1 Chapter 1: Sunburst

I inhale the unmistakable scent of fate.

It’s tangy and full of humid air. The priest stands in front of my family and I, with a gleeful expression. The wrinkles of his old face pulls back into less of a smile and more of a sneer.

“Islet, welcome to the holy home,”

“It is my pleasure to be here, Great Priest,” I say.

His brown eyes drift between my sisters, father, and then settle again on me. “As you know, Sunburst is our most prized serum. Once you drink it, your fate is sealed.” He reiterates. He waves a long and pale hand at the goblet.

The honey-colored liquid ripples from my shaking hands. ‘When I drink this, I’ll finally know who my soulmate is.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I waited eighteen long years for this moment.’

I raise the cup to my lips and wait for the priest to begin his chant. He opens the sacred scripture and begins to shout in his scratchy, timbre voice.

I drink.

The smooth liquid goes down bubbly and hot. My whole body tingles from the popping sensation. Cold chills race up and down my spine at the murmuring around me. The priest’s chant fades into the background and my vision blurs, but only for a moment. All feeling disappears as I empty the cup.

I wipe the remnants from my mouth and clear my throat. A foam collects at the back of my throat as if the bubbles have gotten stuck.

“We pray this trusting and believing in you, Amen”

“Amen,” a chorus of voices repeat.

“Amen.” I echo late. The priest opens his eyes with a frown. The book thuds as he closes it in one hand and thrusts it under his arms. He waves his hand over one of my shoulders then the other.

“With the watchful eye of above, I now pronounce Islet tied to her Twin Ray forever and ever.” The priest says. He turns away sharply, dragging up the scent of dust and mothballs from the church grounds.

I step back and allow another eighteen-year-old to take my place in front of the priest. She trembles under his scornful gaze.

My father takes my hand and pulls me back to the pews. I don’t let go of his hand, afraid of what’s next. As the youngest of three, my sisters have told me the horrors of Sunburst’s effects. Lingering tingles, weakness when walking, coughing up bubbles for days on end, weird hallucinations, all leading up to the moment we finally get to see our soulmate.

As the priest shouts the same five lines of scripture, the girl in front of him chugs down the cup’s contents. Her eyes roll back and her nose expands while she breathes. The sight is horrifying.

“She choking,” I say softly.

My father averts his gaze to me and nods. “It’s to be expected,”

‘I did not choke,’ I think before I fix my face in the presence of the other worshipers who gather around praying. The girl pulls the goblet from her lips and spits half of it on the floor. She coughs the rest up in several violent heaves. The Great Priest stops his chants and turns away from her, pushing another goblet into the waiting hands of the last person. The boy does not choke either.

The priests leave the heaving woman on the floor and don’t dare look her way.

Our eyes connect, her’s red and watery, with drool leaking from the side of her mouth. Mine dual-colored and curious, or I’d assume as most can seem to read me well. When all the prayers have been said, and each person has been appointed, she finally stands, wipes herself off, and repents for her mistake in front of all.

“Our Holy One does not like the wasteful,” is all the Great Priest says before he turns away and leaves her standing there with her head bowed and tears streaming down her face.

If she is loved by the Holy One then he will forgive her, and she will soon know her soulmate. If he indeed does not like the wasteful, then she will be doomed to never know the face of such a person.

“How sad,” One of my sisters says before taking her leave back home. We all follow out family by family, leaving the lone woman in the center of the church. I feel bad for her, but there is nothing I can do.

My father fills the silence with business, as he does. “I’ve been thinking of expanding.” He says once we’ve left the earshot of the other churchgoers.

“Where to father? Another port?” My eldest sister asks. Her brown eyes are much like my own: slender, deep-set, and framed by black lashes, except one of mine is pink because of it’s lack of melanin. Or so I’ve been told.

“No, I was thinking further this time. The sea’s too dried up here. Barely any fish, no seaweed, and hardly any gems.” He says in his hard voice, he swipes at the hair strands falling into his eyes. His black hair is strange to those of our kingdom, Selkie. Home to the children of the sea. Here almost everyone’s hair is light, because of the sun’s warm rays.

“Where, are you expanding?”

“As far out as I am allowed to go,” he says. With no definitive answer, we drop the subject.

The house comes into view, our one-story home with three rooms, and a path cutting straight down the hillside to the port. The blue paint is chipping, and vines have grown up the sides and into a few windows. The roof is patched up with flat planks of metal in several spots where the heavy rains typically leak through.

Though it’s little and shabby, it’s home. A weak smile curls at my lips. All the fear of what’s to come leaves me when the smell of that salty seawater fills my nose.

“Ah, home sweet home,” I say and bolt to the door. I am the first to swing open the door and accidentally kick up sand into the hallway.

“Dammit Islet, open the door like a normal person.” My sister shouts. She shoves past, leaving her sandals at the door, “I’m not cleaning that.”

“Not it,” my other sister says. She smiles and runs into the house with her sandals on. She tracks sand all the way up to her room.

“Not it,” my father and I say in unison. We glare each other down. His face contorts in many strange ways. I laugh first at his crazed expression.

“Yes,” he says and leaves me in the doorway with a mess of sand to sweep.

I sigh, still laughing to myself, and do my best to get every pesky little grain back out the door when my vision goes black.