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    Of Oysters, Pearls And Magic
    Of Oysters, Pearls And Magic
    Of Oysters, Pearls And Magic
    Ebook144 pages1 hour

    Of Oysters, Pearls And Magic

    By Joyce Chng

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    About this ebook

    Enter the world of Mirra. She is a magic user, but her gift is scorned by the menfolk in her village. Men are allowed to use magic; women are not. So, after a tumultuous event, Mirra decides to leave and heads for the City to continue her own self-journey.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoyce Chng
    Release dateDec 7, 2009
    Of Oysters, Pearls And Magic
    Author

    Joyce Chng

    Joyce Chng is a Chinese-Singaporean children's book author. Her work is regularly anthologized and she has a passion for steampunk, science fiction, and tales of transfiguration.

    Read more from Joyce Chng

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    • 5/5
      I am still reading it, but so far I am enjoying this because of how real the characters feel and because of how the writer has made me feel for the protagonist. I also appreciate the world she has made for this story even though it is quite short.

    Book preview

    Of Oysters, Pearls And Magic - Joyce Chng

    Copyright © Joyce Chng 2010-2011

    Email: sabersger@yahoo.com

    Website: http://awolfstale.wordpress.com

    Novella website: http://jolantru.wordpress.com

    A Sea Of Waves

    Prologue

    Waves One - Fourteenth

    Epilogue

    A Tree of Branches

    Branches First-Fifteenth

    Appendix & Commentary

    Sea Tales

    Ships’ Tales

    Prologue

    Daughter Of The Sea

    I am the daughter of oyster-divers and pearl-gatherers. I am the descendant of the first-wave immigrants from old Terra Firma, the ancient Earth planet the grandmothers of the village speak so kindly of. I am the daughter of a line of women who risk their lives to dive for the treasures of the sea, the rough-shelled bivalves that give us food and beautiful orbs of beauty.

    I have my hands cut and sliced by the sharp shards covering the shells; my skin has bled and merged with the fresh salty juices while I learn the craft of opening the oysters. My grandmother says that once the oyster has blooded me, the sea has claimed me as Her own. She then holds her hand and shows me her scars – she too is a daughter of the sea. I laugh and swallow the sweet briny oyster flesh whole, letting it slide down my throat, a delicious flood of salt-copper-water.

    The women dive every early morning when the sea is calmer and when the tides are less torn and conflicted than a woman in childbirth. They slip on the black skins, snug close to their bodies, and adjust their breathing apparatus while they gossip about their husbands, children and household chores. This ritual has not changed for generations. And when they are done with the preparations, they slip into the clear-green water and swim into the depths while the oysters lie, baskets in toll. A good harvest would yield basketfuls and we know that they would fetch a good price at the fish markets near the City. A poor harvest would feed our households and nothing else.

    In the afternoons, the women wade waist-deep in the pearl-oyster pools and gather the mature pearl oysters. This time, they wear thick gloves and pry the tight shells open to remove the pearls, glistening in the sun like tiny rainbow-tinged moons. I sit often with them – my grandmother, my mother and my aunts – as they shell the oysters, feel for that tale-tell bulge and fish out the perfect spheres out of the tender slippery folds. The pearl oysters can be as hard-hearted as their ocean cousins; our hands have been lacerated by the jagged edges of the palm-sized shells.

    I am the daughter of such diligent women. They dive in the morning and swim in the afternoon, all because oyster-diving and pearl-gathering are already in their blood, in our lineage. I am proud to be one of them and I often wish that I could be as good as my grandmother or my mother. Yet I know I am a bit different from the rest of the women: my hands curl light and this is forbidden, as it is men’s magic.

    ~*~

    I realized I could curl light when I was just five. I was playing, as children would be, with my cousins on the beach, next to the shallow tide-pools where the water teemed with tiny sea-creatures. We would go fish and look for little crabs and shrimps living under the rocks. The water of the tide-pools was a delicious cold-warm and we enjoyed ourselves, laughing under the sun, dipping our toes in and watching the shoals of silver fry darting about. Suddenly there was a yell, a frantic shout. Someone had fallen in.

    I did what I thought was instinctive. I flung my hands up, in a fending gesture. My head filled with light circles, bright green-blue circles that spun and overlapped like the toy windmills they sell at the village fairs. The next thing I knew, Timas – my cousin- was pulled out from the water with bands of light. He was only three and was in my charge. Out of the water, he looked bedraggled and out of his shell (as my grandmother would say): totally lost and sobbing away. The rest of the children tittered and held back, eying me as if I was a frilly sea-eel crawling out from the depths of the sea. I held Timas to my chest, wondering what I had done.

    Oh the scolding I received later, in the privacy of the family hut. First Father is a man who hardly raises his voice. But that day, he did and forbade me to do what I did when I rescued Timas. Mother added her voice in and she expressed her shock and fear at my deed. Young as I was, I knew I had crossed some invisible line and did things I should not be doing. As I sobbed myself to sleep, I heard my parents arguing, with Grandmother providing a calm counterpoint. You realize that came from your side of the family, Mother was saying and First Father muttered angrily, And your side too. I finally fell asleep and slipped into dreams of spinning light circles.

    It was only after a few days when the storm-tossed atmosphere at the dining table had dissipated and everyone was talking to one another again, when Grandmother drew me aside and spoke me about men’s magic. Men could wield light and curl them into infinite shapes. No one knows why. They just do. They use it to power the silver fish – the little air-filled blimps – and travel to the City to conduct their business. They use it to light the fishing boats at night. They use it in the search of knowledge out of reach for women.

    I did not curl light, keeping it a secret, until I reached adolescence. I felt the circles growing brighter and more vivid. I felt them deep within my bones. To deny them was to stop myself from breathing. So, in quiet dank corners, away from the sea and the pearl-oyster pools, I practiced the crafting of light, listening to the circles in my head, and made rings and spirals that revolved in the air, reminding me of the golden sea-kelp forests.

    I am the daughter of the sea and a curler of light. I tiptoe between two worlds, both as real and as rich. Within me, the sea is shimmering peridot and the light magic interweaves with it like necklaces of bubbles wrapping themselves around seaweed. Intertwined. Me.

    ~*~

    Mirra

    I woke one morning as I would every morning to join the women. I fetched my black skin and the breathing apparatus, padding bare-foot to the edge of the sea where the rest of the women stood, doing their stretching exercises to get their blood circulation going. Their arms curved, dipped and bent as the sun rose. This scene remains one of the enduring memories inside me.

    The older and more experienced women dove in first, followed by the younger and learning women, including me. The water was warm against my exposed skin and I placed the breathing apparatus in my mouth. Having done so, I joined my sisters, the daughters of the sea, gliding down into the colder layers, to the oyster beds.

    The sea is Her own world, a world filled with shades and veils of light, flows and currents. She has Her own moods too, lightening and darkening – the trick is to know them. After generations of diving, the women have understood her and now swim with a healthy respect for Her. This lesson is taught to all the daughters; it is as vital as the letters we learn in the teaching hut, if not the most important, like breathing. I breathed in and out, bubbles filtering through the apparatus, trailing behind me like some shimmering tail. I swam with shoals of tiny finger-fish flashing their scales in the underwater light. Light refracts in the sea.

    I spied the oysters. Clusters of mature ones. My hands were gloved, my right holding a small knife gifted to me by my mother after I had completed my first dive, my left the basket. Whispering silent thanks, I dislodged the oysters gently, taking care not to hold onto the razor edges too tightly. I hefted one, testing its weight: it was heavy, meaning good fat flesh. I looked around me, seeing the slender forms of other women hard at work. Like porpoises, a song praised the grace of the

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