Crown of Coral and Pearl

“Goodbye,” Zadie and I said in unison as Sami ducked out onto the balcony, where a rope ladder led down to the water. Our house, like all the houses in Varenia, was made from the wood of a sunken ship, but every few years we painted it an orangey-pink, a shade Mother favored that was also easy to see on the horizon, guiding us home during the daytime when a lantern would be of little use.

Father settled down onto a low stool carved from driftwood. “I see Nor is cooking tonight. Does that mean Zadie found the oyster?” He gestured to the shiny gray glob of flesh I’d laid in one of our cracked porcelain bowls. Some of our possessions were traded for, but others had been pulled up from shipwrecks. Mother never asked how I came by such items, particularly if I found her something that appealed to her vanity, like a hand mirror or a tortoiseshell comb.

Zadie and I shared a glance. To admit Zadie found the oyster meant admitting that she had been swimming today, against Mother’s orders. She was counting on the impressive bride price the prince would send to the chosen girl’s family once they married, but we had to eat in the meantime. And who knew how many oysters there would be tomorrow, or next week? Sami had overheard his father speaking to the elders at night in hushed whispers, so we knew things were worse than our parents let on.

“I found it,” I said. “But I bet her there would be a pearl in it, and there wasn’t.”

“That’s a shame. Well, as long as I get to eat the oyster, I suppose it doesn’t matter who found it.” Father winked at Zadie as she handed him the bowl. “You’re good girls, both of you.”

As he tipped back the bowl and let the oyster slide into his mouth, Zadie and I came to stand on either side of him. “I’ll miss whichever one of you is taken from me,” he said. “But I always knew this day would come. That’s what I get for marrying the most beautiful girl in Varenia.”

Mother stepped into the house from the balcony, twisting her own freshly washed hair into a braid. She had never dived deep enough to burst her eardrums—something many of the older villagers did to help with the pressure—and her hearing was some of the sharpest in the village. Only a few fine lines pulled at the corners of her eyes and lips, a testament to the benefits of wearing a sun hat (and of rarely smiling).

“Our beauty is a reflection of the favor Thalos has bestowed upon this family,” she said, gazing out the window at the darkening waves, as if the ocean god himself were watching. A sudden burst of sea spray shot up through the cracks in our wooden floorboards, and Mother’s eyes blazed with satisfaction.

“We will honor him with our sacrifice,” Father added.

I squeezed Zadie’s hand behind his back and wished the sun would never set. The ocean never gave gifts without expecting something in return, it was said, and Thalos was a hungry god.



      2



The next two days were spent in the large yellow meetinghouse with the other girls of marriageable age. I personally thought it was silly to spend two full days preparing ourselves for the ceremony when some of us had been preparing our entire lives. Each elder had already made his or her decision, and for most of us, no amount of primping and preening could possibly make a difference. I would have rather spent the time alone with Zadie, knowing she’d be leaving me soon. But it was tradition, and in Varenia, tradition was as much a part of our world as the ocean.

The mood in the house was lively, almost giddy, like we were children preparing for a festival. The room buzzed with the sound of female voices, punctuated every few minutes by laughter. None of us were old enough to remember the last ceremony, but a few mothers, including mine, were there to supervise and tell stories while we fasted and bathed ourselves in fresh water that ought to have been saved for drinking. Zadie and I rubbed perfumed oil into each other’s skin and braided our hair into intricate patterns, then unraveled them and started all over again to occupy the long hours.

I glanced around at the other girls, most of them friendly acquaintances. In a village as small and isolated as ours, there were no unfamiliar faces, though our overprotective mother had done her best to keep us away from the other girls our age. At night, she would often tell us stories of sabotage among young women old enough to participate in the ceremony: braids cut off in the middle of the night, stinging sea nettles rubbed on healthy skin, even hot oil burns.

Boys may be physically stronger, Mother always said, but girls could be twice as vicious. I had never seen any behavior to support her claim, but then, I hadn’t spent enough time with the other girls to argue. With Zadie and Sami around, I was never lonely, but I would have liked the opportunity to make more friends.

As the sun extinguished itself on the horizon, anxiety and tension began to mount. The favorites, Zadie and Alys, sat surrounded by friends, who heaped praise on their girl while whispering insults about the opposition.

“Perhaps if Alys had never opened her mouth for the past seventeen years, this would be a fair match,” a blond girl named Minika murmured. “But unfortunately for her, she’s as gabby as a gull.”

I cast an apologetic glance toward Alys, who in truth had only one slightly crooked tooth. Her mother had attempted to straighten it with fishing line made of horse hair, but the results had been minimal at best. Still, with her auburn hair and green eyes, Alys was undeniably beautiful. As was Ginia, with her bronze skin and tight black curls, and Lunella, whose large blue eyes and delicate features were the pride of her entire family. How the elders could possibly choose between them was beyond my comprehension, like trying to choose the most beautiful seashell.

Zadie gave Minika an admonishing look as she wove my hair into what I hoped was the final braid. My scalp itched and burned from her handiwork. “Enough, girls. Alys is a friend, and perfect just as she is. And if she is chosen to go to Ilara, I will pray for Thalos to carry her safely to shore, as will the rest of you.”

“You are too kind,” Lunella said. “As soft and pliant as a cuttlefish. The prince will have you for his supper if you don’t watch out.”

Zadie blushed and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“What do you think the prince is like?” I asked no one in particular, hoping to divert some of the attention away from my sister. “We know so little about the Ilareans, though they seem to know everything about us.”

“Like how beautiful our women are,” Minika replied.

Mother sat in the center of the room on one of the colorful cushions that covered the floor from wall to wall. The house was barely large enough to contain thirty girls and women, not to mention all their cosmetics and clothing. “It’s more than that,” she said, “as you all know.”

We all did know. Our history was woven into our childhoods like sea silk threads, so fine it was hard to tell where one stopped and another started. But we all settled in now, turning toward Mother as she began to tell the story. It seemed fitting to hear this tale, tonight of all nights, the night before my world would be changed forever.

“Many years ago, in a queendom whose name has been lost to time, there lived a wise and powerful queen. She gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Ilara, after the celestial goddess. Ilara’s smile was as radiant as the moon, her hair as dark and shimmering as the night sky. It was said that her laughter made the stars shine brighter. Beloved by her people, she loved them all in return.

“One summer, when the princess was just sixteen, she journeyed to the shore with her family. She went to lavish parties and met many handsome young men, but none so handsome as Prince Laef, whose own land, Kuven, was far across the Alathian Sea. After weeks of secret meetings and stolen kisses, he asked her to marry him, and she happily accepted.

“But despite their mutual affection, Ilara’s mother forbade the marriage. Kuven was a small and weak kingdom compared to the queen’s, which at the time spanned the width and breadth of an entire continent, and Laef’s father was a cruel ruler, who took much from the sea but gave nothing in return. Ilara’s mother had planned a far more advantageous match with a prince from a powerful kingdom to the east, though that prince was said to be old and not particularly charming. As much as she loved her daughter, the queen could not afford to let her put the queendom in jeopardy.”

Several girls groaned in disapproval.