Girl at the Bottom of the Sea by Michelle Tea

fearsome tooth from the shark’s mouth and wound it into her hair. It flashed there in the ocean’s dark light, both an ornament and a warning.
    â€œI can’t do what you do,” Griet said, still shaken by what she’d seen. How evil the shark had looked, with its small, focused eyes and a mouth so wide the mermaid could have swum right into it. She shuddered. If it hadn’t been for Syrena and her narwhal tusk, Griet knew she’d be lying in the beast’s belly right now. Instead, it was lying in hers. The whole experience had left her queasy.
    When she lived in the village, Griet hadn’t needed to be everything.No single mermaid had: each could do what came to her naturally, braiding or singing or helping build houses. Griet didn’t like to fight or hunt, and though she was elegant with the instruments the mermaids built from fish bones and seashells and seal leather and coral, she was not elegant with a weapon. She was clumsy. In the village, it hadn’t mattered. Whatever she couldn’t do, another mermaid could, and they all worked together to have what they required. But here, alone with her sister, the ocean required her to be everything—hunter and butcher and explorer and builder. She looked at her sister with hurt and amazement. “Even if I had a narwhal horn I couldn’t do what you do, Syrena.”
    â€œWell, you can do something,” Syrena insisted. “And you’ve got to have something to defend yourself with. Here.” Syrena handed her sister the knife she’d just fashioned.
    Griet handled it gingerly, as if it were not an object but a living thing, an unpredictable eel likely to strike out at her. “I’ll probably only hurt myself with it,” she mumbled, shakily bringing the blade to her long tangles and cutting into one. With nimble fingers she pulled apart the knot, then went to work weaving the strands into a holster to carry it. The knife was so sharp she had to weave it thicker and thicker, as it kept cutting through her knitwork. Griet tied the knife to her waist and looked sheepishly at her sister.
    â€œGreat!” Syrena said proudly, and Griet allowed herself a smile. Scavengers had come and surrounded the dead shark in a flickering cloud. It was time for them to move on.
    â€œThat was relaxing,” Syrena said, sliding her horn back into its sheath.
    â€œRelaxing!” Griet burst into laughter at her sister. “Only you would find it relaxing to slay a shark!”
    Syrena shrugged. “We’re mermaids. We do what needs to be done.”
    The pair continued their swim, not quite sure what they were looking for. Were they meant to find a hiding place and remain there, alone? Would the elders come for them when the war was over? How would they know when it was safe to return home? They coasted through the strait, dining on cod so plentiful all they needed was to stretch out their hands and grab them.
    Eventually the Skagerrak released the mermaids into Kattegat Bay, and slowly the channel began to narrow. With the land closing in, the mermaids became nervous. Were they swimming down a dead end? With land came humans, and mermaids did not like to be so close to their settlements. But the pair had already swum so long and so hard. The thought of turning back was exhausting. And so the sisters pressed forward. Soon the roof of their world, the water’s surface, grew very close. Though perhaps it was deep to humans, the bay was shallow to mermaids, and the sisters lay on their backs, floating, gazing upward. The sun warmed the water of the bay and they felt the chill leaving their skin.
    â€œPerhaps we should peek?” Griet suggested. “Gather where it is we are?”
    Syrena nodded. Her narwhal tusk was still lashed to her back, and she placed a hand on it absently, a new habit. With her other hand she reached out for Griet, and with the slightest fluttering of their tails, the mermaids