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

(9) Called Across the Water

The squid swarms thicken, then give way to a village-center-sized space in their midst. I stop as the Luasa do. The woman at the head of our group flashes her tail and spins once like a dancer. Lights appear below us. The rest of the squid Luasa bob back up to us like an ungainly herd of fireflies. I see the dim glow of smiles on tails, then a sudden, bright pulsing. A child has spotted me.

Conversation grinds to a halt as everyone stares. I fight down the compulsion to back away. Then all the lights start to flash at once. Light, excited hands touch my arms and tap my shoulders, and a child's fingers find my tail for a heartbeat before they're yanked away. I spin in a circle, trying to deflect the overly familial onslaught. I can track a pair of conversations in my island's hand-language when I'm back at home, but this is enough to give anyone nightmares about flashing blue lights.

Half the lights disappear behind a silhouette just as I'm ready to bolt. The Luasa boy waves his hands, and the frenzied activity doesn't die, but it definitely pauses. He signs something to the group at large, and I spot the sign for island again before he grabs my arm and pulls me away. I yank my arm back. He doesn't even flinch. We weave through animate, glowing clouds of squid and come to a halt in a gap among them.

"Sorry," the boy signs. He has to concentrate to use my hand-language, but he's definitely fluent in it. Or at least close. "We don't often find new people from the islands."

He's putting a multiple on islands. That didn't even occur to me as a third option: that they're acting like this because this isn't the first time they've found someone like me. Rashi knows, my people have tied enough villagers to the rock in the bay over the generations.

"Does this happen often?" I ask.

"It's..." He's not sure how I'll take this. "Hard to explain?"

"Do they go back?"

"I don't know. We don't usually find them."

Unsatisfactory, but I can grill him again when I trust him enough to actually talk about my problems. Which, given that he's a suspiciously friendly Luasa in a whole tribe of other suspiciously friendly Luasa, isn't yet.

I nod, and he looks relieved. He's coming across as the submissive type again. That's better than trying to kill me, but he still had the guts to grab my arm before. I don't understand him.

"What's your name?" he asks.

Sign names at least are safe from a spellcasting perspective, so I give him mine: a half-inherited, half-personal mix of the gods' sign and the one for peace. The gomas say I started ending my dances with it at the age of three, and they took it as a sign from Rashi. Only sun-dancers get to use the gods' sign in their names.

He struggles to see my fingers in the dark, so I brighten my hand to help him. He achieves the gods' linked fingers with a bit of practice, then completes the sign: that hand held upright, its thumb touched to his chin. He looks at me to confirm, and smiles brightly when I nod. I shiver. He smiles easily and readily, like he's trying to light the dark water with that alone. It haunts me, and I don't know why.

Before I can figure that out, he taps his mouth and tips his head. My heart drops. I should have seen this coming. It's the same in my village: sign name, then spoken one. A spoken name has powerful magic in some spells and rituals, so even Telu's Rashi-blessed learn to pronounce theirs. Do I dare give him mine? I don't know how to say any others. With hand-language so ubiquitous in my village, and everyone paying attention to me anyway, I never bothered.

"Ande," I say out loud.

"Taiki," he returns, if my lip-reading is accurate. He adds the sign equivalent; it's spiky like his perpetually rumpled hair, and bright in the water in front of him. I return it, holding down my frustration as it takes several tries. Little nuances in brightness, timing, and the size of the motion change the meaning, and I much prefer being fluent in a language. Taiki repeats his name patiently until I get it. I'm not entirely sure this charity is less aggravating than having his whole tribe pestering me.