Storm Surge

by Melissa Gunn

  “Tammy, are you hurt? Do you need help? These weres led me here. Um. You should probably tell me more about them. But... maybe not just now. When you’re feeling better.”

  Freya looked uncertainly around. The weres had stopped circling, so she felt slightly less like a waggoneer about to be set upon by Native Americans, but she unquestionably didn’t feel safe.

  “Tammy, come on, speak to me! I’ve been looking for you all day. Mum will be out of her mind with worry. What’s been going on?”

  Freya realised she’d been shouting. So much for steadying breaths. A groan emerged from Tammy, and she turned her head towards Freya.

  “What are you doing here, Freya? You shouldn’t be here. This is my time.” Tammy’s voice was croaky.

  Freya felt rebuffed, hurt. Here she was, having worn out her already beaten body, having tolerated being near the perpetrators of that beating, having thought (however briefly) that Tammy could be dead - and Tammy told her she shouldn’t be here? It was intolerable. She opened her mouth to say as much, when another voice intervened.

  “Well done, Tammy. It appears that you have brought forth a relic of our ancient sea-covered land. Rise, and join us.”

  Freya looked up at the speaker in disgust. Lisichka stood slightly in front of the other weres. She was smiling serenely, her eyes focused on the flint figurine.

  “How can you do this?” raged Freya. “You’re trying to steal away my sister, and you haven’t even checked to see that she is OK! And what have you told her? She’s my sister, I have every right to see if she’s hurt.”

  “Oh, but I don’t need to steal her away. She is doing this of her own free will, aren’t you, Tammy?” Lisichka’s voice held a faint mocking note. Tammy flopped over onto her back with another groan. She lifted the flint figure so that she could see it, back-lit by the setting sun. Freya was sure a small smile flitted over her face before she cradled it to her breast and sat up. She cleared her throat.

  “Look, thanks for checking on me, Freya. Go back to Mum and tell her I’m fine. This is what I’ve chosen for myself. I want more from life than endless wandering from town to town, never belonging anywhere. You always think I don’t have ambition.”

  “I never said that!”

  Tammy ignored Freya’s interruption.

  “You’re just not looking in the right way. I’ve always had the ambition to find a place for myself. When I met Lisichka... and her son... well, maybe you don’t remember much about what Mum told us about weres.”

  “That’s because she told us almost nothing.”

  “Yeah, she did. I remember even if you don’t. Maybe you should have paid more attention. But you know what weres do? They settle down, and they stay put, and they look after their own. I want that, Freya.”

  “You’re not the only one who’s sick of always moving.”

  “Yeah, sure. Moving sucks Loki’s ass. But when they said I smelled good... I knew I had the chance to change my life, for the better! They have extremely sensitive noses, you know. It wouldn’t work out if I didn’t smell right.”

  “You’re abandoning us because of the way we smell?”

  “Listen, I’m taking that chance with both hands, no matter what it takes. And of course, I can do things they can’t. So I’ll have status. No were can summon like I can.”

  “But you summon better with me, Tammy, don’t you remember? You said so yourself, that summer you taught me how.”

  “I think I’ve shown today that I can summon pretty well on my own. No-one has ever gone as far into the sea-kingdoms as I have now. So, you go, have a good life, make it your own. Go and be what you want to be, Freya. Don’t let Mum keep dragging you around. I’m staying here with the weres. I just wish you hadn’t got on the wrong side of my family-to-be.”

  Finishing her speech, Tammy rubbed at her drying hair, which fell in short tangles down her back.

  “Ugh, I so much prefer fresh water to salt.”

  She looked up at the ring of waiting weres and assumed a more dignified manner, lifting the artefact in her hands above her head. She seemed to swell, become more than herself. A wild gleam entered her eyes. Freya suddenly wondered how well she knew her sister after all.

  “Doggerland lives,” Tammy intoned.

  Freya wondered what on earth she was talking about. It didn’t sound pleasant. However, a cheer went up from the surrounding clan (with some suspicious yips interspersed with it). Lisichka stepped close again, and addressed herself to Tammy.

  “You have done better than I expected.”

  There was reluctant admiration in her voice.

  “You must be good at wrangling with the powers of the sea. How fares Doggerland, the land of our ancestors?”

  Tammy shrugged, then seemed to realise that she should be more formal. She cleared her throat.

  “The sea rules over that land now, as you know. But the rivers of old still carve their channels through the seabed, though they are now hunted by sea wolves and squid.”

  She looked at Freya, and Freya could tell that her sister was trying not to laugh at her own words. That hidden gleam of laughter made her heart ache for her sister, who seemed to think that belonging to this group of others was more important than their own family.

  Freya tried one more time to persuade her sister to come back to reality, to normality.

  “Come on, Tammy. Just come back home with me. We can talk about what you’re doing next. Tell Mum yourself that you’re OK. Don’t make this the end of our family!”

  Freya felt tears leaking out of her eyes, and dashed them away hurriedly. She hated to show that she was overwhelmed in front of the weres. While they might not be close anymore, Tammy was a third of her family, not to mention the only sister she had. Freya didn’t want to lose her.

  “Please, Tammy. Come home.” Tammy was shaking her head.

  “Sorry, Freya. This is my chance and I’m taking it. There’s all I need, right here. Plenty of water, beings who are prepared to put trust in me, welcome me, value my strengths.” She grinned. “I could have children, even. I don’t want to risk losing this opportunity. Even you being here is going to cause some issues. You know yourself that some of them don’t take kindly to you.”

  Horrified at this cavalier dismissal of the severe beating she’d received at the hands of the weres that her sister wanted to join, Freya immediately protested.

  “Didn’t ‘take kindly’ to me? How can you talk about extreme violence so lightly?! I could have been killed, if Lio - er - if that passing sprite - hadn’t done something to stop them! And why leave now? Why did you go out in the storm, for goodness’ sake?”

  Never mind that I also went out in the storm.

  Tammy patted Freya on the shoulder.

  “I know, I know, and I’m sorry. The storm - well, there are huge currents during a storm like that. I knew I could go deeper with a big swell, get something worthwhile. It’s lucky I spent all those years practising with water deities though. I almost didn’t make it. There were selkies down there, and they’re almost as territorial as weres. Speaking of weres, Lisichka here has assured me that those youngsters will be punished. They’ll know not to do it again. Apparently young weres can be easily upset, especially at this time of year. The oldest ones will be moving on to new territories soon. But the poor decisions of a few teenagers don’t necessarily reflect the whole society. What I’ve seen of the rest of the clan is really positive. They work for the good of the group, even though we see a lot of loners around. They come back home to a loving family. Like ours used to be. If you smelt better to them, I’d encourage you to join them, too. As it is...” she shrugged. “I think your best option is to follow your ambitions. Finish school, get a degree maybe. Prove yourself in some way if that’s your thing, go do something big. Somewhere else.”

  There was no stopping Freya’s tears now, though she tried desperately to maintain her dignity.

  “Somewhere else? Don’t I get to choose where to live my li
fe, what to do with it? At least when I’m old enough. I wouldn’t have chosen all this moving either, that’s for sure. And you’re my sister. Can’t you stick up for me? You should! Come on, Tammy. Mum and I need you. Don’t ditch us at the first opportunity.”

  Tammy shrugged.

  “I’m not ditching you. I’m bettering my position, just like all those Jane Austin heroines. I found a being of good fortune in want of a wife. You should be congratulating me, Freya.”

  “Yeah, sure. Well done, Tammy. Just what you always wanted.” Freya’s voice was bitter.

  The weres closed in at that point, pointedly avoiding contact with Freya. They lifted Tammy to their shoulders in a sitting position. She put her arms around them for support, and as they bore her towards the stairs up the cliffs like a queen, Tammy looked back and waved at Freya, once. Freya was left behind on the beach, waves thundering on the pebbles, all alone.

  The splash of a wave on her foot reminded Freya that the sea was encroaching, and she would have to move or be washed out to sea herself. Without the extra-strong watery connection her sister had, she probably wouldn’t survive the experience. With a shaky sigh, Freya started the long, weary journey up the stairs and home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  BACK TO LIFE

  Back in their tree-dented house, Freya was surprised by her mother’s reaction to the news. Or rather, she was surprised by her mother’s lack of reaction. Danae merely nodded, when Freya explained what had happened on the beach.

  Her mother said quietly;

  “She’s been growing away from us for a while now. I half-expected her to stay back in the last town we lived in. She could have left any time in the last several years. At least weres are probably safer than trolls, or even jotunn. Though when she found that pure-human a few years ago I thought that was it. Of course, then we had to move. Ah well. The question is, do we stay here, or do I try to find another job further north? It’s tricky when there are weres about, but maybe now Tammy has joined them, they won’t bother you so much. There are a few things we can do to protect ourselves. Though I doubt wolfbane will work on foxes, it may be worth a try. And it would be nice to be able to see Tammy from time to time, to know she’s doing well for herself.”

  Freya wondered if this was how the mothers of those Jane Austin heroines had felt. Most of the mothers in question didn’t get to talk to their ‘bettered’ daughters.

  “You knew she would do this? Why didn’t you try to stop her, Mum?”

  “She was always going to leave someday, Freya. She’s chosen her fate, just as you will. We aren’t whole, Freya, we’ll always be broken in some way. At least Tammy has found a way to feel more fulfilled.”

  “Why shouldn’t we be whole? Just because we’re demi-goddesses - or hemi-demi-semi-whatever-goddesses - shouldn’t mean we’re not complete in ourselves. Pure-humans don’t think they’re lacking, do they? Deities certainly don’t, they’re usually so full of themselves it’s unbearable. Why should we be stuck in between and somehow not complete?” Freya found she was shouting at her mother. She’d never expressed her feelings like this before. It was a little frightening just how much of a relief it was to say it out loud. Very loud.

  “Oh, Freya. I know it’s hard to accept. But it’s just the way things are.”

  “It’s not the way things should be!”

  “We don’t get to choose the way things should be. We just have to learn how to live with them,” said Danae.

  Freya crossed her arms and glared. Both her mother and Tammy were acting as though they would never see Tammy in the house again. Freya just couldn’t accept that - although she had to admit she’d be happy never to see those weres again.

  “Well then, if we’re losing my sister, and we’ll always be broken, useless demis, are we losing this house, too? Or do we repair it so we can at least get our deposit back if we have to leave in a hurry?”

  Danae answered quickly, stroking the air as though to smooth ruffled feathers.

  “Oh, I suppose we’d better have a go at repairing it. I don’t really want to leave my job at the greenhouse here. It suits me. And there’s room for advancement, for a change, so I wouldn’t be stuck potting on plants for the rest of my days. I’ll just pop next door and see if they have a saw or something, so we can get that tree out of your room. Come on, Freya, we’ve got things to do.”

  Freya was astounded at the way her mother could simply move on from the abrupt, and probably final departure of her eldest child. She could only trail after her mother like a toddler as they started the long, slow process of reclaiming their home from the aftermath of the storm.

  It took the two of them a long time to fix their home. The next-door neighbour did not have any tools. Nor did the one further down the row. The landlord seemed disinterested in managing the repair himself.

  “He’s probably too busy getting his own house repaired after the floods down the hill,” was Danae’s explanation.

  Freya thought that a landlord should look after his tenant’s houses too, but Danae declined to be drawn into an argument about this.

  They did manage to get a tarpaulin to cover the hole in the roof before the next major downpour, awkwardly roped under the tree, which was too heavy to move. But Danae’s work in the local glasshouse didn’t pay well enough to buy a new roof. At least the glasshouse had suffered sufficient storm damage that her mother and the other glasshouse workers were working for much longer than usual hours - meaning more than usual pay, too. The necessity of a local food supply meant that everyone agreed the glasshouse took priority. Most of the crops in the ground had been pummelled by hail when the storm passed through, and other crops had been flooded in its wake. A covered glasshouse meant that there was something to eat.

  However, her mother’s work hours meant that Freya was on her own a lot, even more than usual - except for Mr Fluffbum, who was more of a hindrance than a help. Left to her own devices, she worked first on restoring her bedroom to a semi-usable state. She swept up leaves, and used her mother’s garden secateurs to snip off first smaller, then larger branches from the tree that filled much of the room. She couldn’t deal with the large trunk, however, and it loomed menacingly above her bed.

  The carpet in her room began to smell like mouldy socks.

  I wonder if I smell like that to a were?

  Freya considered, after being rebuffed at the door to her room by a wall of odour, a few days after the storm.

  After a few tries, she managed to lever up an edge of the damp, smelly carpet. She carried it in a roll downstairs and left it outside the back door. The plants out there would surely mind the smell less than she did. The wooden floorboards that remained in her bedroom would no doubt be freezing in winter, but at least they didn’t smell bad. And at present, they were pleasantly cool to lie upon, letting Freya gaze up at the sky through the hole in the roof while the tarpaulin was drawn back. The weather had turned warm again after the storm. No doubt the farmers were rejoicing that they had a chance to recover some crops.

  Despite the painful reminder of her sister’s continued absence, Freya had taken to sleeping in Tammy’s room most nights. The smell of Tammy enveloping her was comforting. Freya could almost imagine Tammy was there, telling Freya off for messing up her makeup, or laughing about the latest concoction they’d made from a mix of foraged food and charity boxes. Over the years they’d made a lot of odd combinations. Acorn flour muffins with canned peaches, perhaps. Or walnuts with pot noodles.

  Also, while the carpet was no longer there to give off its stench, the small matter of a tree resting on her bed was rather off-putting. Mr Fluffbum generally went to sleep curled up at her feet, but when Freya awoke, he was often sitting on her chest or stomach. The first time he did this, Freya woke up from a dream in which she couldn’t breathe.

  “Oof, get off me, Mr Fluffbum. It’s lovely to have you back, but I still need to breath.” She gently tipped him off by turning on her side. Mr Fluffbum put his ears
back and glared at her before climbing back on top of her. Freya laughed. “You must really want something, I guess. Look, I’ll find some food soon. But you’ll have to get off me in order for me to do that.” Mr Fluffbum started to purr in place. “Oh, all right, you can stay there for a bit.”

  Freya learnt just how little use her demi abilities were when it came to carpentry, as she and her mother laboured to repair the damage done by the storm. No doubt the descendants of that Greek smith-god - Hephaestus, wasn’t it? - would do better at that task. Unrealised fertility and wine-making traits weren’t much help with building repairs. And of course, she had to go to school during the day. The school had not suffered much storm damage other than a few tiles lost from the roof, and it re-opened after only a few days of closure - with buckets to catch the drips of the inevitable rain.

  On her return to school, Freya was once more immersed in local news. It turned out that the local shopping mall had been flooded by the heavy rains and tidal surge the storm brought. For weeks after the event, people in Freya’s class were swapping stories with those who had been trapped in the mall (they were viewed as the lucky ones) or those who had merely been nearly trapped by the rising floodwaters.

  Freya, as one who avoided shopping malls when at all possible - the bright lighting, smooth plastic surfaces and buzz of people annoyed her beyond measure - avoided commenting unless it was overtly called for. She wished that being trapped in a flooded-in shopping centre was the worst thing that had happened to her the night of the storm. She did feel a tiny niggle of guilt, however, when she heard that the floods had been exacerbated, because much of the water had arrived from a previously unknown watercourse that seemed to originate near the town fountain, as well as coming in from the sea. Had her release of the stone horses in the fountain had a knock-on effect to the spring below?

  If it was her fault, Freya thought, she refused to feel guilty. Despite the damage the flood had caused, most people seemed to have enjoyed the experience. And the people inside the mall had been safe from the storm, which weather forecasters were calling the ‘worst of the century’. Maybe she’d done them a favour. After all, her house hadn’t been the only one to have a tree drop on it. And many of the houses near the sea had been flooded by the storm surge.