33. Alistair
I am called to feed after Pippi leaves. So I go. But I don’t eat. Much, at least. And after, I wait.
Wait to be called to amuse the humans.
Wait for the night to bring Pippi back to me.
But she comes to me first, climbing a rock path most humans are for…bidden. Forbidden from.
A part of me hopes she’ll fall into the waters.
The rest of me regrets the cruel thought.
If she does fall, I will save her.
Because I do not hate Onyx. Even now.
Once, she had been a friend. I cared for her. And I don’t forget that affection, even if she has.
Onyx sits on the rocks. “Well, I confess I’m disappointed, Alistair. I leave ye for five years and expect to return findin’ ye a mindless beast. Instead, I come to this shite island and find yer a lovesick pup.”
I struggle to understand her. Even words I know sound strange when she speaks with her ack-accent.
“There’s no use hidin’, Alistair. Ye know I can hear ye.”
“I’m not…h-hiding.” I rise to the surface.
She smiles. Not in a soft way. Like Pippi smiles. Or in a way that shows joy. Hers is… cruel .
Smiling because my curse makes her…
Not happy.
That’s not the right word.
Satisfied.
“Now then…” she speaks more. Too many words, and too quickly. They’re meaningless to me.“Oh feck. Ye’ve gone pretty far, eh?” Another cruel smile. “Canna say as I’m unhappy about that, but I didna have the patience to talk stupid to ye. C’mere, ye oaf.”
I move closer.
She pulls something from her shirt and blows it into my eye.
A powder. Herbs. Filled with magic.
The dust burns . The way the runes above my eyes do, blackening my vision, and making me pull away with a hiss.
But then…
I shake the hurt out of my eyes.
And find the world has cleared, for the first time in years.
Years.
My head is my own again: busy and chaotic, with too many trains of thought running on crisscrossing tracks.
I am thinking how desolate the sea is, with its muted color palette, as though the magic leeches the light and vibrancy out of this part of the world to fuel Niverwick Isle.
There’s an empty feeling in my stomach, because I hadn’t eaten my fish (breakfast of champions) and I crave food.
Real food. Or, well, real junk food—chocolate, gummy bears, pizza , with every single topping they can cram on it (even anchovies), popcorn (American style, drowning in butter), sweet coffee, chips…
a carton of chips. Enough to make even the beastly belly I have now ache.
As I tease myself with thoughts of food, I’m staring at Onyx and noticing how thin she’s gotten, and how her eyes look hollow and sad.
But I’m thinking of Pippi too, and my heart is doing flips inside my chest. Because I’ll be able to talk to her.
Fully. She won’t have to, in Onyx’s words, “ speak stupid ” for me to understand.
And I’m running through the conversations we’ve already had, lavishing over the words I hadn’t known then, but do now.
What will she wear tonight, I’m wondering.
She has the most colorful clothes, and I’ve loved each outfit I’ve seen.
The bright style gives this monotonous place some flavor, and each one highlights different parts of her hazel gaze.
The red and gold blouse she wore when she met me at the inlet made her eyes dark—seductive, even if she wasn’t trying to seduce me.
The dress she wore on the dock had enhanced the green in her stare—and I wish I’d been able to see her closer, to drink in the way the colors brightened her eyes.
Of course, the clothes she hadn’t worn on our first meeting had been equally entrancing—but thinking those thoughts will take away my right to call myself a gentleman.
A “ lovesick puppy ,” Onyx had called me.
She’s right.
“It’s good to know ye haven’t changed, Alistair.” Onyx pulls at my scattered mind until it focuses on her. “Thinking lots of thoughts?”
“Too many,” I say. “As usual.”
“Must have been nice for ye, eh? To be the sea beast and lose those human thoughts.”
“No. I’ve hated it.”
She laughs. Bitterly. “Mayhap if ye’d stop fightin’ the spell and let it work, ye wouldna hate it, eh?”
I scoff.
“Well, I wouldna get too used to havin’ yer thoughts again, Alistair.
That was a potent potion. I mighta used all the isle’s sage, and it was a sodden nightmare gettin’ the mix together and findin’ someone to cast over it.
But I reckon it’ll only last ye an hour—two, if yer lucky.
It’ll definitely wear itself off before yer new friend comes to meet ye. ”
I try not to acknowledge the disappointment, the despair , but the emotions dig at me before I can wrangle them, and I know Onyx has felt them.
Because Onyx and Pippi share something: that ability to feel.
They’re Sensitives.
That’s the word I tried so hard to remember the other night.
A Sensitive .
They’re rare creatures, Sorcerers born without the ability to wield magic, but capable of feeling it.
Once, when magic was new, and humanity used it to hurt each other, Sensitives were valuable. Armies sent them into the thick of danger, to have them sense what spells and enchantments hovered in the air. They were, in a sense, human bloodhounds.
Nowadays, it’s a curse to be born a Sensitive. Society has no use for them anymore, and their openness, their ability to feel so keenly, forces them to bear an insidious burden: the weight of human emotion.
Onyx, sensing where my thoughts have wandered, says, “Does she know what she is? Yer friend?”
“No,” I say. “She knows what she can do but doesn’t seem to understand why .”
Onyx drums her fingers against the stone.
“Maybe that’s for the best, eh? I wondered how she got to be an adult while stayin’ so…
nice . Ugh. I’ve been watchin’ her, Alistair.
That woman yer lovesick for. She’s always smilin’, even when she’s miserable.
Always tryin’ to make people happy. It makes me sick. ”
Anger burbles inside of me. “Kindness is not a crime, Onyx.”
“No. But it’s feckin’ disgustin’.”
“She’s instinctively using her abilities, without understanding what they are, to help people. It’s…” One of the things I adore about her, even if it worries me. “Admirable.”
“Ye would say that,” Onyx scoffs. “Because ye were born with wieldin’ magic.
It’s not ‘ admirable ’ what she’s doin’.
Puttin’ herself through that for feckin’ arseholes who dunna deserve it.
She’d be better findin’ just one or two to pour herself in and soddin’ the rest. Of course”—Onyx’s face twists into a feral scowl—“when someone destroys the thing she’s poured herself into, it’ll destroy her.
Better to turn bitter than to drain yerself dry, eh? ”
This…
This is why she’s here.
Not to taunt me for the attachment I’ve formed with Pippi, but to see if there is still a knife in my heart. There is. There always will be. And she wants to twist it.
“I lost everything too, Onyx. When Indigo died,” I remind her.
“No ye didn’.”
“I loved her.”
“Enough to let her rot at the bottom of the sea.”
“I did not destroy that ship.”
“Liar.”
“Onyx, I swear to you?—”
“Ye haven’t changed one bit, have ye? Still insistin’—it was yer bloody feckin’ ship, Alistair. Yer shiny new toy. Ye spent enough time tinkerin’ with it. But the one time ye weren’t on it and me sister was, it explodes. Coincidence, eh?”
I don’t know how to answer that.
So I say nothing.
Saturn had been a ship born out of collaboration: an idea to combine the technology of Standies with the magic of Sorcerers.
It was a luxury liner unlike any other, swift enough to sail the world in two weeks, but smooth enough that its passengers would not be rollicked by the speed in which they were traveling.
While aboard Saturn , guests were treated to both magical marvels, while never having to give up the convenience of their modern lives, as they do at Niverwick Isle.
It wasn’t my ship, per se. I hadn’t drafted the concept, but I’d invested in the team who had. I’d helped launch it, and had spent several weeks sailing on it, answering media questions, entertaining guests, diagnosing and fixing its kinks. It was something I had taken great pride in.
Indigo had always been curious about these ventures I often found myself swept up in. Before Saturn , it had been an operating system. Before the operating system, it had been medical diagnostic equipment. Before that…
I don’t remember.
But there was something.
There was always something. A project. An obsession . Something I’d pour over and work at until it was perfected.
The dreams, as I told Pippi, that I lost myself in.
But I’ve learned that you can only pour from one cup.
And while these projects consumed my brain, I neglected my heart.
“Alistair, it’s just one night.”
“Can you be here by 3:00 p.m.?”
“Do you have to work so late? Only…the fundraiser’s tonight. I’d love for you to be there.”
Indigo’s voice fills me. Haunts me.
“We have a reservation tonight. Please don’t forget.”
“Will you come home? Please? I’m in a crummy mood and need one of your comfort burritos.”
Comfort burritos.
I’ve forgotten .
It’s what I called being wrapped in a blanket with another person, cozying up together until you roast…
A burrito.
“A burrito a day keeps the doctor away…”
Indigo and I had burritoed frequently. Until my mind, my ambition, my selfishness started to wreck our relationship.
Onyx laughs and says, “Ah, ye’ve got some memory comin’ back, eh? Enjoyin’ yer brain now, Alistair?”
No.
I know she knows that, so I don’t say it.
“I always wondered what she saw in ye.” Onyx sniffs.
“Likely the same thing you saw in me once,” I say. “You hate me now, Onyx. But you didn’t always.”
Onyx purses her lips. “No. Yer right. I didna always. Ye were a bit of a buffoon. Likeable enough. Harmless, I thought. I didna figure ye for a selfish sort until it was too late. She already loved ye. Committed to spendin’ her life with ye.” She’s crying now.
I look away.