Page 14 of Tidal Creatures

“All right, then. I guess you’re staying for dinner. You like enchiladas?” The woman turns all the way around this time, offering Kelpie her free hand. “I’m Isabella. You’re welcome in my home.”

“Thank you,” says Kelpie, and shakes her hand, and tries to focus on the bright, amazing smells in the kitchen, the light overhead, the people around her who don’t see how strange she is, who don’t want anything from her. She’s enough.

This is enough. This has to be enough.

Mare Nubium

TIMELINE: AUGUST 17, 2017. FOUR DAYS TO THE ECLIPSE.

It’s almost time for the moon to rise.

Judy paces in front of where the gate will be, waiting for tomorrow night’s Moon to come and see her through. They do it like this so someone on the mortal side of the gate will always know who’s on the other side; they are each other’s keepers. Plus, when two of them step up close together, it has a blurring effect for mortal eyes. They’ll be able to achieve what needs to be done more easily and without fear of being watched if they do it in tandem.

A god alone is a curiosity and a marvel, something to be stared at. Two gods together is a sign of something coming, and is intended to be feared. It’s why the gates can exist out in the open like this, while Judy would never dare step up in front of her advisor.

She just needs her partner for the night to get here. It won’t be Máni. She tried to find him, so he could go and speak to Diana, but he wasn’t in his dorm room; his roommate hadn’t seen him all day. She left a note, and hopefully he has it by now, hopefully he’s going to call, but either way, he won’t be shining tomorrow. He’s not coming to see her off. And it won’t be Diana.

She’s trying to remember who else is currently in the area, which manifestations might arrive to make sure things are done properly, when a dark-haired woman in athletic gear comes jogging across the open space between the clocktower and the brick wall where tonight’s gate will open. She’s not breathing hard, but her olive-toned cheeks are flushed; she’s been rushing to get here on time.

“Sorry,” she says, as she draws closer. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be late.”

“You’re not, quite,” says Judy. “Have we met?”

“Last full moon,” says the woman. “I’m Anna. Hi.”

“Judy,” says Judy. “Last full … You’re here to see me off?”

“Someone has to keep the key,” says the woman. “You know, it’s bullshit that we can’t just recognize each other on sight. It would be so much easier. Instead, it’s all lurking and code words.”

“Or introductions from the senior Lunars in the area,” says Judy. “Diana should have made sure we knew each other. Are you new to town?” She must be, or Judy would have recognized her more quickly. All the established Lunars come to her, or to Chang’e, to get their peaches. No presence, no peaches. And everybody wants their peaches.

Anna’s young enough that it may not have occurred to her yet that she needs them. She shrugs, easy and calm. “Not entirely new, but new enough,” says Anna. “We gonna do this or what?”

“I guess we are.” Judy pulls the key from her pocket, showing it to Anna in all its fresh-scrubbed glory, and reaches down into herself for the layer of divinity where Chang’e waits, and lets mortality fall away as the goddess catches hold and steps up into the evening air, which starts to sparkle around her.

Anna looks quietly amused.

“What?” asks Chang’e.

“You glow pink, is all,” says Anna. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

“It’s not,” says Chang’e, with wounded dignity. “And I don’t glow pink; I glow peach.”

“Right! You’re the immortality peddler.” Anna bows her head, performing her own transition, and the air around her lights up with a sparkling, silvery glow. When she opens her eyes again, they’ve changed, deep brown becoming the impossible layered blue of the sea near Tuscany. “Losna,” she says, by way of second introduction.

“Etruscan goddess of the moon and the sea, yes?” asks Chang’e. She’s known Losnas before, although not in this incarnation; what information she has is distant and fuzzy, and not entirely accessible to Judy.

Losna nods. “Got it in one. I’m an English major. I started here this semester.” Her nose wrinkles. “I didn’t realize there were so many Lunars in the area when I transferred in. Just wanted to run track and field with people who might be able to keep up with me.”

“We do accumulate,” says Chang’e.

She wants to say it’s not their fault, that the Lunars aren’t doing anything, because they’re not. Professor Middleton, on the other hand … he’s like a lead weight in the middle of a sheet. He presses it down, and gravity does the rest. The Doctrine of Ethos was never meant to exist in a material form; he can’t help distorting things for the other metaphysicals, as much as for the naturals. And if he’s ever removed …

She imagines the shock of the sheet bouncing back into its original position will scatter them across the continent, if it doesn’t launch them all into the stratosphere. Even the Moon might not survive that.

She was one of two Lunars in the area when she showed up. Diana took a lot more shifts then, and both of them spent a lot more time in transit, heading for the location of the next gate. Now they can do an all-but-complete rotation without changing their calendars, and it would be wonderful if it weren’t so worrisome. New Moons seem to show up almost every other week.

If something’s hunting them, that just means a lot more targets to get out of the way. She doesn’t like to think of it like that. She can’t help it.