“Jenna,” I said softly into my mic. “Please tell me that’s you?”
“You’re just in time,” her voice said. If I was relieved beyond words, she sounded excited to the point of bursting. But not because of me.
“Just in time for what?” I said.
“The sun!” she said. “We got here just as it was going down and had to spend the night on the surface. We opened the top hatches and the air is breathable! Very cold, but breathable. Oh Daddy, we knew it. We all knew it. I’m so glad you’re here with us.”
“Where the hell is here, Jenna, I can’t see another soul.”
“Go out on top and take a look,” was all she said.
It took me a minute to get the interior hatch to Number 6’s stubby sail open, then I climbed up the short ladder, banging side to side in the tight tunnel as the sub kept rocking. At the top hatch I paused, hands on the locking wheel. Nobody had breathed fresh air in almost two decades. Had I merely imagined my daughter’s voice? It certainly was true I’d been in better mental states. Sleep deprivation will do that to you.
But I’d certainly come too far to stop. So, what the hell?
The wheel complained, then spun, and there was a hiss as the last bit of pressure difference bled off from the inside of the sub to the outside. If I’d done it right when I came up, I’d not get the bends—no deadly nitrogen bubbles in the blood. If I’d done it wrong . . . too late now.
Jenna had been right. The air was brutally frigid, and moving fast. Almost a wind. But also so invigorating that I pulled myself up all the way out of the sail and rested my butt on the edge of the hatch. I looked out across the rolling sea of slushy ice—which appeared to extend for many, many miles in all directions.
I also saw the sails of the other subs. Four of them. The kids on those boats waved to me, and I waved back with both arms. If I’d been promising myself at the start of this trip that I’d skin Jenna alive when I found her, that anger had long since melted into a bewildering feeling of astonished wonderment.
Because Jenna was right. The sun certainly was coming up.
And not an apparitional, atrophied sun; as we’d all seen in the last days before going to sea.
This was the real deal.
It crested the horizon like a phoenix, a blast of yellow-orange rays shooting across the sky and into the belly of a bank of clouds to our west. The clouds lit up brilliantly, and there was a raucous cheer from the other subs—all the kids out on deck to see the miracle.
I suddenly found myself cheering too. No, howling. I was on my feet, dangerously close to toppling off the sail and into the slush below, but I couldn’t make it stop. I yelled until my voice was hoarse.
I looked around and saw all the kids standing, hips and knees rocking in time to the rhythm of their bobbing craft, eyes closed and arms stretching out to the sky, waiting . . . waiting . . .
I suddenly knew what they were waiting for. I did the same.
When the rays hit my skin—old, dark, and wrinkled—my nerves exploded with warmth. Stupendous, almost orgasmic warmth. No electric heater was capable of creating such a feeling.
I came back to myself and thought I saw my daughter waving to me from the sails of one of the other subs.
I jumped into the icy sea, and swam in great strokes.
Pulling myself out onto the back of Jenna’s sub, I ignored the smiling but reserved faces of the other teenagers and used handrails on the sail to pull myself up to Jenna’s level.
I didn’t ask if it was okay for a hug, as I’d been doing since she’d turned 13.
She had to politely tap my shoulders to get me to release her.
“Sorry,” I said, noting that water from my beard had gotten her face wet.
“It’s okay,” she said, wiping it with her palms.
“I found the clubhouse,” I said. “I was afraid that you—all of you—had gone off and done something really stupid.”
Jenna looked down.
“Are you mad that I didn’t tell you?”
“At first,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter now. This is . . . this is just . . . incredible.”
The sun had gained in the sky. The old, dark neoprene of my wet suit was growing hot and uncomfortable. I unzipped and pulled my arms and head out of the top, letting it drape around my waste. Delicious rays of light bathed my exposed, gray-haired chest. An unreasoning, almost explosive feeling of giddiness had seized me, and I had to fight to maintain my bearing as the kids on the sub—all the kids on all the subs—began laughing and shoving each other into the water, paddling about and crooning like seals.
“Have you been in contact with anyone else?” I asked.
“We kept trying the radio,” Jenna said, never moving away from my arm which had found its way protectively around her shoulders. “But you were the first person we heard.”
“I wonder how many of the satellites still work,” I said, looking up into the fantastically, outrageously blue sky. “We could rig a dish, one of the old VSAT units. I think we still have some down below . . .”
“We aren’t going back,” Jenna said suddenly, detaching herself.
I looked at my daughter.
“Where else can you possibly go?”
“We don’t care, dad. We’re just not going back there. We swore it amongst the group. All of us.”
“And what if the ice had still been solid? What would you have done then?” I said, a burst of sea wind suddenly giving me goosebumps.
“We don’t know.”
“You’re goddamned lucky there was a gap to get through. Air to breathe. I am not sure any of us have enough oxygen or battery power to get all the way back down. Jenna, for all I knew, you and the others were going to get yourselves killed.”
Jenna didn’t meet my gaze.
“Somebody had to do something,” she said. “We had to know if there was a chance the sun had returned. We hoped. We hoped so much. You and Jake and the others—everybody from before the freeze-up—it was like you’d all given up. Everyone determined not to die, but also determined not to live, either.”
I nodded my head, slowly.
“So what’s the plan now?” I asked.
She looked up at me, smiling again.
“Baja.”
“What?”
“The Baja Peninsula is supposed to be a couple hundred miles northeast of here. We’ll sail until we hit the shore.”
“And if you simply hit the pack ice?”
“We’ll leave the subs, and keep going.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re saying? Where’s your food, where’s your water, what kind of clothes do any of you have? What—”
“We’re not going back, daddy!”
She’d shouted it at me, her fists balled on my chest.
“Okay, okay,” I said, thinking. “But consider this. You all stand a much better chance if you have help. Now that we know the ice is clearing and the air is breathable—and that the sun is back out again, by God—we can bring the others up. All of the Deepwater crews, and the stations too. It will take time, but if we do it in an organized, methodical fashion, we’ll all stand a better chance of making land. Though I am not quite sure what we can expect to find when we get there.”
Some of the other kids had pulled themselves out of the water to come listen to me talk. A few of them were nodding their heads in agreement.
“If you want,” I said to them, looking around, “I’ll be the one to go back down. But I’ll need to get some air and electric power off these other subs first. I sure hope you all brought enough food to last a week or two. It’s going to be at least that long, or longer, before anyone else comes up from below.”
* * *
I went back down with what few reserves the kids could give me, about nine hundred digital pictures of the open water, the marvelously full sun, and the blue, blue sky—and a hell of a lot of hope in my heart.
It wouldn’t be easy. Not all of the adults would want to believe me,
at first. And raising the stations after so long at depth was liable to be even more dangerous than sinking them had been in the first place.
But I suspected Jenna was right. We couldn’t go back. Not after what I’d just seen.
So I slowly dropped back down, gently, gently. Like a feather. The old sub wouldn’t last a fast trip to the bottom, just as it wouldn’t have lasted a fast trip to the top.
And though the darkness had resumed its hold, I felt light as a bird on the breeze.
Three days later, I stood in Deepwater 12’s sub garage.
Dan had dutifully spread the word ahead of me, and he was in a crowd of adults as I slowly climbed down off Number 6’s sail.
“You didn’t find them,” Jake said sternly. I could sense his extreme piss-off as I walked across the deck towards the group. Discipline was vital on the Deepwater crews, and I’d violated that discipline so extremely, I’d be lucky if Jake didn’t bust my nose for me.
“Oh, I found ’em all right,” I said.
“Dead?” Dan said, voice raised slightly.
“No,” I said. “Take a look.”
I tossed Dan the camera I’d used on the surface.
He looked at me questioningly, and I just looked back.
Dan turned the camera over, its little LCD screen exposed, and flipped the switch to slide show.
Adults crowded around Dan, including Jake.
They gasped in unison.
“It can’t be,” Dan said, voice caught in his throat.
“It is,” I said. “And if you all don’t mind, my daughter is waiting for us to join her up top. We’ve got a land expedition that needs support. I promised her I’d get her and the other kids the help they’d need to make it successful.”
Dan cycled through the pictures and began playing one of the video files I’d also shot. The camera’s little speaker blared loudly laughing, shouting teens and the sloshing of water against the hull of the sub I’d been standing on when I took the footage.
I noted tears falling down the faces of many of my compatriots. And for a tiny instant, I wished that Lucille had lived long enough to see this.
No matter. Lucille was a memory, but it was apparent I’d given the living something they’d desperately needed, without even knowing it. Just as much as I’d desperately needed it when I first opened Number 6’s top hatch and smelled the tangy, frigid salt air whipping through my hair.
Jake, the crew boss, was shouting orders—with a wide smile on his face—while the camera made its way reverently from hand to hand.
I looked up at the ceiling, my eyes glazing and my spirit going up through the black deep to the top where Jenna waited. Hang on, little one. Dad’ll be back soon.
The Freedom Maze is a double historical time-travel novel, with chapters set in 1960 framing the main narrative, set in 1860. The narratives are linked by the central character of Sophie Martineau, who, in traditional children’s-book fashion, is sent for the summer to the country. There she finds adventure in the shape of a sassy magical Creature, who grants her not-very-well-worded wish by transporting her into the past. This excerpt opens with Sophie’s arrival in 1860, which she soon finds out is quite different from the Good Old Days her grandmother is always longing for.
—Delia Sherman
Chapter 6
“Where’s here?” Sophie asked.
Her only answer was a fading giggle.
And wasn’t it just her luck, she thought, to the get the kind of magic creature that would transport her somewhere and leave her without explanation? Just like the Natterjack in The Time Garden, come to think of it. And the Natterjack had always shown up when the children really needed it. Irritating as the Creature was, she was sure it would, too.
In the meantime, here she was, back in the Good Old Days, in a room that both was and was not hers.
Every piece of furniture seemed to come from somewhere else. The princessy bed with its high headboard, was from Mama’s room, but what was that gauzy material hanging from the half-tester? The mirrored armoire and dresser belonged in Grandmama’s room, and the last time Sophie had seen that desk, it was in the parlor. The familiar faded wallpaper was gone, and so was the ratty rug, replaced by deep rose paint and pale matting. The only clues to the room’s occupant were the striped scarf across the bed, and the scribbled paper scattered across the desktop.
Sophie padded over to the desk to investigate, picked up an ivory pen, its gold nib crusted with dried ink. Beneath it was a half-written letter. She couldn’t make head or tail of the scrawly handwriting, but the date was clear enough: June 12, 1860.
Sophie’s hand shook a little.
The War Between the States was due to start in—Sophie thought for a moment—less than a year. She wondered whether she should warn her ancestors about it, decided she shouldn’t risk changing the course of history by mistake and returning to the present to find out she hadn’t been born. She might, however, let the slaves know that they’d be free in a few years—nothing too specific, just a hint, to give them something to look forward to.
But that was for when she’d actually met a slave. She put the letter back where she’d found it.
On the marble-topped nightstand, she found a white leather Bible and a copy of “Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which had been used for pressing flowers. Inside the nightstand were a white porcelain pot and a faint stink that reminded her of a not-very-clean public bathroom. She shut the door quickly. Chamber pots were a part of the past she’d never thought much about.
Neither were corsets, which she found in the big mirrored armoire, hanging on hooks next to mysterious white cotton garments and pastel dresses with long, bulky skirts. She touched a flounce, wondering whether the Fairchild it belonged to was old or young, and if she might let Sophie try on her clothes.
Next, Sophie went to the window. In 1860, there was no window seat, just a square bay with a vanity table set it in to catch the light. A white gauze curtain framed the view she’d glimpsed by moonlight two nights before. Then, it had disappeared like smoke. This time, it wasn’t going to go away.
Sophie caught sight of her reflection in the triple mirror on the vanity. She looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. There wasn’t much she could do about the mud on her dress and arms, but she couldn’t bear to meet her ancestors with her hair looking, yes, like a hooraw’s nest. Sophie searched through the clutter of bottles and jars and ribbons, until she found a silver brush. It wasn’t polite to use some else’s brush without asking, but this was an emergency.
As she raised the bush to her hair, the door opened. Sophie spun around to see girl staring at her—a real Miss Lolabelle in a poufy white dress and a striped silk sash around her tiny waist. Her dark hair was bundled into a net and her skin was pink-and-white. With her eyes and mouth all round with surprise, she looked just like a doll a tourist would buy on Decatur Street.
The girl put one hand to her throat and gave a very Miss LolaBelle-like little scream. “Antigua!” she gasped. “Antigua! Come here!”
A Negro girl appeared at her shoulder. “Yes, Miss Liza.”
A slave. A real, live slave. She was very pretty, with rosy-brown skin, and eyes the same Coca-Cola brown as Miss Lola—Miss Liza’s. Sophie noted the bright yellow turban wrapped around the Negro girl’s head and the little silver cross strung on a red thread around her throat and was surprised. She’d thought a slave would look more down-trodden.
“You put Miss Liza’s brush down!” the slave girl said. “Right now, you hear?”
Sophie dropped the brush with a clatter.
“I do believe she was fixing to steal it!” Miss Liza’s voice was a high-pitched whine, not nearly as pretty as her face. “Bring her along to the office, Antigua. Papa will know what to do.” She disappeared in a flurry of white ruffles.
Antigua grabbed Sophie’s arm and shook it. “You in trouble, girl! What you doing here, anyway?”
This was not how Sophie had
imagined her adventure beginning. She licked her lips. “Um. I got here by magic.”
Antigua gave her a vicious shake. “Magic? I never heard of no magic that put folks where they don’t belong to be. You crazy, girl? Or just foolish?”
“It’s the truth,” Sophie protested.
“Crazy and foolish,” Antigua said. “Listen here, now. You don’t want more trouble than you already got, you best find some other tale to tell Dr. Charles. Magic! I never!”
The slave girl took a firm grip of Sophie’s arm and dragged her out to the gallery and down the back steps. Sophie was too shocked to resist. Were slaves allowed to hustle white people around like that? Wasn’t that the reason the old days were good? Because Negroes knew their place?
Antigua entered the house through a door that didn’t exist in 1960, and hustled Sophie down the back hall to Aunt Enid’s office—or what would be Aunt Enid’s office, a hundred years in the future. When she’d knocked, she propelled Sophie across the room to the fireplace, where Miss Lolabelle was sitting by a lady on a sofa, carrying on while a tall gentleman patted her shoulder.
Antigua released Sophie and stepped back, leaving her staring at her illustrious ancestors.
The lady on the sofa was blond and pale and thin as a rail, and dressed in grey silk and a lacy cap with long side-pieces. Wool and knitting needles lay on the sofa beside her. The gentleman, got up in a stiff high collar that made Sophie’s neck itch to look at, had a long, sad face and an aquiline nose. A Fairchild nose, in fact.
The gentleman seated himself in what looked exactly like Grandmama’s big wing-chair. “My daughter says she discovered you in her room with her silver hair brush in your hand.” His voice was firm, but not unfriendly. “I trust you have some reasonable explanation?”
Sophie was so astonished to hear someone talking just like a character in a Dickens novel that it took her a moment to realize he was actually talking to her. It took another moment to realize she was going to have to answer him.