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reflection of that long ago terror, on his mouth. “We had no way of knowing what was happening to the rest of the world. And there was so much to do. We had to change our whole way of life, move all our homes and farms far uphill, out of reach of the sea. We had to make ourselves completely self-sufficient in just a few years. All this in the midst of storms like you’ve never seen. We had barely any time to think of anything beyond ourselves and our own little patch of the world. It was a huge struggle just to survive. But at last, when the seas calmed enough, some of our fishermen set out to see what had happened on the mainland.” Tain pauses again, and the look in his eyes tells Mara he still finds it hard to believe. “They found nothing but ocean. There were the rocky peaks of what had once been the highlands—solid rock that no one could live on—but no sign of any land. Once we heard that, we turned our thoughts away from the outside world. And that’s how we stayed, never looking beyond these islands. Till now.”
    Tain grasps Mara’s hand in his.
    â€œMara, the seas are rising again. It happens in surges. Every few decades there’s another great meltdown of the ice at the poles and then you get a sea surge. I know the pattern—I’ve seen it before. We’ve had long, scorching summers these last years and now we’re getting the sea surge from the meltdown that the weather has caused. I think the last of the polar ice caps must be melting.”
    Last summer the heat had burned the island almost barren. Mara remembers air so hot it shimmered like glass. Days so long and bright the relentless sun hardly slipped from the sky. The sea was a haven then—she lived on the rocks like a mermaid, her wet hair a long, cool cloak against the sun, endlessly plunging her burning skin into the soothing balm of the ocean.
    â€œWe need to move again,” Tain is saying. “But not uphill this time—there’s not enough land left for us.”
    Mara feels panic lurch in her stomach. She grips Tain’s hand.
    â€œWe need to find a new home in the world,” Tain declares. “Soon, Mara, before it’s too late.”

MAELSTROM

    A new home in the world?
    Mara stares at Tain with wide eyes. The thought is so terrifying she feels numb.
    â€œBut where?” she whispers.
    â€œDo you remember when you were little I used to tell you about the giant cities built high above the rising seas?”
    â€œThat was just a fairy tale!” Mara exclaims.
    Tain shakes his head. “No, no. Remember I told you I saw a television newsreel about the very first of those cities when I was young. They were just beginning to build them. New World cities, they were called.”
    Mara looks wistfully at the blank gray box that sits dead and useless in a corner of the room. Tain has told her all about television.
    â€œSo there really are giant cities?” she asks doubtfully.
    â€œI don’t know,” says Tain. “I don’t know if the ones they built survived the flood—but they were designed to. I don’t know if they built more, as they said they would. In the time just before the flood all the news reports complained about an information blackout on the New World cities. Then the great flood came and there was no news about anything. Like I said, we were struggling to survive here onWing. Later, we tried to search for information on the Weave—that was the old worldwide computer network.”
    Mara nods. She’s well acquainted with the Weave.
    â€œWe looked hard but we never found anything. The Weave was in ruins and searching for anything was like looking for a needle in a haystack. So we gave up wondering what might or might not lie out in the world beyond us and concentrated on the here and now. But I’m sure those cities were built! There was a plan to build lots of them.”
    In frustration, Tain rakes his white