The Watch (The Red Series Book 1) (31 page)

The
second day on the sea went faster than the first. Farrell Dean stretched out in
the bottom of the boat and slept restlessly while I watched the compass assure
us that we were drifting north. Then he climbed back onto the bench seat and I
dozed in the intermittent sun while he watched the compass.

 
Eventually the fog burned completely off
and it grew so warm that we rigged a tent from the blankets and sat in the
bottom of the boat, in the wedge of shade. In my wildest dreams I’d never
pictured anything like this—sitting knee-to-knee with Farrell Dean on the
hard damp bottom of a boat, both of us sweaty and unkempt, not to mention
bloody, with nothing but open sea around us, nothing but the inexorable sun
above us, peering at us through the weave of the blanket, and beneath it all
the rocking, always rocking, never ceasing rhythm of the sea.

“Farrell Dean,” I said, holding
on to the bench seat to keep from being rocked against the side, “There’s
something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?” he said, but he
reached up and adjusted the blankets, and I knew it was so he wouldn’t have to
meet my eye. He was expecting me to say something else
that
would cause pain. That made me feel smaller inside, and lonely
. If even
Farrell Dean wasn’t comfortable around me, who was I, anymore? And I couldn’t
blame my hair this time; it was all my own doing.

Pushing that thought away, I
said, “On the beach, right before we left, Angel said
Optica
was an experiment.”

“An experiment,” Farrell Dean
repeated, his face blank. “An
experiment
?”

It felt like years since we’d
had a full conversation. Farrell Dean hadn’t heard about what
Meritt
and I had learned in the watchtower, and he hadn’t
heard what Sir Tom had said to me when we were alone on the beach, about
watchmakers and the care and feeding of ants. There was a lot to tell.

But we had plenty of time,
rocking along in the middle of the ocean, so I told him everything, as exactly
as I could remember it. Farrell Dean listened silently for the most part, his
face intent, only interrupting now and then to clarify a point.

“And Angel didn’t say what sort
of experiment,” he said when I’d finished.

“No. The wardens showed up and I
ran.”

“An experiment. And the Watchers
said you were the best chance for future subjects.” He grimaced. “You know they
do keep a close eye on the bloodlines, Red.”

“Yes, but I’d be a liability as
far as that—you’ll never get a bigger, stronger person using me.”

“Maybe they’re not going for
brawn. You’re smart.”

“But not especially.”

He studied me. “It has to have
something to do with your hair. You’re more likely to have children with red
hair than anyone else is.”

“Yes, a rage for
red-haired
Optica
children. That’s probably it.”

He shrugged,
acknowledging the point.

“Sir Tom said my
hair had nothing to do with me being watched. And the Watchers—they
seemed to keep me around as a subject in spite of my hair, not because of it.”
I went ahead and told him the bit I’d left out
before. “They said I was a joke.
An un-funny practical joke.”

Farrell Dean bumped my knee with
his. “Consider the source, Red,” he said. “An insult from a Watcher is as good
as a compliment from a normal person. You’re beautiful, and so is your hair.”

Now I was embarrassed, as if I’d
been fishing for compliments.

Farrell Dean didn’t notice; he
was too focused on sorting through the news about
Optica
.

“The Watchers mentioned Louie
and Estelle, too, and other people,” I said. “So it’s not just me. It might
even be all of us.”

“But somehow you especially. You
and your possible future children.” Farrell Dean didn’t like that, I could
tell. Neither did I.

“What sort of experiment could
that possibly be?” I said.

He shook his head. “I can think
of all sorts of experiments, but none that
quite fits
the bill.”

 
“Whatever it is, it isn’t going well,” I
said. “Not
if the Watchers are talking about their life’s work being
all for nothing. Not if the watchmaker abandoned his watch. And Angel says Sir
Tom backed a failure and that’s why he’s suddenly feeling guilty. We’re not
just an experiment—we’re a failed experiment.”

I didn’t much like being a
failure at anything, but maybe being a failed experiment was better than being
a successful one.

Farrell Dean nodded. “That’s why
they aren’t interested in keeping us alive anymore. Like Sir Tom said, the supply
drops stopped. And the Watchers don’t know how to keep us alive because they’re
just here to document the experiment. They don’t know anything about running a
city.”

He broke off. “But
that doesn’t make sense either,” he said, after a second’s pause. “They’ve been
abandoned, too. The Watchers and the Guardians. Would whoever is in charge
really throw away their own people, along with the experiment? I guess if
they’re ruthless enough to experiment on people in the first place,
then—”

“No, wait—” I
said. “I just remembered. When we were all supposed to be asleep, Sir Tom was
talking with your mother about the time of the ashes. He sent men to see what
was happening, he said. The ones who got sick. Animal sick, I mean. Or
contaminated or whatever it is—the things at the tree, you know—”

He nodded and I went
on. “They went to where the black ash came from, and they came back saying
everything was destroyed on the mainland.” The word still felt odd on my
tongue.

“So if that’s where
the supplies came from,” Farrell Dean said, finishing my thought, “then they
didn’t stop sending supplies because the experiment failed. They stopped
sending supplies because they were dead.”

I nodded. “Or
probably dead.”

“Which means we
might be a successful experiment,” Farrell Dean said slowly, and I nodded.

For a moment we thought in
silence.

“Who was it?” I said finally.
“Who did this to us? Who was the watchmaker?”

“I don’t know,” Farrell Dean
said. “But it might be a good thing if he’s forgotten us or dead
.”

* * * *

Our water supply dwindled. My tongue felt thick. In the
middle of the afternoon I noticed that Farrell Dean was shorting himself and
told him I wouldn’t drink unless he did. It was frightening, but we reminded
ourselves that, at the moment, we were fine—thirsty, and cramped from
being in the boat, and sore from rowing and from our various cuts and bruises,
but better than we’d have been if the Watchers had had their way.

* * * *

Night fell. How long we sat
silently in the dark, adrift on the waves, I don’t know. There was no moon, and
for a time there were no stars, only the sound of the water and the feel of the
wind turning colder and colder on my face.

Then the clouds cleared and the
stars began to shine. Out there on the sea, with no buildings or trees to block
them, no electric blue lights to dim them, they were magnificent, astonishing.
Farrell Dean and I leaned back against the sides of the boat, staring up at
them, tracing patterns here and there.

Eventually, feeling dizzy, I sat
up again. Farrell Dean had fallen silent and I felt no need to talk, either. I
sat there in the starlight, watching the sea move past, feeling as if I were
living in a dream.

I had been staring at the shape
for some time before my brain registered what my eyes were seeing in the dim starlit
night.

“Land!” I said, and Farrell Dean
swung
around.

A huge form loomed above the
sea. It drew closer and closer and we watched, as if it might vanish if we
blinked, as if it might be an illusion. But it wasn’t. It was real. The
half-insane old man hadn’t, after all, sent us out to die on the sea.

Eventually the bottom of our
boat scraped something solid. We were still a good
ways
from the pale stretch of beach, so
Farrell Dean leaned way over the
side, stretched his arm down.

“It’s sand,” he said.
“I’ll get out and pull us in. You stay put.”

But after watching Farrell Dean
work for
a few minutes, after seeing him wince with
the pain in his back, I climbed out too, the cold water wetting my pants up to
my hips, and together we tugged the boat in, up the long gentle sandy slope.
Then we kept pulling, tugging the boat beyond the tide line and into the
shelter of the trees.

Afterwards we
walked back down to the beach and surveyed our surroundings
as best as we could by starlight. My legs felt funny after so long on the
rocking waves; the ground kept either being farther away than expected or
rising up to meet me faster than expected.

We walked a good
distance down the beach in both directions, long enough for the ground to feel
firm under my feet again. But we saw no buildings, no lights shining out of the
darkness, no boats, no sign of any inhabitants.

“Great,” I said
finally, feeling deflated. “A deserted island.”

“Maybe not,” Farrell
Dean said. “Maybe just this side is deserted. Sir Tom specifically said to go
to the other side of the island. We’ll look around when the sun comes up. Until
then, let’s get back to the boat and try to sleep.”

We found our way
back to the boat and sat down side by side on the damp floor, in the stern
where there was more room. We ate some dried fruit and jerky.

“Let’s finish the
water,” Farrell Dean said. “We can dig in the morning for
more.”

I looked at him. “Did Sir Tom
tell you how to do that?”

“No. Old Louie told me, a long
time ago. He said on a beach you could dig in the valley just after the first
sand dune, and the hole would fill with fresh water. It shouldn’t be too deep,
he said—just to your elbow or shoulder. And we have a spade.”

Sir Tom had gotten us safely to
this island, but I had to admit I was glad to be trusting Louie when it came to
our water supply. It made me feel as if I hadn’t entirely left my friends
behind. He’d be pleased if his stories and advice paid off; I’d be pleased if I
got to tell him so.

Once we’d finished the water we
settled down to sleep. We had no dry clothes but we pulled the two blankets
over us, stretching our legs under the middle bench, leaning together against
the cold. I pulled my cap more firmly over my ears, but still I shivered. After
a moment Farrell Dean shifted so that his arm was around me and my head rested
on his shoulder.

“I won’t tell Cline if you
won’t,” he murmured.

“As long as I’m not hurting your
ribs,” I said, and he shook his head.

My eyes already felt heavy.
“Should we keep watch?” I asked.

“I didn’t see any tracks on the
sand,” Farrell Dean said. “Nothing to suggest animals or people have been
around here recently. And we’re both exhausted.”

I knew he was right; I wasn’t
sure I could stay awake if I had to, and he hadn’t slept at all the night
before.

Farrell Dean shut his eyes.
After so many hours on the sea it felt strange to be in a boat that was steady,
unmoving, especially since I could hear the waves lapping against the sandy
beach. With my eyes shut I felt dizzy, as if my body didn’t know whether it was
moving or still.

“I’m going to dream of waves,” I
said, very quietly, in case Farrell Dean was already asleep.

“Me too,” he said. Then, after a
moment, “We might be warmer in the sand.”

“But something might crawl on
us.”

He smiled without opening his
eyes.

The boat was small
protection, I knew, but it was our only bulwark at the moment, and in a strange
land something bounded and familiar. A little
while before I’d been anxious to
find people, but now, thinking about how vulnerable we’d be asleep, I almost
hoped there were no people—strangers with strange ways who’d have to be
cautiously approached, who might help us
or might
hurt us, who would know nothing of us, nothing of
Optica
,
nothing of the only things I knew. I was bone weary, but I listened hard for a
long time, alternately fighting back and indulging frightening thoughts. I
never heard anything except the waves and the occasional hoot of an owl and,
eventually, the deep steady
breathing that told me Farrell Dean finally
had fallen asleep. Somehow that made me feel safer. If he could sleep, it must
be safe.

“Star light, star bright, any
star I see tonight,” I whispered, looking up at the vastness above us, at the
bright beautiful stars beyond measure
. “I wish I may,
I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.”

But then I couldn’t
bring myself to voice a wish because
the rules said I could only have
one, and how could I ever decide which to choose?