They sat in grass that curled above, waving a cobweb of spun light.
“Why are we called waterstewards?” Seagren asked.
Townmaster grabbed his knees and gazed at the surging ocean. “In the beginning the landstewards were appointed to care for the land and everything on it. The waterstewards were appointed to care for the sea and everything in it.”
“Before the Great Ancient War?”
“Yes. Harmony ruled and everyone flourished. Like here, only better.”
Two seaweed heads revolved to survey the scene. Seagren could not imagine a land more beautiful.
“The two peoples lived well together, fulfilling their roles, but the landstewards could not use the sea to the extent the waterstewards could use the land. To compensate, the waterstewards were made smaller, so they would not compete with the others. Also in some mysterious way, they paid for the land’s use by increasing its productivity. Consequently the landstewards could grow food in greater abundance and variety than is possible today.”
Waterstewards had been useful.
“This peaceful arrangement lasted much longer than the time since the Great Ancient War. All laws were good, because all were true, meant to benefit all.”
“What caused the war?” Seagren asked.
“Discontent. The landstewards would look up from toiling to see the others resting or playing on the land and eating its produce. Waterstewards seemed so carefree, it was easy to forget they brought seafood and enriched the land and that they directed the building of the canals and reservoirs, which have lasted to this day. Eventually the landstewards did forget. They began to call the amphibious ones usurpers of land, stealers of food, corrupters of children. Eventually landstewards believed they could live better without the others. They could fish from shore, flood fields, plant crops. Any dealings with water beyond this seemed unnecessary. Or so they thought.”
“Therefore beauty died from the land,” Anemone murmured, “along with trees, deer, and waterstewards.”
“In school they told us no one knew who built the water system,” Seagren said.
“It was forgotten, even by most village lords,” Townmaster said. “During the Great Ancient War the landstewards captured all waterstewards who were older than one year and locked them away from water. Babies younger than a year were changed into landstewards. Their body fluids replaced, their feet and eyes altered. That much is common knowledge.”
“What happened to those locked away?”
“They died because they could not survive without water.”
Seagren looked at Anemone who sat quietly with sun glistening red, gold, and brown in her wet hair. Beautiful Anemone. “In school they said it was humane.”
“They didn’t understand. So they destroyed the memory of a distinct race at the cost of forgetting their own name which explained their purpose in life. The landstewards thought they could absorb the altered waterstewards. They didn’t expect throwbacks to be born.”
“Mother and Father were both landstewards. So they couldn’t have been my parents.”
The lord turned a round eye on the youth. “They could if they each had a watersteward parent. Did they ever speak about your grandparents?”
“No.” Seagren studied the greenery. “Are there waterstewards making your province productive?”
Townmaster smiled. “Only here.”
“How do they do it?”
“I was hoping you would tell me.”
Seagren and Anemone shivered beneath the other’s intensity. The landsteward shifted his attention overhead until his vibrations lightened. “I want to restore all my province to the way it was before the Great Ancient War, when both peoples dwelt and worked together for their mutual benefit. I want to restore the law to its former righteousness, so other provinces may be healed.”
“How?” Seagren asked.
“By learning from you. My landstewards have marveled long over my beautiful land, thinking I perform magic. They must learn it is the waterstewards. The landstewards want abundance like ours, and they need to see how it’s done. How is it done?”
The abruptness of the question startled Seagren. Had she heard correctly?
The lord repeated his question more softly, more gently. “How is it done?”
Its gentleness was all the more reason for its importance, which frightened Seagren. She scrambled inward for an answer and found nothing. The lord would be disappointed, possibly angry.
“I don’t know,” Seagren whispered. “I never changed things at home.”
Anemone eyed her serenely, as if she did have the answer. Impossible! She’d come to learn, not to teach. The children had been here much longer.
With that in mind, Seagren fumbled for some helpful tidbit. “The children must know.”
The lord’s eyes flickered, as if doubt rose and he quickly stanched it. “You know. You just don’t realize it yet.”
Before Seagren could protest, Townmaster looked along the ocean. “Ah.” He rose. “Oceania and the children.”
The group scurried down the beach and across to meet Townmaster, many of the children silvery with water. Seagren felt rescued.
When Oceania was close enough to grip her husband’s hand, she told the children, “Run ahead.”
“Let’s see how far we can get!” came a cry as little bodies raced.
“Oops!” One lost his watery envelope in the grass. “Last time, I got all the way to the trees.”
Seagren strolled with Anemone after the others, aware that the two adults lingered behind to talk.
Shouts and laughter joined bird calls in the forest, but Seagren found herself alone on the path with Anemone.
“They’re arguing,” Seagren said.
Anemone stooped and picked up a pine cone. “Yes. He wants to show everyone we have made the land live. And she says it’s too dangerous, wait. And he can’t understand that. Because everyone sees green here, and they want it, too.”
Oceania reached the house alone, mouth tight. Three tots came bleating to her and she bent. “Ah, my dears. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I won’t allow it.”
***
Evening. Rustling. Seagren lay on her mat, heart thrumming. Deer? They felt like people sneaking about. The other children slept, except for one who crept to her bed. Anemone.
“Do you hear it?” she barely whispered.
Seagren nodded, unable to speak. Together they listened, forgetting to breathe until their chests hurt.
“This is what you asked about?” Anemone said.
Seagren nodded.
“I’ve heard it for years. I don’t think it’s deer.”
Years?
“People,” Anemone mouthed.
Seagren nodded.
What could they be up to for years? Were they neighbors, hunting stray waterstewards? Or were they searching for the cause of the lord’s success?
“Have any of you ever been hurt?” Seagren asked.
“No. We stay inside. Oceania’s orders.”
Oceania knew. That’s why she acted so protective of the little ones. She heard the night ramblings and feared for their safety. Surely she had told Townmaster. Didn’t he believe?
Something moved by the house. Breathing, swishing through grass. Another pushed through bushes farther out.
Seagren’s lips found Anemone’s ear. “We must tell Townmaster.”
Anemone cringed.
She found her ear again. “We must.”
Rustling. A shh.
The two hunched down. They waited, hearing their own heartbeats, knowing they waited only to gather strength to move. Holding hands, they rose and stepped over bodies. At the adults’ sleeping chamber they stopped, hearing snores.
Anemone shivered. Seagren placed an arm abo
ut her.
A twig snapped outside, making both jump. The snoring stopped.
Seagren and Anemone crept into the bedchamber. Oceania was gone. Townmaster looked up.
“Sounds outside,” Seagren whispered. “People.”
Townmaster’s energy rose as he reached for his robe and conical hat, making the two children shudder.
He placed a hand on them that meant, “Stay here,” but when he went out into the forest, Seagren and Anemone, curious and not wanting to be left, followed close behind.
Townmaster glanced back at them, stumbled, and went down. Rotzen-woven pails overturned and gushed water onto the path, and from under his robes a woman shrieked.
Trampling erupted all around, the sound of fleeing.
Two people struggled on the trail. The woman tried to regain her feet, but Townmaster in his long robe swarmed over her so sometimes a foot or hand popped out.
“Townmaster!” Oceania almost ran into the wrestlers. She froze, empty pails in her hands.
The lord pulled erect. His would-be captive twisted free and ran.
“What is this?” Townmaster barely concealed his rage.
Oceania’s mouth opened and no sound came.
Seagren and Anemone backed into the doorway to watch.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
Oceania’s voice, when it came, was small. “This is why you can’t show all this greenery as proof of the waterstewards’ blessing. My friends and I. We’ve been watering the land.”
Chapter 6
“They’re my friends. Altered waterstewards.” Oceania sat on the beach with Townmaster, Seagren, and Anemone, far from little ears that might overhear. She wiped away a tear.
“You did this for years,” Townmaster said. The rush, rush of tide almost hid his voice.
Oceania nodded.
His hurt washed over Seagren, smothering her. Seagren gripped Anemone’s hand.
“Why? Why, when you knew my dream of healing the rift? I thought it was your dream, too.”
“It is.” Oceania stroked her seaweed hair. “But I couldn’t bear to see the children hurt. So to make it seem as if they were indispensable, we watered the land. Every evening.”
Townmaster shook his head. Power that had threatened to crush Seagren and Anemone was now tempered with sympathy. “Ah, Oceania. All this.” He swept his arm over the scenery. “This would have been proof. Now there’s nothing. Ah, sweet wife, what will I do?”
Oceania’s hair hid a wet face. It could not hide the sobs.
The sea said, Hush, hush.
The birds cried, Why? Why?
Anemone detoured around Townmaster and nestled in the woman’s arms. Oceania rocked Anemone and kissed her.
Townmaster frowned at them, at the sea, and at the forest. When he frowned at Seagren, Seagren hunched into the sand.
The lord sighed. “It does not add up. Seagren, do you think it adds up?”
She backed away.
“Don’t run. Tell me what you know.”
At twenty steps Seagren felt she could tolerate the power Townmaster could not contain. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either.”
“You must know something.”
Did she? Something about the phantom? Was it a ghost, or the moon shining on a deer? It couldn’t have been one of the children. Too big. Besides, the children all stayed inside during the night.
Oceania stopped weeping and pushed her hair back. Seagren marveled how her eyes resembled Anemone’s as the three awaited Seagren’s answer. What could she say?
“Maybe. Maybe I know something.”
The landsteward’s aura lightened. “Go on.”
And Seagren found she could manage a better answer. “The altered ones must still be waterstewards, enough to do things landstewards can’t do.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If a landsteward carries water to the land, rotzen might spring up, but mostly just sickly plants. So maybe Oceania and her friends really did make the land green because they can’t be completely altered.”
Townmaster tugged his lip. “Then why aren’t the provinces green?”
“Because it’s so shameful to be That-Other-Kind that any altered person would avoid going in the water, even more than the landstewards.”
Townmaster regarded his wife, a smile growing on his face. The pressure of his aura vanished. “It must have been hard carrying all that water.”
She rubbed her palm with her thumb and grinned in return. “We got used to it.”
The lord began pacing the beach. “This certainly adds possibilities.”
Oceania’s look sharpened. “Like what? If it means endangering the altered ones—“
“A test.” He paced through a breaker, leaving footprints that showed pale on water-darkened sand. “We need to discover what the children and the altered ones can do.”
Oceania gestured at the forest. “Isn’t it obvious? Years of watering—“
“By the altered ones. Maybe the children are contributing something, too. The only way to tell is experiment. Hmm.” He pursed his lips, rubbed his forehead, and scratched his nose. “Ah!” He snapped his fingers. “Old Coral should not mind letting us use his land.”
Oceania’s features froze.
Townmaster clapped his hands. “Here’s what we’ll do. We will use the footpath between his rotzen field and the reservoir. We’ll divide it into two. The section next to my land will be for the children to use any way they wish, as long as they visit it daily. The section beyond that will be yours. You and the altered ones can water it. How is that for a test?”
Anemone slipped from Oceania’s embrace and ran to Seagren.
Oceania said, “His wife is hard.”
“Am I not lord? Redroot will obey me.”
“You’re right. We must instruct the children. They’ll need pails.”
“No instructions. No explanation, except that they use that strip while you water the other.”
He helped his wife up.
Anemone whispered in Seagren’s ear. “We don’t carry pails of water about. Too heavy.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing.” She glanced at the adults and led Seagren ahead into the forest before saying more. “I’m scared. What if we are useless?”
Seagren’s throat caught. She gave Anemone’s shoulder a squeeze and forced a serene tone. “If the altered ones can make the land green, it’s because they’re still waterstewards. We are useful.”
***
Seagren floated in the reservoir, just close enough to see what was happening.
On the far side of two test plots Townmaster stood guard while Old Coral and Oceania sloshed buckets from the reservoir, turning silt to mud. Other altered ones were too frightened to help. And no wonder. Up the path Redroot stood with five neighbors, a sullen clutch of three women and two men. The lord approached them to explain his plan.
Protected by distance from the heavy disapproval, the children swam in the reservoir beside the forest and ran onto the dusty land to cavort or lounge until their nacreous layer of water broke and puddled.
“Great plan,” Old Coral was telling Oceania between grunts as he hauled up two more buckets of water. “We can’t lose. I’ve always admired your place; always wanted some of that beauty over here. If this is the way to do it . . . “
Oceania cast too many looks at the group with Townmaster and too many looks at the waterstewards and the runnels of moisture they contributed to their plot while mud caked her feet.
“Seagren.”
Seagren pulled herself from the water, careful to hold the zestful film that colored the world beautiful.
Oceania gestured at the children.
“Tell them to wet the land.”
The two altered ones toiled, producing mire. The children, including Anemone who should have known better, did little more than swim. Here and there in the dust were splatters of darkness, traces of wet footprints. Seagren shared Oceania’s fears, but also Townmaster’s hopes. Seagren let the water course from her body and dove into the reservoir. Let Oceania think she would tell them. She wouldn’t.
Anemone twinkled a smile at Seagren, somersaulted into the depths, and chased the others. Seagren joined the play, trying not to worry over the group with Townmaster. How strong was Townmaster’s authority?
Seagren slipped away and swam past the muddy plot and up along the scrubby shore until she could hear the landstewards.
“You may call all this imbalance,” Redroot said, “but it’s what we know. Now you say everything we know is wrong.”
“What your children are learning in school is nearer the truth,” Townmaster said.
“Changing traditions,” another said.
“No. Getting back to traditions, when the land was healthy. Before the Great Ancient War.”
Mumbling. A shaking of heads among the brawny ones. Seagren marveled at the lord’s calmness.
“I still say too much water is poisonous,” Redroot said. “No good’ll come of this. Taking Old Coral from his work. Threatening his health and your good wife’s.”
Sloosh. More water joined mud.
“Give it time.”
“How much? Until they wash the dike away? Where’s the good of sludge, except to rot our feet?”
“A dread thing, this,” another muttered.
Oceania and Old Coral squished to the edge of their plot, up-ended two buckets and sat on them.
Landstewards glared across them at silvery forms clambering onto the land, releasing bubbles, and diving back into a pack of youngsters.
“A dread thing when That-Other-Kind are not locked away.”
Oceania looked up to see who had spoken.
“Give it ten days,” Townmaster said.
Redroot groaned. “I find it hard to give it a hand-span of time.”
“Redroot,” Old Coral cried from where he sat with Oceania, “you must.”
“It’s evil.”
“Why? Because it defies false tradition?”
Voices raised. Seagren feared the children would be frightened. Evidently Oceania felt the same. She turned, crossed the mud, and ordered the children home. Old Coral moved in the opposite direction toward the landstewards.
“Already it works its evil on you,” Redroot said. She stood half a head taller than her husband.