I tell her, “I can continue now, if you wish. Do not worry about your story.”
Ulín tries to thank me, but there is no need. I understand.
After the judgment, they put me in another cave. This one certainly wasn’t mine. It was larger, and echoing, and in the walls I saw hooks which were chiseled from stone. Fragments of ancient moss rope hung from some of them, but I was the only one in the cave. Perhaps at some earlier time, others had been held here.
My judgment could not be given before the judgment of Old Song. I have learned that I was unimportant, but perhaps just a bit more important than the Boater person they severed and cast out of the Shoal. But Old Song was a part of everything.
Before, I did not think that one person could be more important than others, in the Shoal. We were supposed to be equal, and equally held in the Shoal, held by each other and for each other. Perhaps the word important is not the word which is needed. Nevertheless, I was in the cave and waiting, while Old Song was receiving judgment.
I lay very still. Very still. The echo of Moss-deep’s voice reverberated through stone and into the cavern.
“There is danger to the Shoal in straying, in deviance. This happened before—you, Old Song, of all people, should know this. We must stay together, otherwise we are not the Shoal. We cannot trust people not our own. They might tell stories of welcome, but then they will take our water, and take all our fish, even though they have woods that are teeming with food, and they’ll trick us one by one to stray from the collective, and then, before long, the whole world will be dying.
“You of all people, should know this.
“And if you did not do anything, and it was all Stone, then you know what to do.
“Tell us. Tell us if it was all Stone’s doing. Stone’s crime.”
Eventually, she did. She blamed me for everything.
Late at night, Old Song came. I did not know that at first; I was sleeping. My hands were still bound, and I could not find comfort. My gills opened and closed laboriously in the shallow, cold pool. She grasped me by the leg, and I came to the surface, shaking and sputtering.
I am so sorry, she said. Then she tore at our bond, and suddenly my head was splitting, and it felt like she was tearing out my whole mind, my tongue—
When I speak of this, Ulín cries out, and her hands grasp her cheeks, the sides of her head, bruising-tight. Her eyes are wild, frightened.
Oh. My story. Her nameloss—my words must have reminded her.
She rocks and says again and again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I stretch out my hand, an offer, and she reaches to me as if drowning. Her fingers clench tight. “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .”
“Please,” I say. “No need to apologize. I can stop if you need me to.”
“Did you lose your magic?” she whispers.
“No, I kept both my deepnames. But the bond was gone.”
We clasp each other’s hands in the semidarkness of my room and breathe together until she is ready to listen again.
I’d gone without a living bond before, hoping for a companion who would also share their body with me, but then I met Old Song, and I did not want anyone else. I wanted—I wanted to keep that feeling of her, that warmth, curiosity, wonder, her stories most of all. She told me she loved me, and I felt it—but now she had severed our bond.
Then she touched me, and I recoiled, but she only unbound my hands.
“You did not speak against me in judgment,” she whispered, “even though I betrayed you. Even now, I betrayed you again. I’m so sorry. I am not brave or strong like you are, and I cannot abide to be severed. The collective will find me someone else to bond to, someone of their choosing. But I convinced them that there is hope for you, that you can be corrected. The collective will give you another chance. If you speak to them humbly, for you they too will find a new bond. It will be as it should be.”
“Nothing is as it should be.” I grasped her arm, and she all but recoiled, but I held her. I was strong.
Later, I wondered why she did not simply flicker away from me. Back then, in my exhaustion and hurt, I leaned into the power of my insignificant body. The stone strength of it.
Old Song had kicked me before, and hurt me, and shielded herself from judgment with a story which hid many truths. She had severed our bond, and hurt me so much; my head was reeling, and under my tongue was the bitterness of vomit. I thought I could strike back now. I could hurt her in the body, even kill her. What did I have to lose? I did not want to be corrected. To be bonded with a prison-bond, to live a dutiful quiet life, to die into the Shoal and be there motionless and bound forever, without even Old Song to speak to. Or to be severed, and die without a Shoal to take my soul, to perish without a trace like those who were torn away into the void. There were no good ways forward. All was despair.
Within me, the deep music of red surged and faded.
Old Song did not struggle. Did not flicker away.
I held her, and my eyes adjusted. She had already been hurt in the body, like I had been hurt, but I paid little attention to my wounds. She was cut and punched, and she was bleeding, but above all, I saw that she was deeply afraid. Afraid of the hurt in the body. Afraid of the people who hurt her. Afraid of being alone.
“Tell me a story,” I said. “One last time, Old Song.”
