“Is it true you’re a Turnic?” A small voice popped out from the crowd. It belonged to a young leen, not older than seven or eight.
How did such news travel?
“My father fell in love with a landkeeper. They didn’t know they would make me, but they did.” Gryshen recited the words she had been preparing, shutting her eyes and waiting for the onslaught, bracing for the screams, the inevitable attack.
But only murmurs followed. Gryshen opened her eyes to Rone. They stared; they whispered. No one raised a spear. No battle cry.
“I told you.” The young one turned to her open-mouthed sister.
From the back a signal rasped, “The understanding of both sides of our world born into her blood. Difficult to find that, in someone who managed to avoid being outcast. In one who is a chieftainess, impossible. Her father trusted her. So will I.” A small smile cracked Apocay’s face as the pod turned to face him. From a hip satchel he removed the remains of a white fish and began chewing, watching Gryshen.
Before she could search for the words, her signal poured out of her. “I have wasted seasons searching for answers, destiny”—she thought of her adopted mother’s grave, her father beside her now—“qualifications for caring. And I shut you all out. I missed the point. It was never about my destiny, or our security, or secret answers no one would give me. I am a reminder.” Gryshen smiled, thinking of Frall. Now, I understand, Dad. What is worth protecting.
“The pearl doesn’t protect us. It wasn’t supposed to”
“Then what will? What is real?” The signal carried up from somewhere in the crowd.
She let the scenes from the Womb Cavern swim through her mind, trying to grab something tangible to offer them.
“Connection.” As soon as she signaled, the word settled over them all like fine, warm sand.
Gryshen recalled the thought that had haunted her on her way to Rakor. “I don’t know what was whispered in my ear at my naming. No one is left who can answer that question.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “So I will answer it myself.”
“I am yours. And you are mine.” Gryshen didn’t have to look, she knew the hands that clasped hers on either side belonged to Hena and Bravis. One by one, soundlessly, the pod of ilorays reached and took each other’s hands, wrapped each other in their arms, and watched her, waiting. This was not the cheering mob that Jode had inspired, but it wasn’t the broken one who had lost her father, either. Their faces wore her sorrows and hopes, their eyes had reflected her fear, and now they mirrored something else, something Gryshen was finally willing to give them.
Trust. Love.
“I can’t give you any more answers. Not any that you will find real comfort in. But I will make you a promise.” Gryshen stared at the crowd from the vantage point of her father before her.
“I may be half from another place, but I am all your chieftainess. Come, and help me bury my brother.”
The Rone carried Jode in a silent parade out to the bone pit. There was no ornate container for his body; this had not been expected.
No death ever really was.
The beasts floated in watch, a quiet understanding. Bravis pointed to a spot near her father and adopted mother, a place where the sunlight hit in a bright beam.
Gryshen nodded.
Velda came forward, signaling softly to Gryshen, “My sister and I used this to keep our treasures in. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She held out a salvaged purple clay urn, with a small net affixed to the top, wrapped in seaweed on the sides. “Like your brother. Let him have it. We’ll leave surprises for him there.”
Gryshen gently cradled the vase and wrapped an arm around the leen. They wept, together.
They were joined by Hena, Bravis, Gracke, and all of Rone.
Their sea turned black that day.
Jode had been placed under a mound of carefully collected beast bones.
Gryshen and Bravis left things for him often, along with others.
He never showed up in front of her, not like his own visions, but he whispered a joke into her dreams sometimes, warming a space in her heart.
Gryshen visited the makers and requested something shiny, something reflective. They had a cracked hand mirror, a long piece of glass that might not hold up, and a large silver dinner plate. She thanked them and took the dinner plate.
There would be peace, even in the broken-open freedom they all faced.
The Rakor were quieter now, keeping to themselves, their young chieftain weighted with nowhere else to go.
The rest would join in the next migration. There was talk of preparing the hub.
A celebration.
Gryshen swam up to the place, the sacred cavern, and shifted the rock on top. The light was bright, and she didn’t bring a lantern in. She felt the place by heart, anyway.
When she had suggested opening the Womb Cavern up for visiting pods, Bravis and Apocay agreed. Only those who had been through their paces though.
Some secrets had to wait to be discovered.
Gryshen took the plate, long pieces of metal soldered to the back, and with a rock she hammered it against the wall, taking care not to crack the rock around it. The plate was battered, but it served its purpose.
A ghost-mist of light peeking through the ceiling hole floated along the space. It lit the long, peeling, painted fin. It flashed on the golden crown. It shone on the smiling face, the reflection in the plate.
And everyone who visited would know Mother. They would feel her presence, and see the bit of her they could recognize.
“We were always together,” Gryshen murmured.
“And we always will be.” A song returned, from somewhere in the room, somewhere in a grave, somewhere in the sea, somewhere on a little island . . .
Somewhere within.
Acknowledgments
I should probably begin every one of these by thanking my husband.
Thank you for being the man you are. Thank you for your unwavering belief in me. Thank you to my daughter, for being an excellent person, an encourager, a teacher. For loving stories like I do. To my mom, for all her love and for reading more than anyone I’ve ever known, except maybe her mom. To my dad, for all his love and loud support.
Thank you, Kit.
Thank you to Nicole Ayers of Ayers Edits, for being the greatest of all editors. For reminding me to use actual words instead of made up ones. For her friendship.
Thank you to Kimberly Marsot at KimG Designs for her stunning cover design.
Thank you to Katherine Trail for crisp, lovely formatting.
To all my wonderful friends, for all their love and support. For being the best kind of friends. I love you.
Shoutout to Hayley and Adam Schwartz, for opting to read my last novel on their honeymoon. Twenty bonus friendpoints apiece.
To the readers. Thank you. Thank you again.
About the Author
Mary Jane Capps writes young adult novels about witches, mermaids, and ghosts-or some combination of the three.
She likes to keep things spooky, magical, and reasonably upbeat.
Mary Jane lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina with her husband and daughter, down the road from her parents, in a house that is probably haunted.
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