The Drowned Girl

A leviathan breaches the surface of the black water, oil-slick skin reflecting the perpetually grey sky, and you remember what it was like to be human.

You remember the feeling of sand beneath your feet as your mother pointed to the line where the water and the sky met. A man-of-war appeared over the edge of the earth. You, small with unruly black hair, wondered if one of the sailors was your father. She never told you.

They echo in your bones: your mothers, your friends, and the girls you've loved. Way down below, the city whispers an elegy as the pillars slip further and further into the sea.

Here, in the Undone, you see time pass by you without meaning, as if you were a girl again and watching the Carnivalé parade from the rooftop.

A girl, you muse. And not the damnation of the other side of the sea.

You close your eyes and sink.

Elise is sixteen and the first time she hears the voice of the sea, she nearly drowns.

Tessa's mouth is against her ear, skin warm and gritty with salt and sand as she leans against her shoulder. The words are lost amongst the gulls and the waves but Elise knows they are full of love. Tessa places a kiss on her cheek as Elise swallows another bitter mouthful of wine.

"What do you think is out there?" Tessa asks, squinting against the setting sun.

A few ships dot the horizon, drifting lazily in the breeze with their hulls full of cargo or starving for more.

Elise shrugs and takes another swig of wine. "Ships, I suppose. Land."

Tessa laughs, "I'm serious!" She takes the bottle from Elise and sets it on the dock. "I don't mean all that, I mean the water."

"The water?"

"In the water, more specifically."

Elise stares at her for a moment, a grin pulling on the corners of her lips. "Fish or the delusions of drunken, scurvy-mad sailors?"

Tessa rolls her eyes. "They can't all be drunk or mad. What if there's something to all the stories?"

"Then I'd thank the gods we aren't sailors." Elise rests her hand next to Tessa's, looping their little fingers together into a link of pale and copper flesh. "I'm content to stay on dryland forever."

"Not me. I'd like to explore one day. Maybe have a ship of my own."

Elise laughs this time, "So long as you promise to write. You'll have to tell me if the stories are true then."

A soft smile passes across Tessa's face. "I promise."

The Gilded Moth is full of life, the harbor just beyond the hill packed for the night with ships and the good sense of a hundred sailors.

Tessa and Elise watch from their usual corner with amused faces. Tessa props her legs up on Elise's lap, bellies full of sausage and spiced wine. They're thankful for the sailors' liveliness, and the inevitability of their falling into bordello beds.

Their mothers would make more coin tonight than they had in a month.

The barmaid spins between drunken men like it's a waltz. The tavern explodes with laughter when one of the men tips backwards on his stool, reaching for a tankard in her hand.

She winks and leaves him howling on the floor.

"The last time I saw even a drunk sailor lose his bearings like that," calls a voice. "I was watching a part of our fleet get torn apart by a beast."