And when you get to Ilara? I wanted to ask. Will you take risks then? We had promised not to talk about Ilara this week, but our lives had revolved around the ceremony for as long as I could remember. Now that it was over, what else was there to talk about but Zadie leaving?
The sun was fierce today, without even the occasional cloud to provide relief. I leaned over backward, wetting my hair to cool off my head, and sighed as the water dripped down my neck. From now on, I would wear my hair loose and let my skin tan as much as a man’s. We were all destined to look like Elder Nemea anyway, with her white hair and skin like a pelican’s wattle. What was so wonderful about being beautiful, if all it meant was being sent away from the people you loved at best, and at worst, spending the rest of your life feeling inadequate?
I usually did the rowing, to spare Zadie’s hands from becoming hard and callused, but we weren’t in a hurry today, so I allowed my fingers to trail in the water and let the waves carry us toward the reef. Our oars were wrapped in fabric to prevent as much chafing as possible, but even when the occasional blister formed on my palms, it healed quickly. So quickly that I’d never earned another scar since the incident, despite my carelessness. The doctor believed my miraculous healing ability had something to do with the blood coral, but he couldn’t explain it any further than that.
“So,” Zadie said, “who would you consider marrying?”
A chill ran over my scalp despite the heat. “What?”
“I find Eyo to be quite handsome. And he always seems to find the pinkest pearls. His family is better fed than most.”
Zadie had never asked me about marriage before. She knew I wasn’t interested in any of the village boys, that when I did daydream about the future, I always imagined a life on land, not here in Varenia. And I couldn’t bring up Sami, knowing what I did. It would be better if Zadie went to Ilara without ever hearing of it. The truth would only hurt her.
I decided to play along. What harm could it do now? “Eyo is handsome, and he does find a lot of pearls. But have you ever gotten close enough to smell his breath?”
She laughed. “No. Why?”
“It smells like rotten fish. I couldn’t marry a young man who smelled like that, not for all the pearls in the Alathian Sea.”
“Tell me, then. Who is good enough for my dear sister? Iano?”
I shook my head. “Too short.”
“Jovani, then. He’s the tallest boy in the village and still growing.”
I considered for a moment, fanning myself with my hat. Jovani was tall, and his breath didn’t smell. He was fiercely protective of his little sister, who was the same age as Zadie and me. We didn’t know each other well, but in the meetinghouse before the ceremony, I’d heard several girls talking about him. From what I’d gathered, he was very respectful of his parents and a hard worker.
Not that it mattered. I was destined to marry Sami. I remembered the way he’d slung his arm around me last night, and the eel twisted in my stomach once again. “I would consider Jovani,” I said.
Zadie clapped her hands, pleased to have found me a suitable match. “You will have lovely children together,” she said, before the smile vanished from her face. I knew exactly what she was thinking: that we would never get to see each other’s children.
I couldn’t let my thoughts sink so low today. I peered over the edge of the boat just as a turtle swam out of view. “We’re here!”
“Already?”
“Look,” I said, pointing to where the water changed color over the reef. My entire body was drenched in sweat, and I couldn’t get out of my skirts fast enough. I scrambled over the side of the boat, then let myself sink a few feet below the surface and hung suspended, weightless, there in the place I’d always felt most free. The anchor dropped a moment later, and I waited for Zadie to join me.
She plunged in just inches away, sending bubbles into my face. I reached out and pinched her before she could get away, and then we took each other’s hands and stayed there for a moment, smiling at each other, pretending we weren’t trying to outlast the other. Even though I’d gone in first, I had the better lung capacity, and Zadie stuck her tongue out at me before shooting up toward the surface.
I bobbed up a moment later. “So, what will it be today? First one to find an oyster is off cooking duty tonight and tomorrow?”
“First one to find a pearl,” Zadie suggested. “What good is an oyster without a pearl, other than as a snack for Father?”
I liked to think the oysters we found gave Father enough strength to travel to deeper waters to fish, but the truth was his ribs showed more than the rest of ours. He patted his flat stomach after dinner every night, pretending to be sated, but his portions had grown smaller as Zadie and I grew larger.
“Very well,” I said to Zadie. “I accept.” Then I took a deep breath and dived back down, eager to get to the oysters before my sister.
I spotted one almost immediately, and a nearby blood coral was a good sign, though I steered well clear of it. The relationship between the blood coral and the oysters was a mystery we accepted, even though the blood coral was highly toxic. All we knew was that it made the pearls in these waters pink, and a pink pearl was worth five of its paler cousins. But a blood coral cut was almost always fatal. The fact that I had survived mine was deemed a miracle by the doctor and elders alike.
There had been a shoal here once, but as the value of the pearls continued to drop, some of the villagers had grown greedy and stripped it bare. Our best bet was now the ocean floor, nearly fifty feet down. I pushed as hard as I could, reaching the oyster and barely believing my luck when I spotted another one just a few feet away. I grabbed both and pushed myself off the seafloor toward the surface. For dives of this depth, we didn’t bother using rocks to weigh us down, or lines to pull us back up, or even oil in our ears and mouths to protect our eardrums. But for the men who dived as deep as one hundred feet or more, such precautions were necessary.
When I broke the surface, I looked around for Zadie, but there was no sign of her. I dropped my oysters into the boat and was getting ready to fill my lungs again to search for her when she popped up next to me.
“Did you find anything?” I asked, ignoring the way my heart pounded in my chest. Seven years had passed since the incident, but I had never stopped worrying about my twin. The thought of her alone in Ilara without me to look out for her was almost unbearable.
She sighed and dropped a large clam into the boat. “Just this clam. Perhaps Mother can harvest some sea silk from the beard. But no oysters. You?”
“Two, not far from a nice, fat blood coral. I have high hopes.”
She grunted in frustration. “I’m going to try down at the other end. Don’t follow me.”
“Fine, suit yourself. I’m going to try here again. Scream if you need me.”
“What makes you think I’ll need you?” she said, splashing me. Then she disappeared.
I took a few moments to slow my heart rate down as well as my breathing. Staying underwater for long periods of time required concentration and calm. The very worst thing you could do was panic, as Zadie and I knew all too well.
I filled my lungs with air and dived, this time a little farther to the left of the blood coral, which was surrounded by nothing but bones. Even the fish knew to stay away from it. I wondered which villager had been laid to rest here, their body wrapped in a shroud and weighted down with rocks. Was it someone I knew, or had the coral been here since long before I was born?
I remembered the coral I’d cut myself on vividly. It was one of the largest I’d ever seen, a red tangle of branches sprouting out of a rib cage that had split right down the middle. At ten we were deemed old enough to go out alone, though Mother always sent Sami with us. He had stayed in the boat, fishing, while Zadie and I hunted for oysters amid the rocks on the seafloor.
Zadie and I had spotted the oyster at the same time. It was enormous, with a pink luster to its shell, probably due to its proximity to such a large coral. We knew to stay away from blood coral—it was a lesson every Varenian child learned before we were ever permitted to dive—but this oyster was too tempting.
We shared a look and immediately raced toward it, imagining a giant pink pearl that could feed our family for months. With our sights set on the oyster, neither of us noticed the fishing net caught on the rocks nearby. I reached the oyster first and turned back to grin at my sister, but Zadie was bolder back then. She came right at me, even though both of us were quickly running out of air. I propelled myself off the rocks and started toward the surface, when I felt her hand wrap around my ankle and pull.