Chimes from a Deeper Sea by M P Ericson Read Free Book Online Page A

the
decision was not mine. I'd told my mother, who'd promised to tell
my father. Beyond that, there was nothing I could do.
    True, I'd seen
some girls hint and tease and throw suggestive looks - and most of
them had caught the man they wanted. But it wasn't my way, and even
if it had been this was not the right occasion. A marriage between
islands was too important to put at risk for the sake of vanity or
desire. We all knew that, different as we were. Six girls, and not
always the best of friends, as rivals for one man - but none of us
had sought to draw his notice or secure his good will. It was too
serious a venture, this. Already lives depended on it, hostages
from our island and from his. If anything went wrong, if either
party took offence, blood might pour. Old people still remembered,
and occasionally spoke about, times of war between the islands. We
dared not risk that.
    "Do you want to
be alone?" Tuni, one of my rivals - and in truth, the one whose
grace and beauty I feared the most - slipped from the shade under
the palm trees and slid onto the sandy bank beside me. She dipped
her feet into the water and swished them as I had done, while I
envied her soft skin and lustrous eyes.
    "Not any more,"
I said, because she was kind and good and it wasn't her fault that
she was beautiful too. "I'll miss you when you're gone."
    She shrugged,
shoulders firm and lovely under the shell beads draped across them.
We all wore our wealth, a display to impress the visitor with a
sense of our father's power. "It might not be me."
    No. It might
not. He had another four to choose from. As well as myself.
    "And I don't
want to," Tuni added. "Not really. I'd rather stay here."
    "You don't have
to." I forced myself to quell the eagerness that bubbled through my
voice. "If it would upset you so much. You can ask your mother to -
"
    "Oh, I imagine
I'll get used to it. And it's for Father to decide."
    I subsided. "Of
course."
    Hinu peeked out
from among the trees. I waved to her.
    "Come and play
with me," she whined. "I'm all alone."
    Well, it was
better than worrying about things I couldn't change. "Come on,
then." I scrambled to my feet, padded across the warm sand to reach
her. Thrilled to the trusting touch of her little hand in mine,
held my other hand out towards Tuni. Because we were sisters still,
and always would be, no matter what decisions men made over our
futures.
    Tuni laughed,
and scrambled to join us, and we skipped away. Played hide and seek
at the edge of the trees, stayed close to the shore to let the
breeze float around us and cool our bodies. Smelled the crisp scent
of the ocean as it dashed and swirled against the dense thick odour
of the jungle that smothered the interior of the island, felt the
slither of sand and tendrils under the soles of our feet.
    Eventually we
settled some distance from the beach, on a rock that fell away
steeply into the open sea. No lagoon here, no shelter of shallow
water to wade through in safety, no pale sand shining under the
surface. Just dark cold depths under the vast unbroken surface of
the ocean.
    I shivered a
little, and did not know why.
    "It's over
there." Tuni pointed out across the endless expanse. "His island.
Mother told me."
    "Is it?" I
squinted. Perhaps I could make out the hint of a distant shape,
like a palm frond torn loose by a recent storm and now floating on
the water. "I should like to go there. See if it's anything like
home."
    "Maybe you
will."
    I laughed at
that, because it was sweet of her to say so, and because I still
had hope. We strolled back to the village, and settled to our
tasks, while Hinu found a grandmother's lap to snuggle on.
    Later, when all
the boats had come back and lay drawn up on the sand, while sunset
burned across the water and the sky, my father came and told us the
young man had chosen me.
    ###
    "You'll like
it." My husband - his name was Perin, I had discovered - smiled at
me from the back of the boat. "It's not so different from what
you're