Fiasco by Constance Fay

Author:Constance Fay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

* * *

It’s amazing how quickly I reacclimatize to the sway of the decks under my boots, the cracking clay on my cheeks blocking the bright sunlight, the buoyant gravity that feels like I finally have a weight lifted from my shoulders. Specks of algae and ripples of shellfish mark the edges of the trawler, crawl up the supports of the bridges, and dangle from their high arches.

When I near midship, Etolla appears at the head of a bridge, bony hands clutching the rail and wind blowing her hair. I skitter by her, trying to avoid any additional conversation. When I’m almost across she calls from behind me.

“Six. It’s six now.”

“It isn’t six!” I yell back, cradling Vuur like it can defend me from rogue babies clamoring for adoption. It belches, creating a smoldering hole in my sleeve. I don’t know why I don’t want to take care of a bunch of little critters. It’s so glamorous.

When I cross the bridge closest to my parents’ home, I knock a tenacious piece of seaweed off, watching it plop to the water and quickly drift away as the boat speeds ever forward.

My father opens the door, such a welcoming light flashing in his eyes that my stomach cramps with guilt. A lack of affection was never our problem, just a lack of being able to properly communicate. We all want everyone to be happy—we just have a different idea of what that means. I brace my hands on my holster out of pure nervous habit before I realize that’s a tad aggressive, but once I lift them, I forget what people do with their hands during normal social interactions. He solves the problem by folding me in a hug. I stand in his embrace awkwardly, arms slowly rising of their own accord to wrap around his lean back. Vuur clambers down my back, claws digging in, and hides in my pocket.

Clearly it isn’t much of a hugger.

I am a blend of my parents. Cygna’s features and Parbel’s coloring—his Pierce ancestor providing us both with honey-gold hair, tan skin, and brown eyes. There are enough Pierce by-blows on the trawlertown that it isn’t a unique aesthetic. I never realized how rare the coloring is until I left home and saw the rest of charted territory.

He captures my hand in his and pulls me inside. My father’s hands have always been rough-calloused. He’s been a machinist all his life and I know the familiar pattern of abraded flesh like it’s an identification. I don’t trust the smooth-fingered. They’re too far from work.

He has new callouses now. Splayed over his knuckles. I know them because their twins are mirrored on my hands. Splits and abrasions from too long on a heavy bag. Early on, I didn’t know how to properly wrap my knuckles. The marks linger. It makes me sad to see them on my father.

Back when I was growing up, when Aymbe was still a child, back before everything that split our two families apart, my parents were musicians in their free time.

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