by Cassie Day
“I don’t know.”
Her gaze lingers on my restless fingers. “Maybe the gods aren’t real. Maybe our ancestor never had wings or knew Persephone or the gods. Maybe Aunt and the older ones only have creative imaginations.”
My irritation returns like a blight. My face heats. We know so little of each other, but she knows enough to spit out imagination as an insult. Are my wandering thoughts so obvious?
My pupils contract. My hands tighten into fists. Nails dig into the meat of my palms. There’ll be grooves there later. My mother will fret.
Her smile falls. “When have any of us seen a god? Or another creature?”
She knows none of us have. Not any of our great aunts who hand out food portions or, like Aunt, entertain the children. Not the younger aunts who forever chase after children.
We see boats, fishermen, and gulls. Sometimes towns where some of us go to find a sire for our children.
I can’t answer. There is no answer.
And from her crooked smile, she knows. Shrugging, she turns toward the cave. Peels layers of kelp until the full breadth of a wide entrance is visible.
“Come on.” She vanishes into shadows created by kelp and the protruding upper lip of the cave. “Your mother is inside.”
Though irritation continues to simmer beneath my skin, dread returns.
I glance back. Moonbeams shining through the water brighten until the kelp forest is awash in shades of gray. Something sparkles. Not silver or jewels. They wink, rearranging into constellations an exact mirror of the night sky. Burn brighter than the moonbeams.
Stars?
I blink and the image vanishes, replaced with the forest murk.
Desma calls my name. I venture into the cave, leaving the odd vision behind.
Chapter 2
MY MOTHER LIES UPON a bed of woven kelp.
My hands grapple and scrape at the lip of the cave before it spreads out into the wide room. I rush past Desma. Scales rip free when I drag my tail along the rough stone at the bottom of the cave.
I don’t wince despite the stinging pain. Instead, I grab my mother’s hands. They’re so small. So cold.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
But she can’t be. Why else would she be with a healer?
Some starved part of me hopes this will be an easy pregnancy. Nothing like all the others. Not ended in blood and grief.
My mother frowns.
Hope flits away like a string of seaweed on a tumbling wave.
My mother twists her hands, returning my grip.
Desma stares from the other side of the bed with a frown. I scowl back.
“I can’t hold food down,” my mother says.
I turn my stare away from Desma. My mother’s skin is ashen, her cheeks sunken. Vomit lingers on the edges of her mouth. Just this morning she was thin but healthy, no illness in sight.
With a trembling smile, I free one hand from her limp grip and wipe the vomit away. Floating strands of my mother’s hair catch between my fingers. Too brittle. It breaks, wrapping around my fingers in loose coils. She’s been ill for longer and hiding it, then. Anything to continue grasping to hope that this child will survive.
“There’s no plant to help?” I ask.
From the corner of my eye, Desma shakes her head. “None that are working.”
“What have you tried?”
Her mouth flattens. Her cheeks turn ruddy, swallowing her orange freckles in a haze of pink.
“Oh, none of that,” my mother says. She pats at us until Desma’s mouth closes and my tense shoulders unfurl. “She’s tried everything her mother taught her.”
My mother’s eyes dim. Desma’s empty of anything at all.
I swallow the question of where Desma’s mother is. My mother sees the question regardless. She quells it with a pointed stare.
Desma turns away. Her hands fumble against a platform containing an array of barnacle-covered items. Moonlight glints against them. My glowing eyes adjust. Their shape becomes clear along with a telltale shimmer of glass.
“Bottles,” I say.
Desma nods, turning around with a group of bottles gathered in the crook of her elbow. One by one, she holds them to a beam of wane moonlight from a hole in the ceiling I didn’t notice until now.
She names them. Plants and tonics with long, complex names my mind jumbles immediately. Her fingers hold bits of carved stone against the lip of each bottle, careful to keep the contents inside.
She stops and turns to the platform. With steady hands, she puts them in neat lines on the stone lip. They stay solid, stay still, with each wave. She’s weighted them with stones inside. Clever.
The more I pin the bottles with my stare, the more I notice subtle differences. One has a misshapen side. Another has a long spout. Some have barnacles in set groups, chunks missing where someone scraped some off. To label them? Or to see the contents?
My mother pulls me close with a tug of our joined hands. “She’s done all that can be done.”
Yet my mother lies, sick and unable to keep food down for herself or her child.
Anger surges. I swear my face flames hot enough to turn the sea around it warmer. Clenching my hands into fists, I grit my teeth until my jaw aches.
“Be calm,” my mother says. She grabs my hand, tapping a single finger against my palm in a constant rhythm.
I force one breath. Then another. Return the tapping with a fast beat of my own against her thin palm. The rage buries itself.
My mind-speak is a weak thread. “There’s nothing more to be done?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing found beneath.”
Mouth falling open, I lunge over and above the makeshift bed, emotions a whirlpool in my chest. She turns. Jolts when I grab her by the shoulders.
“There’s something above, isn’t there?”
She sends a pointed look to each of my hands on her shoulders. I remove them with a sheepish smile. My mother tuts from behind us.
“Yes.”
Heart leaping, I barely stop myself from spinning around the room.
“I’ll find it,” I say in a rush. “What’s it called? What does it look like?”
“Agathe,” my mother says, voice stern.
I turn with a grin. “I’ll find it quick.”
Her face turns blanks. “No. You won’t be going above.” To Desma, “Send one of the other girls.”
Desma’s shoulders tense. “They won’t go. I already asked. This winter is too harsh to risk.”
Too harsh? A bit of cold never hurts us beneath. “That’s fine; I’m happy to go.”
“No.” My mother’s mind-speak comes in a burst.
I wince. “You need this. The child needs this.”
Maybe it’s cruel to use her love for her child as a tool to get what I want. I should apologize but the words stick in my throat. Am I sorry? No, not truly. And when I see my mother’s bruised eyes and pale lips once more, a sense of calm envelopes me. This is what I must do. This is right.
“You’ll miscarry without this,” I say.
Her grip on my hands tightens until my finger bones grind together. “You’ll need a dress.”
Blinking, I exchange a confused look with Desma. “Why?”
“Inexperienced children,” she grumbles. Her eyes struggle to stay open. Her voice drops to a murmur. “It protects you from the cold and the gazes of others.”
I pat her hands before letting them fall. “I’ll find one.”
“Be careful,” she mumbles. Her breaths even out in sleep.
Desma sighs.
I duck my head to catch her gaze. “I need to know as much as you can tell me.”
Yet when morning dawns, casting light over the Akri Sea, I’m no more prepared than before her brief lesson. The sky lightens above in layers of indigo, lavender, and coral.
When the sun glides halfway into the sky, I brave swimming close to shore.
I swim beneath fishing boats, trailing fingers along thei
r curved planks of wood. The fishermen prepare to cast nets, voices loud yet indecipherable when they yell back and forth. A flock of gulls follows suit with shrieks, glad to participate if it means scavenging scraps.
“This will work,” I say. If I say it enough I’ll start believing.
Though Desma watches over my mother, both of them cloistered in the kelp-covered cave, my webbed hands still shake where they slice through waves.
My mother will be fine. I should start believing this, too.
The water loses all shadow close to shore, becoming shades of turquoise rather than the rich cobalt I’m accustomed to. Silt morphs to gravel. Taking a deep breath, I count to ten.
I lift my head and shoulders out of the sea. The morning air raises goosebumps on my skin. I search for the two-legged form, picturing awkward spindling legs. The form turns us to average women except for our songs. Except for the sickness taking root in our bones the longer we roam away from the Akri Sea. Even venturing into the Synoro Sea or the distant Thalassa Ocean does nothing for the sickness. We’re trapped in our wasteland of a small sea.
Become legs, I will my tail.
A searing starts in my hips. The pulsing burn spreads through my tail, leaving each scale in cinders. My fists clench hard, nails digging into the meat of my palms. Trails of blood leak from my hands to catch on the next wave.
Another pulse of pain. Sharper. Deeper. I clench my jaw shut until the bones ache. I won’t bring the fishermen close with a scream. I won’t risk being butchered by men starving only a fraction less than my family.
I see nothing beyond the white-hot pain of tearing. My tail splits in two. Jagged skin. Torn scales. Tears gather only to be whisked away with a breeze.
Jaw close to fracturing, I drag myself onto the strip of sand beyond the sea. Gravel touches the end of my tail. A groan locks in my throat. My eyes burn—with tears or because I haven’t blinked, I can’t say.
Gravel wedges between my scales. The pain is so much. Too much.
All at once, the pain vanishes.
I pant. Tilt my head up to the warm sun. Why has the sky grown pitch dark?
Oh. My eyes are closed.
I open them. Stare first at my bare hips, then the legs beyond. The new skin shines pink, close to raw. Bones tremble like jellyfish beneath my weight.
Gritting my teeth, I force one foot forward. The skin slides smooth against itself and tingles. But I ignore this, ignore the goosebumps covering my entire body, and tread onto the sand one shaking step at a time.
Mud shifts to damp sand beneath my feet. Hands propped on my hips, I force my searing lungs to breathe. Where are my gills? I touch my neck, then abdomen, and find nothing but scarred ridges where they should be. My hands tremble.
“They’ll come back,” I mumble in mind-speak. Jolt when my mouth moves wordlessly along with the thought.
I try again. Manage to mumble the words aloud, though slurred.
Glancing around, I spot little beyond dunes forming a barrier between the beach and where my mother says a town awaits.
My heart thuds at the thought. My family is large, true, but nothing compared to the population of those above. If I’m lucky, there’ll be a handful of others. If not, hundreds.
I eye the dunes. How long will it take my new legs to manage the steep climb? Dry grass poking from the dunes sways in the wind. I sway in the wind. Not anytime soon, then.
The longer I stand, the more I shake. Fine hairs along my arms, neck, and legs rise with another gust of wind. A crisp scent promises snow.
I’m shivering with cold. My mother was right about finding a dress.
A tuneless song echoes from a path running between two of the smaller dunes.
How did I miss the trail running between them? Surely my legs can handle that. Taking a step toward the path, I stumble when a small body pops from behind one of the dunes. My knees land in the sand. I wince at the fresh sting.
The child is blonde like I’ve only heard of in stories, but dark-eyed and tanned by the sun. She spots me. Her eyebrows furrow. “Why are you naked? Are you all right?”
I open my mind to explain. No other mind welcomes my reach.
Right. Those above speak with their mouths. How hard can true speech be?
I open my mouth. All that emerges is a groan. The girl’s mouth gapes open. My face flushes hot.
She hurries across the sand. Her shoes, brown with intricate straps crossed over her lower legs, raise sprays of sand.
“Do you need help?” she asks. A breeze ruffles her fair hair, shorn closer to the scalp than I’ve ever seen. Freckles dot the bridge of her nose. Her brown eyes sparkle with curiosity.
Swallowing another groan, I nod.
She mirrors it, mouth pinched in thought. Her stare drops to my bare breasts, then the rest of my body. Her face flames red.
She meets my gaze again. “You’ll need clothes.”
She pivots, darting between the dunes.
I will thoughts in her direction. Something warm and soft.
Her mind remains firmly shut.
Sighing, I glance over my shoulder. The boats remain a distance from shore. Hopefully I’m nothing more than a speck on the beach to them.
Wind trails through my damp hair. A shiver courses through me. I gather my hair, sliding it over one shoulder. The shivering becomes worse. I cross my arms but it doesn’t help. The cold is relentless, stealing deep into my bones. My pink skin pales, then flushes.
A yelp. The girl trips while running along the dune path. She falls face-first onto the sand.
I wince in sympathy. Even resting my knees against the coarse stuff is unbearable. But she staggers to her feet, resuming a run as if nothing happened. Children above aren’t so different from those beneath.
Once in front of me, she holds out a swath of material. A line of sand runs from her hairline to her jaw. “Here.”
Reaching forward, I grasp the cloth by one of its folds. Rough yet warm against my palms. This is a dress?
Something of my question shows. She pulls the fabric. It loosens into a long tube big enough to cover me from head to ankle. But how do I put it on?
“Did you lose your memory?”
My eyebrows scrunch together.
“Everyone knows how to wear clothes.”
I shrug, trying to convey not me without speech.
Her head tilts to one side. “You’re strange.”
I nod. She’s not wrong.
Her laugh is loud as any gull call yet more pleasant. “Lift your arms.”
I lift them. Her gaze focuses on somewhere past my shoulder instead of my bare body. The woolen fabric slides over my head, then my spine. I blink from inside the tube of material. How does this form any sort of dress? I huff a laugh, inhaling the scent of dirt lingering on the cloth. A trace of something light and fresh.
She notices. “My mother likes to rub flowers against her dresses.”
Hands quick and sure, she pulls the tube down further. My head pops free. She grins at the wavy mess my hair has become.
Flowers. There are plants beneath, some we call flowers, but what must the ones above be like to smell so lovely?
Finally, she folds what remains of the tube, covering my breasts in two layers of cloth while the rest of my body is covered in one. She grabs bronze pins from the sand beside her and gathers the fabric at each of my shoulders, deftly pinning so the dress stays in place.
“There, all done! Now you can stand.” She offers me her hands.
I grasp them. They’re warm in mine.
I’m no longer shivering. When did I stop?
The dress settles. My bare feet peek out from the hem.
I try to let her hands go. She shakes her head, only letting one free. With the other, she tugs me toward the trail. “We have a nice hearth you can sit by; come on.”
She reads my confusion again. Sighs, leading me through the path. Sand surrounds us three-people high on each side. “There’s a fire in the hearth. It�
��ll warm you up quick!”
Fire? Actual fire? But my awe is read as more confusion.
She rolls her eyes, her entire head rolling with it. “Oh, never mind. I’ll just show you.”
Chapter 3
THE HEARTH AND ITS fire are hot to the point of burning if I lean close. I should search for Desma’s plant, but the warmth is addictive.
I curl my body in front of it, bottom resting against the rug-covered floor. It’s both thicker and rougher cloth than the kind I wear. I’m grateful. Otherwise, I’d be sitting in hard-packed dirt.
I eye the textured walls, a sooty film covering every surface, and the scattering of personal items. A mural against one wall, painted in muted shades. The girl’s work. There are other rooms behind closed doors. Curiosity throbs beneath my skin.
Still, my eyelids droop. I force them open. I can’t stay here long.
The girl and her mother whisper, their chairs pressed close together at a low table.
“Excuse me,” a tentative voice says.
I half-turn, careful to keep my body close to the fire but to not outright tip into the hearth.
The girl’s mother blinks, eyeing my mess of hair. “Where did you come from?”
I squint, staring at her, then her daughter. Their minds stay closed. I open my mouth but release only a garbled string of nonsense.
They exchange a glance. They have the same expression. The same furrowing brows and curling upper lips. Their freckles are close to identical. Their eyes shine hazel in light from the hearth and a window on one wall covered in fabric to keep out the chill.
“We’re in Kyma,” she tries again. “Along the Akri Sea.”
This town is named Kyma? My eyes widen in fascination.
“I don’t think she can talk,” the girl says. She smiles first at me, then her mother.
“Nonsense,” the mother says with a raised brow. “She’ll just need to practice.”
I hide a smile behind my hand. For them and their kindness, I’ll practice.
My next try is garbled but better. “Segin.”
The girl stands, shuffling closer. “What?”
Frowning, I try again. “Saeean.”