My stomach dropped. Our spears had blades made from ice or mother-of-pearl. Only one creature made objects like this one. I recognized the blade from one of the items in my collection of human treasures. Had one of the sailors survived the shipwreck? It seemed unlikely that a fragile human could survive the cold water long enough to swim to the ice shelf without help, and yet… Maybe one of the merboys had taken the harpoon from the ship after it sank. That explanation seemed far more likely.
I swam under the turquoise blue of the shelf and hid just under the surface. Peering through the distorting ripples of ocean water, I studied the creature. Its face was half covered by a thick black mask of fur and frost. Its eyes moved constantly, but the water blurred the movements and I couldn’t tell where its gaze rested.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I poked my head above the waves. My hair, gone limp and heavy with the air weighing it down, instantly flopped across my face. I pushed it aside and looked at the human through a parted curtain of wet blue locks. Its rippled form came into focus, and, even under the animal furs, I could make out a tapered waist and curves. A female. She stared back at me; her brown eyes widened. Her crystal breath came fast behind her mask. Then, she screamed.
I froze in the water. The high-pitched sound chilled me worse than the cold sea. The human’s gaze drifted skyward, as if she prayed to Odin. Her scream grew louder and louder. I laid a hand on the edge of the ice, ready to hoist myself out and try to calm her, but her harpoon whizzed past my ear. I shrank back. The human still howled, but her eyes had taken on a predatory focus.
I grabbed the weapon by the shaft. The tip of the spear grazed my palm, making a shallow cut. I ignored the pain. Easing back into the water, I stopped kicking my fins to stay afloat. My body sank deeper, and I kept my grip on the weapon.
With nothing to grab, the human couldn’t steady herself on the slick ice. She let the harpoon go, and I dropped it into the ocean; I hissed as salt water lapped against the wound on my palm. As the weapon sank, the relieved whales rose. Each of them gently brushed my hip as they took a breath, thanking me in their soft, dignified language of touch.
The belugas’ leader swam under me and nudged me up over the ice’s lip. The sudden weight of my body as the whale pushed me into the air made me groan with exhaustion. The human girl scurried backward. Even though her feet slipped clumsily on the ice, she put distance between us as fast as she could.
I wanted to study her, but glorious sunlight coated my scales. I tilted my head back as the heat seeped into me, making me drunk and dizzy with pleasure. The human watched me silently from twenty feet away. My body gleamed from my head to the tips of my fins; each of my scales glistened like gemstones. I should have been concerned about the human, but the blast of heat inside me blocked fear. As soon as I ate, all would be well again.
When my scales reached their absorption capacity, the fog in my mind started to clear. Usually, I might crawl inland and look for foxes to watch. But today, I didn’t dare stray too far from the water. If the human was brave enough to hunt a whale, I didn’t want to leave myself too vulnerable. I lay back on the ice and kept my eyes trained on the girl.
I’d never seen a female among the drowned bodies that littered the northern seafloor. How had she survived the shipwreck? She looked so small and fragile compared to the sailor I’d tried to save. How had she made it back to the surface and through the cold water when he could not?
She continued to scoot backward across the ice. My gaze followed her to a makeshift cave of splintered wood and wet furs. She must have saved some things from the ship, which might explain her survival. Crawling inside the shelter, the human braced another harpoon across her knees and squared her shoulders as if daring me to come closer. But the hostility in her posture didn’t quite hide the look of wonder in her wide brown eyes.
Two
My fascination with humans was all Havamal’s fault. Our mothers had shared a brooding chamber, and then drawn adjoining caves from the selection when we were old enough to leave the glacier’s heart. As children, at dawn on the mornings we didn’t have lessons, Havamal would swim into the cave Mama and I lived in, excited and whirling like a tiny silver cyclone. He and I were inseparable: friends and coconspirators, rebels and outcasts from the other kids. Together, we combed the seabed looking for crabs to torment or oysters still concealing their pearls. We laughed the days away, throwing rocks at the seabirds and hitching rides on the backs of patient whales.
Once, Havamal crept into our cave at night. Covering my mouth with his hand, he shook me awake. He clutched a pair of struggling, deep-sea jellyfish by the tentacles, and was using them as a light. I didn’t even question where he’d found them. Motioning me to follow, he swam through the ice halls and into the ocean. I still remember the chill of fear that coursed through me. The night brought out creatures that weren’t our allies, and no one would realize we were gone until morning.
When I hesitated on the ledge leading out into the sea, he rounded on me. “You’re not scared, are you?” He grinned, and the gap in his front teeth was made prominent by the eerie light of the jellyfish’s glow. We were nine, and he was still losing his baby teeth—something I teased him about mercilessly. “Come on Erie, don’t be a baby.”
I wrapped my fingers around the glacier’s outer wall and shook my head. Beyond the little ring of light given off by the jellies, I could see nothing in the abyss beyond. The open blackness terrified me, but I didn’t want Havamal to tease.
Realizing I was actually afraid, Havamal softened. He reached over his shoulder for the blunted practice harpoon he always carried with him. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing out there. My dad says narwhals are myths meant to keep us in bed.”
He took my hand. His fingers were still sticky with fish oil from the salmon we’d had for dinner, but I trusted him, then, and had faith in his toy weapon and his promises. So when he guided me into the black, I followed him through the deep.
Havamal led us through the sea, somehow knowing where to go despite the darkness. “I heard my dad talking about it,” he said, keeping his voice low even though we were alone, where only the sea crabs could hear us. “It sank a few days ago, but he was telling my mum about it. He said it was near the shark bay.”
“What is?” I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of visiting the shark bay at night. The great whites who lived there were tame enough during the day, but what if they couldn’t see us clearly? What if the jellyfish made us smell strange? What if they thought we were whale calves? Or worse, seal pups?
Still, I followed; my trust in him and my curiosity were stronger than fear.
Abruptly, he let go of my hand and pointed downward, dangling the jellyfish so that their light fanned out beneath our fins.