Chapter 31
“Don’t get up, I’ve got it,” Selena said the next morning as she entered my apartment, arms laden with goods.
I sank back into my chair, relieved. It would have taken me the full cycle of the damn moon to stand. Besides, for reasons I couldn”t articulate, I didn”t want to explain why or how I”d hurt my foot.
Sitting a basket onto the table, Selena laid out breakfast of fried and buttered fish, a bowl of cashew nuts, and a round, cheery fruit with thick skin she called an orange.
Pouring a glass of wine, Selena sloped herself against her chair, gracefully peeling her own orange, and announced that I needed one more day of rest.
“Besides,” she said, a bright orange wedge hovering over her mouth. “We haven’t had a chance to celebrate. Transition is a monumental milestone, not one to be quickly forgotten in the face of study. You’ve done everything I’ve asked, and I couldn’t be prouder.” She poured another glass and held it out to me.
I took it slowly, too aware of the last thing I’d toasted against my will.
It was hard not to let the praise pad my ego, and harder for me to consciously separate flattery from my feelings toward Selena. I hadn”t volunteered to be here—I’d been forced. Although some part of me might be forever grateful for Selena’s hand in my transition, it was an outcome that would have unfolded on its own in Leihani.
Probably.
I forced the thought away before it could turn down a road that led me to Naheso. Or Kye.
Or six dead sailors.
But I’d always had reservations about Nori and Olinne. Had always known they kept secrets from me. Things they coveted. Although, I’d always assumed they were simply obscure because I was human, and they were Naiads.
Why had they hidden my heritage from me?
Selena had said to trust my gut when it came to Naiads and their intentions, and my gut could only identify one solid truth—I couldn’t trust any of them. Rather than feeling grateful, or flattered, or proud, I accepted the wine and sipped, listening to my own counsel of silence. Waiting for a definitive reason to decide whether I could keep Selena in my confidence.
“We should try to get you back in the Venus Sea at least once a week,” Selena said after waiting long enough for me to add to her announcement. “After mastering the basic practice of swimming, you’ll need to work on speed, rotation, direction, and efficiency to advance your skills and sharpen your ability to manage energy. You’ll also need to practice your command. Right now, your body wants to be Naiad. If you were to enter saltwater, you’d have trouble remaining human. It’s one of the hardest things to master in the beginning. There will be times you’ll encounter sea salt and must not automatically change, especially if humans are nearby. The Venus Sea is a few hours’ ride. It isn’t exactly in our backyard, so we’re working out a solution.”
I narrowed my eyes. “We?”
“Yes,” Selena said, taking a smooth sip of her wine. “Thaan and I.”
My jaw tightened. Unlike my clouded feelings where Nori or Olinne were concerned, I knew for certain my sentiments toward Thaan—firmly secured in the depths of objection to any part he may play in my life. “I don’t like him.”
Selena seemed unbothered by my flare of emotion. “Many people don’t,” she said, watching the liquid slosh in her glass. “We’re designing a glass box for you, which we will fill with Venus Sea water, then transport back. It’ll be tall enough for you to sit up while submerged, and long enough for you to stretch out. The box will offer us two major advantages: routine absorption of salt water on your skin, and practicing your control.”
I reached for my own orange. The fruit was firm and bumpy, and as I thrust my nail into it, a cloud of zesty vapor burst through the air, sending moist dust across my hand. It left my fingertips slightly tacky, almost powdery. “Control—as in, when I chooseto change?”
“Yes,” Selena said. “And also, breath control, and perhaps some temperature control, if you possess the ability.” She tapped her hand on her leg, thinking. “The challenge is evaporation. We’re working out a style of lid that would snugly fit over the top, so we don’t lose water, in case we’re delayed in returning to the sea for a week or two. But you need not worry about any of that. We’ll work it all out.” She waited again for me to say something. Busy peeling a leathery strip of skin from the orange, I separated the crescent-shaped wedges inside and took my first juicy bite. The shock of sweet and sour on my tongue sucked my cheeks in, and Selena smiled at me.
“I have another surprise,” Selena said, standing up from the table and floating out the door. The sounds of boxes stacking and tissue paper ruffling came from the hallway, and Selena returned hidden under an avalanche of bagged and wrapped items. My eyes grew wide at the parcels, cloaked in heavy wrapping paper with shop names stamped in black and tied off in ribbons and bows.
Half an hour later, a barrage of gowns, lace gloves, boots, hats, undergarments, and a small mountain of soaps and oils lay scattered across the room.
I was already beyond overwhelmed when Selena passed me the final box, small but heavy. Well-constructed in sturdy, thin pieces of wood, glued together and wrapped in satin, the lid lifted away with ease, and I peered at the three items inside.
The first, a jewelry box, was ivory-carved and trimmed with silver in the shapes of coral, seashells, and starfish under a glass lid, through which sat dozens of silver hairpins, all the length of her smallest finger.
The next was a hairbrush, a heavy silver handle that widened into a paddle housing soft boar-hair bristles. Like the little jewelry box, the silver was ornately decorated in an underwater landscape, bright and shining, a charcoal color worked into the details, which Selena explained was a chemical process called antiquing, helping the silver to not tarnish with time.
The last was a mirror.
I knew what it was before I picked it up. The handle and spade were an exact twin of the hairbrush. It lay flat and still at the bottom of the box. I stared at it.
There are no mirrors here. You’ve never seen yourself?
All Leihaniians look the same. I doubt I need to see one.
I could tell you what I see.
The mirror waited. Selena waited. I stretched my fingers, unable to grasp it. I could sense her curiosity; I knew my reaction was peculiar.
The act of seeing myself for the first time felt intimate. Private. Like a secret I wasn”t ready to hear nor prepared to share. Swallowing the rawness in my throat, I left the mirror alone, untouched, turning to Selena and attempting my best smile. “It’s all beautiful.”
Selena watched me with soft intensity. She didn’t pry into the shift in my mood, though it was obvious she noticed. Taking a lock of my hair, she twisted it in her fingers affectionately and pulled her hand away, the loose strands falling by themselves back into place.
“I’ll let you get some sleep,” she said, pouring the final splash of wine from the bottle into my glass before padding out the room and quietly closing the door.
My eyes shifted back to the box.
The back of the mirror lay horizontal inside its house of wood and satin.
What was I afraid of? That I would look Leihaniian? That I wouldn’t? That I would see only my father, and therefore, never know what my mother may have looked like?
That I would see only my mother, and nothing of my father at all—that the security of my Leihani roots would unravel, and I’d know the islanders were always right, that I’d never truly belonged on the islands?
Timid, I enclosed my fingers around the cold metal handle, lifting it out. The room in the little glass window rotated. The wall. The fireplace. The bed rails. The edge of the curtain. Me.
I stared.
My first instinct was of hollow disappointment.
The stranger’s face that gazed back was neither friendly nor unpleasant. Just unfamiliar. I forced myself to not immediately lay the mirror face down. Intimate details began to announce themselves. My thick hair rested on my crown in soft, dark waves that reminded me of Nola. My father gazed at me in the vivid darkness of my eyes, so liquid black they echoed every source of light, the reflection of a lighthouse glinting over dark water. The high crests of my cheeks glowed under my sun-kissed skin, and even without the wrinkles, I felt a sudden whiplash of surprise at an echo of my Nani’s face.
But the rest of me was foreign.
Almond-shaped eyes. An angular chin, a celestial nose. My upper lip curved like the stretched wings of a seabird in flight. Even my lashes weren’t Leihaniian; most islanders sported lashes that stood high and tall, splaying thick over their eyelids like a woman’s handheld fan. My lashes curled heavily out to the side, so long I could see them silhouetted over my cheek as I turned my head left and right.
I gazed until the reflection no longer bothered me, and then I gazed longer, until the mirrored image was less like a marble statue and more like a living person, all the details in the sculpture fleshed out.
And then I put it away, deciding I would only retrieve it again if Selena asked me to.