FLOOD

To the Docks

When we crawled up and out of the tunnel it became obvious that dawn was just beginning to break. The forest was in that in between time, not pitch black anymore, yet not quite light yet. The sun was still stowed away behind the hills.

Searchers were still in the woods. The sweep of flashlight beams bounced and rippled on the tree trunks, and voices echoed, calling to one another, gravelly with frustration. The search had been fruitless, and they were staring to get fed up, I could tell just from the way they were calling to one another, short and angry. Probably Eli’s grandfather refused to let them stop.

We stayed just outside the entrance to the tunnel for a minute, huddled together, whispering to one another. Rain began to dot the leaves above our heads, making tiny pattering sounds, dripping down onto my arms and shoulders, making me shiver.

“You two stay here,” Fiske said. “I’ll go first, make sure they spot me. Be sure to wait another couple of seconds after they start chasing me, then make a break for it.”

“Got it.” I chewed on my bottom lip nervously, hating the idea of leaving Fiske behind, of putting him in danger like this. But I needed to get back home, needed to warn the others. “You be safe okay, if they get too close you run for real.”

Fiske pushed his nose into my palm, nudging me playfully. “You stop your worrying. You know how fast I can go. I beat you and Kalda into the woods every time.”

“Every time,” I agreed, struggling to hold back tears at the rush of memories that flooded over me at the thought. Of Fiske and Kalda and I racing one another into the woods. Fiske would always be ahead of us, and Kalda and I puffing and panting behind, once or twice stumbling over roots and tumbling into the snow together, laughing and red-faced, panting trails of silvery white into wreathes above our heads. Collecting the red berries from the bushes together, Kalda eating half of what should have gone into the basket, until her lips and teeth were red with berries, and she would play the clown and poke her red red tongue out at us. She never missed an opportunity to make others laugh.

“No goodbyes,” Fiske said, and his voice was fierce, determined. ‘No goodbyes, Vee. I’ll see you soon.”

Then he was gone, tearing away through the underbrush, making more noise than I’d ever heard him making. Normally he would flit through the woods like a ghost, but this time he was trying to attract attention.

Shouts went up a few seconds later. Someone had spotted him.

I tensed up, ready to run the opposite way, but Eli put a hand on my arm. “Just a few seconds,” he whispered. “Remember what he said.”

It was hard not to smack his hand away and start running, my body was vibrating with nerves. I was eager to put this place behind me. Instead I nodded and stayed where I was, counting the seconds down.

4. Wait for it, I can still see Fiske.

3. Still see him. There they go, they’re chasing him. Run, Fiske.

2. Run, don’t let them catch you. They can’t catch you.

1. Almost time. Run, Fiske, run.

Now we run.

I gripped Eli’s wrist, his hand was still on my arm, gave it one squeeze, and that was the only warning he got. Springing up, I landed on the balls of my feet, hitting the ground running. Behind me Eli grunted, and then the bushes were crackling behind me, loud enough to make me wince.

I’d forgotten he was a clumsy human for a moment there. Hopefully Fiske was enough of a distraction. I was heading for a line of trees just about twenty feet in front of us. There was a dip in the forest floor, a crest that would hide us once we got over the little hill. As long as nobody spotted us before then.

Eli behind me was breathing heavily, crashing through the brush three or four feet behind me. I felt a pang of regret for caving in and telling him he could come, and for a moment I was tempted to outrun him, just loose him in the woods.

But I needed him. He knew where the dock was, he had the plan to get the boat. I hadn’t even known we were on a damn island. That rubbed me the wrong way, that he knew more than I did about escaping this place. I was common sense, he’d been here a lot longer than I had, but still…

I should know the forest better, I should know nature better than a human.

We were almost at the dip in the forest floor now, just a few feet away. The shouting was still distant, they were still after Fiske, the lights still flickering far enough away that I didn’t feel as though we were being pursued. They hadn’t seen us.

We hit the dip and I was running so fast I nearly tumbled down it.  My feet pounding over the earth were suddenly sending up clouds of dust. We’d found a dirt path sloping downwards into the forest, and the forest grew thicker beyond that. Older growth.

That was good, it would shelter us, hide us in case they figured out that I wasn’t with Fiske.

Behind me I heard Eli stumble with a gasp, then catch himself, though just barely. He was hardly keeping up with me at the pace I was going.

It wasn’t until we were well out of sight, almost ten minutes later, that I allowed myself to slow the pace even slightly. We were both gasping for air. Me, because I’d been half starved and imprisoned for who knows how long, and him because he was a weak human.

“How far to the water?” I panted.

“Not far.” He was gasping, trying to take deep breathes of air in between each word. “About a half mile, just over the ridge.”

It wouldn’t take us more than three minutes. That was good, because the more I looked at the sky, looked up through the trees to the grey clouds, the less I liked this. The air felt electric, like a storm was coming with the rising sun, or something bad was about to happen.

We kept running, until glimpses of blue began to appear between the tree trunks, a glittering ribbon of water in the distance. The ocean.

I’d never seen the ocean, and something was turning in my stomach, anticipation….fear. I’d heard about it before, many of the Jotun were fishermen, bringing back pounds of dried, salted fish and tales of rough and treacherous waves. But I’d never been more than a few miles outside the palace, sheltered as I was.

Now I was going to be rowing across a vast expanse of unknown water with someone I barely knew, in a stolen boat. If we could manage to get the boat without getting caught, that was.

“There,” Eli panted from behind me. “The docks, just through the trees to the left.”

I paused, and he stumbled to a stop and hunkered down with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. “I see it.”

As we drew closer I got a better look at it. A single dock with a few beat up looking boats bobbing along beside it. There was a tiny little boat house that hung over the water, smeared glass windows shone with bleary yellow light.

“Someone’s in there.”

Eli straightened up, nodding. Once he’d caught his breath he said, “There’s an old man that stays there to man the docks. Once in a while we get a new boatload of researchers or something, so he helps them dock the boat and stuff.”

“So we’ll have to sneak by him,” I said grimly.

Eli grinned. “He’s half blind and most of his hearing is gone. It shouldn’t be hard.”

“Alright. Let’s do this.”