44. Maren #2
“The island,” he said, stopping to gulp down another breath, “my island, the people I had always loved, who had accepted her and embraced her and loved her, started to ignore her, avoid her, accuse her of bringing harm to our shores. Just as she said they would.”
It sounded prepared. Rehearsed. As if he’d spent nearly a year writing it in his head and now couldn’t free it from his thoughts fast enough.
I wondered how many hours he’d thought it over alone in the dark of this cave.
Every question I’d ever asked about my mother, everything he’d left unanswered, everything he might wish he could say to the daughter that had disappeared.
I released a small gust of air, conceding to hear the rest in silence.
He shook his head and sucked his teeth loudly, sending his gaze along the walls like I was something that burned to look at too long. “And then they started to look at you like that, too. That was when I started wanting to leave.”
His voice vibrated strangely, almost wavering as it met my ears. A stack of small wooden poles leaned against the wall beside him, and he grabbed one, but only to hold one end loosely in his hand and smack the other against his opposite palm.
“But she was adamant, she had spent that one night when she’d been able to speak repeating herself over and over, drilling into me that remaining on the island was the one thing that kept you safe.
I didn’t know if that was true, but I do know something was hunting her, that it might someday hunt you, and what if I did take you away?
What if the island did somehow protect you, and I discarded the whims of a goddess anyway?
What if I stole you—would Theia smite us both? ”
He let the question hang, his last words echoing quietly against the cavernous walls, long enough that I opened my mouth. “The one night she could speak?”
The blood betrayal—she must have taken a drop of Thaan’s blood to Leihani with her.
“And then,” he said suddenly, his breath twice as fast and shallow, “you started to pull away from me. And I didn’t know if it was because you were getting older, becoming a woman.
Or because the island refused to welcome you.
Rejected you. Or because I was such a hopeless father that I could no longer reach you. ”
I stood in mute surprise, watching his lips move, still trying to make sense of his words five sentences before.
My mind turned slowly, like I was trying to run through ankle-deep mud to keep up with him.
By the time I realized what he’d said, my silence hovered loudly between us, too long of a pause for authenticity. I tried anyway.
“You were not a hopeless father,” I said softly. But the words stuck to my tongue. They dropped out, lumpy and waxy and mal-shaped, and even my own ears didn’t believe them.
My father scrubbed a rough hand down his mouth.
“No, no. Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t pretend.
Any single father raising a daughter might struggle, but I was unequipped for what you became, and that was my fault, not yours.
I thought the hardest parts would be your body changing, or when you started being interested in someone.
You know, romantically. But no, you weren’t interested in anyone, and the more you matured, the more you walked around like you wanted to set fire to the island. ”
“I only walked around like that because the island hated me.” Even now, knowing the islanders had only been wary of me because of my siren blood, the memories stung like old wounds that hadn’t healed quite right.
Scars I couldn’t heal, impenetrable to everyone including me.
Even in the moments I’d longed for connection and acceptance, I couldn’t let myself have it.
He wet his lips, letting his gaze roam the disassembled parts of his boat.
“Ask any islander and they’ll tell you Neris Island is cursed.
Just rowing near its beaches, we can feel it.
The spirits of the dead, the goddess Nahli.
The hair on our arms lift, chills race down our back.
Stepping ashore feels evil, and there you were, visiting it daily, planting herbs and crops.
” My father paused as if he’d let himself stray too far from his own point, wiggling his fingers against his pole.
“The island was so convinced you were what your mother was, it didn’t matter what I said.
I argued with them at first, but their evidence was there, as much as I refused to acknowledge it.
Sailors who watched you walk through the market would go missing by nightfall.
Less ships came, less trade, less fish sold at the peak of the season.
” He twisted the wooden pole absently in his hand.
“Everything started to happen the way it had with your mother. The older you got, the more like her you became, and it was like a countdown in my head. When would Mihauna take you, the way she’s taken her?
The Calderian came, and you pretended not to—but I knew you’d taken a liking to him.
You’d saved him. Tolerated him on our veranda, let him talk to you in your garden.
That felt like a miracle to me, a moon-damned marvel.
Like fate. I was so relieved, so thrilled to see you smiling at someone.
And then he brought you home unconscious. And I realized. I realized…”
His words trailed away, throat bobbing slowly, its shadow flickering over his throat. Our conversation that day ghosted over my memory. Strained words and the burn of betrayal, a haunted fear in my father’s eyes. My teacup shattering against the wall.
Do you tempt people?
Who would I tempt, Makua?
I don't know. People. Boys, other islanders. Sailors.
“You knew I was close to leaving,” I breathed. “I thought you were testing me. I thought you were trying to protect them.”
“I was trying to understand how much time I had left with you. Before you left or turned or...”
Died, I finished for him inside my own head.
He tossed his wooden pole back into the pile without really aiming, then set his back against the hull and slid to the cavern floor, hands rooting into his hair.
“I knew it was a mistake the moment I asked you. The look in your eyes—I knew I’d lost you then.
I told myself it was all right if you hated me.
You could hate me as long as you stayed safe on the island.
But by the next day”—he looked up at me, eyes glassy again—“you were gone.”
I crossed my arms, suddenly cold. “You never told me what happened when Kye brought me back. Before I woke up.”
Ano stared for a long moment into the dark.
The fire snapped softly. Somewhere, water dripped onto damp rock, the scent of it wet and volcanic and old, water dripping over time itself.
“I only saw it for a moment,” he sighed.
“The Calderian brought you home, then ran to find Akamai. She brought her basket of herbs and tonics, but she took one look at you and ordered everyone but me out. By then, half the island stood outside, waiting to see if you lived or died, as if your life was nothing more than tinder for their gossip.” He rubbed the backs of his knuckles over his cheek slowly. I tilted my head, waiting.
“Your legs looked like they’d been burned. Akamai prepared a poultice, asking me questions. Where had you been found, how long ago had you been hurt. And then your skin breathed.”
My brows raised in slow motion.
My father laughed uncomfortably. “I was holding your legs when it happened. A flash of gold down your legs, almost—almost translucent. And then your skin separated like scales. I felt them lift under my hands. The edges were hard, as hard as my fingernail, and sharp. They flared from your thighs to your feet, and then they were gone, and you finally settled. Akamai and I just stared at each other. Then she collected her things and said, I’m sorry, Ano, I can’t. She’s cursed. And then she left.”
We listened to the hidden drip for a moment.
It was almost inside my head—that slow, damp sound, a single bead at a time, sinking under the surface of my memories.
Scales down my legs. I was almost glad he hadn’t confessed it the next morning.
Without knowing I was Naiad, I would have been terrified.
I could feel his curiosity, sniffing around me like a nervous little mouse, waiting for me to reveal which topics were safe and which were traps.
I walked around his long legs, retrieving his pole just to have something for my hands. Then slid to the cavern floor beside him, his carefully polished hull smooth and cool under my back.
“What is this place, Makua?”
“A cave. Thousands and thousands of years ago, before islanders came to Leihani, this was a volcano that erupted. Magma cooled and hardened on the outside, but it was still hot inside, flowing like a river into the sea. That’s why they’re all hollow, these tunnels—”
“That’s not what I mean. Why are you here? Why are you building a boat underground?”
“Ah,” he said belatedly, scratching behind his ear. “I found this cave as a boy. It was my secret. When my sister was driving me mad or my parents were barking at me, I’d come here and explore the tunnels.”
Moons alive, he was going to make me ask. I rested the pole over the top of my knees, waiting for him to look at me. “Where did all the bones come from?”
“Oh, those,” he said, hiding a small flinch. “Those…those are mine.”