Adrift - by Alice Musson

They reached Galene the day before the storm struck, having spent the better part of a moon’s turn sailing north over calm waters. The statue of the sea goddess had sunk further into the ocean since their last visit. Galene’s eyes had been underwater for as long as Circi could remember – all the better to watch over her children, it was said. But now the salty water covered her hair too, and lapped against the base of her seven-spiked crown. In a few years’ time, only her up-thrust arm and the torch she held aloft would be visible, until they too were swallowed up by the waves.

         Circi crouched at the fore of the Matriarch’s raft as her blood father, Calder, guided it between the floats moored around Galene’s submerged head. There were already half a dozen Matriarch rafts tied to the grill of her crown, anchoring the fleets of their clans to the statue to weather out the coming storm.

         The shadow of the crown’s spikes fell across Circi’s sun-bronzed skin. She bowed her head and whispered a prayer to the goddess, her voice low and as soft as the sound of the ocean lapping at her feet. A pail of fresh water sat beside her on the wooden boards. She tipped it over and let the water return to the ocean.

         “Back to the sea, whence we came,” said Circi.

         “And where we shall return,” said Seidon. Her tether brother stood behind her, waiting to take the empty pail. She handed it to him and he gestured to Calder to bring the raft closer to Galene. From beneath the canvas, supported by two poles and stretched over the raft to keep the sun off, came the murmur of the Matriarch, Muza, as she repeated the reverential phrase in the language of the Mothers.

         When Muza’s voice at last fell silent, Circi lifted her gaze and straightened up. She moved slowly so as not to unsteady the raft. It was a wide, sturdy structure, large enough to accommodate all six of her blood and tether families’ Mothers, the Matriarch, and a few others besides. But Circi was careful not to rock the vessel all the same. She looped a length of rope through the grill of the Galene’s crown and with each knot she asked a blessing of the goddess. She held the loose end out for Seidon to check. He ripped it from her hand so sharply that a strip of skin went with it and left her palm stinging.

         She bit her lip to keep from crying out but made no attempt to soften the glare she gave him. Her tether brother had been in a foul mood for weeks. Last night Circi had dreamt she’d caught Seidon in her nets and left him to drown so she wouldn’t have to deal with his sulking anymore. It had been a sweet dream.

         With the mooring ritual complete, Circi signed to Calder to start bringing in the rest of their fleet for securing to the Matriarch’s raft. The other clans now emerged from their shelters to welcome the newcomers and help them tether their rafts together. It wasn’t a union of families - no fresh water had been exchanged - but it was considered a custom to tie loose knots when moored, for the safety of all. Especially with a storm on its way.

         By the time they were done, there was so little space between the rafts that it was easy to step from one to another without having to hop across. Calder signed to Circi from across their bound home that their rafts were secured.

         She signed back, then rested her hand against the canvas of Muza’s shelter. The Matriarch emerged a moment later. She did not speak, only cupped her blood daughter’s cheek before setting off to commune with the other gathered Matriarchs. Circi watched her go, her heart swelling with pride and her cheek tingling where her blood mother had touched it.

         Muza was young for a matriarch. Their last had given up the title when her age, and the frailty that came with it, prevented her from diving, and had bestowed the position upon Circi’s blood mother. Tradition demanded that Muza prove her strength by competing with the other Mothers in breathing and hunting contests. But she had already proved herself. Seventeen years ago, Muza had brought Circi into the world on the open sea, in the middle of a storm that raged for three days.

         No one could question her worth after that.

***

         “Stop sulking. It gives you a sour face.”

         “I’m not sulking. I’m frustrated.”

         Circi leant over the side of her canoe and splashed Seidon in the face. There was little point - both she and her tether brother were already soaked through - but it was satisfying after an hour of watching him mope. They had been diving for food a little ways from Galene, and now their catch of five Bluefin tuna lay wriggling between them in the bottom of the boat.

         “You are always frustrated,” said Circi. She took up a fish and smacked its head against the lip of the canoe, whispering a thanks to Galene for her sacrifice. Saltwater dripped from her cropped hair and trickled down into her eyes. She pushed the damp locks back off her forehead and looked up at Seidon to find him staring out over the water to his right. Following his gaze, Circi felt a shudder pass through her.

         A quarter day’s sail from Galene, one of the Old Cities rose up out of the water to scrape the underbelly of the sky. They were formed of stone and brick, two words Circi did not fully understand, but she could feel the weight of them on her shoulders. Most of the buildings had sunk further into the sea since she had last seen them. Others had collapsed years ago. Only pirates and raiders dared make their home in such an ungodly, unnatural place. They used it as a base from which to plague the coastal settlements: small towns built on stilts to keep them above the water.

         “People used to live in them, you know,” said Seidon. He spoke so suddenly that Circi nearly dropped the tuna. “When the water wasn’t so high. That city was on land.”

         Circi looked beyond the eerie structures at the distant coastline, little more than a blue haze on the horizon. It seemed so far away that it was impossible for her to imagine it being close enough to surround the Old City. She turned herself away, afraid that her gaze would be felt by the pirates and bring them out onto the open sea.

         “That’s not true. The water has always been this high.”

         “How do you think the buildings got there then?”

         “Evil spirits raised them. Souls of the dead who shunned Galene and died on land.” It was what the previous Matriarch, Nepatine, had always told her. Dying on land, so far from Galene’s reach, meant a restless afterlife - an eternity with a parched throat and cracked skin. Circi could think of nothing worse.

         They had left Nepatine with the sea goddess at the end of their pilgrimage last year, so that she might pass into the next life with Galene’s motherly gaze upon her. Circi remembered feeling a sense of melancholy joy as she watched Nepatine’s blood daughter tie a length of rope from the seventh spike on Galene’s crown. She had handed the loose end to her mother to hold until her strength failed and the ocean carried her into the next life.

         Across from her in the canoe, Seidon shook his head. “Believe what you want.” He leaned back in the narrow boat, the dark look returning to his features. Another day and that crease between his brows would be a permanent mark.

         “It’s not belief - it’s knowledge.” Circi took up her oar to paddle them back to Galene. “What’s the matter with you anyway? You’ve had a face like a catfish for weeks now.”

         It was true. Her tether brother had been foul-minded and negligent of his duties as a Brother, and spent most of their journey to Galene complaining. As the oldest of all the Brothers, he often took it upon himself to question the decisions of the Mothers - even those of Muza, which was never done.

         “The sky is clear, the sea is calm,” Seidon had said that morning as they were pulling up their nets and preparing to continue north. Muza had just emerged from the shelter of her raft to take up her turn on the rudder. “There is no storm coming. If we sail past Galene, we can be at the coast before sunset.”

         “Ren says there will be a storm,” said Muza, “so there will be a storm.”

         Ren’s clan had joined Circi’s three years past. They had found them adrift on a single, storm-battered raft, with barely enough fresh water to last them a day. Even so, Ren had offered the Matriarch a sip of their meagre supply, and in return Nepatine had allowed her to tie her raft to their fleet and so join as a tether family. It brought fortune for everyone aboard, for Ren’s man could hold his breath for nine whole counts and could dive deeper than any of the other hunters. He always brought in the biggest catches.

         As for Ren, the black-haired Mother had an affinity for the weather. She could predict a storm days ahead of its arrival and find suitable shelter from which to brave it out. Without her, their fleet might have been sunk thrice over.

         Despite Seidon’s protestations, they had kept their course for Galene. Now the sky had lost its bright hue and dark clouds were gathering in the east. Charybdis, the storm god, was on his way.

         “We should have made for the coast,” said Seidon. He had not bothered to take up his oar and help Circi row. “It’s safer to moor around the coastal towns than out here. If we had just sailed past Galene like I suggested-”

         “You don’t sail past Galene,” Circi interrupted. “It’s not done. You may as well drink seawater.”

         “It’s just a statue, Circi. The real goddess is the sea.”

         Circi stopped rowing. “Just a statue? You’re addled! Did you dive too long?”

         “I am not addled,” Seidon spat at her. “I’m only saying we shouldn’t worship a lump of blue metal. We should have sailed on and moored on the coast instead of wasting a day on the open water.”

         “Are you questioning the Matriarch’s decisions again? Are you daring to suggest that you, a Brother, would make a better leader for our clan?”

         “Perhaps, but-”

         “Seidon, if you are so dissatisfied with Muza’s leadership, why don’t you cut loose a log and see how far you get on your own?”

         That shut him up. Circi stared him down until he lowered his gaze, then paddled them back the rest of the way in silence, gripping the oar so tightly it aggravated the raw skin of her palm.

***

         The day’s catch was shared out amongst all the clans as the sun dipped towards the horizon. By now the storm clouds were drawing near, and every so often there came the sound of thunder rolling across the sky.

         The Matriarchs ate together first. They shared a fish between the six of them, each taking a turn to bite into the raw flesh. The head and tail they left for the goddess.

   The Mothers ate next, and what they did not eat they passed to the Sisters, the Fathers, and finally the Brothers. On the open sea they all ate together, but under Galene’s crown rituals were sacred, as was silence. Circi sat among the girls of the clans on one of the open rafts, watching them sign to each other between bites. Two girls from one clan were of an age to become Mothers and were having a silent debate over who would choose their mate first.

         Circi ate quietly, moving her hands only to take the fish given to her and then pass it on. Normally she would happily join in the conversation, and ask for tales of other clans voyages. But tonight her mood was tinged with something foul. She tried to ignore the two girls, but their active hands drew her attention and forced her to think of her own age.

         In less than a year’s time, Circi would be expected to choose a tether brother for her mate, so that she might step up from Sister to Mother. She had not yet given it much thought. It was months away, and when one storm could throw a girl from the rafts and drown her, few looked much further ahead than the next moon. But now, as she watched the girls speak of their own tether brothers, she could not help but think of her own choice.

         There were five tether brothers in her clan - three of them from the same blood family. Only two were old enough to become Fathers. Nerio was her age and, as the blood son of Ren, came from good stock. But he was also a timid boy and she had only known him for three years.

         Which left Seidon.

         Circi wrinkled her nose at the thought.

         He was two years older, far too wilful, and wore a frown more often than a smile. Yet he had been her diving partner since childhood, and she knew he was strong. He was a good diver and could hold his breath for eight and a half counts - almost as long as Ren’s man. Like most of their people, his skin was bronzed from years under the sun, his hair dark and short. Along with eyes the same blue as Galene’s skin, he wasn’t bad to look at, when he was smiling. Most importantly, she knew he longed to become a Father.

         Perhaps he wouldn’t make such a bad mate after all.

         As a half-eaten haddock came back around to her, Circi shook her head and passed it on. The fish she had already eaten seemed to have come alive again and were thrashing about in her stomach. She couldn’t tell whether it was the rocking of the rafts upon the water as the storm approached that was making her nauseous, or the thought of asking Seidon to be her mate. It was not a thought that brought her much joy.

         Even so, she could not resist lifting her gaze to stare across the girls to where the Brothers of the clans were awaiting their share. Seidon was not among them.

         Circi frowned. The Sisters were already passing over the fish they had not touched to the Fathers. Her tether brother usually had as big an appetite as any of them, yet he was going to miss his meal.

         With a wave of her hand, Circi excused herself and picked her way across the rafts, heading towards the edge of their temporary settlement. The first few heavy drops of rain struck her bare shoulders. The rafts swayed beneath her feet, but she held her course until she reached the outer edge where they had stored their canoes.

         One of them was missing.

         She looked out across the water, towards the setting sun and the Old City. The buildings looked black against the red sky. Halfway between her at the city, the missing canoe was rocking on the roiling water.

            Something deep inside Circi, something she hadn’t known was there, gave a painful twist

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