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By Root 965 0

smiled. Vela was the sweetest of her sisters. Anyone who didn’t know them—though of course everyone knew them, they were daughters of the sea queen—would have thought that Vela, with her round cheeks and little bow mouth, her bright hair and peach-colored tail, was the youngest instead of Lenia. Vela loved the sea’s creatures more than any of them and could spend whole days discovering hidden life in the ocean’s crevices. Leaf-crowned sea dragons with long, glowing needles for teeth, tiny red octopi that spun like stars, glassy see-through creatures shaped like flowers. Even now she had a giant shell on her shoulder with a pulsing, gooey creature inside, suctioned to her skin.

“No,” Lenia said, gently removing Vela’s arms. “I wasn’t disappointed. I liked the storm. I would have liked to stay longer.”

“You would have?”

“I would have liked to stay forever.”

Vela made a face. “Very funny. Come outside, come tell us all about it. We’ve found something, too, that you will like.”

Lenia turned her head and kissed Vela on the cheek. “What?”

“Men, everywhere, from the storm. I found them this morning, by the cave. One body, then another and another, and the ship they were on, too.” She smiled, raising her glittering brows. “And a chest of treasures.”

“Oh!” Lenia said, wondering if she could find something of his, and then immediately felt horrible, remembering what she’d seen.

“What’s wrong?” Vela asked. “You love human treasures.”

“This is different,” Lenia said. “I saw it happen. The shipwreck. It was terrible.”

Vela’s eyes widened. “You saw it?”

“Yes, the storm, the ship, I saw it break apart. I saw men die.”

“Oh,” Vela breathed. “Let’s go to the others, you must tell us everything!”

She grabbed Lenia’s hand, and the two swam together, through the long hallway where sea plants streamed around them, filled with small, phosphorescent creatures that lit up the dark. In front of the palace, in the main family garden, the rest of the sisters waited: Bolette, Nadine, Regitta, who was holding her son, and the oldest sister, Thilla, who was carrying a platter of baby soft-shell crabs left over from the birthday feast.

Lenia swam over and popped one in her mouth, liking the feel of the shell as it cracked between her teeth. She reached for another, suddenly starving.

“Didn’t you find anything to eat up there?” Thilla asked, laughing.

“Look, Sister,” Nadine said. She shifted, letting the electric eel in her arms cast light on a wooden chest, perched on a rock beside her. The chest was open. The insides of it splendid, as if it contained all the night stars spread across the sky.

“So when are you going to tell us about your adventure?” Bolette asked. Bolette and her twin sister, Regitta, were the next oldest, after Thilla. Bolette was the fastest swimmer of all of them, with the longest, thinnest body, which could slice through the water like a sharp blade. “Was it wonderful, like you thought it’d be?”

Nadine flicked her tail against Bolette’s side. “I am attempting to give our sister a gift, if you don’t mind,” she said. She dipped into the chest and held out a gold necklace with a huge red stone hanging from the center. It was stunning.

The red stone flashed in the water, catching the faint light. A few small fish darted up to it, and Nadine caught them in her palm, stuffed them into her mouth.

“It’s beautiful,” Lenia said. She took the necklace, placed it around her neck. Nadine swam behind her and fastened it, kissing her on the shoulder.

“It looked like you,” Nadine said. She swam back around to the other sisters, admiring her work. “That is how your voice sounds to us.”

Lenia laughed, tracing the stone underneath her fingertips. She looked at her sisters’ five expectant faces. They were all so lovely. Behind them, a thousand fluorescent fish swam upward in one motion.

“Well?” Vela asked, unable to contain herself any longer. “What was it like? Seeing them die?”

“Seeing what die?” Thilla asked. She looked from Vela to Lenia. “You saw … not humans?”

“Humans, yes,” Lenia said. “A whole ship full of men. I saw