Gunwitch (39 page)

The air misted and fogged around her as she fell. The cold hammered in her chest and became deeper with each heartbeat. Frost formed on her fingers and spread down her arms, then ice crystals that broke off with the speed of her descent.

Ducoed spun to face her, the smile on his face faltering, right before she hit him and took him in her arms.

Lightning burst from them, between them, around them as they fell off the top of the wall.

Chapter 21

Margaret

Above the Misi-ziibi

1742 A.D.

The warm water surrounded Margaret, growing from the touch on her shoulder, where Chal had grabbed her to throw her over the cliff. The shock of Chal’s choice drained away as the warmth and wet swelled and retreated across her chest and back and up her neck like the rising tide. She did not know where the water came from. The river was still far below her, and was not warm. She could feel the coolness of the Misi-ziibi even suspended so far above it.

The Misi-ziibi stretched and twisted below her like a giant snake sunning itself on the rock of its bed, the faceted surface reflecting the gray dawn skies and the accumulated sunlight like a million scales. She blinked against the reflected sunlight and wondered how she had never seen the life of the river–any river–before. She thought of the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean she had crossed with Janett and wished she could see it now, with her new understanding. Was this how Chal had always seen the river? And Lake Patrizio? Was This how Chal would see the ocean? A giant living creature?

She could not see Chal or turn her head. She could see Janett face down just above the current of the waters that sang to Margaret in low voices, the voices of the river dulling the edge of Mr. Thomas’ sharp laughter that still fell down on her from behind.

Mr. Thomas’ laugh became a chuckle, then a growl with an edge of strain as more and more of Margaret became warm. Only her face and hands and feet were still outside the wetness she could not see. She could feel herself become heavy and pulling forward, like the moisture of a rain cloud as it condensed and gathered and began its fall to earth.

Whatever had stopped her fall and held her in midair gave away and she tumbled forward. She had only an instant to take a breath before the water enveloped her completely. She thought she saw Janett splash into the river. As she fell, her body rotated lengthwise, head first, until she was facing up again. Then her fall came to another abrupt halt. Less jarring this time because she seemed to be suspended in a wave. Her interrupted momentum caused her slosh back, then forward, before she was held immobile again.

She could no longer see Janett, but she could also see no sign of Chal. Not suspended with her in the wave, nor back on the edge the cliff. As she wondered about Janett and Chal, Margaret’s lungs burned, the air they contained becoming stale.

Above her, through the water, she could see Mr. Thomas. He stood on the wall where she had last seen him. He had his hands extended before him, his pistol in his right hand pointed at her heart. The fingers of his other hand were tensed and hooked, as if he had his fingers dug into the wave around her and was holding it up with his own strength. She could see the strain in his features. Despite the strain, though, he was not getting weaker. Quite the opposite, she realized.

You are strong
. Mum’s words came back to her, but she did not feel strong. She was getting weaker. She could not hold her breath much longer.

Above her, through the water, beyond Mr. Thomas, she saw a red bird flying higher and higher.

Rose…

Chal’s sudden cry echoed in her mind and she realized that the red bird was Miss Rose. Flying.

Margaret’s mouth opened and her last breath escaped in surprise. The warm water rushed into her mouth. She expected to choke, but did not. She went to spit out the water, but it was not choking her. She swallowed the water. It tasted sweet and spicy in her mouth, like an unusual brew of tea laced with herbs and sweetened with honey, but with a brackish tang just beginning to spoil it.

Once she swallowed, she could breath.

When she took a breath, no water entered her mouth or nose or flowed into her lungs. When she let the breath out, bubbles rose through the water in front of her face.

Drink, Margaret Laxton…

Chal’s voice again, but much softer this time. No longer echoing. Not a cry of pain this time. A quiet supplication.

“Chal?” she said, her words bubbling up through the water in front of her.

When she spoke, she tasted the water again. The brackish flavor was stronger this time, threatening to overwhelm the honey and herbs.

I am here, Margaret Laxton…

Margaret saw herself standing in the bow of the
Puncher
again as Mister Zeek piloted that little boat across Lake Patrizio, away from Fort Gunter and New Venezia, toward Da.
You like being on the waters?
Chal had asked her.
Yes
, she had replied.
I do
.

I am at home wherever the waters take me,
Chal had told her.

I am …
the voice of Chal in her mind whispered.
I am … the waters … I am …

Understanding rippled through Margaret’s mind. Chal was the water that surrounded her. Chal was the wave caught by Mr. Thomas, stopped in her decision to rejoin the river. Chal who never touched the water.

Miss Rose was flying, hardly a speck in the sky now, and Chal was the water and the wave. Margaret wondered that she did not wonder about any of this.

Margaret saw Mr. Thomas again. He was difficult to look at now. His form shimmered and seemed to stretch with the power he had taken. From Chal.

Chal was the water. And Chal was–

…
dying
…

Mr. Thomas was killing Chal, somehow. Draining her. Taking Chal’s life out of the water that had been Chal.

…
please
…
drink
…

Margaret opened her mouth, not to breathe, not to drink, but to cry out against what Mr. Thomas was doing. When she opened her mouth, though, the water flowed in, and she drank. After the first swallow, nearly gagging on the taste of death that overpowered the variety of flavors she had tasted before, she no longer had to drink. She absorbed the water. She became the water, and the little girl suspended in the water. The water entered through her skin and her eyes. The brackish taste of death was strong, but there was life in the water yet. Her life and Chal’s life and–

The faces of women appeared and disappeared in front of Margaret’s eyes, in her mind, the images flashing and fading, one after the other. She recognized none of them, but all of them were familiar. All of them were Chal. All of them were Margaret Laxton. All of them were old and young, smooth and wrinkled, smiling and laughing and weeping tears of joy and pain because all of them were mothers and daughters and grandmothers and wives and–

Her head felt like it would explode.

You are strong
, Mum had told her.

You are strong, Margaret Laxton
, Chal had told her.

Her head did not explode, it expanded to fill the wave around her.

Water flows, my child
. The voice of the Water Mother came to Margaret, from her past–no, from Chal’s past–from across time and distance, in a language she did not understand but which had been the first language she ever spoke, even before she was born.

Water flows
, the Water Mother had told her time and time again.
It does not choose its own course. It does not ask where it flows.

What if I die, Water Mother?
she and Chal had asked.
Before I can return to you?

All waters return to the source, child. Water flows, my child. Water flows.

“I am the waters,” Margaret said, and heard Chal’s voice in her own. This time, no bubbles formed with her words. Her words were the water as she was the water. As she was Chal. Below her, the waters of the river sang to her in a deafening chorus.

She was the Water Mother.

With her eyes, and with Chal’s eyes, and with the eyes of the river below and the clouds above, Margaret saw Miss Rose flying–or falling now–down toward Mr. Thomas. The waters of the air condensed in the chill of Miss Rose’s passage and left behind a trail like a meteor of stone and ice. Like the finger of Bolon Yotke K’u pointing at the heart of Mr. Thomas, judging him and condemning him. Coming to take him to the underworld.

Margaret saw Mr. Thomas turn to face Miss Rose right before Miss Rose hit him and wrapped her arms around him. Thunder and lightning exploded from and around the man and the woman as they fell.

Margaret, Chal, the wave that was both of them, resumed their fall, their flow, as water will.

Water can be pushed uphill, Water Mother.

Margaret felt the river below her coming up to meet her, to greet her, to welcome her to its midst. Or maybe she was bringing the river up to her. Because all waters were one water. All rivers were one river.

The roar of the river rising to meet her drowned the pitiful explosions of Miss Rose and Mr. Thomas as they fought. Then waters encompassed the fighters, as if trying to drown them both.

Margaret felt-saw-heard-tasted Janett in the water, struggling to breathe as cold hands clamped on Janett’s arms and legs and refused to let go. Margaret crushed the source of the hands and brought Janett to the surface of the water with a thought.

She heard-felt-saw-tasted Miss Rose as she struggled with Mr. Thomas, the two of them locked together, each one holding fast to the other as they tumbled through the tumult that was Margaret and Chal and the Misi-ziibi. Both Miss Rose and Mr. Thomas possessed great strengths that they were expending against each other, but even combined they could not hold back the tide of the ocean. Not even the earth itself could stop water. Water flows. Water pushes. Water
wins
.

Margaret forced Miss Rose and Mr. Thomas apart. Both of them fought her, continued trying to fight each other.

“Rose,” she said into Miss Rose’s ear. Then, embarrassed by this lapse of etiquette, added, “Miss Rose.”

Miss Rose stopped struggling, her surprise plain in the look-feel-taste of her. Margaret pushed Miss Rose up to the surface with Janett.

Mr. Thomas did not stop struggling. He tried to strike her with his lightnings, as if lightning could hurt water. His screams of rage were lost in the bubbles that came from his mouth. He tried to burn her. He tried to consume her. He tried to find the weakness he had exploited before, Chal’s sacrifice. But Chal’s sacrifice was complete now, and Chal and Margaret and the Misi-ziibi were one. If Margaret had not stopped the river, it would have drowned Mr. Thomas in his attempt. One man cannot drink a river.

Margaret did not want Mr. Thomas drowned. She pulled the water from his mouth and lungs and pushed air into them.

She tasted-saw-heard-felt Major Haley enter the waters of her river, of her, as she pulled herself and the river up and up. She tasted his burns and felt his pain. Another charge against Mr. Thomas. Major Haley was not dead, though. She almost knew how she could help him, heal him, but she was distracted by her rage against Mr. Thomas.

She moved Major Haley to be with Janett and Miss Rose, saw-heard-felt-tasted Miss Rose wrap her arms around Major Haley and start crying. Miss Rose’s tears tasted of salt and sadness. Margaret would take a moment to comfort the woman, but she had a grief of her own to attend to first.

Margaret looked outside herself again and saw the broken fort on its outcropping of granite and the stripped and blasted plain that sloped up to it. She saw her father’s men coming together and tending their wounded and searching for survivors. She saw the men see her and saw their looks of fear and awe as they beheld what she had become.

She saw the Seeker, come for Chal. Come for her.

She saw the wrongness that had come with Mr. Ducoed moving away from the fort, away from her and the wrath of Miss Rose. The wrongness had moved too far away for her to deal with it as she was now. She did not trust that the river would spare Da’s men, even if she was the river and the river was her. The Misi-ziibi was a serpent not easily controlled.

She looked for Da and found him. He was dying, the last of his life’s red waters pumping out of him from under the armored wrongness that he had killed even as it killed him. She could not save him. She could not even get Miss Rose to him in time to save him.

Da had tried to save her and Janett and as many of his men as he could.

She could not save Da, but she could avenge him.

She had stacked the waters of the Misi-ziibi up to a height that showed her miles and miles of bayuk, islands and streams, trees and flowers. She had pushed the waters of the river uphill.

Yes, child
, the Water Mother said.
But once you release the water, again it flows, and all of your pushing and carrying is for nothing. That is the nature of water: to flow.

“It will not be for nothing, Mother,” Margaret said, her voice like the roar of the ocean in a storm.

Margaret moved Mr. Thomas to the crest of the wave she had become. He fought to break free, but the hands of the river held him fast.