Linksshifter II

A Path Between The Waves - ~~~~~

"And they're all still out there? All fine and they don't want to come back? That Liam came back, even as rough as you say he had it – and they put posters up for him, they didn't just pretend he'd gone to an auntie's and never come back. Do they get to come back, or do the pelts come off them and they drown if they try?"

Colleen shifted a little, rolling her bottle between her hands. "He said he didn't want to bother us – said he wanted to see his friends, and he thought he could make it by himself. But he didn't know how far it was – he's no been weaned yet, and until he's full one of us he's never strong enough to swim it the whole way back from where we stay. And he washed up on that beach still in his shape – the pelts stay on, but an it's no your own, the way mine is, the way his'll be when he's grown to us, they fall off if you're out the water too long."

Sonali nodded and took another sip, backwashing half of it back into the bottle. "And you just believe him? This kid, who's grown up his whole life learning to no get his old folks mad at him? And none of the others, none of them got friends on the land, a gran or granda who gives them sweeties? I mean, I can see what you're doing, like, and I feel for the weans, but when weans go into Child Services on the land, even if they get adopted out, they can still see folk from their old life if they like. With yous, they've got to step away full, cut every tie – and it's no like I don't understand that, I was well raging with baba when I left the house the day, it's no like I haven't felt like I'd do the same, but you canny ask weans to do that at eight and ten. Bring them back; let them grow, even if it's shite, even if you know their folk are mistreating them and Child Services got their case at the bottom of the pile and nobody's lifting a finger. Come our age, that's fairer; maybe some of them will go live in the sea when they get to school leaving, but these are weans the now. You said it yourself: they wanted to run away, and you showed them a dream. More of them, time goes on, are going to miss this and that from the land, and they're going to come and go, and it'll get worse for everyone." She drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around, looking out across the sea to the horizon.

Colleen hunched up as well, the wind whipping through her hair, thinking, following Sonali's gaze out into the deep. One minute, then two, still and silent, her eyes even and cold and impossible, impenetrable, as alien and unreadable as the sea itself. Sonali just sat, keeping to herself; she'd said what she could, and if she might want to try and say some of it better, take some of it a little further, this wasn't the time. Anything she said now, anything she did other than just sit and wait, let Colleen come to the end of her own thoughts on her own, would be just sticking her nose in where it shouldn't go, trampling on things she didn't know anything about, couldn't completely understand.

A gust of wind ripped across the cliffs, and Colleen turned to the side, holding her hair back with her hand. As it fluttered back down, she looked up, looking over at Sonali as she brushed it down. "Aye," she said at last. "Aye, you've the right of it. Even when we wean them, it's their bodies that change and not their minds – we can't change them any more than you could change me, nor me you. And you're right; the longer this goes on, the more of them will try to go back, and maybe it won't end so well the next time. I'll go; I didn't really want to join the swim team and it would just be for uni admissions anyway. I'll go and bring them back, and then you can bring them home." She stood up, still holding her hair back, maybe shielding her face from more than the wind.

"And then we'll bring them home," Sonali said, standing up, taking a swig of her bottle that nearly resulted in her belching it out all over the other girl. "No mind – I'm no going to grass you up, it's just if there's five and six of them, it's better to have two to keep them from running off, aye?"

Colleen looked troubled. "Right – I get it, but it's just – I can't take my clothes with me, and I wouldn't feel right, like, undressing in front of you here and then walking down to the cave in this thin pink skin." She shivered, clutching her arms. "So I couldn't –"