After what feels like half an hour or more in the tunnel-like space of darkness, Olivia and Lalibela jet up, up, up very fast for just eight or ten seconds, during which the space around them becomes illuminated. Lalibela resumes their trajectory forward, finally approaching a reef on their right side.

There is so much activity in this reef! Tiny fish dart around, in schools or solo. It looks like they stop to chat or shop from the crabs and lobsters that sell their wares in vendors’ stalls lined up along the reef’s edge. They bargain and barter with swishes of fins and claps of claws. As the large shadow of Lalibela, who is massive compared to the reef-dwellers, passes over each little reef-city, all the sea creatures seem to pause their activities to look up and wave at her. Instinctively, Olivia waves back to return their greeting. Lalibela must be very popular here.

“These reefs don’t segregate by kind,” Olivia heard in Lalibela’s out-of-tune pitch. “They used to, but Mother showed them the better way, the way of community and equality. In Mother’s way, no fish or crab or creature is above any other.” Olivia doesn’t really understand the significance of this statement, which Lalibela seems to say with great pride, but there is too much to see for her to spend any time asking for clarification. After that first stretch of reef there comes another, and another, and another. They are not identical, but Olivia can’t tell them apart. “The creatures here do not have personal possessions,” Lalibela says authoritatively as they go on. “They buy and sell in Mother’s stalls, with Mother’s money. Everything they do is for Mother, so there are no rich or poor. All of them are equal.”

After ten or twelve reefs with teeming commercial activity, they glide over a group of crabs, who appear to be organized into neat lines as they scrape the sea bottom in unison. Their claws create smooth, straight parallel grooves, like in a farmer’s field, as they move methodically along. In the centre of their field, Olivia can make out a tall, forked flag decorated with pink glitter. As Lalibela keeps swimming forward, Olivia sees there are more and more identical fields on all sides, too many to count. All of them with the forked pink-glitter flag in their middles.

“They practice aquaculture to farm our food, like Mother taught,” Lalibela’s voice explains inside her head. Olivia nods politely and bubbles “oh” which sounds like “Blooowbb.”

“There are no more hierarchies, no more creatures in charge of other creatures, and none of them owns their own land anymore. All of these crabs farm together because they want to,” Lalibela goes on. “Mother has taught them discipline, so they do not need their own money or land and all can work for the greater good. Because of Mother, all are free.”

As Lalibela moves in to give her a closer look, Olivia sees that stationed around the pink glittery flags at the centre of one field are three seanicorns, miniature versions of Lalibela. They hover over the crabs as they work. Olivia watches as one of the seanicorns unfurls its curled tail to use as whip, cracked over the head of an unfortunate crab who is lagging behind in the formation. She gasps as the crab raises his claws to block the onslaught of the tail. Olivia can’t hear anything, but the visual is enough to make her gasp out a blub-blub. As they progress slowly onwards, panning over the fields, Olivia sees more and more seanicorn tails unfurling and being used as weapons against the crabs, quick as lightning. If you blink you miss it.

It sure doesn’t look like these crabs are free, she thinks, forgetting Lalibela can hear her.

Lalibela lets out a wry laugh, which is low and ominous and at odds with her high piano-ish speaking voice.

“Oh child, such a silly question to come out of your mind. These crabs want to farm for Mother. But sometimes we must accept help to discipline ourselves. Some creatures need to be forced to do what is best for them.”

Olivia doesn’t want Lalibela to hear her confused thought in response.

“Freedom must be enforced.” The seanicorn says with more force, as she turns sharply up and away from the lines of unfortunate crabs being ‘disciplined’ on their fields of freedom. “All seanicorns work to enforce freedom in the service of Mother.”

Olivia is not sure what to say. Thankfully, Lalibela changes the topic:

“Come. No more of this, now. Let us find your brother Oliver. He will be with Mother now.” She turns abruptly to head back in the direction they came from.

What is this Mother? Olivia wonders too loudly inside her own head, so she hears Lalibela’s reply:

“Mother is the head of the Narwitches… I believe in other worlds they might be called mermaids. Mother rules all Narwitches, and therefore all of Merman Cove, because all other creatures exist for the pleasure and service of Narwitches.”

A new trepidation around this creature Lalibela calls ‘Mother’ is forming in Olivia’s gut after seeing those poor crabs with the aggressive seanicorns, all miniature versions of Lalibela herself. She suppresses the feeling and doesn’t let it form into a coherent thought, hoping to prevent Lalibela from hearing it.

In silence the giant seanicorn, with Olivia the scaly fish-girl on her back, glides past the reefs as they leave the fields behind. This time, they are closer than before and Olivia can see those same miniature seanicorns peppered throughout each reef, curled whip-tails ready to strike. She didn’t notice before that each of them bears the symbol of the forked, sparkling pink flag of Mother on the side of their curled-up tail. She sees a seanicorn tail grab a hermit-crab shop keeper by his front claws, as two other seanicorns force him out of his shell. Olivia wonders what they are looking for. Has he hidden something in there, maybe something he wanted to keep that this mysterious Mother doesn’t want him to have? Or maybe he is not allowed to have the shell itself, maybe Mother decided he needed a different one. She shuts down that train of thought before Lalibela can catch on. She’s pretty sure the giant seanicorn wouldn’t like what she’s thinking about.

This time, as they pass the reef-cities with their teeming shoppers and bartering crab and lobster shop-keepers, Olivia doesn’t wave in greeting. She lowers her head and tries to make herself look small on Lalibela’s back. She has a growing realization that all these sea creatures wave to Lalibela because they have to, not because they want to. She’s sure now that they are being forced.

“I have the prisoner for you, Mother,” Olivia hears Lalibela’s voice near-whisper. The gentle swaying of the seahorse’s body hasn’t stopped, but they are no longer moving forward. The change in motion must have woken Olivia up. She feels a headache coming on. Did she hear that right? Lalibela must have captured some poor crab or fish or creature from the sea as they swept past. For what crime, Olivia can’t imagine. Maybe the unfortunate victim had disobeyed the seanicorn militia. Olivia shudders halfway through her yawn. She remembers the poor hermit crab being dragged from his shell. Is he the prisoner?

Lalibela chuckles. It is a low, menacing chuckle. The seanicorn reads Olivia’s mistake in the girl’s thoughts and it amuses her.

Olivia opens her eyes then. To her surprise, she sees only pitch-black. Maybe we are so far down in the ocean, it’s all black, she thinks, earning another laugh from Lalibela. What’s so funny? Olivia wonders.

“Darling, you wonder who the prisoner is. This amuses Lalibela,” a grinding, gravelly voice like the machine that sharpens Olivia’s skates every winter responds.

Can everyone here read my thoughts? She thinks.

“Just those of us who passed the training, dear,” the voice responds without missing a beat.

Is this Mother? Olivia wonders and her unspoken question is met with a croaky laugh. She assumes this means her guess is correct. Why is the blackness moving? She wonders after a minute. It seems she is seeing the world through a fine black mesh. A split-second later she realizes that this mesh is a bag tied over her head, secured at her neck. Panic rises in her throat. She tries to lift her arms to take off the ties, to free her head from the black fabric. But she can’t. Her hands are tied together at the wrists, not so tight it hurts, but tightly enough that she cannot free them.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE AM I?! WHERE IS MY BROTHER? WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” She tries to scream at Lalibela and the voice that is probably Mother. Her words come out like BLUB BLUBL BLUUUBBLLL

BLLAAHH BLUB?! BLA BLUB BLUB?! And nothing but bubbles leaves the thin mesh bag tied around her head. The croaky laugh tumbles out of the darkness again, and the gravel voice says:

“Thank you, Lalibela. Please deposit the prisoner in Bay Four and report back to the stables. Your loyalty to Mother will not be forgotten. Please, join me at my table for tonight’s festivities.”

Despite her terror at being tied up and, apparently, a prisoner, Olivia can practically feel the seanicorn’s demure blush. “I couldn’t, your grace. Seanicorns are not fit for royal dining, we — “

“I insist,” the voice rasps back. “You and your regiment have done great work depositing the two human prisoners here today. They will make wonderful slaves once we grow their tails properly.”

Two human prisoners, Olivia thinks, that might mean Oliver is here too. She tries to stop the thought before one of them reads it, but it’s too late.

“Yes, yes, dear. I’ll take you to your beloved brother now. It’s just as well you settle into captivity together. I’ve always found slaves work better in pairs, anyway. Twice the strength. You’ll be our first human prisoners, dear. Isn’t that exciting!”

With none of her former grace and patience, Lalibela jerks forward with Olivia on her back. The seanicorn swims roughly and quickly through what Olivia imagines are a series of underwater tunnels (because there are a lot of angular turns that Olivia tries but cannot commit to memory). Finally, she lurches to one side almost before coming to a halt and deposits Olivia’s bound body roughly on a rough surface. Olivia feels spiked and scratched all over as she tumbles a few times and then falls into a heap. She imagines the floor she’s lying on is made of barnacles.

A moment later, a deep silence and the feeling of being abandoned are the only things Olivia feels in the space surrounding her on all sides. She thinks about yelling for help but she’s too weary of trying to communicate. Every time she speaks, it comes out as bubbles and the only creatures who have been able to understand are the ones who have trapped her here. She melts into a fuzzy dream state, between waking and sleeping, and waits for what horrible thing will happen to her next. She doesn’t even have the energy to worry about Oliver anymore.