Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(24) Somewhere in the Darkness

The currents from the canyon dissipate this far out from the canyon mouth, but I think I know how to get my bearings again. I drift down through the water, my tail countershaded to camouflage me. The lights of the tribe mill about below like wandering stars.

At last, I'm low enough to see the seafloor beneath the Kels. My heart lurches painfully. Seiko is curled up in the divot I left in the mud, and is refusing to listen to Satomi as she tries to coax them out again. I force my focus to the mark behind them. I landed haphazardly when we stopped here, dropping to the seafloor and letting myself drag to a halt. The streak my tail left is still visible, pointing back the way we came.

I wish I knew how the Kels navigated the open ocean. My swim back towards the canyon is the most nerve-wracking since the time I fled the tribe and realized I'd lost my way in the deep. I have no idea for the longest time whether I'm moving straight or in circles, drifting off on a hopeless tangent, or still going the right way. I'm so glad to find the canyon current again, I stop in the water and close my eyes just to breathe and shake my tension.

The memory of Masae's story returns instead. I frantically bury it and lurch into motion again.

The currents roll and braid through the water, big and slow. Even with nobody to see me, my face heats up as I swim and swim and still don't reach my destination. Am I really that bad at this? I hate not even being able to look after myself down here.

Finally, the current straightens. I catch myself swimming a little too forcefully, and slow down. My need for answers is not worth charging into danger if there are still Moontail Kels ahead. I wish I knew how they detected us. Sight? The only lights I have on are the countershading lenses on my tail. Smell? I'm downstream of the canyon, and I'm not bleeding. My island intuition starts up a fight with my ocean one over whether or not I should be swimming closer to the seafloor. My island side says yes, I need to stay low. My ocean one reminds me that one less direction to watch means one less direction to escape.

I hate the backwards logic of the sea. Day is night and night is day. I use light to camouflage, but too much light is dangerous. Close to shore is dangerous, but so is far from shore, close to the surface, close to the bottom, and everywhere in the middle. Currents are helpful except when they aren't. And Sami are some of the most dangerous inhabitants of the ocean, but Ashianti-Kel territory is still safer than anywhere else for nearly half the year. The Ashianti are Sami, too.

The ease with which the list grows only validates my helpless frustration. Seamounts are valuable and fought over except when they're muddy and abandoned. Songs don't need to be heard to work, except when they do. Demigods sing, except when they don't. Islanders don't remember the transformation song, except when they use it to all come back to the water. And now apparently the tribe believes I'm the Singer, except for the fact that I can't sing and don't plan to, either. Certainly not for the Kels.

The current is very steady now. I slow down and hover, swimming just enough to stay in place. Calm down, Ande. Focus.

Something so hot it burns nibbles at the pit of my stomach, but now isn't the time to release it. It's not going to help me find Taiki.

I had forgotten how far we traveled before stopping to rest. I swim on without sight of the canyon for so long that I begin to fret that I found the wrong current. Maybe I somehow caught the ones circling the islands, rather than draining down from them. The thought almost drives me to strike out sideways in hopes of reaching the drop-off wall, but the logical half of my brain catches me just in time. Itta and I swam a fair distance before stopping, too.

I'm so tired of keeping my guard up without results that I've nearly let it down again when something pale passes by beneath me. I panic much harder than anticipated. In a moment, I'm frozen in the water, tail curled. The white thing slows and begins to drift back towards me.