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

(19) A Warning

Satomi and I dart from the shoals together. A line of Kels already guards the space that the tribe uses as a camp. Children, elders, and a few others stay here, but the rest swim through the Risi shoals and form a line outside them. Two start the sounding song. They run through it only once before one singer's tail ripples with light. The line relaxes, though they don't disband. Friendly, then? I don't see lights in the water.

The first I see of the approaching Kel is a pale, human-shaped blob. It drifts into the darkness just inside the reach of our lights and lurks there, even as the tribe Kels move aside to invite it in. Several of the line's members break away and swim back into the shoals. They return with food. This coaxes the foreign Kel into the light.

It would take a scarf tied over my eyes to keep me from staring. The Kel looks like something that crawled into a cave and died a moon ago. The skin of its human half is pale and sallow, almost white. It drapes slackly over the bones beneath like drying laundry. This appearance is not helped by its facial features: slits for a nose; over-full, rubbery lips; and eyes somehow both hooded and bulging. Also an underbite that a gecko could walk across, if it was willing to brave the near-transparent thorns of teeth aiming for that lack of a nose. Its hair is thin, straight, and straggly, like someone tried to glue feathers to an eggshell and ran out of glue halfway.

That would have been enough for me had the abomination stopped there. It does not. The Kel's tail is flabby and heavily pouched at the bottom, and about as scaleless as a skinned toad. It's not far from the colour of a skinned toad, either. The tail at its end has seen better days, by which I mean it looks like it got used as a chew toy by a juvenile shark.

This does not stop the tribe Kels from feeding it, and it gulps down more than its fair share of squid before it feels comfortable coming closer. Someone gestures to Taiki, who has appeared further down the line. He signs for others to stay where they are and, to my horror, swims to meet our visitor. He bows, then lifts one arm. When his forehead rests in the crook of it, he lights his hand and dips it down like the crowned mating display of some strange bird. The visiting Kel looks pleased. It—she?—bows back, and the most horrifying protrusion lifts from hiding on her head. It's a fleshy rod secured to her forehead, lying back across the top of her skull. The glob at its tip lights up as it swings forwards and dips down just like Taiki's hand did.

What follows then is an exchange that in my opinion deals a cruel blow to the definition of a language. The new Kel moves surprisingly swiftly. Her jaw bobs and her eyes roll, while her hands more flap than sign in the water in front of her. They don't have lights on them. The light-rod on her forehead more than makes up for this, and bobs up and down with enthusiasm. Taiki pantomimes all of this. I would laugh if the sight of those motions on his suddenly very normal-looking body was not quite so horrifying.

The pair converse for maybe a hundred heartbeats before wrapping up with another bow. The flabby Kel, rejuvenated by her meal, more wriggles than swims back into the darkness.

Taiki switches languages. "There are Sami in the water over"—mystery sign.

The Kels around me go still. Satomi's fists clench at her sides. I feel I've been dunked in cold water. Which, given that I'm already swimming in cold water, is quite the accomplishment.

I know that sign. Taiki's made it before, in a tumble of vocabulary regarding an Alualu. It's the thing—or place—that fell when the eel Kels disappeared. I'm certain now that it's a physical entity. It looks big, and structural, but there's a smoothness to it that gives it an eerie feel. Just like the last time I saw him make it, Taiki signs it with the utmost respect.

It's close? Are we going there? This might be exactly the confirmation I want. My chance to see what happened in the ocean when Kel society changed hands.