King said “hmm” whenever he didn’t quite know how to respond to me.He started to ask another question, then stopped, running his fingers over his braids then pulling them to one side.His eyes dropped back to his plate, still piled high with food.
Meanwhile, I refilled my empty plate because my stomach growled again.I didn’t think I’d ever been this hungry in my life.It had to be Nova.It made sense that shifting into that form would require more fuel.Someday, I’d actually learn something useful from my grandmother’s journal.
When King looked up again, his confusion was obvious in his poor Warrior eyes.He didn’t handle change well.“Meditation?”he asked solemnly.
I gave him his own complicated expression right back.“Uhm.”
I finished off the eggs and popped the last piece of bacon into my mouth.“We’ve got a lot to do, but I want to see Nokita’s little submarine first.”
King just shook his head in defeat.He’d come around eventually.Once he allowed different ways of thinking to replace his natural stubbornness, he’d see what meditation could do for us.
An hour later, we rode the motorbikes to the shipyard.I’d only been there once before, and it was just as creepy now as it was then.The old ships were decrepit piles of rusted steel, looking like they belonged at the bottom of the ocean instead of secured to the endless stretch of brown docks.
The towering ships bobbed slowly in the nearly black water, making eerie creaking sounds that only added to the place’s unsettling atmosphere.
The first time I’d come here, I’d made the mistake of asking Nokita why the ocean water around the ships was so dark.His explanation had made the shipyard feel even creepier.
“The black water is death,” he’d said matter-of-factly.“When animals, humans, and plants die in the water, their nutrients are absorbed, and they sink to the bottom.The water turns black because death lingers, and so far, the ocean’s lost the battle to return itself to blue.”
The memory sent a small shiver down my spine as I stared at the inky waves, the sound of creaking steel echoing around us.
I rubbed my arms as we walked the long deck between gargantuan ghost ships, searching for Nokita.“Over here!”he yelled after what felt like a mile of walking, though that might’ve been an exaggeration.We finally located him, or more accurately, he located us.He was in a mid-sized enclosed bay, working on what had to be the smaller sub.
He stuck his head out of the glass dome, grinning.“She’s almost ready.”
I peered at the dented hunk of metal that had clearly seen better days, then glanced uneasily at the black water surrounding it.“How close?”
“Give me ten minutes, and we’ll take her for a spin,” he said cheerfully.
Not happening.
Ten minutes later, I was sitting inside what Nokita had lovingly referred to as a “death bubble.”He’d explained it could descend a thousand feet before reaching its collapse depth, which would crush the entire sub and us along with it.Wasn’t it me who said this wasn’t happening?
After spending years in a small cubicle, I’d discovered I didn’t like tight spaces, especially not when they were surrounded by black water that screamed death.
“You okay, baby?”King whispered.
“Swell, baby,” I replied, not taking my eyes off the dark nothingness in front of us.I had the distinct feeling that if the water cleared, I’d be able to say, I see dead people.Worse, I’d probably see half-eaten dead people who had been decaying beneath the water for years.
“Queen,” King said, his tone teasing.
I shot him a sharp side-eye.He knew that word irritated me.
His lips quirked, and I realized he was trying to distract me from my very real terror of being inside the bubble of death.Like that was going to work.
“Ready to launch?”Nokita asked, his chipper tone grating against my nerves as he flipped several switches on the control panel.
When he worked on planes, he was a pilot.On a sub, he was the skipper, or whatever the hell they were called.Nokita spoke with the vernacular of a man who lived and breathed engines, completely at ease with anything mechanical.
King had once told me Nokita started fixing tractor engines for his neighbors when he was a kid because he hated working the farm fields with his father.By the age of sixteen, he’d already built a thriving farm mechanical business.
And now, here I was, putting my life in the hands of that same boy-grown-man, sitting in his tin-can submersible surrounded by death water.Fantastic.
“Have you ever manned one of these things?”The second the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
Nokita turned in his seat, reading the fear in my eyes.“Never,” he said, glee dripping from his voice.He didn’t even try to hide it.
They set me up, he and King both.Here I was, finally stepping into the leadership role, and now they were taking me out into the blackest depths of death water to do away with me.I’d become part of the muck below, and no one would even remember who I was.Even Ruth would say, “Marinah who?”
