After the Flood. Kassandra montag
Black had been the first to raise a flag, using it to identify the different ships within their tribe, and later, to invite another ship to surrender before an attack.
So Grandfather and I made a fisherman’s flag by cutting a fish out of a white T-shirt and sewing it onto a blue pillowcase. As soon as Pearl was a toddler I taught her the three different kinds of flags, because I needed her to be my second set of eyes on the sea, to alert me to who could be approaching us if I was busy fishing. So she learned how some flags were a plain color: white to communicate distress, black to indicate disease, orange to refuse a request. Others told what kind of ship you were: a merchant ship, fishing boat, or breeding ship. And the last kind were the tribal flags, flags with symbols on them to show the identity of a new community, like a family crest.
Though the Lily Black were the first to set up this communication, they were also the first to subvert it. Now it was rumored that the Lily Black liked to sail under false flags to get closer to an enemy and to raise their own flag right before an attack.
So as we approached the merchant ship, I kept my eyes on their flag, my hands on the gunwale, fearing they’d take it down and replace it with a raider tribal flag.
“I think you can relax,” Daniel said. “You can’t stay in a permanent state of hypervigilance.”
“I’ve always avoided this part of the Pacific because I’ve heard raiders have a stronghold here.”
“I thought you avoided this area because you can’t navigate?” Daniel grinned at me and brushed my arm with the back of his hand.
I suppressed a grin and glanced at him, the wind tossing my hair in my face. “After the trade, we should troll and head a bit farther east for sailfish.”
Daniel looked out at sea. “How can you tell?”
I pointed to frigate birds flying low and diving into the water a few miles east. Grandfather had taught me to watch the birds. “I also saw schools of tuna and mackerel. The water is warm here. Sailfish can get you eighty pounds of meat. It’s worth going off course.”
“Okay. We’ve just got to be careful, sailing so close to the coast without aiming to dock.”
I knew he was concerned about the mountains just under the surface of the water and the boat running aground, shredding the hull. Sometimes you could see shadows darkening the water where the mountains rose up to meet the sky, and when you sailed over them, you could look down and see the rocky peaks like ancient faces floating in the deep, looking back up at you. The ocean churned above them, its currents eddying among the rocks, coral springing up anew, new sea creatures adapting and forming in the dark.
I wouldn’t be here for whatever new things would grow out of this new world; I’d be ash before they sprouted fully formed. But I wondered about them, wondering what Pearl would live to see and hoping they’d be good things.
We pulled alongside the merchant ship and traded our fish for a few yards of cotton, thread, charcoal, and goat’s milk. When I asked them about wood, they told us we needed to go even farther south to get good prices. A knot twisted in my stomach. We couldn’t lose even more time by sailing farther off course.
When we parted ways with the merchant ship, it sailed northeast toward a small port on the coast and Daniel adjusted our tiller so we’d turn southeast, toward where I thought there might be sailfish. Pearl played with a snake on deck as I repaired crab pots, weaving wire between the broken slats of metal. There was always something to be fixed. The rudder, the sail, the hull, the deck, the tackle and bait. Everything always breaking and me barely able to keep up, time slipping through my fingers all the while.
We sailed toward the diving birds. Pearl and I trolled with brightly colored lures made of ribbons and hooks. The water ran clear and the wind breathed easy, one of those lovely sailing days that made me feel like I was flying. I caught sight of a sailfish near the surface, its sail cutting the water like a shark’s fin, and I dropped a line with live squid on the hook.
I let the line drift, occasionally moving it, watching the water and waiting, careful to bait the sailfish and not follow it. It took two hours before the sailfish bit and jerked me against the gunwale. My knuckles whitened as it almost tugged me into the sea.
Daniel leapt forward to steady me. “You okay?” he asked as he helped me screw the pole into the rod holder on the gunwale.
I nodded. “We can’t lose this one.”
It swam with astonishing speed, its sail cutting the surface of the water, and our boat lurched toward it when it reached the end of the line. It gave a powerful run, swimming in a semicircle at the end of the line, then fighting the line, diving into the air, sending a spray of water around it.
No coast lay in sight; the world was so flat and blue, your eyes could get tired of it. It was disorienting—this much space. Like a person needed something to dwarf them. Even the clouds were as thin as gauze.
A shark circled our boat, swimming closer and then farther away. At first I thought the shark was tracking the movements of a school of mackerel under us, but then I realized it was hunting our sailfish.
“We should try to reel it in quick,” I told Daniel.
“I thought you said it’s better to let them wear out before you reel them in? How are we going to handle this thing?”
I put on my leather gloves. “You and Pearl reel him in. I’ll catch him by the sword. Once I’ve got him, you help me lift him out of the water by grabbing his sail and under his torso.”
The pole that held the sailfish had been a titanium fence post before Grandfather fashioned it into a fishing pole. It didn’t bend or break against the sailfish’s weight, but the rod holder on the gunwale creaked and screeched, threatening to rip lose.
Daniel cranked the reel, straining with each pull, sweat gathering at his temples. The sailfish kept fighting, lunging into the air and whipping its body around. Water sprayed our faces. Its body slammed against the boat as it fought. I blinked away the salt caught in my eyes and lost sight of the shark.
When the sailfish was close enough to grab, I leaned over the gunwale and reached for it. It jerked on the line, its head pulled from the water, the hook glistening in its mouth.
I grabbed its sword and it almost slipped out of my hands, slick as an icicle. The sulfuric scent of coral and seaweed drifted around us. We must be close to mountaintops, I thought fleetingly.
Daniel locked the reel in place and leaned over the gunwale to grab the sail. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shark reappear. It bumped the hull and we rocked slightly.
Dread gathered like bile at the base of my throat. The shark dove deeper into the water, its shape cloudy and then invisible in the depths. The sailfish’s eyes darted to and fro. Its gills fluttered and its scales tremored, spinning sunlight in a kaleidoscope. Even it seemed to have a fresh wave of fear roll over it.
It opened its eyes wide and ripped its sword from my hands in a violent lurch and dropped back into the water with a splash.
“Dammit,” Daniel muttered, reaching into the water to grab the sail.
“Daniel, don’t!” I said.
The shark pierced the water, mouth open, catching Daniel’s forearm in its teeth and shaking its head in a violent toss before dropping back into the water. Daniel screamed, falling forward toward the water.
I CAUGHT THE back of Daniel’s shirt, braced against the gunwale, and yanked him hard. We both stumbled backward and fell to the deck. Blood streamed from his arm, running along the cracks between the wood.
“Pearl! Grab the fabric!” I shouted.
I couldn’t see the wound past the blood. Skin and tendons hung from his arm. Had he severed an artery? Was the bone crushed?
Pearl