“I’m thinking about it,” said Lovisa.
* * *
—
Lovisa did think about it. She thought about it constantly, but she couldn’t see what it would mean. Nev couldn’t protect Lovisa from the nightmare she’d be walking through, once her feet hit the ground in Ledra.
The next day, she went to the hill with the rock seat Saiet had shown her. She had Worthy with her as usual, and a rag, and a flask of milk. He never, ever, seemed to stop eating. Lovisa was getting quite proficient at wrapping his little bottom in diapers, for what went in, later came out. Who am I? she asked herself, every time she performed a diaper change. What would the girls in the dorm think of this? Would they think I’d turned into an eccentric, like Quona Varana?
When, on her hill, she stood and walked to the place where she could see the water, then realized she was waiting, and hoping, for silbercows to appear, she wondered what her school friends would think of that too.
The problem, she thought as she stood there, was that she wasn’t ready to go back, but it hurt, terribly, to be left behind. And as much as she was afraid that her brothers wouldn’t want her, she wanted them; she wanted to hold them, keep them in her arms. Tell them she was sorry.
It was a problem with no solution. Whichever path she chose would be harder than she felt she could stand.
She caught sight of an airship in the distance, crawling north along the coast. That was it, then.
Then she saw another airship not far behind the first one. She started murmuring questions to Worthy. “What’s that second one for, my piglet? Are we too many people for one airship? No,” she decided, counting. “We can fit in one, even if I go.” She didn’t recognize either airship.
How strange it was, to feel curiosity pricking inside her. How long had it been since Lovisa had felt curious about anything? How strange too when her curiosity began to outshout her wish to be invisible and left alone.
She started back to Nev’s. It was a longish walk, this path in the woods that only days ago had seemed arbitrary, not a path at all. As she neared the house, a voice sounded sharply ahead. It contained cheer, politeness, and something deeply familiar. If it weren’t impossible, Lovisa would think she recognized that voice.
Disbelieving, she began to run, holding Worthy close, trying not to joggle him, then stopping cold at the sight of a person in a gold scarf. Mari, in the yard, talking to Grandpa Saiet. He was tall, and solid, and bright-eyed, and really there. He saw her and spread out his arms, shouted his joy. His parents were beside him. And suddenly her brothers appeared around him, her brothers. Vikti, Erita, Viri, alive, well, laughing. They shouted her name, ran at her, swarmed her with their sharp little knees and elbows, their wriggling, happy bodies. She had them in her arms.
* * *
—
She had everything now. It didn’t matter if she stayed or went, it didn’t matter where she was or what she did.
And they didn’t seem angry with her. They weren’t blaming her for anything. Surely it was a trick? “Lovisa!” said Erita. “Is that a pig?”
“It’s a pig!” said Viri delightedly. “It’s wearing a diaper! Arni! Mara! Mari! Look! Pig! Diaper!”
Lovisa stood shakily, confused, as Mari and his parents joined them. She didn’t know how to see Mari again, after everything. When she looked up at him shyly, he hugged her. “Don’t squash my pig,” she said, which made him start laughing.
“Say hello to my parents,” he said.
Lovisa had known Mari’s parents all her life, but never like this. Never in a forest, with a pig, after she’d burned half of Flag Hill down and thrown an explosive egg and her father was a murderer.
“Lovisa Cavenda,” said Mara, formally, but kindly. Lovisa had always felt like a mouse, or a mushroom, or at any rate, a child, beside Mara Devret.
“We’re all hoping you’ll come back with us,” she said. “Won’t you tell us that you will?”
I don’t know, Lovisa wanted to say. I can’t decide yet. I’m scared.
Then a small, sticky hand tucked itself inside hers, and Lovisa had her answer.
PART FIVE
The Keeper
There was nothing easy about carrying a ship across the ocean floor, especially now that the creature had a hurting nub in place of one of her tentacles.
The silbercows were surprised that her missing tentacle made such a difference, when she had so many other tentacles.
Only twelve, she said, beginning to wonder if silbercows thought everything was easy when one was big.
The silbercows asked her, given how hard it was, if it would conserve energy for her to stop singing so loudly as she went, but obviously that was a ridiculous suggestion. None of this would be possible if she weren’t bellowing her heart out as she dragged herself across the ocean floor. The bellowing protected her from how sad she was, which also happened to be the topic of her song. She was sad about losing her Storyworld and her tentacle, and she was worried about the skeletons of the two humans as she moved along. The silbercows had told her the story of what it must have been like for those two humans to find themselves locked in a room while other humans chopped a hole in the bottom of their boat, then abandoned them. Now she didn’t want them to be jostled. The thought of them suffering more than they’d already suffered was unbearable. That was the main thing she kept singing about.
The humans couldn’t suffer, the silbercows told her, now that they were dead. But of course this didn’t comfort her. Surely they hadn’t wanted to die!
The silbercows told her that sometimes a human or a silbercow didn’t have a choice, in a world of bullies.
I know! she said. That’s why I’m singing!
It’s also why the ocean needs heroes like the Keeper, said the silbercows significantly.
She could get very impatient when the silbercows started talking about the Keeper. The Keeper was silly, with her mesmerizing songs and her drawings that chased enemies away. And what about the part where the Keeper rose up and crushed the silbercows and humans if they didn’t do what she wanted? The Keeper sounds like a bully, she said. I think if you ever actually meet her, you should let me know, because I’m big, so I can stop her from bullying you.
The silbercows kept their thoughts about that to themselves. As she had requested, they sang with her as best they could—her songs were unpredictable, so it was hard sometimes to prepare for the next verse—and, gently, they shooed away any curious silbercows who approached. Not today, they told the visitors. Some other day. We’ll tell you when. It was interesting, how many silbercows tried to approach, for the singing today was especially powerful, and terrible in its sadness. But maybe the ocean was getting used to her singing. Maybe some were even drawn to its sadness, because it touched their own.