Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

Ten days later we’re anchored with the rest of the flotilla in a lagoon off the shore of a small thickly forested tropical island. It’s hot and humid. Paul’s body would have sweated and sweltered, but I’m comfortable in my lightest short tunic. Clear turquoise water and the yells of children at play beckon me, but I’m stuck in the Satthei’s quarters, sitting with her at the large desk. She wants me to help with the transfer requests.

It soon becomes apparent why.

“Master Gerat is requesting Lotan be transferred to another ship,” Fareis says.

I just sigh.

“Ongoing indiscipline, argumentative attitude, not taking anything seriously. He says Lotan is damaging the morale of the other younger crewmembers.”

“Ask Sami,” I say. “I haven’t talked to him since…”

“No, I want your opinion.”

“I wish he was dead instead of Kerilas, that’s my opinion. Satthei,” I add in token courtesy. “Cast him adrift for all I care.”

“Do you think this attitude impresses me?”

“Well it wasn’t my idea to let him join…” My objections die under her stern look.

“At the moment I’m considering putting him back onto your sloop with Samila, under Master Tehilan—”

“No! That’s not fair! Don’t drag Sami into this just to get at me.”

“What choice do I have, Tani? This isn’t vindictiveness. Samila may have the best chance of anyone of getting through to him, and putting them on a small boat with an experienced small-craft Master like Tehilan puts Lotan in a situation where his actions will make a difference to someone he cares about.”

“It’s not fair!” I insist. “You’re always trying to take people away from me!”

“Taniel—”

I burst to my feet. “If she goes I’m going with her!” I announce defiantly. “You can’t stop me!”

“All right,” Fareis says, exasperated. “I’d hoped you could advise me on the best choices for your friends, but never mind. Go and play in the water. Maybe you could explore the reef with Ateis.”

“We did that yesterday.”

“What, the whole thing? I’m impressed.”

The reef is probably fifty miles long, linking a whole series of tiny mostly-deserted islands and atolls. It could take a human generation to explore. The idea of it breaks my strop and almost makes me laugh. “We’re quick when we’re a team,” I quip back. She smiles. I know what I’ve done, again, and I’m ashamed of it. I’ve been behaving like a stupid, petulant child. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to… to behave like that.”

She smiles and beckons me back to the place next to her on the window seat. I traipse back to her side and sit.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “I’m supposed to be nearly fifty or something,” and Paul’s twenty-two years – twenty-three now – on top of that. “Fifty year old humans don’t behave like this. Why am I so…” I sigh. “So the body’s immature, so what? I should know better. I do know better.” When I stop to think, I do. But it just takes me over. Some silly enthusiasm, or a silly slight, or some passion of the moment and my head fills up with it and I can’t see it any other way unless something shakes me out of it, and until then I shout and have tantrums and make a bloody fool of myself.

“How do you think you should be behaving?” she asks quietly.

“I don’t know. With some grace, I suppose.”

She laughs and grabs my head playfully in the crook of her arm, tousling my hair and pulling me into her side a little. That probably means I did something cute again, in her eyes, which is embarrassing in its own right. But it’s strange and familiar and oddly comforting. I still keep catching myself with a residual expectation that elves are these distant, ethereal beings with ultimate grace and dignity, and the kind of simple physical affection and playfulness I see every day was supposed to be reserved for humanity. That was supposed to be the the price of immortality, or something.

“It will come soon enough,” she says, when she’s finished. She’s stroking my hair. I think my mother used to do it the same way. “Yes, your body is immature,” she explains, “and your brain is part of your body, isn’t it? It’s still growing, shaping itself, changing, learning what it is to be you. It’s expected to be confusing and frustrating at times.”

“Am I immature for my age?” I ask. It’s a question I’ve been wondering about for a while.

“Yes,” she says. “A little. It’s of no matter.”

I sigh.

“Samila can’t stay here as long as you need her to,” Fareis says, gently. “It would be selfish. She doesn’t have the time.”

I look at her, hurting. Then my eyes sting and fill with tears and I drop my head. Sam said something like that herself, just recently. I feel her pulling me gently into her side again, her arm around my shoulders.

“All right, a little while longer,” Fareis promises. I know that means she won’t send Sam to another ship or that boat with Lotan. So I’ve won, I suppose. “But we must be careful. It wouldn’t be fair on her to keep her here with you too long. She’ll lose her best childbearing years.”

“But she doesn’t want children!” I protest.

“She is human. Her heart will ache when it is too late. Is that what you want for her?”

I don’t say anything. Sam doesn’t want me to.

“Just keep it in your mind,” Fareis says. “In the meantime I still need to decide what we’re going to do with Lotan. I want you to talk to him and report back to me.”

“I still think Sam—”

“I want you to do it,” Fareis says firmly. “Or if you prefer you can take Ateis and play on the reef.”

It’s such a backhandedway of trying to motivate me it almost makes me laugh. Of course what she’s really saying is I can be grown-up and take on this responsibility, or I can be a child, and my opinions given as much weight as Ateis’s.

I sigh. “I’ll talk to him then,” I say.

“Good.”

“I think Ateis went ashore with Sam anyway.”