The Sea Has an Upstairs

How it begins

Elena Senn found the staircase thirty fathoms down, rising from the wreck of a ship that had no business being there. Its brass plate named a harbor she had never heard of. Its deck was dry.

Water pressed against the edge of the last plank as though held back by invisible glass. Elena reached through. Her glove emerged dripping into air. Above her, the staircase climbed beyond the surface, beyond the pale underside of the clouds, and into a second sheet of blue.

She checked her pressure gauge twice. Bad air could make a diver believe anything. The numbers remained sensible. Everything else had abandoned the habit.

At the top of the first flight, a bell rang. Three short strokes: a ship asking for room to turn.

Elena surfaced beside the survey boat and found Rafi Hale staring at his tide markers. Each float was rising against the current.

'The water's leaving,' he said.

'Where?'

'Up.'

She climbed aboard. A second shadow crossed the deck. Not a cloud. A hull. Through a break in the sky, a vessel moved over them with its keel toward the sun. Someone on its rail waved a red cloth.

Rafi shaded his eyes. 'That's the missing crew.'

Six fishers had vanished in a calm sea the previous week. Their boat had returned empty, carrying a net full of stones no local geologist could identify. Elena had been paid to inspect its damaged propeller. Instead she had found a route to somewhere gravity had not been invited.

The staircase broke the surface beside them. Water flowed up each step, carrying shells and one bewildered crab.

Elena took a rescue line from the locker.

'We should wait for the harbor patrol,' Rafi said.

Above them, the second ocean tilted. Its tide began spilling over the lowest cloud.

'We may have to bring the harbor with us,' she said.