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after the silence had expanded past my
patience.
    “Sera.”
    “Are you going to tell anyone about me?”
    “No tell. No... huh. No mother, no tell....” He struggled to
find the words, one hand coming up to pull on the roots of his tangled hair.
    “You won’t tell.”
    “No.”

6
     
    Morning turned into afternoon while Tor and I sat on the
beach. He asked me questions about everything except my Sualwet genetics. By
the time evening was upon us, his language skills had improved so much we were
having real conversations. I kept expecting him to disappear, to evaporate into
the salty air, but he didn’t.
    He waited when I went inside, refusing to enter the small enclosure
I called home. Something about him waiting put me at ease. I didn’t know why,
but it felt right that he stayed outside.
    I taught him songs I’d learned from the melodisks.
    He marveled at the glittering butterfly clip my mother had
brought me and insisted I put it in my hair.
    We started a fire on the beach and ate dried meat and fruit.
    I lent him Erdlander books: if he was one of them, perhaps
he could read the language. Maybe we—the two of us—had more in common than I
thought. The idea sent my mind reeling.
    Night fell and the fire crackled with warmth. Sparks
fluttered into the air. The ocean breeze danced over the flames, seducing them
to new heights.
    “Where do you live?” I asked in the darkness. We lay side by
side in the sand, watching the ruby moon rise. It arced like a sickle.
    “Up above.”
    “Above what? Do you live in a tree?” I teased.
    “No. Trees around, and a spring for water.”
    “Sounds beautiful.”
    “Ocean is nice,” he said.
    “I’m tired of the ocean.” I sat up, grains of sand clinging
to my hair. “I want to go somewhere else.”
    “Nowhere else to go,” he said, still lying beside me.
    “What about the city?”
    “Can’t go there.”
    “Why not? I could go.” The defensive tone I used with my
mother squeaked out of me. “If I wore shoes, no one would ever know about me
and—”
    “You could go,” he agreed. “I can’t.”
    “Why do you live out here?” The question fell from my lips
before I’d thought it through. All day he’d volunteered nothing about himself.
I’d avoided asking him, even though curiosity gnawed at me. He was the first
real friend I’d ever had, and I was terrified that asking the wrong thing would
make him leave. But it was late, and I was tired.
    “Just do.”
    “Were you born out here?”
    “No.”
    “Were you born in the city?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “Were you born mute?” I teased, lying on my side, facing
him. The fire behind him outlined his sharp silhouette against the light.
    “Yes.”
    “Tor.”
    “I don’t like to think on it. I had no one. Was taken in—”
He hesitated. I watched his face as he stared out into the night, seeing
memories I couldn’t share. “Had to leave and be alone.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push; I just wanted to know
more about you.”
    “Huh,” he grunted, falling back into his monosyllabic ways,
shutting me out.
    Propped up on my elbows, I looked out over the water, past
the cove and toward the open sea. I felt more alone with him next to me than I
had before I’d met him. Somehow, not talking made the emptiness between us more
painful. The silence was like a razor. I wanted him to go. I wanted him to
stay.
    “Sera,” Tor began, sitting up next to me. I tensed at the
sound of his voice, unsure of what he would say next. “What’s that?”
    He pointed out past the rocky jetty that concealed our beach
from the open sea and toward a dim light on the horizon. The light grew
brighter until a flare went up into the sky, illuminating the night and chasing
the stars back into hiding.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Is it fire?”
    “I think so, I think... Tor, you know there’s a war right?
The Erdlanders and the Sualwet. Looks like the fighting might be closer to us
than usual.”
    “Yes, they have