š§ Press play above to listen as I read Chapter 9 to you!
MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA is a dystopian sci-fi about a girl on the flooded worldās 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 ā and they have their own plans for survival.
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š First time here? Start at the beginning: Chapter One
š Previously in MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA: Easla tore the silver jaw from the godās face, but his seaweed-net bound them together, and her breath ran out. As she was drowning, the god pressed his water-breather to her mouth and left himself to drown instead. Easla freed them with the little box and could have swum home with her proof, as the Holy Crone would have. But remembering how her mother once saved a drowning girl, she hauled the dying god toward a glowing domeā¦
Chapter 9
Upon the Atoll, the Holy Crone knelt,
and the first God spoke, Her voice as calm as the Lagoon,
and She said:
May you please the Sea.
ā Ocean Law
I haul the drowning god across the seafloor, his head lolling against my shoulder with every step. He needs my breath, and I canāt give it to him down here. I have to get him out of the water before his already faint heart gives out.
Ahead, the glowing dome stands on stilts like one of my villageās huts, only beneath the water instead of above it. The bubbling-legged god swam toward this one, so there must be aā
There! A round opening breaks its underside, ringed with small yellow lights.
I carry him under it and look up.
Within the opening, the waterās surface shimmers silver, reflecting my frightened face and, beside it, the godās, eyes shut, too still.
Beyond it must be air, trapped the way it was in the bubble-tree. Please the seas, may this place be empty. Please the seas, may this god live.
I step onto the gridded platform beneath the opening, the god still on my back, and rise just high enough to peer inside.
A small room. No gods. No plants spiraling in rows. Only this pool, dotted with ladders and ringed by floor, a circle of water inside a circle of land. Perfect, thereās room enough to lay him down. Iāll be quick. Save him, then swim home before any of these other gods even know I was here.
I shove him up through the opening, the seaweed-net on my shoulder catching on its rim, until his weight tips away from me onto the floor above. Then I climb out and drag the rest of him up beside me.
My next inhale sucks the breather tight against my mouth, so I rip it out and breathe the domeās air.
The breatherās loop dangles, broken. I must have snapped it when I tore the jaw from the godās face. One quick knot, and I slide it over my head, then I toss the seaweed-net off my shoulder.
I drop to my knees and lean over him. My hands shake. Hurry. But do it right. Winding my fingers into his wet hair, I tip his head back, lift his chin, pinch his nose, then I seal my mouth over his and breathe out. Once. Twice.
His chest rises.
I set my hands on his breastbone, the way we drilled on the docks as girls, ready to press. Under my palms, his heart still beats, faint and stumbling.
Good, he doesnāt need my hands. Only my breath.
I count out the space between breaths, my motherās voice with me, the same count we kept together over the Scallop girl. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I breathe into him again. One. Two.
His scales are smooth beneath my palms, not slimy as I expected, more like a sharkās skin than a fishās, and already drying, fast. My barkcloth dress drips onto the yellow-and-green stripe that crosses his ribs. His body is firm, so different from Relfyās gentle roundness. Five.
I press my lips to his again, and a warmth stirs low in my belly, a pleasant feeling I allow myself to sink into. Was this how the first Holy Crone felt when she spoke to the first god?
One. Twoā
