Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(6) Taiki: The News

I push away from the rocks, flash a wordless instruction, and manage to start swimming again. Nobody comes to talk to me. Satomi and Naina are probably still busy in the back, Neem hasn't reappeared, and even the nearest Kels are too scared or distracted to talk to me. I just keep moving. The trip down the canyon towards Roshaska is ten times longer than it felt when me and Neem sprinted it in the opposite direction. My heart jars against tradition as my people pull up outside the city walls. They want to make the entrance rites. I can't exactly stop them, and I still want the city to be respected, so I hover in place with a hand spread to monitor vibrations, scouring the water for any sign of Gutu's return until we're finally okay to enter the city.

Here, I realize I have no idea where to go. I'm spared by a shadow in the water that coalesces into Neem, returned from whatever scouting or people-herding he left on when we reached my tribe. He takes the lead again, and I gladly beckon people after him through the city's current-roads. We reach a fork that I'm familiar with and split off down the unmaintained direction. My people balk, but my silent plea to trust me continues to hold. People clump together over the ravaged landscape as Neem moves with the confidence of familiarity to a standing tower of bubble-dens large enough to hold everyone we've brought with us.

We herd them all inside. I want to talk to Neem, but I don't get a chance before the lights and thanks and greetings and questions that me and fear suppressed a moment ago bubble up all at once. I'm swarmed in heartbeats. Hands flash and flare and dance in several shades of blue. After days alone, then the dark tunnels of Roshaska, I can't separate the conversations. Hands touch my back, shoulders, arms. A small child hugs me. An elder grips my arms and talks to my face, only I can't process what she's saying, and now I can't free my hands to respond. I can't even hear my own thoughts over the sudden rush of vibrations and voices and audible and visual noise.

A hand on the elder's shoulder. The child around me disappears, and the elder lets go, replaced by another Kel whose presence I can make more sense of right now. Naina shields me from half the crowd while Satomi blocks the rest, facing me with dagger-focused eyes and a single question.

"Where's Ande?"

That's already a complicated answer, and one I don't want to give in full until I know where my people—any of these people—stand with respect to the surface Kels' war. That's not detail that Satomi needs to know right now, though.

"Safe," I sign. "Just not here. She's with allies."

Satomi's look lights up in something close to pure hope. "Where? Did you find other Shalda tribes?"

My throat locks up. The lump there hurts like fishbone, as my heart and stomach twist in opposite directions. No matter what answer I give, I'll hurt someone and expose myself to backlash either now or in future. Before I answer, though, Naina also turns and asks, "Was she the Singer?"

"Yeah, have you rescued other islanders?"

"Is that why you were gone so long?"

They need to know. I'm sure half the people here are watching me, waiting for my answer. Someone's picked up on the questions, and the clamor is about to turn to asking me how many islanders I have hidden somewhere, waiting to be united with groups like these. I'm going to break their hearts with this. But this is war now.

"The Singer doesn't exist," I sign, and deathly silence falls over the entire room. Out the corner of my eye, I see Neem in the shadows with pity on his face. Pity for me.

"What do you mean?" signs the first person to speak up in the stillness. It's Satomi.

I'm breathing too fast, so I swallow hard and rein it in, trying to control it. I've started the reveal now. There's no going back, and in a way, I'm glad. I had to tell them all eventually.