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Lo’ak stares into the water. It’s black, dotted only by the dim reflections of the stars. Neteyam is -
Dead.
The thought feels hollow in his gut, strange, like his very centre has been unspooled. The words crowd in his mind, unthinkable, unvoiceable: Neteyam is dead. Neteyam is dead. Because Neteyam has always been there, beside him: in his exasperated sighs, his scoffs, his groans, his Lo’ak, really?, the steady pace of his footsteps outrunning Lo’ak’s.
Neteyam has always been there, and now he’s not.
–
He sits on the boat with Dad. It’s awkward, now. Dad’s trying to talk but not sure what to say, so he just mentions - you know, I had a brother, once, too, called Tommy - and Lo’ak stares at the sea so hard when he closes his eyes all he can see is blue. He doesn’t want Dad to talk about Tommy. He doesn’t want Dad to talk about Neteyam, either, really.
He’s not sure what he wants.
Forgiveness. Anger. Something that isn’t this swell of injured silence between them.
–
He lies awake on the snovini. Spider whispers something to Kiri he doesn’t catch. He turns around, counts his fingers. One, two, three, four, five. Stares at his father’s back, his mother’s half-hidden face, only peaceful in sleep.
Neteyam would know what to do.
But Neteyam isn’t here.
–
Lo’ak doesn’t sleep much.
He spends his mornings hunting with Dad, half in a daze, both with hearts somewhere else; spends his afternoons with Kiri, or Tuk, or Spider, or Tsireya, trying to pretend he hasn’t lost a half of him; spends his evenings pretending he doesn’t feel carved out whole.
Sometimes he thinks, late at night: do you still love me, now that Neteyam is gone? Now that it’s my fault?
Sometimes he wakes with a start, Neteyam’s blood still on his hands, body cooling, cold, that sharp panic surging through him, electric, terrible, death-claiming.
He doesn’t know the answer. He doesn’t think Dad does, either.
–
They go to Ranteng Utralti. “They’re just trying to see Neteyam again,” Lo’ak tells Spider, and swallows that he can’t. Not now, not with this heady grief, not with this blame hanging over his head like an axe.
He dives, but doesn’t make tsaheylu. He watches his mother’s face melt to happiness he hasn’t seen in weeks; his father’s face morph into a smile, true and light. He looks away.
(He could have saved Neteyam. It should have been him.)
–
Dad keeps talking about Tommy.
Lo’ak feels like he’s losing his damn mind.
–
He asks Spider to come with them. Spider’s got a weird look on his face, but he nods, agrees, anyway. He’s hiding something, Lo’ak thinks, but aren’t they all? Maybe Dad will finally - maybe things will get less awkward, with Spider there, but it isn’t. It doesn’t.
Dad brings up Tommy, again, and Lo’ak snaps, and Dad apologises, quiet and small and different, and Lo’ak hates himself for it, a little bit.
Why can’t he be a better son?
Neteyam - Neteyam would-
Lo’ak pushes the thought away. Neteyam is gone. Neteyam is gone.
–
“You know, Lo’ak, if you ever want to talk–” Dad tries, on the boat.
“I know,” Lo’ak says. Smiles, even if it feels like eating dirt. “I know, Dad.”
He’s not the son Dad would have chosen, he knows. Even if Dad sees him - even now that Neteyam is gone - surely there’s a part of him that blames Lo’ak. There has to be, when even Lo’ak blames himself, when he wakes every day with that roiling mess of guilt and grief in his gut.
–
Lo’ak’s in the sea with Tuk, near the shore.
She bursts out of the water. “Look!” she says, holding a shell, iridescent, shining. “It’s pretty, right?”
Lo’ak swallows. “Yeah, Tuk. It’s pretty.”
“I’m gonna give it to Kiri. She likes these ones.” The smile slips from her face. Tuk might be annoying, but she’s seven. She shouldn’t look like this. “Do you think Neteyam would like it, if he were here? I saw him, you know. When I made tsaheylu.” She scrunches up her nose. “He told me not to get into too much trouble.”
A laugh gets stuck in Lo’ak’s throat. “Yeah,” Lo’ak says, quietly. “I think he would have. And you do get into too much trouble.”
“That’s just ‘cause I’m following you guys!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lo’ak says, swims closer. “Come on. Let me get a good look at the shell. We’ve got to check for imperfections, you know.”
Tuk grumbles. Lo’ak bites back a smile, stomach squeezing.
–
Sometimes Lo’ak wakes and thinks he sees Neteyam - the shadow of the sea, the pull of the waves, the murmur of froth, the sand crunching under his feet. And then his heart swoops, drowns in his chest, because Neteyam is dead.
Neteyam is never coming back.
–
“I miss him,” Lo’ak says, one morning, staring at the sea, jabbing at nothing. It’s my fault, he can’t say. “I miss him,” he says, again, and his voice cracks.
Dad sighs. When Lo’ak looks at him, Dad’s eyes are soft, heavy, almost warm. “Come here, son,” he says.
Lo’ak walks towards him. Dad opens his arms, and Lo’ak presses against his chest, warmth seeping into his bones, and pretends he has a family that is whole.