Fish Out of Water

by Ros Baxter

  She was far away, and her fists were balled at her sides. I wanted to tell her it was okay, she could stop. But I wasn’t the only one with an interest anymore. And she understood it.

  “But he had changed. I was due to go for my watch-keeper year, and we planned to reunite afterwards. We even planned secret meetings while I was away.” She looked at Carragheen, and at me. “We could not stay away from each other. But then, after he returned, he no longer wanted me to go. He was so worried; he became obsessed with the land, with it being the place that would see the destruction of Aegira. He forbade me leaving. He became angry, and violent. He was so dark. Like only those who have suffered grave disappointment can be.”

  She hung her head, and I wanted to scream at her that there was no shame for her in this. But none of us said anything. This was her moment.

  “When I found out I was pregnant, he was ecstatic, but by then he terrified me. I planned to run away, to take my baby far away from him, to the land. But he found out about my plans.”

  Her voice caught, and she twirled a piece of hair through the long fingers of one hand as she remembered. I saw Carragheen nodding, and I covered his hand with mine.

  “He was furious, told me to leave, but that if I took my baby he would kill it. Kill her.” She looked to Lecanora, love and tears in her eyes. “I could not bear it, even then, even before I knew you. I said I would stay, I would have endured anything to be near you, but by then…” Mom paused delicately. “By then he was mad with rage. I knew I had to get away. When she was born, I fled. I swam. I thought I could hide her, on the land. But, again, he found us.”

  Before I realized what she’d done, Lecanora had wrapped Mom and me up in her strong embrace. Mother and daughters. Sisters. But Mom wasn’t finished. And we were in her thrall.

  “I knew that I had to leave. He would have killed her in his rage. But how could I have left her with him, knowing what he had become? I would have died to protect her. Happily. But I think he saw the opportunity our baby presented. And when I knew what he planned for you, my darling,” she said to Lecanora. “I knew that you would be okay.” She looked to Imd, who was crying quietly among us. “I knew you would be a mother like no other.”

  “Not like you,” Imd offered graciously. “But I loved her with all I had.”

  “Did you know?” My question was impertinent, but would Imd sanction such a bargain?

  “About ten minutes before you did,” The Queen smiled. “Although at times I had wondered about Lunia.”

  My brain was so dizzy I could hardly remember the now-automatic skill of water-breathing. I tried to imagine Mom, leaving her child behind, in order to save her. I am the child of this woman; I know how she loves, with complete devotion. I thought about how much it must have hurt her to see Lecanora, briefly, during our visits. The thought stopped me.

  “I wonder, why did he let you visit? It was a risk.”

  Mom was about to answer me, maybe she even started to, when there was an interruption from one of the royal guards. He whispered frantically in Imd’s ear for a few moments, before she cleared her throat and straightened. “What you have to say you can tell us all,” she commanded.

  The young man looked unsure, unused to such lofty company, but did as he was bid. “We have completed the questioning of Kraken, using the lighsa serum. I can report without hesitation that he is not responsible for the kidnap of Imogen and Lecanora.”

  The room made a collective noise. My eyes flicked to Carragheen, whose face was stone.

  The guard went on. “We have verified that he helped develop the forgetting spell, which The Triad sanctioned against the community. But he knew nothing of Imogen and Lecanora.”

  I was on my feet, swimming around the guard. “Did you learn anything else from him?”

  The guard hesitated. “I’m not sure he is… well. He was ranting about…”

  The guard’s eyes flicked quickly to me, and Mom. He looked apologetic.

  “Dirt-dwellers. And he has a suspicion. He… believes Manos has returned, to take Aegira. And he has been investigating someone about whom he has had concerns for some time. Someone he believes to be aiding Manos.”

  “Who?” The Queen was frosty.

  “Epaste.” The guard looked horrified.

  Mom’s hand flew to her mouth, and I remembered what she had told me about their friendship. “It’s not possible,” she started, but then she stopped. “But maybe I don’t know anything anymore. I have not known him for a long time…”

  There was more in her face than she was saying, and I nodded at her. “We were best friends, like I told you,” she said, to Lecanora and me directly. “It ended after I fell in love with Kraken. I told Epaste, and it was then… he confessed love for me, begged me to be with him. When I would not, he took the vow of silence.” Even knowing it may be him, my heart ached for the young Epaste, and I could tell that Mom’s still did too. “He was so good,” she said. “Even then, a friend of the refugees. He had dreams of unity for the whole underwater world.”

  The guard looked to the Queen for direction. “Bring Epaste to me,” she said.

  The guard hesitated. “And Kraken, should I release him?”

  “No.” The Queen was severe. “He has other crimes to answer for.”

  The Queen dismissed us. Carragheen, Lecanora and I couldn’t believe it was finally over. We were exhausted in ways we’d never known, and sleep was the only salve for the wounds we’d suffered. Rick insisted, and Rashind backed him up in his insistence. And although there was so much I was trying to work through, and understand, the lure of sleep was strong.

  Imogen was going to need much more than sleep. Rick was with her when I stopped in on her before lying down to close my eyes. She looked like a broken doll, and as I watched Rick with her, so gentle and able, I felt a wave of fear. The lead soloist. The most perfect creature of Aegira. Without a voice.

  She saw me watching her.

  It’s fine, Rania, she telepathed. A voice is not a soul. I’m still here, and I will heal. I may never find my voice again, but I have my life. Thanks to you. To the three of you.

  I telepathed too, because it seemed rude to speak when she could not. And to Zorax.

  She turned her face to the wall. I do not know what he will think of me now, now that I am… mute. I’m not sure I can bear to see him.

  I shook my head in disbelief. It’s amazing, isn’t it? What love will do to us. Here she was, this beautiful young thing, worrying about what some old guy who looks like Santa Claus might think of her. A guy who, in lots of ways, was responsible for her predicament.

  I squeezed her hand. I know some things, I told her. And I know that he loves you more than your voice. And he wants to make things right. Think about it, when you’re better.

  Rick uttered a small, pissed-off sounding squeak and I took it as my cue to beat it. On the way back to the chamber that had been prepared for me, I saw Lecanora, lounging in the hall.

  She looked scrubbed, pink and peaceful, and held out her arms to me. I fell into them. She felt so good, like coming home. For the first time since it had all happened, I cried. I cried and cried like I’d lost everything, rather than saved it. I cried for all the pain, and the danger, and for the sick, sad feeling I couldn’t quite shake that it wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  She just shushed me softly, indulgently, and it was amazing to know, now. To finally understand, maybe, why I loved her so much, when she was so different from me.

  Like ice to my fire.

  As I held her here now, dear and close, I reflected that she was one of the things that held my life up. Her. Mom. I tried not to think: and Carragheen. Instead, I thought, not a bad tally. Two people who would die for me. Or even better, try to save me. Some people don’t even have one such person. And I’d always thought of myself as so alone.

  Lecanora pulled back from me, and held my face. “Thank you, dear one,” she said softly.

  “Hey, no way babe, thank
you,” I corrected her, remembering how her managing to retrieve her voice from that evil box at the critical moment had been the difference between us all dying writhing in agony on sea floor, and getting to go sleep in one the Queen’s famously comfy beds. “You’re the one who found your voice just when it really mattered.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” she mused, still softly, like she was only now reacquainting herself with her voice. “Trying to work out why it came back to me, remembering that silver thread. It’s like the thing let my voice go, as it started to heat up, before it did that thing to Rila.”

  “I don’t care why,” I said, touching her shoulder. “All that matters is that it did, and not just because it saved us all. I couldn’t imagine you without a voice.” I was thinking about the broken girl lying in the next room.

  “There are worse things,” Lecanora responded quietly. “How is Carragheen?”

  I looked into her steady, blue-grey eyes and knew she was worried about him. For what he now knew of his father, for what he’d had to do. I marvelled at her empathy, even at a time like this, when she was still hurting.

  “He’s my next stop,” I told her, and I was aware that my uncertainty was in my eyes as I said it. But I didn’t need to hide it. From her, or anyone.

  She considered me carefully. “I was wrong about him, you know,” she told me needlessly. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve only known him for a few days, but I can see what you feel. He is a good man. I knew it, you know, even before this… even with everything wild he’s done in his life.” She broke off. “The true test of a person is what they will do when they are afraid. And he came through for you, Rania, for us. He never wavered. You are very lucky.”

  I was not sure if that was true. But I did know that after tonight, I trusted him.

  Completely. Finally.

  “There’s something else you need to know, Ransha,” she said.

  “Really?” I couldn’t believe I needed anything else right now. I was so tired.

  She nodded again. “I heard it from my mother. It’s about Leisen. She’s… she went into the spirit-house at Wave-sigh.”

  I shook my head, unable to compute what she was saying. “Why? I mean, Carragheen said she was sick, searching the Gods…”

  Lecanora sounded sad as she told the tale, and I thought what a wonderful Queen she would make. “Leisen has been unable to care for her daughter for some time. She needs to be with her Gods. She is broken. She sought the Queen’s permission today, and was given it. The Queen… my mother... said that Leisen was happy. She said that at last she will know peace.”

  I was so sad for Leisen that I couldn’t make the connections. More people broken by Kraken. More women ruined. But Lecanora joined things up for me. “So their marriage is dissolved, Rania. You remember, don’t you? That’s what happens when you enter the convent. I know that they never really lived as man and wife, but now, don’t you see? Carragheen is free.” My heart tripped over this news. Free. And at last the doubts were gone.

  My mind turned to Doug, and the pain and fear for him was still there, but I knew that was all that was there. He was my friend only. A friend I would avenge and care for as I could.

  But first I had to sleep. I would die if I tried to hydroport again before I had.

  And before I did, I was going straight to Carragheen. I didn’t care anymore what he knew, or didn’t know. I’d only known him a few days but when all you’ve got is a few weeks, there was no time to play coy.

  Then another, different kind of knowledge gathered in my heart as I saw in Lecanora’s eyes the wistfulness she was trying to smother. And I realized I must tell her. “It will happen for you, too,” I said to her. “I can feel it. A love, for you.”

  “Really?” She sounded dubious, but as though she’d like to believe me.

  I nodded.

  “Can you share what you see?” Now she sounded like a teenager, curious and impatient.

  “Sorry,” I shrugged. “A feeling, not a vision. No visuals.”

  She sighed, and in it was all the exhaustion we both felt. “Time to rest,” I whispered, touching her shoulder. She nodded, agreeing, and backed into her room, closing her door gently.

  I was planning to stop by the chamber reserved for Carragheen before I tumbled into sleep, but as I passed my own room, I saw him lounging on my bed. The tiredness in his eyes mirrored that of Lecanora, but there was something else too. Something less straightforward, less easy to cure. I sat down beside him, and pulled his head to my breast, stroking his hair.

  “What can I do?” My heart longed to offer some comfort from his pain and shame.

  He shook his head. “It will pass,” he said, trying to sound confident. “I’ve known for a long time that my father was not the man Aegira saw. But to find him capable of this…” He coughed. “It is as though the foundations of my world have shifted. I always felt like the misfit. As I got older, I let go of it. Maybe the problem was never really mine, but his.”

  I had no words to offer him, so I comforted him in the only way I knew. I brought his face level to mine, and kissed him with all I had to give. With my heart, and my hope, and my desire for him to feel whole and well again.

  To feel like the man I knew him to be, untainted, unstained by his father’s twisted dream.

  He pulled back. “Rania,” he said roughly. “I need to tell you. About your mother and Kraken. I didn’t know. Not really. It’s just that…”

  I silenced him with my lips, and as I did I tasted the salt of his mouth, and felt the dead weight of his arms spring back to life, snaking around me and pinning me against him. I felt a hunger in him, a need to take, and to be sated, and I was willing to give whatever he needed.

  So I did.

  I kissed him with a hunger to match the ferocity of his. I stripped the clothes from his body quickly, furiously, and covered him with all of me. I squeezed his chest, his arms, his buttocks. I ran my hands through his hair, over and over. I tore the pants from his legs like a mad woman. Within seconds, he was inside me, deep inside, straining and bucking to get deeper, wrapping my legs around his waist and crushing me in his embrace. He was kissing me the whole time, drinking from me. Driven, starving. And I was giving him everything I had. My nerves were tingling at the glorious beauty of him, at the electric fizz of his touch.

  He was my world, shrunken to this.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from him, but his gaze was somewhere else. Concentrating, focused, trying to get back to us. I tightened myself around him and twisted my body so I was all he could see, all he could feel. I dragged his head back down to mine, and devoured his face, his mouth, his neck.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  I could feel it in the bunch of his muscles and the uncertainty in his touch. He needed to talk. It took all my willpower, but I stopped. “Okay, what is it?”

  He waited a moment, catching his breath. “I have to tell you. I can’t have you wonder.”

  I nodded. Okay, but talk about timing. Couldn’t we do this after?

  “There had always been things,” he started. “Things that made me wonder. About my father and your mother. But I knew after I found Leisen. She told me. My father would call her Lunia. She looks like your mother.”

  The thought disgusted me, and I shrank involuntarily. I took his hand. “It’s not you,” I assured him. “It’s just hard to comprehend. Poor girl.”

  He needed to say more. “I wanted to tell you. I was going to, that night, on your sofa. But then you found the shells.”

  He looked at me and could see, finally, that it didn’t matter. He had my trust, and the words meant nothing. I knew him, like I know my own skin. He was just like me. And he was mine. Then he was with me again, and there was no need for more words. The demons had been cast out by the sheer brutal force of the thing we both wanted, and his face was still hungry, but focused on me alone as I felt the eruption begin in every cell of my body.

  There was no epicenter to this sto
rm. My whole self was on fire, and the blaze that surrounded us was all that existed. I was drowning in sensation, and in the hard, furious pace of a love so wild I wasn’t sure either one of us could survive it. As it rained down exorcising fury upon both of us, we clung together like children facing a storm, and rode it out together.

  When it was over, he was panting in my arms, utterly spent and I knew the sleep to come would be the kind I’ll fantasize about through every night of insomnia I ever experience for the rest of my life. I was so totally fulfilled I didn’t even think about a cigarette.

  As we went together to a dreamless place where no words were required, I knew that this was not the end of the trials for us, but that together we were a force to make the universe shake. And I fell asleep weeping a prayer of thanks to Ran.

  Day Six: Dawn

  When I woke, he was kissing me, and his fingers were insistently circling my face and then lower, to the small of my back, my buttocks, my thighs, then around to the front, and across my stomach, my breasts, and my face again. I was ready again, so ready.

  He reached down again, picked up my arm, the one with the burn, and spent a few seconds running his rough-soft palms over it. Something about it, the way he was concentrating his touching on the kernel of my fear and self-doubt, undid me.

  I pulled him down onto me, bucking against him impatiently, and he looked at me with a question in his eyes, seeking reassurance, seeking permission. I answered him with my hips and then we were one, again, and I was dizzy and lost with the sensation of him everywhere inside me. It was different, this time. No less intense, but without the ferocity. In its place was infinite gentleness, the softest sigh that was whispering in my ear that this was only the beginning, so there was no need to rush. I felt as though we were swimming toward one another, a slow, deliberate stroke through soft water. He looked lost and focused all at once, and suddenly the wolf was gone and he was a little boy, perplexed but joyous, riding a brilliant wave.