Fetzen
Megsychan
GubGar
Izurich
Shin Ghost Note
Tim the Yeti
Damycles
HillanCATHERINE CORIANDER
“‘I’ve got it!’ said Fontaine. Taking the Super Floaty Wood logs they got before, they lashed them to the front of their boat and started their journey out of the bottom of the world, into the ocean that we now call, the ‘Devil-”
“Hey, waitaminute!” Sorrel blurted out. Corinader stopped dead, the finale of her reiteration of Knox’s adventure to Fishman Island now thoroughly ruined. Her pose was stilted as Sorrel slowed her roll, the girl standing straight in their corner of the library, all the other kids joining her on the day after their brief meeting with old man Burnet. “Bubbles float normally, but when you put them on a boat they sink in the water? That doesn’t make any sense.”
We were so close and you had to notice now!? Coriander’s mind balked while her true face wore a strained smile. “Yeah that’s kinda weird huh?” Coriander honestly didn’t have an answer, because frankly it made no sense to her either. Letting out a long sigh, she took a seat of her own. “Well, I was basically done anyway. What do you guys think? Wanna go to Fishman Island one day?”
Coriander was met with a few jeers. “No way!” “The whole island smells like fish I bet.” “It’s dark down there…”
Coriander gawked. “What are you guys talking about? There was the roots of the Sun Tree Eve so there was plenty of light, and we live by the ocean and it doesn’t smell like fish.”
Rue explained, “There’s a buncha fish walking around there though!”
The book didn’t describe any particularly odd scents, so Coriander worked with what she had. “They’re mammals!”
Rue didn’t seem to grasp it. “They’re called fishmen though.” Coriander surrendered to the 7 year old.
Cassia offered, arms wrapped around his knees, “Most people who try to go down there die, it’s scary, and it’s dark on the way there.”
Coriander sucked her lips in for a moment. “It’s not like we’re talking about actually going, it’s more of a ‘what if we could’. Do you wanna see it?” Cassia thought for a moment, before nodding. “I wanna go! They live so close to Marie Geoise, but Knox never mentioned if they have any kind of God, so maybe I could teach them about the Dragon Blood Faith! I have to become a fully fledged Sister first though.”
Sorrel moped, “I don’t wanna. That one guy got sick from touching one of the fishfolk, and some of them were poisonous! I can’t go to an island where I can’t even bump into someone on accident.” Coriander raised an eyebrow in thought. What he said didn’t seem wrong going by the book, but it did feel wrong, even if Knox’s band had been pretty adverse towards the fish folk, and vice versa.
Verbena poked Peppermint in the arm, the girl oddly quiet. “I don’t get sick from Peppermint and she’s even stronger than a Fishman!” Coriander’s look soured while Sorrel chortled. Peppermint’s expression didn’t even change, which made it all the more chilling when she grabbed Verbena’s finger and twisted it back. “Owowowowowow!” Verbena cried, the normally tough boy reduced to whining.
“Pepper!” Coriander burst out, on reflex. Pepper let go, eyes widening in shock as she realized what had happened.
Verbena sobbed. “I didn’t even say anything mean!”
Scrambling to her feet, Peppermint’s mouth hung open, her face distraught. Teeth coming together in a frustrated grimace she raised her foot, stamping down. The floorboard snapped under the force, both sides ripping from their nails and whipping up from the split center, the other kids letting out cries of shock as the force of Pepper’s stomp shook the floor. Even Coriander, the biggest among them, felt like she’d left the ground for a moment, heart rising and falling with her stomach. Eyes shutting, tears squeezing out, Peppermint ran off, yet again pushing out of the library and out of sight. Aside from Verbena’s sobs, everyone was silent.
Crouching down, Coriander held her hand open, Verbena complying, gently laying his hand in hers. There was some red irritation, and the initial stages of swelling already, but Coriander couldn’t tell if it was sprained or outright broken. “Hold it close to your body so you don’t hit it against anything, okay? Sorrel, you go with him to Mrs. Poppy.”
The purple hair boy nodded, putting a hand on Verbena’s back as he guided the chubby boy towards the exit. “Sorry grampa,” Sorrel said as they left, Coriander looking up to see the shiny bald head of old man Cicely. His eyes widened behind his spectacles as he saw the remains of the wooden plank in the ground.
“I-I’ll explain!” Coriander insisted. Putting her hands on Rue and Cassia’s backs, she asked, “You two go play for a while, okay?” Leaning in to Rue’s ear, she whispered, “And don’t bully Cassia.” Rue puckered her lips and looked aside, but Coriander felt she would actually listen, today if no other day.
Alone, Coriander and Cicely found chairs so Coriander could explain everything that was going on. “I know it’s just normal teasing, but what Verbena did this time wasn’t even that bad. I don’t really know what to do...”
Cicely thought for a moment, before opening his mouth and coughing. He hacked for a good few seconds, taking a few more to catch his breath. Seeing Coriande’rs concern, he waved his hand. “Don’t worry about me. We should figure out what to do about Peppermint. I do think you’re right: I think Verbena was trying to be considerate of Pepper in his own way, but it didn’t come across the way he intended.”
“He is always mean to her. Always,” Coriander noted.
“All children are problem children in one way or another. You should know that better than most. But Peppermint is special. The whole island was in a tizzy when a little kick from a newborn somehow broke Bay’s rib. And she only got stronger.”
Coriander pouted, “I was there you know.”
“Oh, you were!” Cicely laughed. Growing dour, he said, “But you were young, you know. When her parents were killed, at sea-” Coriander’s eyes opened wide, the fact just now sinking in. It had happened 6 years ago: Coriander was 10, Peppermint only 3. She could remember feeling sad at the idea of not seeing them again, but it still hadn’t felt real to her at the time. Mother Basil had helped her work through it, but Coriander had never considered Peppermint, aside from how the island handled her. “-we all did our best. In a way, we were lucky that she cut herself off, since she was less of a danger to herself and others, but it took a good while before she started to open up again. We all took rotations watching her, teaching her how to fend for herself. It took a village, truly. She turned out to be a wonderful girl after all that, didn’t she? A little miracle, she is.”
Coriander nodded. Just a year ago, Peppermint insisted she could take care of herself, her weekly parent rotation ending. Coriander hadn't been by her house in a while, but the more she thought about Peppermint cooking and cleaning on her own...when was the last time she got help? She also spent a lot of time playing with the kids. Coriander suddenly grew concerned: it wasn’t like she could live without her parents, even if she had enough of the same basic skills. “Oh no...” Coriander whined. Not too long ago, Coriander had connected with Cassia, seeing his loneliness, one all too familiar to her. But she’d been blind to Peppermint, taking her strength for granted, and not just her physical might, but her apparent mental fortitude, and even that was reaching it’s limit. Blinking back the tears she had no right to shed, Coriander wondered, “What should we do?”
Cicely smiled. “Well, we need to have the floorboard fixed. I don’t mind, no one does. Not a person here would bemoan having to rebuild even the whole village for that girl. But that’s just a short term fix. I know she wants to be a Marine, but sending her off to some Academy, or to be a Cabin Lass just feels like outsourcing the problem: getting rid of some troublesome element. That’s not what she is, she’s family. Plus, Burnet would veto that.”
Coriander’s brow furrowed as she remembered. “What’s his deal anyway?” she huffed.
Cicely smile turned sad. “He’s got his own demons. Doesn’t trust the Marines much at all, and I ever asked about it. Never understood it either, since he was a Marine himself before he retired-”
“EHHHHHHHH!?” Coriander stopped, having stood from her chair in shock. Sitting back down, she murmured, “Sorry.”
Cicely let out a short laugh, before finishing, “The kids are just being kids, but just like you mentioned, if they push Peppermint away that’s going to be their regret. I’d love for them to figure out what they’re doing wrong on their own, but if only everything were that easy. And as for Peppermint, we could talk with her, but I’ll bet she’s already convinced herself that she’s doing something bad. She’s too good of a girl. Too good to let herself make mistakes, even if there’s so much she can learn from them. You learned plenty growing up, didn’t you? Still are!” Cicely let out a laugh at Coriander’s expense.
“Thanks.”
“But at the same time, her mistakes can be even more devastating than most of ours. Honestly, I can’t think of an easy answer here,” Cicely admitted. “Maybe Basil could give some guidance? The Blood Faith has a lot of tools for discussing the lot in life we’re handed that is ‘birth’.” Coriander pondered on that, but the real answer she started to drift to wasn’t quite in the same part of the ballpark. In fact, it was right along the foul line, and which way it fell wasn’t for her to decide.
Even though sun shined and wind rattled the windows, inside of the house once belonging to Peppermint’s parents, the young girl sat in the kitchen, curled up against the counter. Various bits of trash and dirty clothes were littered about the whole house: it was hardly coated, but it was certainly messier than most people were comfortable with. Worse yet, though the house was certainly lived in, the wood had numerous gashes and gaps where a small limb had errantly punched through. Peppermint shivered, her house full of drafts on the windy day. The house was large, far too large. It was made for a family, and Peppermint had been alone here for a full year. So many of her parent’s old things were here, Peppermint having gone through them countless times. She wondered if she’d ever fit her mom’s dresses, wondering if a tomboy like her could ever look that pretty. She wondered what her father was like, having no real memory of him, the closest window into his life having been a few business correspondences she couldn’t even read, not knowing half of the words.
Her stomach growled, Peppermint struggling to stand. She needed food, but her powerful body felt weighed down, like a whole island sat on her back. Looking at the counter just under her eye level, she saw an old knife, embedded in the counter-top, the larger half of the cutting board she’d once split still in her possession. Reaching over, she grabbed it, twisting her hand as she tried to yank it out. It came free, but not without a flash of red. Looking down, her fingers had been slashed. With a clatter, the knife fell to the ground, and her heart started to race. She’d done something bad, she’d messed around with a knife, and she’d gotten hurt because of it. Fingers wrapping around her wound, a low whine of pain escaped her lips as she looked around, but there was no one there to help her, just the whistling winds.
”I wanna be a Marine!” A young Peppermint had shouted. Mother Basil had merely asked the kids what they wanted to do in the future, but Peppermint made a bold declaration, one that had the other kids laughing at her, but she didn’t think it was funny. Pirates took lives all the time, and Marines stopped them. If she was a Marine, that could mean there wouldn’t be other people who’d end up feeling like her because they lost their parents. But a Marine had to be good. And in this trashed house, Peppermint was bad. God kept punishing her for being born bad. The blue emblem of the Marines seemed all the more distant as she curled up on the floor, staining it with red drops of blood and clear tears.