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  For Stephen

  Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Mensinga

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition published by:

  Chattersketch Press

  Cover design and interior art by: Sarah Mensinga

  www.sarahmensinga.com

  Maam is dead.

  I’m glad I didn’t see the webbed jaguar bite her neck or the Saltpool men put spears through the animal while trying to save her. And I’m very glad I didn’t hear her use what was left of her life to beg those men to take care of me.

  But if I’d been helping her crack open waterpods instead of catching squid crawlers with Gren, maybe I could have done something. Maybe I could have screamed or thrown a rock to scare the jaguar away. And if nothing else, I would have comforted her.

  That’s the worst part. Maam spent those last moments thinking she’d failed me. I wish she’d spent them in my arms with me singing her a night song. I would have even lied to her and told her that Gren had found a way to keep me safe.

  And it wouldn’t have been a sinking-rock lie, it would have just been a floating-seed-pod lie because now the ocean has arrived, and here’s Gren, trying to make sure I don’t drown or freeze or starve.

  We’re standing together at the Varasay gates, for the mountain city is where deeplanders shelter while the ocean passes by. Plenty of other villagers are here too, gathered in a disorganized muddy line with their belongings piled on wagons. The Teeterwood rises up on either side of us, and it’s as if those drybark trees have lined up to enter the city too. The cold rain keeps spattering down as well. It’s already soaked through my wildwool jacket and fernflax dress, and it makes my skin feel like something rotten I’ve slipped into.

  Sometimes when the tide arrives, it brings storms with it—angry temper-tantrum storms.

  But even though I’m shivering and feeling prickly, I like the weather today. I’m just as upset as those swollen, twisting clouds, and because I can’t let my worries out in a mess of tears, I like that the sky is howling and fretting on my behalf.

  Gren holds my hand tight as if my fingers are fish trying to slither free. She’s a Saltpool elder, or I suppose she is the Saltpool elder if one villager were to matter more than the others. And because the city priests often do what she says, and a few even bring her nice things like salt-sugar bars and rare spices from the trade routes, she thinks she can convince them to let me into the city. My name isn’t in their record books, which is the main problem, but I’m not a criminal like my maam. I just grew inside her, that’s all.

  “This won’t work. They look mean,” I tell Gren, watching the Gray Straps register other villagers and assign them barracks units. My friend Sande says the Varasay guards are named after the belt they wear. Today though, those gray belts hide beneath black, oiled-canvas coats that make the guards look like puddle beetles—the nasty kind that sting you. A few of them carry the thick record books that list all the births and deaths in the deepland villages, and fathoms, do I wish my name was written in those pages.

  “Oh come now, stop trying to squirm away.” Gren tugs me forward. “I always say you can’t drink from a waterpod you haven’t broken open.”

  Gren likes giving advice like that, mixing her thoughts up with old sayings. And although I do stop wiggling backward, I still can’t bear to keep watching the Gray Straps as they move closer and closer toward us, working their way along the line of villagers. Instead I twist around to look at the ocean. There aren’t any trees growing directly below us, so I have a clear view of the tide spreading out impossibly far, covering everything I know with shimmery blue. You’d think so much water would scare me more, but the wandering ocean is a familiar threat. I know that it will always come in the winter and then leave in the spring. What might happen now at the gates is much more unpredictable.

  Not far behind me in line, Sande stands with his parents. And when I look at my friend, he gives me a crooked smile and shouts, “Hey, don’t worry, Nerry. If those uppies won’t let you into the city, I won’t go in ’neither!”

  His parents would never allow him to face the rising water, of course, but I like Sande because he says things like that.

  “What’s your name?” I hear a Gray Strap ask Gren. “And what’s the name of your village?”

  I turn around and find that a guard has reached us, record book in hand.

  “Well, I’m Gren Tya Favis,” Gren says in a voice that only trembles a little. “And I live in Saltpool with many of these folk.” She nods to the people around us. “It’s the village on the currentways side of Coral Lake.”

  “Yeah… I, uh, know where Saltpool is.” The Gray Strap looks through his book, hunching over it, surely trying to keep it dry. After turning a few pages, he makes a mark with a charcoal-and-kelpwood pencil. “And the girl?”

  “Yes, so this sweet child…” Gren pulls me against her colorful, very-patched seacotton robes, and I like that they smell like a cookfire. “Her mother was banished from the city while pregnant, poor thing. I don’t know what her crime was, but you know, my heart just went out to her. Anyway, the poor dear died two sunedges ago, so I took in her child.” Gren hesitates and squeezes me closer. “Please just list her with our village. I promise you she is a good girl and quiet as a diver rabbit. No one will ever notice her. She is helpful and hardworking too—she can already bundle dried herbs so much better than I can. And I promise I’ll see to all her needs.”

  The guard crouches down, pulling back his canvas hood to see me better. His face is kinder-looking than I expected, all wrapped up in a soft, frizzy beard. “Ah, I’ve seen you and your maam from the wall. All of us Gray Straps have… I’ve always been worried for you, hoping you’ll survive the tide. I’m sorry your maam is dead.”

  “I am sorry too,” I say, feeling a warm flicker of hope. Sande says all uppies have hearts of ice, but maybe this man is different. My maam was different.

  “So… it sure sounds like you might be able to help us.” Gren sways, surely looking around for other Gray Straps who might be listening in.

  The guard sighs. “I wish I could, but you know the Threegod priests and their rules. Anyone caught sneaking her into the city would be banished for at least a tide, and the girl would never be allowed in at all, no matter what happened.”

  My flicker of hope fizzles out.

  But Gren tightens her thickly knuckled fingers on my shoulder. “Wait… what do you mean by ‘no matter what happened?’ Is there a way for her to enter the city? A proper way?”

  The guard stands back up, tucking the record book into his coat. “If she ever marries a deeplander, she can be registered. Sometimes folk bring in drifter brides.”

  “But Nerene is only eight tides old,” Gren says. “She’s far too young to marry, and there’s no time to wait. Her mother kept her safe, so she’ll be easy pickings for landrunners if she’s alone. And who knows what the criminal bands will do to her, and there’s also the cold…”

  The Gray Strap’s mention of marriage, though, reminds me of a patchy, not-quite-thought-through plan I had a few days ago. I’m not used to talking to strange adults and certainly not uplanders, so I turn to Gren. “Member when the Narroes adopted that baby from Pirock? There was a ceremony, and the priest sent a letter to the city to change the record books. What if you did that? What if you adopted me all official, with papers and everything?”

  It seems like a good plan to me, but Gren makes a despairing sound, and the Gray Strap frowns as he wipes rain off his beard.

  “I suppose you’ve had your two children?” He looks questioningly at Gren.

  She nods sadly. “Daughters, a good twenty tides ago.”

  His shoulders drop. “Yeah, that won’t work then. Even if the priests agree to adoption, t
hey’ll want it to be someone who hasn’t had their two. But maybe another family might be willing…” He trails off at the slapping sound of quick, wet footsteps, and I don’t have to look to know Sande’s coming toward us. I recognize his happy, skipping run.

  “We’ll do it!” he tells the guard. “My family, the Olins. We’ll adopt Nerene. My maam can’t have another baby anyway.” He leans forward as if sharing a secret but then keeps talking just as loudly. “She’s been praying and praying to the Water Goddess. She says Threegod don’t listen, so she may’s well try someone who will, even if it’s—”

  “Sande, shh, quiet,” Gren says in her firmest voice. And even I know you can’t talk about the Water Goddess so high up the mountain. Deeplanders aren’t supposed to worship her anymore.

  Sande’s hands curl into fists. “All I’m saying is they’ll adopt her. I’m sure of it. You just wait here, and I’ll go tell them what they’re gonna do.”

  He splashes off and soon returns with his parents, big Trennet who often gives me extra food and skinny Bessel who always looks like she’s wincing in pain. Both of them wear hooded, finely woven wildwool coats, and as they hurry over to us, Bessel is quick to say, “Look, I don’t know what my son has been telling you, but we can’t adopt this girl. Threegod hasn’t blessed me with a second child yet, but I have faith it will happen.”

  “Oh come now, Bessel,” Gren pleads. “If we leave her outside the city, she’ll die.”

  “That is upsetting, it is.” Bessel lowers her voice to a whisper. “But let’s be honest, this is her mother’s fault, not ours. This girl’s fate is not our responsibility.”

  Trennet, Sande’s father, looks at me sadly as if I’ve already been torn apart by landrunner teeth and claws. “Yet if we save the girl everyone will think highly of us. It would also make a rousing fireside story.”

  “I don’t care about stories,” Bessel says, adjusting the sash around her waist with swift, sharp tugs. “Besides, isn’t there a family who’s a better fit than ours? How about the Tayvers? I hear she’s barren.”

  “The Tayvers are young, only just married,” Gren says. “You haven’t had a child in eight tides.”

  Bessel’s hard face seems to harden even more. “Other women have gone longer and still given birth.”

  “Please, be reasonable,” Gren says in her wheedling and sugary yet still insistent way. “You don’t need to mother the girl. Just let the priests think what they need to think, and I’ll take care of the rest.” She nudges my shoulder and winks at me. “And you’ll take care of me in return, right Nerene?”

  It’s strange that Sande isn’t arguing with Bessel too. But looking around, I realize he’s not even standing with us anymore. “Where’s Sande?” I ask.

  Yet even though I’ve asked the question, all the adults look at me as if I also know the answer. And after a moment, I realize I do. “He’s hiding,” I say, turning to the sopping Teeterwood trees. “He said if I can’t go into the city, he won’t go in either.”

  Ten Years Later

  Carnos turns to me. “Did you look for him?”

  I wish he wouldn’t ask such dumb questions because of course I didn’t help search for Sande. He was hiding to save me.

  “Oh but the rest of us looked,” Gren says, eyeing me. She knows it was a stupid question too, and what does that say about my future husband? “Sande was in the Teeterwood, though, so there was no finding him ’til he wanted to be found. We searched through the whole night, and the ocean kept rising up and up, closer and closer. Finally Bessel gave in, and she and Trennet adopted Nerene. As soon as it was all official, little Sande came strolling out of those drybark trees. I’ll never forget the way he was grinning like a bubble fox who’d caught a mudhopper. Bessel whipped him of course, but our Nerene was safe.”

  “Well good.” Carnos nods. I think he’s approving of the adoption, not the whipping, but with his blank expression, it’s hard to be sure. “I don’t understand though,” he continues. “What does that story have to do with our wedding?”

  Gren manages not to roll her eyes or cluck her tongue, but she does strum her fingers on the stone she’s grinding dried beetles on. “How ’bout this… here’s a simpler version; Nerene was adopted by the Olins so she could shelter in Varasay. And even though she’s always lived with me, the Olins’ll have to present her for marriage at the city gates. The Gray Straps will expect that.”

  Carnos’ brow is still crumpled in confusion, and I try not to be frustrated. I’ve always known that his many good qualities: kindness, bravery, and honesty, come with a certain simplicity.

  “Bessel hates Nerene, of course,” Gren explains further. “But she’ll cooperate.”

  Carnos turns to where I’m sitting in the shadow of a kelp tree, giving myself blisters as I pluck drowned beans out of their tough hulls. “I don’t see how anyone could hate you,” he says.

  As sweet as that is, I nearly say, “Just think about it for a moment,” but I hold my sharp words in. If Carnos did think about it, though, he’d know that I counted as Bessel’s second child, therefore she was forced to have the procedure and could never carry a baby again.

  “I know that woman, and I don’t trust her,” Carnos’s mother, Itanda, says. She’s sitting beside me, also in the shade. The Kaelnos family is from far away Riversborn, but they arrived in Saltpool yesterday so they could travel up the mountain with us. Itanda looks a lot like Carnos with wide shoulders, thick eyebrows, and dense hair. She makes a heavy, disapproving sound as she tightens a neat, red stitch on our wedding gift, a thickly woven seacotton blanket.

  “Oh don’t worry, Bessel will cooperate.” Gren dumps powdered beetle shell into a bowl. “She won’t risk getting herself in trouble. Besides…” Gren smiles at me. “Since your Carnos is taking our Nerene off to live in Riversborn, I’m sure Bessel will do everything she can to help.”

  And what Gren doesn’t say is that the true reason Bessel wants me gone is that she surely suspects how much I mean to her son.

  But what does Sande think of my betrothal? I have no idea. I haven’t even seen him since last tide, for he’s been working at the motorliner track house.

  If only I could marry him, but because of his childhood stunt to save my life, as far as the city priests are concerned, he’s my brother.

  Wind makes the canvas tarp covering the top of our stone hut ripple and dance. We’ve already removed our kelpwood roof, shutters, and door just like we do every tide so we can use the wood to build wagons. Usually I enjoy these final nights in our partly unmade home so long as it doesn’t rain. The night air flows more freely around our sleeping mats, and I like how the soft, leafy shadows meet and part on the canvas overhead.

  Tonight though, I just can’t seem to fall asleep. In the morning we’ll say goodbye to our village for the winter and begin the difficult journey up the mountain. And when we reach the city gates, I’ll be married to Carnos. I was hoping I’d see Sande before we left. I want to let him know why I’m getting married, and it seems crueler, somehow, if he doesn’t know about my wedding until after it’s over. But he hasn’t returned from the track house yet. And when I walked over to his parent’s hut this morning, Bessel told me that he probably wouldn’t be traveling to Varasay with the rest of us; he’d be riding the motorliner.

  “Believe me, I’m not happy about it either,” she said. “We need his help pulling our wagon, but apparently there are still some final shipments coming in. As if I care about the uppy harvest.”

  So here I am, lying on my sleeping mat, wide awake. It doesn’t help that Itanda is snoring and sprawled between Gren and me, and it doesn’t help that I just keep thinking about everything. It’s like my mind is running in wild circles. More time passes, at least an hour, and still not tired, I get up. Quietly slipping out of our hut, I creep past the Kaelnos’s wagon, which is piled high with their belongings. Carnos and his brother Marl sleep beneath it, and they don’t stir as I tip-toe by. Just as softly, I creep through
our village, built on the sloping banks of Coral Lake, and I soon enter the kelp forest. Thankfully both moons are also awake so there is plenty of light. Nima, the larger moon, is round and full, while smaller Moro is just a timid crescent skimming the dark kelp trees.

  Most villagers would never enter the jungle at night, and most of them shouldn’t. But I have two snappers tucked into my sandals, and I’m pretty good at using the sleeper darts. Gren and I often go on overnight trips to gather herbs.

  Roots slip over my feet, it’s as if they’re trying to trip me, and my thoughts slow me down too.

  Is marrying Carnos the right choice? He’s nice enough, but I certainly don’t love him. Whenever I share my doubts with Gren, though, she always says something like, “Your Maam would like him. She wanted you to be safe, and he’ll do that—take care of you. He’s like a boulder that doesn’t move while the ocean passes by.”

  Not far off, a bird calls out in a lonesome way. It’s not a song I recognize, but that often happens. Creatures are misplaced by the tide and can’t find their way home. I always feel bad for them.

  I soon arrive at the dead boat—where I tend to go when I need to think. Most deeplanders are afraid of it, for they believe it’s full of death shadows, so it’s a good place to be alone.

  The metal skeleton of a steamship probably once carried an uppy family around the tide, but now it’s covered in shell barnacles and wave-crest vines full of frilly green leaves. The wreckage has never frightened me though, and I’ve always felt safe here. Maam and I used to sleep in the rusted hull when I was young because the criminal bands thought it was haunted too. And when she died, Sande and I came here to escape our chores. We would often play sirens, with one of us pretending to drown the other with irresistible wavurl powers.

  And more recently, we created a baby here that broke a lot of rules.

  Or would have.