Fate

I've heard of glass, but I've never seen it. I imagine it might look like this, the water of the Demons Bay reflecting the birds wheeling overhead. The light doesn't sparkle and glint, but glows in a single unbroken expanse.

The water is smooth today, as I have never seen it. No ripples mar the surface. The islanders say the smooth water is a bad omen.

My own people call that smooth expanse the doors of fate, and say the one who breaks the stillness will enter another life.

A child crying behind me interrupts my thoughts.

Those children who cannot breathe in the water are rare, those who cannot breathe above it even more, but we must save both. Or try. Our children are always born on the sandy shore, just in case.

The mother sags into the arms of the midwife as the child screams. I stand silent as the midwife and her attendants complete their tasks. The woman's husband waits in the deeper water.

Soon enough, my turn will come. I feel it, a sense of great doors opening, the doors of this child's life. A stretched tension in the air, but aimed at the land rather than the sea.

I stare out over the smooth water I once called home. The midwife bathes the child, and tests its breathing. "Land child," she snaps, and the mother sobs quietly. She looks up at me, her eyes begging for reassurance.

My fate, my gift. The midwife wraps the child in a smooth blanket of woven sea fronds, and shoves it into my arms. A cold welcome into a cold world. I look past it, study her. "We will stand on the shore every evening." I say this for the mother's comfort, not for the midwife's stony hatred. She will not kill the child, but no more will she acknowledge its existence.

The mother doesn't wait to see us leave, but drags herself across the sand and into the water's embrace. Her tail slaps on the sand and she walks on her hands until she has enough depth to propel herself forward. She will watch my cliff from the deeps and hope for a glimpse of the lost, reassurance that her child lives.

The midwife and her attendants follow. The water returns to its smooth waiting. The tension of great doors opening remains, stretches the moment tight until I have difficulty breathing in the salty air.

* * *

The old woman's chair sat empty, the small globe she carried with her everywhere abandoned on the sagging porch. Xad looked toward the beach and shook his head. He didn't need to see the trail of heavy steps through the sand to know where he would find her. He walked out along the vine-covered cliffs and down the sand to squat beside her.

She rocked back and forth, back and forth, staring out over the smooth water with eyes dimmed by time. Someday she would wander into the water, lost in her memories, and not return.

Xad kept his eyes on her weathered face rather than the dangerous water. "Come, Mother." He placed a hand under the old woman's shoulder. She got to her feet willingly, although most of her weight rested on him.

"I swam out to the breakers, once," the old woman muttered, but Xad shook his head. He knew the old woman's stories by heart, but still he asked. "What was it like?" They walked along the sand. His feet sank in up past the ankles, the old woman so light she could nearly walk on the sand. The islanders didn't swim in the poisoned water of the Demons Bay. He wasn't sure whether this was a true memory or something she made up in her confused mind.

She wobbled, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her. She leaned her head over on a creaking neck to look up at him.

"Wet," she proclaimed, and shuddered. "Cold. I got out to the breakers and clung to the rocks, and I felt at home." She tried to turn, to look out toward the sea again, but Xad kept her aimed toward the village. She pouted and pulled against his hand, then seemed to forget and came with him.