Page 32 of Tidal Creatures

She’s still trying to figure out the ethics of her actions as her eyes drift closed, bathed in the moonlight through the window, which warms and soothes her as nothing else possibly could.

When she wakes up, it’s to the sound of Luis talking loudly and excitedly about the upcoming school day while Bobby barks, claws scrabbling against the kitchen linoleum. Someone is frying eggs. She sniffs the air, not opening her eyes, and realizes the room is lighter; even through her eyelids, she can tell that much. The sun has risen. The sun has risen and the moon has gone, and that shouldn’t feel like such a loss, but it does.

Slowly, she opens her eyes and sits up on the couch, the blanket falling to puddle in her lap as she tries to get her bearings back. On some level, she’d gone to sleep hoping that when she woke up, it would all have been a dream. She’d be safe in her bed, in her room deep below the ground, with Margaret waiting for her to get up and start on her tasks for the day. Nothing would have changed. Everything would still make sense.

Just to check, she pinches herself on the arm, swift and vicious, hard enough to hurt. She bites her lip to stop herself from squeaking, then sighs and pushes herself off the couch, rising with relative ease. New techs used to marvel at how good she was at standing on her hooves, like any creature won’t learn how to use the appendages it has instead of yearning for the appendages it doesn’t. Birds learn to fly just fine, even though they don’t have thumbs.

Sure, she’s occasionally looked with envy at the way people with proper feet can make themselves taller by leaning onto their tiptoes, or express uncertainty by rocking back on their heels, but that was when she thought her own hooves were temporary things. Now that she knows they’re not, she’s not going to waste any time wishing for something she’s never going to have.

She finds Isabella and her family in the kitchen. Isabella’s frying eggs and some sort of sausage on the stove. Luis is dressed for school, while Bobby sits beside him at attention, clearly eager for the scraps he’s sure will soon be tumbling his way. Juan has a large ceramic mug in one hand; he gestures at Kelpie with it before taking a noisy slurp.

“There’s the sleeping beauty,” he says, blithely, and Kelpie wonders what he sees when he looks at her. Not what she actually is, that’s absolutely certain. “Hope we didn’t wake you.”

“Oh, I needed to be up anyway,” she demurs, smiling and hoping her anxiety doesn’t show. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You’re a guest, and guests don’t make breakfast; guests get fed breakfast,” says Isabella, waving her spatula. “One egg or two? Sausage? I know you’re not a vegetarian; I saw you eating last night.”

Kelpie has never considered whether she’d prefer to be a vegetarian, and the thought stops her for a moment. In the lab, they ate what the cafeteria provided, and while it varied from day to day, it was always bland, nutritionally balanced, and made of a supposedly ideal balance of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. She doesn’t think she’s ever gone a full day without eating chicken.

“Sausage would be lovely, thank you,” she says, with her very best manners, as she takes the open seat at the table.

Luis grins at her, sausage in his teeth and something suspiciously sticky pushing up the front of his hair. “Mom says you’re a cousin now, sort of, and you’re going to stay a while. Are you really?”

“I … guess so.”

“That’s good. Bobby likes you! I like you, too. It’s nice to have company. Are you going to stay sleeping in the living room the whole time? I get up real early on Saturdays to watch cartoons. Do you care if I watch cartoons?”

Kelpie, who doesn’t know what a cartoon is, can only blink at the unending torrent of words, trying to understand what’s being asked of her. She’s saved from the need to reply by Isabella setting a plate on the table in front of her, rumpling Luis’s hair with one hand as she does, only to recoil.

“Ugh! Mijo, how are you sticky? We didn’t even have waffles today! Did you forget that jam goes on toast, not in hair?”

Luis giggles, unrepentant. Isabella huffs, then points to the door.

“Go. Wash up, now. Jam out of hair, off face, off hands, and change your shirt if there’s a speck of jam on it, anywhere. I won’t have your teachers thinking I roll you in pectin before I ship you off to their care.”

“Aw, Mom,” he protests.

“Go!” she repeats, and giggling, he goes.

A beat later, Juan rises, taking his mug with him, and crosses the kitchen to kiss the crown of Isabella’s head before he nods to Kelpie, says, “Have a lovely day, and I hope things at home improve for you soon. I’ll see you both at dinner.” Then he’s gone, heading out of the kitchen with Bobby at his heels, the dog’s tail waving wildly, as if he can’t control his excitement over the moment and the chance that he might get to go outside again.

He doesn’t. The door opens and closes, and the dog trots back to sit next to Kelpie’s chair, silently begging for scraps of her breakfast. She laughs and moves her plate a bit away from him, shielding it with her arm. After last night, she didn’t think she was ever going to be hungry again, but now she’s ravenous, her stomach demanding satisfaction in loud and uncomfortable growls.

She watches Isabella carefully as she reaches for knife and fork, hoping the other woman will signal in some way if she’s doing it wrong, but Isabella is busy studying her hair.

“How did you sleep?”

Kelpie shrugs. “Better than I expected to, since I’ve never slept in a room with a window before.” Her eyes widen. “I don’t have my toothbrush! Or my hairbrush. I left them in the lab, and I can’t go back down to get them—”

“No, you can’t,” says Isabella firmly. “Last time Luis went to the dentist, they sent him home with a little goodie bag full of floss samples and flavored toothpastes, and a new brush we still haven’t opened. With what we pay to have his teeth cleaned, they should have sent him home with a new bike.”

As if summoned by the word “bike,” Luis reappears in the doorway, the front of his hair now wetted down against his forehead. He holds out his hands for inspection, beaming at Kelpie and his mother.

Isabella crosses the kitchen to take his hands, turning them over for a cursory inspection. “Mmm … that will do,” she says, finally. “Go get your things. You need to take Bobby out before you head for school.”

“Dad already left?”

“If you wanted a ride, you shouldn’t have let yourself get all sticky,” she says, in a tone which makes it very clear she’s teasing; this is a conversation they’ve had many times, in many settings, and while he may be playing it up a bit for the sake of his audience, there’s no resentment here. This is just the way the morning goes.