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

(18) Singing in the Water

The first part of talking to someone else is finding someone else to talk to. This has never been a task I take lightly, and that's always been in a village where I know everyone as intimately as nineteen years of living in proximity allows. Doing the same in a tribe I've stayed with for a little under three days presents an interesting challenge. I know most of them by name and personality now, but a conversation also hinges on mood, company, and response to a particular topic, all of which present themselves as little blank boxes next to most of the Kels. I roll over with a sigh and start to wander.

The tribe takes on a very different feel when they're sheltering in place, or maybe that's the lingering effects of hunger or last night's events at play. Nobody talks as much as usual, and several Kels seem to have dispersed among the Risi shoals to meander alone or in pairs. I look around as the vibration of singing approaches me. An adult Kel who spends a lot of time with the tribe's children moves slowly among the tiny squid, singing to Ren. Ren's face contorts in concentration as she sings back. It's a rhythm I haven't felt before. Compared to the healing or water-thickening songs, it's quite simple: no syncopation, no complex layers or fine intensity control, and a fairly predictable pattern.

The tiny squid in front of the pair sweep out of the way like a small bow wave as they move. The more I watch, the less I think this is of the squid's own volition. Some jet to safety, but others tumble like the water itself is moving. Another water-manipulating song? It doesn't seem very powerful, but after hearing what I'm pretty sure is the Unity Song sung by two tribes rather than one, I suspect any song strengthens the more people add their voices. Taiki said the Unity Song could protect Kels from a god if a thousand of them sang it together. I imagine it as an immense wall rising around a crowd the size of an island. Or maybe an immense whirlpool. I haven't felt the water move in all the times I've felt the song already, but the biggest group I've felt it from only numbered sixty, seventy if I'm being generous.

Ren and her chaperone have moved on, but another song alerts me to a Risi-singer nearby. It's Sachi. I stifle a smile. He's fun to watch; from what I can tell, he's exceptionally good at what he does, even among the tribe's Risi-singers. Humming almost imperceptibly, he directs half a hundred squid into a tidy ball, then makes them fan out and spiral around his body. When he's got them moving without any strays, he condenses them again, grins, and sneaks off to ambush his boyfriend, squid-ball in tow.

How hard is it to learn one of those songs? Does is take any innate Kel-ness to make them magical, or could I manage if I learned? I try a hum myself, adjusting the pitch of it until it feels the same as the starting note of the song Ren was learning. I couldn't do this on land, and the thrill of gaining a new ability in the water makes me feel like a small child with a new toy. In short order, I have the first four notes, about as far as I remember from the singing pair's brief pass. I swim out to find them, my other mission set aside for now. I want to see if I can do this.

It doesn't take long to catch up to the two. I lurk just far enough behind them to feel the song. Ren's enthusiastic and choppy vibrations strain to match her teacher's, making me smile. Her excitement is contagious.

Even the simplest song I've felt thus far still takes more than forty heartbeats to sing all the way through. At least it repeats itself. Several songs I've felt—the healing and Risi-singing ones among them—seem to shift endlessly, always responding to a fluid reality rather than following a pattern a person could learn. I work up to ten notes, then fifteen, enough to be rewarded by a faint savory taste in my mouth. Nobody's watching, so I allow myself a stupid grin. I hum the fifteen again with all the intention I can muster, hands lifted to see if I'm moving water yet. I'm not. I'd probably need to master the whole thing to start seeing any effect. I dodge around a particularly dense cluster of squid to catch up again, and yelp as my shoulder clips something warm. I reel to the side as someone appears from absolutely nowhere beside me. Rashi help—