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

(23) Song of the Deep

I didn't want to believe it was a possibility.

I am not embarrassed that it takes me a solid ten heartbeats to even read those signs properly. They play back in my head. This is not a miscommunication. We know each other's languages, and I am not misreading.

We know each other's languages.

The tiredness I felt a moment ago is backing away like it's been branded with live coals. Even the tribe's weariness has sloughed off.

"Generations ago," signs Masae, drifting down so we're at a level, "four Shalda tribes set out into the deep to find the Seers of the Shalda-Ki-Tu." She is not as animated a storyteller as Taiki, but her mouth moves on those signs. I've seen them before. Those were the Seers of the eel Kels' era. "There was war at the time, and they wanted safety in the one place no Sami or Karu could go. They wanted to leave the water and live on land."

I would scoff if I did not feel that so viscerally. I am in danger, the Kels are at war, and I want to live on land.

"The tribes brought an artefact with them, found on the seafloor deeper than any Sami or Karu could dive. The Seers saw its power: it was the ring of Hahalua, Andalua's sister and once the second-most powerful of the gods. The tribes asked the Seers for a spell to send them to the islands, using the magic of the artefact before it faded with time like the rest. They were desperate, and their lives were in danger. So the Seers agreed.

"Before the spell was cast, the Seers gathered to sing, as they do every year, and spend every year preparing for. This time, one among them cried out. In the grip of their trance, they sang a prophecy. The transformation would be cast on the numbers of spell, perfect balance, and counterspell, together representing the cycles of the sea. It would be subject to those same cycles. Just as driftwood that falls in the water always washes up on shore, and islands that grow from fire are worn by the waves, back into the sea.

"The Seers sang, 'The people will trade their tails to walk on land, where the sun shines and the wind blows, and the ground is dry. And they must agree that in return, in three hundred and forty-five years, they will return to the sea. If they do not, water will rise and consume the islands and everything on them.'"

A chill ripples up my spine.

"And the Seers gave them a song that, when sung, would reverse the spell that sent them to land. But the people were concerned that they would forget the prophecy or the Song. From this fear, a final Seeing came. If the final year advanced and the people remained on the islands, a Singer would come with the power to reach past their enemies and remind them of the Song. And the Singer would bring them back to the water."

She believes everything she's saying. I don't—I tell myself I don't—but the weight in my chest grows heavier with every word.

"And so the Seers gathered around the artefact, and the people gathered around the Seers. And the Seers sang to cast the spell. As they did, the whole ocean rumbled, a reminder that this was a grave upset of the ocean's balance. A reminder of the importance of those three hundred and forty-five years. When the people opened their eyes, they were lying on a beach like turtles in the sun, with dry sand beneath them and air above. And they had forgotten everything that came before."

No.

"Whether this was the spell, or a last fight from the artefact, or the sight of the sky, we do not know. But the island people picked themselves up and built lives founded on the fear of the sea. They made themselves a new god to replace the hole they felt, adapted the language their hands still remembered to suit their own needs, and taught themselves to read and write from Karu scrolls that washed up among the seaweeds. They took from the ocean when they needed to eat. They were safe, and happy. It took us two hundred years to realize they had no intent to come back to the sea."