Sta lives deeper in the valley, on the fringes of the Teardrops of the Volcano. The water gets dark enough I can't see, I hold onto Ange's arm for half the journey and try not to cling too tightly. Before we left our house, Parro told me I'd be fine inside her place, Sta's got glowing lights stuck all over her ceilings, since her Mum's a bioluminescent artist and Sta sorta dabbles in it too.

But the way there...I can barely make out Ange's silhouette. Parro's presence completely vanishes somewhere between our street and wherever our destination lies. A claustrophobic chokehold takes me; I can't sign anything, I can't say anything, I can't tell Ange I'm freaking out he just keeps swimming, I'm trapped in my body in the silence in the dark and my legs forget what steady kicking means anymore my swimming stroke falters and my grip nearly slips.

Ange doesn't notice.

I swim faster and cling tighter; no, I loosen my grip so I don't squish Ange's wrist, I keep up with him, the dark compresses in, can I still feel my feet paddling, have my toes dissolved? Surely they haven't, why would they have, but I don't think I can feel them. I paddle harder, I wiggle my feet, the dark hasn't devoured them, surely.

My senses narrow; the water confines me to the limits of my skin. My skin is entirely surrounded by darkness, the entirety of me exists drowning in darkness. I need my senses to expand out past the darkness. I'm choking, give me some thundering vibration, some flash of light, some school of silver fish to come speeding over me and thump against my skin but I get nothing.

My gills pant, my senses shrink, my skin confines me, the dark holds my skin prisoner, my skin confines me--

I hammer up walls inside myself, I just don't think about it--don't think about it--keep the darkness distant, my senses close on Ange's silhouette, his wrist on my hand, my gills, my not-dissolved legs kicking--I keep up walls inside myself but the darkness closes in--

Ange and Parro echolocate, something about eardrums picking up sounds-which-are-vibrations-too-subtle-for-me-with-broken-eardrums-to-pick-up, I read about this in a book, how the auditory parts of the brain construct mental maps of objects just based on the vibrations bouncing off them. Based on the solidness of the objects, the vibrations bounce off them differently--the muddy floor comes back soft, a glass wall doesn't, the book explained it with complicated music comparisons but it's just sifting between different textures.

Don't think about it--think about--echolocation also figures out speeds of swimming objects, like fish, and deadly squid, oh no, the book had goofy illustrations of tiny people with open mouths tangled in tentacles of towering jellyfish--but those aren't goofy here, isolated in the darkness with no way to communicate, the illustrations send shivers over my skin because a towering jellyfish, or dead skeletons, or a gaping maw in the seafloor could be right there, just outside my touch and I start panicking and shaking and no I push those walls up, push those walls around me we're just going to visit Sta's place this shouldn't be that hard push those walls up--Ange knocks on a door. The vibrations pulse through my bones.

***

The whole time at Sta's house, I'm like an urchin on a precipice, spines swinging about for danger, but the real danger lies in plummeting, not something trying to eat me.

Sta's living room glows pink; neon paint stains the whole ceiling. Tiny glass bubbles filled with glowing, crab-orange ink lay inset into the corners of the squat table. The couch backing boasts garlands of neon yellow papers braided into likenesses of kelp.

Her kitchen has tiny glass bubbles strung everywhere--pale pink lights dot the counter, magenta ones bob against the ceiling, sand-yellow lights illuminate the insides of every cupboard.

I skim my hands over the bumpy floor, a midnight blue mixed so lightly with luminescent paint it could be the sea's surface seen from far below.

I could fall in love with Sta's house.

I wanna live here forever.

But right outside awaits the claustrophobic dark.

And I'm not prepared to defend myself from the claustrophobic dark.

I peep out of the kitchen to the hall, an eerie wood-orange, glass orbs glued or puttied into the corners of all the doorframes. I paddle to the doors of both rooms, probably bedrooms, I don't peer inside either but my hands itch to see how Sta decorated the place where she dreams.

I return to the kitchen, Sta's still talking to Parro and Ange in the living room, they've got the door open to the pitch black so I avoid going any closer, fins quivering.

Sta's stove utterly confuses me. I flutter about it; the pink paint around the knobs, the scribbled doodles on the counter--those don't bother me. Just, there's no place to put a pot. The top is rounded, made of dark ceramic with no obvious heating pads. There's no filter overhead to catch loose food particles.

A pulse vibrates from the front room, so I peek through the archway. They've shut the door, finally. So I swim into the living room. I sink to the couch, wiggle my wrist fins. Sta, Ange and Parro still talk by the doorway. I glance over the walls, the pale paint blocking out the oppressive black. I don't spot any holes through the gray into the deep sea, but I still shiver. What if a towering jellyfish comes along, and tangles tentacles around Sta's house, then rips it off its anchoring ropes? What if it carries away the house with us in it, shakes it about and breaks all Sta's glowing orbs, then drops us into a canyon?

Only, because of all the shaking, the couch and table have barricaded the doorway and halfway embedded into the glass, and the four of us can't pull them out fast enough before Sta's teardrop house crashes to the canyon floor and shatters to pieces. What if my brother and his boyfriend and Sta all die in the crash, but I don't, I'm just totally alone in a canyon at the bottom of the ocean, and I have to swim up totally blind, possibly bleeding and with one leg broken, protecting myself from the towering jellyfish and the stinging tentacles guarding the canyon by bringing up chunks of glass walls to cover myself, then I have to swim clear up to the surface and tell Mum and Da and Wrass what happened?

Sta signs something, and I jolt. But Ange signs back, "that sounds lovely."

"Nudibranc," Parro signs, paddling toward the kitchen, "we're going to bake cookies now."

I nod. I swim carefully from the fuzzy couch, checking the front door and the glowing ceiling, like they'll give me any warning about the impending arrival of a towering jellyfish.

Sta says something aloud, ducking into the kitchen.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with that," Parro signs toward the kitchen, also speaking aloud. He pauses. Then signs it again, more slowly. Swimming up behind him, I catch Sta signing it back, fingers awkward.

She laughs. "I'm baby," she signs. Then flails her arms about.

Then we make cookies. Not brittle cookies. Sta gets out a soft gray paper, with glowing yellow ink curly-cuing a recipe for Guppy Butter Flakes (including no actual guppies). She putties it to the counter, then starts calling out things and pointing. I hover in the doorway, studying the stove, eyes widening when Ange opens it like a cupboard drawer and adjusts a rack inside.

"Nudibranc," Parro signs, pulling my attention to him, by the counter studying the recipe. "Could you get the mixing bowls out? Sta doesn't organize anything, so you'll probably have to search everywhere."

I nod, and duck to the closest cupboard under the counter to tug it open. "Ange," Parro signs and talks at the same time, "you want to make the butter frosting?"

Sta says something from the stove. I pull out a stack of plates to check behind them, finding only a haphazard pile of shiny lids. I put the plates back, shut the cupboard.

"I asked Nudibranc to find the mixing bowls," Parro signs, vibrations bouncing from his mouth.

Sta laughs. She signs "fun" and glances at me. I don't know what she's expecting. So I slowly nod. And flutter to the next cupboard, back fins buzzing.

***

With Sta's kitchen supplies strewn all over the counter, Parro informs me our kitchen stuff comes from the surface, is half-designed for land use, and frequently annoys him.

"Okay," I sign.

"So this'll be fun," he signs, and turns around to help Ange count out scoops of something yellowish (butter?) from a clear sack. I roll out my neck. Sweep my gaze over the counter, hands hesitating.

Sta's kitchen stuff looks different than ours, and I don't know how to use it, but I want to make these cookies again so I'm trying to memorize the recipe by making it right now.

Only, I can barely help make it right now, with Sta's kitchen bowls, their tiny holes to stuff ingredients into, the strange tubular lids that screw together, so you can stick two mixing bowls together and push the button to open a flap on the inside of the lids so you can dump things from one bowl into the other without spilling anything, the way you set everything sideways so the floating ingredients float inside the container and the sinking ingredients sink inside the container and the tiny holes stare sideways so nothing spills out.

Even her pots look like bulbous caves, with square side holes and high, rounded tops and flat bottoms. They've got a handle that you snap inside the square side hole, but the handle also has a suction tube inside it, so you can pour things out of the pot, through the handle.

Her measuring spoons look like crab pincers. I've never used measuring spoons, since everything just floats out of them. I just guess whenever I'm supposed to measure something.

The mixing bowls have different, rough-edged textures inside them, designed to beat liquid ingredients or sift flour with sugar when you shake them.

She has some two-sided pots so you can flip them over part way through cooking, so food doesn't get stuck to one side.

She has pots that snap open and closed.

Her stove has two compartments to cook things inside of.

Half her mixing bowls roll around the counter like bird eggs.

She has a timer that you twist to measure how long to cook something, since you can't see inside the stove compartments.

I flutter by the counter and try to take it all in, my back fins quiver and it all makes my nerves prickle because I don't know how they work but I want to try making guppy butter cookies again, they sound much softer and less tooth-crushing than brittle cookies I flex my fingers, roll my ankles.

"You okay?" Sta signs to me. "You..." she wiggles her fingers, in a fair approximation of how I keep tapping my fingers together, tap-tap, and splaying my wrist fins then tucking them back.

"I thought I was good at cooking," I sign.

Her eyes go half-lidded.

I motion to the gadgets all over the counter or floating to the ceiling. "Different," I sign, "than home."

She nods. I'm not sure if she understands. Maybe she does.

Parro and Ange make fast vibrations so I turn around and somehow they've gotten pale batter all over Parro's shirt and Ange's swiping at the water with his shirt to collect all the greasy gobs of cookie batter before they lose themselves in the magenta ceiling orbs.

I turn back around, searching through Sta's kitchen gadgets for something to clean up spilled cookie batter. My eyes flit over the mixing bowls, spoons, pots, the recipe paper. All useless, I think.

"Boys," Sta signs, her gills flapping.

I stare. "What?"

"Boys," she signs again, then dramatically rolls her eyes in a circle. "You live," she points at Parro and Ange behind me. "How?"

My swim bladder knots itself up and I nearly balloon to the magenta orbs against the ceiling, become one of them with my flushing cheeks. I shrug. I shrug again. "I don't know, who else would I live with?" I stop, fingers fluttering, what does that even mean? But at Sta's uncomprehending stare, my heart calms slightly. "They're okay," I sign.

Sta rolls her eyes again. I paddle hard to keep from floating away, skin hot.

***

We eat cookies. We sit on the couch. I keep checking the ceiling and the door for any proof of a towering jellyfish come to rip up Sta's house full of neon paint and batter-stained kitchen gadgets.

We eat cookies, buttery and sweet, the recipe said something about using food dyes to color the frosting with stripes like a mud guppy, but we didn't do that. We left the uncolored frosting in a bowl, snapped open wide so we could scoop our cookies into it. I ate one cookie without frosting, buttery and sweet. I ate one with, buttery and sweet and squishy and thick and too rich.

My heart aches like my mouth does with the frosted cookie, too rich without a bottle of milk for my tongue to calm down. Because I wanna live here forever and make cookies every day and ask Sta how she gets colored orbs and why she painted the ceiling pink and the kitchen floor midnight blue and if she's ever afraid of towering jellyfish or giant creatures from a dark sea canyon attacking her house.

But I don't have a bottle of milk to remedy this overwhelming taste in my heart.

I'm a sea urchin, plummeting far, far into the deep; that's bad, Sta's already got Mackere and Mackere seems nice, so keeping my spines out would make this easier, be nicer, keep people far away from me.

I wish Sta didn't know any sign language, so when we sit on the couch and talk about stupid stuff I could blend into the fuzzy cushions. Parro, Ange and Sta's moving mouths and vibrations would mean nothing, and I could pretend to stay enraptured by the batter sticking to my hands or the threads in the dark couch, until we went home, where I'd lie in bed feeling lonely and wide awake.

Instead, Parro and Ange do this thing where they sign and talk aloud at the same time, and Sta talks aloud and sometimes signs simple stuff, or Parro translates for her, and I have to sign stuff which Ange then speaks.

My head hurts, trying to keep up--what does showing teeth mean, what do half-lidded eyes mean, why's Ange started bobbing about the living room?

At some point, my swim bladder loses track of up and down.

So I subtly hold onto the couch leg with my legs.

The taste of butter and sweet lingers in my mouth and I want another cookie (without frosting), but nobody else is getting any more cookies.

The floor vibrates sometimes.

What if a creature has come in the dark because it can taste the cookies and wants to break down the wall to get them?

I nod along with Parro's talk about the store and all the customers and Ange jumping in about Cora, a regular, buying clothes for her grandkids even when she doesn't know their sizes, and Sta talking about her job cleaning the concert venue and booking acts and her asking me how I think the store's doing--my brain blanks out and I say "good" but at least I have the excuse that Sta's still learning how to sign so I can say simple stuff to try and help (how is the store doing? How do I think the store's doing? It's doing pretty...about the same as always, the store is doing, yes, so, good) her learn and Sta's wrist fins flutter making my ribs flutter whenever she's trying to remember the correct signing words and I think up a question to ask, "where's Mackere right now?" but I don't know how to jump in, Ange and Parro keep bouncing off each other too fast, is my question too off topic, they're talking about the Squid Trumpets going on tour, wait maybe that's a weird, invasive question to ask anyway (is it? Maybe I can word it more like "I was wondering where Mackere is right now," is that better?), my cheeks are burning again at Sta throwing her head back and laughing, my ankle winds tighter around the edge of the couch to tether myself there, back fins quivering.

My head aches.

Parro turns to glance at me.

"What?" I sign.

"Did you want to go to the concert next week?"

I hesitate. "I don't know," I haven't thought about it. I rush to add, "who else is going?" and my motions get half-garbled so it's more like "who else swims?"

"Us three. Mackere, depending on if she can get work off, and maybe Mackere's brother."

I nod. Is Mackere at work right now then? "Maybe I'll go. If Ange buys me something for sitting there and watching people hit things and open their mouths."

Ange laughs. "What do you want, a hat or a t-shirt?"

"A...doll?"

Sta says something. Parro and her talk back and forth. Ange signs to me, "Sta asked what you said, Parro explained, now Sta wants a doll too."

My cheeks burn.

I'm a sea urchin in free fall; never mind that, I'm actually a hermit crab without any shell, squishy and exposed, sinking deeper and deeper into the mud.

"I guess I'll go if you get me a doll."

"Anyone up for more cookies?" Parro signs/says aloud. "I'm still hungry."

"Eat!" Sta signs, and says more than that aloud.

Parro translates for her, "eat as many as you want, since I've got no place to keep them."

They rush to the kitchen and I unhook my ankle from the couch and follow, my swim bladder's still trying to balloon me to the neon pink ceiling.