Two Moons of Sera (17 page)

Morning came too soon, and I had no idea what time it was.
The first things I realized were my top had turned to nothing but ash, and I
was sleeping next to Tor. I was lying on my side, facing the wall, but he had
curled up behind me, his body flush against mine. Suddenly, I was wide awake.
And I had to go to the bathroom.

Tor snuggled closer, his breathing deep and steady. I
widened my awareness to see if anyone else was up. Jai lounged in the main
room, eating something. Lock was up and about in his room, and Sal was in the
kitchen. Everyone else was still asleep.

Tor’s his heavy arm made it difficult for me to disentangle
myself. Once free, I threw on his shirt and my boots and crept past a snoring
Elgon. In the main room, I waved at Jai’s garbled hello.

I hated wearing shoes in the morning. Without socks they
felt hard and strange against my sensitive feet.

After going to the bathroom, I filled the sink with water
and dunked my head. This was my new ritual. I savored the water seeping into my
pores. I needed to swim—or get back in the tub Ada had called the pond. But I
didn’t dare go back there. The risk of someone seeing my feet was too great and
wearing these stupid boots in the tub would doubtless draw attention.

Once I felt somewhat normal again, I wrung out my hair and
walked back to our room, water dripping down my back.

“Hi, Sera!” Traz said a little too cheerfully from his door
as he walked out. “Did you sleep well? Where’s Tor?” He shot questions at me
with nervous giddiness before I glared at him.

“I’m fine, Traz,” I grumbled before rolling my eyes and
heading straight to my door. “Tor’ll be out in a little while.”

“Okay! See you both then.” Traz’s forced grin followed me.

How were we ever going to get away with anything if he acted
like a rabbit in a fox den?

Back in our room Tor was lying on his stomach, our sheet
draped over his lower body. Closing the door behind me, I sighed while watching
his sleeping form. His back rose and fell to the easy rhythm of relaxed
breathing, and his hair spread like a wild mane on the pillow.

The enormity of our kisses last night struck me as I gazed
at him—the scars running along his back, the desperate plea for me to leave
with him. Tor was everything I had now. He and Elgon, they were my life, but
somehow it all meant so much more to him. I couldn’t help the Sualwet side of
me, the side my mother had nurtured and encouraged, which saw our partnership
as a complication.

I wanted to be with him—in that moment there was nothing I
wanted more—but if something happened, if we weren’t together, I would be okay.
Would he survive it, though?

With a shake of my head, I dismissed the thought. That wasn’t
even a possibility. I vowed to go anywhere he went. The magnetic pull radiating
from him was too strong to keep us apart.

I sat on the bed next to him and placed my hand on his back.
It felt warm to the touch, and his skin remained soft despite the raised planes
of his childhood. I didn’t want to spend the day away from him, with Dr. Vaughn
in the Hub. I didn’t want to be anywhere near what the Erdlanders were doing.
But we needed that disk, and I had to learn whether the rumors of captive
Sualwets were true.

Tor murmured in his sleep, and I lay down next to him,
resting my head on his shoulder, rubbing his back in gentle circles. Okay, so
maybe I wouldn’t survive either if something happened to him. I snuggled closer
and breathed him in.

“Morning,” Tor mumbled, turning toward me and pulling me
into his chest.

“Morning.”

“Sleeping in a bed is strange.” He kissed me on the head and
pushed my hair out of my eyes.

“I didn’t even think about that. When’s the last time you
slept in one?”

“Not since I was six, maybe. So a while.”

“I always had a hammock or the sand, so it isn’t that
different.”

“I had rocks.” He laughed, but I didn’t think it was funny.

“Why didn’t you ever make yourself a home?”

“I don’t know. Why didn’t you ever leave the beach?”

“I wasn’t allowed to leave. You know that.”

“I don’t really see you not doing something just because
someone told you not to.”

He had a point.

“I guess it never really occurred to me. I would explore,
but there was no way I could’ve left my mother.”

“I wish I’d known my mother. If I even had one.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I mean, you know what you are. You had a family and a
childhood and someone who loved only you.”

“In her own strange way, yeah, she did.”

“Was she really that different?”

“She never understood me, but she was my mother, so I just
accepted it.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Been trying not to think about it.” I looked up at him, the
grip of my loss tightening in my chest, threatening to asphyxiate me. I was so
tired of crying.

“Tell me about her,” Tor encouraged. He settled back on his
pillow and pulled me down with him.

“There isn’t really much to tell.”

“Sure there is, Sera. Come on, what was her name?”

“Nilafay. Her name was Nilafay.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“She never went by Nila, though.”

“But you shorten your name.”

“She called me that, and it’s not like there was anyone else
to talk to. For Sualwets it’s really intimate to shorten someone’s name. No one
outside of family ever does that.”

“You called me Tor when we first met.”

“I thought it would make you feel safer. You were so afraid.”

“Do you mind me calling you Sera? Should I call you Serafay?”

“No. I like the way you shorten my name.” I pecked him on
the lips before propping my head on my hand. “Before we met Lock and Lace, I’d
never talked to anyone else but you and Mother, so Serafay sounds weird to me
anyway.”

“Really? You never talked to anyone else?”

“No. Sometimes Mother would swim out to meet someone, and
she brought me along once or twice, but other Sualwets always acted so
uncomfortable around me and would pretend I wasn’t even there.”

“That’s awful.”

“Well, I’m a freak, remember? For me to be with them, with
this?” I pulled on my hair roughly. “When I was about nine I tried to cut it
all off so I’d look like them, but it just grew back.”

Tor’s hand rested on my hip, and his thumb rubbed the skin
under my shirt. He waited in silence for me to come back to him from the abyss
of memories I’d dived into. Just watching, he gave me all the time I needed.

“She was really strong, you know? She didn’t have anyone.
She was only my age when the Erdlanders captured her. But she fought back. No
matter what they did to her, she never gave up.” I shivered, recalling the
stories she’d told me. “She escaped.”

“Really?” Tor’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, and she ran, made it back to the water, but it was
already too late. She was already pregnant.”

“So? She got free. She could go home!”

“You don’t really know much about Sualwets, do you?”

“All I know is what I remember from when I was little. But I
don’t exactly trust Erdlander accounts anymore.”

“Good.” I smiled. I didn’t want him to think of them the way
the Erdlanders did. “Sualwets don’t get pregnant—at least not anymore. They lay
eggs.”

“I knew that.”

“Well, think about it. Someone showing up pregnant among
egg-laying Sualwets? Everyone got scared and told her to... to get rid of me.
But she wouldn’t. And before I was born she ran away. She was all alone when
she had me.”

“
Jikmae
,” Tor swore under his breath. “Lots of
Erdlander women die having children. It’s just too hard.”

“When my mother had me and found out I couldn’t breathe
underwater, she found us a home in the cove. She hunted and scavenged and took
care of me. And she never complained, but I knew how lonely she was, how angry
she felt about it. But Sualwets, they don’t talk about things like that. They
don’t get angry or tired or happy, and when they do, they just deal with it,
alone. So when I would cry, she’d just stare at me. She never held me, even
when I was little. I don’t remember her carrying me or even really hugging me.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“It was. Until you showed up.” I smiled and found his eyes
pulled together in deep thought. “Why are you frowning?”

“I don’t like the thought of you being alone. I don’t like
you being sad.”

I shrugged, unsure how to respond. “I’m not.”

“Back then, I meant.”

“Nothing can change the past. It’s all I knew, Tor. She was
my mother.”

“And the Erdlanders took everything from her, from you!” The
fire returned to his eyes as he processed everything I’d told him. “And they
don’t even care, don’t even think it’s wrong! And... and they’re probably still
doing it!”

I lay back down, resting my head on his arm. His hand
remained on my hip. Both of us lost in our own thoughts.

“We should get up,” I said finally, pulling the sadness that
had seeped out back in and locking it up tight.

“Yeah” was all Tor said before he kissed me lightly and
smiled. “Sera?”

“What?”

Tor closed his eyes. “Do you want to be with the Sualwets? I
mean, instead of”—he paused and took a deep breath before continuing—”instead
of with me?”

“You’re so painfully stupid,” was all I could say in
response.

“I know we’re different. I don’t even know what I am. At
least you know where you came from.”

“And you set things on fire,” I added with a smirk.

“Sera, I’m serious.”

“I know you are, and it’s infuriating. How many times are we
going to do this?”

“I don’t know. Until you make me leave I guess.” His voice
sounded hollow with inevitability, and it broke my heart.

“Tor, I’m not one of them. I’m not one of
anything
. I’m
just me, and since I met you, I’ve never felt more
me
.”

He said nothing, just examined me for a time. Silence filled
the room like water rushing in, until Elgon yipped behind me.

The giant mountain hound pushed on my shoulder with his nose
and then laid his head on my chest, staring at Tor. Elgon snorted.

“I think he wants something,” I whispered through a giggle.

“Good morning,” Tor said, lowering his head to Elgon,
letting the hound lick his cheek.

“Eww!” I sat up to separate them.

Tor laughed as Elgon jumped on the bed behind me to sit on
my pillow and paw at Tor’s chest for attention. I got up, clearly in the way as
Tor and the only friend he’d known for years said good morning.

I dressed at the head of the bed, out of Tor’s line of
sight, although a part of me wished he could see me. After pulling on black
pants and a long-sleeved green shirt, I dropped to the edge of the bed and
wiggled my feet into ill-fitting socks.

“First thing we do when we get out of here is burn all your
shoes,” Tor joked as he got up. He faced away from me, and in the morning light
his strong back flexed as he moved. Bands of muscle stretched beneath his
skin—not the upper body strength of the Sualwet or the stocky, broad strength
of an Erdlander. Instead each cord of muscle moved individually and in
combination with the rest of him.

When he reached for his pants, I stood up, suddenly very
aware that he was about to change in front of me.

“I’ll go find something to eat.”

“All right.” Tor smirked. One eyebrow lifted, and a knowing
glint twinkled in his eye.

Elgon jumped off the bed and followed me to the main room,
warily eying everyone we walked by. Most of the pod members were awake and
milling around in various states of morning preparedness. No one talked, just
shared a few nods and smiles. Or maybe that was because of the spiky-haired
monster who accompanied me.

In the kitchen I found the panel with the food everyone else
was eating and took out two packages. Elgon whimpered and bumped my elbow with
his nose.

“Looks like he’s hungry, too,” a low voice said from behind
me.

I turned and found Ash leaning against the arch of the
doorway, eating an apple and watching me rummage.

“Yeah, do you think it’d be okay if I—?”

“Don’t think anyone would care, if they noticed.”

He pushed off the wall and came up beside me, reaching past
my head to grab something from one of the high shelves. His body brushed
against mine, and Elgon growled.

“He doesn’t like anyone getting too close to you, does he?”
Ash asked, a nervous undertone to his voice.

“Not really.” I petted Elgon’s head affectionately.

Ash nodded with a strange smile before handing me the box he
had taken down. It was labeled “CEREAL.”

“Thanks.”

Ash didn’t move away as I leaned over to get a bowl and
poured some of the cereal out before placing the dish on the floor.

It felt like he was studying me, and since I had no idea how
to prepare the food I’d just taken out, I wasn’t putting on a very good show.
Inside the packages I was relieved to find instructions telling me how to set
the oven. I’d never used an oven before, but it was easy enough to figure out.

Before Ash could say anything else, Lock entered the room.
He looked tired and remained the distant shadow he had been yesterday. Only two
days here and he was so much unlike the Lock I had met in the forest. What had
happened to him? “Hey, Sera,” he said, “I need to go over to Life Services
before Linguistics. Do you want to go with me, or can you make it to the Admin
floor by yourself?”

“Um, I think I can make it,” I said.

This would be the perfect chance for Traz to show me where
the disk was kept. The desire to just run out and tell him what I had come up
with was astounding, but I waited, standing next to the stove, counting down
the seconds it would take for our food to cook.

Ash threw his apple core in the compost tube and nodded to
us before leaving the kitchen. He turned back and smiled at me one more time
before disappearing around the corner.