The wind blows fierce on the Isle of Rankor. It pushes in the waves, fast and rhythmic, until they wash upon the sands. Together, the forces carry ships into the harbor, which spans the coastline as intricate as a maze. At any given time, a hundred ships unload their imports and load exports with ease. This is the Isle’s tradition: wind and waves and trade, the tradition Caroline and Marina have grown up with all their lives.

On Bashall Cliff, the girls have the best view of the early morning market. Men, along with some women, come from coasts all over the world. They bring fish and meat and booze, gems and books and inventions—though those are less common. Sharp, fast bartering in different languages swims through the crowds. Marina smiles. This is exactly what her father, Grant Selsun, and Caroline’s father, Timothy Graves, expanded the harbor to be.

Their fathers are sailors turned harbor masters and own a fleet of twenty ships just for trading. Each has their own villa on Bashall Cliff, where their daughter and very pregnant wife reside. People say behind the families’ backs they do almost too well for themselves and should go out to sea again—prove their worth. These whispers poke and prod at Marina’s submerged anger. If she were Caroline, she can imagine herself lashing back, yelling at them that her father only stopped sailing last year and how would they like it if they couldn’t see their father, were worried if he would ever make it home. How it would feel to be apart for so long they barely remember what the other looks like, having been at sea for days on end. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes months.

But Marina is not Caroline, and she is only eight, so she does not say what she thinks. Instead, she remains by Caroline, because the nine-year-old girl whom she wishes was her sister by blood is the only person who truly understands her pain. When it was just them and their mothers living in one combined shack, crumbling from the salt air, Caroline would take Marina up to the cliff for fresh air and watching for their fathers’ ship to crest the horizon. Caroline would teach her how to be brave, to fight; Marina was lucky if Caroline sat still long enough for her to teach Caroline anything at all.

Now their fathers’ ventures have brought them riches from all across the globe, afforded both Selsun and Graves individual manors atop the cliffs and tutors for the girls from lands that speak six other languages. Caroline still ignores them, along with the books and tall tales that arrive almost weekly. Marina loves the books. Other than Caroline and the view from the cliff, books soothe her when the secluded island feels too cramped with the same people and stories she’s heard all her life.

Ships slink into the docks. Sailors toss large ropes overhead to be tied down. A horn sounds, announcing the first catch of the day. A woman ties the net to the wooden crane, then sets a signal for it to be hoisted up. Marina watches the haul suspended movement above the harbor, the large, black shadow it casts upon the sea. She can practically smell the fishes’ wriggling, surfaced bodies, trying to get away midair. When the net drops, the sailors cheer. Though dampened by the wind and distance, Marina knows the daily celebration well: The market has officially come to life, and she wonders what the winds will carry in for her today.

Marina turns from the scene below to look at Caroline, who stands with her toes curled on the cliff’s drop. She flings her arms out to her sides and laughs as the wind pushes against her, keeping her from falling. Marina smiles, then inches her way forward, lying over her book. She peers off the cliff. Below her are five starfish—two orange, three pink—clinging to the same rock they’ve been on for years now. Marina likes to count them, see if any have joined the group or moved away. By all accounts, they never have. Their flesh stays on the rocks, immovable, as if facing eternal punishment from the sea itself.

“You know starfish aren’t indigenous to Rankor,” Marina tells Caroline. Her newest book, By Sea and Sand: A Study of North Galantis Oceanography, is all she’s been able to sink her mind into, what with a house filled with her mother’s screaming and nursemaids hurrying around and her father’s loud drinking. Each prepares for Marina’s baby brother to arrive in their own way. The nurses say it’s only a matter of weeks. Caroline’s mom, Delane, is also due soon, but she’s handling her pregnancy much better than Marina’s mom, Shelby, is. Caroline’s mom always handles matters better than Marina’s.

“Well, then we need to make sure that no one comes and plucks them off to make fish jerky from them!”

Marina laughs, but it’s the oddest thing in her mind. The starfish should be somewhere warmer, where other colorful fish abound. “Do you think our moms are actually having boys?” she asks, changing the subject.

Caroline puffs. “I don’t know. I like being an only child. With you for a sister.”

Marina beams. Growing up, she always imagined she looked like Caroline, but that’s only because they’re best friends and Marina didn’t own a mirror until she was five. Now, there’s a mirror in every room in her house, sometimes two, all rimmed in intricate, swirling gold. Her reflection tracks her like a whaler trailing behind a beast with a harpoon—ready to run her through with the reality that aside from the same small, slightly squished nose and fairly rounded faces, she looks very little like Caroline. It hurts to know that after all the miracles and magic she’s read about in fairytales, her childish wish still isn’t true. She sighs. “You’ll confuse our new siblings if you keep saying that.”

“You’re my sister, Mar, and no ‘brother’ can ever change that. We know what it’s like for it to be just us and our fathers out at sea, and we will never share that with them.”

The wind drops off fast, and so does Caroline. Marina catches her friend’s hand and pulls her back into the grass. They fall together, puffing out scared breaths. Caroline shakes in Marina’s arms. Then the frigid wind kicks up, and they both begin to shiver.

They’re used to the cold, but this is bleaker. It spins around them and tears flesh with icy fingers. It throws Marina’s hair this way and that, covering her eyes with wild brown strips. She pulls her hair back and tucks it under her collar. Above her, the blue sky vanishes at the urging of the storm clouds’ power, deep and dull and gray.

Rushing waves bash into their ears, so close and loud it’s as if they’re out at sea. On her belly, Marina crawls to the cliff’s edge, Caroline right beside her. They look down. The starfish, still there, hold fast to the rocks, but over them bash deep blue-gray waves tinged with green. The sight makes Caroline turn pale. Rankor’s waves are never green.

The waves pile on top of one another—fast, like fishermen throwing their catch onto piles of ice, stacking them high. But no one’s there to pull the waves from the stack to make room for more. They build and build, rise and rise, until the girls could reach out and touch the ocean with their fingers. Large rectangular shadows cross the girls’ faces.

“Mar!” Caroline screams. “What’s happening?!”

“I don’t know!” The wind carries her voice away so quick she can barely hear herself.

A wave looms over them before it descends back into the ocean. As it falls, another one rolls toward them, taller than the last. They scream, still holding one another, faces stained with tears. Not tears from fear, no, but the salt. The waves’ reek of it: Sharp and briny, the salt grows denser in the air, stronger than it’s ever been. It penetrates their eyes and cracked lips, stinging them, building in layers until they feel it adding a layer to their skin. Marina breathes, and the salty, musty mist soaks the back of her throat, and she fears she drank the ocean, despite lying in the grass. The taste makes her breakfast churn.

All around them, the waves stretch higher than Bashall Cliff. They rise and fall in cyclical timing. Below them on their left, they watch as the waves toss the ships in the harbor

back and forth . . .

back and forth,

back and forth back and forth back and forth—

Slam! Straight into the trading post. Another ship’s stern catapults into the dock. Wood splinters and crashes, and the cargo hold opens. People rush down, slipping on slick, tide-soaked wood. They grab whatever they can salvage and yell when waves surface again—higher, grayer, bleaker, wilder.

“Liney! Marina!”

The two look behind them. Marina’s father has her book in her hand, and Timothy keeps walking toward them. He circles in front, protecting them from the wind as they stand. “What the Tarsin’s name are you girls doing out here?!”

“It wasn’t like this five minutes ago!” Caroline screams back.

Timothy offers each a hand, and they take it. Their dresses suck to their legs and pull back to the sea as they walk. When Marina reaches her father, she takes his hand, holding tight. None of them speak until they reach the field of wild grass that separates the two manors. The girls think of it as their shared garden.

“Say your goodbyes, girls,” Grant says. “I don’t think you’ll be coming out for the rest of the day. Storm is only going to get worse.”

“This isn’t a storm,” Marina says, trying to smooth out her hair. For an eight-year-old so smart, she should’ve known it wouldn’t do anything but provide a fleeting relief. Certainly not worth the extra tangle she’s sure Mother will rip out from her hair. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a storm.”

Behind her father, more waves tower and stretch until their shadows change his face entirely. “You’re right, Mar, I don’t know what it is.” Her father kneels on one knee, becoming eye-level with Marina. For Caroline, who is long and lean, he needs to look up a bit, and that makes his brow twitch. “But until it settles down, I want you both inside. Now.”

“But—”

“Now, girls!” Timothy blunders. “And not another word. Who knows when it’ll start pouring.”

#

Rain doesn’t come that day. Or the next. Or the day after. The storm clouds don’t let a single raindrop fall. The only water the islanders see are the waves that cage in all of Rankor, growing taller and thicker as its people become gaunter, thinner.

Angrier.

After the first week, the phenomenon has a name: the Wave Blockade. No ships can go in and out. Not even a dinghy can get further than ten feet to see if there’s a break. They keep coming, like a sloshing ale slammed on the bar—rhythmic, steady, and sad for the people who have to watch it take its toll on their wallet. Marina’s father’s men aren’t able to trade at all, which is fine for the week. They get time with their family. But then one week turns to two, and two to three. Stocked pantries start to run dry. And this morning, twenty-one days after the waves started, Shelby’s pregnant belly becomes a laboring one. The brother, he’s on his way.

Marina reads in her room all the way on the third floor of a turret only she resides in. Her mother’s screaming fills the Selsun manor and finds its way to her. Long, relentless cries. Marina plugs her ears with one finger. Then two. Then her fists. Nothing drowns the horrid sound. Hours of hearing swears and curses that are exactly what the wife of a sailor would know have Marina wishing she knew how to curse that fluidly too.

Caroline will have the perfect insult for what’s happening today.

As if that is reason enough to leave the house—not that she can’t help with the labor, or that she hasn’t breathed in fresh air for weeks, or that her calves have grown stiff and tired, dare she say a bit pudgy being inside for so long—Marina puts on her shoes. She needs to see Caroline. Marina’s never gone a day without seeing her since they were toddlers. The separation has become a chasm, too unsettling to ignore.

Marina expects Delane to have gone into labor today as well. The two mothers have reached the same milestones at the same times throughout their pregnancies. But the Graves’s household is typically better off than her own; she’s sure today won’t be any different. They won’t mind me coming over.

Her feet are light and quick as she heads down the narrow, winding staircase and sprints for the door. With all her might, she pushes it open. The oak has always been too heavy for her alone, but the Wave Blockade’s winds seem to know she longs for escape. It flings the door away from the threshold before slamming it against the manor’s marble siding. Its force pins it there, and Marina rushes out.

Her small feet dash underneath her billowing nightgown, her silk slippers providing no support as she runs. Unruly hair flying behind her, sweat running down her temples, she feels a mess. Her chest burns. Not running in weeks makes her burn all over, like the lightning that crashes across the sky. Thunder cracks in such close successions to the strikes, the two have become one.

For weeks, lightning has been the only natural source of light the Isle has gotten. The gray clouds and dark waves let nothing else through. Without a lamp or a flame, the Isle and its homes have been locked in eternal night. Except where the stars once were, there’s now creatures, looming in the Wave Blockade’s waves. The lightning puts them on display, seconds at a time: Deep, dark creatures with teeth and multiple tails. Sharks and octopi that defy the confines of what Marina’s books say their dimensions are. They are so much longer and stronger than the illustrations revealed. They snap at each other. Spots of blood rise in the waves.

Soon, she’s in the field. The grass has grown twice as high as her since the Wave Blockade started. Blades twist around her legs and scrape at her cheeks. They catch on her hair and pull her back. She can’t breathe. Everything is out to get her: The reaching waves. The lightning’s claws. The grass’s many arms. The creatures that lunge at one another. She’s sure they’ll dive into the field and take her . . . piece. By. Piece.

Marina tells herself to be strong like Caroline. Caroline isn’t afraid of the grass or the sea, the weather or anything else. Blinking back her tears, she charges forward and breaks through to the other side of the field.

Crraackkk! Boom boom boom.

She jumps and screams. Without watching where or how her feet land, she falls. Her hands pound the dirt, followed by her face, then her stomach and knees.

Crack. Crack. CRAAACCKKK.

Only a few more meters separate her and the Graves’s manor, but the Wave Blockade surrounds it. The ocean hovers above cliff, growing closer to Marina. It threatens to swallow both her and the Graves’s manor whole. Marina, her best friend, Caroline’s family, the dozen servants and nursemaids inside—the creatures will be rewarded with a feeding frenzy.

Crrraaaccckkkk.

Another burst of light. The wave starts to dip like a hand inside a jar, fishing for what it wants. Marina tells herself to move, but she can’t. The creatures in the waves, they aren’t creatures anymore. She knows it by the way it swims alongside the wave’s edge, with aquatic ease and human grace. A strong back that makes its dives sharp. Skin that shimmers, with only half of its body covered in scales.

It prowls, eyes locked on her.

Crack!

Even when she blinks, Marina can’t force the image away.

She’s seen it—a sea witch.

Marina’s gaze fixates on the very real myth that swims in front of her. The sea witch dives down, quick and agile. Her long body and face look almost gaunt with her sharp, unhinged jaw. Teeth, small slender spearheads. The witch’s bony fingers appear pointed at the end, ready to carve a new watery grave for Marina.

Another crack, and this time, Marina sees three of them in a different wave, which starts to bend toward her. It submits to the witches’ call, merges with the first sea witch’s wave. Then the lightning fades, cloaking her in darkness.

Please don’t . . . Please don’t . . .  

Lightning comes again, and there’s a third wave with three more sea witches. The gray waves combine, allowing them to prowl toward Marina, pack-like. One flicks her hand up, and it carries her further inland until she’s only a meter away from the land-dwelling girl. Wind howls, pushing Marina like a reed. She tries to stand, knees knocking, wanting nothing more than to finish the distance between her and the Graves’s home, but the witches send the sea so low and long, they form yet another Blockade, surrounding Marina. Taking Rankor’s method of bringing in money, food, and materials for weeks is not enough for them; they’re taking her safe passage to Caroline too.

Marina shakes. Her palms grip the earth. She contemplates throwing dirt at the sea witch, as if the wave will not absorb the attack.

The sea witches hover in their waves, their empty hands by their sides. In all the Galantis Archipelago readings on its gods and the enemies they vanquished or cursed, Marina remembers the final line from the sea witches’ origin story: “Sea witches hold nothing in their hands because they are always seeking something to destroy.”

Right now, their hands are wide open, grasping nothing. They’re ready to take.

All seven, in one single line, stare at her. Marina swallows her tears. Seven. Seven sea witches. They’ve formed their Current. She shudders. No one ever survives a Current.

One breaks through the surface. She no longer possesses the unhinged jaw or hair in billowing seaweed clusters. Instead, it rests slick against her skin like a curtain with deep, golden-brown hues. It’s similar to Caroline’s hair, almost exact. Her tanned skin, almost copper in nature, matches Marina’s own.

Then she smiles, her teeth no longer sharp, her eyes no longer glowing luminescent. They’re soft, and full of love, like a mother’s. “Marina, dear, you’ve grown up so much.”

Her lips shake. She wants to go home. She wants her doll to cling to, but all she has is herself.

So, she holds her arms and falls to her knees, now shaking all over.

The sea witch drags her finger through the water. The wave settles, and one by one, the other witches emerge from their waves. Their ghastly appearance melts off too. Whiter than death skin transforms into different hues on each. Some have skin like a copper kettle, one the shade of fresh bread, others like coal. Two seem to be made of perfect porcelain—still white, but not a phantom. Each eyes Marina steadily, intently. Even though they no longer have fangs for teeth and knives for fingers, she doesn’t dare move.

The first sea witch—with light brown hair and golden-copper skin—glides up to her, feeding water in between Marina’s toes. She speaks, voice cool and steady. “Is your father inside, dear?”

Marina is smart. Marina is calm. She knows how to prep dinner by herself, from the stove to the meat—even cutting the imported carrots the town envies her for having. But now, she doesn’t know what to do, so she doesn’t make a sound.

The woman swims even closer to her, bowing her head a bit until she and Marina are eye-level. “He must return to the sea.”

“No,” she says. “I like having him home. It’s much better.”

It’s a small lie. She tells herself it’s much better, but she’s actually not sure. Their houses do seem happier. The conversations lighter. Yet Marina has grown more distant from her father this year than she has in any other. All he’s talked about has been his son and how much Marina will love him, and how she’ll help navigate the seas with the “big, knowledgeable brain of hers,” which will make her future brother’s career so much easier.

The sea witch nods, as if she expected this answer. “And when did he start staying home? When you found out about your baby brother?”

This catches Marina off guard. “We don’t know if it’s a boy for sure. But father says the baby can’t be anything else.”

“He’s right. You’re going to have a brother, of sorts.” Her eyes cut away. “Both of you.”

Marina turns. In the wave that encircles her, a small arch appears. Caroline starts to walk underneath it. When she sees Marina just beyond, she breaks into a sprint, screaming and flailing her arms wildly because she is loud like the sea and holds just as much fury. When she gets to Marina, she doesn’t hug her. Caroline positions herself in front of her friend and points a finger at the sea witch.

“Stay away!” she screams, long and loud until Marina is sure her lungs hurt.

Marina grasps Caroline’s shoulders. “We need to get our parents, Liney.”

Caroline’s mouth twitches. “I tried. I dragged Nanny to the door. She said she didn’t see anything besides the Wave Blockade.”

Marina searches all the sea witches. One drags her fingers rhythmically in the wave, performing a pattern once, twice, then three times. In the stories Marina has read about their origin and abilities, sea witches were once beautiful maidens who held such little power on land, they decided to tempt men out to sea. They gave up their souls so the ocean would house them. And for the power they craved, they lost their beauty. Marina realizes that the texts need to be updated, now seeing how sea witches actually appear. Though they aren’t ugly, ghastly creatures of the deep, what they’ve done to her island through famine and cold and the melancholy clouds that bring even deeper depression, she doesn’t find them beautiful now either.

“Please,” her voice gurgles, “please take down the spell.”

The sea witch casting magic stares at her. “We’ve casted many spells for your fathers. Your fathers belong to the sea now.”

One witch swims to be next to the first. Her black hair curtains her ivory skin. “I gave your father maps, Marina,” she says, “of all the best ports in the world, in what order to venture for the most gains and fairest sails.”

“Caroline’s father got the finest of fish to sell and trade,” says the one slightly behind, her hair like fire.

Then one with deep umber skin stretches out from the water. “Your father,” her voice breaks as she looks at Marina, “I collected treasure for him. No pearl was safe from me for months.”

Two sea witches trade a glance. Aside from the dimple on one’s cheek, they are identical: messy brown hair, bronze skin, rounded faces. “We told glorious stories of your Isle,” says one, “to every sailor we could find until they couldn’t stop dreaming about your home. All so your father would spend fewer days at sea for work, and more for—”

“Pleasure,” the other says.

It takes a moment for the sixth sea witch to speak. She’s fixated on Caroline’s home and on upholding her magic. “I commanded the sea when they threatened to pull Timothy under.” Her lips stretch into a cruel line. “How dare he forget—”

The Wave Blockade surges in all directions, furious and untamed. Marina pulls Caroline back before a wave takes her. The first sea witch grabs one of her own before she slides out of the sea and onto the land.

“How dare you threaten my daddy!” Caroline screams.

Marina rubs Caroline’s arms, trying to calm her. “Stop, Liney.”

Caroline wheels around, elbowing Marina in the chest. “Our daddies don’t owe them anything. They don’t.” In the dark, Marina can see Caroline’s small, light eyes betraying her. Large, shaken eyes, lacking in conviction, beg Marina to explain. They beg her for answers, as they often do in school.

Marina looks to the first mermaid, then back to her friend. She pulls on the end of her silken sleeve, one of the last gifts her father handed her from his journeys. Wealth had accumulated, and in the time from when Marina first learned to walk to where she stands now, she’s seen the effects—the riches—that flood the island. Her father and Timothy most of all.

Her father’s homecoming last August turned into her father’s home staying. His adventures are done, he’s said, and he’s ready to eat hot food and follow it with drinking ale deep into the night, then come back, lie with his wife until the dawn, and teach his young lad sailing tricks in the morning. No mention of her. Not one word about him missing the sea.

And here wade seven witches—seven women, Marina corrects herself—their hearts bleeding with enough anger to make the Wave Blockade take down the whole Isle without a single drop of water or blood spilled. Marina realizes what the sea women are doing is a taste of their fathers’ own medicine. Everyone Timothy and Grant love are locked in, just as the sea witches can’t come on land for their lovers. She knows what that feels like, to be blocked by the world from someone you love: She could never go to sea to be with her father, and the separation made her fall asleep at night lonely and wake up empty, nearly soulless in bed.

The first sea woman turns to them. “I,” she swallows, and her gaze drops to them, as if the next thing she says will break the whole spell entirely. “I gave them you two. Caroline . . . and Marina.

“All I asked in return,” she continues, “is that they continue to sail and tell me stories of you until you can come sail to me yourselves.” The sea woman does not cry, though her voice ripples with hurt and pools with anger. “All any of us ever asked for was their love and for them to keep their promises.”

“And then we found out about their wives,” the second with black hair seethes. “That they were fairing well on Rankor, from all of us.”

“From all seven seas.”

Marina can count on one hand the special days her father had been there for all the seven years of her life before retiring. Four: twice for her birthday, once on Yuletide, another on Rankor Rising Day. She can’t quite recall if her mother was there for any until she turned five and the manors were built.

But this sea witch, swimming before her, everything about her full and lustrous and kind—so unlike the stories she has heard of them. Marina entertains the thought, wild as it is. And that she has come for her now . . .

The sea woman dives down, swims in the wave toward them, then breaks through the water, head then shoulders then breasts. When she leans forward, Marina feels hers and Caroline’s and the sea woman’s hearts beating, all united, all equally nervous.

“We are not some heartless, vengeful creatures your stories depict,” the first mermaid whispers. “We are women of the sea who see the men we love and move the tides for them in whatever way they wish—as all women have the power to do and will do for their lovers. We are the Current that carries them forward.” Her brown eyes flick from Marina to Caroline and back.  “Don’t you see what they have done?” she implores. “Your land mother has said it before, Marina. What have they done?”

It’s the phrase Marina heard in the height of anger, often with her mother smashing a rolling pin down on the counter while making dinner. The one that her mother stopped saying when Grant and Timothy became harbor masters and both she and Delane fell pregnant.

Marina’s words come through trembling lips. “Abandoned you.”

The sea woman nods. “It’s what they’ve done to all of us.”

“How did you give them us?” Caroline, who filters none of her thoughts, asks. “How do you know our moms are having boys?”

“Your mothers wear pearls on their necks, don’t they?” The girls nod, and Marina feels her feet turn to stone. “That was our gift to them.”

“Timothy and Grant said if they had boys, they’d have heirs,” the sea woman with umber skin says with a click of her tongue. “And they wouldn’t have to worry about work as much. Since they could train them to do it all.”

“Or their wives,” says one of the twins, “since babies keep land ladies busy.”

The ivory one’s face sinks into the waves more. “That if they had sons, no one would care if they’re not on Rankor anymore. They can travel as much as they please.”

Fire burns in Marina’s stomach. “They were going to leave us?”

The first one smiles. Marina likes her smile. It’s soft and true. “We wouldn’t let them leave you. You were going to come with them.”

“That’s what they said,” one twin spits.

“That’s what they promised!” says the one wielding magic, who nearly knocked over Caroline’s house.

“But they’ve never kept a promise,” says the other twin. “Not one.”

The leader nods and turns to Caroline. “Tell me, strong girl, wouldn’t you like to live at sea?”

“Of course,” she says, because anyone who’s ever even heard of Caroline knows that sailing is in her bones and the sea is the only place for a Graves. Their family crest is a ship sailing under water on the back of a school of fish.

Then the woman turns to Marina and tilts her head. “You want to see the world, don’t you? That’s what Grant told me.”

Her voice hitches at her father’s name. She’s seen his maps, the books he’s brought. Myths and legends, history and lore abound in their library. It’s the only place—other than by Caroline’s side—she feels safe. Slowly, she nods.

The woman reaches out, holding one of Marina’s red-hot cheeks in one hand, while her other hand cups Caroline’s brown-freckled face. “You will give a lover your heart, the whole world if you can, and all you ask for in return is to feel adored and know you have their love back. But if they can’t do that for you—”

“They shall be drowned,” the chorus of sea woman begins. “They shall be drowned. They shall be drowned . . .”

Their chant grows, mirroring the crescendo of waves slapping the rocks below. Even the oldest of barnacles pop off. And then the Wave Blockade grows. Up, up, up, until it towers over the island twice over.

Marina clutches Caroline’s waist, and Caroline latches onto Marina’s shoulders. They sink to their knees. The kindness in the sea woman’s face cannot save them from feeling like they themselves are drowning. The girls thought their fathers were good men, making an honest wage at an honest job. Sun on their back. Wind slapping their faces, drying them out. Rope burning their hands from hoisting up crates onto ships. But their fathers have sailed around the world, been unfaithful to their wives, wrecked the hearts of seven women, and returned with riches beyond anyone’s dreams.

Their fathers left the sea life when they knew they would have sons, the wealth they had accumulated would feed them back tenfold without lifting a finger, and who they had made promises to could be easily avoided. Marina is sure her father, who always has a way of avoiding repercussions, never thought it would resurface with a vengeance like this. The sea witches’ Current is strong, and Marina, though scared for her father and herself and her little family, feels that the sea women’s anger, the Wave Blockade, is justified, if only it wasn’t drowning the entire island with them.

“Three days they get with their sons,” they all say, “and then they return to the sea. Willingly, or not.”

The sea witches’ waves recoil, and they disappear into the Blockade. Marina steps forward, her little hand reaching out, as if she can call up a wave and ride it out to meet them. Be part of the Current.

Above the wind comes a bang, wood against stone. The girls turn. Caroline’s housekeeper storms out of the Graves’s manor toward them, one hand holding onto her bonnet, the other brandishing her dinner spoon.

“My word,” she huffs as she takes them by their wrists. “You two ladies get in here before I throw you in the Wave Blockade myself.”

Before Marina and Caroline can stand, they’re hauled to their feet and dragged inside. “Caroline, just because today isn’t about you doesn’t mean you get to run off.”

For once, Caroline says nothing. And Caroline, either with a fist or a flung insult, always says something back.

Inside, Caroline wipes her bare feet with a rag, and Marina peels off her soaked slippers. Dim, warm light from the gold lamps adds a comforting, cozy touch to the carved wooden furniture. Heavy drapes swim along the walls that lead to the kitchen. Steam rises and drifts above, creating fake, white clouds. The girls follow the housekeeper into the kitchen, who immediately goes to stir the pots. Marina sniffs the air. Clams. Father’s favorite.

Grant sits across from Timothy at the table. Over frothy ales, they plan new routes for their sailors to take once the ocean calms down.

The chair squeaks as Marina pulls it out. She sits next to her father. She can’t tell if the rosiness in his cheeks is from laughter shared with his longest friend or the brew he downs in pints. If it’s laughter, it’s a feeling she knows well: Caroline never fails to make her laugh, except now, when both of them know that what happened outside is no laughing matter.

What their fathers have done—it’s no laughing matter.

“And then I said, ‘What kind of a sailor do you think I am?’”

“‘A dead one’,” Caroline’s father says as he slams his glass down on the table, which came all the way from Salen’s Gate.

Her father continues the story at full vibrato. “‘A sailor who can dock their sail anywhere in the world.”

“Can’t wait to take our boys out to sea,” Timothy says.

Caroline’s head whips around. “And me, right?”

“Oh yes yes, and you too, Liney. My little sea queen.”

There’s a triumphant look in Caroline’s eyes, but it’s only half of what Marina’s used to seeing.

“You still into navigation, Marina?” Timothy asks.

“I like books,” is all she says, feeling small in the imported chairs.

Her father holds her hand and swings it between the chairs. Marina feels like dancing, like she and her dad used to each time he came home from sea. Their last dance feels so long ago. “You’ll be the smartest navigator that’s ever existed. Find the best routes to make sure our product gets back on time.”

She shrugs and smiles, thankful for the compliment and her father’s attention, but something about this, about him, doesn’t feel right.

Marina looks down at their slowly swinging hands. A grainy film covers his tough skin. Bumps protrude near his finger nails. They’re small, no bigger than a pin head, and slightly uneven. They trail down his fingers to the back of his hand, disappearing under his sleeve. She tilts her chair. The bumps rise out of his collar in a line, running up to where his wool hat reaches his hair.

“Well.” Caroline’s father rises from his chair, making it screech on the hardwood. Bumps dot Timothy too, right at his brow and a few on his chin. “Suppose the room’s cleaned up now. Time to go visit the wifey and baby.”

“You got a name?” her father asks.

“Thomas,” Timothy says, “after my father. Taught me everything I know about sailing, like I’ll be teaching him.”

The sea women pop into her head. Just what was he teaching, Marina wonders, if this is how things end? With greed. And stealing.

“Thinking James for mine.”

“Boring.”

“Classic,” her father bites back.

“I liked Mark,” Marina whispers. She’s wanted a sibling for the longest time, and to be an older sibling, well, there’s nothing better. The responsibility of helping them grow up good and strong and wholesome—like Caroline has done for her. She wants to do that for someone else. Mark and Marina. The duet sounded nice in her head.

But after the Wave Blockade and the sea woman who looked like the best parts of her and Caroline, she feels . . . different.

“Want to see him, ladies?”

“Yes,” they both respond, a simple amount of enthusiasm in their voices.

“Then come on. They only get older by the minute.”

They follow Caroline’s dad up the winding staircase. The men’s long strides make it an effortless climb, while Caroline and Marina, skirts in hand, step lightly to keep up. Marina feels her heart beat faster the closer they get.

Caroline squeezes Marina’s hand hard, forcing it into a fist. “Do you think it’s true?” she whispers. “The sea women?”

Marina swallows. Caroline trusts her, and Marina trusts the sea women. But that doesn’t mean Caroline believes them. “I think what they’re saying could very well be true. I’ve never heard Mother talk about how she was when she was carrying me.”

Caroline shivers, deterred by baby talk. She had been prepping for weeks to hide out in her room on the day of the birth.

“Don’t you think she looked like us?” Marina rushes in. “And we . . . we kind of look like each other—”

“We’re already sisters, Marina. We don’t need some sea women to tell us that.”

Marina’s grateful, but still knows that without this sea woman in the picture, their “sisterhood” is just fantasy. On the Isle and, as she has read, other parts of the Archipelago, bloodlines mean everything. A man’s blood passes down names and titles and lands; a woman’s helps babies to be born and raised. She wonders what a sea woman’s blood will do to her. She’s read no fables on the matter, only heard that having their teeth sink into skin will drain a person faster than a barrel of rum when put near sailors.

Timothy passes through two large oak doors. The girls follow, hearing the blubbering and gushing from the maids. Caroline walks through the crowd, then Marina, their hands latched together as they come to Delane’s bedside.

“Oh my,” one of the maids says. “Isn’t he just precious!”

The bundle of fabric in Delane’s arms moves. She holds him tight, but gentle. “The spittin’ image of Timothy,” Delane declares. “Although I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.”

If she’s being honest, Marina can’t tell if the babe in Delane’s arms is a boy or a girl, but she knows for certain the baby is plump. Already embodying the physique of a sailor, just not a captain or a ship master. He’ll be one of the drunkards, swabbing the deck and hauling in crates. A man who cannot carry his own weight on a ship is a dead one.

Marina breathes and shakes her head. Her anger and envy have gotten the better of her, and this isn’t even her brother.

Caroline crawls onto the bed to lie next to her mother. She beams at her brother and moves to touch his little nose when her father slaps her hand away. “Ow!” she screams.

“Timothy!” Delane scolds.

“Caroline, keep your hands to yourself. He’s brand new, and we can’t have you breaking him.”

Caroline has a history of breaking items, especially fine ones, like crystal from Dangar or vases from Vilshe, but never on purpose. And never from just a touch. Timothy has never hit her or punished her with more than a pat; this slap was sharp and crisp. The sound makes Marina’s cheeks turn red.

Caroline’s lip quivers, and she turns into her mother’s shoulder. With a roll of her eyes, Delane hands Thomas to her husband and comforts Caroline. As she moves, the same necklace Maria’s mother has slips from Delane’s gown. On it should be a blue pearl with swirls of white and green, but only half the pearl remains. The cracked and jagged half dangles off the chain, sharp enough to cut.

Marina looks to Timothy, to Delane, to Caroline, to Delane and back to Timothy.

Maybe she doesn’t know because she isn’t a mother. Maybe she will never know how people realize how one is related to another. It must be an instinct one develops after carrying a child for so long, but in that moment, Marina realizes there is nothing of Delane in Caroline. Delane has dark wavy hair, thick lips, and skin like ivory. Her robust, curvy frame makes her the perfect woman to model the newest clothing around the Town Square, as importers so often ask her to do. But Caroline? She is twig and bone even for a girl who lifts crates with her father and hoists sails for fun. She has tawny brown hair, much like her father’s, and even more like the sea woman’s. Thomas has a patch of Delane’s dark hair just hours after birth.

Timothy and her father pull at Thomas’s limbs, talking about how fine it will be to watch him sail his first voyage.

“Father.” Marina tugs at his free hand. Grant moves it quickly into his trouser pocket. “I’d like to go home.”

“You’re more than welcome to, Mar.”

“Won’t you come?”

“I’m sure your mom’s still in labor. She’s a slow one at everything,” he says with a short chuckle. “Can’t imagine giving birth will be anything different.” He looks down at her. They share the same green eyes, but other than that, there’s nothing of her father in her. Not skin or cheeks or nose, or whatever else people look for to tell family as family. “You got here all on your own, didn’t you?”

Her foot squishes into the rug. “Kind of. Caroline met me.”

“Well, you’re a big girl, aren’t you? I’m sure the Wave Blockade won’t be that bad tonight. You should be able to get home safe.”

It’s the worst it’s been in days, but she knows her father doesn’t go where he doesn’t please. Doesn’t do what he doesn’t wish. So, she says her goodbyes, hugs Caroline, and leaves.

The Wave Blockade is dark and strong as she walks. It brings in more humid air. Marina doesn’t run the distance anymore; instead, she looks up, trying to catch a glimpse of the sea women. If she were to see them, she would ask for their story again. More details of her birth, more details of her father before he was rich and half the backbone of the Isle of Rankor. Nothing shows itself to her, no matter how hard she wishes. Eventually, her slow-shuffling feet bring her to her front door.

In the living room, her mother sits with her feet propped up in front of the fire. Marina’s new baby brother rocks in his basket. She breathes quickly before she steps through the arched threshold.

Sidney looks up from her book, her lips pursed slightly. “Let me guess,” she says, flipping the page with a dry finger. “Your father is over with Timothy?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea when he plans to leave?” Marina shakes her head, which elicits a contemptuous sigh from her mother. “Well, he’ll have his son’s whole life to see him, now won’t he.”

The sea women’s voices pop into her mind. “Three days they get with their sons, and then they come back to the sea. Willingly, or not.”

The carpet feels wide, expansive even, as she walks across the room. Moving her heavy, distracted body becomes a challenge. She tells herself left, right, left, right, but even those thoughts feel fuzzy. Her eyes dart between the crib and her mother’s chest, trying to find the twin pearl to Delane’s. There’s nothing. Not even the chain.

Finally, she plants her hands on the side of the crib. It sways, and her brother coos inside. His cheeks are plump like Thomas’s next door, so she guesses that’s what all babies look like. There’s nothing remarkable about him from what she sees, nothing that connects him to her.

But that’s not what I’m after, is it?

Marina’s hand gently strokes James’s clothing, and a young smile grows on his lips. “Was carrying James easier or harder than carrying me?”

A page rips. She looks up, finding her mother’s shock blatant on her face. “Well, you . . .” It’s clear to Marina her mother is searching for an explanation. “It was different. Each one is different.”

“What was mine like?”

“Why do you ask?”

Marina shrugs and looks back at James. “Well, just seeing you carry him around, it got me thinking about it. And what I was like as a baby.”

Sidney’s eyes flick up. Her mother slowly closes her book and unfurls from her curled-up position on the couch. “You were . . . you were talking pretty young. Better than all the other kids.”

Funny. That was a quote she remembered from her first tutor. The comment about her weak vocabulary at the public school spurred her want for books. Now, she’s in Caroline’s class, a whole year ahead—and the smartest one at that.

“And you had lots of hair. Lots and lots of it.”

“What color was it?” she asks, knowing well that hair can change so rapidly on newborns.

“Oh, like your father’s. Dark brown,” she says, messing with her own red-brown hair.

“Where’s your necklace?”

Her mother’s eyes snap. “My what?”

“The necklace, the one Father gave you after that trip.”

“Oh.” She touches the space above her breasts. Mother always likes to fidget with her jewelry—a nervous habit. “Oh yes, it . . . it broke during the birth. Linda was supporting me and it got caught, and it was a whole yanking, yelling, child-birthing situation. It just, broke. That’s all.”

“Do you still have the chain?”

“The jewel broke, Marina, not the chain. Now what is with all these questions? I know today was a lot for you, but it was for me too. Now then.” She stands and comes over to James, not giving Marina any more answers. She picks him up and holds him close, his well-rounded arms dangling a bit out of the blanket. Marina moves to touch her brother when her mother isn’t looking. Even just to brush his fingers, but Mother is too tall. She takes James to her bedroom, leaving Marina over by the hearth.

When her father comes in a few hours later, Marina’s lying on her belly, head propped up on her hands. Her feet swing in the air behind her as she studies her books.

“Have you seen James?”

She looks at him. Behind her father are the kitchen’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The Wave Blockade becomes his backdrop, casting a lifeless aura around him. “Yes. He’s quite cute.”

“Good, good,” he says. The relief-filled sigh that follows queues Marina in on something more than just a father being happy his two children are getting along, as much as one can get along with an infant.

“You should go see him,” she says. “Mother was upset when you weren’t home.”

“She’s always upset, Marina. That’s the way she is.”

Not all the time, she wants to say, but her father strides right past her and into the master bedroom. She follows, and the door swings closed on her face. Marina gasps sharply. Her nose tingles, an almost stinging feeling. Tears brim in her eyes. She almost made it through, and at the same time, almost got caught in space between the doors.

Lightning flashes outside, and the low rumbling of thunder mixes with the mumbling of parental voices. With all the carefulness she has in her, Marina turns the door knob and pushes it open slightly.

“—asking about my necklace. I’m sorry it broke, Grant.”

“That’s all right. It was cheap to get anyway.”

Cheap? Marina’s eyebrows furrow. Cheap!

“Would you be able to get me another? Or one for Marina? I think she was rather fond of it.”

“I won’t be sailing anymore. Need to stay home, raise my boy to be a sailor.” He pats James’s small back and gives him a kiss on the head. Jealousy washes over Marina.

“There won’t be any sailors anymore if the Wave Blockade doesn’t let up,” Sidney says.

“It will, in time. The sea can’t stay mad forever.”

But it can, Father, and it will.

Marina’s father passes James back to his mother. “The people are going hungry,” she says. “And if you won’t go out, who will?”

“Someone will step up. Someone always does.”

“But you’re the best sailors—”

“Timothy and I aren’t going out anymore. That’s final.”

Even if they aren’t blood related, Marina and her mother wear the same stunned look. Sidney holds James’s head close, then covers his ears. “Do you think it’s them?”

“Them who?”

“Them, Grant. Who else would I be referring to?”

“Could be anyone, the way you gossip around the village.”

Marina hears the ruffle of her mother’s skirt. “She’s asking questions, and you told me she wouldn’t. It must be the pregnancy, and the age—”

“Just lie, is that so hard?”

“It is when I love her, and with how smart she is, she’ll figure it out.”

Love. Marina’s ankles waver. She sinks to the floor, her small, spent frame supported by the wall. Love. The sea women talked of love, how love has punished them. How it gave them the power to move the tides, all to keep the love of their land-dwelling men. But what has love done for them? What was it doing for her “mother” now?

“Love this child.” His whispers verge on seething. “Love our son.”

“Why did you keep her then? Why not give her back to—”

“I’ve told you, I wanted to keep her.”

“And where’s that want now?”

Another smack, the second in the evening. This one ripe and hard. From the crack in the door, Marina watches her mother stumble back onto the bed, landing on her side, clutching her cheek. She protects James so well he doesn’t make a peep.

Sidney rubs her jaw and turns her head, meeting Marina’s eyes through the small crack. Her mother’s face—stunned and red, and just as livid as the sea women’s.

Sidney pushes herself up. When she steels herself, there’s not a sailor in the world who can rock her off her boat. “Grant, people are hungry. Kids are sick. We have food to last this out, but them?” She tsks. “The moment they are on the verge of starvation, they’ll come banging on our doors.”

“It’s just a storm. They can wait it out.”

“It’s a curse and you know it! I know it. I’ve read enough of Marina’s books to see what it is. And if you don’t do something, I can give you a thousand ways this will end for us, none of them good.” Her mother leans into her father, harpooning her finger into his chest. “Fix this mess before your family is pulled under.”

“There’s no mess to fix. They can’t do anything.”

#

The governor requested an audience to be held over breakfast the next morning. Marina serves them coffee and tea as the three men dive into their food. The governor gets out his message between coughing fits caused by spicy pickled vegetables.

“Bring. In. Supplies.” A swig of water goes down. “Before I. Have to declare. Communal food and rations.”

This gets Timothy in a tizzy. Barely welcoming of even the Selsuns for dinner when not a holiday or birthday, food is something close to his stomach—like his pipe to his lungs. Delane has told the girls many times that a man will do anything to ensure his addiction can live free and without consequences.

Riled up about the matter, Timothy and Grant head for the harbor. Marina and Caroline follow them, relieved to be out of the house again.

Marina points at the spot on her father’s neck. The bumps grew much larger overnight. They’re rigid, pink and white. Grant wears gloves today, despite the thick humidity.

“I saw them too,” Caroline whispers once they get down to the harbor. Other than the day the thunderous Wave Blockade arrived, it hasn’t touched a ship or the docks once. No Rankorian has died, thankfully, but many are waning.

Their fathers gather with the crew, discussing passageways and timing, possibly using smaller vessels to maneuver between the waves. “Whatever can get us out of this mess,” Grant says.

The girls go to the edge of the dock to stick their feet in the water. Seaweed spindles underneath the boards. They slide off their socks and sit, about to put their feet in, when the seaweed tilts and flows backward, revealing faces. Three sea women stare at them. They aren’t ghostly or ghastly, but more of how they looked when they emerged from the water: stunning hair and skin and figures. They smile, but Marina can tell they’re sad. She’s sad too. The leader isn’t among them.

One blows a bubble at them, and it pops.

“They shall be drowned.”

Marina tucks her chin to her chest and looks anywhere but the water. Caroline folds her arms across her chest and turns her nose up, defiant.

The women splash and swim away.

#

On the second day, the Wave Blockade decides to let in some sunshine on Bashall Cliff. Delane’s and Shelby’s restless have finally caught up to them as well, so they decide, to the girls’ delight, to have a picnic.

The two families of four sit near the edge, passing freshly baked bread and herbed butter back and forth. Hard cheeses accompany rich, sweet jams. Their fathers hold their sons in their laps, waving toy boats in their faces and call out sea cries. Their mother’s beam. “Such wonderful father-son aspirations they share,” Delane says.

“Yes, indeed,” Shelby says. The butter knife clinks a few times as she sets it down.

Caroline humphs. Marina tries to focus on her book, but nothing’s quite as interesting as the story unfolding right before her. She closes it gently. “Can you tell us one of your sailing stories, Father?”

The ship slips from his grasp and falls on top of James. He looks stunned for a moment, then starts to cry. Sidney takes James and rocks him back and forth in an attempt to soothe him.

“Why,” Grant starts, “I thought you’d never ask! You’re always so into your own stories, I never thought you’d want to hear mine.”

“Women usually aren’t interested in what you have to say, Grant,” Timothy jokes.

Marina stiffens. For all the joking they do, Timothy should know her father has a bigger ego than Timothy’s appetite.

Her father stands and adjusts his shirt, hanging low on him. A trail of pink and white bumps stretch over his belly button. There’s a slender quality to his head, almost triangular.

Marina eyes him. Did Father shrink?

He clears his throat. “It was Timothy and I, on our hundredth sail, heading to our newest destination. A port with fine silks and spices unlike any other—”

“Iva Torren,” Caroline offers proudly, then whispers, “see, Mar, I know stuff too.”

Timothy jostles his daughter’s shoulder, silencing her. Grant looks taken aback at the interruption but smiles and continues.

“We’re sailing ‘round the Archipelago’s largest mountain range, and the storm rages on our tail. The whole ship is manned with just five of us, five scabby-looking sailors in desperate need of a good night’s rest. Then out of nowhere, we’re battering through rocks. The wind is a woman, jerking our chain, pulling us every which way. So we hoist our sails, steering port and then starboard, and we’re fighting. Mar, oh, we we’re a fighting, but that storm, it wasn’t letting us win.

“Then, we’re rounding the corner of this massive cliff, our boat tilting so far the mast was nearly in the water. And then the fog, it just, parts.” He waves his fingers, separating them. “And we hear the most gorgeous singing. I look at Timothy, and I say, ‘It has to be a siren.’”

“Oh, Grant,” Delane starts to laugh, but she eyes Timothy with a bit of hesitation. “That is a story all right, but you don’t need the embellishments.”

“It isn’t. I heard it, clear as thunder on the horizon. A siren song.”

Marina tilts her head to the side. From what she heard the other night, Father has clearly gotten bold about the circumstances.

“And then what?” she asks.

“Seven sea witches, all gorgeous and deadly, siting on the rocks that we’re maneuvering through. They didn’t say much, just kept singin’. Until one swam up.

“‘Where are you going?’ she asked me. And I said, ‘Iva Torren.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I know the way through these rocks. We can take you, if you wish.’ I said, ‘That’ll be just lovely,’ and I tipped my hat to her.”

Caroline fights an arching eyebrow. “So, what happened after?”

“Smoothest sailing Tim-boy and I ever had. All of them splashing ahead of us, making the sea like walkin’ on glass. We got to Iva Torren days before we were s’posed to and was asked to load a haul three times bigger than the ship we’d brought.”

“And the mermaids?” Marina leans forward, eager to know. “What happened to them?”

“They swam away. Never saw them again. Just knew they had to help some sailors in need.”

“That’s it,” Caroline asks, although it feels more like an accusation than a question.

“That’s it.”

“And you swear you saw them?” Marina asks.

“On your mother’s life.”

Marina and her mother trade glances. She wonders which mother he intends to swear on.

#

The third morning rises, and James is throwing a fit in the kitchen. Marina gives up on reading at the breakfast table and starts to head upstairs. On the way, her mother hands her a vial. “It’s for your father,” she says. “He woke up feeling unwell. Take it to him?”

“Yes, Mother.”

She crosses through the kitchen, the formal dining room, and into the common area before facing the large doors of her parent’s bedroom. Her father throws curses around the room, angry enough they could rival James’s tantrum. He coughs, followed by a hoarse sigh, then more curses.

Marina pushes the door open. “Father?”

“What is it?” he demands, voice sunken in phlegm.

“Mother gave me some medicine.”

“It won’t work. Now tell her I just need some rest. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

Marina, for once, doesn’t listen. Her inquisitive nature takes over, and she goes to her father’s bedside. She unloads the vial’s contents into his rum.

“Father—”

He jolts at the sound of her voice, but his movement is stiff. Her heart aches for him, and she wants to comfort him but doesn’t, for many reasons, want to get too close. She decides to go to the foot of the bed and put her hand on his leg. When she moves to touch him above the covers, there’s nothing but cloth. Puzzled, Marina moves her hand up. Again, nothing.

She’s halfway up the bed when she feels what she thinks is his foot, but there’s no toes spanning off it. The more she feels around, the more she realizes she does, indeed, have his foot. It’s just completely smooth.

Her father flips himself around. His shirt sleeve soars like a flag, empty of limbs at the end. Lumps cover his light pink, dry face, stretching down his throat. The crown of his head points up, his nightcap standing erect.

Marina gasps and scurries away. “What’s happening to you?”

“It’s Sea Witch’s Sickness,” he grunts. “Now hand me my cup.”

She does, keeping her eyes on each part of him. When he tries to use his arms, they can’t bend, so Marina scrunches up the sleeve. His fingers are sewn together. He tries to curl them around the chalice base, but moving comes with so many groans and aches that Marina takes pity on him. She becomes his hands, pouring the drink into his mouth. Her father glugs the rum in three greedy gulps, followed by a deep exhale that makes her nose wrinkle.

“How do you catch . . . Sea Witch’s Sickness?”

“Blundering about too many years, facing one too many storms.”

Being with one too many girls and leaving them for nothing.

“It’s nothing, really.” He pats her arm, the gesture rigid. “It’ll all go away soon.”

She sets down the vial harder than she means to. A crack branches up from the bottom.

“Careful with that, would you?” her father snaps. “It’s not cheap.”

“But the necklace you gave Mother was?”

“I got it from a lady at sea.”

“A lady in the sea, you mean.”

Marina can’t help herself. She’s read too many books, heard too many stories on the docks, of women finding their loves and losing them, but realizing they never lost them because they were never theirs in the first place. If ownership of property and title and inheritance is such an integral part of being a man, then deciding who loves and who leaves should belong to women. And only women. To let it be up to the whimsies of men who have their say in everything else seems rather atrocious to her—even more so than her shrinking, color-changing, bumpy father.

Even with bright puffy and lumpy skin surrounding her father’s eyes, she can tell he’s displeased. “Whatever your mother told you,” he says, “it’s not true. She used to be a reader, like you, and she likes stories. Whatever she can make up to get you through this Wave Blockade, she’ll do it.”

Marina feels herself channeling Caroline. She leans over her father, scowling back at him. She pokes the bump on his head. It feels natural, like something from the sea, which is where Father belongs. “And how will you get me through the Wave Blockade, Father?” she asks. “I thought fathers and men are supposed to provide and protect?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“From you, and Timothy. You always said that to Caroline and me before you went out to sea, so we’d stop crying.” Marina backs away. “Or was that just another lie you said to get what you want?”

#

In Caroline’s bay window, the two girls are wrapped in a blanket. Their hands hold cups of tea, but neither drink. They watch the Wave Blockade build and fold in on itself, only to rise again.

“I think if it fell straight on top of us, it would squish the whole island,” Caroline says, putting another lump of sugar in her tea even though it already has five.

“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s that high yet. Probably just us and then the water will run off into the town.”

“Everyone could go swimming.”

“Not everyone knows how to swim, Liney.”

Caroline’s face sours. “We live on an island. That should be a law.”

Shadows move on the grass below them. Marina and Caroline both pop up, and their tea cups bounce on the cushions. They press their noses to the glass. One shadow crosses on their right, coming closer to the house’s front door. It’s a pentagram, with a round point at each end. Another comes out from below Caroline’s awning. Same shape, same speed, it teeters over to the other.

Caroline gasps. Marina had asked if her father was sick today. She said yes but that she didn’t go to visit him since the nurses were seeing to him. Though she did notice none of them had an appetite for Delane’s scones.

As the first shadow approaches, Marina sees her father. He’s even shorter than when she visited him earlier. He wears only his trousers as he hobbles, all his appendages stiff and spread out at acute angles.

Marina grabs Caroline’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“Mar!” Caroline yanks back, falling against the window panes. “We can’t. Our father’s will kill us. Mama will find out.”

“This isn’t a matter of can and can’ts. It’s a have-to, Liney. We have to go.”

“I’m still your sister, Marina, whether what the sea women says is true or not.” Tears roll down Caroline’s freckled cheeks. “I’m scared, Mar. I don’t know what’s gotten into Papa, and Mama’s busy with Tommy, and I . . .” She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “Please don’t go out there.”

Marina shakes her head, then gives Caroline’s hand a gentle squeeze. There’s so much she’s read and seen these past few days. She has to know what the sea women will say. What they’ll do to their fathers. It’s important enough for her to be brave now. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Then there’s nothing to see!”

“Nothing will happen to us.”

Grabbing her cloak and sliding on her shoes, she runs out of Caroline’s room, descends the stairs, and makes it to the front door undisturbed. When she opens it, the wind blows the door from her grasp and slams into the wall, keeping the exit open.

“We will not!” the cacophony of sea women bellow.

Marina charges into the wind. She’s pushed to one side. Then the other side. The wind bashes her around, but she’s able to move forward despite it. Her father and Timothy stand at the cliff’s edge. From where she is, only a few feet from Caroline’s house, they look smaller than her.

“Please!” She almost doesn’t recognize her father’s voice. He’s never said please in his life, or at least, not in the life Marina has known him. “My family—”

The waves grow higher, mightier, blacker, becoming tar. Marina strains her neck to look up. Above her, the sky becomes all water and waves, slowly forming a dome, encapsulating the entire Isle.

“Marrriiiinna!”

Caroline holds her cloak close. The back of her slippers flap in the wind. Frustrated, she kicks them off. She moves much quicker, reaching Marina in only a few short strides. Marina smiles. One hand on their cloaks, the other holding each other’s hand, they march forward.

“You shall be drowned . . .”

A hum starts in Marina’s bones. She looks at Caroline, who nods, affirming Marina’s suspicion that she feels it too. With each deafening word, Marina’s bones shake. Her lungs grow heavy, as if filled with salt water. It tastes briny and vile on her tongue.

“You shall be drowned . . .”

Their chests become heavier than anchors. The weight of the magic attaches to their bones, taking them both to their knees. Caroline shakes, cold and feeble. Marina moves forward, slowly, crawling through the grass.

“You shall be drowned . . .”

Tears stream down their cheeks. Their heads throb as they crawl, hearts squashed under a relentless, sharp grip. Marina wants to plead with the sea women and tell them to let their fathers go, that they’re not worth the women’s time or energy. But she doesn’t know how deep their pain sinks. She only knows the part of the pain they project onto her.

Only a few feet more, and they’ll be at the edge with their fathers. Their short, round fathers, who have fully changed color. Timothy is orange, Grant, pink, both defined by massive bumps instead of muscles.

The men scream to be uncursed, saying their unsightly appearance is a reflection of the sea women and not of them. That they’ll go back to being sailors for the soul purpose of cleansing the sea with every sea witch they can find.

One voice leaves the chant and dips down before the two men. The main sea woman, the one who invited Marina and Caroline to be with her, climbs halfway out of her wave. Her hair flows back, untamed. She runs one of her hands along a side of their pointed heads.

“You took my daughters from me. You took wives while you still took from us, from all of us, and more of us than I was able to find. You made me use magic to give you sons”—her hands fly from their cheeks to their throats, which are so combined with their head and chest Marina can’t even believe they have a wind pipe anymore—“when I gave you daughters and offered for you to live among the sea, as you always wanted. Free of human obligations. Free to be where you loved the most. With whom you loved most.”

Her eyes are steel gray in the storm. The ocean rises around her, as if she is a woman stepping out of flames. “But you couldn’t decide. So you decided to have it all.”

The wave pushes the sea woman closer, bringing the men into the waters. “You shall be drowned,” she says. Not vengefully, not spitefully—more like the moaning of a ship as it leaves the harbor for the last time, the time when Rankorians go to the cliff to light an arrow with fire, draw, and aim. When the arrow lands, the ship cracks and crumbles, groans as it’s absorbed by its true home. The sound is the woman; the ship, their fathers.

When the sea woman pulls back, she drops them on the cliff’s edge. They teeter, trying to catch their balance. Then, the wind changes direction, coming up from the Isle instead of from the ocean. Their fathers sway, stiff bodies fighting the fall.

“You shall be drowned. You shall be drowned.”

“You shall be drowned,” say Marina and Caroline and all the sea women.

Their sea woman mother flicks her hand, and like a small tea cup being knocked off the table by a toddler, their fathers lean forward . . .

And fall.

Relief flies through Marina and Caroline. Salt water no longer drips from their noses, and the fluid in their lungs evaporates. Marina catches her breath, but Caroline is already screaming, shrill and high. Marina realizes she can’t stop herself from screaming too. They pick themselves up and run through the knee-high grass. When they reach the edge, they slide to a stop and crouch on their bellies, sunshine beating down on their backs.

A wave crashes over the starfish-covered rock. A small wave, clear and blue, the true color of Rankor. Marina looks at the rock and counts. Then counts out loud. Again and again, she counts until Caroline puts a hand on hers.

“Seven, Mar. There’s seven of them.”

#

A week later, the Isle of Rankor gives the harbor a name: Shell Lane Habor—a tribute to Delane and Shelby, who decided to sell one of their manors to buy food and medicine for the island, replenishing Rankor’s stores after the Wave Blockade. Shepherd Murdoc still spreads the rumor that they’re doing it to distract people from the disappearances of their husbands, so that they wouldn’t be the cause of scandal. “Grant and Timothy made a blood pact,” the shepherd whispered, “one with the sea witches. I’m sure of it.”

“It must have been to save us,” someone suggested in the Town Square.

“You think they made a pact with sea witches to save us? No no no. I know Timothy and Grant. The Isle knows Timothy and Grant.” The crowd gathered round the middle-aged man, not one person bothered by the pipe between his teeth. “They’re selfish bastards, that’s who they are. Who would disappear three days after their wives give birth? They planned it, you see. Went with the witches, to be free of human responsibilities . . .”

No bodies were found. Just their clothes with a few scales on their pants. No footprints in the sand.

Marina and Caroline decide to skip the grand opening. Their mothers must attend, although they toy with the idea of not going. “What will you do instead?” Delane asks.

“Play,” they answer, though that’s not really what they have in mind. Even though they tell their mothers Bashall Cliff is the last place they want to go, they can’t help it. They miss the briny air, hearing the waves lap beneath them as they talk and run and laugh.

So they go, their ragged dolls dangling from their tanned hands. Long grass whips around their waists as they walk. Silence and holding one another’s hand the only things connecting them.

When they reach the edge, Marina scans the horizon. Not a single sea woman in sight.

Their toes curl around the ledge. Pebbles fall off the top and onto the cliffs, then into the sea. When the waves sway back, they see their fathers—now starfish—splayed flat alongside the others. Coral clings to their salt-covered bodies.

Caroline’s hands ball into a fist. “Our fathers were really terrible, Mar.”

Marina pries open her fingers, threads them through her own, and gives Caroline’s hand a gentle squeeze. Together, they inhale the air and the salt. They inhale the gluttony of men.