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

(35) Ande: Patterns in the Water

We're going to have to explain ourselves to Taiki. I don't feel as bad about this as I could, but we've both been gone for days, I left without telling him, and he thought one or both of us was dead. We also have a lot to explain. Still, I wait for Taiki to initiate this. True to form, he finally wipes his eyes and gives me a look like he wants an explanation.

I don't explain why I left the ruin, keeping it to "I followed Sar," and leaving Taiki to fill in the blanks. He doesn't question me or bristle at the mention, which I take as a good sign. He has been thinking about all this and coming to some good conclusions. Or at least, I can hope. Once I'm past that start of the story, though, things turn unavoidably bizarre.

It starts with the singing fish. Taiki stiffens in alarm at that, and stays that way. After my showdown with the fish comes the half carcass of the sea-goddess tail, and the arrival of the living one who took my dagger in the mouth and gave me my newest scars. Taiki looks sick at the mention of the carcass. I turn a question back to him and discover that he followed my trail, thus putting himself directly behind a singing fish. It's a miracle nothing happened to him.

Taiki looks like he knows something about the living sea-goddess tail, too, and of course he would—he has my dagger. He's grateful to get it off his hands. I bite back the tears its return to me brings. Even if it does occasionally attract an Alualu or a fish from a singing shoal. With so few other fighting skills at my disposal, having a good weapon makes me able to defend people I care about again.

When Taiki has choked his way through his part of that story, it's time to raise the bar once more. This is the point at which I felt singing in the water, and the weirdness of this whole experience passes the point of no return.

Taiki, to his credit, takes the revelation about the giant clam demigod well. Maybe it's his unwavering belief in his people's stories that predisposes him to that, or maybe he's just seen enough in the ocean that it takes more than this to phase him. He goes pale and doesn't sign a word of response for the rest of the story, but his hands, when he does reply again, are steady.

"So it healed you." His eyes jump in Sar's direction and dodge away again. "Both of you."

"Unintentionally, I think. But yes."

"Unintentionally?"

I knew I would have to explain this part, but I still tread carefully. There were fresh scars on the clam's shell. I don't say who Sar and I think left those, and I suspect I don't have to. Taiki knows what conclusion we would have come to. He can choose whether or not he believes it. I brace myself as he lifts his hands, but his response is the opposite of what I was expecting.

"So that means it was hurt when the Karu queen found it, too. Nobody else heard because they were healthy, and nobody's heard it again since because it hasn't had to heal itself."

Sar and I both stare at him. That makes perfect sense, but somehow didn't occur to me. Like some part of me still believed the story was just a story, despite all the impact it's had on our reality. Despite all the island stories I believed just as strongly as Taiki believes this one, before half our island history proved to be a lie. I still believe most of them. If the giant clam demigod was injured back then, though, that raises a new and terrifying possibility.

Sar catches my attention behind Taiki's back. "This has happened before?"

I flick an equally subtle reply. "Maybe?"

Taiki misses the exchange; he's looking sideways with a blank expression that I've come to associate with him processing a particularly challenging question.

I risk another sign to Sar. "Is there any way to confirm?"

They don't answer for long enough that we miss our window of private conversation. Taiki turns back to me. "So what happened then?"