Thrust: A Novel

A dark shape approaches. It grows in size, until it becomes enormous, and as it turns in front of her, Laisvė finally sees: it is a whale. For a moment, her heart feels like it might be too big for her chest. Her love of whales is bigger than a lot of things in her young life.

“Do you know where my mother is?”

The whale eye widens. “Yes, child. Behind you. Not too far. She has an important object she needs to give you. Then she must come with me. You trust me, don’t you?”

Laisvė nods. The logic of the world on land and the logic of the world underwater are different universes. Only children and animals understand. (And trees, but talking to trees is risky.)

Laisvė turns around, slow enough to prepare herself. She does not want to cry like a baby. She knows her mother is shot; she knows they are down there for a reason. When she finally sees her mother’s face, her own body dissolves into the tiniest particles, the way sand is made from everything in the ocean crushed down to tiny particles over time. She is wave and particle when her mother speaks to her, a see-through water girl.

“Laisvė,” the motherbody says. “Take this object. Put it in your hand. Hold it tight. Take it back to the world with you. It will become as you become. Keep it close to your body. This object doesn’t earn you anything. It will only have value in your hands.”

Laisvė takes the object. She puts it in her mouth; it tastes of blood or copper. She can see through the motherbody, see straight through to the fish behind. The motherbody smiles. The smile goes into Laisvė’s body, first into her feet, up her shins and knees, into her thighs and hips where the smile pools for a bit, then up her belly and chest and shoulders and neck, until the mother’s smile has become the daughter’s. Laisvė feels whole again.

“I love you,” the mother says, “my love will always be in your body.”

Laisvė considers how crying underwater isn’t anything. Or how crying underwater is just tears going back to their origins.

“Listen, my beloved,” the mother says, “this is not the last time you will enter the water in your life. Do you understand?”

Laisvė nods, and for a moment, her floating underwater hair entwines with the mother’s floating hair. Tendriling.