took their fish up to Ningle, and so Tenikemac would have nothing to do with them. Weejar is more like the Omelunes were—boats for fishing, and rice swamps inland. The rice is the only reason Tenikemac trades with them.
“One day, while the men of Omelune were out fishing or selling fish, Leandra swam all the way around to their village. The women on the beach saw her splashing in the waves, and damn them if they didn’t pick up stones, every one of them, and walk to the edge of the water and start flinging them at your mother to keep her from coming in to land. They knew she didn’t belong to them. They thought she was one of the merfolk that overturn boats and drown the sailors.”
“What merfolk?” asked Leodora, half disbelieving and half curious, wondering if Soter had any figures of merfolk buried in his stacks of puppets.
“Tenikemac knows of them, too, you can ask someone there. It were such a long swim to Omelune, you can well imagine that no one from here had ever tried it before. It’s not like somebody was expecting her. What else were the women of Omelune to think?
“Leandra must have been very tired, but she turned back—they left her no choice. The problem was, the women chased her along the beach, throwing rocks wherever they found them. Finally there was this spit of land, a little peninsula sticking out in the water. Leandra wasn’t watching ahead—she was keeping her eye on them women and diving down when something looked like it would hit her. So then all of a sudden she found the women coming right at her as if across the water itself. They cut the distance in half before she understood what had happened and leapt to swim away. One of the rocks struck her in the head, and she floundered, and she sank. The women must have thought they’d killed her. They left her alone and went marching back home in triumph. They’d killed a merwoman, and wouldn’t that be something to tell the men when the men came back from fishing?
“It was pure instinct kept Leandra afloat. Pretty soon the currents had her. She kicked up her legs when she thought of it. When she was sensible. Blood stung her eyes, and it was about all she could do to keep her head above the surface. She was drifting, she didn’t know where.
“The next thing she knew there were hands on her body, and she was being dragged through the water. She said she thought that the gods of the ocean had finally got her for all the times she’d taunted them. She tried to fight, but she had no energy left and fainted dead away. Then she was being pushed up into the air and onto something hard.
“Some young fool—and a brave one, I expect, to chance rescuing a merwoman—saw her floating there and pulled her into his boat. He was from Omelune. He had no idea what had happened; he just saw this naked girl in the water and dove in after her. When he found out who she was, he paddled her back home. By the time he’d got her back to our beach, your mother had decided he was the one for her.”
“And that’s the man who called me a witch?” guessed Leodora.
“Hush, now. You want this story, don’t try and race around it.
“Afterward, the two of them met in secret. Even in Fishkill Cavern if your uncle can be believed—which he can’t. He thinks the worst of them both, of course, even though he doesn’t know anything at all. She didn’t tell him half what she told me. She was in love. She wasn’t going to tell her brother about that, was she?
“Now, the village of Omelune must have had some inkling what was going on, but maybe they didn’t know just where he was going. Surely they couldn’t have guessed that the red-haired creature they’d fended off was the same one he was visiting regularly.
“Then one night he and Leandra arranged to meet on that ridge of rocks that makes your lagoon. He was such a fool for her that he decided to swim from Omelune to the lagoon just to match her feat. To prove to her or to himself that he was worthy. He didn’t tell a soul, just set off.
“Leandra, she waited and waited and he didn’t come and his boat never appeared. She could have got