The Girl Who Pulls the Tides - ONC 2021

chapter 11

A STUDY OF SEA SPIRITS

Excerpt from chapter 3

The storm came and went, and Evyana was all right, just like she said she'd be. The threat that the ocean beckoned the Nereids to fight was, in Evyana's words, an "50-foot long sea dragon, its scales stark white and its eyes glowing orange." It had ventured out from the deepest depths of the ocean, and had eaten two sailors and had killed dozens of whales. The Nereids had to fight the sea dragon to get it to return to the bottom of the sea, where it belongs, Evyana said, drinking darkness hidden from the world. "It was undoubtedly the spawn of Jörmungandr," Evyana explained, "a power-hungry sea deity that wishes to take the throne of the ocean away from Ceto."

Of course, I asked who Ceto was. It earned me a bewildered expression.

"You don't know Ceto?!" Evyana demanded. "She's our Goddess, the Ocean Mother. She's as ancient as time, born from the stardust of a nebula along with her sister, Gaia, the Earth Mother. You must know of Gaia."

I told her that I didn't know about Gaia.

"Why don't humans worship her anymore?"

"I didn't know she existed."

"But she created the earth! She took the cosmic dust from dying stars and molded it like clay in her palms. She took asteroids and crushed them up into fine dirt, sprinkling the soil over the earth's surface. She took her fallen eyelashes into the ground and plants emerged. The flowers were like little, delicate stars, all shades of purple and pink and red. The trees were green as Gaia's skin, the sky blue as Ceto's. She plucked the mercurial clouds from space and hung them up in the sky, painting them pastel pink and yellow at sunset. When Ceto saw her sister's creation, she was overwhelmed with emotion; she had never seen something so beautiful, and so she wept tears of wonder and reverence for Gaia's planet. Ceto's tears fell to earth, salty and blue and lovely, and formed the earth's oceans.

"The legend of the Sisters has been told for thousands of years. We give thanks to Ceto twice each year, every time she passes by earth. You humans call her a blue moon."

I decided against telling her that, according to astronomers everywhere, the blue moon was just the moon, not an ancient blue goddess passing through the sky. She was opening up to me—I didn't want to contradict her beliefs with my own.

"We used to worship Gaia, too," Evyana continued, glancing towards the island. "Before humans drove us out centuries ago."

This surprised me so much that I accidentally tore the page I was writing on in half. "Nereids used to live on land?"

She nodded. "We used to be the Keepers of both land and sea. We worshipped both Sisters. My ancestors lived here, on the island, until one day a human explorer got lost on the seas and stumbled onto their shores. They knew the violent nature of humans, and so they chose to retreat into the oceans rather than put up a fight for their homeland. And so they left. Do you know the name of the man who discovered your island?"

"Francis Drummond," I said. The library is named after him.

"When he stepped onto the island, he heard something whispered in the sea breeze; the words 'Nere Home.' Home of the Nere. But of course, you humans have such weak ears, so he misheard it as Norholm."

So now I'm in my room, trying to process these three life-changing pieces of knowledge:

1. The Nereids worship goddesses who were born in space

2. Humans stole Norholm from the Nereids

and,

3. Sea dragons exist