After centuries of religiously motivated war, the world has been split in two. Now the Blessed Lands are ruled by pure faith, while in the Republic, reason is the guiding light — two different realms, kept apart and at peace by a treaty and an ocean.

Children of the Republic, Helena and Jason were inseparable in their youth, until fate sent them down different paths. Grief and duty sidetracked Helena’s plans, and Jason came to detest the hollowness of his ambitions.

These two damaged souls are reunited when a tiny boat from the Blessed Lands crashes onto the rocks near Helena’s home after an impossible journey across the forbidden ocean. On board is a single passenger, a nine-year-old girl named Kailani, who calls herself The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky. A new and perilous purpose binds Jason and Helena together again, as they vow to protect the lost innocent from the wrath of the authorities, no matter the risk to their future and freedom.

But is the mysterious child simply a troubled little girl longing to return home? Or is she a powerful prophet sent to unravel the fabric of a godless Republic, as the outlaw leader of an illegal religious sect would have them believe? Whatever the answer, it will change them all forever — and perhaps their world as well.
Praise from readers:

“…original and compelling…will keep readers riveted…”

“The characters in this story…warmed my heart, wet my eyes, and — in the case of Benjamin — made me shudder…”

an excerpt from

The Daughter of the Sea
and the Sky

by David Litwack

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.— Albert Einstein

Prologue

The Minister of Commerce trudged up to the steel hut at the peak of the land bridge, a path he’d climbed a hundred times or more. But never before had it felt so steep.

The land bridge was a patch of red clay kept stripped of vegetation by the two governments, though few plants would have grown there anyway. A black metal barrier topped by jagged spikes surrounded the compound, with the sole access through two gates, one to the east and the other to the west. They called them asylum gates because any refugee who passed through them, even by a hair’s breadth, had the right to request asylum from the other side.

At the crest of the hill stood the meeting center, a white and green structure, once shiny and new, now faded almost to gray. Small wonder. It had been built fifty-two years ago as part of the Treaty of Separation. Perhaps the time had come to dismantle it and build a new one, or at least bake on a new layer of paint.

It straddled a negotiated boundary and provided the only contact between the minister’s people and the soulless, races that had kept apart—except in time of war—since the Great Sundering. At least that was the story preached by the senkyosei from their pulpits. According to them, Lord Kanakunai, creator of the Spirit, in response to the folly of reason, had sundered the world into two identical landmasses: The Blessed Lands for believers, and The Republic for the soulless. These He separated by a great ocean, leaving only this slender spit of earth at the top, like a windpipe connecting the nodes of the lungs.

But as the senkyosei loved to say, only one side possessed a heart.

The Minister of Commerce’s first encounter with the soulless had been as a young bureaucrat coming to evaluate refugees requesting transmigration to The Blessed Lands. Back then, he needed two days to travel to the land bridge and would arrive tired and dusty, a supplicant. Today, he’d come with an entourage, and the trip had taken less than three hours thanks to technology he’d negotiated from the other side—a motorized wagon on a newly paved road. Importing such inventions had been one of his greatest accomplishments and had resulted in a better life for his people, but it had also brought great wealth for many on the other side. Now he was a peer in their eyes, no longer a supplicant.

When he reached the hut, he stood patiently, arms outstretched, as troopers from The Republic patted him down, searching for weapons and, far more dangerous, any form of the written word. His own guardsmen would be doing the same to the soulless on the far side. Once he was cleared, he stepped inside.

Underlings from each race were still fussing over the position of the conference table. He watched the debate as the table was nudged first one way and then another to ensure precise placement over the boundary. The representatives of the soulless measured with their instruments, more needless wonders conceived through the worship of reason. His people took a different approach, eyeballing the line intersecting the floor and then praying they be granted their fair share.

When each side was satisfied, he took his seat and waited. This meeting had been set up at his request and so, by protocol, he’d been the first to enter. After a painful minute, a door on the opposite wall opened and two stout men marched into the room, taking up positions on either side of a padded leather chair. Though unarmed, they appeared more than able to defend themselves without weapons.

As he waited, his mouth went dry and his palms began to sweat. He took a sip of water from a glass on the table, and pulled out a handkerchief from his suit pocket to wipe his hands. He’d met many times with high-ranking officials from The Republic, those responsible for education, culture, or trade, but never before had he met a man who commanded an army.

Moments later the Secretary of the Department of Separation strode into the room, a bear of a man with the carriage of one accustomed to power.

The minister sat up straight and forced himself to look the man in the eye, to try to read his thoughts and more, to see the soul those of his ilk denied.

For this man controlled not only an army, but the fate of all the minister held dear.

                               Chapter 1

A Boat Where None Should Be

Helena Brewster sat atop the rocks, five feet above the receding tide, and pretended to read. At least until Jason came jogging along the beach below. She planned to wait until he was a few steps away, then turn the page she wasn’t reading and let her eyes drift up to meet his. Perhaps his eyes would find hers, and for the first time since he’d reappeared, he’d stop and stay. But today, he seemed agonizingly late. To fill up the time and tamp down her anticipation, she practiced the motion, turning a page and looking up.

No Jason.

She understood the first day’s awkwardness, brought on by their unexpected encounter—they hadn’t seen each other in over four years, hadn’t been in touch for more than two. But the second day wasn’t much better. He’d been out of breath and tongue-tied; she’d still been numb from the funeral. It was the third day before they managed a brief conversation, an exchange of pleasantries unworthy of what had once existed between them.

Today she hoped for more.

She abandoned all pretense of reading and stared out to sea. There, through the fog brooding over the ocean, a boat appeared. What in the name of reason would a boat be doing here? Must be her imagination playing games with the fog while she waited for Jason to arrive.

She slowed her breathing as she’d been taught, to control the passions and clear the mind. Then she listened again for the beat of his shoes on the sand. Nothing but the slosh of waves breaking on the shore. She checked the high-water mark beneath her feet, calculating how much the tide would have to recede before exposing enough beach for a runner. Still a few minutes to go.

They’d gone to the same academy, she and Jason, levels one through eight, though it took a while before they became close. She sat near the window, he by the inside wall. She paid attention to the mentor, while Jason stared outside, seemingly building castles in the air. Each year, he managed to get assigned a row closer, and by the time they’d achieved fifth level, he sat next to her and passed notes, asking if he could walk her home after school. When she told him she was concerned they’d get caught, he changed the notes, ending each with the phrase: “Take a chance, Helena.”

In the spring of that year, she did.

From then on, he walked her home every afternoon along this very beach, but never beyond this point, too intimidated by the big houses on the cliffs.

That came to an end when their class advanced to secondary school. He’d gone to the communal one in the village, and she to the private one where children of the Polytech faculty studied. Yes, they tried to see each other every day, but she’d become obsessed with grades, trying to please her father, and he’d taken a job at a snack shop after school to save money for university. She’d gone to see him as often as possible, ordering a lemon-flavored drink and visiting during his break. It wasn’t much, but they were unconcerned; there’d be time when they were older.

After she moved away—she’d never questioned attending her father’s school—they stayed in touch for a while. Jason would drop a note, and she’d respond. Then, somehow, two years of silence ensued.

Now, after all this time, he’d reappeared, jogging by as she grieved along the cliffs, exactly a half hour past high tide. Like a fleeting glimmer in this darkest of summers. Like a miracle.

She shook her head. If her father were alive, he’d chastise her for such a thought. She could hear his voice, that of a true scientist—there were no miracles.

The ripple at the edge of the fog again drew her gaze. For an instant, it took shape, but quickly vanished, a reverse mirage, something solid where only water should be. She squinted, trying to penetrate the haze, and turned away to find something more substantial.

She traced the coastline instead. The land rose southward in a gentle curve toward the tip of Albion Point, and ended at the Knob, which stood like a clenched fist challenging those who sailed the Forbidden Sea. The northern firs that capped the rocky coast were broken here and there by a handful of dwellings. From this distance, they looked like great seabirds nesting.

The fog had shifted with the tide, enough for her to pick out her parents’ home, the white one in the center, overlooking them all from the highest cliff. It was where she slept for the time being, where she stayed alone and apart. Only the second floor of the house and the garret above it showed. With the rest blended into fog, the house looked like a phantom rising from nothing. It had felt that way since her father died.

Each of the four days since driving her mother to the farm, she’d come to this spot, always a half hour before high tide. To her left, the long stretch of beach ended at the cliffs. To her right lay an inlet carved into the rocks, where waves crashed with a roar that echoed off the walls. Her father used to call it the thunder hole. Sitting on this bench-shaped rock above it, she could dangle her bare feet in the spray, neither in the water nor out.

Her father had given her a silver anklet for her twelfth birthday, an age when she worried she might be too old to curl up in his lap. He’d claimed that if she sat on the rocks above the thunder hole at high tide, the spray would wet the chain and make the links sparkle. Two days before he died, he reminded her of the anklet and told her when the ocean brought the stars, she should think of him.

Jason, she assumed, came for more rational purposes—the breadth of the beach below, the firmness of sand compacted by the waves—to this spot, their spot, the last easy place to clamber up to the road before the cliffs. Old friends turned strangers, now reunited by the rhythm of the tides.

She glanced back out to sea and caught the beacon of the Light of Reason. The ancient tower stood on a craggy rock in the middle of the bay, ten stories high and always first to peek through the fog. She balanced the book on one knee and scanned lower, down along the horizon.

The mirage burst out and became solid—a boat where none should be.

The sail luffing in the breeze was a clumsy triangle with no arc, holding little air. The front was awkwardly shaped, more tub than prow, and it sailed where boats were banned—a ripe target for the shore patrol. If it had been launched by zealots overcome with missionary zeal, it was too small and ill-fitted, not salvation vessel, but death trap.

And it was drifting toward the rocky coast.

She turned to a new sound—Jason finally arriving on his tidal schedule. Soon he’d slow to a halt, measure his pulse with two fingers on the carotid artery, and gulp half a bottle of fortified water. After checking his time, he’d scramble up the rocks to her perch, flash that boyish grin she remembered so well, and ask how she was doing. She’d smile as she struggled to find words to make up for the years apart. When she failed to say much, he’d mumble some nicety, turn, and jog away down the steps and along the road to the village.

Or that’s how it would have gone, if it weren’t for the boat.

It drew closer now, gaining speed. The sea breeze had risen with the turn of the tide, and the resulting chop held the boat in its grasp, driving it toward the rocks below the cliff. Even if it were seaworthy, it was doomed.

Jason pulled himself onto the rocks and approached her.

She closed the book and set it down, forgetting to reset the bookmark, and pointed toward the boat. A kingfisher glided along the coastline and dove where she pointed, disappearing into the water.

Jason smiled.

She shook her head and tried to find her voice.

“A boat,” she finally said.

Now, Jason saw it as well. The sun glinted off something on its bow as it dipped into a trough. When it rose again, someone clutched the mast—a girl with golden hair.

Jason vaulted back to the beach and beckoned for Helena to follow. She moved to the edge, squatted, and jumped. He caught her by the waist and swung her to the sand.

In those few seconds, the boat crashed against the rocks. The crack of wood splintering rose above the sound of the waves.

The two of them raced into the surf as the girl with the golden hair thrashed about in the water, struggling to avoid jagged debris from the shattered boat. They waded in a few steps, braced against the undertow, and pressed forward again. Three more waves and they reached her.

Jason grabbed the girl just as she began to sink. Despite the buffeting sea, he carried her back to the shore without straining and lay her fragile form on a swath of grass beyond the rocks—a slip of a child no more than nine or ten years old.

Plain cotton pants clung to the girl’s legs, and an elaborately embroidered tunic covered her slender frame—the typical garb of the zealots, but other than her clothing, she looked nothing like a zealot. Her skin was light and perfect, unblemished but for a trickle of blood on her arm. Her golden hair hung down to the middle of her back, and her round eyes held the color of the ocean.

Were Helena a believer, she’d have considered this the face of an angel.

Jason offered his bottle, but the girl shied away. Helena cradled the child’s head and tilted her chin while he trickled a few drops into her mouth.

The girl licked her cracked lips and opened for more. After she’d drunk her fill, she turned to Helena. Her eyes grabbed and held. “The dream,” she said. “It’s true. I can see it in your eyes.”

Helena felt a sudden urge to distract the girl, to disrupt that penetrating gaze. “Who are you?”

The girl ignored the question, instead resting her hand on Jason’s forearm.

His muscles twitched as if he were unsure whether to linger or jerk away.

“Your arm is hot,” she said.

“That’s because I’ve been running.”

The girl’s ocean-blue eyes opened wider. “From what?”

He withdrew his arm and flexed his fingers. “Are you from the Blessed Lands?”

The girl nodded.

“Why would you make such a dangerous voyage alone in such a small boat?”

“I was in no danger,” she said.

He waved a hand at the flotsam, still surging in the tide. “But your boat’s destroyed, and it took us to save you.”

“Yes, I suppose.” She looked back out to sea as if expecting to find her boat still afloat. “Then I thank Lord Kanakunai for sparing me and delivering me to kind people who would help.”

“But who are you?” Helena said more insistently.

The girl motioned for more to drink, this time grasping the bottle with both hands and emptying it. When she finished, she sat up and lifted her chin like royalty. “I am Kailani, the daughter of the sea and the sky.”

Then slowly her lids closed and her body went limp.

Helena looked to Jason. “Dear reason, is she…?

He probed the hollow along the girl’s neck with two fingers and found a pulse. “Just exhausted. She’s passed out.”

From the road behind them, a door slammed and footsteps approached. A uniformed official walked toward the sea, some sort of locator in hand. Halfway there, he stopped to recheck the coordinates. The title inscribed above his shirt pocket read: Examiner, Department of Separation.

“What’s happened here?” he called out before he reached them.

“This girl sailed in,” Helena said, hardly believing her words. “On a small boat that crashed on the rocks.”

“Impossible.”

Jason walked him to the edge and showed the wreckage scattered on the beach like matchsticks, already being reclaimed by the sea. “There’s what’s left of the boat.”

“Well, that would explain the size of the blip on the readout. When they’re that small, it’s usually driftwood or a school of mackerel. Is she alone?”

Jason nodded.

“Odd,” the examiner said. “Still, she has to be taken in. That’s the law.”

Helena knelt by the girl’s side. “Can’t you see she needs medical attention?”

“Well… that may be, but she’s still here illegally.”

“She’s just a little girl.”

“So I see. I’ll call for help, but make sure she doesn’t go anywhere.” The examiner turned and headed back to his patrol car.

When he was out of earshot, Kailani began to stir, mumbling, slurring her words. “Penance… must do penance for the loss of the wind.”

Helena brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen across the child’s face. “It wasn’t the wind, Kailani, it was the chop. No one could’ve sailed through that, not in such a small boat.”

But the girl was dozing again.

Helena glanced at the examiner, who held an earpiece to his ear and fiddled with his communicator.

She leaned in close to the girl and stroked her bare arm. “Kailani, if they ask you questions, don’t say anything about penance or dreams. Do you understand?”

The girl faded in and out, and Helena shook her as gently as she could. “Kailani, can you hear me?”

The lids fluttered.

“If they ask why you’ve come, say just one word—asylum. Can you remember that? Asylum.”

Kailani’s lips moved to form the word, but she drifted off to sleep as the sound of sirens approached.

***

Jason returned from the road where he’d delivered Kailani to the health services van. He plodded toward her, rubbing his hands together, studying them as if trying to understand how they could’ve let the girl go.

Helena felt the same.

When he was two steps away, he stopped and faced her with the same smile she remembered when he was a boy.

“The examiner took my statement. He said to wait for him. He wants to speak with you as well.” He glanced at the ground and shifted from side to side, his running shoes sloshing with each step. His clothes were still dripping with a salty combination of sea water and sweat.

“I have a towel,” she said, “if you want to dry off.”

“Thanks. I’ll be all right.” He scanned the horizon before fixing on her. “He said they’ll need to interview us up in the city. You know the department—security above all.”

“What will they do with her?”

“The department? Who knows? Figure out why she came, then send her back, I suppose. Unless she keeps talking like that….”

Helena turned from him and stared out to sea. All she could think of was loss—of her father, of the girl she hardly knew. “She’s just a child.”

If only the boat could arrive again. If only she and Jason could rescue the girl again, but this time whisk her away somewhere safe, shelter her, protect her. That’s what was due the daughter of the sea and the sky.

Jason focused on the road. “I should go. I have just enough time to finish my run and get back to work.”

“Where do you work?”

He cast a glance over his shoulder. “At the Polytech.”

At the Polytechnic Institute, like her father. Thoughts of her father distracted her, and the spell was broken. The girl with eyes the color of the ocean was gone, and Jason took off at a jog toward the village, never looking back.

She turned to watch as a maverick wave, oblivious to the ebb tide, crashed into the thunder hole and slogged back to sea with a groan.

When she glanced back up, she was alone.

Chapter 2

The Department of Separation

Monday morning, Chief Examiner Carlson tried to temper his usual interrogation. He’d never dealt with a refugee this young before. A nine-year-old girl was unlikely to be a threat.

“Are you feeling better today?”

She glared back at him. “Three days ago I was outside on the water. I haven’t seen daylight since.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but we have to keep you secure until we determine your status.” A trace of disdain in her tone had forced him to apologize even before the interview had begun. “I trust you’ve been… comfortable?”

The question needed no answer; she seemed anything but comfortable.

The overstuffed chair, designed to be welcoming to the newly arrived, was far too big for her. She slouched in it, unable to find a position where she wasn’t constantly slipping down. Her feet kicked about, reaching for the floor. The uniform the department of separation had provided was too big as well—they simply never received refugees this young. The orange sleeves covered her hands, all but the fingertips, and some well-intentioned attendant had kept the rolled-up trousers from falling by tying a pink ribbon around the child’s waist.

Carlson glanced past the child to the poster of the Lady of Reason, holding her torch on high and offering hope to the oppressed. He’d often used it as inspiration in challenging situations, though he’d never seen one quite like this before.

“It might be easier if we call each other by name, don’t you think? My name is Henry Carlson, but everyone calls me Carlson. What’s your name?”

She fiddled with the ribbon, inspecting its bow.

When she finally looked up, he blinked twice, certain he’d seen the ocean in her eyes.

“I am Kailani.”

“Very good. Kailani.” He wrote the name down phonetically and followed it with scribbles that looked like waves. “And do you have a last name?”

“No. Just Kailani.” She tugged at the bow, but it was double-knotted and refused to release.

“Okay, Kailani, then can you at least tell me who your parents are?”

“Why do you have no windows in this room?” Her tone was oddly adult and commanding.

Her very presence, the golden hair and the deep-seeing eyes, made his office feel drab. Sure, the dark wood was worn and faded, but he took pride in his workplace and always kept it orderly. Files were lined up neatly in rows, and on either side of the poster, perfectly spaced, hung portraits of his father and grandfather, their tops level and their frames dust-free. Centered under each was a slightly tarnished plaque engraved with the words: Chief Examiner, Department of Separation. He was third generation, defending the Republic from zealots and offering support to refugees.

He had nothing to be ashamed of. “Many of our offices have windows. Mine does not.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s the way it is.” He wasn’t about to explain seniority to a nine-year-old. “But we were talking about you, Kailani. Do your parents know you’ve come here?”

She pressed down on the chair’s arms and lifted her head. The arc of her neck was perfect. “I am the daughter of the sea and the sky.”

Carlson made an effort to not roll his eyes. Why on a Monday morning?

He reveled in order—folders aligned with the edge of the desk, paper clips paraded in a row. For more than thirty-two years, he’d arrived to work at eight and left at four-thirty. The retirement clock that glowed in the corner was ticking down the time he had left: seven months, six days, three hours, and a diminishing number of minutes and seconds. When it reached zero, he would, like his father and grandfather before him, retire with the Republic at peace, the shores secure, and a solid pension in place.

He forced himself to refocus.

Beyond her odd speech, the girl from the far side of the ocean was nothing like other zealots he’d met. Her skin, though tanned, was naturally fair, not the olive of her countrymen. No dark pupils scowling through almond shaped eyes, and no unruly black curls; instead, long yellow hair hung straight to the small of her back, and she had a face that might adorn banners carried into battle by acolytes.

Could she be a diversion? Could others looking to make trouble have disembarked earlier? Might they be disembarking now? The zealots were not above using a child. In his grandfather’s day, soon after the Treaty of Separation, boats would arrive with dozens on board. Some were asylum seekers, others missionaries. Occasionally, armed insurgents had hidden among them.

His father had warned him to be careful to distinguish between them. “The mythmakers are a race of fuzzy thinkers,” he said. “None of them have a right to the benefits of the Republic unless they’re willing to fully assimilate. When in doubt, ship them out.”

“Tell me, Kailani,” he said, “did you come here alone?”

“Did you see anyone else in the boat?”

“No.” He rearranged the paper clips on his desk from a horizontal row to a vertical column. “But it’s hard to believe someone as… young as you could’ve crossed the ocean by yourself.”

“I am alone.”

How does she manage to end every sentence as if the interview is over? He persisted. “Did someone send you?”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked. It would be useful, Kailani, if you’d cooperate. You’ve violated our borders and broken our law. You’re in a fair bit of trouble, and I’m trying to help.”

She nodded, not disagreeing but not paying much attention, either, and went back to picking at the bow.

He checked his fingers. The tremor that had troubled him since Miriam left had returned. He did his best to control it. “Could you please look at me when I’m speaking to you? I’m curious why you’d undertake such a dangerous voyage alone.”

“I’m the daughter of the sea and the sky. I was in no danger.”

Blind faith. He’d have to come up with a more effective approach, or—

“Is it true you punish people for believing?” she said.

He lost his train of thought. “We don’t—”

“And that you deny Lord Kanakunai and his gift of the Spirit?”

Almost the exact words of Olakai, their so-called prophet, before he launched the fourth holy war. “Why do you deny Kanakunai?” he’d thundered. Twenty years of bloodshed followed, ending only when the Treaty of Separation was signed.

Carlson eyed her more suspiciously. “I see you’ve been brainwashed by your people. Here in the Republic, we don’t reject any idea out of hand, but we won’t accept your god merely because you say so. What you call belief is based on myth, yet your people pursue it with a blindfolded certainty.”

She slid back in her chair, set her feet onto it, and hugged her knees. “I don’t understand,” she said, with something less than blindfolded certainty.

He pressed the advantage. “Don’t they teach history in the Blessed Lands? This is its lesson—mythmaking muddies the mind and unleashes the passions that lead to violence. The preaching of your faith has led to four wars and unspeakable assaults on our citizens. Thousands of innocents have died. Because of that faith, we’re bound to be vigilant about our security, even at the cost of our freedoms. That’s why we have a law against preaching. Were you an adult, you’d have just broken that law. But we’re a rational people and you are a child, so I’ll strike your words from the record. Now once again, Kailani, tell me why you’ve come to our shores.”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Please don’t play games with me.” He let his bifocals slip down his nose and glared at her through them. “I may be your only friend.”

She tilted her head to one side and stared back as if he were the curiosity. “I was sent by a dream.”

“That’s interesting. Can you tell me about the dream?”

“I saw the soulless in my dream, people with sad eyes. I came to help.”

The soulless. Carlson had heard the term many times before. But this child was different from the other zealots he’d processed, who spat out the term with contempt or sugared it with sentimental pity. He’d need time to observe her. The system offered only three options: grant asylum, send her back, or arrest her as a threat to their way of life. What if none were applicable in this case?

She squirmed about in her seat and glanced up at the corners of the ceiling.

He thought she’d forgotten he was there when she fixed him with her gaze.

“Why are you so sad?”

Sad. How dare she pry into his personal life? His problems were his own. She was a child from a backward culture whose values he’d rejected his entire career.

He smacked his palm on the desktop, making her jump. “Enough! This is my interview, not yours. I ask the questions. Why have you come to our shores?”

Her little shoulders quivered and a trace of fear flashed in her eyes—she was, after all, a child.

A moment later, she whispered a single word. “Asylum.”

***

Helena called the department the morning after Kailani’s arrival, desperate for news, but the official she spoke with was hardly forthcoming.

“This is not a patient in a hospital. This is a zealot who entered the Republic illegally. You’ll have to wait until she’s been processed. The chief examiner will answer your questions when you come in for your debriefing on Tuesday.”

So for four long days, Helena waited. Now that Tuesday had arrived, she sat in the reception area outside the chief examiner’s office and waited some more. She tried to study her book, hoping to keep her promise to her father, but the words swam on the page. She’d skimmed and re-skimmed the same paragraph for the last ten minutes and absorbed nothing.

She gave up and decided to study the reception area instead, beginning with the ceiling, which needed some paint, with bits of plaster bubbling in places and threatening to fall. The walls were faded tile, possibly once green, but now too dreary to be considered a color.

And what is that smell? She sniffed twice and thought she detected a faint odor of disinfectant. It reminded her of the waiting room where she’d spent so many hours with her father.

***

She’d taken leave from the university so she could accompany him to treatment; her mother had been too distraught to go. On their visits to the hospital, they always had to wait. She distracted herself by analyzing the faces in the waiting room, hoping to learn from others how to cope. She watched the faces as they changed, old faces getting older, and young faces thinking about the old faces getting older and becoming more vulnerable. With nothing else to do, she began to worry about time, about how much her father had left, about what remained for her and how best to use it.

Eventually, they were ushered into the infusion room, a long hall, with blue recliners along either side. Floral curtains hung from tracks on the ceiling, providing some modicum of privacy. Behind each curtain, patients sat with needles in their arms, reading, napping, or listening to music—anything to make the time pass while the chemicals seeped into their veins.

They waited again for Sorin the nurse—her father had taken to calling her Sorin the Savior—to come and connect the tube.

Sorin unwrapped two hot packs and shook them until they were warm enough to place on her father’s forearm. “Do you care which arm?”

He shrugged.

“How about where I stick you? Wrist or forearm?”

“Anywhere’s fine, as long as the stuff makes it into my veins.”

When he’d first been diagnosed and given no chance for a cure, he’d remained reasonable as always, saying he wanted to die in peace and be no burden to his family. But the doctor said he had a growth pressing on his lower spine. As an expert in the field, her father knew the consequences—incontinence, paralysis, and pain. If he desired a peaceful end, he would need treatment.

Helena wondered how he could be so buoyant.

He looked up at the ceiling while the needle went in.

Nurse Sorin kept up a constant chatter as she arranged the tubes. “So, are you retired?”

“Do I look that old?”

“No sir. You look like you could run a long-distance race.”

“I did, just three years ago. And I’m not retired. I teach at the Polytech.”

Helena glanced up from her book. She couldn’t let him get away with the understatement. “He’s a tenured professor of physiometry, named best teacher at the Polytechnic Institute five years in a row. Some say he’s in line for the Order of Reason.”

The nurse wrapped the plastic tube around the pole and flicked it with her finger. “That right? You must be very smart.”

“Not as smart as my daughter,” he said. “Have I introduced you to Helena? Someday, she’ll be a better researcher than me. She’ll solve problems I never dreamed of, find cures for diseases like the kind that’s killing me.”

Helena flushed and looked back at her textbook, but the words had blurred.

***

It had been the same textbook she was staring at now—and the words were no clearer.

The door beside the receptionist’s desk opened, and to Helena’s surprise Jason emerged. As soon as he saw her, he flashed that boyish smile, stepped in her direction and spoke her name. Her lips parted, and she rose to greet him.

An official-looking man came bustling from behind and wedged himself between them. He placed a hand on Jason’s back and nudged him toward the exit, clearly eager to avoid the two of them speaking before he’d interviewed them separately.

“Thank you for coming, Jason. Please contact me if you think of anything else.” Only when Jason was out the door did the official turn to her. “And you must be Helena. Come right this way, please.”

As he led her into his office, Helena twisted around to peer into the hallway, but Jason was gone again. She had so many questions to ask him. What had he been up to these past few years? What kind of man had he become? Had the dreams of their youth worked out better for him than for her?

But more, she wanted to ask the most unusual of questions: if he’d dreamed the past three nights as she had; if he too was haunted by a girl with golden hair on the prow of a sinking ship.

Chapter 3

Jason

Jason Adams stopped between the granite columns that graced the top of the stairs and squinted into the sunlight. The walk back from Carlson’s interview had been unsettling, too much like the dream that had troubled his sleep since childhood—like the dream, but in reverse.

In that dream, he’d awake to a muffled keening and follow the sound, first through a chamber lined with granite columns, then down a hallway with ever lower ceilings, until he had to crouch to pass through. Finally, he’d come to a tiny room where a little man stood, smaller than life-size, with a woman kneeling on the dirt floor beside him in prayer.

Some nights, when the moon had poured its pale light through the window of his bedroom, he’d rouse, rub his eyes, and blink up at the ceiling, wondering what the dream meant. By his mid-teens, he knew.

When he was young, maybe four or five, his mother took him to see where his father worked. He remembered granite columns and marble floors with blue-gray swirls that caught and held his eye.

“Is this where my daddy works?”

“No,” his mother said. They passed through a hall and down stairs to a smaller room.

“Is this it now?”

“Not yet.”

Finally, they’d found his father in a cramped and dusty mailroom, and the younger Jason began to cry.

His father had stopped sorting mail into cubbyholes to comfort him, but his mother began to pray. She was always praying, a family tradition she refused to give up. His father begged her to stop, but she kept on, irrationally invoking some ancient god.

Jason now had few other memories of his mother: how she grew ill a year later and wasted away, how he watched her casket lowered into the ground, how his father clutched him and told him how terrible it was to be alone.

He shook off the mood. Today had been better. The chief examiner’s office was nicer than the cell of his dream, the woman in the waiting room from a happier memory.

Helena.

She’d glanced up as he entered, her face open but astonished, as if she’d found the years apart to be a constant surprise—and not always pleasant. He smiled at her the way he used to smile when they’d walked home along the cliffs, and she responded with her usual half grin, one side of her lips curling upward while she tilted her head the other way. A glint in her eyes seemed to say, “You’re a silly boy, Jason, but I like you anyway.”

He’d stepped toward her, but before he could get near, Carlson had herded him out the door.

Helena. He’d been delighted to see her that first time, sitting on the cliffs at the midpoint of his jog. Though he’d often thought of her, they hadn’t spoken in years. Then the letters stopped, too. Which one of them was last to write? Who was first to not respond? He couldn’t recall.

Of course he’d heard about her father and knew how much she must be hurting. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she seemed so distant, barely making eye contact. He hadn’t been able to think of what to say.

Now, they shared a gift from the Blessed Lands, the daughter of the sea and the sky. They’d been given a second chance.

He knew at once what to do: wait for her, even if it took the rest of the afternoon. He’d wait outside in the warm air, far from the windowless office. Summer was waning, and he’d take advantage of it while it lasted.

Across the street from the department sat a small restaurant called The Freethinker’s Café, with a few tables set out on the sidewalk for the summer, each shaded by a red-and-white umbrella fringed at the edges. A sign hanging over the entrance declared it the ideal place for friends to meet, but it was well past lunchtime and no friends were there. He’d be the only customer.

He wandered over to take up his watch. From this vantage point, he had a clear view of the thirty-two stairs he’d just descended. She’d have to come out that way.

***

An hour later, Jason watched Helena pause between the columns to let her eyes adjust to the glare. When he called out her name, she cupped a hand over her brow and peered toward the sidewalk at the base of the stairs.

He raised his arms over his head. “Over here, across the street!”

She finally noticed and responded with a flip of the fingers, then brushed a strand of hair from her face and started down. She skipped over the first few steps but checked herself, hands flying out like little stabilizers, while he bounded across the street. They converged when she had one step to go.

“I have some time,” he said. “I thought we could have a drink and compare notes.”

“Notes?”

“About Carlson and the little girl.”

“Did you believe him?” She glanced back up the stairs as if expecting the chief examiner to be spying on them. “He asked if there were insurgents lurking in a mother ship, if she carried subversive literature or weapons.”

“He asked me that too.”

“All I wanted was to find out why she came and what will happen to her. Such a beautiful child.”

“I know.” He conjured up the two of them rushing into the surf, him carrying the girl to safety. The face with eyes the color of the ocean surfaced in his mind, but he shook it off and focused instead on the face before him—Helena. “So, will you?

Her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, but she still seemed distracted. “I’m sorry. What were you asking?”

“Will you join me?” He contorted his brow into a rebuked schoolboy face. “Or are you mad at me for not answering your last letter?”

She reached out and stroked his cheek, then tried to smooth the furrows from his brow, just like she used to after he’d had a bad day at school. “And all this time I thought I was the sinner.”

He took her hand and lowered it to his chest, cradling it in both of his as he’d done so often when they were younger. But something was different now—a tension in her fingers.

After a moment, he let go. “Then we’re both equally guilty. Or innocent. Why don’t we start fresh?”

The worry on her face evaporated, and she broke into a smile. “Okay.”

A few minutes later she was sipping a glass of her usual lemon-flavored drink, trying to keep the ice from touching her teeth, watching him over the rim. Other than telling him what she wanted to drink, she’d said little.

At last, he snuck a hand across the table and took the book from her purse.

She snatched it back before he could see the title. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve waited all week to see what you’re reading.”

She closed and opened her hand as if to imply it had never intended to interfere, then slid the book over.

“Tell me,” he said, “why do you sit on the cliffs each day at the changing of the tides and read…?” He picked up the book. “Fundamentals of Physiometry?”

She wiggled her fingers, motioning for the book back, and he dutifully complied. “It’s a textbook. I’m studying for an exam.”

“And here I’d been picturing you reading poetry by the sea.”

“You were the whimsical one, Jason, always staring at the clouds. I’m a down-to-earth Brewster. We do science.” She replaced the book in its pocket and stored the purse beneath her seat.

He balanced on the front legs of his chair and inched a hand closer to hers. “I wasn’t staring at the clouds, Helena. I was staring at you.”

She gave a dismissive wave, a familiar gesture that reminded him how much he’d missed her, but now he had her attention. Her eyes were on him, unable to look away. They were sadder than he remembered.

He recalled the memorial service from the week before. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a great man.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled. Her mind was very much elsewhere.

He tried to bring her back to the present. “But why that rock and why that time?”

“It’s where he used to bring me when I was little. He’d take me there just before high tide. We’d watch the spray and listen for the sound of the waves crashing between the rocks. He called it the thunder hole.”

Her voice cracked and she needed a long sip of lemon drink before continuing. “He was a runner, like you. When he was invited to speak at conferences, he’d find exotic places to go for a run. Then he’d come home and tell me stories about them. His favorite spot was where you run, on the beach below the cliffs.”

“I didn’t hear much,” he said. “Just the eulogy in the student newspaper. What happened?”

She started to answer, but her eyes welled up and she needed three breaths to regain control. “The doctors said there was nothing they could do but make him comfortable. Some cells in his body had decided to reproduce too quickly. That’s all. No more meaning than that.”

She lost her train of thought and began to fiddle with her hair. She removed the silver clip that held it in a ponytail and combed her fingers through once, twice, three times, trying to gather the errant strands in a bunch and reset the clip.

While she worked at it, Jason watched. Up close, he could see how much she’d changed—a grown woman now. Serious. No longer the schoolgirl of his youth. But one thing was the same: an intensity palpable enough to touch.

She looked up and caught him staring.

He nodded, a tilt of the head, enough to say: Go on, I’m listening.

She returned the nod. “Four months later, he was gone. He was a great scientist and expected me to be the same, but the last lesson he taught me was that science has its limits.” She set the clip back in place, but awkwardly, so hair spilled about her neck.

Jason waited, still trying to fathom the person she’d become. When the silence began to drag, he made a guess. “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Become a great scientist like he was?”

Her lips parted, but no words came out. Instead she lowered her head into her hands and massaged her temples with her thumbs.

“Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t sure for what. They’d always been able to say anything to each other. He moved closer and placed his palms flat on the table. “I didn’t mean to pry. I just want to know more about you than that you study physiometry at high tide. I want to know everything about you, Helena Brewster, all the good and the bad since we were last together.”

She fidgeted in her chair and shifted toward the granite façade across the street. Her face took on a pained expression, like someone about to make a confession.

She sighed. “I was in my last semester when he got sick. He made me promise I’d graduate on time, that his death wouldn’t delay the career he’d planned for me, but I had to take leave from school to help care for him.”

“Where was your mother? Weren’t they a famous research team?”

“My mother?” Her voice sounded like surf rolling into the thunder hole; he waited for the crash. “She was brilliant at organizing his lab and his life, but when he needed her most, she couldn’t bear to watch him die. So his care fell to me. After the funeral, when I needed her most, she ran up north to a place called Glen Eagle Farm.”

“A farm?”

“More like an art colony, a place where people go to get their lives back together, reason be damned. She was such a mess, I suspect she would’ve transmigrated if it weren’t for me. I haven’t done much better. The university gave me a waiver until the end of September, but I haven’t been able to focus. I bring this book to the cliffs every day, but mostly just stare out to sea.”

“And rescue strange little girls from the chop.”

She turned back to him. Her failure now out in the open, she seemed more relaxed. “You’re the one who rescued her. I just stuttered and watched. Enough about me. Why do you always run at high tide?”

He was surprised at the shift in the conversation, but pleased. “I’m training for the Albion road race next spring. I run on the beach because, like your father, I think it’s the best place to run, especially after high tide, when the sand’s been compacted by the waves.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“I want to know more about you, Jason Adams, than that you run on the beach.” She said it with a hint of a smile.

He laughed. “Fair enough. Let’s see… no house on the cliffs, just a one-room flat with no view. No world-changing research like your father, but a good engineering job at the Polytech.” He took a sip of his own drink. “Enhanced communications.”

“Communications? I thought the department controlled that.”

“They do, and you know how secretive they can be, but they’re starting to loosen up. People like us can only use communicators to talk, but the technology can do much more: send images and printed material. The department restricts it to keep it away from zealots—too efficient a way to spread myths—but researchers at the Polytech argued that controlling communications was inhibiting progress. Reason prevailed.”

“Is it what you want to do?”

“It’s a good living with a bright future.”

“But is it what you want?”

She stared up at him with that same look she gave him when she’d visit at the sandwich shop. The question was the same too: was it what he wanted? He’d place his sandwich-shop cap on her head and watch the way her pony tail spilled out the back. Then he’d patiently explain how his family was different from hers, that if he hoped to go to university, he had to work after school. He’d accomplished a lot since then—a degree, a professional job—both firsts in his family. More status, more money. More loneliness too.

He tried to smile. “Why do you ask?”

“Remember how we’d talk about what we wanted when we grew up. My path was set: follow in my father’s footsteps. Now I’m not sure. But you? It was something different every few months: climb the highest mountain, find a cure for diseases, sail across the ocean and show the zealots the light of reason. From my regimented existence, I could only look on and admire. And envy. You never accepted the way things were. You wanted more. What happened to that Jason?” She found his eyes and waited.

He looked away, inspecting the underside of the umbrella. A breeze blew through the café, making the umbrella sway, knocking over a menu on a nearby table. He got up to retrieve it and set it back in place.

“That Jason grew up.” He sat back down and forced another laugh; he was done with his turn. “So back to Mr. Carlson. You remember him.” He mimicked the chief examiner’s voice. “‘Were there explosives strapped to her chest when you found her?’”

Her intensity vanished. “How could he possibly—”

“He’s on a mission to protect us from a half-drowned nine-year-old.”

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Helena broke it first. “I’ve dreamed about her the last three nights. Do you find that odd?”

“Not at all. I’ve never met anyone like her.” He glanced up, suddenly wishing the umbrella had a hole in it so he could see through to the sky. “Helena?”

“Yes?”

“We both rescued her. Maybe we should go visit her together. It’s an hour’s drive from Albion and….”

He waited as she drained the remainder of her drink, then reached across, trying to bridge the gap between them. When his fingers brushed her hand, she pulled it away.

He slid his hand closer, fingers beckoning. “Come with me, Helena. Take a chance.”

He followed her hand as it joined the other, unclasping the hair clip and resetting it, this time flawlessly, and fluffing the hair in front so it framed her face.

“Okay,” she finally said, then reached back and rested her hand on his.

Chapter 4

A Different Promise

The next afternoon, a matron in a blue uniform led them down a corridor that smelled worse than the reception area, a mix of sweat and cleaning fluid. Helena tried to concentrate, matching her steps to the squeaks of the matron’s rubber-soled shoes. Please don’t let this be where they’re keeping her. When the matron pulled a jangling ring of keys from her pocket, Helena’s shoulders slumped. She glanced at Jason. The color had drained from his face, and he walked stiffly with his arms tight to his sides. They passed seven evenly spaced doors, all with reinforced metal at their edges.

At the eighth door on the right, the matron slipped a key into the lock and released it. The door swung open.

“Five minutes,” she said, and began to close the door behind them.

Jason thrust a foot out to block it. “Only five minutes?”

The matron glared at his shoe until he removed it. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t make the rules.”

The door slammed shut, followed by a click as the bolt snapped back into place. Helena felt her lungs constrict.

The sterile room contained nothing but the basics: a bed, a desk lit by a gooseneck lamp, a straight-backed wooden chair, and a small bureau with two drawers. A fluorescent light buzzed overhead, and like Carlson’s office, there were no windows.

Kailani lay on her side atop the narrow cot, knees curled up to her chest, facing the yellow cinder block wall. She wore an orange prison uniform several sizes too big. Though Helena was certain she’d heard them enter—a shudder of the shoulders gave her away—she kept staring at the wall.

Jason spoke first. “Kailani?”

She hugged her knees tighter and refused to answer.

Helena tried next. “It’s Jason and Helena, the ones who brought you ashore when your boat crashed.”

The child stirred and turned toward them. Her face was like a flower that had bloomed a few days earlier and now, denied the sunlight, had begun to wilt. Yet when she recognized the visitors, she brightened. She swung her feet to the floor, stood up, and took a step toward them.

“Why are they keeping me here?” she said. “Is this my punishment?”

“Not at all,” Helena said. “Why should you be punished?”

An odd look came over her, as if she could see things far away—a prophet preparing to prophesy—but she said nothing.

Jason squatted down to make his height less imposing. “Kailani, remember the drink I gave you?”

She nodded.

“I could bring more if you’d like.”

“And sweets too,” Helena said, “the next time we visit.”

Kailani’s eyes narrowed. The faraway look was gone. “Does that mean…?”

Jason touched her shoulder. “Go ahead, Kailani. Ask. We’re here to help.”

She stared at him, and then turned to Helena, who could feel the question coming like a cold wind.

“Does that mean I have to stay here? I can hardly breathe in here—no air, no light. It’s like a tomb.”

“Kailani, listen to me,” Jason said. “No one wants to hurt you. It’s just that they haven’t figured out what to do with you yet. I promise we’ll….”

Helena could see him struggling between what promise he should make and what he’d be able to deliver.

“We’ll talk to Mr. Carlson,” she said, “and get him to change things.” She waved her arms to encompass the dingy room. “Something nicer.”

“Will I be able to see the ocean?”

“I don’t think so. We’re far from the ocean.”

“Or water?”

“I’m afraid not.” Helena’s next words burst out before she had time to appreciate what they meant. “We’ll find a way to get you out of here.”

The girl came closer and waited for Helena to kneel alongside Jason, then draped an arm around each of their necks. Her little hands clutched them for a long time.

The knock on the door seemed to shake the room. Before the matron could enter, Kailani stepped back, leaving the two of them kneeling before her.

“You saved me from the sea, Jason and Helena. Now, with the grace of Kanakunai, you’ll save me from this windowless room.”

It was more pronouncement than request.

She reached for Helena’s hand and placed it over her own heart. “Promise you’ll come back and take me away from here.”

The door opened and the matron entered, signaling it was time to leave.

Jason stood and backed away slowly, trying to buy a few more seconds.

Helena followed, never taking her eyes off Kailani. She swallowed hard—she wasn’t good at keeping promises. “I promise.”

The door closed between them, lodging in its frame with a thud.

***

Carlson was on a secure call with the district commander when the door swung open. His assistant bustled into his office with a yellow note card in hand, the agreed procedure when she needed to interrupt. He glanced at the card: Helena Brewster and Jason Adams were waiting outside, demanding to see him.

He placed a hand over his communicator and raised an index finger. “A minute, please.”

He ended the call with the requisite courtesy, and gestured for his assistant to escort the couple in.

The two young people approached his desk and waited for him to acknowledge their presence. He made a point of reshuffling the papers in a file—a means of establishing his authority.

“What may I do for you?” he finally said.

Helena Brewster seemed about to lose control. “How could you treat her like this? She’s done nothing wrong.”

“I understand—in fact, share—your concern, but your statement is not reasonable. The first job of the department is to protect our citizens, yet we bend over backwards to welcome refugees. She could’