9. A Child Grows Up

9

A CHILD GROWS UP

TIME IS A RIVER, or so they say in almost every world where time runs in a linear fashion and not in awkward, disconnected pools of causality that may or may not remain the same from day to day: time is a river, and like all rivers, it runs where it wishes, and cannot be stopped. Our time together is never as long as we would like, and so we must now move downstream perhaps more quickly than we would like. It is a pleasant thing, to linger in currents clean and clear, where we know nothing will hurt us. Sometimes, though, the fishing is better where the water moves more quickly. Sometimes, we must move on.

Burian did indeed choose Nadya, and none was more delighted by this pairing than Anna, who had feared Burian would never find a person of his own. Having people was not a necessity to the turtles of Belyyreka, but they were social creatures who enjoyed having someone to call their own that they could spend time with and work with as they reached their adult sizes. Their window of “large enough to feel safe leaving the company of their mothers, but small enough to fit through human doors and windows” was brief enough that they hurried to find their people while they could. It was not unheard-of for smaller turtles to choose infants, or older ones to meet unpartnered adults, but it was rare. Rare indeed.

Turtles were strong enough to swim in the thinnest water, which looked like flying to Nadya but made the turtles essential for moving between the levels of the lake, from the deepest water all the way up to where the heavy rivers ran. To befriend a turtle was to know true freedom, and Nadya could imagine nothing better.

Inna took Nadya into her home, which was small and warm and filled with laughter. The two children already there were both younger than Nadya, a sticky six and a curious four, and she found them a comfort and a delight, as well as a convenience, as by sitting in the room while they had their lessons, she could quietly learn the things people assumed a child her age would already know. Inna taught her to bake syrniki, and how to dry the round green berries that served them as currants, lacking either true currants or grapes to wither for sultanas.

And Nadya grew. She grew by leaps and bounds, her belly full enough to build her body and her heart full enough to build everything else about her. She grew tall and straight and stronger than anyone had ever asked her to be, joining Galina and Inna on the fishing boat more days than not, learning the fishing songs and how to properly tie and cast a net. The knots that seemed too complex to be performed with one hand could often be accomplished through the addition of a stick held between her knees, to pull the strands taut while she worked. No one would claim Nadya’s lack of a hand made things easier for her, but it certainly didn’t have to make them harder.

While Nadya was growing, Burian was doing the same, and one day he could no longer fit through the window of what had become her bedroom but had to hover outside, legs kicking against the mild current of the thin water. Nadya began spending more of her free time outside with him, and the two became hellions, racing from place to place along the docks, laughter bright as pearls in the thin water. They weren’t the only young ones running wild; running wild was a time-honored tradition in Belyyreka, for those old enough to be restless but too young to serve the city in more formal ways. Perhaps it would have been better if they were, as one day their racing brought them into a new part of the city, where the docks were narrower and closer together, and the streets were layered in a pattern neither of them recognized.

Nadya slowed, then stopped, trying to make sense of everything around them. Burian swam a slow circle around her head, doing much the same. “We should go back,” he said. “We’ve gone farther than we normally do.”

Nadya was reasonably fearless, but when Burian got nervous, she knew enough to do the same. She started to turn, to head back, and stopped at the sight of a boy standing directly in her path.

He was taller than her, broader in the shoulders, if not much older; he wore the simple clothes she had come to associate with the fishing families, cut so as not to risk snagging on nets or lines, dyed in berry-bright colors. Most of them were rich with embroidery, but not his. That only held her attention for a moment before the light glinting off the fishing hook in his right hand caught her eye, and held it.

“You’re not so special,” said the boy. “You’re just another swept-away, and there’s nothing special about you.”

Nadya, who had never seen the boy before, blinked, trying to figure out where the hostility in his voice had come from. It seemed too big for him to be talking about her or Burian. He had to be talking about someone else. Only she’d heard the term “swept-away” before, used by the older fishers who thought she had no place on the boats, that a child who could be careless enough to fall through one door must inevitably fall through another and leave them short-handed during a storm, unable to steer or sing loud enough for their turtle to hear.

Every boat had a turtle. Only they could swim against the strong currents at the top of River Wild, swim hard enough and fast enough to pull the boats up and onto the surface of the river. The turtles could keep swimming from there if they so chose, all the way to the top of the lake, but few of them did so. Humans couldn’t swim in water that thin, and would fall if their boat shook even a little. It seemed better not to risk their partners so.

Nadya took a step backward. The boy took a step forward, and so the distance between them stayed the same.

“Nasty little swept-away,” he muttered. “Coming here and taking up space that belongs to Belyyreka. Someone else’s stomach goes empty so yours can be full.” And he lunged, swinging his hook at her. It was a long, wicked thing, meant to puncture and pull, meant to hurt.

Nadya jumped away, and her heels hit the edge of the dock, and she fell.

She still didn’t understand the nature of water in Belyyreka, and she wasn’t sure anyone else did, either. Some water was thin enough to breathe, and other water wasn’t. The water of the rivers was breathable when you were under the surface, but not when you were above the surface. Most of the adults were dreadfully incurious about the inconsistent nature of the water, seeming to accept it as just the way the world worked, perhaps because they’d been accustomed to it for too long.

Nadya, however, was not accustomed to it. Nadya had been studying it as much as she could, between fishing expeditions and classes and spending time with Burian. She knew even before her feet left the dock that she was going to be in trouble. The water here was thin enough to breathe, and that meant that while it would slow a human, it wouldn’t stop her. She was denser than the water, and would keep falling until she hit either heavier water or the bottom, which was so far below her that she would surely be hurt, if not outright killed. She flailed, grabbing the edge of the dock with her one hand, and tried to pull herself back up.

She failed. Her arm was strong, but not strong enough to hoist the full weight of her body onto the platform. Panting, Nadya dangled.

The boy, who had looked a little frightened when she first fell, like this hadn’t been what he intended, resumed his expression of smug bravado and crouched down, smirking at her. “Aw, little swept-away isn’t strong enough to save herself? Poor thing. I’ll help you.”

He reached for her hand. Nadya bared her teeth. “If you touch me, I’ll gut you first chance I get,” she snarled. He pulled back, looking startled, an expression which only grew as Burian slammed into him from behind and sent him toppling over the edge.

Turtles should not push children off of high walkways, although Burian might be forgiven under the circumstances. But the boy, falling, panicked even as Nadya had done, and grabbed hold of her ankle before he could fall too far. The addition of his weight to her own yanked her downward, and she almost lost her grip on the dock. “Burian!” she shouted.

“Nadya, what can I do? What can I do?”

“Go get help!”

There wasn’t anything else the stranger boy could do to hurt her, not when he was already dangling from her ankle and weighing her down. Burian circled her once, anxiously, and shot off toward the harbormaster’s office, where he could hopefully find and return with Ivan. The big man would happily shut down any mischief on his docks.

Realizing where the big turtle was going, the boy yelped and began trying to scramble up the length of Nadya’s body, nearly dislodging her in the process. “Hey!” she snapped. “Stop, or we’re both going to fall.”

He stopped and just held on.

“Why were you being such a jerk to me, anyway? I don’t even know you, but you pushed me off the dock!”

She couldn’t see his face, but from the way he tensed, she could guess he didn’t look happy. Not that either of them was happy, dangling off the edge of the world like this. “Swept-aways come here from somewhere else and take things that don’t belong to them,” he mumbled. “My family doesn’t have as much as yours does, and it’s because of people like you, coming here and taking everything that should be there for us. There’s only so many fish in the river.”

“I lived in an orphanage until I was nine,” said Nadya. “We don’t have swept-aways where I come from, but we didn’t have enough food, either. We all had chores every day, and sometimes the younger kids couldn’t finish theirs and they didn’t get to eat. We’d save our rolls and sneak them to the little ones, but it wasn’t easy. Nothing is easy. We don’t take all the fish out of the river, either. There’d be plenty for you, if you could be nice long enough to convince a turtle to take you to the surface.”

The boy didn’t answer. Nadya scoffed. Much of the economy was based around fish, one way or another, and the only way to be a successful fisher was to convince a turtle to help you. If this boy had never put in the time, it was no wonder he was angry with her.

“Have you even tried for a turtle?”

“They said no, because I’m Belyyreka-born and my father has one,” he blurted. “But Dmitri is old and he swims slow, and we never catch enough!”

Nadya frowned. That did seem unfair, but it wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t as if she’d done it. Her arm was beginning to ache. She reached up with her right hand and grabbed the edge of the dock, pulling herself up, and the boy up with her.

Once they were both safely on the wood he stared at her, eyes wide as saucers. Nadya frowned.

“What?”

“Your arm !”

For the first time, it occurred to her that it was odd she’d been able to pull herself up with an arm she didn’t have. She turned slowly and looked down at herself, then raised the right hand she wasn’t meant to have and turned it back and forth in front of her face wonderingly.

The right arm she had never had was there now, a perfect mirror of her left, made of the dense, liquid kind of river water. It gleamed like quicksilver in the light. She raised her left hand and poked her right palm. Her finger slid easily through the skin, and she felt it, both the water on her finger and the tickling sensation of having something inside of her. Gasping, she jerked her hand away and scrambled to her feet, shaking her right arm like she thought she could shake it right off of her body.

“What is it what is it what is it?” she demanded. “Get it off!”

“It’s the river!” The boy stood, still staring. “The River Wild chose you. I’ve never heard of a river-chosen swept-away before.”

Nadya stopped shaking her hand and glared at him. “Keep talking riddles and I’ll push you off the edge again.”

“The river’s magic. You have to know that by now.”

Nadya nodded slowly. “I do.”

“Well, sometimes, the river will choose someone to carry some of that magic with them, for their protection or because they’ll benefit the river in some way. It chose you.”

“Oh.” Nadya looked at her new hand, turning it slowly back and forth. It didn’t offend her the way the arm Pansy had forced upon her, all that time before, had; the river hadn’t even offered it until she’d really needed a way to pull herself up to avoid being hurt. It wasn’t because she wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t a way to make her look more normal. It was different and brilliant and special enough that the boy was looking at her with envy in his eyes, although that could also have been hunger.

“I said I would take a gift from a river, when I first got here,” she said, slowly. “I said it where the river could hear me. So this is something I asked for, not something being forced on me. It doesn’t change who I am. I’m allowed to want things to make the world a little easier. So thank you, river. It’s beautiful.”

Through her arm, she saw the shape of the harbormaster running along the dock toward them, with Burian in his wake. She made up her mind right there. Looking at the boy, she said firmly, “I need to know your name.”

“Why?”

“Because Inna always wants me to get people’s names before I bring them to the house. She says it’s polite, and we have to be polite or people will think we’re frogs washed over from the Winsome.”

The boy shuddered. “Yuck, frogs.”

“I saw one once.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was when I first got here, before I even knew what Belyyreka meant, and—”

By the time the harbormaster reached them, they were chattering away and laughing like old friends. He stopped and stared, as much at Nadya’s hand as at the sight of the two of them so chummy after what Burian had told him of the situation. Burian went to swim around his person, still anxious, and Nadya scratched the back of his head where she knew he liked it best with her new hand.

“Burian, this is Alexi, and he’s very sorry he knocked me off the dock. He’ll be coming to lunch with us today.”

“But—” began Burian.

“No buts. He’s hungry, and he’s coming to lunch.”

Burian grumbled something about stupid, soft-hearted humans and swam away, heading for the house. Nadya gave the harbormaster her best, most practiced smile. They had become close friends after her night in his house, and he checked on her often to be sure she was doing well with her new family.

“The arm is new,” he observed, sounding half-amazed and half-amused.

“The river gave it to me when I was going to fall off the dock,” said Nadya, holding up her right hand and turning it back and forth so he could see how perfect it was. “Do you think it’s going to stay?”

“Gifts from the river generally do,” said the harbormaster. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen one, but I wouldn’t worry about losing it.”

Nadya, who wasn’t worried, only curious, dimpled at him. “May we go?” she asked. “Alexi is hungry, and Burian is probably telling Inna some wild story by now.”

“You may go,” Ivan agreed, and watched as the children whirled and raced away, laughing between themselves.

Sometimes, he missed the resiliency of childhood more than words could say. But time was passing, and she wouldn’t be that resilient forever. He just had to hope that every time she fell, the river would be there to catch her.