AS TWO CUTS LIE
PARALLEL IN THE SAME FLESH
When O sees the reflection in the water, she thinks, at first, that she is dreaming.
Or hallucinating. She’s been careful not to eat or drink anything from the island, too afraid of its repercussions, but perhaps even breathing in its air is enough to drive someone insane. She freezes as she catches sight of what ripples over the tiny waves near her feet. A face, white and blue with dual sets of eyes — the water ripples — and suddenly a pair of curved silver horns follows, and a body striped and sleek with fins, and O tenses her shoulders as if preparing to turn or run. Her heart bangs louder and louder in her chest. She feels it clenching and twisting until it rises up in her throat and she can feel her blood thrumming just under her skin, thinks I should go, I should run, but freezes.
The world goes quiet. Overhead the wind stirs salt from the top of the ocean, and cold foam flecks Apolonia’s cheeks. She blinks hard, trying to clear her fuzzy vision and the terrible nagging of her brain that begs to leave.
The stranger moves forward, and O tries hard not to flinch. But then she speaks. And against all odds, her voice is gentle, sweet, even, and as O turns meekly to look at her with huge, doleful eyes, she realizes that although the reflection was mostly accurate, there is nothing scary about it. No, despite the stranger’s, well — strangeness — the lines of her face are kind and soft. Finally, the girl relaxes, blowing out a long-held breath in a whoosh of sound. Her heart slowly stops racing. She even offers the other mare a small, faint smile on sooty lips.
“It does seem strange,” she offers finally, sifting a tiny hoof through the greenish water. They stand evenly, but O is so much smaller that the water reaches almost up to her knees; she can practically swim in a shore that only touches the tops of the stranger’s ankles. “I’m O. N..nice to meet you.” She’s not used to being kind, and even the attempt at it makes the words catch in her mouth, somehow both sticky and dry. She attempts to clear her throat. “You’re not from here, are you?”
Something like awkwardness floods her; maybe even a blush comes into her dark cheeks, but it’s hard to tell. (Still she is careful to tuck her head a little closer to her chest.
