Above World (4 page)

“Not bad,” Anadar said. “A little messy at times, but you maintained good speed and power. Let’s go over the spinning combination in the White Coral set. I think you have the wrong grip in one part.”

Aluna looked at him. Was he serious? His brown eyes sparkled their response.
Tides’ teeth
— he was.

She pulled herself upright with a groan, adjusted her hands on the spear, and adopted the White Coral stance.

Push.

Her father was waiting for her when she got back to the nest. His tail curled around his resting stick in the common room, the resting stick no one else dared use. He didn’t look at her when she entered but stared at his dinner pouch, seemingly transfixed by whatever food Daphine had prepared for the family that night.

Aluna hurried through the room, eager to collapse and savor her well-earned exhaustion. She had almost made it to the other side when her father spoke.

“That girl should never have been in the kelp forest alone,” he said. “Her death was an unfortunate accident.”

Aluna stopped and twirled to face him. “An accident?” The anger and frustration she’d just purged from her system returned in one flash of a tail. “How can you say that? It was her necklace!”

His eyes flickered wide, but he recovered quickly from the surprise. “You’re talking nonsense. The girl made a foolish mistake and she died for it.”

“But you know it’s the necklaces,” she sputtered. “And you know more people are going to die just like Makina!”

You let my mother die, too. You chose the City of Shifting Tides over your own wife.
She couldn’t say the words out loud. Not to him. But they both felt the accusation floating there, an invisible barrier always between them.

“Lower your voice,” he hissed. “I know the girl was your friend, but if I tell you her death was an accident, then you’ll believe it was an accident. Do you understand me?”

Tears pooled in her eyes and she blinked them into the ocean. “The Elders listen to you. I know they’re afraid, but they listen to you. They would follow you anywhere.”
Even to the Above World.

He gave a harsh laugh. “No one will follow a man who can’t even control his own daughter.”

“So this is my fault somehow?” she said. “What if Anadar is the next Kampii to die? Or Daphine?”

Her father’s brow darkened. “You are too young to understand what’s happening. You know nothing of the Above World and its horrors. Grow up, Aluna. You’re about to get your tail, and you’re still acting like a child.”

She glowered, her blistered hands curling into fists. She couldn’t speak, not without screaming. Where was the proud, honorable man the rest of the Kampii saw when they looked at her father? All she saw was a coward. A coward who was perpetually disappointed in her.

“Get out of my sight,” her father said, and she did.

T
RADITIONALLY
, her mother would have fixed her hair before the ceremony. Aluna had to make do with her sister.

“Stop moving,” Daphine chided. “This would be easier if you’d grown your hair out. I can’t get this shell woven on.”

“Tides’ teeth, how many shells do I need?” They’d been at this for more than an hour. Her head felt like a basket of clams.

“Shhhh,” Daphine said.

“Who did this to you, before your ceremony?” Aluna asked, surprised that she didn’t already know the answer. Their mother had died a week after Aluna was born, a few tides before Daphine got her tail.

“I did it myself,” Daphine said.

Aluna could hear a mix of pride and hurt in her sister’s voice, and that hollow, aching echo of silence that remained the only acknowledgment of their loss. She heard the echo in her brothers’ voices sometimes — and in her father’s voice on those rare occasions when he wasn’t yelling at her. But Daphine, who had suffered the most, rarely let it show. When she did, it made her look vulnerable. It made her seem young.

Aluna squirmed. “I bet it didn’t take this long when you did it yourself,” she said crossly. She’d rather her sister be angry than frail.

Daphine snorted. “It took longer, and half the shells fell out right before I swallowed the Ocean Seed.”

“Ha!” Aluna poked at a group of pearls clustered at her temple. “That must have irked the Elders. They like everything to go steady as tides. Remember when Ehu sneezed during his ceremony and Elder Peleke got so flustered he forgot a line of the ritual?”

Daphine laughed. The sound lifted Aluna’s heart. If her sister’s quiet despair could make others weep without even realizing why, then her laugh could bring sunlight to the abyss. Her three brothers had almost as much power. Pilipo and Ehu were the city’s best hunters, and Anadar would be, too, one day. Other Kampii looked up to them. Someday, they’d all be as respected as her father.

All of them except her.

She’d been telling herself for years that getting her tail would change everything. Once she looked like a real Kampii, she would suddenly become an invaluable member of the community and earn her siblings’ respect. Maybe even her father’s respect, too. But now, on the day of the ceremony, she faltered. Maybe a tail wouldn’t change enough. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything at all.

“There,” Daphine said, and swam back a bit to admire her handiwork. “Pretty as a porpoise.”

“Hey!”

Daphine laughed again, and Aluna forgave her the insult.

Aluna treaded water with six other girls and eight boys in a tiny cove near the ritual dome. The ceremonial robes fit loosely around her arms and legs, irritating her. She preferred her tight, sleeveless hunting leathers, designed for protection and speed. Dresses made her feel stupid, like she was trying to look as pretty as Daphine, when everyone knew she never would be.

Despite the company, Aluna had never felt more alone. The other girls whispered to one another and kept looking at their legs. Soon they’d swallow the Ocean Seed and the ancestors would bestow their blessings. Their legs would change into tails. At thirteen, they’d finally be true Kampii.

The transformation took several tides and was extremely painful. A rite of passage, the Elders called it, as if that somehow explained why it had to hurt. But everyone — every adult Kampii in the City of Shifting Tides — agreed that the pain was worth it.

Elder Inoa came to fetch them. A fit Kampii in her late fifties, Inoa wore a bright-white robe cinched at the waist with a green cord and decorated with pearls and sparkle shells. Eight thin bracelets slid up and down her right arm, one for each of her children. Her flowing skirt was embroidered with the ancient Kampii seahorse and billowed around her tail in the morning current.

Aluna’s chest swelled. She looked at her companions and saw the same mix of pride, excitement, and terror reflected on their faces. They followed the Elder in an ordered line, as they had seen Kampii do in years before this.

It looked as if the entire population of the City of Shifting Tides had come to watch the festivities. Kampii clustered around the entrance hatch to the ritual dome, cheering and shouting blessings of luck as Aluna and the others swam by. Spectators weren’t allowed inside the dome during the ceremony, but that didn’t stop Kampii from pressing their faces to the dome’s glassy surface and watching from the outside.

Once Aluna entered the ritual dome, the mood changed completely. The dome’s sound shield dulled the cheers to a distant murmur, and its curved glass walls had been darkened to black. The spectators could see in, but Aluna and the other ceremony participants couldn’t see out. The Elders had granted them the illusion of privacy.

Daphine and Hoku were out there somewhere, but her brothers were not. On ceremony days, the hunters had to catch three times as many fish for the feast. Pilipo, Ehu, and Anadar were scouring the ocean, swimming far and fast, looking for prey to honor the ocean spirits and their ancestors.

Elder Inoa shut the entrance hatch, and the world fell silent. Aluna followed the others to a small cluster of resting sticks dotting the center of the dome, wishing her heart would slow to its normal pace. Or at least stop beating so loudly in her head. She wrapped her legs around her resting stick, careful not to bend her knees too tightly. If past ceremonies were any indication, the Elders would drone on and on. She didn’t want her legs falling asleep or going numb.

“First to speak will be Elder Kapono,” Elder Inoa said, and took her place with the other Elders. Aluna’s father swam forward.

In his ritual clothes, he looked even more intimidating than usual. His flowing white tunic emphasized his dark skin. Shells and bits of kelp had been woven into his long, graying braids. Had Daphine done his hair before or after hers? If he cared that his youngest daughter was among the initiates this year, he didn’t show it. His gaze passed over her as if she were a hermit crab, beneath his notice.

Her father spoke about the city’s history. She’d heard the story a million times, but she had to admit, her father told it well.

Long ago, they had all lived in the Above World with the other Humans until the first Elder, Ali’ikai who-was-born Sarah Jennings, led them away from the disease and the famine and the war and made them a home under the waves. Only Sarah Jennings maintained contact with the Humans, the other Kampii colonies, and other splinter people. She became the Coral Kampii’s first Voice. But conditions in the Above World worsened. Sarah Jennings fell ill during one of her missions, and after she died, the Kampii vowed to limit their contact with the Above World forever.

As the Elders lectured about honor and duty, Aluna’s thoughts drifted back to the kelp forest, back to Makina. She could almost feel the girl’s dead hand clutching her wrist, could almost see Makina’s fog-filled eyes, as if she were swimming right in front of her. How long would that memory haunt her?

When Elder Inoa began handing out the ceremonial bowls, Aluna almost dropped hers. Elder Peleke was talking about responsibility at that very moment. Her father scowled. Aluna tightened her grip on the bowl and tried to focus.

Elder Peleke called their names. Aluna rose first and slowly swam forward. Elder Inoa used a pair of tongs to pluck an Ocean Seed from the ritual container that only the Elders could open. The seed glowed red-hot as she dropped it into Aluna’s bowl, but it sizzled and cooled quickly in open water. The seed was small, no bigger than a pearl, and a dingy brownish gray.

“The color of the stormy sea,” the Elder said. “A symbol of change.”

C
HANGE
, thought Aluna. Not a word that got a lot of use in the City of Shifting Tides. The Elders would rather die than do anything that would alter the Kampii way of life. Or, at least they were willing to let
other
people die.

Elder Inoa began to speak about tradition, and Aluna felt movement in her chest, a quiet tension building slowly, like a wave.

“Events in the Above World come and go,” the Elder intoned. “The Humans and the other splinters fight their wars and destroy their resources. We of the sea, of the coral, of water . . . we remain strong and unwavering. We persevere. We thrive.”

Aluna snorted. She hadn’t meant to, but it just came out. The eleven Elders and the other supplicants all turned to stare.

She bit her lip and lowered her gaze, trying to fight the anger growing inside her. How could they be “thriving” if innocent girls like Makina had to die? And if more and more Kampii would die just as she had? Hiding from the rest of the world while your failing tech slowly killed you was in no way the same as “thriving.”

Elder Inoa began again. “We Kampii have always kept ourselves apart. We have not succumbed to the weakness that ravages the Above World. We have maintained our culture and grown our civilization even as the rest of the world suffers darkness and misery.”

Aluna rolled her eyes and muttered to herself. The girl next to her shifted uncomfortably.

“Silence!” Elder Peleke bellowed. Then, with more dignity, he turned to Elder Inoa and said, “Please continue, Elder.”

Elder Inoa tucked a tendril of pale hair into her coral headpiece and continued, but not without a long, dark look in Aluna’s direction.