I often thought that my very existence was an aberration.
Me, a woman. A forbidden figure amongst the penitent men, living a lie.
Caplain Amita tried to assuage this guilt when I confessed it to him.
“You are doing God’s work,” he would say. “A vessel for God. And God will watch after you.”
But this was the same argument Marston gave.
Utility.
It does not matter what you think, what you feel, how you act, so long as it is God’s work.
An ultimate hypocrisy—this from the man I thought had taken care of me for so long. The man I thought loved me. The one who started all this—who helped to end the world, who tossed little girls screaming into the sea, and took the boys and cut them so that they might remain eternally pure.
I look at my hands, in the dimness of the officers’ quarters I have been locked in for the past day. Wash them in the bowl of rare fresh water brought to me in a chipped clay bowl. Splash my face. Taste the salty grit trickling down over my lips. I pull on clean, newly sewn robes. Marston has given me fresh linen strips for binding my chest. These, I don’t wear. If I am to die, I will go to God the way I was put into the world.
When the rusted, squealing latch is finally pulled aside, I stand. The door swings open, and a blazing amber, putrid light pours in. Every lamp and grease wick ablaze. Ex-Oh Goines and Brother Augustine await me to exit, and then escort me, standing on either side, to the chapel, down to the lower deck, past the radio room, which is empty, past the missile control room, which is manned by Brothers Elia and Cordova, both seated before a wide bank of electronic panels that are already lit up. They watch as I pass.
I am pushed forward, ducking through the hatch, and stand to find almost all the brothers lining the walls of the chapel, staggered between, around, and behind the missile tubes. All bow their heads in silence as I pass.
Brother Ernesto. Ignacio. Andrew. Callum. Jessup. Pike.
Do some of them know the truth? That I was conspiring with a Topsider? That I was planning on escaping? Brother Callum might. He knows this is madness. He might not have the words to express it, but he knows. I saw it the night I dosed his steep with the nostrum, when he recounted his story of first being brought aboard.
But he will not look at me. No, he will not act.
He will be complicit in all of this.
At the end of the long compartment, atop the driftwood dais, Caplain Marston stands, eyeing me intently.
And, before the dais, before the psalter, Ephraim. Mouth drawn tight, eyes weighted. St. John, face swollen, welted red and purple from my attack. He is staring directly at me. Yet I don’t find fury or contempt there, as I would expect after what I did to him. Not even coldness. It’s a vacancy.
And there, beside them all, Lazlo.
He, too, is looking directly at me, but his eyes are still very full of light.
Lazlo.
Did he, for a moment, dare to dream that there might be an escape for us?
There still might be.
If I could slip away. Take Lazlo with me. Marston said the Coalition ships might be an ocean away, but they also might be closer than that. It would only mean surviving a day or two on the open seas if they are indeed on their way to the rendezvous.
If.
Too many ifs.
The reality of it begins to drape over me.
A coldness.
That this is it.
I see now that both the hatchways at either end of the compartment are being guarded. The ladders down to the lower level. There’s no escape.
This is my fate. Our fate.
As I take my place beside Lazlo, St. John, and Ephraim, the brothers turn their attention to Marston, who, tall and energized, opens with the psalm.
“Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum.”
And then the Canticle of Simeon.
“Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace: Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum.”
Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word.
For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.
I have no voice for the chant. No spirit. No, the light is robbed from me. Drained. What was once a freedom feels like the greatest, the weightiest of shackles.
I glance to Lazlo, standing just beside me.
His fingers find mine. Cold and thin. I entwine mine with his.
We don’t care who sees.
“My brothers, we are soon to launch the Last Judgment,” Marston says solemnly, with great dramatic effect, after the calls and the responses are complete. “When we do, we shall finish what was started some twenty-four years ago. And we shall dive to the deepest depth. We shall sing a song into that deep—a hymn I have heard in that darkness—the Lord has whispered unto me the words that will ready our souls for His glory!”
Before us, the psalter is opened.
Cantio Maris.
I see penned on the top stave of each page the descant that is meant for me. Just looking at it, I can hear the melody in my mind. Something exalting. Stilted.
What darkness we have lighted, one of the lyrics reads. They above shall know what we below have sent.
“Yes, we shall know salvation,” Marston continues. “Salvation, after these years of service. Of maintaining the order begun by our beloved Caplain Amita. We shall see him again, brothers. We shall see so many faces that we have long ago committed to the sea. And the sea shall give up her dead,” he says, eyes lit with a fervor, a passion.
“And the sea shall give up her dead!” the brothers respond.
“As below, so above,” Caplain says.
And the congregation answers.
When I glance upward, Marston is staring down to me. The others are watching as well. Expectantly.
Now is my time.
Here is my purpose. The very reason I was saved, eight years ago. The only reason.
I am to sing now.
In my brothers’ eyes, I am holy. Special. Caplain Amita has told me this all along. Fed me this lie.
But should I not ease their worry? Lighten their souls? If we are all to die. To sink down and down until, at last, the depths crush us.
And so, I sing.
I open my mouth, find my voice. Find an energy that was not there before.
But I do not sing Marston’s hymn.
I sing my own Song of the Sea. A song the leviathans have taught me. No words. Just melody. An odd, sorrowful strain that leaps and dives in pitch, that slides into bitter notes and then resolves.
I close my eyes while I sing. Let the melody take its own form. Like when I have sung during Terce. Improvisation. But more than that. I think of that one whale, searching for the other. Its lover, its friend, its child. Whatever it is. It’s a song that seeks out. That searches. That mourns. That hopes.
And when I have finished the song and open my eyes, I find the chapel utterly silent. And yet, I feel the weight of all sixty-seven pairs of eyes upon me, can almost hear sixty-seven hearts thrumming in some kind of unity.
Then I glance up to Caplain Marston. Gaze narrowed, piercing. Face tight with fury.
“It’s time, my brothers,” he finally says, hollowly, shattering the silence. “Watch, are we at depth?”
“Ready, Caplain. We need only finish bringing the targeting computer online,” Brother Marcus says.
“Good. Cantor Remy,” Marston says through gritted teeth. “You will follow me.”