Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology Read Online Free PDF

finger under
Mirali’s chin, lifting her face to his and saying, “My wife, I could no more
forget that you are my wife than forget what I am. Understand that we
may not live together on your island, as others do, for my life is in the sea,
and of the sea, and this form that you hold in your arms is but a shadow,
little more than a dream, compared to my true self. Yet I will come to you
every year, without fail, when my tribute is due—every year, here, where
we lie together. Remember, Mirali.”
    Then he closed his eyes, which were black,
as all sharks’ eyes are, and fell asleep in her arms, and there is no woman who
can say what Mirali felt, lying there under the mangroves with her own eyes
wide in the moonlight.
    When morning came, she walked back to her
parents’ house alone.
    In time it became plain that Mirali was
with child, but no one challenged or mocked her to her face, for she was much
loved in the village, and her family greatly esteemed. Yet even so it was
considered a misfortune by most, and a disgrace by some, as is not the case on
certain other islands. If the talk was not public, it was night talk, talk
around the cooking fire, talk at the stream over the slapping of wash on stone.
Mirali was perfectly aware of this.
    She carried herself well and proudly, and
it was agreed, even by those who murmured ill of her, that she looked more
beautiful every day, even as her belly swelled out like the fishermen’s sails.
But she shocked the midwife, who was concerned for her narrow hips, and for the
chance of twins, by insisting on going off by herself to give birth. Her mother
and father were likewise troubled; and the old priest himself took a hand,
arguing powerfully that the birth should take place in the very temple of the
Shark God. Such a thing had never been allowed, or even considered, but the old
priest had his own suspicions about Mirali’s unknown lover.
    Mirali smiled and nodded respectfully to
anyone who had anything to say about the matter, as was always her way. But on
the night when her time came she went to the lagoon where she had been wed, as
she knew that she must; and in the gentle breath of its shallows her children
were born without undue difficulty. For they were indeed twins, a boy and a
girl.
    Mirali named the boy Keawe, after her
father, and the girl Kokinja, which means born in moonlight . And as she
looked fondly upon the two tiny, noisy, hungry creatures she and the Shark God
had made together, she remembered his last words to her and smiled.
    Keawe and Kokinja grew up the pets of
their family, being not only beautiful but strong and quick and naturally
kindly. This was a remarkable thing, considering the barely veiled scorn with
which most of the other village children viewed them, taking their cue from the
remarks passed between their parents. On the other hand, while there was notice
taken of the very slight bluish tinge to Keawe’s skin, and the fact that
Kokinja’s perfect teeth curved just the least bit inward, nothing was ever said
concerning these particular traits.
    They both swam before they could walk
properly; and the creatures of the sea guarded them closely, as they had sworn.
More than once little Keawe, who at two and three years regarded the waves and
tides as his own servants, was brought safely back to shore clinging to the
tail of a dolphin, the flipper of a seal, or even the dorsal fin of a reef
shark. Kokinja had an octopus as her favorite playmate, and would fall as
trustingly asleep wrapped in its eight arms as in those of her mother. And
Mirali herself learned to put her faith in the wildest sea as completely as did
her children. That was the gift of her husband.
    Her greatest joy lay in seeing them grow
into his image (though she always thought that Keawe resembled her father more
than his own), and come to their full strength and beauty in a kind of
innocence that kept them free of any vanity. Being twins, they understood each
other in a wordless way