Prized

“I’m beginning to think gratitude is the opposite of curiosity,” Will said.

His disapproval was obvious, and she didn’t like it.

“That’s supposed to be an insult, isn’t it?” she said.

His frown softened somewhat. He reached a hand around the back of his neck, and her gaze went to the small mole at the base of his throat. “I didn’t mean it to be,” he said. “I apologize.”

“All right then.” She started away.

“Wait,” he said. His brown eyes were troubled, and tension was obvious in every line of his body. “Don’t leave mad at me. The truth is, I’ve wanted to tell you something else, too, but I never see you alone.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and waited grudgingly.

Will cleared his throat. “I’m here for you, Mlass Gaia. That’s all,” he said. “Anything you need. Anytime.”

When he said no more, the silence stretched, filling with bigger implications.

“Will,” she said uncertainly.

“I just thought you should know. You’re it for me.”

It was not a small thing he was telling her. And his timing was horrible. Then his mouth curved in a slow, honest smile, and his warm eyes told her all that his words couldn’t.

Leon made her so miserable she wanted to die. In Peter’s arms, she nearly liquefied. Will just had to smile, without even touching her, and she was purely confused. He certainly didn’t seem too old for her anymore, if she’d ever consciously thought he was. She took a big, gawky step backward. She’d heard of love triangles before, but a love square?

“I can’t believe I told you,” he said.

She let out a laugh. “Well, you did, and I really have to go.”

“I know. Go. Run.”

She hurried toward the road and broke into a sprint. Will! she thought. Peter. And even worse: Leon. She let out a little squeak and then banished them all to think only of her sister.

Sunlight splashed around her in bright buckets of light as she ran in and out of the shade of the big trees, gripping her cloak around her arm. The familiar road curved past the lodge, then the willow and the pump, then past the smaller cabins. Soon the shore spread out before her, with morning light bright on the marsh, and the dark bulk of the prison in its yard on the right.

As the breeze turned, she caught a whiff of sour ash, and saw the charred black remains of a bonfire with part of a burned stump still faintly smoking. A dozen men and women were grouped loosely beside a row of canoes that lay with their bottoms up, like giant, sleeping fish. Leon was among them, and a gust of wind blew to ripple his brown shirt and hair.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Aren’t we expecting a note from the Matrarc?” she asked.

“I gave it to Vlatir already,” Dinah said. “We think someone went out last night to tell Mlady Adele’s family to be ready,” she said. “But officially, they haven’t heard yet.”

“What if Mlady Adele doesn’t want to come?” Gaia asked.

“She’ll still have to give up the baby,” Dinah said. “That’s why we were discussing more canoes. The Matrarc said she would rather keep the security here in the village if you don’t really need them.” She nodded to another group of men farther along the beach, and Gaia realized they were guards.

If it came to taking Maya forcibly, Gaia didn’t want to be part of it. She had memories of taking babies to give to the authorities in the Enclave, and didn’t ever want to do anything like that again, not even to get her sister.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Gaia said.

“You’re coming,” Leon said flatly. “You do what the Matrarc tells you, remember?”

It was true. She looked back up the road for Peter and was relieved to see him coming down the slope. “Peter offered to go with us,” she said.

“At least one person in the canoe will know how to paddle, then,” Dinah said, amused.

Gaia hadn’t thought of that.

“I can see I’ll have to get involved,” Dinah added. “Vlatir, I’ll go with you. Mlass Gaia and Peter can take a second canoe. I may be able to help with Mlady Adele and the baby anyway.”

“Fine,” Leon said. Without another look at Gaia, he took an end of the nearest canoe to carry it into the water, and Dinah reached for the other.

“Need a hand?” Peter called as he neared.

“You’re bringing Mlass Gaia,” Dinah said. “We’ll meet you out there.”

Dinah knotted her red shawl across her chest so it couldn’t slip free. With one quick, deft step into the water, she pushed off the canoe and settled in the stern. The wind caught the locks of her loose hair as she reached for her paddle, and with Leon in the bow, they pulled away from shore.

It took only a few minutes for Gaia and Peter to get arranged in another canoe, with Gaia in the bow, and she held tight while he pushed off.

“What do I do if we tip?” she asked.

“Hold on to the canoe and we’ll swim it to one of the hillocks.”

“I don’t swim,” she said.

“What?”

“I grew up by an unlake,” she said. “In a wasteland. Nobody swims there.” Gaia wedged her knees against the gunwales of the canoe to keep steady, and tentatively picked up her paddle.

“I won’t let you tip.” His smile was audible in his voice. “Most places it’s so shallow you can stand anyway. Here. Watch what you’re doing.”

Her paddle banged against the side of the canoe. “What am I doing wrong?” she asked, pivoting on her seat to see him behind her. His light brown hair was almost blond in the sunlight. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat in this sun?” she asked.

“Where’s yours?”

“I forgot it. I had my cloak when I left the lodge this morning.”

“I forgot mine, too.” He jerked his chin up. “The clouds will help a little. You want to go, don’t you?”

She did.

“Then put your right hand down here, by the blade,” he explained, demonstrating with his own paddle. “And you keep your upper arm pretty much straight. Kind of roll with it. Use the power in your back and try to keep your strokes long and smooth.”

“Like this?” she asked, trying. It felt different. Awkward.

“Not so stiff. And if you keep the blade flat, parallel to the water to feather it forward again, it cuts through the wind.”

“There isn’t that much wind.”

“You like to argue, don’t you?”

“I’m just saying,” she said, trying another stroke. The water felt like black syrup.

“Air resistance instead of wind, then,” Peter said. “When we go faster, it matters more.”

On her next stroke, the water seemed thinner, and she was surprised by how easily her paddle moved until she realized Peter was propelling the canoe from the stern. She had to pull harder to feel like she was making any contribution to their momentum, and soon the canoe was winding through the labyrinthine water trails of the marsh. Peter could steer them within centimeters of a muddy hillock of reeds and bushes without grazing it, and then turn the other way a few meters later.

Gradually, they began to go faster. She liked the power of paddling, the rhythm of her strokes timed with Peter’s, and the smooth, graceful swiftness of the water below her blade. It felt so, so sweet to be moving and using her muscles for something besides cleaning or peeling potatoes.

“Pace yourself, Mlass Gaia,” Peter said. “It’s going to take a while to get there.”

She glanced ahead and couldn’t see the island at all.

“It’s there,” he said, and she paused from paddling, looked back, and saw him pointing to his right. “The water path circles around this way,” he said, “and then back. Like an S with a few extra loops.”

“Why does Mlady Adele’s family live out here?”

“Mlady Adele’s mother and her mother before her always owned the island. Mlady Adele does now. Luke’s a bit of a loner, too, so I guess it suits them.”

She untied her cloak and dropped it into the canoe behind her. The water made a hollow noise against the belly of the canoe, and she could smell the sun-warmed mud in the marsh.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a box fixed to a pole, coming out of a hillock.

“That’s one of Luke’s station boxes,” Peter said. “He tracks water temperature and other things in the marsh. It was your grandmother who got him started. That was even before he married Adele and moved out here. I think he’s kept it up.”

“What was he looking for?” Gaia asked, curious.

“I don’t know, actually. You should drink,” he added.

She pivoted to look back and saw him scooping with his hand.

“Right out of the marsh?” she asked.

“It won’t kill you,” he said, smiling. “Just don’t scoop up anything big.”

She didn’t think he was joking. “But what about germs? Or fish poop? Don’t you need to boil it at least?”

Peter laughed. “We do at home. But I never knew anyone to get sick from a little marsh water. Aren’t you thirsty?”

She was, but she shook her head. “I’ll wait.”

“You can’t swim, you like to argue, and now you’re afraid of a little fish poop?” He laughed again. “Remind me why I came along with you.”

She looked doubtfully down into the water, peering through her own dim reflection, while the sound of him drinking made her even thirstier. She tentatively dipped her hand and tasted the cool water, surprised at its freshness. “It changes everything, having all this water,” she said. “You have no idea.”

“How did you get water back in Wharfton?” he asked.

“The Enclave drew up water at the geothermic plant, then purified it for us,” she said. “We got it from spigots in the wall.”

“So you were completely dependent on them, weren’t you? Was there enough water for you?”

She looked around at the marsh, and the seemingly endless supply of water right beneath the canoe. “Yes. Barely. I hauled it all the time.”

“Did you ever think of digging your own wells?”

“Actually, my dad had ideas about that. He thought we should go to the bottom of the unlake and start drilling there.” She remembered all the ingenious ways her dad had improved their home and garden. “But he never had time. Or a drill.”

It was the first time she’d thought of him without a crushing sense of loss, she realized.

“You miss him?” he asked.

She nodded. “And my mother. But it’s a little better.” She looked around her again. “They would like it here.”

He smiled gently. “I’m glad.”

In the stillness, she heard the even notes of voices over water. She glanced back to see Peter wipe his wet fingers on his pants and reach for his paddle.

“They’re not much farther ahead,” he said. “Want to catch them?”

She did. The skin inside her thumb was raw, so she shifted her grip on her paddle as she pulled again. Most of the waterway was intricately twisted and narrow, but soon they came around another bend to find Dinah and Leon floating, their paddles across their knees, and the waterway beyond them opened up to a wider expanse five hundred meters long, like a proper lake.

Dinah was laughing. Leon was peering dubiously into his cupped palm full of water, and then he drank. He looked more relaxed than Gaia had seen him yet.

“Five-legged frogs,” Leon said. “Mx. Dinah thinks that’s normal.”

“The wasteland boy thinks he knows more about the marsh than I do,” Dinah replied.