Blue Black

by Addison Barne

Just off the coast of California lies an island known as Kai Shamasani, home to Una and Ani. Una's mother had died trying to abandon Una, leaving them as orphans on the starving island. Suddenly Russian soldiers have come to rescue the girls, and Una is one of them. But she soon learns that they are not saving her-she is being captured, and Una must now fight for her own survival.

I am told that I was born in water. I do not know how nor why, but this is the only explanation mother ever spoke of. She said that while I was born, water slipped into my eyes, making them the color of the evening sky. When I was taken out of the sea, the moon shone down at me so brightly that my skin and hair lightened to a tone of a white peach. With eyes like rain and skin like snow, I was given my name. Una, meaning "lovely" and Sayen, meaning "midnight water".

I remember my mother. She wore thick black hair with tan skin, and soft brown lips. Her smiles always stretched to her eyes, and she would never wipe her tears when she cried. My mother told me I was more beautiful than any flower and wiser than any moon. I never understood how a pale, sick looking girl could be compared to a flower. But I never understood my mother, either.

I live on an island known as Kai Shimasani. There is never enough to eat, there is never enough clothing, and starting this winter, there will be no more education. My sister Ani and I will have to teach ourselves to cook, weave, and write. We live with our Pawa, my mother's sister. She owned the weem we would sleep in, and although we always paid any amount she wanted, she still made our living worse than it was already. She would insult my mother daily, name us by pigs, and spit on our clothes. One day my mother quietly asked her to leave us alone, after being spit on the face.

She slapped my mother to the ground. My mother never asked again.

My mother used to promise that one day, we were to sail to an eastern island, far from Kai Shimasani, where my sister could eat what she wanted and I could learn to sing and dance. We had done as much as we could to earn money. We secretly traded clothes we stole from Pawa in the night, we split our already portioned meals into even more portions to sell, and we even stole fish from our loyal neighbors and dried them to store for the escape. We were three months away from making our trip, and I found myself giddy with excitement. I could taste the fresh fish, I could feel the new silk.

But my mother died. She was found in the sea, cold and blue.

She had tried to escape without us. And her canoe was not properly made.

I spent years grieving and exploding with fury. I wish I could ask why she didn't take us, why she took the fish and money and sailed away, leaving her daughters who were only 12 and 5 behind on an island with her sister, making the rest of their lives full of hunger and pain.

I don't understand how my mother could do that, but I never understood my mother.