Tide

by Lacy Sheridan

  “King Lenairen,” a voice behind me said. I looked over my shoulder and met the approving smile of Shiral, one of the storytellers. She had been my grandmother’s friend for decades, and before her passing they had sat together in the center each week and sang. Her brown eyes were kind as they passed over me. “You carry his blood, you know.”

  I glanced at the painting, pulling my hand away. “Only if you believe the stories.” King Lenairen had been real, the hero of our land. And the tidespeople were far from myth—though they hadn’t slipped past the defenses Lenairen had raised in fifty years, there were those in the village who remembered the last time they did—but the war that had driven them to the deep was as good as legend. No human had the power to fight the tidespeople.

  “The stories are all we have of the past,” Shiral reminded me, but before I could respond she was swept away by another small group arriving.

  Edrick stepped up beside me. “I thought you liked the stories. You know them so well you could tell them yourself.”

  “I do.” If I closed my eyes, I could hear my grandmother’s voice as she recited the old tales to me. I could smell her earthy scent as I sat in her lap and listened to her voice go up and down, swaying like the tide as she wove magic and adventure and victory together. The stories were beautiful, hopeful, but they weren’t real. “But they’re just pretty stories, Edrick.”

  “They came from somewhere, didn’t they?”

  I couldn’t help one corner of my mouth tugging up into a smile. “I guess they must have. But I don’t know about telling them. Everybody’s heard them all.”

  “Maybe you’ll find a new one to tell.”

  “Maybe.”

  And then the music began, soft and slow, and the others who had arrived quieted. Edrick’s hand brushed along my wrist as he led us to seats. The others filled in around us, children eager to hear the stories and women looking for a break from the market. When I checked over my shoulder I found Tobin leaning in the entrance behind us, looking past me to Shiral as she settled into her place before the crowd. A stream of sunlight from outside caught in his golden hair, like the regal shades of King Lenairen come to life.

  “What do you think, Inka, do we have enough?” I asked, studying my basket. It was near half-full with berries, shining and ripe. The mare grazed beside me, and a swish of her white tail was her answer to my question. I glanced at the berries. I’d picked more than we needed for now.

  I set the basket down and dropped into the grass beside it, pulling my boots closer from where I’d kicked them off. It was a shame to wear shoes in a spot like this, where the grass was so soft and thick you could hardly feel the ground, and the little circle of trees cast sweet shade across the clearing, but anybody who saw me working barefoot would scold me for it. So I slipped them on, reaching up to rub Inka’s nose when she shuffled closer and snorted a warm breath onto my shoulder. When I’d laced them, I got to my feet, scooped my basket up, and clucked my tongue to get her to follow. “Let’s go home.”

  I paused in the fields to look up at the cloudy sky. “It looks like rain,” I murmured. “I think we’ll have another storm soon.” The second this week. Though the sunny days were the most beautiful I could imagine, we’d had more rain this summer than usual.

  Just in case the storm came sooner than expected, I increased my pace, speaking as we went. Not because I had much in particular to say to Inka—she was a horse, after all—but because she listened, ears swiveling at the sound of my voice. An animal will keep by you all their life, if only they know your voice, Mama had loved to say. They may not understand what you say, but they know when you’re speaking to them, and they’ll love you for it. You can’t expect an animal to follow you out of obedience—they follow out of love.

  I had seen Mama hold entire conversations with Inka alone, telling the mare about her day or how the crops were doing, pointing out the birds around them. Laughing. And Inka had followed her everywhere she went; she had seldom allowed anybody but Mama to ride her. So I voiced whatever thoughts ran through my head for her. I described to her the gray-blue of the sky today and listed off the names of every plant I could see. I told her which of our crops would be ready to harvest when, and how I hoped this autumn would be good to us.

  But the longer I spoke the more my thoughts turned to other things, and I cast the mare a careful look. “Do you miss her?” I asked and paused as if she could answer me. “Do you understand that she’s gone? Can a horse understand death?” Of course she didn’t respond but to shake off a fly that had landed on her nose. “Of course you must miss her. I know you loved her. I miss her, too.”

  I listened to the faint, roving songs of the fields. “She always loved the festival, do you remember? She used to put flowers in her hair and mine. It’s tomorrow night. Maybe I’ll pick some flowers for it.” I stopped and bent to pull up one of the scattered wildflowers near my feet. Inka kept calm and let me plait it into her mane, where its pale lavender-pink petals shone against the white hair. “Everybody should look nice for the festival, Inka. You won’t get to be there, of course, you’ll have to stay here, but I’ll know how nice you look at least.” When I finished, I stepped back and studied it, though she was already moving toward home again. Mama would have approved, I was sure.

  I hurried to catch up to her and picked the flowers that caught my eye as we went, making a small bundle in one hand. When we reached the field where the other horses grazed, Inka broke off, trotting away to them with a toss of her head in farewell. I found Tobin and our father both inside already, deep in a conversation that cut off when I entered. I placed the basket of berries onto the table and turned to dig through our collection of pots and pans for a vase. “I picked plenty of berries,” I said. “We can have them fresh or preserve them. Though I think we should wait until later in the season to preserve them, maybe. But either way there are more than enough to take to the festival.” I pulled out the old vase, dropping the flowers into it before setting it in the center of the table. It brightened up the simple room; I’d get some water so they stayed fresh.

  “Thank you, Hania,” Papa said, looking up from his work and giving me a broad smile. He was bent over an old shirt, fingers shaking as he tried to sew together a hole. I took it from him and laid it across the table.

  “I’ll patch it tonight,” I promised him, and I could see the relief in his shoulders.

  “This place would fall apart without you, I swear it,” he told me with a laugh as he stood. He stifled a wince, and I glanced to Tobin. Our father wasn’t old, but a lifetime of hard work had worn on him. He had always insisted that Tobin and I help but leave time for our own pursuits, and now with Mama gone he’d taken on more than his share. The lines in his face had deepened in the last three years, and there were times that he moved with a sort of care he hadn’t before.

  I fetched a chipped mug and filled it with water. “Are you going out to the fields, Papa?” I asked as I passed it to him.

  “Of course. We don’t get a break until tomorrow.”

  I glanced out the window at the darkening sky. “Be careful. It might storm.”

  “I’ve weathered more storms than you know, Hania,” he reminded me, but his eyes shined with silent appreciation for my concern, as always. I returned his small smile before turning away.

  “I know, but I always worry.”

  “Your mother taught you that.”

  Tobin laughed, but I thought it didn’t hold quite the right humor in it. “Yes, she did.” I glanced to him with a grin, but his expression remained open, relaxed. Nothing wrong in it—imagined, then, perhaps.

  The wind strengthened outside, the gray clouds rolling closer. “I’m going to bring the laundry in before the rain comes,” I said, slipping out the back door that led to the garden. Two lines were strung in the air between the house and toolshed, covered in clothes and sheets. I pulled them down, draping them over an arm, and tossed the pins into a basket waiting against the wall of the
house. There was more laundry to be done but it could wait. There was no use washing it when a storm was coming.

  The smell of summer clung to the fabric, and I breathed it in as I went, running my fingers along the familiar cotton and linen. None of it was luxurious or expensive, but it was comfortable and practical and sent my mind to the sunny days of childhood, of Tobin and I racing across the fields to see who could reach home first when our mother called us in to eat.

  When he noticed me, Kotar curled around my leg and gave a creaky meow, and I stooped down to scratch his chin. As soon as he knew he had my attention, he rolled down into the grass to bask in the sun. The light shone on his striped pelt, ragged and tufted in places from age and scars. He was looking thinner. “I’ll bring you some scraps after supper,” I ensured him, pulling down the last shirt.

  Papa and Tobin were speaking again when I returned inside, but their voices passed in one ear and out the other. I slipped along the back wall to my bedroom to put the laundry away. I piled them on the old bed to sort through and fished out my things, brushing each one smooth before placing it in the drawer. Ones that needed mending went into a folded pile at the foot of the bed; I would get to them after I’d fixed Papa’s shirt. When each was in its place, I gathered up Tobin and Papa’s clothes and turned to the door.

  “Hania won’t like it,” Tobin’s voice reached me, soft and filled with a tired sort of despair.

  I pulled up short, hovering in the doorway. “No, she won’t,” Papa agreed. I almost stepped through and demanded to know what I wouldn’t like, but I didn’t dare. They had discussed it when I was out of the room; it wasn’t a conversation to intrude on.

  And yet I had a right to know what was so terrible, didn’t I? I stepped aside, out of sight but still close. Eavesdropping was a shameful thing to do, especially to your own family, but I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t heard them, and I wasn’t sure I could ask them face-to-face what they meant, either. Maybe it was nothing, a problem with Papa’s new shoes or another batch of my vegetables those hares had eaten up. Something that could be fixed.

  Maybe it wasn’t. The tightness in my chest wouldn’t let me go until I knew.

  “I can’t tell her,” Tobin said. I could almost see the firm shake of his head. There was defiance in his tone. “It will break her heart, you know that.”

  “It breaks my heart, but it’s the best thing. Horses are expensive, Tobin, and Inka won’t work. Not since your mother…” He trailed off, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t need to hear the rest of that sentence, and neither did Tobin.

  Horses are expensive, and Inka won’t work.

  Inka hadn’t pulled a plow or cart since our mother died. She let us ride her sometimes, but when she did, she was temperamental about it. She had been my mother’s horse through and through, we all knew it.

  “Yes, but sell her? She was Mama’s. She loved that horse. Hania loves that horse.”

  “When winter comes it may be between keeping Inka fed or you and Hania fed. They said it will be a bitter winter this year, and these storms are already beginning to spell danger for the crops.”

  “And who will you sell her to?”

  “The best home I can. I don’t want her to go, either, but I think we need to do this. She’s a fine horse; I’m sure if I take her to the next town somebody will be interested.”

  “And you expect me to tell Hania?”

  Papa’s voice softened, gentler. “I thought she might be less upset to hear it from you. You two have always had a way with each other.”

  My hands were shaking, curled into fists around the laundry. I forced myself to open them and the clothes dropped to the floor in a haphazard pile, where they would only get dirty again, but I didn’t care. I stepped through the doorway to face my father and brother. Papa looked up when I did, startled, but Tobin kept his gaze fixed on the floor, fingers laced through his hair.

  “Hania,” Papa sighed without moving.

  I looked between the two of them for such a long moment it felt like my voice had left me. The worry that had crept into my chest and throat was gone, replaced by stinging shock and betrayal. “You’re going to sell Inka?” I asked them, and even to me my voice sounded flat and far away.

  Inka. Mama’s beloved horse, my beloved horse. The last piece of my mother remaining on this farm but for an old portrait Papa kept shut away in the closet. We had sold her things to get by the first winter after she had died, but Inka had been safe. I hadn’t wanted to let anybody else near her. For three years I had believed they understood what she’d been to Mama, that they felt the same pain at the thought of her being anywhere else. But no.

  They exchanged a look, deciding how to respond, and then Papa started, “Not just yet, Hania, but if we have to—”

  “We don’t have to! We can get by, we always get by!”

  He stood, watching me like a spooked animal. Cautious and gentle. He took both of my hands in his and met my eyes before he spoke. I knew he was trying to be kind, but I bristled. “In this life sometimes sacrifices have to be made. We aren’t doing anything until we need to.”

  I yanked away. “Find something else to sacrifice, then!”

  I saw his response in his face—what else was there? A piece of our land? The clothes on our backs?—but I also knew that he saw in mine that I didn’t care. There was something we could do. There was always something. Inka wasn’t going anywhere. I’d fight for her, even if they’d given up. He didn’t speak and I looked to Tobin, who cut his gaze away.

  He wasn’t going to side with me. My heart pounded in my ears, my stomach dropped to the ground, and without letting myself think, I turned and walked out the door. The house was too small, too close, and I wanted to get away. I wanted the open air of the pastures and fields, the sun on my face. My feet led me as if they had a mind of their own. I heard Tobin call my name but ignored him.

  “Hania! Hania!” He reached me halfway to the fields where the horses grazed, catching my arm. “Hania, stop!”

  I pulled away and turned to face him, but for an instant my voice wouldn’t work. My throat closed. “Don’t, Tobin.”

  “I’m sorry. I love Inka, we all do, but if we have to do it, we have to. It’s not even set in stone yet.”

  “But you’re willing to!” I shouted. A bird took off from us, startled. “You don’t even care that she wanted her to stay here! You don’t care that I need her here!”

  “Of course I care!” His voice rose to meet mine, but he caught it better than me, taking a deep breath and lowering it. “You’re not the only one who lost your mother, Hania.”

  “But I’m the only one keeping her from disappearing!”

  “It’s been three years. She’s gone. We’re not. And she would want us to keep the farm alive, to take care of ourselves.”

  “She’d want us to take care of everybody relying on us. That means Inka. All of them. She loved the animals more than anything, and she told me to take care of them if she ever couldn’t, and you know that.” I knew she’d never meant so soon, I knew she’d meant when I was grown and with my own family, but nevertheless, she couldn’t care for them anymore. I’d made a promise. The details didn’t matter.

  “There are people in the village relying on us, too.”

  “So find another way! We’ll hunt more to sell, or…or…”

  “What if there isn’t another way?” he demanded. “What if we lose our crops? What if there’s not enough to hunt? What if we run out of money? What will we do then?” I didn’t have an answer for him. My tongue turned bitter at the realization, and I stared at him, searching for something. Anything. “Would you rather have Inka cared for somewhere else or starving here?”

  “I made her a promise,” I said, my voice was quiet and meek. “Both of them, Mama and Inka.”

  “Mama isn’t here and Inka doesn’t understand your promises! She’s a horse!”

  Tears pushed at my eyes, aching to get out. I turned away before Tobin could see them. I
wanted to say something scathing, something that would cut through him like that had cut through me, but there were no words in me. There was only a fear that squeezed my heart and made every breath I took feel too thin. A shaking kind of emptiness. So I kept walking.

  He didn’t try to stop me.

  I passed the fields without seeing them. Our crops swayed in the breeze, the air smelled of wildflowers and earth and summer rain, Kotar sunbathed in his favorite spot, all was as it had been less than an hour ago. But it felt much colder now.

  I stopped when the sound of the tide reached me. The ocean glittered under the sun like it was made of crystal, rolling in and out from the beach in a hypnotizing rhythm. The sand was smooth, and even without taking another step closer I could feel the velvety warmth of it beneath my bare feet. The rocks scattered about the shore jutted here and there, some sleek and polished and others jagged. Some of the larger ones rose out of the water, and I closed my eyes, remembering the times Tobin and I had climbed them or jumped between them as children. The beach was a painfully beautiful sight, a second home once upon a time.

  When I opened my eyes, though, the storm clouds were creeping closer and blotting out the sun. My mind supplied the rest in pure, excruciating detail: the rain battering the beach, the waves reaching higher and higher, crashing to the ground with an echoing force. The sand and air freezing around me as I stood dripping wet and shivering, eyes glued to the ocean. My mother’s hoarse shout, that I’d never deciphered the words to, burst out of her and was whipped away by the wind just before a fresh wave pushed her out of view. Tobin hauling himself out of the water, coughing. Papa about falling in his hurry over the wet rocks across the beach, racing to the water’s edge. Too late.

  The sky opened up above me and the rain began. I let it hit my bare skin, stinging. I didn’t move to find shelter. I stood and stared at the ocean as it grew darker, like it planned to lash out at the sky.