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

(42) The Deep

Night falls as the blackness of the Shalda-sana closes down around us. The villagers figured out long ago that their hands and tails light up, though not many have sufficient control to do anything like adopt the Shalda hand-language or match themselves to the surface's now-nonexistent glow. I single those ones out and just tell them to switch the lights off. They manage with varying degrees of difficulty.

Was it so hard for me to first get a handle on my own lights? I know I practiced near-constantly for the first quarter moon I spent in the deep, but I also didn't have a choice if I wanted to both stay alive and communicate. I slip into the Shalda hand-language accent almost unconsciously now that we're in the deep, and I can't entirely remember adopting it. Maybe it's instinctive. Or maybe I've just spent enough time around Taiki. I do notice, at least, that some of the villagers have started to brighten and dim their hand-lights when they talk to one another, so the potential to learn is there.

We're at sleeping depth when Taiki first pulls up. I get the distinct sense that he plans to keep swimming—out, if not down—but there are younger and older villagers lagging hard now, plus a few I'm glad are finally getting their comeuppance for lifetimes of laziness. Taiki too looks more sympathetic towards the young and the old. He deals out instructions that I repeat to anyone who couldn't see the signs. We'll be staying here for a brief while to rest, but then people need to pair up with stronger swimmers and ride each other's slipstreams if they're not sure they can keep going.

The villagers loosen their tight-packed formation and mingle, re-lighting their hands to talk. I don't miss the uncomfortable look Taiki shoots the lights. I tell the closest villagers to keep them as dim as they can while still seeing one another, and the message spreads. Everyone's so nervous right now, they all obey without question. Taiki shifts back half a tail-beat as goma Tashagi pushes her way through the crowd and begins to question him on something. I swim around to his side to back him up.

"What is the danger?" she's asking, though her manner is earnest rather than aggressive. "Is this something we can help watch for?"

"No," answers Taiki. That's an unusually abrupt answer from him, and a prickle of anxiety crawls up my skin. "But if you or anyone else feels or hears something that you think is dangerous, let me know."

I can tell he's deliberately omitting details. Goma Tashagi can, too, and she's not entirely happy about it, but the village hierarchy has been completely upturned down here in the deep. Even the village gomas will have to listen to a Shalda-Kel they barely know, and I know I'll have to as well. Still, I hope I know enough to get to Taiki to divulge the truth to me, at least.

He clearly has the same idea, and waits for goma Tashagi to retreat before tipping his head for me to follow him aside. We turn away so the villagers can't see our conversation.

"That wasn't a normal shoal," signs Taiki.

I'm going to have trouble learning what is normal in this ocean if this keeps happening to me. Still, I'm glad he leads with that, because I definitely didn't know enough to have identified the threat. "How so?"

"You felt them, right?"

I nod. I won't soon forget the throbbing vibration the shoal made as it approached and surged by.

"Normal shoals don't feel like that. That was a singing shoal."

It's a new sign, but he translates it with the smoothness of an experienced interpreter. He continues before I have a chance to ask.

"We don't know what they are, exactly, but they all sound like that, and nothing follows them. Bad things happen to tribes or villages that stay after a singing shoal goes by."