, her pale skin flushed. I push us out into deeper water. When I am up to my chest I kick my legs hard and haul myself over the side of the boat. It rocks precariously, and some water seeps in through the patched crack below the lip, but soon it rights itself.
‘We need to get clear of the cliffs,’ says Mari, nodding at the empty sail. ‘They’re stopping the wind. We’ll have to row.’
Mari holds out her right wrist and I bind it to the oar so she can use both arms. I sit next to her and take up the other oar.
‘Kidlat, you can be in charge of the pail. If any water comes over the side—’
‘Or through the side, or the bottom—’
‘Thank you, Mari,’ I snap, before turning back to the silent boy. ‘Scoop it out, all right?’
He takes up the rusty bucket and begins to fill and tip. Mari and I start to row. It is hard from the first moment, and as the moments add up I pray silently that the wind is still blowing to Culion when we clear the bay. Mari grunts with the effort, the string cutting white into her arm. After a few long minutes, the mast creaks. We turn and see the sail billow. I hold my breath, and the wind seems to too. Then the sail fills. The boat begins to move.
Mari lifts her oar clear of the water and unties the string. She throws down the wood and jumps to her feet.
‘We did it. We’re going! We’re really going! Come on, Lihim!’
The boat rocks again and she stumbles to her knees laughing. Kidlat is smiling widely, waving his little arms in the air. We edge out into the open ocean.
The sea is not calm like it was the day of our first crossing. Or perhaps it is because we are in a boat that is so much smaller that the waves feel bigger. After only a few minutes Kidlat goes pale and uses the bucket to be sick into. Mari rinses it out and takes over bailing out the water seeping in through holes that are only noticeable because of the bubbles springing from them. But it is not an impossible amount of water, and I know from our journey to the orphanage that it is not an impossible distance either. Mari seems in a good mood, and I suppose that sailing a boat is making her think of her father.
I crawl to the front of the boat, ducking under the sail so I can watch the boat cut the water. I think of the people who owned it, who hauled nets full of fish aboard and painted it red and finally left it tied in a shallow cove. Where have they gone? Perhaps they hoped someone would find and fix it some day. Perhaps Mari and I were always meant to find it.
But that would mean I was always meant to come to the orphanage, which in turn would mean Nanay was always meant to be sick, and I don’t like to think that. That’s the problem with believing there’s a reason for everything – you have to take the good with the bad. Nanay taught me the word for it: tadhana, the invisible force that makes things happen outside our control. Like earthquakes or shipwrecks. Or falling in love.
Mari comes to join me in the bow of the boat. She holds out one of the oranges she stole from Luko. ‘Breakfast time.’
I peel it and we share the segments, spitting the pips over the waves. The wind carries them further than we could throw, and I think of that same wind blowing ahead, all the way home.
‘Is Kidlat all right?’
Mari shrugs. ‘I think so. He’s sleeping.’
‘What’re we going to do when we get to Culion? Hand him over or . . .’
‘We’ll have to bring him with us,’ says Mari. ‘There’s no way to make sure he’s safe without handing ourselves over too. They’ll put us on the first boat back.’
‘How can we be sure we’re gong the right way?’
‘Siddy said.’
‘But the wind changes, doesn’t it? So what if he’s not saying this way any more. What if we go off course, or hit another island, or—’
Mari holds her hand up to my mouth. ‘Ami, trust me.’
Trusting her has nothing to do with the wind or the sea, but her light, clear eyes fix on me and I feel a bit calmer. I lean to peer around the sail. The wind hits me full in the face, making tears start in my eyes.
Kidlat is curled up with his thumb in his mouth. Behind him, our cliff is already a smudge, a raised line as high as my finger. On the other horizon there are only waves, small hills rolling on and on. The sea is not light blue any more – up close it is a night sky, opaquely navy. I think of all the things beneath us, the fish and the coral and the sharks. Trust me. The mast groans and rasps as the wind cracks in our sail.
Mari is sitting sideways with her knees drawn up to her chest so she fits in the narrow hull. I slide down beside her.
‘You’re still worrying,’ she says. ‘Your face is all scrunchy.’
‘How are you not worried?’
‘It’s an adventure. It’s exciting.’ Her eyes shine. ‘I’ve never had one before.’
‘But what if the monsoon comes early? What if the clouds roll over and—’
‘And what if the sea opens up and swallows us! What if a huge ship comes through and snaps our boat in half! What if we fall overboard and forget how to swim!’
‘Exactly. I suppose we could pray?’
Mari wrinkles her nose. ‘You don’t believe in all that, do you?’
‘All what?’
‘Praying. God.’ She says it like Nanay does.
‘I don’t know.’
She shakes her head, exasperated. ‘Ami, if you always worry about the worst that could happen, you’d never do anything. We’d still be in that orphanage, or on a ship to somewhere else, probably not the same place as each other. But we’re here, going to see your nanay. We’re doing it. We’ve gone. So stop worrying. It’s too late. And if any of those things do happen, we’ll deal with them, all right?’
‘All right.’
‘Tell me about her.’ Mari’s voice is level again. ‘About your nanay.’
I have spent weeks not doing this. Not allowing my mind to fully turn to her. But now I reach for everything I know and let it fall out, all jumbled up and in the wrong order. I tell her about the butterfly house, about star catching and our stories. I tell her about Nanay facing down Mr Zamora without her scarf, and Mari lets out a low whistle.
‘She sounds brilliant. She sounds brave.’
‘She’s not brave exactly,’ I say. ‘It’s more that she doesn’t care what other people think. She didn’t care if Mr Zamora thought she was strange-looking.’
‘That’s brave, though,’ says Mari. Her voice is soft. ‘If my parents had stopped worrying about what other people thought, I’d still be with them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean your nanay is brave,’ Mari says, brushing off my question like she has every other question. ‘Tell me one of her stories.’
But my eyes have fixed on something past Mari’s head. The small hills of the waves beyond waves are growing higher. Growing higher, and not shrinking.
‘Look!’
And Mari turns her light eyes towards the hills of Culion.
We wake Kidlat and share another orange. The sun is at its highest point, and I cannot believe that it has taken only half a day to sight home. We play at guessing how many hours it will take to reach the shore, Kidlat holding up pudgy fingers, changing his mind every minute.
Mari and I are laughing so hard at him holding up one finger that it takes a moment to realize he is pointing. Too late, I see the jag of coral, mouthing up like a fang as the waves fall away. Mari scrambles for an oar and manages to jab us away, but the sail is carrying us fast towards another. I look down and see the water is aglow with coral, red and pink, and the water foaming white over it. The reef.
‘Help me!’ Kidlat hurries to help Mari steady her oar. I grab the other and join them in heaving us away from the shallows, but the wind is straining to pull us back.
‘The sail,’ Mari shouts. ‘We have to take it down.’
My fingers scrabble at the knots binding the sheets to the mast. The boat jolts and I drop to my knees, feeling rather than hearing the scrape of the underside against coral. Mari’s right hand is making it hard for her to grip the oar, and though Kidlat’s little arms shake with effort they aren’t able to push us away. The blade of the oar catches and Mari makes a grab for it, almost falling overboard. The oar falls away and I snatch it back up, knuckles grazing on a vicious orange frill. The blade is snapped and I stab at the sail, tearing through sheet after sheet until finally the wind gushes through and we slow, rocking but no longer scraping.
Mari is cradling her right wrist and I can see the skin is pink and sore-looking. Kidlat is on his knees, panting, and I feel a sudden rush of heat. My heart punches at my chest as I throw down the broken oar. Kidlat flinches into Mari.
‘Ami, what—’ Mari starts.
‘You . . . you broke the oar.’
‘I couldn’t get it free in time. We have a spare.’
‘You broke the oar and now we have no sail!’ My shout shocks me as much as her. I cannot remember the last time my voice scraped my throat like this, the last time my hands balled into fists. The last time I wanted to hurt someone. ‘You stupid, stupid—’ I round on Kidlat. ‘And you! Couldn’t you have just shouted? Couldn’t you have warned us? You’re not a baby any more, use your stupid mouth!’
‘Ami!’ Mari stands, moving Kidlat behind her. ‘Stop it!’
‘You said to trust you and look. Look! We’re never going to get there—’
‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault—’
‘You’re useless, both of you. Useless. Look at you—’
Mari shoves me, hard. I fall backwards, hitting my grazed hand. The sharp shock of the pain brings all the heat rushing to it, flushing out the anger and making it shrink into shame.
‘Mari, I—’
‘Never talk to me like that again.’ Mari brings her face down level with mine. There are hot patches of red on her pale cheeks, and the high midday sun glares through her hair, turning it into a halo. She looks like a terrible angel. ‘Never.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Tears scald my cheeks. ‘I don’t know why . . .’
Mari pulls me towards her and for a moment I think she is going to hit me, but instead she hugs me, harder than she shoved me. After a few moments Kidlat shuffles over and the three of us sit in a tight huddle until I feel water begin to seep up my legs.
‘We’d better bail,’ says Mari, and reaches for the bucket. Kidlat holds out his hands for it but Mari shakes her head. ‘I think Ami should do it, to say sorry.’
Mari and Kidlat take down the remnants of the sail and rip through my gashes so the sheets are in half. They set to retying the layers together while I scoop out the calf-high water. I am glad of the task. The words I said seem to have left grazes on my tongue. It feels swollen and poisonous, and my stomach churns with points of cooling anger, like shards of glass. I spoke like Mr Zamora would, or how San did that first day. I bail faster, so my arms ache and my head spins. I will never speak like that again.
We row over the rest of the reef, with Kidlat in front pointing out the safest path. The coral has punctured some holes in the bottom of the boat but we escaped the worst of it. My words have done the most damage. Though Mari is trying not to seem angry with me, I can feel a cool distance stretch between us as we navigate into open water again.
When we are clear, I help Kidlat tie the smaller sail to the mast and it billows feebly. We begin to move again, far slower than before, but Culion’s tooth-like hills are closer than ever. Coron is out of sight beyond the horizon behind us. I take up the oars and help the sail guide us shoreward.
‘You don’t have to do that, Ami,’ says Mari. ‘You should rest.’
But I do have to do it. I’m not done saying sorry yet.