Flowers for the Sea Page 6

  And it follows.

  Before my very eyes, tiny buds the size of a doll’s button nose plump and fatten and ripen, inflating within three of my ragged breaths, ready to eat within five.

  “Go on,” the voices push. Seductive. Anxious. “Pluck one. They are for you.”

  I reach for one slowly, my arms betraying me as they compensate in balancing the child, curiosity damning my fingers into touching the enchanted fruit. The loquat is soft and ready, and my nails dig into the stem, popping the fruit off. I rub the skin gently between my fingers, feel it slip away from the pale flesh. Unable to hold back, I shove it to my face, my teeth sinking in so hard and fast, they knock against the seeds. But I do not care. I am hungry for it without having known, starving for fulfilment of a freshly dug hole in my appetite. I clean the fruit until there is nothing but ovules in my hand. I count an unheard-of fifteen.

  “You did this, naiem,” the voices say. The irritation of a mosquito bite pricks my breast and I look down to see my child still suckling with vigor, her released hand manipulating the skin for fuller access.

  I glare at the child, adjust her accordingly, then pluck more fruit before continuing to my quarters.

  * * *

  “You did not answer me, naiem,” she—the voices say as I shut the door behind me.

  “Stop calling me that,” I sneer. “And I did not do that for you.” I lay her gently in the hammock. The longer I stare at the unraveling swaddling, the more annoyed I am by Ket and her newfound nerve, so I turn away. Shame creeps up the back of my throat, acridity beating out the sweetness of the loquat, and I feel my nakedness. I busy myself looking for clothing.

  “Mm, really?” Smug. Indignant. I bristle. “Then for whom did you?”

  “Myself. Ket has disrespected me, disrespected my—” I stop myself, my hands stilling in a pile of discarded rags.

  “Yeeesss, do go on,” she hisses. “Sssaaay it, mine naiem. Possess me. Lay claim to us all!”

  “I did not ask for this!” I cry out, dropping the clothing and rushing towards her. “I want no parts of motherhood! I want no child to follow in my torched footsteps! I have no wisdom to give, no traditions to pass!”

  “You misunderstand me, naiem,” she says and for the first time, her tone is laced with something like mercy. “I am not here for your salvation. I am not to bear your load, in neither hopes nor traditions. That is not my purpose, nor is it yours to mould me in thine image.”

  I step back, swipe violently at my face, blink my eyes into clarity.

  “Come. Take me to your breast,” she demands softly. And, gods above and below, I follow the pull of my womb towards her, scoop her from the swaddling which reeks of others, and I hold her close. Then I’m moving back, back, my feet dragging along the soft wood, catching splinters, nestling them deep until—“Now lay with me. It is time for you to rest.”

  —until my knees hit the edge of the cot. But I instantly know rest means sleep and sleep means dreams. I do not want to dream, I do not want to—

  “It is time for you to remember.”

  * * *

  I breathe once. Twice. And a shadow flits at the corner of my vision.

  It is time. I will be with my family. Swallowed whole, like them. Fire refused me. And so, I surrender to the sea.

  Breathe.

  The darkness falls away as I close my eyes, dazzling auburn heating my lids. My limbs are weightless, my hands floating at my sides. Empty.

  Breathe.

  The roar of the fire fills my ears, the current pushing me along.

  Breathe.

  The screams . . . they drill into my skull . . . my eardrums vibrate with their pitch . . .

  . . . Breathe . . .

  The smell . . . growing stronger . . . flesh sizzling . . . my flesh . . .

  . . . b r e a t h e . . .

  “Not here, naiem, not now.”

  And I am being pushed, blasted through the water, up and over and up, up, up until I burst through the surface, my lungs emptying violently as I vomit bile and sea and smoke. The gust of wind wakes me, chilling me to my core. I convulse and I realize I am being held up, the water lapping at my waist. I look down. Hands against my hips, holding me. Four-fingered and webbed. Black. Nails serrated, thick, three inches long.

  And I start to thrash. My legs swing wildly, my arms aiming for the hands, beating, beating until I am dropped into the sea. Shock sucks at the waters, deep and hard, but hands, those same hands, hold my head still and through the gloom appears a face, like that of a fish, narrow, silvery, but the lips are markedly human, the eyes possessing no iris, only swirls of vivid purple. They’re pretty, those eyes, their brilliance blinding, hypnotic, seductive. The lips connect with mine, and a pocket of air with the density of a sweetie eases past, slithering its way down my throat, and suddenly I can breathe.

  Not like before. Not the breath of death. But the breath of morphed existence.

  I scream and the lips disconnect, the being backing away. It steadies itself a yard away, still too close for my comfort. The light of its eyes bleeds into the sea, the glow growing. In a few moments’ time, I am able to see it fully. Its skin is a shade of iridescent indigo, the sparkle of it shimmering in the purple radiance. The hair is long and thick, more like a halo than floating silk. Gills frame its face, six in total, three on either side. They move independently of one another and I notice they have a hand in keeping the being steady, along with its webbed hands.

  I continue watching it, the seawater failing to sting my eyes as I inspect. Six nipples on its torso, equally spaced, following the tapered V of its abdomen. I cannot help it; my eyes fall to its apex, but no obvious markers of sexual organs can be seen. The legs appear fused together, fins on both ankles, until a larger current encircles us, forcing them apart to keep it steady. Keep us steady. I am moving with it. What its body does, mine mimics.

  I want to speak.

  “So then speak.”

  Its mouth doesn’t move, but the voice is not in my head. It reaches me in ripples, caressing my cheeks until it settles in the shells of my ears. All instantaneous. All not. It is startlingly intimate and not entirely unwelcome.

  I open my mouth, but it shakes its head.

  “With your mind. You are not equipped to speak like me. Not yet.”

  I frown. It tilts its head.

  “Firstly, I am not an ‘it.’ What I am surpasses anything you can imagine, though more than a few of you have seen us.”

  I think of the young villager, the other outcast of our coastal hamlet. I think of how she’d mysteriously fallen pregnant after refusing several offers of marriage. I think of the whispers, of the rumours that she’d lain with a beached merman on each occasion she’d been asked.

  “We are not mermen, either. Strike that from your thoughts. You will never understand what we are.”

  Then why am I here? I think angrily. Why did you save me? Why are you keeping me alive?

  At this, the being does something like a smirk, and I shudder.

  “It is not you, naiem, but your anger that is destined for so much more.”

  I want to frown, but it feels wrong to. I want to ask questions, but I do not know where to begin.

  “Ask, naiem.”

  My anger . . .

  “Is too powerful for this life to keep to these shores, to this smallness. It is more than Amit, more than a spoiled prince of a small land, more than your family, more than your outcast status.” I nearly choke with each revelation. The urge to run hungrily snares at my curiosity and I am tempted to undo this magic, tempted to breathe deep once again. “Your grandmother had her chance, but her heart was softened by the generosity of a land-dweller. We’ve been watching you, naiem, and your wish for death is even smaller than this piddle. You’re too angry for death, too truthful to deceive the world with your passing.”

  My death would be a lie?

  “Yes, naiem. Just as your grandmother’s was. You pulse with greatness. That pulse does
not die with your body. It shifts. It moves. It lives on until your prophecy is fulfilled, whether in this life or the next.”

  I want to back away from this foolishness. I want to ignore the words my mother had spoken to me just that evening, before the fire, before I’d stormed off in search of Amit, of his warmth and loving words and needy embrace though I’d known they meant nothing now, that I meant nothing. To him. Or at least not enough. I was not enough for him.

  You carry the anger of your grandmother, she had said. That anger will spark something so much bigger than you, bigger than our hill, bigger than this nation. Amit will never be able to handle that. Never be able to handle you. No lover will, I fear. Most certainly not a rotten lineage of royalty ingrained with a falsehood of spiritual greatness and vanity.

  I hear her voice as clear as the ocean around me. I feel her warmth fill me, just as it had when she held me while relaying these words. As I sobbed into her shoulder, as I clawed at her back, desperate for an answer. But the answer had not fulfiled me, only frustrated me. I tore away from her, ran from the room I shared with my sister, the sister who was engaged to be married already at three years my junior to a man she loved, not one forced upon her. Not one who would deny her when challenged. My mother did not call after me, but my father did, demanding I respect the home his hands finished, that my grandmother had started.

  But I ignored him. And I ran. I ran to the beach, to the patch of sand where Amit and I had made love for the first time, where we tried so desperately to recapture that night over and over again, knowing it was impossible.

  And when I’d made something like peace with it, when my belly growled for my father’s cooking, when my body shivered for my mother’s warmth, I’d stood up. I’d walked back home. Slowly. Slow enough to see the flames flare up in the kitchen at the back of the house. I’d sped up then, my sandals digging into moist earth, my fingers clawing next when I’d lost my balance and fallen forward.

  I scramble to my feet and push on.

  I slam my shoulder into the front door and immediately choke on the heat. But it does not stop me. I run for the stairs, calling for my brother, my sister, my father. I can hear my brother screaming, but I cannot find him. It’s too bright! Too hot!

  Who knew fire could be so loud?

  It roars at me, disorienting me. Where are they? Where is my mother?

  The stairs collapse as I reach the top, and again I am on the bottom floor, on my back, the wind knocked clean from my lungs. I breathe deep only to choke on smoke. And I smell it. Roasting meat. Singed hair. Like the time my sister heated the rounded iron in the stove for too long. And I am being pulled. Pulled. Pulled. I want to protest, but I keep coughing. I want them to find my mother, whoever is pulling me. Find her. Save her.

  But as the surface below me cools, I hear the failure of weakened wood, the rustle of broken clay.

  And I know it is too late.

  “Use it, naiem. Use the cleansing of fire to begin again. Use it to fuel the change this world will need. Because the world will need you, naiem.”

  And I cannot believe the word that pops into my head first: How?

  There is no misunderstanding. The being knows I do not want to know how I will be instrumental to this world. The being knows I wish this pain away.

  The being rushes forward, placing one hand on my abdomen, above my womb, the other behind my neck. The touch is so gentle, I want to cry.

  “This will hurt, but in a way that will be useful to you. Thank the godless depths you humans have short memories. Now breathe.”

  * * *

  The rest I do not remember.

  By the ache in my bones and the pulsing soreness at my sides when I awake onshore, I am thankful for it.

  In the middle of my left palm lies my father’s love, my horse.

  Four moons later and the world is below.

  PART VII: OFFERING

  A FAMILIAR ACHE PRODS my eyes open. It is still daylight. In fact, not much time at all has passed.

  My child is sitting cross-legged on my chest, all pretenses of a newborn gone as she leans forward. Her breath smells of my milk. Sour and sweet. Thick.

  “Do you understand now, naiem?”

  I nod, then gasp, overwhelmed by just that: understanding. Full and complete and all-knowing. I feel it rise within me like a sunburst. I smile.

  “It is time, naiem,” she whispers.

  And together, we rise.

  * * *

  I am naked when I appear above, and this time, it feels right. My baby is just as naked, her arms and legs akimbo against me as I lightly hold her on my side.

  The first to see me is my denier, Amit. He turns, black hair shimmering in the sun. I smile at him and he returns the gesture, if a little hesitantly. I walk past him, and the next to witness me are my betrayers, Ket and Hirat. I smile at them, too, and my child giggles innocently in my ear. I pull her closer, adjust her higher up for her lips to brush my ear. I do not recognize the words she speaks, but I know in time I will.

  Time, we will have plenty of, my child and me.

  But for this ship, for its passengers, time is a fleeting, hungry thing.

  I stop walking once Hirat and Ket distance themselves from one another. By then, I am upon them, breathing in their foul existence, tasting their odour. They smell of one another.

  And Ket. She is with child.

  It will not survive. Would not have, at any rate. And would have killed her, too.

  I grin at life’s mercies. Little gifts, they are. With prices too heavy for some.

  “Are you all right, Iraxi?” Hirat manages to ask, his eyebrows knitting.

  “Why, yes, Hirat,” I say. “I have never felt better.”

  His face eases, but he is not entirely convinced. “May I hold her?” He reaches for my child and I immediately step back.

  I do not answer. I don’t have to.

  “Have you blessed her with a name?” Ket asks, her voice shaking with nerves.

  I open my mouth and many voices fill the space to say, “Yes, she has, but you are not worthy to hear it.”

  And then my child lets out a caw so loud, it draws blood from Hirat and Ket’s ears. Before they can recover, there is a crash near us, the reek of death and wet carried on a great wind. Wood splinters as a thunderous beast steps forward. There are screams in the distance and I recognize some of them, but I ignore it all to look upon the razorfang knelt before me, its beak scraping the battered boards, wings spread, waiting. Ready.

  I approach it, press a palm against the bloodied beak. The stench is incredible, but I plant one foot atop, then the other. It is the size of the plank used to assist great machinery, twice as steady. I walk forward, nearly lose my balance as the beak rises with me. Still, I walk. I walk until the soles of my feet brush plumage softer than I’d imagined. Downy with no sharpness of quills. I am walking between its purple eyes when it finally flaps its wings once, twice. I settle at its neck as it hovers above the ship.

  It is then I see them. All of them.

  Razorfangs above. Purple tentacles below. Hugging the ship. Closing in, yet hesitant.

  Awaiting my instruction.

  I find Amit among the madness of running bodies, stare at him until he is mesmerized by not the great beasts above and below but by me. Only by me.

  “I loved you,” I say.

  And with the wave of my hand, I let it all crash down.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my father, Clarence, for always believing in me, for encouraging me in the ways that counted, and for being my best friend. I want to thank my mother, Violet, for the material. Thank you to my brother, Casey, for scaring the shit out of me as a kid and for just being an awesome big brother. Thank you, Tonya Shefton, for sneaking me into various horror movies (and maybe a couple romcoms) and for showing me sisterly love. Jaylen and Arianna, love you!

  Thank you, Courtney Givens and Baba, for everything.

  Writing is a lonely journey, but
I’m lucky to have friends who have done more than kept me company: Sean Mattio, Danielle Freidman, Nora Jemisin, Maeshay K. Lewis, Cara Murray, Camilla Zhang, Jessica Guess, Danny Lore, Nathan Ballingrud, Malinda Ray Allen, Jarlisa Corbett, Mark Oshiro, Marcus Tsong, Robert Sabo, Connor Drexler, Joshua AC Newman, Adam Scott Glancy, Sam Schreiber, Naima Moore-Turner, Joseph Kashatus, the Freivalds, Jim DeAngelis, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Erin Jackson, Elizabeth Cavanagh, Sarah Cavanagh, the rest of the Cavanaghs, my Fizzgig Crew, the NSS, Viable Paradise 22, my Ghost Class Clarion Cohort, my daily Zoom Crew, Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, and so many others that have supported me in every way possible.

  For my mentors: Kinitra Brooks, Nisi Shawl, Chesya Burke, Sheree Renée Thomas, Victor LaValle, Vanessa Martir, Lev AC Rosen, and Nora, thank you.

  To my influences: Nathan Ballingrud, Octavia Butler, N. K. Jemisin, Helen Oyeyemi, Rivers Solomon, and Clive Barker, and countless musical artists, my gratitude for your talent is unfathomable.

  To Roseanne, my agent, and to Diana M. Pho, thank you for pushing me and believing in my work and my skill. To my Tordotcom Publishing team! Ruoxi Chen, Giselle Gonzalez, Sanaa Ali-Virani, and Jordan Hanley, thank you so much for everything!

  Tara and Danielle, I love you, always.

  And finally, my sister Elizabeth Manning Jerome and her crew, my nieces and nephews, especially my Clari-Baby, who show me every day what strength and love truly are. Love You Most!

  To the Ancestors, most of all Auntie, I hope I do you proud. This is just the beginning.

  About the Author