The Deep - Rivers Solomon Page 0,26

herself awake for longer hours. She wanted to catch a glimpse of this Oori. The tightness of her temporary resting quarters was stifling, but the border of boulders formed an appealing bubble around her, shutting out the sensations of the ocean. She’d tire of the curious blankness against her skin compared to the open sea eventually; for now, she lapped up the calm, the finiteness of it. As long as she didn’t make a point to tune her skin to the waters beyond the wall, her world ended but a few feet from wherever she was. It was a cage, but also a protective cocoon.

On the third day of trying to spot Oori, Yetu finally did. She awoke when the sky was only just turning light, a pleasing dark blue shade that reminded Yetu of being underwater where sunlight barely reached.

“I see you,” Yetu said, using a wajinru greeting.

Yetu heard a startled splash.

“So?” Oori said, her voice quiet, deep, and raspy.

“I was just letting you know,” said Yetu, alert now. It was too dark to properly see her, and sound didn’t travel as well through air. She could neither feel nor hear the shape of this strange woman beyond a vague outline.

“I suppose now I know,” said Oori.

“Thank you for the food,” Yetu said, swimming closer to where Oori stood in the pool, slowed down by the shallowness of the water.

“It’s nothing,” Oori said, the gruffness in her voice showing no signs of retreating.

“It’s food. It’s helping me get better.”

“What should I have done instead? Not provide what is necessary? Don’t take it to heart. I fed my mother till the day she died, and I despised her. Good-bye.”

Their conversations over the next several days continued to be short. Oori had no interest in Yetu, nor in anyone, it seemed. She spent her days out on the water in a wooden sailboat Yetu had spotted, which, given the calm winds of late, had become more of a paddleboat. She spent nights on the water as well, sleeping in her boat, the rope tied to a large boulder. According to the others, she didn’t always tie herself to shore, letting the water carry her wherever it would, living off fish and stores of ocean.

“I wish there was a way to properly thank her,” Yetu said to Suka one day.

“Who? Oori?”

“Yes. Who else?” asked Yetu.

“She doesn’t like to be thanked. That’s too close to kinship for her, which she doesn’t do.”

“Well, kinship isn’t inherently a good thing,” said Yetu, beginning to understand Oori more and more. Perhaps for Oori, kinship meant taking care of a mother who’d hurt her. For Yetu, it had meant isolation from her people as she tried to cope with the rememberings. And now? She wasn’t sure what it meant. She would always see herself as wajinru. That was one thing she’d figured out since being in the tidal pool. The sea beckoned her, and it pained her not to join it, to be one with it, to feel it all over her. Even though it often hurt, her skin relished the pressure and the feedback. Above the surface, everything seemed so insubstantial and light. She missed being a part of not just the sea, but the whole world. Without the History, she felt out of place and out of time. She missed being connected to all.

But connection came with responsibility. Duty choked independence and freedom. If Oori didn’t want kinship, Yetu could understand. Why be beholden to anyone else’s agenda? Oori was obligated to herself and herself alone.

“I just mean that she’s different, you know? Not like us. She’s not so good with, hm, how do you say, human interaction and any trappings of decorum or rules. I suppose that’s why she prefers animals to people. Most animals don’t exchange hellos and ask how the other is. They just exist next to one another.”

Yetu’s ears and skin perked at the sound of that. Oori preferred animals, did she?

“Perfect, then. I’m not human,” said Yetu. Though her foremothers were two-legs, she felt she had very little in common with these strange land walkers, whose teeth were weak and flat. “I am animal.”

Suka played with their breath in the back of their throat then pushed it through their mouth—a strange habit of the two-legs. It was too thoughtful to be a sigh. Too calm and content to be a groan. Just a sound, meaningless, as they considered what to say.

“Yes, but only animal-ish?” they said, hedging.

Yetu didn’t understand what