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

(7) Counterspell

I lunge from the den. The waves picked up while I slept, and only get stronger as I circle the lagoon. The water fogs with blasts of sand that sting my eyes, already aching from the brilliant sun. I find my way over the reef-ridge. Water flows in from the open ocean, and my heart jumps as I remember why I'm here. I'm tracing this current upstream to find Telu.

Which would make this encouraging, if the water tasted right. It doesn't. It's different from the current I followed here: sharper and more seaweedy. Do I have time for this? I glance over my shoulder, but there's no sign of motion in what little I can see of the lagoon. At least the clouded water will hide me from the Luasa. That had to be a Luasa; I don't know anything else that could make human-like speech underwater. I touch my fingertips to my throat and make a small sound to compare. The vibration is identical. They were probably even female.

If I can distinguish the water by taste—or smell; they blend together down here—I can find whatever current feeds into the one that took me from Telu to the silt hill. I swing myself over the edge of the drop-off and start swimming around the seamount. Before long, the water's curls are trending in a different direction. The second current I find is murky, like a dulled-down, concentrated version of the one I'm looking for. I leave it and keep swimming. I'm nearly back at the spot where I first reached the seamount when I find one last current. This has to be the one.

It's not.

The final current's water is clear and bright, like the sun-filtered shallows I searched for food in with the silver fish. Like the essence of the open ocean. I swim back around the seamount in increasing panic. I already know what happened here, but I don't want to believe it. The murky current is too strong now, the salty one too sharp. It's not one of them that makes the one I followed here. It's the combination of all three.

I have no idea what direction Telu is.

I'm suddenly battling tears. What did I do to deserve this? Is it not enough that I have to suffer all the way back to my island? I have to hope and be crushed like this, too? I could pick a current at random, but that gives me a one-in-three chance and guarantees I'll have to retrace my steps through Luasa territory if I pick wrong. Plus, I still don't know how far I drifted before washing up on that silt hill. I could be moons from Telu for all I know.

Breathe, Ande. Stop, breathe, and think.

I'm the smartest villager my age. I have better options than running around like a decapitated jungle fowl.

I retreat to the drop-off wall and sit on a ledge of rock. Then I close my eyes and force myself to calm down before I panic and start swimming again. I wasn't worried about time limits when I first woke up in the ocean, but I'm starting to worry now. Spells aren't always indefinite. If this Luasa spell is time-tempered, it could be rendered permanent if I don't break it soon enough. Or it could devolve, turning me into a fish, or even back into a human, to drown in the open sea. With only the shallow river to bathe in, nobody on my island knows how to swim.

How much time do I have to waste? We don't have any stories of someone returning to an island after Andalua's curse, but there's a general rule around these things: the stronger the spell, the longer the time limit. I imagine a human-to-Luasa spell is quite powerful, to have so thoroughly changed my body and senses, but that doesn't answer the question.

Stories are still my best comparison, though, so I run through a few. The spell that turns a child into a Lashrita can be broken before the next full moon to save the child. Lashrita are simple minds, though, a far cry from the consciousness and mixed human-fish form I've retained. I search for a stronger example. The witch of the water? She was said to haunt a river on a perfectly round island, where she moaned when storms blew from the west. She once threw her daughter into the sea in a fit of rage. The daughter turned herself into a sea snake, with venom to protect herself from her mother's hatred. Now, if a person stepped on a snake on the banks of the river, the witch would seethe with anger and turn them into a sea snake, too.