Crown of Coral and Pearl

I lay in the boat beneath our house, trying to shut out her words and instead focus on the sound of the water lapping against the pillars, on the way the tiny fish that lived beneath our houses nibbled at my fingers as I dangled them over the edge. It was cool here in the shade, and I tried to imagine what it would be like in the mountains, so far away from everything I’d ever known.

Mother was devoted to the gods—not just Thalos, but Astrea, the goddess of beauty; Spiros, the god of weather; and others—but I believed in the spirits that lived in everything around me: the water, the birds, the air itself. It was all alive and beautiful and just as divine as any invisible god. There would undoubtedly be spirits in the mountains, too, but would they be the benevolent spirits I knew so well, like the fish and the birds? Or would they be fickle spirits, like the air and water, sustaining us while every now and then trying to kill us?

I rolled onto my stomach and pulled out the torn fishing net and the knife I had used to free the dead jellyfish. I could take these up there now and tell Mother that this had all been Zadie’s doing, that she loved Sami and refused to go, and it was either help her or let her kill herself in the process. Perhaps Mother would have preferred that: a beautiful martyr rather than a victim who would die an old maid.

And what would have become of our family then? Without Zadie to speak for me, I would certainly have been banished for killing my sister, which was tantamount to death; one could only survive so long in an empty boat without food and water. Surely one spinster daughter and one princess were better than a dead daughter and a banished one. For all we knew, Zadie might still be allowed to marry Sami after all, and Mother might yet have her governor’s wife and her princess.

But Mother couldn’t see past her own failed plans right now, and it was tearing her apart. She had spent her entire life focused on a crown she’d never seen, on a kingdom she would never enter. She was like a beautiful house built on stilts, only the stilts were lies, and accepting the truth meant destroying the foundation of her existence. Accepting this new outcome would mean admitting that life could, in fact, go on.

I heard her sobbing through the floorboards, Father murmuring comforting words. But what could he say to her now? Nothing could change what had already been done.

As the sun sank below the horizon, I took up the oars and rowed to Elder Nemea’s house. I found her preparing a simple meal of dried fish and seaweed, with no fire to cook on. I looked around the one-room structure, expecting to see great-grandbabies playing in the corner, a granddaughter or two cleaning. Shouldn’t someone be taking care of a woman who had lived one and a quarter centuries?

“Let me help you with that,” I said, taking the knife from her hands.

“Thank you.” She dropped onto a stool, her joints popping as she settled. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Where are all her children and grandchildren to cook for her?’ But I prefer to live alone. Maybe when I’m 150, I’ll bring a great-grandchild or two in to help me.”

“I didn’t do it,” I blurted. I hadn’t come here to defend myself, but I suddenly realized it was important to me that at least one person outside my family believed me.

She ignored me and pointed to a bucket of water. “Bring me some, child.”

I brought her the water and sat down on the stool next to her, forcing her to acknowledge me. “I didn’t do it.”

“Perhaps you did, perhaps you didn’t. I won’t waste what little time I have left on things that have already happened. It doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me that people know I didn’t hurt my sister. I would do anything to protect her.” Hadn’t I proven that seven years ago? Varenian law said that every person had as much responsibility for a stranger as they did for family. To let someone die when you could save them would bring the worst kind of shame upon your family. This idea, this responsibility for each other, had been ingrained in me from birth, but it had nothing to do with my motivations for saving Zadie. I would always protect her, even if it meant tearing her from the steel clutches of Thalos himself.

“She loves Governor Kristos’s boy, I’m told.”

“Yes. And he loves her.”

Nemea sighed and reached for a piece of dried fish. “If only love were as important as people believe it to be.”

I hadn’t slept or eaten since Zadie’s injury, and I no longer had any patience left to offer. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“My husband died fifty years ago from diving too deeply, too quickly. I loved him very much. But romantic love doesn’t last forever. Death will part us, if time or circumstance doesn’t.”

I shook my head. I hadn’t come here for a philosophy lesson. “Will the elders allow me to go to Ilara or not?”

She leaned over and brought up a small narwhal horn jar in answer. “Here.”

I opened the lid and looked down at the light brown ointment. It smelled foul, like bird guano. “What’s in it?”

“It’s made from brown algae and...other things.” She dabbed a tiny amount of the stain onto her finger and touched it to my cheek. “There’s a mirror on the far wall.”

Skeptically, I walked over to a large fly-stained mirror that must have come from an illegal trade or a shipwreck. I wiped away a bit of salt and stared at my reflection. I had never seen myself in anything other than Mother’s hand mirror.

It was like looking at Zadie, but not. I started at the top. Sami was right; my eyes were a bit narrower. My nose was straight and even, almost exactly the same as Zadie’s, but perhaps her nostrils were a bit rounder. And my lips were full and pink, just like Zadie’s, though I thought the bow in her upper lip might be more pronounced.

I gasped when I realized my eyes had drifted right past my scar.

Nemea laughed as my fingers flew to my cheek. The stain came away immediately. I turned back to her. “It doesn’t stay?”

“It should last for the better part of a day, but it takes a few minutes to set. And it will come off after a quarter of an hour in water. It’s the best I can do in such a short amount of time.”

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. “Why didn’t you give me this sooner?”

Her ancient face appeared next to mine in the mirror. “To what end, child? Hiding our scars doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just as beauty cannot disguise who we really are beneath the surface.”

Our eyes met in our shared reflection. Hers were cloud gray, while Zadie and I shared our mother’s golden-hued eyes. Like honey, Sami once said, though neither of us had ever seen it. He described it as “something insects make,” and we had both assumed it was an insult.

“Does this mean I’m going to Ilara?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I whirled around to face her, but I was unable to form words. She smiled and patted my shoulder. “Now, girl, you should go home and prepare for your journey. Ilara is five days by coach, and you will be sick for much of it.”

I blinked at her. I’d never been sick since the incident, other than from the blood coral poisoning itself. “Why?”

“You’ve never been on land before. Everything will be a shock to your system, not least the food. Even the air is different, so they say. And you will be cold, though the guards will bring proper clothing for you.”

I thought of Sami’s cloak. Would it be mine now? Would all the beautiful fabrics in Zadie’s trunk, the strand of pearls, the comb, belong to me, as well? Or was I to have none of the luxuries granted to my sister? And what would poor Alys think of all this, when she learned that she had lost the crown first to Zadie, and now to me?

“What if the king discovers what we’ve done?” I whispered fearfully. “Will he punish everyone here?”

Nemea lifted one bony shoulder. “Yes. Although at this rate, we’ll all be dead of starvation in another five years anyway. The question the king should ask himself is, without us, who will fetch his precious pearls?”

My breath caught. No adult had ever admitted how bad things were to me before or pointed out the king’s dependence on us in such stark terms.

“Why doesn’t Governor Kristos stand up to the Ilareans?” I asked. “Why don’t the elders?”

“Revolution is for the young, child. Besides, what can any of us do from here? If we withhold the pearls, the king will withhold everything else. If we are caught trying to go ashore, we will be killed.” She handed me the jar of stain. “Go on, then. Go home to your family. The other elders will have told them the news by now, and I imagine you’ll want to spend as much time with your sister as possible.”

As I walked toward the door, her words echoed in my head. What could anyone do from here?

“What about me?” I asked, turning back toward her.

Nemea eyed me curiously. “What about you, child?”

“I’ll be there at the castle. I will have the king’s ear. If I tell him how desperate we are, how without more food and water, there will be no one left to dive for the pearls... He’ll have to do something. Won’t he?”

She raised the same shoulder in a half shrug. “Perhaps he will, perhaps he won’t,” she said. But this time, she was smiling.

* * *