“You will remain silent; you will keep the key hidden if you have not heard the call from God.”
“He is a… fierce man,” I say, cannot help but whisper. What if Ex-Oh is at the door, listening at this very moment? I lean in, wall of astringent liniment mingled with rot. “Won’t he have guessed that you’ve given the real key to someone?”
“He will not expect it to be you,” Caplain says, words weary now. Weighted like ballast. “You, he will expect the least. And God will protect you.”
I think he might be near sleeping now, by the weakened draw of breath, the closed, swollen lids.
“But… what will that sound like?” I ask. “God’s voice?”
“I heard…” he begins. Far away, again. Lost in memory. Eyes shut, as though the lids are too heavy to open. “The leviathans. Their song. Behind their song. A voice from the deep. You listen, Sister Remy. I know you do. I have seen you listening. For one to sing as you do, they must first know how to listen.”
“And what if I listen and, as with you, I never hear His word?” I ask.
Caplain opens his bloody, blackened mouth, as though about to speak. But shakes his head. An idea, apparently, too worrisome. A thought that knits his grey, wispy brows. A specter of doubt? I know that shadow. Have felt it cross me. This, I have told no one. Not even Lazlo.
“You will know, Sister Remy,” a rattling whisper. “You will know.”
Head bowed, I feel a tear crawl its way hotly down my cheek, reach my dry lips. Salty burn. He will be gone soon, this man. Death has already ensnared his body, pulling him down into the darkness. This man who saved me, though I was a girl and should have been tossed into the sea. Who has taught me. Kept me hidden.
“As below, so above,” I say, waiting for his refrain.
But it doesn’t come. He has drifted off into some troubled reverie.
There is only the guttering of the oil flames. The incessant rattle-whir of a ventilation fan. Tinny smell. Sits on my tongue. The creaking of fathoms of water, pressing down upon us.
Ast ego te posthac oculisque animoque tenebo, aequor ubi in lucem funera rapta feret.
2
AT THE RINGING OF LAUDS, a group of four brothers bears Caplain Amita’s remains into the chapel and rests his thin, clothbound, bonefish body upon the platform where we Choristers would normally stand.
“Lauds is the hour where we praise the coming morning and the resurrection of Christ,” Marston says, no longer wearing the pale blue robes of Ex-Oh but the holy white vestments of a Caplain. He stands upon the driftwood dais, before the head of the deceased Caplain Amita. “Our beloved Caplain’s resurrection will come at the end, for all of us, on the final day, when the Last Judgment is delivered, and when we take our last song to the depths. And, until then, we honor his name, he who first heard the word of God. He who gave us purpose. He who put our song into the deep.”
Caplain Marston’s voice, often cold and colorless, is filled with heat. Power in his speech that would rival Caplain Amita in the days when he had his full strength. Movement in his tall, hunched body.
“And today,” he says, glancing at me—sea glass eyes burning like cold flames, “we honor his legacy with our song.”
Antiphon: “Quoniam omnes dii gentium daemonia at vero Dominus caelos fecit.”
Chant: “Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum.”
Antiphon.
I lead, and though my voice does not break, it wavers under the weight of something. Something that threatens to close my throat. I fight back tears, looking at Caplain Amita’s slender remains.
“Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel; quia visitavit et fecit redemptionem plebis suae.”
Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free.
To close, a hymn. A special hymn just added to the psalter, penned by Caplain Marston.
Like a dirge, it seems to my ears. Slow and heavy.
“By fire, may they be pur-i-fied
“By poison, may they see His light.”
Finally, prayer.
“Laudate Dominum de caelis laudate eum in excelsis.”
Praise ye Him, in the high places.
A prayer that comes from this, the lowest places.
Does that not make the praise even more special? More powerful?
If so, then I pray that Caplain Amita might know peace. That he, himself, be praised for being an instrument of God’s will.
I am told I should take comfort in the face of death, and that I will see Caplain Amita again, in heaven, after the dead have been called from the ocean’s depths. But, for today, he is simply dead.
The one person who knew the truth about me, who knew who I really was, has passed. And he has left me with a task that I am not sure I am capable of.
The key.
I feel its cold metal still burning my skin, tucked tight against my chest.
Caplain Amita said Marston would never suspect me, but I don’t believe that to be true. His eyes narrow upon me at times. As though he’s trying to see through me. Like he knows I have a secret.
And what will he do to me if he finds out? I’m not sure which secret I’m most frightened of him knowing.
After the hour is done, Caplain Amita’s body is carried up to the Topside deck, where the elders and the anointed brothers will give him the final rights and, upon diving, commit his body to the sea.
I cannot be there for this rite. Me, nor the other Choristers. We cannot go Topside.
However, this marks the first time in days in which we are left to our own devices.
I slip away from Lazlo before he has a chance to notice I am gone, crawl down into the battery well, one of the very lowest compartments of the ship, where the air is close—a mingled smell of something acrid and metallic. Of fish rot and urine and other recesses. Few other than Caleb and I could fit down here into some of these spaces, for the room is filled by a massive bank of the heavy, block-shaped cells. At one time, the boat held a bank of thirty of these cells, and more in store to replace damaged ones, but now only twenty remain, several of which are seeping acid and are soon to fail.
Brother Ernesto doesn’t trust Caleb enough yet to clean these essential elements. I must be careful to touch only the wood plank barrier as I climb down, avoiding the terminals. They are live. The shock would kill a person in an instant if they landed wrong.
So, it is I tasked with cleaning the corroded terminals. I keep the contacts and wiring dry. Pump away the standing, oily, brackish water into the bilge. My feet burn if I stand too long in that acidic brine. It’s already eating away at the piping below, the very pressure hull. I remember once when we had taken on water from a burst ballast tank valve. The well flooded up to my waist. I had to pump for countless hours to keep the seawater from reaching the batteries.
If the water ever reaches the terminals, the electrical system will short. The boat will go dark. The Leviathan could be lost. Lost before its purpose is fulfilled.
I remove my robe, glancing through the hatchway above, making sure I’m not seen. I pull off my tunic, remove the key from its place, tucked against my chest inside my bindings.
I slip it into a crevice between a support strut overhead and the deck. I dare not keep it on my person, nor in my bunk or locker. Not with Caplain Amita dead and Marston in charge. Our bunks and personal lockers have already been searched for contraband.
Worse, Caplain Marston’s God is somehow more wrathful and expecting than the God Caplain Amita bade us serve. The new Ex-Oh Goines, with his steely expression and tumorous neck, has become his enforcer. Always was a man even more exacting and severe than Marston, when he was just the Watch. Ten lashes given to Brother Micah for speaking when he should not. Twelve lashes to Brother Gregory for wasting food during his galley duty.