Above World - By Jenn Reese Page 0,13

with preparations for the feast — the feast that would no longer be in Aluna’s honor. He’d been looking forward to the celebration, had even planned on asking Jessia to dance. He couldn’t go at all now, not without Aluna. He grabbed some clams from the kitchen and swam down the cramped tunnel toward his room.

“Boy!” his grandma called from her cave. “Boy, get in here.”

He swam to her nest and hovered in the archway, gripping the smooth coral with his hands to keep from drifting. Grandma Nani had a window in her nest. Most days, she stared out it for hours, her old, saggy tail draped around a worn resting stick that his father should have replaced years ago. She kept her hair short. “So no imbecile tries to stick shells in it,” she always said.

Grandma Nani had been old when Hoku was a youngling, and nowadays she seemed like an ancient. Like someone out of the old legends. Her father had come from a distant Kampii colony during the last Exchange. He had swum a whole year to get here and had filled Grandma Nani’s head with wild stories about his travels. Hoku didn’t know what his grandma saw out that window of hers, but he was sure it was more than just a handful of fish or the occasional eel.

“Did you want something, Grandma?” he asked. Maybe she wanted lunch, or another covering for her sticky bed.

“I want you to tell me what happened,” Grandma Nani said, her back still to him. “Why aren’t you at the ceremony? Your friend is getting her tail today. You should be there to support her.”

Her words struck him like a harpoon to the heart. He couldn’t speak at first, not with so many thoughts and feelings swirling inside of him. And then, when he found his voice, it all came tumbling out. He told her everything. Not just what happened during the ceremony, but about Makina and necklaces. About where he’d looked for Aluna. About where he feared she had gone.

Grandma Nani bobbed quietly on her resting stick and said nothing until he was done. Then she reached over and took his hand between both of hers.

“You’re right, child,” Grandma Nani said. “That’s exactly where the girl has gone.”

“But how —?”

“Because your friend knows what must be done, and she knows no one else will do it,” she snapped. “And because that’s what I would have done, back when my body and my mind did what I asked.”

“But the Elders —”

“Are scared and shortsighted.” She waved her hand, as if dismissing the entire council. “They think the answer is turning inward. They think they’re honoring Sarah Jennings and our ancestors.” She snorted and turned to face him again. “They’ve forgotten that our ancestors were pioneers. Adventurers. Heroes!” She unwound her tail and swam over to one of the dozens of cubbyholes carved into her wall. “They’ve forgotten what it means to be brave.”

She pulled out a small box no bigger than one of his artifact jars. It shimmered in the water, part silver, part pearl.

“Come here, boy,” she said. “This is for you.”

He swam over, his eyes focused on the box. An artifact! Why had she kept it hidden all these years? He ran his fingers over the ornate design of a woman on the lid.

“She doesn’t look much like a Kampii,” he said.

“Because she’s not a Kampii. She’s a mermaid,” his grandma said. “Humans have always longed for the sea. She’s the dream that eventually gave us life.”

“What’s inside?”

Grandma Nani snorted again. “Secrets. Mysteries. I have no idea. My father came from far away, but my mother’s family has been here since the beginning. My great-grandfather said this box belonged to Sarah Jennings herself, and I believe him. Maybe it holds her memories of the Above World. Maybe it holds far more.”

“Sarah Jennings!” he said. “But how come we have it? Wouldn’t she have given it to one of the moon-side families?”

“She was a smart woman, child. Smart in more ways than just books and people,” his grandma said. “This box found its way into our family for a reason, and you’re going to discover what that reason is.”

He wrenched his gaze from the box and looked at her. “You’ve never opened it?” The idea of possessing a box and never opening it seemed impossible to him. Maybe it was booby-trapped. . . .

She chuckled and handed the box to him. “No, boy, I haven’t. It’s a water safe.