Above World

CHANGE, thought Aluna. Not a word that got a lot of use in the City of Shifting Tides. The Elders would rather die than do anything that would alter the Kampii way of life. Or, at least they were willing to let other people die.

Elder Inoa began to speak about tradition, and Aluna felt movement in her chest, a quiet tension building slowly, like a wave.

“Events in the Above World come and go,” the Elder intoned. “The Humans and the other splinters fight their wars and destroy their resources. We of the sea, of the coral, of water . . . we remain strong and unwavering. We persevere. We thrive.”

Aluna snorted. She hadn’t meant to, but it just came out. The eleven Elders and the other supplicants all turned to stare.

She bit her lip and lowered her gaze, trying to fight the anger growing inside her. How could they be “thriving” if innocent girls like Makina had to die? And if more and more Kampii would die just as she had? Hiding from the rest of the world while your failing tech slowly killed you was in no way the same as “thriving.”

Elder Inoa began again. “We Kampii have always kept ourselves apart. We have not succumbed to the weakness that ravages the Above World. We have maintained our culture and grown our civilization even as the rest of the world suffers darkness and misery.”

Aluna rolled her eyes and muttered to herself. The girl next to her shifted uncomfortably.

“Silence!” Elder Peleke bellowed. Then, with more dignity, he turned to Elder Inoa and said, “Please continue, Elder.”

Elder Inoa tucked a tendril of pale hair into her coral headpiece and continued, but not without a long, dark look in Aluna’s direction.

“While the Above World destroys itself, our colony grows. . . .”

In the distance, a whale sang. It was a sad, melancholy sound that cut through the water like a harpoon. All whales are pessimists, Hoku had told her once.

He was probably out there now, wondering what she’d done to anger the Elders. She’d tell him later, along with some embellishment. Hoku loved a good story.

But what if . . . what if Hoku were next? What if it had been his body she had found in the kelp forest? What if he died, afraid and alone, and the Elders had hidden him away like Makina, as if he had never even existed?

Aluna stared down at the ugly seed in her bowl and clenched her teeth. Calm as Big Blue, she told herself. But she didn’t feel calm. She didn’t even truly want to be calm. The wave inside her chest grew like a tsunami, pulling thoughts and energy from every part of her and growing bigger and bigger.

She unwrapped her legs from the resting stick and floated up.

“On your stick, Aluna,” her father said, the first words he’d spoken directly to her since their fight the night before. His tail swished.

“No,” Aluna said. The wave inside her crashed and rolled, thunderous loud. Elder Inoa was staring at her, mouth agape, breathing shell pulsing at her throat. “I can’t listen to this anymore,” Aluna said. “Our city isn’t growing. The Coral Kampii aren’t thriving.”

“Daughter, enough!” her father yelled. Aluna cringed, but couldn’t stop the anger now that it had begun to flow. She turned on him.

“Makina is just the latest victim of our ignorance, but there have been others. Too many others. My mother died, too,” she said, knowing it would hurt him. Wanting it to hurt. She couldn’t say it to him last night, in private, but she found her voice now in front of everybody. “You could have gone to the Above World for help when she got sick, but you let her die. Now our necklaces are breaking, and we’re still hiding in our shells.”

Her father swam forward, his eyes dark, his mouth twisted. She’d never seen him so angry.

“Aluna, daughter of Leilani,” he said, her mother’s name sounding like an insult, his shame at being her father evident in every syllable, “if you do not apologize to the Elders and return to your stick, you will be asked to leave this sacred place immediately.”

But she wasn’t done. Not yet. She stared right into her father’s eyes. “If you won’t find HydroTek and ask for help, then I’ll go to the Above World and do it myself.”

He stared back at her, his eyes dark with the promise of further punishment. It took all her strength not to cower before him. Silence filled the dome.

Finally, he said, “This girl is deemed unworthy of citizenship in the City of Shifting Tides and will not pass into adulthood this day. What say the council?”

“By the moon,” the Elders agreed in unison, clearly relieved.

“Leave now, child,” her father said through gritted teeth, “and return to your foolish games.”

The wave of anger inside Aluna roiled and churned. She lowered her gaze and fought it back. If she opened her mouth again, she had no idea what would come out. Her father would never forgive her for this. Never. Her entire family would suffer in their standing because of her.

She swam toward the exit hatch slowly. Her body shook, her legs threatened to turn to jelly, but she kept them moving.

When she got close to the exit, Elder Peleke called to her. “Leave the bowl, girl. You will return in no less than one year’s time to have your loyalty to the Kampii reassessed.”

Aluna lowered herself to the ground. She stared at the Ocean Seed. How could something so small and ugly be so powerful? Her back was to the Elders. Before she placed the bowl on the sand, she snatched up the seed and hid it in her fist. The tiny nugget burned painfully hot against her palm. She said nothing and swam solemnly to the exit.

As the hatch snicked shut behind her, Aluna heard Elder Peleke say, “Even our glorious city can produce, on occasion, a bad fish. . . .”


She swam to her cave before Daphine or Hoku could catch up to her. Why had she taken the Ocean Seed? She had no plans to use it, at least not now. Where she was going, she needed legs.

Aluna opened the small pouch she wore around her neck and pulled out the shiny silver ring that had once been her mother’s. She kissed the ring’s single purple stone as she did almost every night, then placed the stolen Ocean Seed within the ring’s circle and tucked both back into the pouch.

She ripped off her ceremony clothes and dressed in a pair of worn leggings and the top Ehu had given to her the first time she’d killed a shark. Daphine had sewn the shark’s teeth around the neckline in a clever pattern. Whenever Aluna wore it, she felt fierce.

She strapped on her knife and tossed a few pieces of cured fish into a small net secured to her waist sash. At the opening to her room, Aluna paused. She looked back at her swirly, glowing cave, at her comfy sticky-sponge bed, at her secret stockpile of spearheads and pretty shells, and wondered if she’d ever see any of it again.

Or if she’d ever see Hoku. The Above World was no place for a youngling like him. If she told him where she was going, he’d insist on coming with her. Keeping herself safe was going to be enough of a challenge. Keeping them both safe would be close to impossible.

The Elders were wrong. She wasn’t a bad fish. To her, duty meant something other than doing what you were told. To her, duty meant doing whatever you had to do for the good of the Kampii . . . regardless of the consequences. If the Elders had their way, they’d all ignore their problems until the whole colony dwindled away into nothing.

Aluna left the nest and snuck out of the city, avoiding the major currents and crossways and sticking to the shadows like an eel. Once she was free of the coral reef, she swam upward, toward the sun, and toward the shore.





HOKU WATCHED from outside the ritual dome, crammed between a Kampii woman who kept shoving him with her tail and a huge mussel farmer whose son was inside the dome with Aluna. The big Kampii kept asking what the Elders were saying, but no one answered him. No one knew.

Except Hoku. With his Extra Ears, he’d heard everything that had happened. Only he wished he hadn’t. He wished he’d never brought his stupid tech to the ceremony in the first place. He hated seeing his best friend humiliated, especially when he was powerless to help.

Well, he could do something now. He could find Aluna and distract her. They could hunt tasty starbellies or find a wreck to scavenge. They could head back to the glowfield with a plan for disrupting the jellyfish and fending off Great White. He could get himself into trouble, if necessary, so that she could come and save him. That always cheered her up. Usually, it cheered him up, too.

He pushed his way through the throngs of Kampii now gossiping about Aluna’s exit from the ceremony. He wanted to scream at them all, to tell them to be quiet, to leave her alone. He heard Kapono’s name mentioned, and Daphine’s, too. They’d be talking about Aluna and her whole family for moons.

He swam to the broken dome first, and then to their secret meeting stone. No Aluna. He checked the abandoned hull outside the city, the perimeter of the kelp forest, and her secret stash of weapons near the training dome. Nothing.

Finally, he went to the monument, the final resting place of Ali’ikai-born-Sarah Jennings. The monument was made from a smooth white stone unlike anything else in the city. Sarah Jennings’s face was carved into an oval on one side. Her hair was short and wild like Aluna’s, her eyes dark and severe. Aluna called them strong.

Aluna snuck away to the monument often, usually after a fight with her father. She didn’t want anyone to know, so Hoku pretended he didn’t. Sometimes she left offerings propped up against the structure’s base — artifacts from their scavenging runs, glittering shells, shark teeth. The sort of things he brought home to show his mother.

Aluna wasn’t at the monument, and there were no new offerings. The tight knot growing in his stomach was trying to tell him something. Something he was trying even harder to deny.

When he’d heard her get kicked out of the ceremony, a small selfish part of him had rejoiced. One more year! One more year of being best friends and doing everything together. One more year, and then they’d both be facing the ceremony together. He wouldn’t get left behind.

But he got left behind anyway.

By the end of the day — or maybe by tomorrow morning, since Aluna had a reputation for disappearing — the city would organize a search. Everyone would forget they were angry at her and band together to save one of their own. But they wouldn’t find her, because she wasn’t missing. She was gone. On purpose. To the Above World.

To save the Coral Kampii all by herself.

He flipped a starfish onto its back with his foot. She hadn’t asked him to go. He would have been useful to her in the Above World. He knew a lot more about tech than she did, and about other things, too. He’d read every book in the city at least three times, which wasn’t that impressive when you considered the city only had a few dozen books. But most Kampii knowledge passed from one generation to the next through stories and lectures — Aluna and most of the other Kampii couldn’t read at all.

She should have asked him to go. He flipped the starfish again, then headed back to his nest to settle in for a long day of worrying.

His parents were out helping with preparations for the feast — the feast that would no longer be in Aluna’s honor. He’d been looking forward to the celebration, had even planned on asking Jessia to dance. He couldn’t go at all now, not without Aluna. He grabbed some clams from the kitchen and swam down the cramped tunnel toward his room.

“Boy!” his grandma called from her cave. “Boy, get in here.”

He swam to her nest and hovered in the archway, gripping the smooth coral with his hands to keep from drifting. Grandma Nani had a window in her nest. Most days, she stared out it for hours, her old, saggy tail draped around a worn resting stick that his father should have replaced years ago. She kept her hair short. “So no imbecile tries to stick shells in it,” she always said.

Grandma Nani had been old when Hoku was a youngling, and nowadays she seemed like an ancient. Like someone out of the old legends. Her father had come from a distant Kampii colony during the last Exchange. He had swum a whole year to get here and had filled Grandma Nani’s head with wild stories about his travels. Hoku didn’t know what his grandma saw out that window of hers, but he was sure it was more than just a handful of fish or the occasional eel.

“Did you want something, Grandma?” he asked. Maybe she wanted lunch, or another covering for her sticky bed.

“I want you to tell me what happened,” Grandma Nani said, her back still to him. “Why aren’t you at the ceremony? Your friend is getting her tail today. You should be there to support her.”

Her words struck him like a harpoon to the heart. He couldn’t speak at first, not with so many thoughts and feelings swirling inside of him. And then, when he found his voice, it all came tumbling out. He told her everything. Not just what happened during the ceremony, but about Makina and necklaces. About where he’d looked for Aluna. About where he feared she had gone.

Grandma Nani bobbed quietly on her resting stick and said nothing until he was done. Then she reached over and took his hand between both of hers.

“You’re right, child,” Grandma Nani said. “That’s exactly where the girl has gone.”

“But how —?”

“Because your friend knows what must be done, and she knows no one else will do it,” she snapped. “And because that’s what I would have done, back when my body and my mind did what I asked.”

“But the Elders —”

“Are scared and shortsighted.” She waved her hand, as if dismissing the entire council. “They think the answer is turning inward. They think they’re honoring Sarah Jennings and our ancestors.” She snorted and turned to face him again. “They’ve forgotten that our ancestors were pioneers. Adventurers. Heroes!” She unwound her tail and swam over to one of the dozens of cubbyholes carved into her wall. “They’ve forgotten what it means to be brave.”

She pulled out a small box no bigger than one of his artifact jars. It shimmered in the water, part silver, part pearl.

“Come here, boy,” she said. “This is for you.”

He swam over, his eyes focused on the box. An artifact! Why had she kept it hidden all these years? He ran his fingers over the ornate design of a woman on the lid.

“She doesn’t look much like a Kampii,” he said.

“Because she’s not a Kampii. She’s a mermaid,” his grandma said. “Humans have always longed for the sea. She’s the dream that eventually gave us life.”

“What’s inside?”

Grandma Nani snorted again. “Secrets. Mysteries. I have no idea. My father came from far away, but my mother’s family has been here since the beginning. My great-grandfather said this box belonged to Sarah Jennings herself, and I believe him. Maybe it holds her memories of the Above World. Maybe it holds far more.”

“Sarah Jennings!” he said. “But how come we have it? Wouldn’t she have given it to one of the moon-side families?”

“She was a smart woman, child. Smart in more ways than just books and people,” his grandma said. “This box found its way into our family for a reason, and you’re going to discover what that reason is.”

He wrenched his gaze from the box and looked at her. “You’ve never opened it?” The idea of possessing a box and never opening it seemed impossible to him. Maybe it was booby-trapped. . . .

She chuckled and handed the box to him. “No, boy, I haven’t. It’s a water safe. I didn’t want to compromise the seal.”

Hoku took the box, reveling in the complexity of the design. A thin coating of transparent material kept the silver from eroding in the salty ocean water. He found a small flap on the front, hiding six glowing numbers and a button. A combination lock!

“No, I don’t know the combination. That’s another mystery for you to solve,” Grandma Nani said. “It needs to be opened in air. I have no need of Above World artifacts, but you, however . . .”

Hoku’s mouth slid open.

“You heard me,” Grandma Nani said quietly. “Don’t be as blind as the Elders, boy. Your friend is showing you the way.”

“But Mom and Dad —”

“Will survive,” she said briskly. “Only the young can save us, boy. Only those without tails can walk between worlds.” She rested her old hand on the top of his head. The weight steadied him in the current.

Hoku looked at the silvery water safe. A great whirlpool was forming inside his belly. Not just of fear, although there was certainly some of that, but of excitement. It swirled inside him, faster and faster, until it was all he could feel.

Grandma Nani nodded and smiled. “Hoku, my boy, it’s time you had an adventure.”





HOKU PACKED QUICKLY, his mind filled with thoughts of artifacts. He wanted to bring everything: his bubble jars, his sticky plate, his collection of tools, a few spools of wire, and maybe some food. But he wasn’t exactly a strong swimmer, and he had a long way to travel. In the end, only the mermaid box and some of his essential tools made it into his satchel. He slipped a few smaller items into the pockets of his clothes. Just in case.

To the Above World!

Aluna would make fun of him for choosing gadgets over food, but what did they really know about the Above World? Maybe food was plentiful. Maybe there were magic seeds in the water safe that would keep them fed for the rest of their lives. Maybe Aluna could easily hunt for their dinner every night. Or maybe they’d both be dead before their stomachs even started to grumble.

Even that last thought didn’t deflate his enthusiasm.

Hoku kissed his grandma good-bye, but she hardly seemed to notice. She was back at her window, staring. He gave her a message for his parents, a simple “I have to do this, don’t worry, I love you,” and repeated it until she nodded and promised to deliver it.

Leaving the city was easy. His parents were still at work, and no one ever paid much attention to him. A nobody kid, off to do something unimportant.

This time, they were wrong.

Hoku swam toward the surface slowly, pausing every few meters to recite the ritual of ascent. One did not leave the depths of the ocean lightly. If you rose too quickly through the water, the ocean spirits exacted a price. They might decide to give you a rash, or take your sight, or even kill you. Aluna usually spoke the ritual quickly, impatient to keep swimming. He hoped, wherever she was, that she’d been more careful this time.

And that he’d be able to find her. The Above World was big. Not ocean big, but far larger than the coral reef that hid the City of Shifting Tides. They might never be reunited.

While it was true that the ancients had been obsessed with learning, building, and experimenting, just like him, they’d also destroyed themselves with wars and sickness. What part of their legacy remained? Would he and Aluna stumble on an ancient disease or kill themselves with a weapon disguised as something else?

Why were wonder and danger always so tightly interwoven?

He swam a meter under the ocean’s surface and used the shimmery streaks of sunlight and the currents to maintain his trajectory. He was getting closer and closer to the shore. He’d passed the first two of three resting rocks the Kampii used when they journeyed to trade with the Human village. The Trade Rock itself was next. He surfaced and saw it in the distance — the big, flat rock where the Kampii’s Voice bargained with the Humans.

And there she was now! Daphine’s silhouette was unmistakable. Aluna’s sister sat on the rock in a classic Kampii pose, her tail displayed to its full glittering splendor. She had undone her braids, and her hair fell in a great mass around her head. She’d made herself look like the mermaid on his water safe.

Her guards — two of Aluna’s brothers, Pilipo and Ehu — treaded near the rock with their weapons raised. But why were they here? The Elders would never schedule a trade mission on the same day as a transformation ceremony. Unless . . . this was about Aluna.

A boat wobbled near the Kampii, a small wooden slab carrying four people. Hoku swallowed. Four Humans. Aluna’s brothers had told him stories about the Humans from the small village on shore, but he’d never actually seen one of them.

He swam closer, but stayed low and quiet. If Daphine or the others saw him, they’d take him back to the city. He didn’t want his adventure to end before he even made it to solid ground.

He couldn’t make out much detail on the Humans’ faces, but he could tell from the way they held their weapons that they were scared and angry, and ready to fight. They kept looking behind them, toward land and their home.

Aluna’s brothers carried three-meter ceremonial axes, more for show than killing. Hunters used knives and sleek spears and harpoons when they were actually fighting. Such monstrous blades would take forever to swing in the swift ocean currents.

Daphine’s voice carried over the water, but he couldn’t make out her words. He pulled out an Extra Ear so he could hear.

“I repeat: we mean you no harm. We are only looking for a girl.” She held her hand out to indicate Aluna’s height. “Have you seen her?” She pointed to her eyes and then to the shore.

The largest Human replied, a quick burst of frantic words. His voice didn’t sound inside Hoku’s ears like Daphine’s had, so Hoku swam a little closer. The Human’s language was guttural and fast, but some of the words were similar to theirs. He heard “dead,” “attack,” “fathom,” and then, repeated over and over again, “help.”

Not Aluna, he told himself. They’re not talking about Aluna.

A loud buzzing filled the air. A Human male shouted and pointed toward shore.

Two massive artifacts flew toward them, each as big as Great White. A blur of flapping insect wings kept them aloft. Mechanical dragonflies! Then he noticed the Humans riding on top of the metal beasts. Sunlight glinted off a silvery eye, and a black spike like a narwhal’s horn jutted out of the other rider’s forehead. Their bodies were bizarre patchworks of flesh and artifacts, almost impossible to understand.

One of the riders had no legs at all. Her torso seemed like part of the mechanical insect itself. Did these misshapen creatures really share the same ancestors as the unadorned Humans in the boat? The same ancestors as the Kampii?

“Dragonfliers!” Ehu yelled. “Swim!”

One of the Humans on the boat — a woman — shot a harpoon at the closest flier. It bounced off the vehicle’s metal dragonfly head and plunked into the water. The rider let loose a volley of missiles in return.

Pilipo jumped onto the rock between his sister and the deadly bolts. He deflected most of the missiles with his ax, but one bolt lodged itself in his shoulder and knocked him back. The Human woman was not so quick. Several darts struck her in the chest. She groaned and tumbled into the ocean.

Hoku watched Daphine dive backward into the water. Pilipo flicked his hand, and one of the Human dragonfly riders clutched at his throat. A hunting dart! The dragonflier lurched in the air as the rider struggled to regain control. He didn’t make it. A moment later, the great machine plunged into the ocean, its wings splashing water in great gouts until the sea sucked it under.

The other two Humans swung at the remaining dragonflier with their clubs. Hoku heard four dull clangs of wood on metal, and a light peal of laughter. The second rider, the one merged with her machine, seemed agile in the air and impervious to their assault.

“Dive,” Ehu called to the Humans. “We can protect you underwater!”

Either the Humans didn’t understand or they were too angry to listen to reason. They beat uselessly on the dragonflier and spewed words Hoku couldn’t hear.

The dragonflier pulled away, out of reach of the Humans. The Humans cheered, but Hoku knew better. She was simply taking aim.

Green fluid erupted from a nozzle at the front of the dragonflier.

He saw Pilipo and Ehu dive, and he knew he wouldn’t see them again. Pilipo was bleeding from his shoulder wound. They needed to get away from the carnage and find someplace to hide until they could stop the flow of blood.

The Humans were too close to the dragonflier, and too slow. The green liquid splashed them. They dropped their weapons into the ocean and screamed.

Hoku tore his gaze from the Trade Rock and took three quick breaths. He heard the Humans fall into the water, the sounds of their pain muffled by the ocean’s embrace. He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t listen. Terror smothered him, trapping his arms and legs and squeezing at his lungs. He bobbed up and down on the waves like a lifeless buoy.

Swim! he screamed at himself. Swim!

And then the remaining dragonflier saw him. He could tell, even from a distance, by the way she adjusted the insect’s angle, by the whirring of its wings as it prepared to attack.

Finally, he remembered his legs and dove.