On Blue's waters

I baited several hooks, tied them to floats, and set them out around the sloop; and after an hour or so of inactivity which by that time I found very welcome, caught some good-sized fish that I gutted and filleted with the same knife that had killed the batfish. Using what little dry wood we had, I built a small fire in the sandbox, rolled my fillets in cornmeal and cooking oil, and fried the first in the little long-handled pan we always kept on the sloop. “Are you going to eat that?”

I did not actually drop the pan, but I must have tilted it enough for the fillet to slide into the fire. “You’re back!” I had practically broken my neck looking around at her; I stood up as I spoke, and that is when it must have happened. “She made me.”

Seawrack was not in the sloop with me, but she had pulled herself up to look over the gunwale. The music of her voice woke Babbie, and I saw again that she was terribly afraid of him. I assured her that he would not harm her, and told him emphatically that he was not to hurt her or do anything that might alarm her.

“Can I…?”

“What is it?” I asked. “You can do anything you like-with me to help, if you’ll let me.”

“Can I have one of the others?”

“These?” I picked up one of the other fillets, and she nodded.

“Absolutely. I’ll cook it for you, too, if you want.” I glanced at the pan and realized that the one I had prepared for myself was burning on the coals. I added, “Not that I’m very good at it.”

She was looking at the one I held and licking her lips, with something utterly wretched in her expression.

“Would you like it now?” I asked. “I know some people enjoy raw fish.”

A new voice said, “Do not give it to her.” It seemed that the words issued from the sea itself.

The top of the speaker’s head broke the water, and she rose effortlessly until the oily swell reached no higher than her waist. I can never forget that gradual, facile ascension. Like the face of Kypris seen in the glass of General Saba’s airship it remains vivid today, the streaming form of a cowled woman robed in pulsing red, a woman three times my own stature at least, with the setting sun behind her. I knelt and bowed my head.

“Help my daughter into your boat.”

I did as she had commanded, although Seawrack needed scant help from me.

“Prepare that fish as you would for yourself. When it is ready, give it to her.”

I said, “Yes, Great Goddess.”

The goddess (for I was and am quite confident that she was one of the Vanished Gods of Blue) used Seawrack’s name, saying, “You must go to your own people. Your time with me is ended.”

Seawrack nodded meekly.

“Do not return. For my own sake I would have you stay. For yours I tell you go.”

“I understand, Mother.”

“This man may hurt you.”

I swore that I would do nothing of the sort.

“If he does, you must bear it as women do. If you hurt him, it is the same.” Then the goddess spoke to me. “Do not permit her to eat uncooked flesh, or to catch fish with her hands. Do not allow her to do anything that your own women do not do.”

I promised I would not.

“Protect her from your beast, as you would one of your own women.”

Her parting words were for Seawrack. “I have ceased to be for you. You are alone with him.”

More swiftly than she had risen, she slid beneath the swell. For a moment I glimpsed through the water-or thought that I did-something huge and dark on which she stood.

Sometime after that, when I had recovered myself, Seawrack asked, “Are you going to hurt me?”

“No,” I said. “I will never hurt you.” I lied, and meant it with all my heart. As I spoke, Babbie grunted loudly from his place in the bow; I feel sure that he was pledging himself just as I had, but it frightened her.

I squatted and rolled her strip of raw fish in the oily cornmeal, put it in the pan, and held the pan over the fire. “Babbie won’t hurt you,” I said. “I’ll make one of these for him next, and then cook another one for me, so that we can all eat together.”

He was already off the foredeck and edging nearer to the fire. “Babbie, you are not to hurt…” I tried to pronounce the name the goddess had used, and the young woman who bore it laughed nervously.

“I can’t say that,” I told her. “Is it all right if I call you Seawrack?”

She nodded.

“This is Babbie. He’s a very brave little hus, and he’ll protect you anytime that you need it. So will I. My name is Horn.” She nodded again.

Thinking of the silver jewelry Marrow had given me to trade with, I said, “You must like rings and necklaces. I have some, though they are not as fine as yours. Would you like to see them? You may have any that you like.” “No,” she told me. “You do.”