99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd i 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd iiii 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 JILLIAN CANTOR 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd iiiiii 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney First published in Great Britain in July 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP First published in the USA in May 2014 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018 www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Copyright © Jillian Cantor 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4088 4664 3 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd iviv 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 For Grandma Bea, in loving memory 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd v 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd vivi 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon. —Edward Lear 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd viivii 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (prelims)(prelims) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd viiiviii 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:03:325:03:32 1 ON THE AFTERNOON OF MY sixteenth birthday, River spears a sh. “Happy birthday,” he says, and he’s grinning as he holds the sh out in front of me. It is large, the length of River’s wide, outstretched arms, and I’m both surprised and impressed by his catch. He is, too, I can tell, because he’s still grinning as he places the sh on Cleaning Rock and begins to scale it with a sharp stone. It has been weeks since we have eaten sh, and this one will certainly be enough to last us for a few days. Truthfully, I am the better sh spearer of the two of us, but today River insisted he would catch me one. I was doubtful when he left this morn- ing because lately, the sh have been coming less and less, even for me. But here River has gone and pulled it off, just as he said he would. “What a catch,” I say to him now. “How’d you get her?” He shrugs a little, smiles at me, then uses the jagged tool to cut a line down the sh’s belly. “I went past Rocks,” he says. 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (main(main text)text) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd 1 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:05:195:05:19 “River”—I shake my head—“you promised you wouldn’t.” Past Rocks, Ocean grows deeper, cooler, darker, and the water pulls you hard, so if you aren’t careful, you could easily be swept out, swept away into the deep, great nothingness that lies beyond us. He shrugs again. “It’s your birthday,” he says. “And besides, I’m starving.” I can’t stay mad at him, because I’m starving, too. When one of us doesn’t spear a sh or catch a bird or a rabbit in my traps, we eat purple 2 owers, blue berries, and green leaves that we keep stocked inside Shelter for emergencies. Every plant in our world is valuable in that it can be eaten, drunk, or used in Shelter in some way. Except for the mushrooms. Now, we know better. For the past three days we’ve eaten mostly purple 2 owers and drunk warm coconut milk, and we were still hungry last night when we crawled into Shelter and curled up together to go to sleep, the way we have now for so long, both of us lying on our rabbit pelt mats on our sides, our backs touching. I almost can’t remember sleeping any other way, without the warm feel of River’s back hugging mine. I almost can’t remember what it was like when my mother and Helmut were still here. The air is cooler this afternoon but heavy, and the moisture beads against the skin of my bare shoulders. It will rain soon. I can smell it, the dewy scent of salt water rising, even by Clean- ing Rock. I hope it won’t rain before the darkness falls, before it is time to eat the sh. “Well,” River says as he slices the head off the sh with one swift motion of the jagged stone. He grins again, so pleased 2 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (main(main text)text) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd 2 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:05:195:05:19 with this sh, with himself for bringing it back to me. My birth- day gift. “Do you feel any different today, Sky? Older?” I shake my head. And for a moment, I consider telling him how, this morning, as I came out of Falls, I noticed how much my body, without my rabbit pelt, looked the way my mother’s had looked once. I am sixteen now, not at all a child anymore, I’d thought. Then I remembered all the things my mother had said I’d feel someday for River, and I began to wonder if that some- day was today. But I didn’t say anything to him when I’d made it back to Shelter, and he announced he planned on bringing back a sh for my birthday, and I don’t say anything to him now. I’m not sure why not, because River and I tell each other everything, and we have for as far back as I can remember. “Come on,” River says, picking up what remains of the large sh. It is missing scales, a head, a tail, and guts, and my stom- ach rumbles in anticipation of our feast. “Let’s clean her off at Falls and get the re going.” He looks up at the sky, which is lling fast with thick gray- and- white clouds. “We should eat her now, before the rain ruins your birthday, all right?” I nod and stand up to follow him. Cleaning Rock, where we clean and prepare our food, is about halfway between Ocean and Shelter, and Falls is only twenty paces down Grassy Hill from Shelter, so we can hear the soft rushing of the water even as we sleep. Shelter is a cover of palm fronds woven low and held between two tall trees. Someone— maybe my mother, Petal, or River’s father, Helmut, or maybe both of them together—braided the fronds so tightly that the ground beneath them always remains cool and dry. Even in the heaviest of storms or heat, we 3 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (main(main text)text) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd 3 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:05:195:05:19 are comfortable in Shelter, where we lie on soft rabbit pelt mats and cover ourselves with soft rabbit pelt blankets. We walk by Shelter now, then the twenty paces down Grassy Hill to Falls. River holds the sh up high above his head, careful not to drop her, and then I stand at the edge of the clear, cool water that shares River’s name while he wades in, ankle deep, to clean the sh under the water that rushes down from Falls. River is so tall now, taller than me by at least two heads, and his shoulders are wide and strong, the way I remember Helmut’s being. His straight blond hair hangs nearly to his waist but is tied back in a braid, and his cheeks, once smooth and dark like mine, are now lightening with blond hair. It won’t be long before a full beard grows in, like Helmut’s, I think, and I’m not sure why that thought makes me sad. Once, not so long ago, I was the taller one. R River and I live on Island, in a great blue- green expanse of water that my mother once told me was called the Paci c, but we just call it Ocean. I’ve lived here nearly my entire life, and I don’t remember or know of anything else, if there is anything else. My mother sometimes, late at night, would whisper things in my ear about a place called California, where, she said, the people were cold and broken, skeletons. “What’s a skeleton?” I asked her once, when I was much younger, maybe six or seven. “A skeleton?” she said, her voice rising softly in the darkness of Shelter but still in a whisper so she wouldn’t wake Helmut. Instinctively I knew that he would be mad at her for telling me 4 99781408846643781408846643 SearchingSearching forfor SkySky (main(main text)text) finalfinal pass.inddpass.indd 4 225/03/20145/03/2014 115:05:195:05:19 this, for talking about this other place somewhere, another world, away from Island.