The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

Kestra shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose I wanted to keep it private, in case he ignored me the next time they made port. You know how sailors are. And he’s a captain, and handsome, so I didn’t think I was anything special.”

  Mai’s grin widened. “But you are special to him, aren’t you?”

  Kestra wrinkled her nose to disguise the joy in her smile. “I think so?”

  “Ah!” squealed Mai. “This is so exciting! I don’t care for boys myself—at least, not the ones around here—but Flay is a nice catch. And charming, with money, and a ship. Which reminds me—when we go out to catch the mermaid, I must make some drawings of the ship and its workings. I’ll need more paper.”

  “Can’t you use what you have? Paper is so expensive now. You could use the backs of your maps—” Kestra halted, noting her cousin’s horrified expression. “Never mind. I’ll see if Mama has any spare coin. I need some money for the fire-ray serum, too.”

  Mai returned to her cage design, so Kestra slid off the table and left the hut. She met two of Flay’s sailors trudging along the garden path, shoulders slouched and faces doleful. Hiding a smile, she stepped aside so they could pass. They were in for an interesting afternoon with Mai. Kestra almost wished she could stay, just to watch her tiny cousin boss the burly men around, but she had her own tasks to do.

  Her mother was in the common room, stitching torn sheets, with the sunshine gushing over her from the row of front windows. The light picked out threads of gray in Lumina’s hair and edged the veins of her hands in shadow. Kestra hesitated, stung by the gnawing teeth of time. Fifteen years since her father died, and her mother had not so much as looked at anyone else, or ventured down Watcher’s Hill. She hadn’t crumpled or withered, but she’d grown tough—tough as sea grass, rough and intransigent as a barnacle. The laughing woman who had loved Death-Dancer was gone, and sometimes, as now, Kestra mourned her passing.

  “You were with the boy captain at noontide.” Her mother spoke without looking up. “He bowed to me on his way through.”

  “Yes. He was—visiting.” Kestra squirmed, unsure whether a lie would be worse than the truth.

  “Visiting.” Her mother snorted. “You should watch yourself around him.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “I like him well enough. And I know you two have a fancy for each other.”

  “But you don’t approve.”

  Lumina bit off a thread. “No. I do not.”

  “Why not?” Kestra slid into a chair, propping her elbows on the table. “Is there something wrong about him, something I’m not seeing?”

  Her mother looked up. “You want to know what I think?”

  “I do.”

  Lumina flipped the corner of the sheet over, inspecting the seam. “He reminds me too much of your father. A beautiful boy with an easy smile and a foolish heart. Likely to die, and likely to break your heart in the process.”

  Kestra didn’t know how to answer. She wanted to say that Flay could be different—that he was smarter, stronger, and faster than her father—but truth be told, she wasn’t sure of it.

  “I don’t care,” she said, knowing how foolish the answer sounded.

  Her mother crumpled the sheet in her lap. “Does he listen to you?” she asked, her eyes boring into Kestra’s. “Because if he doesn’t listen to you, there’s no use joining yourself to him. I told your father a thousand times to wear a rope when he mended the walls. A thousand times I told him. And do you know what he did? He laughed.” Her voice shook. “He laughed, Kestra. He was a fool, bound for destruction at his own hand, because of his reckless arrogance. And I was a worse fool, for giving my heart to him.”

  Kestra covered her mother’s hand with her own. “Flay isn’t the same. He seems carefree and cocky, yes—but he’s wise, too. Think of how he runs his ship. And he manages to deal fairly with everyone while making enough profit for himself and his crew.”

  “Cocky, carefree boys like him die young,” said her mother sharply. “Or they turn into bitter men once the world has had its way with them. Just wait. The terrors of the sea will come for your young captain, too. Better to push him away now, so you’ll be spared the pain of seeing it.”

  Kestra shoved her chair back so hard that it fell over. “Don’t say those things! It’s cruel, and untrue!” She marched back to the kitchen door. “I’m going to get some coin from your bag for things I need. I was going to ask for it, but since I’m the one who does most of the gardening and cooking around here, I believe a share of the money is fairly mine, and I will help myself.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  She was still seething when she returned to The Three Cherries in the late afternoon, carrying a packet of paper and the largest jar of fire-ray serum that she could persuade the physik to part with.

  When she rounded the inn and checked Mai’s hut, it was empty—but laughter echoed from somewhere behind it. Kestra set the jar on the table and went out back.

  There, on a patch of bare dirt, sat a half-completed replica of the design Mai had sketched. At least, Kestra guessed it to be a replica—the partly constructed contraption of heavy wood, metal bars, and gears was a far cry from the rough graphite drawing.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Mai danced up to her. “We couldn’t find all the parts, and there was no time to forge custom pieces, but we scrounged some bits from the blacksmith’s castoff pile, and we’re making it work. It should be finished by tomorrow evening.”

  The two sailors beamed, despite large patches of sweat on their chests and under their arms. Clearly Mai had worked them hard, and in the process had won herself a pair of admirers. The infatuation was obvious from the way their eyes followed her as she skipped around the contraption again. Too bad for those poor buffoons, Kestra thought. Mai has more admiration for the cage than for either of them.

  “Here’s your paper.” Kestra handed the packet to Mai. “I’m going to the kitchens to start preparations for the evening meal. There will be a huge crowd tonight—we’ll need your help.”

  Mai made a face. “I’ll be in soon.”

  “It had better be soon, or Mama will come out here herself. And we don’t want her seeing all this.” Kestra gestured to the cage.

  “True. A few minutes, then.”

  The crowd at The Three Cherries that evening was twice as large as the one from the previous night—a throng of shining faces, flashing grins, and cheerful voices. Kestra didn’t have time to exchange more than a glance or two with Flay—there were too many customers vying for her attention, too many empty bowls outstretched, too many hands waving drained cups. She rushed from the common room to the kitchen, throwing a pinch of spice here and tasting a pot of sauce there before dashing back again with heaping platters of food to deliver. Enree, Mai, and Lilu were there to serve again, along with another village girl Kestra did not know. Cawl must have hired her, knowing how big the crowd would be.

  Sweat trickled between Kestra’s shoulder blades as she completed yet another round of drink deliveries and slammed her tray back onto the kitchen table. She whirled to the stove to check the soup. “Mama, did you add the onion?”

  “I did.” Her mother’s hands blurred, chopping vegetables so fast that Kestra feared for her fingers. Kestra’s cutting skills were advanced, but she’d never been able to master knife-craft the way Lumina had.

  “Stars and skies, Kestra, you’re sweating like a pig!” Enree giggled, stacking empty plates. She leaned in, sniffing Kestra’s armpit. “And you smell like one too!”

  Lumina smacked Enree’s arm with a ladle. “Get back out there.”

  “Ow!” Enree pouted, but she obeyed.

  Kestra’s face burned scarlet. She felt bedraggled, sweat-stained, and ugly. Quickly she dabbed at her damp forehead and cleavage with a cloth, but there was no time for anything else. How did Enree manage to look like cool perfection on a warm night like this, when there was so much to do?

  When Kestra returned to the common roo
m, the crowd had settled slightly, their conversations dwindling. A man had placed a chair on one of the tables and perched upon it, knees apart and hands spread as he began to tell a tale. Kestra knew the man—Dorgo, one of the oldest villagers, a weathered one-time fisherman with a white mustache drooping down to his waist. Four decades ago, he and his wife used to sail through the mermaid swarms to reach the shoals of fish beyond. But when the mermaids spread further and became bolder and more numerous, Dorgo and his wife had to give up fishing and begin farming a patch of hilly land just outside town.

  Kestra had no time to stay and listen to the story, because more people kept trickling into the room, eager to be served. But she caught bits of it as she whisked in and out of the kitchen.

  “Something grabbed the world back then, as a man takes an egg.” Dorgo picked up a boiled egg. “And it squeezed, and the shell of the earth broke.” He crushed the egg slightly, so that the shell cracked into large pieces, still stuck to the glistening cooked flesh of the egg. “We call it the Great Upheaval. The ocean floor split apart, and when those fragments shifted, the currents changed.” His hands snaked through air to illustrate.

  The next time Kestra came out, Dorgo was speaking of the days when the first mermaids arrived at Kiken Island. There was no wall then, and the mermaids dragged people from the beaches, feasting on them until the sand was soaked with blood.

  “Everyone said the change of the currents brought them here.” Dorgo’s stare swept the rapt crowd. “But my great-grandfather caught one of the mermaids in the early days. Talked to her. Asked her why they were here, what they were doing. But she wouldn’t tell, not until he took a pair of clamps and began to pull her claws out, one by one. And when she still wouldn’t speak, he started on the scales. Grabbing them one at a time. Ripping them out.”

  A child in the crowd whimpered and covered his ears.

  “Yes, yes, it was terrible,” said Dorgo. “Terrible, but necessary. And fruitful, because the mermaid told him one thing, a secret that my grandfather told my father, and my father told me. She said it wasn’t so much the currents and the shifting of the seas that brought them here. No, it was something else. Something released from the deep, deep places of the ocean.”

  Kestra realized she was standing still, enthralled. Her fingers tightened on her tray, but she didn’t move toward the kitchen. The room had gone silent, so silent that she started when Flay slammed down his mug and said, “Thorn and thunder, man, tell us the rest! What was this thing released from the depths?”

  Dorgo fixed the young captain with an annoyed stare, which Flay returned with an unrepentant grin.

  “It was a monster,” said Dorgo, spreading his hands wide to recapture his audience. “A monster as big as an island, so immense and deadly that the dread mermaids themselves fled before it. The hulking beast swallowed their families and crushed their underwater cities. Those who escaped followed the new currents here, to our island. And here they stayed, because our waters were richly stocked with fish and sea creatures.”

  “What of the monster?” someone called out. “Where did it go?”

  Dorgo frowned at the second interruption, his mustaches drooping even lower. “No one knows for sure. But it is said that it wallows in the Great Split, a trench four days’ sailing from Kiken Island.”

  Flay had rocked his chair back on two legs, but at those words, he brought it to the floor with a crash. “The Great Split? You mean the Forbidden Zone? Four days northeast of here?”

  “Yes,” Dorgo replied haughtily. “The same.”

  “We sail around that area on every voyage,” Flay said. “I was never sure why, but my father and his captains told me never to go that way. I’ve always hated losing the time to go around it. So you’re telling me that I’ve been rerouting my ship because of a rutting folk tale? A monster story?”

  “A true story, lad,” said Dorgo. “Passed down from my father and—”

  “And your grandfather, I know.” Flay nodded. “Torrent and tide, I’ve a mind to drive the Wind’s Favor straight through that zone next time we voyage.”

  Gasps and whispers hissed through the room, but Flay only tipped up his cup and drained it. Kestra winced. In her village, and through all of Kiken Island, the word of an elder was to be respected, acknowledged with a courteous nod and polite assent—even more so if the word involved wisdom passed down through generations. But Flay was not from the island. He’d been brought up in a coarse, cut-throat world of slave ships, danger, and treachery. To him, Dorgo was simply a tale-telling farmer, not a revered elder.

  She caught Flay’s eye as he lowered the empty cup. Smiling, he jerked his head to summon her.

  She carried the pitcher over and poured him a refill. The villagers were resuming their chatter, so she bent nearer and murmured, “You’re lucky they love you so much. Not every man could get away with speaking to Dorgo that way.”

  “He’s a bit greedy for attention, isn’t he?” Flay curled his long brown fingers around the mug.

  “He’s not the only one.”

  “Why, Blossom!” He pressed a hand to his heart. “Are you saying that I, Captain Flay of the Wind’s Favor, am lusting to be the center of attention?”

  “Always.” Kestra turned away, but he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She tugged against him, glancing around. “Stop, Flay. People will see.”

  “And why not?”

  “I don’t want them to talk about me, with you.”

  He frowned slightly, but released her. “Again, why not?”

  Because the villagers wouldn’t believe it was real, that Flay cared for her alone. Because telling everyone might wilt this fragile thing growing between them.

  “Later,” she whispered.

  His smile returned. “Later. Where?”

  She started to answer, but her voice was drowned by the sudden surge of gleeful music from the front courtyard.

  “Ah, yes! Dancing!” cried Flay, leaping up. “Just what we need. Let’s go!” He waved his hat, and the crowd rose as one and surged toward the doors, pouring out into the courtyard.

  In the hustle of shoulders and stomping feet, he turned back to Kestra. “Would it be disgraceful if you danced with me?”

  He cut such a dashing figure, with his slim dark-clad legs, his crisp blue shirt half-unbuttoned, and his hat swept out, pointing her to the door. And his eyes—bright azure, paired with that dazzling smile—how could she say no?

  “I should be working—” she began, a smile already creeping across her face.

  “You’ve worked enough, Blossom. Take a break. The work will wait for you.” He stepped closer, lacing his fingers through hers and bending his head so his blond hair brushed her cheek. He spoke in her ear, soft and low. “Come, love. Dance with me.”

  Several of the village girls had hung back, lingering near Flay. Kestra could feel their eyes on her, but they were a background blur. Flay was vivid, vital, his calloused fingers wrapped around hers, his warm breath in her hair.

  “One dance,” she said—and the instant she finished speaking, he swept her through the common room and out into the courtyard.

  A collection of villagers had piled tables together into a makeshift stage, and they played stringed ouds, twanging zithers, shrill flutes, and thumping drums. Their music swirled through the balmy night air, winging above the lampposts of the courtyard up to the star-dappled sky.

  Kestra danced nearly as well as she cooked, despite her mother’s attempt to discourage the indulgence. “Dancing is a useless skill, a mindless frivolity,” Lumina would say. But of course that wasn’t the real reason her mother hated dancing. Kestra had a faint memory of her father clattering over the cobbles of the village square during a festival, executing complicated steps while the crowd cheered him on. Later he’d held Kestra on his hip as he dipped and swayed to the music.

  No sooner had the memory surfaced than a hot, smoky anger coiled up from that sore place in Kestra’s heart. She wasn’
t sure if its focus was her father or her mother, but it threatened to spoil her evening, so she mentally tamped it down and threw more shadows over it before reassigning her thoughts to Flay.

  As the music warbled on, they whirled and twisted together, their fingers interlocked, his palm a moist heat against hers. Where she was graceful, he was enthusiastic—and if he stomped those black boots of his a little too hard, a little too near her feet, she could forgive him that because of the smile lighting his face.

  When the first song ended and the next began, he said, “I must dance with a few of the other girls or risk losing favor in the eyes of their parents. But you’ll wait for me, won’t you?”

  “After the work is done, I’ll come to you,” she said. “The bathing room.”

  She went inside so she wouldn’t have to watch him dancing with Enree and Lilu and the other village girls. They could have their fun, but she’d be the one alone with him that night.

  Kestra’s mother watched her more closely than usual for the next two hours, and she lingered in the kitchen to make sure Kestra went upstairs with Mai.

  “Did you tell her?” whispered Kestra to her cousin when they reached their room. “About me and Flay?”

  “No. I would never.” Mai squeezed out the sponge and dabbed her armpits. “Mermaid’s claws, was it hot in that kitchen tonight! I thought I’d melt.”

  Kestra was only half-listening as she changed into a light nightdress. “Mama suspects something. Maybe because I defended him so enthusiastically to her today. I should have been more subdued about it.”

  “So you showed a little emotion.” Mai plopped the sponge back into the basin. “So what? It’s about time you shook off your calm, complacent, ‘happiness is too risky’ attitude. You smile and laugh so much more when he’s here. I love that.” Her dark eyes met Kestra’s, earnest and sorrowful.

  At that look, Kestra flinched inside, guilt itching at her soul. She tried so hard not to act angry or sad around her cousin, because Mai had known horror, too, and a loss worse than Kestra’s. Mai’s parents and her little brother had died of plague one particularly hard year, before Flay took over the Wind’s Favor and started his regular route. Nine months had passed without any ships at all—no medicines or supplies beyond what the village and its sister towns had on hand. Many died.