Page 8 of Tidal Creatures

And because her advisor is a smart man, when she walked into his office this morning, emotionally loaded for bear and ready to pick a fight over basically anything, he had gone immediately into damage-control mode. He didn’t agree to anything that was going to hurt her academically, but he also didn’t bring up the increasingly sensitive subject of Professor Middleton’s Language Acquisition course, which she needs to pass in order to continue with her current research focus.

(Judy chose Berkeley for her graduate work out of a list of possible colleges based on their linguistics department before it became common knowledge that one of their junior professors and rising stars was a cuckoo of Reed’s creation. “Common knowledge” in this case meaning the Seasonals found out, and once the Seasonals knew, all the pantheons were quickly informed, since every group of gods worth knowing had at least one member associated in some way with the seasons. By the time she’d learned the unobtrusive man with the wire-framed glasses and the tendency to drink too much coffee before classes was also the metaphysical equivalent of a thermonuclear device without a safety, she’d been two years into her graduate program and well established within the local Lunar community. Starting over without a good, believable, mundane reason would be virtually impossible. “I’m afraid I’ll attract the attention of the man who just walked into a glass wall because he was so busy yelling at the baseball scores on his phone that he didn’t realize it was there” isn’t a reason.)

Thanks to her advisor’s uncharacteristic sense of self-preservation, Judy leaves the meeting far calmer than she expected, ready to go and deal with Diana. Like Middleton, Diana is a teacher at the school, but as she teaches textile arts—the much-maligned “underwater basket weaving” course was one of hers, and she still defends it when people bring it up—she’s at far less risk of attracting Middleton’s terrifying regard than Judy is.

Some people have all the luck.

Judy lopes across campus with the quick, efficient stride of someone who’s had someplace to be since five minutes before she was born and hasn’t missed an appointment yet. She smiles and nods at other students as she passes them, endlessly pleasant, endlessly polite. It’s easier that way. She’s done the research; the amount of energy she expends being nice to people she’ll never see again is far less than the amount expended if she has to deal with someone whose bad day explodes all over her when they decide she’s being antisocial. Managing the feelings of others shouldn’t be her job, and yet it’s a job she’s willing to do if it means she doesn’t have to fight.

Many of them smile and wave back. She even knows a few of their names, the natural consequence of spending several years running across the same campus. She’s never taken an art class here, never plans to—her main artistic activity is calligraphy, and while she’s skilled, she doesn’t feel the need to take it from hobby to profession, doesn’t want to turn it into one more obligation—and still, she’s a common sight around the department.

The reason why is just wrapping up a beginning weaver’s course when Judy reaches her classroom door. Diana isn’t currently stepped up into her divinity, which means she’s just Professor Kira Williams, an ordinary middle-aged woman. She’s tall and thickly built, ornately braided hair shot through with veins of incredibly pure white that started coming in when she first manifested as a facet of Diana, and look more appropriate to her age with every year that passes.

Most Lunars gray early. Judy herself started at sixteen. It’s one of the only signs of aging the Peaches of Immortality can’t conceal or erase, and in this case, it wouldn’t matter if they could; Professor Williams believes divinity isn’t the same as immortality, and that if it were, her aging would have stopped on its own, not because she drinks a few peach smoothies a week. She hasn’t requested so much as a sip of peach juice since Judy came to campus, and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to start any time soon. She’s aging the way everyone else does, and one day, when age catches up to her, she’ll pass quietly into whatever waits for incarnate goddesses when they die.

Professor Williams wears jeans and a brightly colored smock, which means she probably has a painting class after this one. She sees Judy in the doorway and nods acknowledgement without stopping what she’s doing, continuing to move among her students, nudging and helping them toward their desired results. She’s old-fashioned and a little on the crunchy granola side of things, with her socks and sandals and office full of macramé she made herself, but her student assessments are always spectacular, and her graduates often go on to actual careers in the arts.

Judy retreats to the nearest bench to sit and absorb the sunlight while she can. It’s been a long week. She’ll be glad when it’s over. Tonight is her turn to step into the sky above the Impossible City and shine down on a populace she’s never known, one who doesn’t care if she smiles and waves on her way to class.

Some people say that when Moons die, they get passports to the City. They can go there forever, if that’s what they want to do. As long as it’s not forced, Judy thinks that could be a pretty decent severance package. She wants to be the greatest natural linguist in the world (she’s not natural, she’s a moon goddess, but no one made her that way; her parents, Moon rest their souls, were ordinary people whose squalling, screaming infant daughter just happened to attract the attention of a cosmic force), and that means being in the world, for as long as it takes. It doesn’t matter if Middleton will always outperform her. She’ll know the truth, and that means she can win.

Shining over the City is the ultimate manifestation of what a Moon can be in this world. It’s more relaxing than a week of good sleep or an orgasm so strong it takes your breath away. That’s why they have to take turns, why there have to be so many of them passing the mantle around. It would be easy to get addicted to the sky above the City, to fall so deep into the pattern of waxing and waning in that psalm-bright air, that if one Moon had to do it alone for very long, they’d forget how to step down. They’d stop being human, and if they stopped being human, the Moon would leave them, because what’s the point of having a mortal manifestation that refuses to be mortal?

No one knows what would happen to them after that. If it’s ever happened, it was so long ago that it isn’t even a cautionary tale anymore. Maybe one of the moon stories has the seed of that event tucked deep inside, wreathed in image and metaphor until it doesn’t bear any resemblance to what actually occurred. Judy doesn’t know.

Supposedly there’s a Moon somewhere in Oregon who studies folklore for a living. Maybe she’d know. But that would require caring enough to ask, which would take energy, and right now, Judy doesn’t have any. Right now, she has the sun, and the bench, and the sound of someone sitting down beside her.

Judy cracks open an eye, and there’s Professor Williams, smiling kindly. There’s a hard glint in the older woman’s eyes, and Judy knows if she wastes her time, she’s going to face the consequences. Professor Williams doesn’t suffer fools easily.

“Are we alone?” she asks.

The professor nods. “For the moment.”

“Is there somewhere we could go to make sure we stay alone?”

The hard glint softens, replaced by puzzlement. “Is there a reason you need to speak to me in private and couldn’t wait for office hours, my dear?”

“Yes, and if I say it and we’re not alone, we’re both going to have issues. So is there somewhere we can go?”

Professor Williams stands with a sigh, offering Judy her hand and pulling the younger woman from the bench. Judy goes willingly—this is why she came, after all—and doesn’t take offense when the professor drops her hand as quickly as she took it, not allowing the contact to linger. Moons don’t like to touch each other when they can avoid it. They’re all manifestations of different human ideas about the identity they share, but there’s only one moon in the sky at night. There’s a dissonance to the contact that the human nervous system isn’t quite equipped to deal with.

Professor Williams starts to walk away and Judy follows, into the building and past classrooms both empty and occupied until they reach a large supply closet. Professor Williams gestures for Judy to follow her inside, then shuts the door and turns to face her. As she does, her dark eyes glint silver, and the air around her begins to sparkle with a pale, impossible light.

Diana.

“You didn’t need to step up to speak to me,” says Judy, without heat. She’d probably have done the same if one of her juniors had come to her and asked her to go somewhere alone with them, refusing to explain the reasons why. It’s self-protection, and it only makes sense.

The Moons aren’t like the Seasons. They cooperate. They get along. But there are old stories about times when one member of the pantheon decided they wanted more time above the City, and started taking people out of the rotation the old-fashioned way.

If she hadn’t been there when Máni came through the gate with Aske’s blood on his hands—if it hadn’t been Máni, who clings to mortality like it’s a lifeline—she might have suspected him of doing exactly that. Younger Lunars are more likely to be tempted by the sweet City air, even though they’re less likely to have the power to do anything about it.

“I think I do,” says Diana. Judy can hear Professor Williams under the voice of the goddess, but she’s faint, an echo, like the woman is speaking down a long hallway. Diana’s really nervous, then, if she stepped up that fast and that far. Judy has to fight the urge to step up to match her. Chang’e isn’t as powerful as Diana. If Diana saw her natural reaction as a threat …

No. Better to stay as she is, and let the old image of the mortal petitioner kneeling before the divine placate Diana’s anxieties. Judy takes a deep breath, pushing her own anxieties aside.

“Máni went to the City last night,” she says. “He was late coming back by over an hour. I had to hold the gate open and wait for him to return with the key.”

“That isn’t my concern,” says Diana. “I’m not the one who makes sure you come and go when you’re supposed to.”