***
Taba walked slowly over the shore, the pearl in its bag bouncing between her breasts. The parcels were substantial, and even slung over her back, her shoulders ached a little. Hopefully they’d be lighter in the water. The buoyancy would help, at least. But there was a lot more food in them than she’d expected, and the thickly oiled waterproof cloth wrapped around the bundles was weighty stuff.
She came to the spot where she’d seen the merwoman last, and paused next to her own footsteps. “I’m from Comara Cove, and I’m not afraid of gith-sharks, hexapuses, or shadows,” she said to herself. “I’ve already been kissed by fire. There’s nothing to be scared of.” For a moment, the old bogey-story of gith-shark maids occurred to her. Disguising themselves as pretty youths, the gith-sharks would wait until someone came close, and then—
“No need to be frightened,” said a soft voice.
Taba’s heart trembled and she almost dropped her packages. In the shadow of the dune, she saw the sea maid’s face. Her brown breasts, unencumbered by a sling, were beaded with drops of seawater. The skin looked soft, but perhaps tougher than her own. Taba forced herself to look at the maid’s eyes. She really was very pretty, with wide blue-black eyes and trailing blue-black hair. The curls spilled everywhere, water plastering them to her flesh in little curves, like the inky glyphs on a page of reed-paper. Her silver fish-tail coiled around the rocks, and the maid leaned against the dune.
Taba smiled and tried not to faint. “I’m Taba of Comara Cove, daughter of Hai, granddaughter of Corr, and I’m here with offerings,” she began. She laid out the bottle of wine and the packets of fish and fruit.
The seawoman hoisted herself up on the sand carefully and patted a spot next to her. “We’ll eat,” she said, her fine lips pronouncing the words with gusto, “and then we’ll talk. Did your Matriarch tell you…”
“She told me…I would join your people and leave my own,” said Taba. The seawoman’s eyes were far apart, and her features were more delicate than she’d expected. She thought of lemfruit for a moment, the salt-sweet taste.
Taba sat on the sand and pulled things out of the bag. There was more than food—a necklace of land-ivory waited. She offered it to the maid first, before the food.
The woman’s cool, webbed fingers wrapped gently around her own, and she smiled. “Soon,” she said, her voice a sing-song touched with strange melodies. Taba thought of the greenwhales, their deepsongs heard in spring. “You will see many things in your new life. We will breathe in water together. But first, Taba, new friend of the Pearl people, we will share a meal.” She unwrapped the bladder from the dried fruit and offered Taba a slice. “You may call me Yemanja.”
Taba accepted it with her right hand, the salt and tartness rich. The lemfruit had never been sweeter. As she slowly chewed, Yemanja traced her fingers over Taba’s scarred skin. The blue of the early dawn had given way to the sun’s fire, and orange and gold dappled the water.
“You are marked. I have seen these burns before. Welcome, Fire-Kissed Taba.” Yemanja looped the ivory around her own neck and offered Taba a piece of the fish roll. “I look forward to many more sunrises with you.”
Diversity Is Coming Page 22