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

(7) Taiki: Sea-Goddess Tails

Half a moon flies by. I want to confirm if Ande is the Singer just as much as she does, but the time to leave for the raid still comes too fast. I make myself inconspicuous as Neem pulls out a stash of bone weapons and sets them in the middle of the camp. The place takes on the somber, intent atmosphere of a gathering hunt. It's something I've only ever felt among Karu, or here.

Fera and Ushi sling bundles of nets over their shoulders and claim short, stabbing bones like smaller versions of Ande's. Loba has a javelin. Neem has a spear. Min stuffs her belt with so many smaller things, I lose count: a strangling cord and several daggers, a pouch of shark teeth, and a number of tools. Where Keshko is a scout, she's more of a burglar. Or an expert in sabotage. I shrink away as Devir turns over a slicing, smoky-glass dagger shorter than his hand, but savage enough to rival sharks' teeth. He runs a finger lightly along its edge, drawing blood.

Ruka has a bone mace with a stone head, heavy enough that I'm sure only she could swing it. But Makeba's weapon is the most deadly. She leans against the wall opposite me with her arms crossed and her eyes roving constantly from the Sandsingers to the sky. Beside her rests a hook cut from the shoulder blade of a sea-goddess tail. The point of it is deadly, but its inside is worse: it's a bone blade all the way along, and I know she keeps it lethally sharp.

There are no more weapons by the time the Sandsingers have all picked theirs, but I don't think I'd want to touch any of theirs anyway.

The last food in camp is squid scraps, water-soft and stale. Everyone shares them around. They don't leave anything here while they're gone, so they don't attract predators and give the camp's location away. In some ways, it's a relief. It means I don't have to worry about taking another piece when people finish and pass the leftovers around. And then night falls, and the Sandsingers gather at the entrance of their camp. Min signs a parting blessing, honouring Chura and asking Andalua to watch over us while we're away. Then Makeba leads the way down into the deeper water. I swim close to Ande again. Just before the Sandsingers all dim their lights, she offers me her hand. I take it. It's a precious reassurance as the shifting darkness of the stone forest opens up to wrap us into nothingness.

Only Devir keeps his lights on as we swim in silence through the forest. He circles the group constantly, the red-and-white flickering of his tail somehow too bright and eerily dim at the same time in the nighttime water. I grip Ande's hand tighter. Devir's Risi live down here. He has no problem hunting them, even enjoying the chase and the kill. From what I've seen of them, the giant, red-light-patterned squid hunt each other, too.

There's no moon out tonight, and the clouds must be storm-thick. There isn't even a glimmer of light from the surface. We don't leave the stone forest. The presence of the pillars in the darkness only gets larger and more oppressive, and soon I can't tell where we are or where we're going. If I get lost, I won't be able to find my way out until the sun rises. Maybe even then. It takes another squeeze on my hand to remind me that Ande's still here. I'm not alone. And I'm not in the other ocean. Not yet.

We've been swimming for a quarter of the night when a faint signal passes among the Sandsingers. I tug Ande's hand in warning the heartbeat before the Sandsingers all dive. They're picking up speed. A current twirls around us, and everyone with lights brightens them until they're just barely visible. On another signal, the Sandsingers begin to chase each other's tails. Now the whole group looks eerily like a giant sea snake slithering through the water. I catch my breath as something shifts in the darkness to our left, then our right. Both match our pace. There's no doubt now what we're mimicking.

Sea-goddess tails. Half giant snakes, half giant eels, they're bigger than anything in the ocean except a demigod or Andalua herself. The ones on either side of us match each other's motions. They're as fast as the currents the islanders named after them: currents that snake along shorelines, then snatch unwitting swimmers and whisk them out to sea. The Karu fear those currents, too—many can't tolerate the depths the currents can drag them to. Our only safety here is in numbers, and with our numbers, we're barely safe. One break from the formation, and we'll be picked off like baitfish.