The earthquake lasted for one minute and twenty seconds. Esmiel had no doubt his calculation was correct, though his method of measurement might seem unconventional to most people.  “I was able to hum the refrain of ‘The Gardener’s Song’ twice through,” he told his father. “Baskets brim over; nestled in clover…”

“Not now!” his father barked.

Shards of glass littered the walk, and sparkled whenever the sun peeked through the thick clouds.

His father had grown so cross with him when the shaking started, as Esmiel stood in the middle of the café, humming, instead of immediately racing outside.

“But I was scared,” Esmiel told him.

His father found this unacceptable. “If a tree is falling toward you, will you just stand there like a choir boy?”

It was no use trying to explain to his father, let alone anyone, how music calmed him.

Esmiel loved to hum. To sing. To march in time with music. Left two three four, left two three four.

He held a parade precisely at noon every day. The carillon at the edge of the park in their home village provided the patriotic songs that Esmiel imagined the marching band—his own marching band—performing.

Earlier in the week, upon the news of his mother’s release, he decided he would honor—for an entire month—the canton administrator’s birthday. He pictured uniforms of blue-on-white, with gold tassels. The colors of Administrator Brona’s family crest.

He would carry on with the celebration despite this disaster. But today Esmiel had to provide his own music. The capital city’s carillons, he suspected, had been damaged.

Esmiel’s father took hold of his son’s hand, squeezing squeezing until Esmiel’s knuckles throbbed and ached. The force slackened to a loose tug of fingers as they neared the riverbank, his father’s eyes wide, his breathing heavy.

“Father,” Esmiel said, “we need to check on Mama.”

His father pretended not to hear. When Esmiel hummed, his father heard every note, and grew annoyed. When Esmiel spoke, his father grew deaf.

The water’s surface was calm, reflecting the gray and muted whiteness of the cloudy sky. Birds pecked among the reeds, following a jagged path that ran from the thick carpet of golden-brown stems, along the muddied banks, and in-between the rocks. The birds raced, paused, sidestepped like packs of older boys at school whose ritualistic dance usually signaled some overture to mayhem. But the birds seemed far more cordial to one another, their interest rooted in food, not trouble.

 “The ripples! There!” an old man shouted, pointing toward the middle of the river. Esmiel and his father looked up, in unison.

A siren rang out. Esmiel envisioned a creature in the treetops producing this haunting wail. It wasn’t so much speaking or singing, this green hunchbacked hairy thing with three eyes, and a single foot upon which it rocked back and forth on a branch. No, the wee-wee-wee-ohhh was its laugh as it stared down with devilish delight, drooling, its fists clenched while it waited for tragedy after tragedy to befall the region.

What did the creature find so funny?

The river flowed gently. Esmiel wasn’t certain what all the fuss was about. He felt people had too soon forgotten how many things had broken just minutes ago when the ground shook. Maybe that’s why the demon laughed. People’s precious possessions, gone forever. Or forever changed.

Wee-wee-wee-ohhh.

A wave rolled toward them. It pounded against the bridge pylons in the distance. It seemed a miniature version of the sea. If Esmiel blocked out the grassy left bank, and the stone wall on the right, he saw before him the ocean.

A policeman called out from behind. He ordered everyone along the pathway to move. Esmiel’s father tightened his grip until the skin of Esmiel’s hand wrinkled like draped silk.

“Move! Move!” the policeman shouted at two women and a young girl in front of a flower shop. “Move!” he shouted to a teenage boy on a pedestrian bridge leading to the docks across the way. The boy was defiant, glared at the officer, and made an obscene gesture. He then noticed Esmiel staring at him, and his glower grew more intense. Esmiel quickly glanced away.

A line of small fishing boats at the dock broke free from their mooring. Water and mud, the combination as black as tar, spewed forth from beneath the bow of the first boat as it rammed a second, like dominoes, striking one another in succession.

The river flowed swiftly, water swelling and swirling. The area where the birds had been feeding was now flooded. The birds flew above the crashing boats and followed them downstream.

A muffled announcement from the sky. Dangerous water. Move to higher ground. The river expanded quickly. It wasn’t even the same river. Esmiel’s father tugged him up the walk. Then a few steps back. Closer to the wall. Two steps closer, three steps back. A dangerous, frustrating dance. Esmiel wished they could fly.

People still milled about, ignoring the shouting policeman. And the Sky Voice. And the laughing demon.

“Don’t worry. The wall will contain it,” a woman said. A woman whose bobbed hair and deep brown eyes reminded him of his mother.

The wall will contain it. The wall will contain it.

A fervent hope. A prayer.

A large boat floated past. Tables and chairs bobbed behind, followed by a downed tree. A wagon. Bits of wood. Red and yellow pieces of something Esmiel couldn’t recognize. The water was at the top of the stone wall now. Only then did Esmiel’s father lead them toward the school playground. Still, his father looked back at the river several times. Drawn to it the same way he was to various women back home. Especially the one who always sold carrots and leeks at the street market. They carried on as though Esmiel was too young and stupid to notice.

People were clambering up the stairs of an apartment building next to a school. All the way up, all the way to the roof. They shouted and motioned to those below, mirroring the policeman, the poor man’s face red and his throat raspy.

But Esmiel’s father was captivated by the flow. He led Esmiel to the back of a storage shed, thirty or so feet from the river. The water was an eerie blue-black now, inches from touching the pedestrian bridge. Rising, rising.

Esmiel yanked on his father’s hand. “Mama’s waiting for us!”

“All these houses,” his father whispered, his tone a combination of awe and disbelief as he watched the crushed structures sweep past.

“Father, come,” Esmiel pleaded, staring up at the people shouting from the roof of the apartment building.

His father gasped. Esmiel turned to see the water spilling over the wall, as though a bath were overflowing.

Finally his father made the right move, ushering Esmiel toward the stairs. Little whirpools engulfed Esmiel’s feet. He fell, his trousers shredding at his knees. Had someone just pushed him? From the corner of his eye he saw the body float past, facedown.

“Father!”

A wall of water crashed over Esmiel. He plunged headfirst, his cheek striking the ground. His feet floated up, and he somersaulted past debris, swallowing gulps of water, his nose and eyes stinging.

The water felt like a liquid wind, propelling him through the playground until he couldn’t tell where he was. He longed to breathe. Too much water. Deep, fast, powerful. He was at its mercy. Where was his father?

He prayed for air. He had to breathe. He choked back more water. He felt dizzy. Nauseous. He was going to pass out.

He flailed his arms, desperately wishing he would feel the strength of his father’s grip.

Gray. Brown. A swirl of colors.

Blackness.

��

Next Chapter: Wheal