MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA: Chapter Four

The atoll is gone. Where the white ring of dead corals just stood, unholy waters now roll in over…nothing.

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MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA is a dystopian sci-fi about a girl on the flooded world’s only surviving island, sent out past the atoll into the forbidden ocean to find the sea gods to save her starving village. What she finds instead is an underwater research station full of other humans — and they have their own plans for survival.

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🌊 Previously in MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA: Determined to win the Holy Crone's apprenticeship, Easla paddled her grandmother out to the atoll for the Offering, giving away the seat she'd promised Elly, who was left paddling their father. As the village took blue coral for prayer, the Cowrie Prime consumed far more than his share. The sea chose Relfy's baby, though Relfy had smudged her daughter with dirt and tucked something white into the basket. Then a rumble sounded beneath the water, the atoll sank, and the unholy waters rushed in…

Chapter 4

Without the Atoll, we are weak.

Without the Gods, we are nothing.

— Ocean Law

The atoll is gone. Where the white ring of dead corals just stood, unholy waters now roll in over…nothing.

Pain flares behind my eyes, and a sting bites into my hands where they still grip my paddle. The gods wouldn’t take our atoll. We’re their chosen people.

I turn away, and the headache softens. Yes, we are the gods’ chosen people. Warmth seeps back through my chest and shoulders, loosening spaces I didn’t realize had clenched tight.

In front of me, the Holy Crone still stands in my canoe with her hands raised in prayer, palms up, fingers tipped toward the sea, like she’s waiting for the gods to finish answering.

That’s it. They must still be answering. I misunderstood what I just saw. I keep my eyes away from the horizon and search for more proof of what I believe.

The villagers float motionless in our circle of canoes. A Sand Dollar matron still wears the blissful smile the blue coral brings, the smile of someone glimpsing the gods’ promised afterlife. Proof. Everything is fine.

But wait, above that smile, her eyes bulge wide, fixed on the sight I won’t look at. And in her lap, her baby screams red-faced, yet the wails land muffled in my ears.

Then a voice pierces the dullness. “Look! The harvest has risen!”

I follow the matron’s pointed finger and lean over the side of my canoe, looking down instead of at what I saw but can’t explain. The atoll can’t be gone. The haze must be blocking it.

All around, canoes tip toward the water, the whole village leaning with me.

Beneath us, shadows appear, growing larger as they rise.

I grab onto the sight like a rope. This is the red algae the Ocean Law promises. Follow these rules and the red algae grows. I keep my eyes on the blue waters, not the murky red-brown slowly staining them darker. Here comes the harvest we’ve been expecting, enough to fill the Harvest Hut until next Offering. The thought wraps me back into the blue coral’s comfort, warm as the dock’s boards at high sun.

Somewhere nearby, a matron laughs. She must feel as silly as I do for doubting.

The first shadow breaks the surface in a flash of red, and my heart leaps. The red algae—no. Scales? Fins? It’s…a snapper, its mouth gaping open and shut, gulping at the air.

The matron’s laughter stumbles, then starts again, higher.

One fish. It means nothing. It must have swum up too fast, chasing the harvest. The red algae is still coming.

Another fish breaks the surface.

Then…hundreds. Parrotfish, grunts, minnows, all crowding up from below, gasping at the surface the way I gasp when I’ve stayed down too long.

One snapper tips onto its side. Its tail twitches, then stills, its white belly turned to the sky. Then another tips. And another. Dying.

The matron’s laugh breaks into a scream.

Whatever bliss the blue coral gave me scatters like sand in the wind. I’m left with sudden clarity. No atoll to hold back the unholy waters. No lagoon. No harvest of red algae.

A shooting pain rips through my head, and this time, nothing smooths it over. Break even one and the sea always knows. My heel throbs where the bark tore in.

More screams echo out. Paddles plunge into the water, and canoes lurch in every direction, knocking into each other.

Did we break the rules? But the gods said a girl was wanted!

No, the Holy Crone said a girl was wanted. Did she lie? Did the gods lie? These questions are sins, worse than any song my mother sang. But I can’t stop them.

The splashing paddles fling red spray of unholy waters into the air. It catches in my throat, and I cough, harder than the poisoned air has ever made me cough. Around me, coughs overpower the screaming. Pained faces turn toward my canoe.

Toward her.

I turn too, making eye contact with the woman who will fix this. “Holy Crone, w-what should we do?”

She stares at the reddening water like she doesn’t believe what she sees. “This…is the end,” she breathes, so low only I can hear. Then her knees fold, and she sinks into the bottom of our canoe.

The defeat on her face knocks the air from my lungs. Tomorrow, I planned to win the right to stand at her side. Now she lies curled at my feet like a frightened child?

I lean onto my knees—breath racing, mind whirling. My thoughts drag like a net through mud, the blue coral still fighting to show me glimpses of the gods-promised afterlife. But every dead fish I look at pulls my head a little clearer.

A tainted lagoon means no more fish. No snapper for my basket, no minnows for the younger girls’ nets. The mangroves drink from this water, and the palms, and the bamboo. They’ll die too, and the crabs that hide in their roots. Everything we eat comes from this lagoon. Without it, we’ll starve.

The gods wouldn’t abandon us over one failed Offering…would they? I close my eyes and rub my temples. My palms sting, then burn, rubbed raw from the climb down the palm tree with—

Elly.

Her name slams into me, and my heart thrashes like a fish on my spear. I have to keep her safe.

I grab my paddle and search the churning circle. There—our father’s canoe, a few lengths away. Elly huddles at its front, arms locked around her knees, while Dams fights to hold them steady in the choppy water. I dig in toward them.

There’s a shriek to my left.

I whip around.

The Oyster Prime’s paddling girl has swung their canoe hard toward the village, and the young son’s mother—still leaning out over the side, staring at the dying fish—tumbles in.

She flails in the unholy waters. “It burns!” she screams, her words pitching shrill. She claws at the canoe she fell from, hauling herself up with both arms.

The Oyster Prime yells, and his paddling girl does too, but the matron only struggles harder, her shrieks swallowing their warnings. Their canoe tips toward her. Inside, the little boy slides toward the low edge.

The Oyster Prime rips the paddle from his girl’s hands. I’ve never seen a prime hold one. He swings it high, clumsy, two-handed, and brings it down on the matron’s head.

A loud crack echoes across the lagoon.

The villagers stop shouting.

The matron stops moving.

The canoe levels, and the Oyster Prime drops the paddle then drags his son into his lap.

In between the matron’s lifeless legs, a school of minnows bobs to the surface, their tiny mouths gaping open.

“The unholy waters killed her,” a matron cries. “As the Ocean Law says!”

The crack of the paddle still rings in my ears. But the minnows—nothing struck the minnows. And they’re dead too.

“We’re all going to die!” a girl shouts.

“Get off the water!” a prime bellows.

“The fish traps!” someone cries. “Pull them before those fish die too!”

Every canoe turns and races for the village, entangling one another. Girls shout at girls to pull harder, primes shout at everyone, babies wail.

A canoe cuts across my path.

I backpaddle hard to keep from ramming it. Beyond it, Elly’s canoe drifts farther away.

In the bottom of our canoe, the Holy Crone stares at nothing.

I steer around and nearly crush Relfy’s basket, still bobbing in the churned water. I brace my paddle and stop beside it.

The sea chose her. No one takes back what the gods have chosen. But the gods just took back our atoll. Our promised harvest. Did they even choose this baby? Or did they refuse her, the way they refused the rest of us?

Through the shouts, a whistle rises—two notes. Easla. The same call that found me in the lagoon this morning. I know exactly where to look.

Three canoes away, Relfy lunges for her paddling girl’s paddle, her long black braid whipping over her shoulder. A Whelk matron drags her back by the shoulders and pins her to the bench, and their girl paddles hard for the village.

Relfy’s lips purse in another whistle, but the screams swallow it. She slams her hands together instead. Sharp claps crack across the water, again and again. Then she jabs a finger at me. At the basket beside me.

Her baby, rejected by the gods. I can read the emotion on her face like she speaks it out loud. Save my baby.

I look down. Inside the basket, a tiny cheek peeks out from the barkcloth, still smudged with dirt. That thought from before that I couldn’t reach—now I can. Relfy’s baby is never dirty. She put that smudge there on purpose. She never wanted her baby chosen.

The claps come faster.

We’re all going to die, and the gods have abandoned us. What does it matter if I take back an Offering the gods didn’t want? I lean over as far as I can and scoop up the basket, careful not to touch the deadly water it drips.

Across the water, Relfy’s clapping stops.

In bundled barkcloth, her baby coos. Wedged beside her is—

My breath catches, and I nearly drop the basket. My cowrie shell. I reach for it slowly, like it’s a fish that might spook. I lift it from the basket and stroke it with my thumb. Its weight in my palm is the same as when I gave it to Relfy last Offering, out on the lagoon. Its white, freckled with black spots in the same striking pattern that first caught my eye. A tiny hole marks where her string ran through it, the string she’s worn every sun since, hidden beneath her barkcloth.

She kept it. Even after I refused her scallop this morning, after I told her to rid herself of my cowrie. She gifted it to her daughter.

A new confidence settles in me, an anchor holding me tight. If the gods have abandoned us, then how I act no longer matters. I can spend these last suns with Relfy, be the carefree, happy person my mother always wanted me to be. I lift the cowrie shell to my lips.

A deep voice gasps. “It’s a sign.”

My father’s canoe bumps against mine. He leans across the gap, his shell-trimmed cape slipping off one shoulder, and snatches the cowrie from my fingers. Studies it. His eyes are glazed, his pupils swallowing their color, and blue still stains his fingers from the bowl of blue coral he wouldn’t give back. “A cowrie shell for the Cowrie Prime.” He grins, revealing blue-stained teeth. “The gods want me to lead.”

My stomach drops. The lagoon is dying, and my father is…smiling?

He chucks the shell over his shoulder. It cracks against Elly’s shin, and she flinches, but he doesn’t notice. Under his shifting weight, their canoe rocks, and behind him, Dams braces her paddle to steady them.

“Elly, come here now,” the Holy Crone says from my feet. Her voice is slow and quiet, more begging than demanding.

Elly stares at the strip of red water between our canoes. Her fingers whiten on the canoe’s edge, but she doesn’t let go.

“Come on, Elly,” I say, balancing the basket against my hip and holding out my free hand. “Just, s-step across.”

At my voice, the Cowrie Prime turns. He looks at me—no, through me. It’s like he doesn’t recognize any of us. His eyes drop to the basket on my hip, where Relfy’s baby rests inside. “The Offering must be given,” he recites in a prayer-like intonation.

Doesn’t he remember? I clutch the basket to my chest. “No, Cowrie Prime, the gods already rejected—”

Before I can blink, my father snatches the basket from my hands and hurls it into the unholy waters. Then he grabs Elly’s paddle from her lap and raises it overhead, aimed at the basket. To sink it. To drown Relfy’s baby.

I grip my canoe’s edge with one hand and stretch across the gap with the other, reaching for it.

But his swing throws his weight sideways, and his canoe lurches. My fingers are a hand-span from the paddle when I see Elly sliding across her bench, toward the unholy waters.

What can we say about those choices made between breaths? Do we choose to blink? To inhale, to think? I want to say I’m stronger than my body, but my body moved, and my body made its choice.

My hand lands on the edge of their canoe instead. I find myself stretched across the gap, shaking hard and barely breathing, holding their canoe level so Elly doesn’t fall in. Dams grips Elly by the back of her dress.

Above me, the paddle comes down with a heavy slap.

Then my father lifts it, water streaming from its tip. “The gods have accepted our Offering.”

I go limp, my muscles catching before I collapse into the water below. Like Relfy’s baby just did.

In my head, Relfy claps. Louder, louder. For one breath? Ten? Gods, it’s all I can hear. I stare at a shaking Elly, at the cowrie shell in her canoe’s bottom, anywhere but where Relfy’s basket once was. Don’t look.

But I do. Because I need to know.

Tiny bubbles float to the surface. So small, so delicate. Popping then disappearing like the little baby they came fro—

“Paddle,” the Cowrie Prime orders Dams. He points toward the village, and their canoe slips out from beneath me.

The Holy Crone’s sharp fingernails dig into my shoulder, yanking me back before I fall in.

I sink onto my bench and stare at the flat, tainted water. No more bubbles. I need to tell Relfy what happened. Need to tell her I tried. Our final suns…together. That bubble of hope bursts, too.

The Holy Crone drops my paddle onto my knees. “Take us to the atoll.”

I stare at her. The atoll? It sank. I watched it sink. There’s nothing out there but dead fish and deadly waters.

“No!” Elly’s cry pierces my heart. She reaches for me, leaning like she might jump out and swim, but she looks at the red water and shrinks back. “Don’t leave me, Lug,” she calls across the growing distance.

I look back at Elly, no reassurances coming to my lips. I can’t even smile. I turn to the Holy Crone, and it hurts to speak, but I force out words. “Sh-shouldn’t we return to the village?”

She grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. Within folds of saggy skin, beneath the black cross inked across her forehead, her yellowing eyes bore into mine. The woman curled at my feet is gone. This is the Holy Crone once more. “Only the gods can save us now,” she says.

The gods. Upon the atoll, they gave the first Holy Crone our laws. If they’ll speak to anyone, it will be to her, out there.

Behind her, the unholy waters keep rushing in, pushing us back toward the village. Back toward Elly.

“The sea slug stays with her jellyfish,” Elly shouts from behind. “You said so.”

I turn. Elly stands at the end of her canoe, so small in front of our father’s broad back, strands of her blonde hair whipping loose around her face. Her tiny hands are balled into fists, and her shoulders heave with sobs I can hear across the water. She looks like she did at the top of the palm tree, staring at the atoll where we left Mother.

Up there, I promised I’d never leave her. I promised to turn my canoe to face the village, so she’d never have to look at the atoll again. Then she begged me to sing, and I recited the Ocean Law at her instead. I gave her seat in my canoe to the Holy Crone.

Dams’s strokes carry them farther into the haze, but Elly still reaches for me.

The village. That’s where I need to be, but what help can I offer? Relfy waits for a baby I couldn’t save. I have no food to give, nowhere left to hunt it. In the village, we’ll all die. Unless the gods save us, the way the Holy Crone says.

And she’s told me where to go.

I’ve never refused the Holy Crone. No one does. Obeying is how I’ve kept Elly and me alive since last Offering.

I turn my canoe away from the village.

“Don’t go.” Elly’s pleading now, her shouts growing hoarse. “Please don’t go.”

Ahead of me, the Holy Crone’s silhouette lines up with the haze-scattered reflection of sunset, and my resolve strengthens. This is the right choice. I dig deep and paddle a long stroke. I can’t save us, but the Holy Crone will. She’ll convince the gods to love us once again.

“You promised!” Elly calls.

“Faster,” the Holy Crone hisses.

My raw palms tear open further. Skin sloughs off onto the handle, but I paddle again and again, focusing on the pain instead of my crying sister. With each stroke, her cries fade more into the wind.

Soon, a whining crunch scrapes the bottom of our canoe.

I jerk and peer over the side. Beneath the murk, pale coral reaches up, close enough for me to touch with my paddle. The atoll? But I watched it sink.

Coral crumbles. It breaks apart piece by piece. It doesn’t drop all at once and wait beneath the surface.

I paddle in place against the inflowing current. Blood slicks my grip, forcing me to hold tighter. The throbbing makes me gasp. “Do it now. Pray.” Here, where the gods first spoke to her. Let her ask them to fix this, then let us go home.

The Holy Crone stays seated, like she’s waiting.

A wave slaps our canoe, and red spray spatters the wood near my foot. I flinch away. We can’t stay here. Why won’t she pray?

I stand up and hold out my hand to help her up. “Please, Holy Crone. Before the waters—”

With sudden steadiness, she rises on her own. Then she takes my hand. For a breath, we stand face to face, my hand in hers.

Then she yanks my arm, pulling me off balance, and drives both palms into my shoulder.

My hip slams into the canoe’s side, and I tip out over the unholy waters. The waters that killed that matron. That choked every fish in our lagoon. The waters where sinners burn.

I grab for the Holy Crone, but she leans out of reach and only watches as I fall. Giving me to the sea.

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