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

(2) Taiki: Island to Island

Ande is different these days. It's not just her sudden, rapt interest in everything navigation- and survival-related, though that's probably the most obvious change. When she's not asking questions, she says less, and watches more. Smiles less. I think it's still sinking in that her people will never return to their islands.

My memories of the last two moons are hazy. My memories of most of my life, really, though that's always been a patchwork—sometimes present, sometimes filled with fuzzy patches or gaps that span years at a time. It's become its own kind of normal. Ande speaks of her own childhood like it's only slightly clearer, which is reassuring. For all I've lost, at least people who don't go through that still don't retain many memories.

Something cleared when she brought us back to her village at the end of the island chain. I feel like I can think straight for the first time in years. Maybe ever.

But Ande's changed. I can see past versions of her like they're filtered through clouded water: like I was there, but also not. She was meaner then, I think. More scared. We used each other, and I still don't remember exactly why; those memories are dominated by emotions, not events. Desperation so wrenching, it still makes me wake up crying some nights, not knowing what I'm grieving for. Fear so deep, it wraps icy fingers around the inside of my chest and replaces the world around me with another one. It's the same, but not. It looks the same, but there's something wrong about it. And sometimes people who I know are beside me just disappear, or are replaced with other ones I can only try to talk to.

Ande's started to recognize when it happens. Which is another kind of reassurance. It's not just me, but also is just me; she doesn't stop existing just because I've been taken to another ocean full of loss and fear and memory. She holds my hands and signs with them, talking me through it and out of it until the real ocean returns and she stops turning into someone she's not supposed to be. She hasn't told me how she got so good at telling what worked or not, and I haven't asked. I'm not sure I want to know.

We stop for morning on the next island, far enough away that we'll be safe from falling rocks if the first one spits fire while we're sleeping. Ande crashes immediately, but I can't sleep. Not when I know better than she does how close we are to several battlefields: her island not far away, and Kuna only two more islands down the chain. I fix my mind on the only thing that will distract me, and slip out of the crevice. We're both going to need food when she wakes.

Sunlight exposes the gentle slope of the island, so I check all around for danger, then swim down until the water darkens and deepens enough that most Sami and Saru would have trouble hunting in it. Gathering food doesn't take me long—the islands are always rich with it—but I've only just turned back when a sound roots me to the rocks. A whimper, almost. A sound of pain. I hold still. Nobody's being attacked; I would hear the thrashing in the water. I stow the food beneath a rim of coral and circle slowly, half my attention fixed on the sound's direction, the other half on the open water. In half a hundred arm-spans, I come around a rock and finally spot the sound's source. My whole body freezes.

Sami.

It's a shark-Kel. A female, not Ashianti, but another with an equally graceful build. She's hiding under an outcropping, gripping her side. A haze of blood hangs in the water. Injured. I lie even lower and watch upslope for any sign of an attacker. Either the Kel came here from a neighboring island, or she fell from above.

Her body convulses. Not just injured. Dying.

That makes my next move safe enough. When I'm sure there's nobody coming after the Kel, I glide around the rocks and pull up in front of her. Her head tips, too weak to jerk around when she sees me. Her eyes are glassy with pain.