As soon as we make it out of the ship graveyard, it's like a shadow lifts, a shadow that I didn't realize was so dark until it's gone. We're back in the light now.
Being back at the control panel again helps, it relieves my stress. Even when I'm trapped in the chair, squashed in it for hours, it feels better than being out in the open of the ship graveyard. The click of the buttons sounds like a symphony of sweet music, like how the birds on the island used to sound, perched in the trees, swaying in the wind.
The next coordinate is further away, it'll take a full week to get there. But a week is what we need. A beautiful break, where we can let go, where we don't have to worry about getting destroyed by the wood of a ghost ship or gaze into the hollow eyes of a skeleton of someone who is now lost eternally.
The week passes in peace, and on the fifth day, just two more days left to go, we come to a reef. I'm not exactly sure, I'd have to consult at least four or five books in the study, but I think this is the reef we were heading towards when Dad died. This is fulfilling another wish of Dad's, even if he didn't say it specifically- we're going to the place he never got to visit, looking at the waters that he only got to picture in his mind.
The contrast is so sharp, it makes my eyes squint at first. I can hear Cal and Ser shuffle to the viewing room, so I get up to join them. I've become slightly more comfortable with leaving the panel now. I can leave it for longer, now that I know it won't destroy the submarine, like Dad threatened it would. Still, it's my dependency, I can't stray for too long, not for the submarine's sake but for mine. Wrapped up in the flashing lights is like being wrapped up in a heavy blanket, safe and protected and secure.
I open the door to the viewing room, and Cal and Ser are sitting in the chairs. I remember what happened the last time I was in here- I've been so distracted that I haven't been here since then. I was convincing Cal that this was a good idea. That this quest, this journey that was forced upon us, would be worth it in the end, if we did it for Dad.
It seems even more worth it now, especially to Cal. I can still see flashes of hesitation in Ser's eyes. Maybe it's because she was conscious the whole time, or seeing Cal knocked out scarred her. I get it. I'm scarred too, I'll wear these memories on my skin, they'll never let go. Sometimes I have to pull the disk fragment out from under my shirt, since I've taken to wearing the necklace, to remind myself why we're doing this. That this is a concrete goal, not just some traipse of imagination that's going to get us killed.
The view out the window is stunning. We must be at a coral patch that isn't dying, if this is the reef Dad mentioned. The coral flourishes in all shapes and sizes. Greens and blues and reds and yellows and pinks, all set out in an array. It curls and swirls and twists and breaks and bends, like a forest growing on the rocks, shadows reflecting onto the light sand. It's so bright here, since the waters are shallow. The sun sheds its light like a beacon, projecting itself everywhere.
There are creatures everywhere. In just ten seconds, I can count fifteen species of tropical fish. Ones that I recognize from my book, and ones that I know because Dad told me about them, because we've observed them, kept them in specially controlled tanks for a few days while we studied them, pried apart their behavior and their appearance, until we had the essence of the fish totally captured
There are rocks underneath the coral, they poke through in patches of tan, sparse but obvious.
I see things besides fish- crabs and lobsters, sea turtles and octopi, even a tiny little shark, its gray body composed entirely of angles, teeth jutting from its snout. Even though I see all of them, I can't tell where we are, or more likely, I don't want to process it. But I have a feeling that we're closer to the island than we are far away from it. Maybe just maybe, we could travel there, take a quick detour, talk to old friends and acquaintances and lovers-
YOU ARE READING
Beneath These Waves
FantasyDell's sister Cal has always been the announcer of tiny disasters, so when she says that something is wrong with their father, Dell thinks nothing of it. But it's not nothing. Because their father is dead. After the short but difficult task of mo...
