Read Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology for Free Online

more years
before, and she had no more fear of the open sea than of the stream where she
had drawn water all her life. But this time, when she paused among the little
scarlet-and-black fish that swarmed about a gap in the reef, and turned to see
her brother Keawe waving after her, then a hand seemed to close on her heart,
and she could not see anything clearly for a while. All the same, the moment
her vision cleared, she waved once to Keawe and plunged on past the reef out to
sea. The next time she looked back, both reef and island were long lost to her
sight.
    Now it must be understood that Kokinja did
not swim as humans do, being who she was. From her first day splashing in the
shallows of the lagoon, she had truly swum like a fish, or perhaps a dolphin.
Swimming in this manner she outsped sailfish, marlin, tunny and tuna alike;
even had the barracuda not been bound by his oath to the Shark God, he could
never have come within snapping distance of the Shark God’s daughter. Only the
seagull and the great white wandering albatross, borne on the wind, kept even
with the small figure far below, utterly alone between horizon and horizon,
racing on and on under the darkening sky.
    The favor of the waters applied to Kokinja
in other ways. The fish themselves always seemed to know when she grew hungry,
for then schools of salmon or mackerel would materialize out of the depths to
accompany her, and she would express proper gratitude and devour one or another
as she swam, as a shark would do. When she tired, she either curled up in a
slow-rocking swell and slept, like a seal, or clung to the first sea turtle she
encountered and drowsed peacefully on its shell—the leatherbacks were the
most comfortable—while it courteously paddled along on the surface, so
that she could breathe. Should she arrive at an island, she would haul out on
the beach—again, like a seal—and sleep fully for a day; then bathe
as she might, and be on her way once more.
    Only a storm could overtake her, and those
did frighten her at first, striking from the east or the north to tear fiercely
at the sea. Not being a fish herself, she could not stay below the vast waves
that played with her, Shark God’s daughter or no, tossing her back and forth as
an orca will toss its prey, then suddenly dropping out from under her, so that
she floundered in their hollows, choking and gasping desperately, aware as she
so rarely was of her own human weakness and fragility. But she was determined
that she would not die without letting her father know what she thought of him;
and by and by she learned to laugh at the lightning overhead, even when it
struck the water on every side of her, as though something knew she was
near and alone. She would laugh, and she would call out, not caring that her
voice was lost in wind and thunder, “Missed me again—so sorry, you missed
me again!” For if she was the Shark God’s daughter, who could swim the sea, she
was Mirali’s stubborn little girl too.
    Keawe, Mirali’s son, was of a different
nature than his sister. While he shared her anger at the Shark God’s neglect,
he simply decided to go on living as though he had no father, which was, after
all, what he had always believed. And while he feared for Kokinja in the deep
sea, and sometimes yearned to follow her, he was even more concerned about
their mother. Like most grown children, he believed, despite the evidence of
his eyes, that Mirali would dwindle away, starve, pine and die should both he
and Kokinja be gone. Therefore he stayed at home and apprenticed himself to
Uhila, the master builder of outrigger canoes, telling his mother that he would
build the finest boat ever made, and in it he would one day bring Kokinja home.
Mirali smiled gently and said nothing.
    Uhila was known as a hard, impatient master,
but Keawe studied well and swiftly learned everything the old man could teach
him, which was not merely about the choosing of woods, nor about the weaving of
all