Prologue

Cold . . . very cold . . . very cold and wet . . . why would she be wet? Her skin felt sticky, too. Why was she laying out like this? She must get into the shade, get warm. Perhaps she would build a fire. Why couldn't she move? Why did her wrists hurt? What was wrong with her ankles?

She opened her eyes, but had to squint against the bright sun overhead. She tried to shade her eyes, but could not move her hands. They were bound with strong leather cords, secure from the first, but since getting wet they had shrunk, and now bit into her wrists painfully. Her ankles were bound to the small raft in a similar fashion. All around her was wide-open sea. She saw the white shapes of gulls on the water, but she could not hear their cries. She could do nothing to protect herself from the water, the sun, or any other calamity that might befall her. She could not feed herself, and anyway, there was nothing to eat or drink.

They had intended her to die. Of course she must; after all, she was The Curse.

What sort of a person would be deaf from birth? What made a person that way, even from the first moments of life? There was no physical cause for that. There was only one cause: a curse. Not the parents' curse; the baby was a curse to itself, The Curse, an individual entity. They named it Melanie, which meant "darkness," and promptly called it The Curse, using no other title in reference to it.

No mother was obligated to nurture a curse. No father needed to work to protect or raise a curse. Children and others (she could not call them friends, for she had none) did not have to be kind in the least way to a curse. A curse was not even human, and need not be given the same rights; a curse was inhuman, an animal, fit only for beatings.

If a person became ill, They said The Curse had looked at him, and They beat her.

If a person died, it was because The Curse had crossed his path, and this was cause enough to beat her as well.

If the harvest didn't come when They thought it ought to, they said The Curse had taken all the food for herself, and again, They beat her.

If it was too hot, or too cold, or too wet, or too dry, or inclement in any way, The Curse had displeased the great deity, Ashtan, and she deserved a whipping in the temple of the god.

Anything she touched had to be cleansed, or if it could not be cleansed, it must be burned. If she touched a person, they had to do such strenuous penance that no one wanted anything to do with her.
From birth, The Curse was beat nearly every day. (It would have been "from her cradle," but curses didn't have cradles.)

Melanie took a moment to reminisce over the few days of her life when she was free from beatings. Those days were the ones she spent with Lucasta.

Lucasta had the status of the oldest, and therefore wisest, person in the whole community. The same people who pronounced Ashtan's judgement on Melanie said that same god had preserved Lucasta over the ages. Because he had preserved her, this explained why she could consort with The Curse without risking denouncement.
Those days when she could have a few hours with Lucasta, when there was no one else demanding the woman's time were infinitely precious to the love-starved girl. The woman's character shone from within her like her name, "pure light." In the presence of such a woman, Melanie keenly felt the contrasting darkness of her soul.
Every day Lucasta welcomed her with a saintly smile and a hospitable gesture, Melanie felt a sort of reverential awe build inside her. If it weren't for Lucasta, Melanie would definitely have gone without an education. Where everyone else saw a curse (and what was the use of educating that?) Lucasta saw a frail, sensitive girl, badly in need of loving care, and thirsting for knowledge. Lucasta taught Melanie to read and write, and together they devised clever signs in which to communicate. Those days were divine bliss to the young girl, but even such days must come to an end.

Even though They considered her supernaturally protected from The Curse, They still blamed the young outcast when the old woman was found dead and peaceful in her home one morning.

"Poor, dear Lucasta!" They crooned, clucking Their tongues. "She might have lived longer had she not meddled with The Curse."

From that day forward, Melanie dare not set foot outside the small wood behind Lucasta's house. They let her go there, and did not bother her. The Woods were evil, They thought, and The Curse was evil. What could be more fitting?

For Melanie, Lucasta's death marked the annihilation of color in Melanie's life. For the first time in her life, Melanie felt heard and understood with the signs the woman taught her. When everyone else stood by Lucasta's grave for one hour (just long enough for the service), and promptly resumed their normal duties, Melanie mourned her dear teacher and only friend for a whole week.

Didn't that start the rumors! Some spread the tale that they had seen The Curse tussling with the Tree King (their equivalent of the Devil) over which souls were hers, and which were his. This gave rise to the legend that Ashtan himself came down to claim the souls that belonged to him, and when he tried to bring Lucasta into Paradise, The Curse—out of pure spite and selfish greed—wouldn't let him take her!

On the last morning, Melanie was discovered asleep next to Lucasta's grave with the very tip of her little finger resting against the deceased old woman's gravestone. She was beaten and chased back into the woods. They would not let her leave the woods after that. Three days later, they actually came into the woods after her, wrapped her in a rough blanket (which she knew they would burn afterwards) and dragged her out from the shelter of the trees. She had tried to escape, pushing the blanket off and trying to run, but They quickly surrounded her. They knocked her unconscious, and she had woken up on the raft.

A bold seagull landed on Melanie's chest and jolted her out of her reverie. She wriggled as much as she could, and seagull flew away. Her mouth was dry, so dry! She must have water. She recalled what Lucasta had taught her about Ashtan. He was a kind god, and just. Because he was a spirit, Lucasta said, he could understand thoughts just as clearly as Melanie could understand signs. Lucasta said Ashtan would be faithful to provide for anyone who asked.

Ashtan! Ashtan! Melanie's thoughts exploded in her head. Would he pay any attention to a Curse such as her? Ashtan! Great god! Please, I would like some water! Melanie's head swam, and she began to feel feverish. The sun, formerly overhead, now shone a little behind her head. So I'm heading east, she thought. By tipping her head up as far as she could, Melanie could see a vast stretch of land on the horizon. She wondered what land it was.
Melanie smelled a shift in the wind as she laid her head back down. It blew strong, from the northeast. There had been gulls settled on the water, but they now took to their wings. The atmosphere felt heavy as Melanie breathed it, a sure sign of a storm. Clouds appeared, billowing and blackening, blotting out the sun. Something struck Melanie on the forehead and trickled into her hair. A flash of lightning tore a gash in the clouds, and the sky poured rain! Melanie opened her mouth wide, trying to catch all the rain she could. Perhaps Ashtan was the good god Lucasta described him as, after all. With an unexpected jerk, the raft to which Melanie was bound flipped on its left edge as the storm stirred not only the wind and the rain, but the sea as well. Melanie did not even have the chance to close her mouth before the huge wave crashed over her and flipped the raft upside-down. Now she couldn't breathe. She was going to drown under the raft. There was no way she could escape. Ashtan was a just god, and not a forgiving one. He probably didn't exist, or if he did, he most likely caused the wave, and not the rain. Melanie's lungs burned. She had to get air!

Ashtan! Her thoughts yelled. The waters beneath her heaved, and she was face up in the rain once more. The sea still surged, crashing over her, tossing and spinning the raft to and fro, but never again did it flip over. Then something jerked at her feet. Melanie could only gaze in frozen horror as the biggest wave she had ever seen rose up next to her, curling over her and crashing upon her with tons and tons of water. The sheer weight of it all knocked her completely senseless . . .

Chapter 1

A seagull flew over the Atlantic coast. There was a strange rock in the water. The gull landed upon this new, tan-colored rock. It was softer than most rocks, and almost looked like the huge, wingless creatures that flocked to the beach on clear days like this one. The rock jerked beneath the gull's feet, startling the bird. How was this? The gull flew away to find a more stable setting place as Melanie—choking and gasping on the water she'd swallowed—opened her eyes.

She was alive! The morning sun shone on her right, and the land that she had seen approaching yesterday was now behind her. Somehow, she had gone from one side of the huge island to the other, most likely by some waterway of some sort. The sea was calmer now, and Melanie's raft rode a northbound current. The girl wondered what she would see next.

Her skin itched from the dried seawater, and more splashed over her from time to time. As Melanie floated, hunger such as she had never known even on the island she called home wrenched at her frail frame. She gasped at the horrible pain, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She shut her eyes against the agony, hoping sleep would help her forget the void in her middle.

A shadow fell across her face, and Melanie opened her eyes just in time to see the black, sloped underside of the bow on a huge white boat before it slid right over the top of the small raft and its prisoner.

~o0o~

Susan Pevensie stood on the lowest deck of the Florida Day-Cruise ship as it rounded the tip of the state. While her father gave lectures in Orlando, Susan and her mother occupied themselves seeing the sights of such a beautiful place. The day-cruise boat was a large paddle-boat.

Half the size of the Splendor Hyaline, and not quite so nice, Susan sighed as she remembered fondly the happy jaunts she and her siblings would take in Narnia. She pined for those days, but knew she needed to put such memories behind her, for they would never happen again.

Still, it was rather jolly to stare into the moving water and allow her mind to return to Narnia and become Queen Susan again. She stared at the ethereal trail of bubbles that floated up from underneath the boat and wondered semi-consciously what sort of creature made those bubbles, if any did.

Susan jolted out of her musings and screamed in shock. Instantly, a deck hand appeared at her side, "What's wrong?"

Susan—speechless with shock—could only point: a body, tied to a crude raft with leather thongs, had floated up from beneath the water. It was a girl, and her face, arms, and legs were red-striped with scratches, most likely from the underside of the hull. The deck hand called two of his fellows over and climbed off the boat and onto the raft. He cut the girl's bonds and lifted her limp form onto the boat. She was so thin, and her body so cold, that most people thought she might be dead. However, one of the passengers happened to be a doctor, and confirmed she was in fact still alive, though not wholly beyond danger. No one knew who she was or where she came from.

"What shall we do with her?" someone asked. There were no beds, or even a small cabin to keep the girl.

"I will look after her."

At first Susan dimly wondered who had made such a selfless offer, but then it occurred to her that everyone was looking at her. She had been the one to speak. Quickly, she formed a plan in her mind.

"Bring her over there," she told the deck hand, pointing to a group of chairs in a secluded part of the deck. At this point, the boat was only two hours out from port.

A second deck-hand brought a blanket, and left Susan to remove the rough, wet, molding shift that was the girl's only clothing and wrap her in the warm, dry, soft blanket.

Susan looked up from tending the girl to see the doctor approach. "When she wakes up, give her this, with a glass of water," he said as he poured a small white pill from a bottle into a paper packet. He continued, "She looks as if she has not eaten or drunk in at least a few days, so do not try to feed her anything stronger or richer than simple broth for about a week."

He handed the packet to Susan. "This pill will put her to sleep for several hours, but it also contains many vitamins to supply the nourishment she so badly needs."
Susan thanked the doctor and accepted the envelope.

Accordingly, as soon as Susan and her mother disembarked, they brought the girl back to the hotel room with them. Mrs. Pevensie wanted to take the girl to live with her, but Susan disagreed. "Peter has found a house for rent, and we will be staying there. I can take care of the girl when I'm not in class."

"But Susan," her mother pleaded, "why do you want to take this girl in? Are you certain you will be able to adequately care for her?"

Susan gazed at the pale face on the bed. "I . . . I need to, Mother. I feel like I ought to do this." She looked back at her mother, "Please allow me."

Mrs. Pevensie held her daughter's eyes, in which she saw the light of determination. "Of course, Susan; you may do this if you choose."
Mother and daughter moved to the main room of the suite to wait until the girl awoke.