The Seas of Distant Stars. Francesca G. Varela
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do you have to put so much pressure on her? Don’t give the shell to her if it’s that valuable,” Uncle Sonlo said as he stood up, stretching his thick arms in front of his chest. “She’s just a kid. You know she’s going to drop it or something.”
“No I won’t!”
“She’s responsible,” Pittick said lightly. His wide jaw settled into a smile. “I trust her.”
Agapanthus took big steps to her trunk in the children’s hall. She wanted to run there, but her legs were too tired. Sometimes, after a good long rest, she could run for short bursts, but then her muscles began to ache, and so did her spine, and her lungs. Even the bones in her neck seemed to tighten. Most of the time she preferred big strides instead of running.
She delicately nestled the shell next to her pile of folded clothes, along with the collection of pretty rocks she’d found out by the Waters. Now she had fifteen, counting the shell. It fit in perfectly with her collection. She only picked up rocks that were different; one was shaped like a triangle; one had a crack down the middle, exposing light-yellow sparkles on the inside; another was a purple so dark that it looked black unless she held it up to Imn.
“We’re leaving now, Aga!” Leera voice echoed through the hollow walls.
“Coming!” Agapanthus called back. She rushed out into the women’s hall. Aunt Imari, Grandmother Surla, and Great-Aunt Tayzaya waited there.
Aunt Imari rushed happily toward Agapanthus, her delicate hand ready to meet her head. “There’s my little one!” Imari’s sons had married off to different houses just before Agapanthus was adopted. It was a hard thing for a mother to have only boys, because they always left. Sometimes they even went to different islands, and then you could only see them at festivals. Leera had once told Agapanthus that this was why Imari was so kind toward her; she missed her own little ones.
“Hello there, Agapanthus,” Surla said. Grandmother Surla and her sister Tayzaya rarely offered their hands to Agapanthus. Today they simply smiled at her. Neither looked as old as they sounded. Their voices seemed to be the most aged part of them. Everything they said came out sounding feeble—at least compared to Leera and Imari’s warm, hefty voices.
Imari withdrew her palm from Agapanthus’s head. She walked outside without giving Agapanthus a chance to reciprocate.
Sonlo and Pittick were waiting, their backs turned to the bi-sloped house. Sonlo looked like a giant, compared to Pittick. They were the same height, but Uncle Sonlo’s body was just bigger—more bulky and laborious. Agapanthus liked Pittick’s smoothness better. She thought curvy muscles looked better than sharp-looking ones. Hopefully Pittick wouldn’t end up like Sonlo when he grew older. But, then again, older men usually looked more like Sonlo. He was a strange match for Imari. Her shoulders receded into her neck with smallness, meagerness, fragility. Sometimes Agapanthus wondered if something was wrong with her, but she was afraid to ask.
In a long line, the family headed toward the cafeteria. They walked along without speaking. Each footstep crunched against the gravelly dust.
Then a scream surged over the cliffs. Then another and another, building upon the echoes of the first, until they all blended together into a tunneling, quavering, mass. Grandmother Surla led the family in a slow succession toward the chanting. They walked expertly sideways over the unsteady, sloping ground. As they made it over the top of a red cliff, the Waters came into view. Agapanthus had come to think of the Waters as a person; a very old woman, her arms spread wide to encircle the center of Deeyae, and the warm sky above it, too, and all the Deeyans and the water beings and the Others and even the exchangers, like her. She wished she could speak to the Waters. Well, sometimes she did, while she practiced swimming along the shoreline; she muttered into the musky-tasting water while her lips were submerged. What she really wanted was for the Waters to say something back to her in a velvety, kind voice. Agapanthus, good things are in store for you, the Waters would say, oh so wisely, with each word unrolling like a slow, curling wave. Of course the Waters would be all-knowing; a future-seer. A goddess. To Agapanthus, the Waters were more godly than the Gods themselves.
A growing crowd hovered at the edge of the Waters, all dressed in sleeveless shifts made of thinly stretched leathers—some of better quality than others. Tayzaya and Imari drifted into the mass of people, but the others stayed back to survey them.
“Another coming-of-age attempt?” Leera said to Pittick, her gaze still latched onto the crowd and the dark expanse in front of them. “I don’t even see anyone out there. They must be pretty far.”
“I see them. Way, way out there.”
A man wearing a black-stone chain around his neck pushed his way from the crowd and lowered his head toward Surla. “Surla Caracynth,” he said in a deep, creased voice.
Grandmother Surla patted his nearly hairless scalp. “Akinan Pelloi.”
The man was tall enough that he could touch the top of Surla’s head without her even bending at the knees. Agapanthus recognized him; he was a member of the Council. He had only been added on two years ago. Everyone had been surprised; he’d come out of nowhere, some boat-builder from the other side of the island. But apparently the Gods had been happy with him, because the Contact called Akinan up during the yearly island-wide meeting, and he’d made the announcement right then and there.
“Do you think he’s going to make it?” Surla asked.
“Who is it, who’s swimming?” Leera stepped closer to Akinan.
Akinan coughed. “He’s the son of Lapars Rq,” he said. “And I think he is going to make it. He’s already halfway to Shre.”
“Do they have the boats ready over there?” Leera asked, her voice high, her fingers to her lips. “Did someone tell them?”
“I’m sure,” Akinan said. “He picked a bad time, though. Yes, the wind is calmer now, but it’s about meal time. He’s keeping everyone from the meal.”
“Maybe he was hoping everyone would be eating so they wouldn’t stand here and watch him,” Pittick said.
“If that’s what he wanted, then he was stupid about it.” Sonlo laughed with his shoulders. “He should’ve started after everyone was already inside eating.”
“As long as he makes it,” Leera said. “I always get so nervous.”
“I still remember your swim across, Leera,” Grandmother Surla said.
“I do too,” Pittick said. “That’s when I first saw you, it was right after the Festival of Imn, right as I was going to head home. You swam fastest of all the women that year. And remember the celebration after? I don’t think I’ve ever eaten more.”
“See—if Lapars’s kid does it today, we won’t have to worry about missing the meal. Maybe this is all a genius plan to get more food,” Uncle Sonlo said.
“We don’t have much in the stores,” Akinan said. He crossed his arms, and his necklace rattled. “And today was a slow hunting day. The celebration will have to wait until tomorrow, I think. If they can catch enough.”
“The kid probably won’t even care,” said Pittick. “He’ll be a man after this. That’s why he’s doing this. So his life can start.”
Agapanthus sat down in the dirt, stretching her legs in front of her. Her knees were too tired to continue standing. She imagined herself swimming like this boy; swimming like all children did to become adults—the flowing, transient Waters wrapped around her from all sides, floating, in space; blackness as she closed her eyes, as her arms flew in rhythm with her breath, like the water drums at festivals. Very few exchangers could make the long swim from their own island, Yeela, to the neighboring one, Shre. Some even drowned trying, because it was forbidden to help anyone attempting the rite of passage swim. All anyone could do was stand and watch.
The shore of Shre was clearly visible on the far side of the Waters. It appeared shaded; a dark, dark, red, like the dry skin on