The Island

Chapter 9

As we proceed northwards, I spot small dots on the horizon that can only be the other islands. Some of them I can identify by sight while others I must consult the map about.

We are out of the bay, halfway to the North, and only five days in. At this rate, we could get a twenty day period to scour the North before we must head back. It is not nearly enough, but it is the best that any fisherman can hope for, now that the islands have been run dry.

As I look from the splotches in the distance to the names on my map, I recognize not only the islands my father told me about, but also those that I heard from the Freedom Fishers, who retold wistfully the stories of ancient heroes who had muscles bulging from their necks down, and had the finest stroke of all the fishermen.

More reason to be a hero.

For today, and today only, Sully has placed me in the control room, to serve as an assistant navigator to Bill. He told me that heroes and fishermen alike must learn all the jobs that the ship demands.

The job demands nothing but the occasional inspection of the map at the navigator's request. It is the easiest and most boring job there is, but I cannot complain. Within the three walls of the control room, the repelling winds die quick. Outside, I see my crewmates bowing under the onslaught of gales. The cold bites at them, whereas I feel it only a little.

"What's new on the horizon?" Bill asks suddenly in his deep yet soft voice.

"Not much," I respond at first, but then something catches my eye. "Wait... another island. It's... so big."

Bill peels his head away from the dashboard to see where I'm pointing.

"Ah..." he starts ominously. "Navigator's Last."

My heart drops. Navigator's Last. One of the few islands that overlapped between the stories of my father and my friends. My father had downplayed its destructive past, which had given it its name. My friends, however, held nothing back. From their mouths spouted stories of an eight-hundred-legged octopus, a ghost ship harboring those who died at sea without worshipping the Sea God. It was a wild land, in many ways a gateway into the North.

There was a Sunday when we looked upon our own death. Our last. It brought an abrupt end to an otherwise blissful period. It halted my world, though it surely came with the purpose of moving it forward. And its purpose is something I am still struggling to figure out.

Just another Sunday.

We had made a plan. This time we would try to take more. It was simple tactics, Terry explained. We could distract one for so long that we could pinch all of his fish. It seemed a bit drastic to me, but Terry promised that I could be a part of the distractors too. It was a chance to redeem myself, so I couldn't complain.

We soon found out, however, that the wharf routine had been stalled—stalled for the announcement of the arrival of this thing, this dubious thing, called a corporation.

We were already at the wharf when we heard the news, through whispers guided by the wind. The only thing going through my head was dread at having to wait another week. Clearly, we couldn't do our quest, given that no fishermen had yet set up their stalls. Whatever this corporation thing was, couldn't they have waited just a little, to give me a chance?

We awaited Terry's judgement. It came quickly. He wasted only an instant on his thoughts, then, as we stood there uncertain, he whirled around and ordered us to go back to the alley. When Jack asked about the plan, Terry told him to forget it. Forget that he ever told them about it. And when we were back in the alley, he told us he was going home, and he left.

The rest of us were in shock, and in our shock we wondered, not knowing what this corporation was, dumbfounded by Terry's anger. We were leaderless, facing a great uncertainty.

In desperation, we gave our best guesses to the wind.

Harper thought that it was some kind of storm, a harbinger of death. He said that the "corp" sounded like "corpse." Aimes thought it was a stupid idea.

"Oh yeah? Then what do you think it is?" Harper asked, to which Aimes just shrugged and said, "Not that, that's all I know."

Will V suggested that it was a giant fish. That didn't make sense, though. The fishermen wouldn't have been angry if there was a giant fish coming.

When Jack was asked, he simply scowled, saying that he knew, and no amount of head rubs or pinches could force out the answer.

I had my own thoughts, but I did not say them. They were fantastical, even more so than Will V's idea of a giant fish. They were completely out of proportion with the world we knew. It was something that belonged in one of those books.

What was this corporation? we all asked, again and again, to which no answer came.

But even as we breathed the words, we smelled something sinister.

Something sinister. I feel a chill just thinking about Navigator's Last.

"Will the storm follow us?" I ask the navigator.

"Doesn't seem likely. It's clinging to the land, and we've got good distance on it."

"What if the Sea God sends him at us?" I press, unconvinced.

"Then it'll be a clash of nature and divine will."

The voice comes from behind.

"G'morning Cap'n," Bill says without taking his eyes off the horizon.

"Think you can outrun that?"

"Can."

"O' course not if the Sea God sent it, eh Marty? Then the storm will cross the leagues in one giant stop and stomp on us all."

The thought makes my spine tingle. "It can't, though, right?"

"Well I've never seen anything like that, I doubt anyone has... so a clash of nature and divine will. Though I believe that it can happen. After all, isn't nature just a shaping of the Sea God's? Surely, then, he can bend it to fit his will. Impossible to us, maybe, but we think only in the range of impossibilities due humankind and the nature that rules it. Anything can happen if you open your mind and your faith wide enough. Best pray hard," he says, then walks out the back.

Not exactly a reassuring thought. I am vaguely certain that the storm has no way of taking us, that we are safe, but doubt nags at the back of my head: a worry cancer. Things will go wrong, I tell myself. Nothing good ever stays.

It seems that whenever security
The corporation brought wonder to all of our minds. It was mysterious and glorious, exciting yet dangerous. We looked at it as if it were not a part of our world. Like it could not touch us, could not hurt us. But that it would change our world too. It was only that we were too excited to think much about the actual possible consequences. Because nothing had happened to our quiet town in quite some time.

Night falls on the Gloria. The rest of the crew stumbles in, one by one. As each comes through the back, I see him tiredly wipe the sweat from his brows, place all of his equipment away, and collapse on the nearest empty spot on the bench. I watch all of them do it, up until Sully who is the last to enter. First he says something to Bill, though, who leaves his watch at the helm as well.

I sit there in the dead of the night, listening to the waves crash on the boat, something that has, more or less, become a part of my world.

Navigator's Last is somewhere looming in the distance. I am grateful that it is too dark for me to see it, but the shadowy night keeps me guessing. I keep looking out the side, certain that I will be face to face with jagged rocks, bleak shores, and that the storm will appear right on top of us. Unrelenting. A few times, I think that I see streaks of white, dancing atop the waters.

How our imagination soars in the face of fear.