Tides From the New Worlds

by Tobias S. Buckell

  Even stranger, Siana could smell cooking and the excited rumbling of dad’s voice. Strange because they’d just had supper, and mum had let her out to go look for shells while the tide was well out.

  Siana grabbed the first rung of the ladder and climbed up and up. She paused halfway to catch her breath. When she reached the hatch of the entryway she clambered in and closed it behind her. She carefully set the canvas bag of shells down.

  “Siana? Is that you?” Mum called, peeking around the corner of the door.

  “Yes.”

  “Come in,” she said with a big smile. “There’s someone we’d like you to meet.” Mum smelled reassuringly of bread and saltfish stew. She wore her apron, and had her long brown hair carelessly pulled back in a ponytail. Her hair, Siana thought, was almost the color of the cowlie in her bag. And so was her skin. Tanned and weathered.

  Siana walked into the room. Dad sat in his driftwood armchair. He was also grinning. And next to him stood a woman. The woman looked a lot like mum: the same brown eyes, and the sharp cheeks. She looked the same age as well. But even though she smiled when she saw Siana, the woman’s eyes looked really tired, like dad’s when he’d been out after a whale for many weeks and come home without a catch.

  “Hello Siana,” the woman said. “I can’t believe how big you’ve grown. Look at you!”

  Siana smiled politely. Adults always said things like this in a high-pitched voice. It actually annoyed her, but mum would get angry if Siana got smart with the guest.

  “Thank you,” Siana said.

  “Do you know who she is?” Mum asked excitedly.

  Before Siana could hazard a guess, though she was thinking that the visitor was a cousin to mum of some sort, the woman spoke.

  “I’m Miasia. I’m your sister.”

  Siana pursed her lips.

  “No you’re not. Mum says my sister died in the Coastal War.”

  Mum made a half strangled sobbing noise, and dad looked angry for a second. Then he grinned ruefully.

  “No, Siana.” He reached out with his long arms and pulled her closer. “No, this is really your sister, Miasia.”

  Siana regarded Miasia for a moment.

  “Sorry,” Siana said. “You looked old. You look just like mum. But even older.”

  Miasia looked at mum and shrugged.

  “I’ve been through a lot,” she said. There was a large duffel bag by her feet. She picked it up and opened it. “But, I do have a little something for you that I bought back from over the ocean.” Miasia pulled out a small wooden box and gave it to Siana. It was made of old, dark wood, with brass hinges that creaked as Siana opened it.

  Inside sat a purple and pink conch shell. It was stunning.

  “Thank you,” Siana breathed. She moved away from dad and gave Miasia a quick hug. “It’ll go well with the other shells in my new room.”

  Dad tapped his fingers on his chair.

  “Siana, Miasia's going to sleep in your new room tonight.” He glanced at mum. “Until we figure out how things are going to work. Okay?”

  Siana stood stunned. She knew how ‘temporary’ things like this worked in a tall-village. Where could Miasia sleep except here? She’d just come back, and it would take her a long time to get settled on the island. And dad couldn’t afford the wood for another new room; it had taken him years to work for the extra wood to build the small addition to their tallhouse.

  There were few islands scattered on the ocean, and even fewer building resources traded between them and the Mainland. And tall-villages all across the Roranraka were fighting the Coastal War for access to forests, so that they could build their homes that barely stuck out of the ocean. Siana’s mum often told her it made everyone sad to lose so many children, and brothers and sisters, for the sake of wooden pilings.

  Siana looked at a sister she had almost forgotten. Her return was a good thing, Siana thought, but losing a room! Children in tall-villages dreamed and prayed for a room of their own most of their lives. And now...

  She started to get a pout ready, but dad gave her a stern look, knitting his eyebrows together. Siana sighed.

  “It’s not fair,” she declared. “I’m going back outside.”

  “No you’re not. Easytide comes in a few hours,” mum said.

  “It’s only a few inches,” Siana started.

  “No.”

  Siana bit her lip.

  “I’ll go to bed then.”

  “That’s a good idea,” dad said. Siana changed into her nightclothes and crawled back into her old bed, the one next to the kitchen. The bed she’d spent most of her life in. Her elbows hit the shelves one end, and her feet the other. Bulbs of onions, dangling parsley, garlic, all swung in planters above her. Siana listened to the distant murmur of everyone talking while she mulled over various ways of running away from home.

  None of them would work. There weren’t any big vessels she could stowaway on besides the whaler dad worked on, and the tides prevented anyone from walking to any of the other islets near hers. The nearest other tall-village was a week away by boat. The only other land was Mainland, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, where the world came up out of the ocean, and green trees grew, and people lived without worrying about tides. It sounded like a fairy-tale.

  But the Mainland was crowded with people. And they guarded their precious trees with their lives. Tall-villagers were not welcome. The only way Siana could get there was if she got involved in the Coastal War. Children were not meant for that kind of fighting.

  The thought of the Coastal War made her think of Miasia again, and got Siana even angrier.

  Just before Siana fell asleep she heard someone walk carefully up to her. Siana feigned sleep, but peeked. Miasia stood there as if wanting to say something, but then apparently thinking Siana was asleep, left. Her footsteps creaked on the floorboards.

  At least someone was getting their own room tonight, Siana thought. She turned back the other way trying to get comfortable.

  • • •

  Siana followed her friends to the edge of the tall-village the next midtidemorning, and everyone kept questioning her about Miasia.

  “Where has she been?”

  “What does she look like now?”

  “Why does she look so old when she is only a little older than you, Siana?”

  “Did she use up all her magic?”

  Siana looked at the excited faces, their hair blowing in the wind. The sand sucked under her feet as she walked.

  “And how is Siana today?” she asked, annoyed. But even her close playfriends didn’t find it all that horrible that Siana had lost her room.

  In fact, most of the children in the tall-village weren’t very nice to her. Siana’s family had only been in this tall-village since her grandfather had fallen on hard times and been forced to leave the Mainland to become a whaler. So still, when they played war, Siana had to be the Evil Coastie.

  “Really, Siana, it must be so neat to have a sister back from the wars,” they all said. Then they rolled their eyes when Siana slurped off down the sandtrails in a huff.

  It had been her room. Why did Miasia have to return at all?

  • • •

  Siana asked mum that same question with a calculated foot stomp. Mum looked down at her, then leaned over. Her shell necklace tinkled and shifted.

  “It's not always easy,” mum said softly. “Sometimes we have to adapt. I wish we could just live on the beach, not on the poles. It would be so much easier to build a home.”

  But that was silly. Mum was being strange. The tides would wipe out a house without stilts in an instant. Its owners would never be heard from again.

  Mum’s silliness didn’t change Siana’s rage.

  She stomped towards her bed. She looked at the shells on her shelf above her bed, and the cowlie she had picked out for mum but hadn’t given her yet. She was might regret this later, but...

  Siana swept the shells onto the floor with a shriek.

&nbs
p; “I hate it! It’s not fair.”

  “Siana,” her mother yelled. “Your shells!” The fragile pieces lay on the floor, most of them okay. Shells were tougher than they looked. Some had chipped their spiraled edges, or the little horns sticking off their sides.

  But the beautiful cowlie, Siana’s new pride, had shattered against the little table by her bed.

  “Siana,” her mother pointed. Miasia's gift, the conch shell, also lay broken. “Why?”

  Siana swallowed.

  “I don’t care,” she declared, lying. “I don’t care.” She ran out of the kitchen and down the ladder.

  • • •

  Siana sat against one of the pillars of the tide-caller’s station. It was the highest building in the tall-village, and the furthest out. She let her last few tears dry on her cheeks and sat watching the second sun rise as the first sun dipped below the horizon to fire the sky and clouds with patterns of deep red and purple.

  Miasia crossed the sand with a slight limp. Siana scuffled to face the other way as Miasia got close.

  “Hey,” Miasia said.

  Siana didn’t answer.

  “Mum says the conch shell fell off the shelf and you’re pretty upset about it.”

  Siana looked at Miasia.

  “No she didn’t. you’re just saying that.”

  Miasia leaned back in mock horror.

  “Caught in my own lie! Okay, I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anything else to say that would be more comfortable for the both of us. Can I sit?”

  “I guess.”

  Miasia scooped out some sand and then wiggled into the side of the pillar. She turned a bit to look at Siana. Siana resolutely stared ahead. Miasia pulled out a wooden bead with tiny lines of blue painted around it in a wiggly pattern. She held it up to the sun. Siana watched out of the corner of her eye, still trying to pretend not to.

  Then Miasia opened her palm and dropped her hand below the bead a few inches. And the bead stayed where it was: in the air, just above Miasia's palm.

  Siana couldn’t not look. She shifted around to face her sister.

  “How’d you do that?”

  Miasia grinned.

  “It's not that hard. You could probably do it. According to my teachers, the talent runs in blood.”

  “Wow,” Siana breathed. The bead spun in the air. “But what about the price?” she’d been taught in school about it. Using magic was dangerous. Miasia sighed and the bead dropped into her fingers.

  “Each little bit of magic takes a proportionately sized piece of your life,” she said. The corners of her mouth tugged down briefly, and she looked past Siana’s shoulder, out at the sand that went on and on into the distance.

  “Miasia,” Siana asked. “Is that why you look old like mum?”

  “Yeah.” Miasia stood up. She grunted as she did so. But Siana was still thinking.

  “You shouldn’t have floated that bead,” she said. “That cost you.”

  Miasia smiled and ran a finger through Siana’s hair.

  “It only cost me a few seconds,” she said. “It’s the least I can do for taking your room away from you.”

  Maybe, Siana thought, maybe Miasia wasn’t so bad.

  They stood up and started to walk slowly back to tall-home, Siana delaying to look for shells, Miasia limping. Halfway there, Siana paused at a left over pool of water and looked in. There was a small shell she couldn’t quite reach, but Miasia quite deftly leaned over past Siana and plucked it out of the water, only slightly wetting the edge of her sleeve.

  “What did you do in the wars?” Siana asked, a bit bold, as Miasia dried the shell off on her dress.

  “I made shells. Invisible shells, like bubbles, to protect the officers.” Miasia shut her eyes. “Before battle ten or twenty of us spellcasters would stand in the tent. The officers came in one side, their uniforms bare to the danger of gunfire, and they came out the other side protected by my magic. I had to make the bubbles big for them, to give them enough air to come back and have the bubbles unlocked so they could breathe. I had to repair damaged shells, not far from the fighting. All the time around us soldiers died of horrible things, Siana, and I grew old quickly.”

  “Oh.”

  “One day the Coasties attacked the tent.” Miasia looked around to see if anyone was about, then pulled up the edges of her skirt and showed Siana the angry red scar that ran down the front of her leg.

  “Why didn’t you have your own bubble?” Siana asked.

  “They don’t teach us that version of the spell. The rulers decided to take all the books about magic that spellcasters owned a long time ago, and only the rulers can decide what spells they should teach each spellcaster. That way no spellcaster gets too powerful, like they used to be in the barbaric Old Ages. But then the rulers still get to use the powers to help them. So other than that one powerful spell they taught me for the war, all I know are some simple little tricks.”

  Siana digested this all.

  “Why did you leave the tall-village?” Siana asked. “If the magic was going to do this to you.”

  Miasia looked off into the distance.

  “You know dad promised the rest of his life to the whalers to afford our tall-house? Just because those on the Mainland drive the price of wood so high. I wanted to help dad.”

  Siana scratched at the sand. Dad always looked glum. Always sea-tough, tired, and yet so proud of her shells.

  The thought of fighting Miasia for the room suddenly seemed extremely selfish and petty. Siana realized she had much growing up to do. Her sister was drained and old from war, her father chained to the whaling ships for life, and mum did her best to find part time work around the tall-village, cooking and cleaning for established families.

  But Siana didn’t want to think about sober things. It was still a pretty day out, with the salt heavy in the air. All those adult things seemed so far away.

  “Would you teach me the bead trick?” She asked.

  After all, what were a few seconds of her life in exchange for the ability to really impress her playfriends?

  But Miasia turned away. All the joy dropped from her face. Siana realized how old Miasia looked: her face had wrinkles, and some of her hair had begun to silver and grow wispy.

  “Let’s go back,” Miasia said.

  • • •

  It took Siana several days to get Miasia to ease up and show her the bead trick again. And Siana tried to look through Miasia, just like she looked through the pools of water to find her shells.

  Miasia handed Siana the bead with a smile.

  “Okay, you try.”

  Siana let the bead sit in the crease of her folded hand. It felt slightly hot. She scrunched her forehead and stared at the bead willing as hard as she could for it to rise.

  Nothing happened.

  Miasia put her hands underneath Siana’s and smiled. The bead began to rise into the air.

  “Oh,” Siana giggled. The bead hovered, and then it slowly began to spin, gyrating like a top on the floor, wiggling all over the place. The little lines of blue painted onto the bead created a smooth mesmerizing pattern in the air. “I wish I could do it,” Siana said, frustrated.

  “You are,” Miasia said. “Now.” She pulled her hands away and the bead continued spinning, for a second. Siana gasped in surprise and the bead spun out from her hands and landed in the sand.

  Miasia laughed and tousled Siana’s hair.

  “Not bad you little egg, not bad at all.”

  Siana looked at the little bead in the sand.

  “Can I try again?”

  Miasia leaned over and picked the bead up.

  “Sure,” she said.

  They spent the rest of the hour laughing and together making the bead dance over their hands.

  • • •

  Siana’s guilt at the smashed shells was weighing on her mind, and she decided she should find a good shell for Miasia and mum as a way of making up. She left after one of the littletides, just before
the rushtide, to go out and look for the best shells. The best shells were to be found just beyond the edge of the tall-village, past the lookout towers who would no doubt call mum to come and fetch Siana back into the tall-village because she was wandering too far out. Again.

  She squelched out eastwards over the sand, and then after a while started picking her way over rock as the ground slipped downwards. Walking around great round pieces of brain coral that were orange-gray, wrinkled, and covered in mucus, Siana began to zero in on a few tide pools that felt promising.

  Mainmoon sat gray in the sky, along with first sun. This was further than Siana usually went.

  Siana found the perfect pool. She carefully squatted at the edge waddled down in. Her careful movements sent ripples across the peaceful surface. Despite her caution Siana’s foot slipped in between two rocks and she fell into the tide pool.

  The cold water shocked her, and for a moment she floated there. Then her foot began to throb and Siana started to cry. She was scared, her foot hurt, and she knew she’d definitely walked too far away: she would get into trouble from mum.

  “Hey, hey,” came Miasia's voice. “Don’t cry. It’s okay.” Her sister’s face appeared at the edge of the pool, and Siana stopped crying.

  “Miasia?”

  “Yep. The lookout sent someone to fetch mum to bring you back. I decided to come instead. Figured you’d get into less trouble.” Miasia reached over and grunted as she helped Siana out of the pool.

  Cold water streamed from Siana’s dress and she shivered, glad to be out in the first sun’s warmth.

  “I’m sorry,” Siana said. “I was trying to find the best shells for you and mum.”

  “Well, that’s sweet of you,” Miasia said. “But come on, let’s go home, rushtide is coming soon.”

  “My ankle hurts.”

  “All the more reason to leave now. We’ll go to the nearest lookout.”

  Siana grabbed Miasia's shoulder and they both slowly hobbled back towards the tall-village. They passed the brain coral step by step with Siana stopping to rest when her ankle hurt too much.

  Miasia tried not to look worried, but Siana knew she had done something very bad. Miasia kept looking north when she thought Siana wasn’t looking. They both knew rushtide was coming soon. Siana had been hoping to find her shell and walk back, with just enough time, to the nearest lookout. Any tall-villager knew the tide schedule instinctively; their lives revolved around it in every way.