Crown of Coral and Pearl

“How?” I shrieked. I used my hands to scoop up seawater and tried to rinse away the tentacles, but the few that came off took strips of my sister’s skin with them. In my frantic attempts to help her, a tentacle brushed against my arm. The pain was so excruciating I finally allowed myself to scream, knowing Zadie’s suffering was a thousand times worse.

Desperate, I pulled her up beneath her arms and dropped her over the side of the boat, holding her afloat with one hand while I used the side of Father’s spear to scrape off the remaining tentacles and as little of her flesh as possible.

By the time we were finished, Zadie was unconscious, and the water around us was dark with blood.



      7



After I’d hauled her back into the boat, we lay there for a while as I tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t afford to pass out, not when Zadie’s eyes remained closed, when she was so pale and motionless beside me. I needed to get us home as quickly as possible, but first I cut the rest of the jellyfish free of its net and slashed it to pieces with the spear.

Though the wound on my arm burned with every stroke of the oars, it was already healing. I could hardly bear to look at Zadie’s leg as I rowed. Her right thigh had borne the brunt of the wounds, though a few stray pieces of tentacle had brushed against her left thigh and lower abdomen. Her face was pale in the moonlight, but the wounds were a harsh red even in the dark. The venom had entered her bloodstream almost immediately, and she was hot with fever. If I didn’t get help soon, I was afraid she really could die.

But with Zadie unconscious, it was up to me to get our parents, to explain what had happened, to help care for her. And I was afraid. Afraid that they would blame me, that Zadie’s plan wouldn’t work and they’d still send her, or send Alys instead, and then Mother would blame me for that, too. I was afraid for my sister, afraid that Sami wouldn’t be able to look past these wounds. And worst of all, I was afraid of myself. Because I hadn’t just allowed something like this to happen to the person I loved most in the world. I had helped, even if Zadie had forced my hand in the end.

I rowed harder as our house came into view, then quickly tied the boat to a pillar. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and scrambled up the ladder. “Mother! Father!” I yelled into the dark. “Help!”

I could hear them stirring on the other side of their curtain, but not fast enough. Father sat up as I threw the fabric aside. “What is it, child?” He used the word child when he couldn’t tell which one of us was speaking.

“It’s Zadie,” I managed around the lump in my throat. I had never cried so much in my life, not even when I’d cut myself on the blood coral. “She’s been stung by a maiden’s hair.”

Mother, who had been grumbling in her sleep, sat bolt upright. “What?” she cried, her voice shrill with fear.

My hands shook as I bent to help her up. “We were swimming, and we didn’t see it until it was too late.” The words were a lie, but the sorrow and terror were all too real. “She’s unconscious in the boat. I didn’t have the strength to bring her up.”

“Thalos, no!” Mother screamed. My parents flew past me. I heard Father splash into the water, then Mother’s shriek as she looked down through the door.

“My baby!” she cried. “What has happened to my beautiful baby?”

I was hit with a sudden memory of the day of the incident, when I was the one limp in the boat. What has happened to my beautiful baby? Mother had said the same thing about me. My knees were suddenly weak and watery, and I slumped onto the floor of our house, unnoticed.

Lanterns began to glow in other people’s houses at the sound of my mother’s screams. Father was shouting for help.

“Get Elder Nemea,” he commanded, gently handing Zadie up to Mother through the door.

It took a moment to realize he was speaking to me. I forced myself to my feet, grateful for the chance to leave. I couldn’t bear to look at my sister’s legs, at the horrific results of what we had done.

Once I was back in the boat, some of my strength returned, and I rowed harder than I’d ever rowed before. I had to force myself to stop at Elder Nemea’s house instead of continuing out of Varenia and away from Mother’s screams.

The old woman was already coming out of her house when I arrived. “What is it, girl?”

“It’s my sister,” I called between breaths. “She’s been stung by a maiden’s hair. She’s unconscious.”

“Zadie? No, this can’t be!” She disappeared back into the house and emerged a moment later with a heavy satchel. The village doctor would have been preferable, but he had died last year in a shark attack before he could fully train his apprentice daughter.

I took the satchel and helped her into the boat, then rowed home as quickly as I could. By then several people had gathered in boats around our house. Nemea and I hurried to the bedroom I shared with Zadie, following the sound of Mother’s sobs.

“Move aside,” Nemea said to my parents as she stepped past them, already removing salves and strips of cloth from the bag. Zadie lay on the bed, still unconscious, her brow beaded with sweat.

“How could you let this happen?” Mother screamed the moment she saw me. “How could you be so foolish as to take your sister night swimming at a time like this?”

I could have said it was Zadie’s idea, that I hadn’t wanted to go. I could have told Mother the truth, and part of me wanted to. But as my eyes fell on my sister’s leg, on the missing flesh and pooling blood, I knew I could never betray her.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I told her tearfully. “We just didn’t see it. I think it must have already been dead.”

“Did you scrape away the stingers?” Nemea asked me.

“Yes, I think so. I tried my best.”

“Good.” She opened up a small whale-bone jar full of an iridescent pink ointment and began to slather it onto Zadie’s leg. “The pearls will help heal her, but I’m afraid the wounds are too deep to ever disappear completely.”

Mother sobbed harder at Nemea’s words.

“But she’ll live?” Father asked.

“She’ll live, if we can get the fever down.” Nemea asked me to wet some cloth with fresh water for Zadie’s head and had me drip some into her bloody mouth, torn from the splinters when she’d bit down on the wood. The elder watched as I dabbed the blood away, but she didn’t ask questions. Mother held Zadie’s hands in a death grip, rocking back and forth on her knees and muttering prayers to Thalos and every other god she could name. Father paced while Nemea bound Zadie’s leg in the cloth bandages.

I could see people through our window, crowding onto our balcony. “Look, Father,” I said. Our house couldn’t support the weight of so many. He went outside and told them to go, that there’d been an accident and they would hear more in the morning.

When I heard Governor Kristos outside, telling people politely but firmly to leave, I felt a wave of relief. He came into the house with Elidi and Sami and hurried to Zadie’s side. With everyone crowded around her, Zadie was blocked from view, and Sami’s eyes fell on me first.

“Nor, what happened?” he asked, crouching down next to me.

“We were swimming. She was stung by a dead maiden’s hair. I got her home as quickly as I could.”

He pulled me into his arms, and I let myself be comforted for a moment. Sami would take care of Zadie, no matter what happened.

Mother was weeping in the corner, with Sami’s mother murmuring quiet words while Governor Kristos talked to Father. Elder Nemea had finished bandaging Zadie’s wounds and was pouring water into a pot. I watched her put a handful of herbs and several globs of the pink ointment in and stir.

I rose with Sami’s help and went to light the fire in our clay stove. “What are you doing?” I asked Nemea.

“The cream will help her injuries, but the broth will help with the fever.”

When the mixture was steaming, she asked for a bowl and ladled some of the broth into it. Father tried to prop Zadie up a bit so she could drink, but she was as limp as a sea cucumber. I thought I saw her eyelashes flutter, and she managed to swallow some of the broth, but she didn’t wake up. It was probably better if she slept—the pain had to be terrible.

Nemea called my parents over. “This girl needs rest. She can’t go to Ilara in this condition, assuming the prince will still have her at all. I will call an emergency session with the elders tomorrow and we will discuss what is to be done.”

“She’ll be fine,” Mother said, straightening her spine. “She was born to be a princess, and she will go to Ilara in two days as planned. You chose her. You can’t take that away.”

The elder’s gray eyes narrowed. “As I said, we will discuss it in the morning. For now, everyone should get some rest. When the girl regains consciousness, she will be in a great deal of pain. Continue to give her small amounts of the broth. If the pain is unbearable, she may drink some wine, but only a little.”

“She’ll be fine,” Mother said again, but Elder Nemea didn’t respond.

“Take me home,” she said to Sami, who didn’t balk at taking orders from an old woman half his size.