The wax myrtle was clinging to the top of the mast and singing at full volume:
“The sea, the beautiful sea,
So bluuue, so truuue,
You think you stole my heart, but I gave it to thee!”
He warbled on the last note, and Perri sang a matching trill before diving beneath the waves. At the helm, Marin smiled. She’d never met a… creature? being?… She’d never met a being so full of joyous life as this clump of shrubbery.
She called up to him, “Hey, want to review the lesson?”
“Yes!” He bounced in place and then extended a leafy branch to his left. “Port!”
“Correct,” she said.
He extended another branch to the right. “Starboard!” Then: “Forward! Aft!”
“Good. Now, directions with respect to the wind,” Marin said. “The wind is coming toward you, and you steer the bow through it?”
“You’re tacking,” he said.
“Good,” Marin said. “If I turn to the port side…”
“Close-hauled on port tack,” he said as she demonstrated. Thesheets were trimmed flat, and she held them there for a moment before shifting them.
“Close reach!” he called. “Next is beam reach and then broad reach.”
“Excellent, and what happens if the wind is dead astern?”
“That’s jibing, and we don’t want to do that,” Ree said. Holding on to the mast with a few of his branches, he swung himself in a circle. Wind flowed through his leaves. A few were plucked off and flew over the waves, swooping and spinning.
“And why don’t we want to do that?” Marin asked.
“Because we could capsize if we mess it up.”
The lost leaves settled on the surface, floated on the waves for a moment, and then were swallowed by the blue. “Yes, and why don’t we want to capsize?”
“Because we’ll look like idiots, and dolphins will laugh at us.”
“Precisely.” She eased the sheets into a broad reach, and the sailboat shot across the sparkling sea. They’d lucked out—the sea was being kind for Ree’s first sail, with a steady wind and cloudless skies since they’d left Belde. “You’re going to be an excellent sailor, Ree.”
Wrapping a branch around the mast, he slid down until he plopped roots-first onto the deck. He crossed to her, keeping his root ball tucked beneath him and using multiple branches as if they were many legs. It was always fascinating to watch him move around. It seemed arbitrary which branches he used for what, and she couldn’t figure out if he considered himself to have any up or down. Aside from his root ball, which he held together with soil, he was symmetrical in every direction. She also wasn’t entirely certain where to look when she talked at him, since he had no eyes, so she typically picked a few leaves, whichever ones were wiggling the most when his voice emanated out of him. That seemed the most polite. “Do you really think so?” he asked anxiously.
“You pay attention,” Marin said, “and you respect the sea. That’s all it takes.” Also, it helped if you had a boat or a friend with a boat,which he did. “Have you ever heard the story of the old woman who loved the sea?”
He shook his leaves no.
“My ma told me and her ma told her that her ma said, so it must be true…” That was the traditional opening for any tale that wasn’t fact but was still true, and she’d always loved it. “Once there was a woman who’d never seen the sea, but she dreamed of it. Every night, her dreams were filled with blue.”
Listening, Perri drew closer.
Marin grinned at the sea serpent. “Pale blue like the shallow water, blue-black like the sea at night, turquoise, black-green, and the frothy white of breaking waves.”
“How had she never seen the sea?” Ree asked. “Didn’t she live on an island?”
“She lived under the island, in the caves below. She spent her days chipping jewels from the rocks, and she spent her nights with the bats and the snakes. She didn’t know she could leave. No one had ever shown her a way out. Years passed, and she grew old, then older still.”
“Did she wilt?” Ree asked.
