Fathom
Tor Books by Cherie Priest
THE EDEN MOORE BOOKS
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Wings to the Kingdom
Not Flesh Nor Feathers
Fathom
Fathom
Cherie Priest
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
FATHOM
Copyright © 2008 by Cherie Priest
All rights reserved.
Edited by Liz Gorinsky
Book design by Kathryn Parise
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Priest, Cherie.
Fathom / Cherie Priest.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Asscociates book.”
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1840-4
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1840-7
1. Monsters—Fiction. 2. Angels—Fiction. I. Title
PS3616.R537 F38 2008
813'.6—dc22
2008034251
First Edition: December 2008
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the Sunshine State, and my relatives who originated there.
(Yes, that’s pretty much all of them.)
Acknowledgments
Thanks go first to the usual suspects: My fabulous husband, Aric, who lets me stay home and write these things while he trundles off to his office job each day; my amazing editor, Liz Gorinsky, who, bless her heart forever, was subjected to not one, not two, but three separate Draft One versions of this project; my superfly publicist, Dot Lin, who’s always quick on the draw with the promo materials; my impossibly patient agent, Jennifer Jackson, who gets shotgunned all my ridiculous ideas and yet never uses live ammo when she shoots back; and my ever ready webmaster, Greg Wild-Smith.
Next, I’d like to cast grateful, friendly props to a few members of the Seattle-area writing crew—namely, Kat Richardson, Richelle Mead, Caitlin Kittredge, and Mark Henry—for the lunches, the parties, and the companionable revelry that only fellow zombie aficionados can provide. They’ve been exceedingly kind to the new girl in town, and I love them all to pieces for it. And speaking of the locals, thanks likewise go to Duane Wilkins at the University District bookstore, because he’s a signing-organizing madman and a true friend of authors everywhere.
I’d also like to send a shout-out to Chief Kenneth A. Price, Jr., over at the West Manatee Fire Rescue, for taking the time to answer pestering e-mails from a faraway author with some really odd questions. I did not honestly expect an answer to something as off the wall as, “Can you tell me about the fire department on this very small island about ninety years ago?” but he came through in style. Mind you, I only selectively followed his historical notes, so if anyone reads this and thinks I’ve gone off the deep end with my facts—please don’t bother poor Chief Price about it. He knows his stuff. Anything I’ve botched herein is entirely my responsibility.
And as a final note—because such things are important to some people—the song that Edward sings can be roughly, approximately hummed to the tune of “King Volcano” by Bauhaus.
Fathom
Contents
1 Lake Wales, Florida
2 The Orchard and the Island
3 Why They Call It That
4 Bedtime Stories of the Gods
5 The Cocoon
6 The Exposition of Songs
7 Of Sharks and Pirates
8 The Exposition of Evidence
9 The Exposition of Monsters
10 Captiva Island
11 Holes and Hideaways
12 Where Water Meets Stone
13 Being Ware of Wishes
14 May the Circle Be Unbroken
15 The Promise of Peril
16 Found Objects and Stolen Machines
17 Over the Waves
18 Getaway and Gone
19 What You Pray For
20 Beginner’s Luck
21 Wet Away from the Water
22 The Whistle at the End of the Earth
23 Of Plots and Promises
24 Chance Encounters
25 Hell and High Water
26 To the Water’s Edge
27 Drawbacks of Rescue
28 Determining Differences
29 East, into the Center
30 When Next Time Comes
31 Subterranean Advent
32 After Dreaming
Epilogue
Lake Wales, Florida
It’s as if you’ve asked me to build an ark. Only this . . . this is even stranger. It’s not that I don’t believe you, and obviously it’s not the money.”
Edward shielded his eyes against the gleaming, glaring afternoon sun. Below the hill where he stood, the scorched gray-green tops of live oaks and winged elms stretched as far as he could see in every direction. Here and there, the view was pocked with low, swampy places and trailing streams of tepid water thick with algae.
“It’s just this place. And I should tell you,” he continued, “this is the highest point on the peninsula. Can you believe that? This little mound is as high as the landscape ever climbs away from the ocean.”
He rubbed at the grass with the shiny black toe of his shoe, pushing past the topsoil and into the gritty red dirt just beneath it. “But you say this isn’t clay? It looks like clay. Except . . .” He jabbed at a clod and it disintegrated like sand. “Except it’s awfully dry. And that color, it’s much redder than clay.”
The broken clod looked like an injury, there on the ground.
“It isn’t clay,” his companion said. “It’s iron.”
Edward nodded. “Iron,” he echoed. “Through and through. A small mountain made of it, and God knows why. But this is the place, you say?”
“This is the place. Build it here, as tall as the earth will stand it. Send it into the sky. Make it a sanctuary.”
Edward tugged at his collar, wiping at the sweat he found underneath it. He gazed across the landscape and then back down at his feet. He did not look over his shoulder. It was one thing to hear that voice made of gravel and mulch; it was another thing to see the speaker, both oddly shaped and terribly misshapen.
Edward found it easier to listen than to look. “And you’ll be here? You’ll stay here, I mean?”
“I’ll stay, and I’ll watch. I’ll wait in your sanctuary.”
“I like the sound of that, yes. A sanctuary. I’ll buy out the land as far as we can see from this point, and we’ll reshape it. I know a man who does great work with landscaping.” Edward was warming to the idea, building momentum as he pushed it around in his head. “We’ll make it into a proper garden. We’ll plant orchards. We’ll have birds, and butterflies, and how do you feel about swans? We should have at least a pair of them. There’s
plenty of water to keep them happy, and we could import fish, too. Do you like fish?”
For a long moment, there was no answer. “It depends.”
Edward was afraid that he’d asked an inappropriate question, but his escort did not offer a formal objection or complaint. “Well, all of that—the fish, the swans—it’s all a ways off yet. This will take several years, if not longer.”
“A man with your resources should be able to speed things up considerably.”
“Money can accomplish only so much. You’re talking about tons upon tons of stone and metal. I’ll need to hire workers, arrange for the transport of materials, and contact my friend the landscaper—and that will only be the beginning. I’ll do my best, I assure you. But I’m only human,” he said. “Perhaps there’s something that you could . . .”
“I’ll assist you any way I can. But my abilities are better suited to breaking things down than building them up.”
“But there are others like you, aren’t there? Is there someone else who can help?” Edward had always wanted to know, and here was a perfect window for asking.
His companion laughed, and it was a bitter, raspy sound. “Yes and no. There are none who would answer any call of mine, if that’s what you want to know. The ones who remain despise me. I chose this exile because I was tired of their scorn. I was exhausted by their contempt, and I would rather bury myself in the Iron Mountain than endure it another day.”
Edward Bok did not know how to respond. It had been several years since he’d first met his strange friend, and in that time he’d rarely heard anything so revealing or personal. He was acutely aware that he knew precious little about the creature that stood behind him.
But he was not a stupid man, and he’d inferred a thing or two. He’d gathered that the creature was alone, and that it was angry. He’d surmised that it was very old, and that it was suffering terribly as a result of some punishment. But the thing was selective about the questions it answered, and Edward had grown careful about what he asked.
“Exile,” Edward repeated, wondering how best to ask more.
“They won’t come after me here, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
Edward shook his head. “No, I’m not worried. I trust you.”
“Why is that?”
“I beg your pardon?” Edward wanted to turn around, but only shifted his head to peer over his shoulder.
“Why would you trust me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Everyone has a choice. You have more at your fingertips than most people do.”
“Because of the money?” Edward frowned. “I do my best to share the wealth. I build libraries and fund schools. I—”
“Don’t defend your expenditures to me. I’m not your god, and not your accountant. I don’t care where or how you spend your funds, so long as we agree in this one great venture.”
“We agree,” Edward said quickly. “Of course we do. I gave you my word, didn’t I? I’ll build your tower, and I’ll cast your bells. I’ll make your sanctuary according to whatever directions you see fit to give me.”
“Don’t do it for me, you ridiculous man. Do it for yourself, and for your children and grandchildren. You have a grandchild now, yes?”
“I have two.”
“That’s twice the reason to build the tower, then. You’re building it for them, and for everyone else you love. You’re preparing to save the world, Bok. Don’t behave as if you’re doing me a favor.”
Edward withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to swab his forehead. The air was dense with humidity, and the sun felt too close; it cooked the sweat on his face and seared pink burns into his skin. “I didn’t intend it that way. I only wonder, sometimes, why you’re going to the trouble.”
From behind him, there came the muffled crackling noise of rocks being tumbled in sand. And when he finally twisted on his heels to look, he saw no one and nothing there.
“All right,” he told himself. “I’ll get started.”
He began by purchasing fifty acres, including the Iron Mountain itself. He declared his intention to create a wildlife preserve; he arranged for the pipe-work and water system installation, and imported nourishing topsoil by the ton. The iron-rich sand and dirt could hold only so much life, and it had to be supplemented. The landscaper, Frederick Olmsted, would not even visit the site until that much had been prepared.
In 1924, once the groundwork had been established, Olmsted came down from Massachusetts with an army of gardeners, stocked with native and imported flora of every stripe. He believed deeply in conservation, and he applauded Bok’s plans.
Mr. Olmsted also wanted to save the world.
The landscape architect plotted the grounds, set down trails, and laid out the gardens. He arranged the oaks, pines, and geometrically styled orange groves. He planted date and sabal palms, papyrus, creeping fig, and hollies. Wafting up through the clattering ruckus of construction and digging came the sweet, light scent of jasmine and camellias.
So when the land had been cleared, and the pipes had all been laid, and the gardens were under way, Bok turned his attention to the sanctuary’s centerpiece: the Singing Tower. His friend Milton Medary designed it.
Medary drew his inspiration from the best of art deco and Gothic overindulgence. He looked to the great European cathedrals and he liked what he saw there; he wondered how it might be shaped to better fit the heat, the sun, and the shifting, sandy earth of the peninsula.
He brought cream and lavender marble from Italy and pink coquina from St. Augustine by the cartload, by the truckload, by any kind of load that would carry it deep into central Florida, through heat that could bake or kill anything that breathed.
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t quick.
Foot by foot, year by year, the ornate tower stretched itself up to the clouds.
While the tower grew, and while the gardens sprawled, and while tidy rows of orchards were groomed around the Iron Mountain, sixty great bells were cast in bronze. Shaped like cups and designed to work with a special clavier, the bells ranged in size from sixteen pounds to twelve tons.
The largest bell could have hidden a horse.
On February 1, 1929, Calvin Coolidge dedicated the property as Edward Bok’s “gift for the visitation of the American people.” The ceremony was well attended and highly publicized, but only one spectator watched from the very top of the carillon.
It watched in silence, and in pain. The bells burned its skin, and the noise of the crowd made its head itch. But it watched, and it was pleased with the results.
Less than a year later, Edward Bok died. He was buried at the foot of the tower, directly in front of the big brass door, in accordance with his final request.
The Orchard and the Island
According to Marjorie’s letter, her daughter, Bernice, was not adjusting very well to the move. Marjorie was aware that Bernice and Nia had barely seen each other in recent years, but since they were cousins—and almost the same age—they might enjoy each other’s company for a few months.
And wouldn’t Nia like a break from working in the orchard?
She could come out to the island, where the new house was only a few yards from the beach. She could have her own room, and swim at her leisure. She and Bernice could even catch the ferry over to Tampa and see the Gasparilla parade if they liked. The city was not so far away.
Nia’s mother and grandmother balked at the idea, but Nia was tired of climbing ladders and picking oranges like a field hand. A sunny beach on a distant island sounded like a much better way to spend the summer than working for free on the family farm; and anyway, she was eighteen and she could go if she wanted to.
She didn’t remember much about her cousin. When she thought on Bernice’s name, all she could muster was a memory of someone small and fast with curly blond hair and a smile that could cut glass.
She knew that her cousin was beautiful, and that she’d been living in New York ever since
Marjorie had remarried ten years earlier. She knew that her cousin was a little “wild,” or so her grandmother said with a tight little grimace bunched at the side of her mouth.
“Marjorie lets Neecy run too fast. She doesn’t keep that girl close enough,” Grandmother declared during the living room gossip session that began as soon as Marjorie’s letter had been read by everyone present. “She’s never whooped the girl, not even once . . . and Bernice has deserved it plenty more than once. Lord help me, but it’s true. If she came up here instead of tempting Nia down south, I’d do it myself. Better late than never.”
“She’s too big for that now, Momma,” Nia’s mother said. She twisted her lips around the sewing pins she held there while she worked. “She’s a couple years older than Nia, even.”
“She isn’t too big to beat. She’s just too far away.”
Nia held the envelope hard in her fist. “I want to go,” she said. “Aunt Marjorie invited me, and I want to do it. It sounds like a nice house they’re building, right on the beach.”
Grandmother grunted and said, “I’m sure it’s real nice. Marjorie’s married money both times.”
Nia’s mother pulled a pin out of her mouth and folded it into the skirt she was rehemming. She mumbled around the remaining pins, “Nothing wrong with falling in love with a rich man.”
“No, but she could’ve picked one who wasn’t a crook.”
“What’s that mean?” Nia asked. She squinted down at the letter, which she was fairly certain contained no mention of her uncle Antonio being a crook.