I Cheerfully Refuse

Rainy doesn’t play guitar at first, feeling the weight of the memories that music evokes of his band and Lark. He leaves the guitar in the corner of the cell. Werryck continues to visit, always insisting that Rainy play. One night, the man who delivers bread takes Rainy for a shower. When he returns to the cell, he finds a full meal of steak and vegetables. After dinner, Rainy takes his guitar and amp, and the man leads him to Werryck’s room. Werryck asks Rainy to play. Werryck seems sick, and Rainy can’t find music that soothes him. Werryck gets frustrated and asks what Rainy needs to play better. Werryck refuses to let Rainy visit Sol or take back I Cheerfully Refuse, which is now on Werryck’s shelf. Rainy finally strikes a deal to get out of the cell: Werryck allows him to join the paint crew.

Rainy enjoys his time with the paint crew, meeting new people and learning the gossip. A few days before Rainy arrived, 12 squelettes escaped the ship, using a boat tied to it. One day, a janitor distracts Rainy and his crew, and his mere presence seems to lift everyone. Rainy realizes he’s Marcel, a boy Kellan once mentioned during a nitrous-fueled raving. Rainy asks Marcel to look out for Sol.

Later that day, Rainy plays music for Werryck at a pace simulating a healthy, calm heartbeat. This pleases Werryck, who relaxes. He tells Rainy that Sol is doing well and thriving, though Papa Griff, her legal guardian, makes it clear that Rainy can’t see Sol. Tom Skint speaks with Werryck briefly, and Rainy glares at him with hatred. Rainy accuses Skint of murdering Lark and Werryck of not punishing him severely enough; the few fingers Skint is missing are unequal to Lark’s life. Werryck threatens Rainy, reminding him that he’s a prisoner.

Rainy plays for Werryck nightly. During one session, Werryck admits that he hasn’t slept in 42 years, saying he traded his sleep for revenge. During the day. Rainy and the paint crew work to repaint walls in the Shambles, the ship’s prison level. It’s dank and cold, and the walls are so corroded that the men fear water will break through. While working, Rainy sees Marcel visiting a woman in a cell. The woman tells Rainy she can hear him play in his own cell and thanks him. That night, as he walks to Werryck’s room, his escort gives him a slip of paper with Sol’s name on it, in her handwriting. This time, when Rainy plays, Werryck briefly falls asleep, waking only when Rainy stops playing. Werryck orders Rainy to keep going but can’t find sleep again.

Marcel approaches Rainy in the Shambles to say that he saw Sol. Griff is forcing her into compliance therapeutics trials, which are due to begin any day. Rainy is horrified, and when Werryck summons him late that night, Rainy begs Werryck to intervene on Sol’s behalf. Werryck insists the trials aren’t under his control. Before asking Rainy to play, Werryck takes him out onto the cold deck to watch the return of the 12 squelettes, who were recaptured. They’re gaunt and weak, and Rainy recognizes Kellan among them. Werryck tells Rainy that after he caught Kellan, Kellan ran away again within a day. Werryck warns that Kellan’s punishment must be severe and public.

Rainy visits Kellan in his cell. Kellan laments Rainy’s capture and tells Rainy that he made it to his uncle before fleeing from there as well. He hoped to find a legendary runaway community, but Skint found him before he could. When Rainy asks if Werryck destroyed Kellan’s hand, Kellan tells Rainy that it began when he was in compliance therapy. The treatment made him obedient, and when Werryck asked Kellan to put his hand in a fire, he did. Before Rainy leaves, Kellan asks if Lark is with him. Kellan is despondent at the news of her death.

Werryck punishes the 12 squelettes by crowding them into a small cage and sending it out on the water on a raft during a storm. He allows everyone on the ship, including prisoners, to watch, though many retreat to their cells. When Rainy plays for Werryck that night, he pleads with Werryck to bring them in. Werryck stands firm that the punishment is just. Werryck sleeps, and when Rainy returns to the cell, it’s early morning. He plays his guitar rather than rest, hoping to bring some comfort to any that hear.

Rainy wakes in the morning to clanging. Everyone in the Shambles below him is hitting the pipes and walls around them. Word quickly spreads that the 12 squelettes are alive out on the water. The day’s work begins, and Rainy’s paint crew is sent to a section of the ship where they can’t see the squelettes. Soon, however, everyone forsakes their work and goes to the deck to see the 12 men. They’re alive, and Werryck signals for their release. As the day continues, Rainy feels hope for the first time in a long time.

Werryck summons Rainy early, before his crew’s work is complete. Werryck has a migraine and doesn’t complain about Rainy’s playing at all. Skint interrupts the session in a panic, telling Werryck that people are leaving the ship. Rainy and Werryck follow Skint out to the bridge above the deck and watch as Marcel leads a group in loading the cruiser with food. None of the guards challenge them, and when Marcel tells them to drop their weapons, they listen. Skint shoots Marcel, but before he can fire again, Rainy picks him up and throws him off the bridge, killing him. The mutiny happens quickly after this, and Rainy escorts Werryck to the Shambles, placing him in Kellan’s cell.

The mutineers put compliance medication in all of the guards’ food, removing any challenge to the mutiny. Marcel is injured, so Harriet, a woman from Rainy’s paint crew, takes charge and tells everyone, no matter their level, that they can leave with them for freedom. No one moves until the 12 squelettes board the boat. Soon the boat is packed with people from the Shambles and even the medical level. Rainy finds Sol, and she points to Flowers, by the side of the ship. They decide to leave on their own, offering a spot to Kellan, who refuses, wishing to stay on his current path. When Rainy offers Griff, locked up with Werryck, the opportunity to join them, he refuses, wanting to keep up appearances with Werryck.

Rainy sails Flowers toward Jolie. They reach Jolie early one morning and wait in Girard’s garden until Evelyn finds them and offers them a place to stay. Sol stays in the Girard’s main house, while Rainy takes the apartment above their garage. Sol tells Rainy about her time on the ship and how the woman in charge of her never learned her name, saying she would get a new one. Not wanting to lose her name, Sol worked on writing it. Tashi’s comet finally arrives, and for weeks Rainy wakes early to watch it brighten the sky as it nears Earth.

Through the Mosquito, Rainy learns that the escape boat made it to safety, but only when Harriet visits does he learn the whole story. Harriet says they made landfall in a town named Walda. The 12 squelettes then split up, ferried to safety in different directions by a network of do-gooders. Kellan went east. Marcel recovered from the gunshot wound and now lives in Montreal. Harriet also reports that Posterity sank. Since every mechanic chose to leave, the old ship’s pumps shut down within hours. No one could find the keys to the cells that Rainy left in Werryck’s quarters, so Werryck, Griff, and the guards all drowned. Rainy thinks about how these bodies will never rise.

The news of Griff’s death takes a toll on Sol. The lake has now claimed the lives of three of her relatives, and she declares that she hates it. Rainy, Girard, and Evelyn take her to a local graveyard of unmarked stones. The plot was donated by the widow of a freight captain who drowned. She declared that any the lake gives back could be buried there. As Tashi’s comet approaches perihelion, Rainy goes to the Slates again even though the town is throwing a celebration for the comet. He takes a week’s worth of food and some books. On his second day, a storm rolls in, and he stays in the cabin. Sometime before dawn, Rainy feels Lark’s presence beside him in bed and begins seeing images of the future. He sees all the good people he met, like Sol and Kellan, older and happy. The rain stops that morning, and he returns to Jolie. Flowers drifts into town the night of the celebration, and he feels music draw him in. He sees a home for himself ahead.