I skidded to a halt in the sand and then crashed down to my hands and knees. Something was climbing the cliff!
“Hey!” I cried, more afraid for the creature’s safety than I was for my own. No animal I’d ever seen could climb such a sheer wall.
I watched, transfixed, as it moved all four limbs in combination like a spider. The animal scaled the wall until it reached a flat surface out over the water. Though hard to see with the noonday sun glaring down in my eyes, I could tell the thing was not covered in hair like the wild dogs of the forest. It had dark tan skin, like a boar, or... an Erdlander? My mother’s voice swirled in my mind: They have skin as dark as the bark of a tree, and hair on their heads, thick like rope. Their eyes can be black or green. Once I even saw one with eyes blue, like the bay, but don’t let that fool you—they don’t possess the wisdom of the sea, only the cruelty of the sun.
The creature hunched on the plateau and reached into a bag slung over its shoulder. A handful of the now-dry paper I’d laid out on the beach emerged in its clutches.
“Give those back!” I screamed in the Erdlander tongue. Paper was precious when you lived alone. Besides, it was mine.
At the sound of my voice, the creature turned and scanned the beach. Hair covered its features, but I spied a pair of bright blue eyes.
“Go!” It spoke Erdlander with a tone low and gruff, like those of the men on the melodisks.
The voice scratched against my ears and the cadence of the word was wrong, but somehow, I understood.
“No! Give those back!” I took a step in the direction of the talking beast.
“Mine!” He stood up, towering over me.
The plateau easily sat fifty feet up, so it was difficult to gauge height, but whatever he turned out to be, he was tall. I shrank back, having never seen an Erdlander or a man. My courage evaporated.
“Mine,” he repeated, then shoved the pages back in the bag and scampered higher.
I watched his retreating form until it was just a spot in the distance.
3
From then on, I walked everyday to the end of the beach and stared up the cliff side. I wanted to see him again... or maybe I wanted to reassure myself he wasn’t coming back. For weeks, whenever my mother retreated from the midday sun to sleep beneath the water’s surface, I repeated my walk.
He became more idea than man. I was sure he was male; his body hadn’t curved like mine and my mother’s but had been straight and hard, like pictures I’d seen in books. Hunters and princes were men. Which had I found?
I didn’t mention the stranger to my mother, or his theft. When she asked about the missing papers, I blamed their disappearance on the wildness of the wind. She frowned at me, judging my loss, but said nothing.
The longer he stayed away, the more I imagined about him. The memory of his face blurred as the days passed, but the feeling in my stomach when I thought of his voice grew stronger. Questions mounted in my mind. Why was he here? Why was he alone? Why did he run? Perhaps Erdlanders were not as cruel as my mother had told me.
I imagined his voice, low and hard, speaking to me over the fire. At night I would lose myself inside dreams of touching his tan skin.
Mother never said a word. If she noticed my distraction, she didn’t ask and didn’t interrupt. Likely she was just glad I was acting more like a Sualwet, detached.
I busied myself with the mundane tasks of life on the beach. Mother fished and hunted what she could while I separated the salt from the sea water, giving us drinking water and salt to preserve what little meat we had.
The small garden I’d built flourished. Behind the cove, only a few paces into the woods, was a clearing with rich soil. I planted seeds Mother salvaged or from any food we found, which we’d cultivated year after year until we had a rich variety of fruits and vegetables. When rainwater wasn’t enough, I used our drinking water to care for the plants. Mother didn’t really need the water to be separated from the salt, but she enjoyed the taste.
Days passed and the moons overhead traversed the sky, calling to me. The smaller moon moved briskly. Sometimes its cycle would adjust and it appeared during the day. Eclipses were rare, the moon too small to block out the fire of the sun, but it passed like an inkblot across the sky.
The larger moon fascinated me the most, with its deep red surface. In the fading sunlight, sometimes its reflection would fill the whole sky with color. I loved those nights and would always ask Mother if I could sleep on the beach. She never joined me, preferring to spend those nights underwater, out of the sight of the moon’s ruby eye.
Mother said the second moon was so far away because the night gods had banished her from the land, and that she was large because her heart had swollen with loneliness and regret. When I asked for more about these stories, she scoffed and refused to elaborate. Gods are of no use to you and me, Serafay. They are only for those with something to pray for.
The sun had dropped low by the time I finished tending the garden and checking the crab traps. I made my trek to the cliff wall, pacing my steps and keeping my advance steady. Despite my moderate approach, my heart swelled, making it hard to breathe.
He was there! The mystery of his existence was no longer of importance. All I could think about was his nearness.
I drew closer. The pressure in my chest built until I was sure my heart would become a hummingbird and fly away. Excitement tingled in my fingers, in my liquid legs, in my breath.
When I was near enough to hear him, I stopped and stared up, waiting for him to move or speak. I stood as if a devotee at the foot of a god. The longer I stood, the less I could distinguish about him.
He was simply too far away. His hair hung down again, disguising his features from view.
“Hello?” I ventured, speaking in Erdlander.
“Huh? You.” He stretched out a finger and aimed it at me, questioning.
I nodded and smiled up at him. My stomach threatened to heave and my hands shook at my sides as he studied me. The sound of my loud breathing echoed in my ears as the touch of his gaze on my skin excited me. Every inch of me was on display, but not the way Mother had warned would happen should I ever be found by Erdlanders. I didn’t feel like a specimen.
“You,” he repeated, his voice softer.
“If you come down here, you can point at me easier,” I teased. My gut flipped at the thought.
His head tilted to the side, bringing more of his dark tangled hair over his face and hiding the blue eyes I saw every night when I drifted to sleep. Even holding impossibly still, I sensed the tingle of his gaze against my skin.
“I promise not to bite.” My mouth spoke without my consent, and I shivered at my boldness.
“Bye,” the man stated in a gruff, abrupt tone. He turned and grabbed hold of the wall, and climbed along the ridge until he disappeared into the forest.
“Wait! I didn’t mean—” I shouted after him, running behind his retreating form. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, sliding to a stop.
Why would he leave? Standing on the beach, I stared up at the ledge he had spoken from. My disappointment seeped out of me into the sand. I stood there, dissolving, having finally met someone who wasn’t my mother or the few disapproving Sualwets who still kept in contact with her. I’d lost my chance before even seeing his face.
“No bye,” his voice was close, soft.
I turned and found him before me, tall and intimidating. “Right. No bite.”
“Huh,” he grunted and squatted. He stayed beneath the canopy of trees, not venturing out into the brightness of the beach. Legs crossed and body still, he watched me.
The sensation of being seen was remarkable. A light glowed within me, heating parts of myself I hadn’t known were cold.
“Hello.” I approached in slow, even steps and sat in the sand at the edge of the forest.
We faced each other in silence, me in the sand, the bright sun warming my back as his eyes warmed my soul. He was difficult to see, as his thick black hair ha
nging in front of his face twisted haphazardly. Dark shadows fell around him, hiding him from the sun. Heat beat on my shoulders.
“Torkek.”
“What?” I asked, startled by the sound of his voice.
He shook his head and pulled the hair hanging in front of his face to one side. Peering at me were the most vibrant blue eyes, the color of sapphires or the ocean beyond the cove. His nose was straight and broad, his face narrow. A scar cut through one eyebrow and dirt smeared his features.
How could creatures so beautiful and so terrifying exist? I longed to touch him, to pull his hair away and reveal the rest of his face, but the shaking of my hands stopped me.
“Torkek,” he stated again, with a quirk of his lips. They were wide and full.
Why do I want to touch them?
“I... Tor.”
“That’s your name?” I asked.
A mouthful of teeth greeted me.
“Okay, hi, Tor.” I raised a hand, smiled, and placed the palm of my hand on my chest. “I’m Serafay.”
“Sera?”
“Yes, Serafay.”
“Tor.” He grinned again and nodded.
“Why are you here? Where do you live?” I spat one question after the next, not giving him time to answer or process what I was saying. The world opened before me as I spoke to someone I only knew as Tor. The possibilities of what he represented were mind numbing.
“Tor, huh Sera.”
“What?”
His forehead wrinkled and his jaw line hardened as he chewed on thoughts he couldn’t verbalize. He pulled at his hair as he struggled to find the words.
“Stop that.” I shot up and approached him, pulling his hands away from his hair.
Such contact was unusual for me, but instinct dictated I stop him. Despite the many scars along his arms, his skin was soft. I sat in front of him, still gripping his hands. He turned away, and his dark flesh turned a reddish hue I’d never seen before. Was he like the chameleons, adjusting color as his surroundings changed?
A huff came from him as he looked down in his lap.
I sat so close, our knees touched and my hands held his in a tight grip. If I released him, he might disappear into the shadows. I’d just ventured into the darkness of the forest, leaving the hot sand behind me. The small distance was profound.
Our hands were so different, mine small and pale, almost translucent when not in the sun. Blue veins ran beneath my skin and small sun spots speckled my arms. His hands were large and calloused, the nails short and worn, and ragged, sharp cuts littered his knuckles.
“Sera,” he whispered without raising his head.
“You can’t talk much, can you?”
“Huh,” he grunted, his shoulders sinking down as his head lowered in embarrassment.
“It’s okay. I talk a lot. Even if you don’t understand, that’s all right.” I reached out, close enough to brush his hair away from one side of his face. Coarse and thick, it was knotted in ropes. I pulled my hands back, placing them in my lap, afraid to touch him.
His eyes remained locked on his hands.
“Tor.”
He looked up at the sound of his name.
“Where do you live?”
He squinted at me.
I pointed down the beach. “I live down there, with my mother. Where do you live?”
“Huh.”
“You live somewhere nearby, up the cliff?” I pointed to the ridge where he’d stood only moments earlier.
“Huh, up.”
“I never saw you before you stole my papers. I was really looking forward to putting them together and seeing if they were from the same book. It’s been a while since I had a new story to read.”
“Mine.”
“Nope, those are my pages. My mother found them fair and square.”
He shrugged his shoulders at my declaration of ownership but made no attempt to give the pages back. “You go.” He stood, and his hair fell back over his face, hiding him behind the veil of black.
I remained frozen on the ground and watched as he slung his small bag over his shoulder.
Without another word, he disappeared into the forest.
4
The next morning, I woke before my mother and began the fire. The days were getting hotter and the idea of cooking appalled me, but I couldn’t eat anymore of my mother’s preferred breakfast of fish eggs, cold from being buried deep in the ground of our small cave. The warmth of the slow-rising morning sun battled with the heat of the fire as I boiled potatoes and other vegetables I’d harvested earlier in the week. Alongside some of the meat I had dried, it would make a fine meal.
I threw in extra, thinking I would take it down to the cliff wall later.
I didn’t understand Tor—why he didn’t speak, why he kept running off. It infuriated me but made my curiosity about him flare. He was dirty and unkempt. Did that mean he lived alone? Did all Erdlanders take such terrible care of themselves?
My mother would know, but asking her would just pique her curiosity and make her watch me closer. She was content to leave me alone during the day because I’d stopped venturing out of the cove.
The forest held little allure for me since I’d met Tor. What did a footprint or a new fruit matter to me now?
~Serafay,~ Mother grumbled as she unfolded from her hammock. Sleeping on land left her stiff and ornery. I’d told her to sleep under the surface, but she refused. ~I leave you alone too much as it is,~ she would say whenever I brought it up.
~Morning.~ I smiled over in greeting.
She shed her night clothes and walked naked out of our simple home. A splash rose as she dove beneath the surface to rejuvenate her dehydrated flesh.
My breakfast finished cooking and I ate while sitting on a stool. One of my older Erdlander books lay open before me; I’d long ago memorized the words within.
~Why do you never read the Sualwet texts I bring you?~ She passed me, heading for the hole where she’d hidden her breakfast.
~You tell me those stories. These I have to learn from books.~
She shrugged and disappeared into the dark cave, reemerging a moment later with the canister in which she kept her fish eggs. After sitting on a mat near me, she began eating.
I looked away, pretending to return to my book. In reality, my thoughts wandered to my upcoming visit to the cliff wall and Tor.
~Serafay!~
~What?~ I snapped from surprise. ~Sorry, I didn’t hear you.~
~You didn’t hear me? Was the volume of the empty cove too loud?~ Mother stuck her hand back into the canister and pulled out orange roe.
~Sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?~
~Nothing. If you aren’t interested enough to listen, then I see no need to repeat myself.~ She stood up and replaced the top of the canister, turning her back on me.
I followed her with my eyes until she disappeared into the gloomy cave. Pushing for my mother to explain something had never gotten me anywhere. If anything, nagging made her more overprotective and less conversational, so I waited.
~I’m heading back to the shipwreck tomorrow. The sharks will be gone and any rescuers will have come and gone by now. It’s been a few weeks, so what’s remaining will be on the bottom of the seabed. There were a lot of supplies and food in canisters left on that ship—enough to last us all winter, without hunting, if we wanted. And books and Erdlander clothing. I’ll need the nets and whatever bags I can use to bring anything I can carry back.~
~Can I come? I could help you carry it,~ I ventured.
~No.~
~We could go tonight if we hurried, then you wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me when I go up for air.~
Mother pulled on her dress and ran a webbed hand over her bald head. Her black irises almost filled each entire eye as she gazed at me. She did not repeat herself; her no had been final.
I longed to go with her, to go anywhere. I needed to see more of the world, and staying behind was killing me.
She couldn’t understand. Sometimes it seemed she didn’t know anything about me. When she looked at me, I realized how different we were. My reflection, in the small hand mirror resting in my basket, must have been as alien to her as she suddenly looked to me.
~I’ll lay out the nets.~ I stood, knocking my book over into the sand.
Mother reached for it and eyed the scrawl on the open page. ~I don’t understand how you read this.~
~It just makes sense,~ I replied with a shrug. It never seemed odd to me that I could understand the Erdlander words after listening to melodisks. No one had taught me Sualwet either, yet I spoke it.
~It’s an ugly language. You should be glad you speak Sualwet.~
~Sualwet sounds different underwater. Up here, it’s probably ugly to the Erdlanders.~
Mother stared at me, her eyes hard and cold.
I understood why the sharks never bothered her when she was swimming. They were as afraid of her as I was of the sharks. Her icy glower broke me down until I closed my eyes and moved away. ~I’ll get the nets.~
~Make sure there are no knots.~
~I know.~
~Serafay?~
~Yes?~ I turned back and my mother’s eyes were softer, but she still held the offending book. A knot gripped my stomach.
~I’m sorry you don’t have anyone but me. I know it’s lonely and....~ She paused and looked down at the object in her hand. ~I am glad you have books to keep you company.~
~Thank you,~ I whispered, and escaped into the cave to gather the nets before hauling them to the beach.
I’d never realized how much I wanted more than just books and my mother to keep me company. Not until I met Tor. Now that I knew he was out there, life became lonelier than before. Each moment away from the cliff agonized me, and I suffered to return.
I unrolled the nets we’d woven together from rope and discarded fishing nets. We spent hours untying the knots of the broken nets and weaving them together in a tighter knit, so we could use them to haul the items she found. The nets became tangled when stored. I didn’t understand how a thing could become so gnarled sitting still. Yet they did; it always took three times as long to unravel them for use than it did to fold them for storage.
Two Moons of Sera Page 2