Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(31) Salt Pools

The tunnel to the salt pool callously annihilates all thoughts that the one we came in through was bad. Rocks rake my shoulders and gouge furrows in my tail, setting at least one raw spot from a missing scale bleeding again. I hope they at least take off a couple of the parasites I found there before they take my scales, too. My dagger sheathe drags across the walls. At least I'm flexible, a good thing when the tunnel decides that running straight is for uninteresting holes in the rock and takes on a snake-like path instead. This had better lead where Taiki says it does. If it's a dead end, I'm going to lose my fins getting back.

Actually, if Taiki has lied about any of this, I'm locking him in here myself.

I take my first rest break, panting in the stale water. It's saltier than the current running down over Roshaska: salty enough to prick my eyes and make my mouth run. Something tells me I'll dehydrate fast if I don't get in and out of here quickly.

I kick off again. I can't even crawl properly without skinning my elbows, so any and all progress is made through a makeshift combination of kicking, pulling, and wriggles that would do a half-drowned sea-snake proud. It's painfully slow. Also just painful. I've got bruises on my bruises already, and twice I have to work one arm back to dislodge my dagger's hilt from a rock on the wall. I take another rest break, then another. How long have I been in here? I must have travelled a quarter of Telu's diameter by now.

I'm nearly at my wits' end when the shaft starts to flare. The water warms, and the brine trickles past me in a tangible current. I shove my food bundle aside to get a look ahead. A silver skin shivers over the water above me, dotted with pinpricks of light.

Stars.

I pull myself up into the moonlit salt pool. It's a conical reservoir just wide enough to turn around in, and just deep enough to stretch out my roughed-up tail. Every scrape and cut on my body stings in the fiercely salty water. I circle the pool once, then creep to the surface and lift just my eyes above the water.

All I see is the bank. I pull back, take a deep breath, and poke my whole head up. I pray to Rashi nobody is looking my way. Over the edge of the salt pool, the ground sweeps flat across the beaten dirt and spare grass of the field my village occupies. I can see the huts, hunched and sleeping in the moonlight. Where are the fires? Even at this time of night, there's always a knot of teenagers or young adults somewhere, chatting and laughing over the coals of a dying pit before they turn the fire-log over for night.

But the village is dark. I drop back beneath the water to catch my breath. They're asleep. It's late, after all, and sometimes nobody stays up until the moon has fallen this far down the sky. I return to the air. If I wait long enough, somebody will rouse themself and pad from a hut to the nearest patch of bushes to relieve themselves. At night, they never go far for fear of snakes and brush spiders.

My eyes sting from the night breeze. I drop back below the water and nibble a shrimp from my packed meal. Then I check the village again. Taiki probably wants me back in the shaft come daybreak, but I'm not going anywhere until I see a person. Then I'll be more than happy to flee back down the tunnel before they spot me. Even if they do, I'll be out of reach by the time they get their spears.

Between glances above the surface, I slowly work my way through the food I brought. The stars fade as dawn casts its ashes over the eastern sky. I'm desperately thirsty. Seawater is fresh compared to this pool. My scales itch and my tired eyes burn, and even the parasites peel off and leave. That's one upside of this night here, at least. I want to be back in the cool, deep water. Soon. People in the village should be stirring soon.

I check again. The fisherwomen gather at the village's edge with their traps and spears at this time of day, before going down to the beach together. They're late. Or maybe they've adjusted their schedule since whatever event sent someone as important as me into the water. The young village men, likewise, are taking their time rising to stir the fires. I strain my eyes for a plume of smoke, then perk up as something moves among the huts. It's just a flock of jungle fowl.