Salt Tongue

“I don’t like it.”

I don’t respond to the voice coming from above. I’m sweating so much that my body has discovered new places to leak from, places I didn’t think could sweat: my earlobes, my elbows, the insides of my wrists. The salty rivulets run down my skin, occasionally making a break for freedom before landing - plip! - on the clean and shining floor of the cargo hold. Such an impressive name for a space that’s really not that grand at all. A ‘cargo hold’ sounds like it might be quite airy, with lots of high ceilings and wonderful ventilation opportunities.

My boat is small, and seems to personally thrill at gathering as much hot, humid air as it can. It’s not so bad on the deck, of course, where a breeze has a chance at offering relief, but in here? I pull at the collar of my shirt in an effort to fan air down to my chest. Overhead, uneven footsteps come stumping in my direction, every other step landing more heavily. A second later, I see the stitched leather shoes attached to sun-darkened legs in fraying shorts. Cam’s head follows into view soon after, the gold crop of hair on his head hidden beneath a floppy hat with a broad brim. His green eyes are shadowed somewhat but strike out at me nonetheless, glowing like pieces of sea glass.

“I said, ‘I don’t like it’.” He repeats himself with a bit more emphasis.

“I heard you.”

“Did you? You didn’t say anything.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“That you don’t like it either, obviously, and that you want to give up on the whole idea and stay here with me as my doctor, confidant, and jailer.” Cam tilts his head at me, sounding serious.

“I don’t want to give up on the whole idea and stay here with you as your doctor, confidant, and jailer.” I tell him, and put down the last heavy box in my arms. A small mountain of crates has materialised in the hold after my morning spent in hard toil. They’re not much to look at, all small enough to be carried between a person’s arms and all heavy enough to make sure that my lower back and hips will be feeling it tomorrow, but I’m proud of the sight. They’re tidily put up against the furthest wall from the entrance, stacked in a way that I thought seemed the most stable.

“That’s not what I said.” Cam protests.

“Nope.” I bend down and pick up a tattered strap from the ground. I tie it to a hitching point in the wall and pull it across the bottom row of the family of boxes to a matching point on the other side where I tie it off, securing the base of the load. I glance at Cam in my peripheral vision and smile a bit at the way his lower lip juts out.

“Don’t sulk.” I tell him. “It’s fine. It’ll all be fine.”

“You don’t know that. You could get shipwrecked.”

“That’s always a possibility.” I remind him. Cam and I - and every other individual with an interest in breathing fresh air - live on the water. Admittedly, most people seem to prefer to spend their lives on floating cities, where it’s safer, but not us.

Neither of us like the floating cities. The oldest ones are the largest ones, having gradually accrued more and more ‘citizens’ over the course of many generations, but all cities start out from the same place: a captain aboard one boat decides that they would like to have a second boat attached to their own for more space, power, and places to hide. If the captain is a good one (or just charismatic enough), more boats will come and tether up with them. Eventually, pathways get added between vessels: rope ladders and gangways suspended precariously over the water. Then, new heights get reached when people start figuring out how to go up instead of out, going forward with such crackpot ingenuity that to question how a city stays together is entirely moot, because no one can really say for sure.

Some of the cities are quite impressive, actually. If you have the right tool, you can spot them on the horizon sometimes, big, hulking structures. All of the cities are recognisable for what they are, despite being so different from one another. No two cities are built the same way, and that usually applies right down to a foundational level. One city might be totally amazing, filled with vast resources and helpful people living on its back, and the next one you encounter might be filled with traffickers and pirates waiting to cut out your important inside bits. No matter what, every floating city and every resident who lives aboard it will tell you that it’s safer than if you were alone, but some of us make the choice to do precisely that.

Cities are dangerous, no matter who lives there or what promises they make. It’s better to not have to rely on other people, anyway.

“I don’t like it.” Cam says again as I finish securing my cargo and step back, dusting my hands on my thighs. I throw the old man a bone and turn to face him, softening my expression and picking up a small smile for him.

“Sorry, who was it that raised me?” I tap my chin thoughtfully.

He narrows his eyes into a squint, saying nothing.

“Was it you?” I prompt.

He grumbles something incoherent.

“It was! Captain Campbell himself! One of the most prestigious men to ever live on these black waters. Fabled for his intellect, his innovation, his inexorable wit and charm…”

“I do enjoy flattery…” Said Cam.

“Noble, humble Campbell, the most dexterous and agile of navigators, a mentor worthy of fable and legend!” With theatrical relish, I throw my hands into the air above my head, and promptly smack my knuckles on the stout ceiling. The wooden planks are smooth and ancient, but still pack a stinging wallop. Cam smiles at my scowl.

“Keep going. I like this. Go on.”

I suck in a deep gasp, making a show of filling my lungs with air and loudly project my voice. “Who else could have trained such a capable and competent prodigy? Who else, in this wet, wet world of ours, would have devoted himself so fully to teaching everything he knew?”

“I did do that, didn’t I? You know, your father always said…”

Cutting him off before he can get into a tangent about my family, I clap my hands and settle them on my hips.

“Exactly! You did. And, you’re so good at what you do, and you’re such a good teacher, that I have no choice but to surpass you in everything you’ve ever done, and even if this is my first solo voyage, it’ll probably be more remarkable and amazing and legendary than anything you’ve ever done.”

Cam’s smile disappears.

“I’ll tell you all about it when I come back, unshipwrecked and rich enough to buy us both better lives. Alright?” I waggle my eyebrows, masterfully managing to encapsulate everything that our lives mean in a single bounce.

“It’s dangerous.”

“It’s always dangerous.”

“You’ll be alone.”

“I know how to take care of myself. You made sure of that.”

Something in the hot, sweaty air shifts. Cam comes closer, which seems to make the small space feel even hotter. When he lays a hand on my shoulder, I expect to stick to him.

“You’ve never gone out on your own before, Talia. It’s always been you and me. What if…?”

I duck out from under his arm and step around him, darting for the stairs and scampering up them before he can finish the thought. The ’what if’s don’t matter, and hearing them will make me antsy, so I can’t hear them.

Cam and I have been working together since I was seven years old. Before then, it was me and my parents, on their boat, just the three of us. When my mother realised that she was pregnant, she and my father asked their closest friend to take me in. They wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t have to, but my mum’s pregnancy meant that they would need to find a city, a midwife, and a boat large enough to house all four of us, which was hard enough to do without a small child following them around. They never came back for me, and Cam found ways to make missing them feel less overwhelming and all-consuming. He taught me how to sail and navigate, how to scavenge and trade and negotiate and how to shift someone from an acquaintance into an ally. He taught me how to fight, how to defend myself, and how to use weapons.

I step out onto the narrow deck and immediately feel cooler for it. Even though the mid-morning sun is glaring at me with her hot, yellow eye and there isn’t a single smudge of white in the sky to distract her from her target, there’s a bit of a breeze kicking around out here. I lift up my long, red braid and hold it away from my neck, letting the air put its lips on every single one of my freckles. I close my eyes, hearing Cam following in my footsteps. The stairs usually aren’t an issue for him. In fact, nothing has ever been an issue for him, least of all in his own domain. I’ve never seen him sick or ailing, never out of action for more than a few hours at a time (usually after a little too much rum has gotten into his system the day before), and never injured, which makes the bandages encasing his right leg all the more jarring to see.

I stare at them as he crosses the narrow deck, trying not to think about the wound underneath because it makes my stomach churn to remember it. My friend, my guardian, fighting to get out of the water as blood torrented out of the red meat that had been his calf. Perhaps slashed isn’t the right word. When I saw the injury, it was like a hole had been punched right through him, his inside bits all red and squishy and shining, penetrated. He didn’t tell me exactly what had happened to him, but I can only think of one thing that would make an injury like that.

Kraken.

“Stop staring at it.” Cam says defensively as he struggles to get over the railing and onto the wooden platform on the other side. I come to his aid and ignore his efforts to shake me off as I stabilise him with a hand under his elbow. He swings the injured leg over after him and regains his balance with a few staggering steps. He walks to the barrel where we collect drinking water and uses a plastic bowl to scoop some out for himself.

“Can’t help it. Your leg is gross and I have to change your bandages before I go.”

“No, you don’t. I can do it.”

“You can do it, but you won’t do it, so I’ll do it before I go.”

“You’re definitely going, then?” By the way he says it, I know he’s trying to play it cool, but if there’s one thing that can be said with total clarity and absolute self-awareness it’s that neither of us are very good at hiding our feelings. When you live alone with one other person for twenty years, keeping your thoughts and emotions under wraps just doesn’t happen.

“Yup. I have to, Cam. You can’t travel with that gammy thing and we still need to do the work we agreed to do.” I shrug. “How else are we going to get the supplies we need for next month if I don’t?”

He grunts. “Maybe a golden fish will land on my hook and grant all of my wishes…”

“What?”

“Nothing. Are you sure you feel ready for this?”

I hold in my sigh and nod. The waves lap at the edges of our solitary little world, throwing black salt water up onto the hardy wooden planks that make up our home. Where cities build themselves on the backs of multiple sea-faring vehicles and, usually, drift around the world on the tides and currents that carry them, people like Cam and I tend to do the opposite. Instead of building something huge to ferry around on, we use our boats to support our livelihoods and use what supplies and money we earn to build something stable in the meantime, forging temporary strongholds and homes, always telling ourselves that they’re temporary, that we’ll leave them behind one day for something bigger and better.

So, when I was nine, Cam found a sea stack that was both sturdy and not very well known, and put down roots. He attached supports to the standing pillar of stone submerged beneath the water and built upwards, until he could lay out a solid platform.

For a while, maybe ten months, all we had was the wooden platform and whatever we had in our bags. We slept under tarps and ate scraps and tried to keep our things from being blown into the ocean, tying everything down whenever we could afford to spare the rope. It was a lot of work to get to that point, and we had to defend it more than once; from other people, from the monsters of the sea, from the elements. It didn’t always work out. At least one time, the supports were destroyed and half of our home wound up submerged and drifting away.

But, we’re nothing if not stubborn and we rebuilt, eventually becoming secure enough to construct a small home. It’s only two storeys, with a handful of small rooms, and absolutely everything is out of alignment and completely wonky. Sometimes the stairs give way underfoot, cracking in two right beneath you. The windows have no glass and the furniture is made from driftwood and is prone to crumbling at inopportune times, but it’s home.

“Ready to go and do your job for you? Yeah. I think I’ve been ready for a while, old man.” I force a smile, and Cam forces one back. We both know I’m capable of handling what lies ahead, if it were as simple as getting behind the wheel and reading the skies until I find my destination, but little boats like ours are beacons for trouble. Our golden rule was always to go out together, so we can watch one another’s backs, share the workload, and be there for each other if anything did happen. Being alone means I’ll be reliant on myself to do everything whilst maintaining the awareness of two people instead of one. I won’t be able to stop and cast nets for fish whilst Cam steers, I won’t be able to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, if at all.

Unable to help myself, I look at the water. Hard not to, when the ocean is all that there is and it’s constantly trying to take whatever is left. All the same, I look, guiltily enjoying the way the sun sparkles on its ebony surface, the foam of rippling waves glittering like white gems as it froths around the perimeter of our home.

Cam sees me looking. He replaces his drinking bowl and clears his throat loudly. I take my cue.

“Any news?” I ask, knowing that there’s always something.

“A pod of them moving north, reported this morning. Big.”

I frown, but that’s not totally unheard of. Kraken often travel in groups. As we understand it, the males tend to go out in hunting parties of two or three. A single male kraken can be as large as a city, his body long enough to fill ocean crevasses. They’re always looking for vulnerable, stupid humans that aren’t smart enough to watch the water, always looking for more meat to devour, more bodies to claim. The female kraken we don’t know as much about, only that they’re much smaller and have been spotted in much larger numbers, not as likely to travel long distances but no less dangerous for it. They can be as aggressive as the males, sometimes even more so.

“Attacks?”

Cam hesitates and I look up at him. I pull my braid over my shoulder and work it loose, letting out the deeply red strands. My hair is stiff and greasy with sweat and I come over to the water basin, helping myself to the plastic bowl as I wait for Cam to continue.

“The Parrish group is gone.” He says.

I drop the bowl with a clatter, spinning back to him, eyebrows raising. “What? The whole group?”

“Yes. Enzo told me about it this morning.” Cam sighs. He must mean the very early morning, before the sun had risen and the pre-dawn sky still mirrored the ocean below it, whilst I was still sleeping off the stress of the day before. Enzo is one of Cam’s many accomplices, a one-man team operating out of a very long, very narrow boat. I don’t really talk to him, but he’s a good tap for information because he’s always on the move, and always in everyone’s business.

“What happened?”

“Their youngest fell overboard. They got him out in time, but by then, it was too late. The kraken found them. None of them made it out alive.” If Cam keeps talking, I don’t hear him. I swallow, my mouth feeling dry. It only takes a second, is the thing. One second spent in the water is enough to alert the kraken. Cam calls it ringing the dinner bell.

The only way to go into the water safely is to be sure that there are no sea monsters in the area at the time, either by avoiding the water that they were last seen in, or to go to waters deep enough that it isn’t as likely a kraken will be near the surface. It’s nearly impossible to tell, given the pitch darkness of the water and the unpredictability of the monsters. There’s no certain way to determine whether the water is clear of danger or not. We’re all just operating on hope and whatever savviness we have in our back pocket.

“Yeah.” I pick up the bowl again and refill it, trying not to think of Cam’s leg. I don’t think he reported his injury to anyone, but I can’t badger him about it because he won’t tell me what did it. He came spurting out of the water in agony, his leg geysering blood all over the place, and hadn’t said a word about it. I made sure he wasn’t going to die, and as soon as my hands were off of him, he limped indoors and disappeared into his room. Our odds are low enough as it is, and I wonder for a moment about how many other dwellers are out there, neglecting to share the news of attacks they have survived.

“Where were they when it happened?” Having wet my mouth and throat, I dip the bowl again and use the gathered water to cool off, upending it above my head. The sunwarmed water doesn’t do much to bring my temperature down, but I do it again anyway and start to massage my fingers through my hair, combing out the knots and crystallised deposits of salt.

“East from us.” Cam says. His eyes flick towards the boat, knowing quite well that our jobs are going to take me in that direction.

I shake my head. “I’ll divert and head south for a bit first, give it a wide berth.”

“Good.” He’s still studying the boat. I think the furrow between his brows isn’t as deep as it was a few minutes ago. “Is everything refilled?”

“Yup. The pantry is good to go. So is the armory and the water reservoir.”

“Go on.” He says, and I know he wants me to prove myself to him.

I smooth my fingers through my hair as I talk, straightening the unruly waves with my hands. “The knives have been sharpened and locked in the safe. I have plenty of drinking water to cover me for a month, at least.” I’ll be back before then, though, hopefully.

Cam nods approvingly. “And the water is clean in all the tanks? Drinking and cleaning?”

“Affirmative, Captain.” I smile, pleased that I can say that much with total certainty. On the one hand, it’s very easy for our clean water to become contaminated with salt water. You can’t tell by sight alone if the clean water is infected, but you only need to dip a finger into it to be sure. See, if you come into contact with black ocean water, your body will respond in a certain way, instantly. Your body gets all hot and needy, nipples prickling and tightening into sensitive points, the dark, low parts of your stomach twisting into tight knots pulled taut and you’ll want to do anything to make them snap. It’s the most dominating experience, completely blotting out all other thoughts until you chase that desire for satisfaction, until you appease it.

Or, wash it off.

I like to do a little of both, depending on whether Cam is in the vicinity. If he is, then I maintain my best behaviour and always make sure to get into the shower and clean off the intoxicating water until my head clears and I feel like myself again. If he’s asleep, or busy, or making one of his solo visits to see a friend, I… indulge, I guess is the word. I don’t scrub off. I go to my room and I follow the heat with a hand between my legs and I’ll never admit it out loud, but I always have the best, most satisfying orgasms when I’m wet with ocean water. Sometimes, on my lonelier nights when I fantasise about living with someone who is not my father figure, I go out and run my fingers through the water, justifying the danger as an exchange for the bone-deep satisfaction of coming on my salty fingers. It’s addictive. It’s a secret.

“Well, then.” Cam folds his arms across his chest. “I guess you’ve got nothing left to learn from me whatsoever, and you best go sooner rather than later, so I can get on with processing my feelings of abandonment in time to go insane in isolation.”

I smile. “Shut up. You can’t wait until I’m out of here. You’ll invite over all of your girls to fawn over your battle wound.”

I walk over to Cam before he can protest, or pretend that he is the eunuch that he wants me to believe he is, and I throw my arms around him in a hug that’s awkward, because his arms remain folded. I give him a squeeze and he relents, loosening his frame and opening the cage of his arms to accept me. He’s warm and alive, smelling of his own sweat and the faint, green smell of plants and herbs that always seem to accompany my Captain. His big, calloused hand comes up and cups my cheek.

“Be careful, Talia.”

“I will be.”

“And more importantly…”

“Yes?”

“Be smart.”