Two Moons of Sera (4 page)

His grin grew as he inspected his hands. Lifting his head,
his eyes shone with mirth. “Not hurt.”

“Oh, good. I was worried. Those chickens can be vicious.” I
laughed, enjoying talking to him. I relaxed, knowing he would stay. His ability
to communicate got better so fast it amazed me. To hear his voice, his laugh, I
found it hard to believe this was the same creature I had encountered on the
cliffs the day he stole my papers. I stood next to him, teasing as if we were
friends, laughing like we were children. A stranger with colored eyes made me
feel more normal than I had in my entire life.

“Vicious?”

“Mean,” I explained.

“Yes. Mean, dirty, bad birds,” he mock-scolded, squinting
and pointing at me.

“I’m glad you aren’t going,” I confessed before ducking my
head and turning away. “I’ll make the eggs.”

Tor returned to his vigil of the sea as I picked up the
basket and stepped behind the taut cloth posing as a wall. For a moment I just
stood, my hands shaking, my heart pounding with the excitement of the day. I
wanted to rush back out to him, forget breakfast, and revel in the
possibilities. Smiling hurt my cheeks and confused my skin. I had been happy before
I met him, but perhaps I had only known happiness up to a point. I couldn’t
identify the void within me until something filled it and showed me the piece
that had been missing all along.

I went through the steps of preparing spiced eggs and
peppers by habit. All the while, I kept stealing nervous glances in his
direction. How did I get here? The point of living was insignificant. I was
just sixteen; my birthday had passed without comment or celebration. My entire
existence had been spent in hiding. A war raged around me while I hid in my
utopian cove where the world could not harm me. I never did anything
wrong—there was nothing to do. A lifetime of nothing spanned behind me and
stretched before me. Stories from books and melodisks told of adventures and
loves. Each one engraved in my soul like a promise.

Until I met Tor.
Torkek.

Until he spoke to me, sat with me, yelled at me, frightened
me, ensnared me.

Each movement he made fed my hunger for experience. Each
emotion he inspired within me made him more and more vital. I knew I couldn’t
have him. I couldn’t be the princess from the melodisk tales who walked
hand-in-hand with the man who saved her from the monsters. The stories were all
the same. The princess thanked her savior with a kiss so painfully true it
sealed their love forever. Instead, I would have to say goodbye and he would
leave. I would ache for him to return, and maybe one day he would, but for how
long? The reality of my existence excluded his presence. I was an abomination,
a half-breed never meant to exist. What would he think when he found out the
truth?

He turned his head, locks of hair still pulled back from his
face, and my pain and insecurity was mirrored in his expression. I didn’t know
why he was here, but he had come. I hadn’t forced him or chased him. Something
drew him to me. Whatever I longed for, he sought it as well.

I shivered, excited by the promise of what the future would
bring. Sunlight shone on us and the ocean shimmered. Always just out of reach,
the fire in the sky bent each night to kiss the water, never meeting.

“Sera make,” Tor greeted when I arrived. His bag drooped
next to him, a drawstring pulling it closed at one end.

“Yep, I made you breakfast. What do I get for it?”

“Get?”

“You know, like a trade. Can I have my papers back if I feed
you?”

“Oh! No.” He picked up the bag and hid it behind him with a
playful smile. “Mine.”

I shrugged and turned away. “Too bad. No food for you.”

“Sera make!”

“Poor Torkek, no breakfast. You must be
so
hungry.”

“Food!” he said with a smile.

“My papers?”

“Share,” he conceded, pulling the bag in front of him.

“Deal.” I plopped down next to him and set the plate and
water jar in the sand between us.

We ate in silence, passing the water back and forth. It
never occurred to me that we shouldn’t be sharing one jar. That was how I’d
always done it with Mother. The simple intimacy of sharing the meal calmed me.

When we finished eating, I stretched out my legs and dug my
webbed toes into the warm sand. I watched the second moon peek around a cloud
to say hello. Its rare daytime appearance delighted me.

“Sera?” Tor’s agitated voice broke the silence.

“Yes?” I turned to find his gaze locked on my feet, on the
thin flesh connecting my toes.

“Oh!” I said, pulling my knees up to my chest and burying my
feet beneath the sand.

“You Fish.”

“No! I’m... I’m Serafay.”

“Fish feet. Fish toes.” Accusation and confusion warred in
his voice.

This was the moment my mother always warned me about. The
moment when someone discovered I was different, that I wasn’t Sualwet or
Erdlander. The ground fell away beneath me. Any hope of friendship dissipated
like the morning fog beneath the far cliffs. I buried my head into my knees. A
ball of anguish and disappointment welled within me, fighting to break free in
sobs.

I breathed deeply, terrified to look back at the man I
barely knew but had placed so much hope in. It wasn’t fair that one person
could move me so much, but considering he was the only person other than my
mother and her few disapproving friends I had ever met... well, it made a kind
of perverse sense. Every breath was a story never told, every moment an
opportunity never taken.

“Sera?”

“What?” I whispered, not trusting my voice.

“Mother. Mother is Sualwet?”

No sense in denying what the evidence made clear. “Yes.”

“You not Sualwet.”

“No.”

“What?”

“What am I?” I looked up at him, my tears darkening my
vision. “I’m a mistake.”

Tor shrugged and cocked his head. “Sera not bird. That good.”
His smile was weak but sincere.

Kindness and understanding broke me deeper than rejection
could have. Rejection, I had been raised to believe, was inevitable. All my
life I’d been waiting for the moment when I would be discovered, but this wasn’t
it. This was something I’d never dared imagine.

“Feet,” Tor commanded, pointing at the mounds of sand where
my toes were buried.

“No.”

“Yes, feet.” He reached out as if to grab my ankle, and I
jerked away.

I was unaccustomed to being touched. Even under the best
circumstances, contact was something Mother raised me to avoid.

“Sera...,” he began, but I interrupted him by taking my feet
out of the sand and letting one rest in front of him.

I spread my toes and showed him the connective tissue. “I
can’t live underwater. I can swim really well, though, and can stay under for a
long time.” I spoke in a rush, keeping my focus on my toes. “Mother says my
eyes are different, too. The color and the membrane that covers them when I
want to...”

“Eyes?” Tor waited for me to look up at him.

When I did, he studied me. The look on his face suggested he
was taking in the subtle differences, now that he knew what to look for. My
irises were larger than his but not as dramatically as my mother’s. Their
silver sheen, unknown among Erdlander or Sualwet, was unique to me.

“Eyes are nice.” His expression was calm, his voice sincere.
He directed his attention back to my feet but said nothing else.

“Tor?” I asked after the silence had expanded past my
patience.

“Sera.”

“Are you going to tell anyone about me?”

“No tell. No... huh. No mother, no tell....” He struggled to
find the words, one hand coming up to pull on the roots of his tangled hair.

“You won’t tell.”

“No.”

Morning turned into afternoon while Tor and I sat on the
beach. He asked me questions about everything except my Sualwet genetics. By
the time evening was upon us, his language skills had improved so much we were
having real conversations. I kept expecting him to disappear, to evaporate into
the salty air, but he didn’t.

He waited when I went inside, refusing to enter the small enclosure
I called home. Something about him waiting put me at ease. I didn’t know why,
but it felt right that he stayed outside.

I taught him songs I’d learned from the melodisks.

He marveled at the glittering butterfly clip my mother had
brought me and insisted I put it in my hair.

We started a fire on the beach and ate dried meat and fruit.

I lent him Erdlander books: if he was one of them, perhaps
he could read the language. Maybe we—the two of us—had more in common than I
thought. The idea sent my mind reeling.

Night fell and the fire crackled with warmth. Sparks
fluttered into the air. The ocean breeze danced over the flames, seducing them
to new heights.

“Where do you live?” I asked in the darkness. We lay side by
side in the sand, watching the ruby moon rise. It arced like a sickle.

“Up above.”

“Above what? Do you live in a tree?” I teased.

“No. Trees around, and a spring for water.”

“Sounds beautiful.”

“Ocean is nice,” he said.

“I’m tired of the ocean.” I sat up, grains of sand clinging
to my hair. “I want to go somewhere else.”

“Nowhere else to go,” he said, still lying beside me.

“What about the city?”

“Can’t go there.”

“Why not? I could go.” The defensive tone I used with my
mother squeaked out of me. “If I wore shoes, no one would ever know about me
and—”

“You could go,” he agreed. “I can’t.”

“Why do you live out here?” The question fell from my lips
before I’d thought it through. All day he’d volunteered nothing about himself.
I’d avoided asking him, even though curiosity gnawed at me. He was the first
real friend I’d ever had, and I was terrified that asking the wrong thing would
make him leave. But it was late, and I was tired.

“Just do.”

“Were you born out here?”

“No.”

“Were you born in the city?”

“Don’t know.”

“Were you born mute?” I teased, lying on my side, facing
him. The fire behind him outlined his sharp silhouette against the light.

“Yes.”

“Tor.”

“I don’t like to think on it. I had no one. Was taken in—”
He hesitated. I watched his face as he stared out into the night, seeing
memories I couldn’t share. “Had to leave and be alone.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push; I just wanted to know
more about you.”

“Huh,” he grunted, falling back into his monosyllabic ways,
shutting me out.

Propped up on my elbows, I looked out over the water, past
the cove and toward the open sea. I felt more alone with him next to me than I
had before I’d met him. Somehow, not talking made the emptiness between us more
painful. The silence was like a razor. I wanted him to go. I wanted him to
stay.

“Sera,” Tor began, sitting up next to me. I tensed at the
sound of his voice, unsure of what he would say next. “What’s that?”

He pointed out past the rocky jetty that concealed our beach
from the open sea and toward a dim light on the horizon. The light grew
brighter until a flare went up into the sky, illuminating the night and chasing
the stars back into hiding.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it fire?”

“I think so, I think... Tor, you know there’s a war right?
The Erdlanders and the Sualwet. Looks like the fighting might be closer to us
than usual.”

“Yes, they have always fought.”

“It’s worse now. Mother says Sualwets are coming ashore to
attack and the Erdlanders are poisoning the sea.”

Five other small fires flared in the distance, burning the
ocean surface. More deaths of people I would never know, cultures I would never
belong to. Their war meant nothing to me, yet I mourned for them.

The black sky offset the hue of the bright ruby moon.
Tonight the smaller moon hung low, barely a crescent. The day after, it wouldn’t
be visible at all. As a child, I imagined fire blazed on the surface of the
moon, and that made it red. Mother told me,
No, the moon is made of nothing
but broken dreams; its color is the blood she’s seen spilt.

A small ripple in the water caught my attention. A splash at
the coral reef.

I scanned the dark water of the cove, searching for what
disrupted its calm. The small fish that swam there did not break the surface,
and dolphins stayed out in deeper waters.

Our fire made it difficult for me to focus, so I stole
toward the shoreline.

Tor followed me. “Sera?”

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“That,” I whispered, pointing to another disturbance in the
calm water. A dark silhouette floated above the surface, something was on the
coral reef. “I’m going to look.”

I stepped into the water, my skin relaxing as moisture
seeped into my pores.

“It might not be safe.”

I turned, expecting him to protest, but instead he had taken
off his shirt and joined me at the water’s edge.

I ran into the gentle surf and dove beneath the surface as
soon as the water was deep enough. Tor splashed behind me, wading deeper before
jumping in. Swimming out to the reef, I heard the distant Sualwet song. Their
voices carried farther underwater. This was a warning cry. Carried from one
group to the next like a single voice. All who heard it joined the song:

~We’ve been attacked. They knew where the Domed City was.
We’ve destroyed their ships. Kill all Erdlanders you see!~

I suppressed my fear for my mother, who was out there
foraging for supplies, and swam harder toward the reef. Beneath the surface,
the blackness of night was complete. No stars lit the way, no fire brightened
the air. Instead, I retracted the membrane protecting my eyes and relied on my
senses to show me the world.

The cove was empty. No fish darted through the water, no
crabs scurried along the ocean floor. Farther out, I sensed the warmth of a
body. Sualwet or Erdlander, I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t moving. In the
distance the rumbling of displaced water and a submerged engine told me a large
ship was cutting its way through the sea.

At the reef, I emerged to breathe. Tor was behind me,
swimming with powerful strokes, but his need to surface for breath slowed him
down. With caution I approached the warmth I had detected earlier, not waiting
for Tor.

Ahead I saw the outline of a Sualwet woman face down in the
water. Were she an Erdlander, she’d be dead, but floating this way meant
nothing for a sea-dweller. I stepped closer, a shroud of dread wrapping around
my wet shoulders.

~
Mother?
~

No response.

As I reached out to her, Tor came up behind me. He said
nothing as I placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder and rolled her over in the
water.

~
Mother!
~ I screamed, falling to my knees, pulling
her limp body to my chest.

~
Serafay
...,~ she whispered, opening blackened eyes.
~
They’re... coming. You... have to run
....~

~
What? Mother, stop. What happened?
~

“Sera.” Tor pointed to a broken spear embedded in her
abdomen. The wound bled into the water, staining the dark, churning sea.

~
Please! What happened?
~

~
They... attacked. I was... alone
.~ Her hoarse voice
ripped into my heart. Every word was so weak, so unlike her.

My mother’s eyes drifted closed, and I tightened my grip on
her. If I let go, I might lose her forever. Her skin was cool, but that was
normal. I told myself she was fine. She would heal.

“Help me get her to shore.”

Mother forced her eyes open and moaned as she tried to sit
up. ~
Serafay. You... have to run. They’re... combing the shoreline. They’re
going... to find you
.~

Above us another flare went up, closer. The ships edged
toward us.

~
Go!
~

~
No
,~ I protested as she closed her eyes again. ~
I
can’t....~

Tor’s hand was cool on my shoulder. “Sera, come.”

“
No
.”

A grinding noise vibrated along the water’s surface.

“We have to go!”

~
Mother
....~

She didn’t respond. Her eyes closed, and her body went limp.
She was half in the water, her upper body exposed to the air. Just like how she’d
lived—meant for the sea but kept above the surface by me.

Another flare went up. White light blurred my vision, and
for a moment, nothing made sense.

“Now.” Tor grabbed me by the arms and pulled me up.

“I can’t leave her.”

He released me and leaned down to pick up her body. Then he
walked out to the edge of the reef and placed her in the water. With a push, he
sent my mother’s body past the cove and into the open sea. “She’s home now.”

Sobs in my chest clawed their way up, desperate to be
released.

“We have to go,” Tor said, interrupting my grief. “We have
to swim back and run.”

I stood before him. Mute.

“Please,” he begged.

I didn’t speak a word. I ran to the edge of the reef and
dove underwater, using all my strength to swim to shore.