12. Pippi
“Pippi.” My name rumbled through Alistair as he cut through the angering sea, holding his head just high enough to keep me out of the water’s reach.
“Pippiiii.” He kept chewing on it, trying to get a feel for all its textures and tastes, maybe hoping the repetition would make it stick better to his brain.
“Pip-ee.” Okay. This was actually adorable. It shouldn’t have been, but delight warmed my insides all the same.
Which, I mean, at least I was warm somewhere . Because a chilling current now snaked through the air, and icy water still clung to my body, leeching the feeling out of my extremities.
And the thought of having to slide off Alistair’s head and get back into those frigid, rabid waves…
“Pippi,” Alistair said, “you’re…s-shivering?”
And that catch around shivering , the uncertainty when he finally got it out, as though he wasn’t sure it was the right word…Stars. Why, why did I find him so endearing?
“Can you feel that?” I muttered.
I was shivering. Big body-quaking shivers—a fruitless attempt to thaw my frozen limbs.
“Yes,” Alistair said. “Are you c-cold?”
“Freezing.”
“Free-zing.” He gnawed on the word, and then gruffed a sincere, “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need for you to be sorry,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault I went for a swim in my birthday suit. Although”—I tightened my arm around his horn for balance when he bobbed up and down with a choppy set of waves—“I didn’t think it’d be this cold.”
“The warmer months haven’t arrived,” Alistair said. “They haven’t…released the cold from the waters.”
“I know. I was freezing the whole ship ride to the island. But the island itself is so warm you kinda forget it’s still only May.”
“May…”
“Yeah. The month. Or…You probably don’t know the months, do you?”
“I do, some,” he said. “September. November. D-D-December. Ember. Juember. Ju-uly.”
A chortle wriggled out of me. Not because listening to him struggle was funny, but because of how July had clunked up the roll he’d been on with the ‘ember months.
One of those things was not like the other. Although “Juember” had a nice ring to it.
“May,” Alistair concluded, either not noticing my laugh, or choosing not to comment on it. “What are the words for the others?”
I rattled them off.
He slowly repeated each one. And once I’d gone through the whole list, he recited all twelve months on his own, brimming with pride when he made it all the way back to December.
“That was—” I started to congratulate him but ended up biting the words off with a squawk when a big clap of thunder exploded overhead.
“You’re s-safe.” Alistair’s voice twined around me, easing my galloping heart. “We’re nearly there.”
Nearly there. He’d been swimming for several minutes, and he wasn’t a slowpoke, but we were only “ nearly there .”
I swallowed. Or tried to. But my mouth had gone so dry, the lump in my throat had gotten so big, it was hard to swallow. “The ocean took me out far, didn’t it?”
A hum vibrated through Alistair. “The waters are s-strong… est . Strong est before a storm. But I wouldn’t test their strength. Even when there’s no storm.”
“Well, no worries there. It’s like the saying: fuck me once, shame on you. Fuck me twice, shame on me. Or, well, that’s the Jackson version of that saying, at least. He didn’t think ‘fool me’ packed the same punch, so he added some flavor. Y’know?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Means if something bites me once, I don’t generally give it a chance to bite again.”
He said nothing to that, just romped up and down, bobbing through the cantankerous waters.
I wondered if it was hard for him to swim with his head held up.
It had to be the equivalent of a person walking with their chin pointing at the sky.
And I knew from experience—usually from my trips to cities with stunning architecture to gawp at—that my upper back would scream if I had to carry that posture for any length of time.
I couldn’t imagine walking like that while trying to balance something on my forehead.
Something that moved. And talked incessantly.
And shivered so hard, its teeth made click-click-click sounds.
Bless him. Truly. I started to say that—another babbling thank you—but he belatedly responded to my last statement.
“Fuck,” he drizzled the word out, “doesn’t mean bite.”
I choked.
“It means s-s-s…” He sighed.
Oh no. I knew exactly what he was trying to sound out. “Sex?”
“Yes. Sex. It means sex. Unless I have the word wrong. I sometimes confuse them…”
“Oh, no, we’re on the same word page here.
” My choke turned into a giggle. And then a full-fledged laugh.
The kind that tickled your insides, left your belly muscles aching, and had the world looking a little brighter than it had a few seconds before.
“Like…Yes, generally, fuck means sex. Not always good sex though, sometimes it’s the bad sort, the kind that’s forced on you when you don’t want it.
That’s why it’s used in the saying. I just said ‘bite’ because…
well, most bites are also unwanted. Except the ones that are .
So there’s good fucking and bad, and good biting and bad, y’know? ”
Stars help me…I was talking sex with the flipping Loch Ness Monster. What a vacation this was. One for the freaking books.
“Ah,” Alistair said.
A zap of frustration hit me then— his frustration.
The kind of exasperation I usually got first thing in the morning when I was trying to make sense of a complicated email before the coffee kick-started my brain.
He knew the words. But was aggravated that they kept muddling on him.
“Where did you learn to speak?” I asked. “Your English is great, by the way. Impeccable. I’m just a little curious where, or how, or why you’ve learned to speak it.”
“I don’t speak,” Alistair said. “Not anymore.”
Which was not the answer I was expecting. “Oh, but you do. You are . To me.”
“This isn’t speaking,” he said. “I’ve no voice. Not for a long time.”
“But I can hear you.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not actually talking?”
“No.”
Which would explain why his mouth didn’t move. “Then how?—”
Alistair came to an abrupt stop, his body arching back with a pained hiss and wagging his head from side to side, as though something had walloped him across the face.
My feet slipped and skittered, fighting for balance. The coarse scrape of his scales and nubbly ends of his spikes slashed at my heels, making my eyes water. The death grip I had on his horn was the only thing that kept me from plummeting off him.
“I’m sorry,” he grunted breathlessly as he stilled, giving me a chance to right myself. “But I can go no further. Your dock is there.”
I squinted. But through the curdling fog and revolving hills of water, I couldn’t see anything. We might’ve been feet away from the dock. Or miles away from it.
And the way he’d stopped—so suddenly, and with that hiss of pain…It was like he’d smacked into a wall. Or maybe not even something as solid as a wall, more like those electric fences that zapped the bejesus out of dogs when they got too close.
I ran my hand over Alistair’s horn. “Are you okay?”
Alistair made a noncommittal warble. “I can go no further,” he repeated.
Acidic ice plopped into my belly. This was what Caleb had meant. When he said the Loch Ness Monster was controlled with runes and magic . I thought it’d sounded cruel then. But now that I’d seen his pain…
“You should go.” Alistair lowered his head, dunking his nose into the surf, bringing me closer to the water.
I recoiled.
“The water will only get more angry . ” He prodded gently. “Right now, it’s still f-forgiving. It will carry you most of the way.”
Icy water slashed at my back as the sea swelled, preparing to spit a series of massive waves at the isle. And I meant massive— those waves rose to staggering heights.
BANG!
Thunder bellowed overhead.
Zzzzaaappp.
For one second, one mercifully brief, terrifying second, lightning speared through the fog, casting a wide ray of illumination over the sea.
It looked evil.
Brutish black waters leapt for the heavens, hissing when the skies spat them back down to earth. Jilted and wrathful, they turned their rage toward land.
The dock, only a few feet away, was barely, barely, high enough to avoid the waves’ snapping teeth.
I shrank back, clinging to Alistair’s horn.
“Pippi…” A wave swallowed Alistair’s face, making him sputter. He exhaled, blowing a fountain of water out of his nostrils, and murmured, “Go.”
“Are you going to be alright? With the storm?”
Why on earth had I asked that question? He lived in the sea!
Alistair blew out again, sending a jet of misty water into the air. “I’ve lived through many storms, Pippi,” he said.
“Right. Yeah. Just…I’m not normally near an ocean during a storm—or at all, really—I kinda hate it. It’s just too big and unpredictable and…”
I’m scared. Of being on an island in the storm. Of the ocean.
I’m worried for you. Because the sea is far bigger than even your forty American feet.
You’re kind. It’d break my heart to see you hurt.
I’m scared.
But I didn’t say any of that. “Sorry. I’m being stupid. And I’m sure you want me off your head?—”
“You’re not s-stupid ,” Alistair said, “to fear the waters. Never stupid. But you’re safe.” He paused, extruded another jet of water, and added, “I’ll stay here until you’re on land.”
And that was surprisingly comforting, to know he wasn’t going to dump and ditch me. “Making sure the lady gets home safely. You’re a proper gentleman, Alistair.”
“ Gentleman…” He savored the word. “I try to be.”
“You are.” I ran my hand over his horn—wondering if he could feel my touch, and if he knew it was meant to be a comfort—and shimmied down, getting ready to slide off his head.
But as my toes twinkled the top of the water, I froze again.
Another question rolled over my tongue—a question that seemed asinine, but one that refused to be swallowed back down. “Can I see you again?”
A twitch rolled over Alistair’s hide.
“I mean,” I amended, “I’m guessing I’ll see you —that’s the point of being on this island, isn’t it?
But is there a way to just have it be the two of us?
Like this? Except without me having to nearly drown—I’d rather not be in the water.
Maybe over by the inlet? If the tide’s in and it’s not stormy, can you go there? ”
Alistair said nothing for a long moment.
I chewed at my lip, wondering what had gotten into my head and hashed my brain into this pulp of stupidity.
And then…
“I can swim there. In the inlet. When the water is calm. And when it’s filled,” he said.
Anticipation tingled in my veins. “Would you want to meet me there? Maybe tomorrow night?”
“I can.”
“Okay, it’s a date. Well not a date. But…”
Gosh, Pippi, stop digging the stupid hole and get your soggy behind into the water!
My belly swam with nerves—as unsettled and rollicky as the waves—as I scooched myself down the side of Alistair’s head and into the water, still clutching on to him.
His orange eye followed me, watching my every move.
“Tomorrow?” I verified.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
“And you’ll…” I grappled for him when a wave ballooned beneath me, shooting my body up, up, up, and then sending it crashing back down. “You’ll wait? I’ll call back once I’m on the dock. But while I’m in the water…”
“I’ll be here,” he confirmed.
“Okay. Thank you. Again.” And there was nothing else for it.
I let go. And swam like a fish wriggling out of a shark’s mouth.
Or, well, I tried to have that kind of pep in my kick, but the glacial waters bore down on my lungs, making it feel like I was drowning, even with my head above the surface. My frozen limbs pawed sluggishly, too heavy for a proper doggy paddle.
Alistair nudged me with the tip of his nose, giving me a boost. “Let the waters take you,” he said.
And boy, did the waters take me. Up at first, until vertigo danced around my head, and then shooting me forward.
I would’ve screamed, if I wasn’t fighting so hard to breathe against the cold.
A hulk of wood whizzed out of the soupy air.
The dock.
It was almost within arm’s reach.
All I had to do was swim, swim, swim… I paddled and kicked, dragging my numb body through the water.
So close…so close…I stretched a hand out.
The wave I rode began to crest, the top turning over into itself, creating a vicious, frothy vat.
But I was there. My hand brushed against a solid pillar, and I clung to it with all my might, wrapping my arms and legs around it.
The wave grouched and tried to slurp me under the dock. I cried out.
“You’re alright,” Alistair called. “Hold on. Let it pass.”
With a growl, the water released my legs and barreled forward.
“Climb, Pippi,” Alistair said.
And I did, battering my numb fingers until they bent, twining them around the handholds on the side of the pillars. Forcing my feet to push, push, push.
I gasped when I hauled myself up onto the solid surface of the dock. But I didn’t give my wobbly legs a break. Not yet, I pleaded with them. Not yet.
The warped and weathered wood sliced at the undersides of my feet as I made a mad dash for land. Water plumed into the air when the wave crashed into the side of the island, soaking the dock, and sending bitter pellets to slice at my legs, my sides, my back. But I didn’t care.
As soon as I got myself far enough on to land to feel safe from the ocean’s grasp, I sank bonelessly down, curling myself into a fetal position.
My heart thundered. Every beat struck painfully against my chest and made a heavy hammering sound between my ears. Tremors danced along my body. And my voice, when I tried to call back to Alistair, came out in a croak, “I-I’m…I’m here.”
“I know.” That wonderfully accented voice caressed my frenzied mind. “And I’m glad. You’re safe, Pippi.”