The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  When he wasn’t watching the beast, or hiding in shadows to eat his raw fish without drawing disgusted looks from the crew, Rake watched the doorway of Flay’s cabin. Sometimes he saw Graves the physik, or Jazadri, or Kestra, going in or coming out. They didn’t look terribly distressed. The captain must be healing well. But even the best care wouldn’t bring back his hand—a hand that he wouldn’t have lost if Rake had acted more quickly, more courageously.

  He’d been a fool and a coward. Too slow, still recovering from the paralytic venom of the tentacles. Too shaken inside from the stress of yielding all those memories, from being mind-mauled by the new voice. He’d let Acrid get into his head, terrify him into inaction. He had frozen, and Flay had suffered.

  Only when Kestra had thrust her knife into Acrid’s neck, when Acrid’s claws had come so perilously close to Kestra’s throat—only then had Rake been able to move.

  He leaned against the railing of the upper deck, trying not to think about what had happened next. He wasn’t ashamed of it exactly, but it wasn’t his proudest moment either.

  He’d eaten Acrid. Or tried to. She tasted rubbery and bitter, and he’d spit out the mouthfuls of her flesh into the depths. He had dragged his claws across her stomach, deeply, violently, leaving her ragged and gaping, bleeding into the dark. When he had finally looked at her face again, she was already gone, a sightless, floating shell.

  Sickness surged in his gut as the memory resurfaced, and he leaned over the side, retching, the vomit falling far and splattering on the waves below. Shaking, he turned his back to the rail and wiped his mouth with the edge of his shirt. When he looked up, Kestra was standing at Flay’s cabin door, watching him. She crooked her finger, a clear command to approach.

  He pushed himself away from the railing and walked toward her.

  When he was near enough, she spoke. “You haven’t been to see Flay.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is my fault he was hurt.”

  She pursed her lips. “All the more reason you should talk to him.”

  Rake flinched at the thought. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll be crossing into merlow waters again. Everyone will be watching to see what the monster does, and if I know Flay, he’ll come out on deck to see. No, if you want to speak to him, just the two of you, you need to do it now.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Torrent and tide, Rake! You don’t have a choice. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” She gripped his arm and dragged him through the cabin door. “Flay, you have a visitor.”

  Rake bared his teeth at her before he thought, and Kestra snarled right back at him before stalking out of the cabin.

  “My Blossom.” Flay smirked. “She’s charming, isn’t she?”

  The captain looked better than Rake expected—more color in his cheeks, and that indomitable sparkle in his eyes. He leaned against a pile of pillows, his wounded arm lying across his lap and a book resting open in his other hand. Smiling wryly, he lifted the book. “It’s harder to read now. Takes some finagling to turn the page without losing my place.”

  “I’m happy to turn the page for you,” Rake said, advancing.

  “Not necessary at the moment, thank you.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “A book of old fables.”

  Rake ached to hear the stories, with a hunger so fierce it startled him.

  Flay narrowed his eyes. “You can’t read, can you, fish—I mean, Rake?”

  “No.”

  Flay nodded. “Sit. I’ll read to you.”

  Rake didn’t move. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard, couldn’t conceive of the generosity behind the words.

  “What?” Flay quirked an eyebrow. “Do you not like my voice? I can do a different voice—like this, lower—or like this, really high like a woman. Ah, an old man’s voice. There, is that better?” he finished in an exaggerated croak.

  Laughter rushed into Rake’s chest, rippling out before he could stop it. But he sobered instantly. “You are being kind to me. Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was a fool and a coward. I was too slow to help you, too afraid of Acrid. It’s my fault you lost your hand.”

  “It was Acrid’s fault,” Flay said. “And from what I hear, you rid us of her and then saved me and Kestra. So the way I look at it, I’d be dead without you. Unfortunately I’m much too selfish to be your slave for life or offer you an overstuffed chest of treasure in recompense. But I’ll happily read a few stories, if that paltry payment is acceptable to you.”

  “More than acceptable.” Rake kept his voice low, afraid that it might tremble.

  He passed the rest of the day listening to Flay read, until the captain’s voice grew too hoarse to continue—and then Kestra, who had been quietly watching them for an hour, took over the task. Sometime late in the night, they all fell asleep—Flay propped against his pillows, Kestra across the end of his bed, and Rake on the floor, with an embroidered pillow under his head and one of Flay’s coats over his body.

  They woke to shouts from the deck and a tremendous rocking of the ship. Flay launched himself out of his bunk and promptly crashed to the floor as his legs buckled. He swore ferociously as Rake helped him up.

  “What the maelstrom is going on?” he bellowed the instant they stumbled out on deck.

  “We’re in merlow territory, captain,” said Jazadri. “The monster is beginning to feed.”

  Sailors already lined the railings and rigging of the Wind’s Favor, craning for a sight of the great beast. Rake had an advantage, being the tallest of all except Jazadri. He stood behind Kestra and watched the creature over her black head, trying not to notice how delicious she smelled despite the long, warm days aboard ship.

  Rake knew that the monster was really a myriad of creatures, symbiotically linked, guiding and protecting each other—but at this distance, They looked like a single gargantuan beast. He noticed dark orifices gaping between the armored plating—mouths. Many mouths, sucking in vast quantities of seawater and hordes of wriggling merlows. The rocking of the ship came from the suction of those maws and from the panicked swarms of merlows trying to swim away.

  “We need to go faster, Jaza,” said Flay. “We’ve got to get far ahead of this thing, and get to land. We’ll put everyone non-essential ashore, and then we’ll take the ship out, away from the island, until the creature is done feeding and the waters calm down. I won’t risk my ship being sucked in or smashed by the very thing we asked for help.”

  “Agreed.” Jazadri began a volley of orders, and sailors hurried to swing down from the rigging and prepare more sail. Soon the Wind’s Favor was pulling ahead, opening more distance between its wake and the monster’s mouths.

  Rake would have liked to observe at close quarters a little longer—he found it mesmerizing to watch the enormous creature feed. Maybe it should have sickened him. After all, those toothy, milky-eyed merlows were related to his kind. But he remembered hordes of them threatening him and Jewel, and he found that he couldn’t be sorry for their fate.

  Through the next night and day’s sailing, voices aboard the ship were low and terse, and meals were taken quickly, with little effort put into their preparation. Flay prowled the decks like a restless spirit until he paled and weakened, at which point Kestra hustled him into his cabin and wandered the edges of the ship herself. When not fulfilling their duties, the crew spent their time eyeing the monstrous shape on the horizon, or placing bets on the fate of the island, the ship, the high mermaids, and even Rake himself. They watched him as they watched the sea monster, with awe and suspicion. Only Flay, Jazadri, and Kestra spoke to him beyond what was absolutely necessary.

  He encountered Kestra often as they both circled the ship, keeping vigil on the teeming waters and the distant form of the beast. Usually she nodded to him and kept walking, but once, as they neared each other, she turned and fell into step with him.

&nb
sp; “Jazadri says we’ll sight Kiken Island any moment now,” she said.

  Unsure how to reply, he simply nodded.

  “I hope the villagers have been able to move further inland, away from the wall.” Kestra sighed, the sound harsh with anxiety.

  “Will your mother move?”

  “No. She never leaves The Three Cherries, and it’s far enough from the coast. Takajo will probably take Jewel there for safety.”

  Rake nodded.

  “Do you miss Jewel?” Kestra asked.

  He glanced at her, unsure why she was asking such a question, opening the way for further conversation. Their interaction since the kiss had been awkward—not that it was smooth or pleasant before then—but lately she’d been going out of her way to not be alone with him.

  But maybe she was softening. Maybe she was reconsidering her refusal, yielding to the idea of being with him. If it could be arranged somehow, without hurting Flay, then—

  “Yes, I miss Jewel,” Rake said. “He is always in my mind. Like someone else I care about.”

  She turned abruptly and stopped him with a hand against his stomach. He tensed, and she snatched her hand back. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like to be touched there.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. With Acrid’s destruction, part of the chain that fettered Rake had snapped. The dark memories still clutched at him, but their claws only grazed now, instead of piercing deep. He could be touched, and not succumb to a vortex of torment. “It’s you,” he told Kestra, with a half-smile. “You can touch me anywhere you like.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, sighing again. “Rake, you need to stop talking like that. I told you, I can’t be with you in the way you want. This fascination with me—it has to stop.”

  “How do I stop it?”

  “You could try to think about someone else instead. Find another girl you like better than me.”

  His shoulders slumped. “That’s what Flay said.”

  “Oh? You two talked about it?”

  “Yes. He said he’ll take me out drinking and introduce me to some girls who won’t mind what I am.”

  An emotion Rake couldn’t name fluttered across Kestra’s face. “Was there ever a mermaid who meant something to you? Who was kind to you?”

  His lip curled. “I’ve told you—males are not worth kindness among my people. We are useful only for our seed.” He stroked the weathered wood of the ship’s railing. “Once I thought I might be able to win Calla’s heart. But I think after the Great Upheaval, the females of my race were so desperate to survive, to be feared and powerful, that they destroyed their capacity for compassion. None of them care for each other, or for their spawn, and certainly not for me.”

  “But you care. About Jewel, and others.” She tilted her head. “I wonder what made you different.”

  He knew what she meant, but he wasn’t sure how to quantify the difference. Sometimes he thought of it as a star, deep in his heart—one that never stopped shining. Other times it felt like something more visceral, something knotted together from blood and bone and indomitable will. Whatever it was, it had driven him to survive, and to seek knowledge. It had wrapped his heart together with Jewel’s the instant he saw the boy, too fast to resist, like eelgrass twining reflexively around the two of them, tethering them to each other.

  Kestra was watching him, her face undeniably softer. “You have a good soul, Rake,” she said. “I’m proud to call you my friend.”

  He sucked in a startled, delighted breath, but before he could answer, a cry echoed from the lookout in the crow’s nest.

  “Land ho! Kiken Island ahead!”

  Kestra darted away to find Flay, and Rake watched the flurry of preparation on board. The Wind’s Favor had drawn far ahead of the monster, but they would need to disembark hastily and get under way again as soon as possible.

  Flay stomped out of his cabin and across the deck, followed by Kestra and Jazadri. “No! I won’t huddle on land while my ship sets sail.”

  “Captain, we need you safe and rested,” Jazadri said.

  “The physik needs more supplies from town in order to care for your arm properly,” said Kestra. “And he says you’ve not been resting enough.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve done nothing but rest. I’m not going ashore.”

  “Then I won’t either.” Kestra folded her arms.

  Flay spun on his heel, hitching his arm deeper into its makeshift sling. “Oh yes, you will.”

  “Make me.” Kestra lowered her head and looked up at him, dark eyes glittering.

  “Oh, I’ll make you. I’ll have Jaza carry you bodily across the plank and up to the inn. Right, Jaza?”

  Jazadri frowned. “I’ll not carry a woman anywhere she’s not willing to go, Captain.”

  Rake stepped forward. “I’ll carry her. I agree that she should be safely ashore.”

  Kestra’s eyes shot bolts of fury at him.

  “See there?” Flay said. “The fish—I mean, Rake—he agrees with me. Though I’m not sure I want him carrying you anywhere, love—he might enjoy it a little too much.”

  “There is an easy solution, Captain.” Jazadri’s rolling voice intercepted Kestra’s retort. “You and Kestra and Rake go ashore with the physik and a few men. I’ll take the rest of the crew and run with the Wind’s Favor until the beast has finished its feeding.”

  Flay protested, but in the end, Rake found himself walking ashore with the non-essential crew members, the physik, the disgruntled captain, and a very annoyed Kestra. Flay and Kestra strode ahead of him up the hill toward The Three Cherries, arguing in low voices.

  No one stirred in the streets between the neat rows of wooden homes. A few gulls perched on the clay-tiled roofs, but even they were quieter than usual, their squawks muffled as if they could sense the unrest in the air. As their group moved farther uphill, Rake noticed shadows moving behind the delicate wooden lattices over the windows, and a few villagers peeped out of doorways.

  Flay ordered his sailors to split up and go through town to let people know of the monster’s impending arrival. “When you’re done, meet us at The Three Cherries. I’ll be there resting with this obstinate little gale-shark.” He nudged Kestra with his elbow.

  She didn’t answer, but once the men had dispersed, she caught Flay by his coat and shoved him to the edge of the street. “You go on,” she said to Rake and the physik. “We’ll meet you at the inn.”

  Rake hesitated, but he had no choice. He climbed the hill side by side with the lean, silent form of Graves the physik.

  When they were nearly to the courtyard of The Three Cherries, the physik spoke. “They say you saved the captain’s life.”

  Rake grimaced. “I suppose I did.”

  “That was a nasty bite your queen gave him. Messy. I had to trim the edges of the flesh and file the bone.”

  “My race isn’t known for finesse.”

  “No. They are horrific, ravenous monsters.” The physik stopped and faced Rake, his lean face tight and his eyes burning. “You may play at being human, but I see what you really are. A shark among the minnows. A monster that should be dying out there with his monster spawn.”

  The words burrowed into Rake’s pounding heart. He searched for words, for excuses, but none came.

  “You spawned high mermaids and mermidons, yes? Who knows how many hundreds of the mermidons and merlows in those waters came from your seed? Why don’t you own your part in this horror and face your punishment? You’re a coward, slinking away to hide among humans, abandoning your cursed race to its fate.” With each word, a spray of the man’s spittle hit Rake’s cheek. “The others may be too naive to see it, or too soft to say it, so I will. Go back to the sea, bilge-filth. You don’t belong with us, and you never will.”

  He spun on his heel and stormed into the inn.

  Rake looked down at his shaking hands, at the pointed claws and blue-tinged knuckles. He felt the flex of the gills at his throat, the shift of his pointed ears.

>   You don’t belong with us, and you never will.

  The words, though spewed in hate, had the ring of truth.

  Why don’t you own your part in this horror and face your punishment?

  “Why indeed?” Rake murmured.

  He turned away from the inn. Taking a different route down the hill, he made his way back toward the wall.

  -25-

  Kestra

  “Am I in trouble?” asked Flay, an insufferable grin on his face as Kestra shoved him into the gap between two buildings.

  She pushed him against the wall and braced both hands on her hips, seething. “You can’t tell me where to go. What to do.”

  His eyes went hard. “What if I’m trying to protect you?”

  “Not even then.”

  “I disagree.”

  “So you’d let Jazadri or Rake carry me somewhere I don’t want to go?”

  “For your protection, yes.”

  Kestra slapped him. Then she stepped back, trying to hide her own shock at what she’d done.

  Flay moved toward her, his cheek already flushing from the impact. “Go ahead. Let it out. Lay it all on me.”

  “I don’t have anything to let out.”

  “Yes, you do. Go on. Hit me again.”

  “No.”

  “I still say I’d overrule your will for your own safety.”

  Her hand flexed, longing to strike him again, but she resisted the impulse. “You can’t do that. Keep thinking that way and I’ll end up locked in your cabin for my ‘safety.’ Or I’ll be shelved out of the way in a little port town, with a couple of hired guards to make sure I stay put.”

  “Never. I’d never do that to you.”

  “You say that now.” Her voice shrilled, beyond her control. “But you need to understand that I choose whether or not I’ll listen to you. I’ve been controlled for so long, Flay—by my mother, by the town, by the expectations I have for myself. I’ve been watched and advised, always so careful, telling myself not to look too far or dream too large or dance too gaily, because life will see my joy and strike me down. But I won’t be my father, and I won’t be my mother either. I want to be myself, and I have to choose the risks that are worth taking. I have to make those decisions. Not you. Not anyone else.”