Chapter 2
The women naturally fanned out across the grassy seabed, inspecting the field of mollusks that grew offshore in a protected lagoon.
Allegra noticed Danetta and Gabriella together.
Danetta demonstrated how to twist the wrist just so, to wrest the shell from the mud where it was implanted.
The warmer days and warming water had softened the mud enough to pry the shells loose without damaging the mollusks’ feet.
These mollusks were large, a bit over three feet at their height, and it took some strength and maneuvering to budge them from where they’d dug in.
Allegra witnessed Gabriella surfacing two or three times before Danetta went up for her first long breath, and she smiled to herself.
It had taken Allegra months to build up enough lung stamina to stay under for more than two minutes.
Her mother had led her through practices at home while they did other chores, teaching her to use busy hands to keep her mind off the air demand.
It was much easier to hold her breath above water than below, where she had to overcome her mind’s distrust of lingering in a place where breath was impossible.
Allegra hoisted shell after shell to the surface, where she used her short knife to cut the filaments that fanned out from the bivalve’s clamped halves.
This was the byssus. She was careful not to lose a bit of the dark-amber fiber, placing each piece in her basket as she cut it.
Once she’d harvested the threads, Allegra dove again and nestled the mollusk’s base back into the muddy lagoon bottom so that it could live on.
Closer to shore, the seabed changed from mud to sand, and Allegra noticed a subtle circle of white spots in the sand near a rock.
She drew the three-foot spear from her belt and hovered above the pattern to make sure.
A slight movement of the sand confirmed her suspicions: a flounder lay partially buried, its gills sending up the barest disturbance of sand.
Her well-aimed spear pierced the base of its head, and she pulled it flapping from its hiding place.
A school of sargos darted away in a flash of silver, startled by the movement.
“Brava, Allegra.” Her mother praised her catch as they swam toward the shore, and Allegra beamed. Contributing to the family table was an added benefit of their diving—and a necessary one because the byssus brought no income. It was part of their vow that it couldn’t be used for personal gain.
Allegra and Lora compared their harvests on the shore as they dried off and dressed.
Lora was four years older and, Allegra thought, the prettiest of the three sisters and the responsible one.
Ella was more like an ocean breeze, apt to waft in and out quickly, her attention easily stolen.
Ella sparked fun and laughter, splashing in the water, hanging on to someone’s basket to be dragged in to shore rather than swimming herself.
If pressed, Allegra might label herself the quiet one.
Pretty enough, tall and slim, with muscled arms and long, dark hair that hung most often under her cap or scarf in a thick braid down her back.
She worked hard. At seventeen, she sometimes wondered if she’d marry or have children.
It took a patient sort of man to marry a weaver woman, one who knew where he stood when the seasons changed and the days grew warmer, when most days between May and September, he’d wake to find his wife already gone to the shore, tending the byssus rather than his breakfast.
Allegra and her sister linked arms and set off toward home, the flounder she’d snagged still flapping in her basket.
“What do you think Ella’s doing?” she asked.
“They’re on their honeymoon, sciocca. What do you think?”
Allegra pushed Lora sideways with her hip. “That’s not what I meant. Do you think she misses the first harvest this morning?”
Lora shrugged. “I think Ella’s mind is elsewhere.”
“I’d be sad to miss it. Even for someone like Gus. I still can’t believe Mamma agreed to have the wedding so close to first moon.”
“We’re here,” Lora replied, as if that made up for their sister’s absence. “Anyway, Ella hasn’t taken the water oath yet.”
Allegra stopped suddenly, jerking Lora backward with her. “You think she won’t?”
Lora pulled her forward again. They’d almost reached the small footpath that led to their home beyond the cliff face. “It’ll have to be her choice.”
“Did she say something to you?” She glanced out at the waves breaking against the shoreline, the gulls squawking overhead, and the line of laughing women laden with baskets walking behind them toward their own homes. It was all she’d ever known, and she loved it entirely.
“No,” Lora admitted. “But Ella’s married now, with babies soon to come.”
“Mamma’s married.” Allegra glanced at Lora. She said nothing about her suspicions or concerns that Ella might already be carrying.
“Yes, but Mamma is a maestra. You know how Ella is. She’d just as soon go cliff jumping with friends as swim with us in the lagoon.”
“We’re water women,” said Allegra, as if that settled it.
Her papà was a pescatore, and her brothers would follow.
Just as the sheepherders knew their trade and the bakers theirs, families inherited the land or business and learned the skills, the younger generation placing their feet in the treads of their fathers and mothers.
Allegra’s father appeared at the top of the path and smiled at them. He reached out to take their baskets.
“Flounder,” he exclaimed. “And still fresh.” His large, warm hand rested on Allegra’s head, and for the second time that day, she felt complete, the ground solid beneath her and her task predictably set before her.
The muscles in her arms and legs ached pleasantly, evidence of a day well spent.
Ella would return to them soon enough, she believed, and when she did, Allegra wouldn’t feel her absence so keenly.
As it was, her thoughts kept returning to her sister repeatedly, like a tongue drawn to the cavity from a lost tooth.