This is Cast of Wonders, the young adult fiction podcast featuring stories of the fantastic. Welcome. Episode 634. I'm Catherine Inskip, your editor and host. Our story for today is Pearl Diving by J. L. Akagi, a Cast of Wonders original. J. L. Akagi is a queer Japanese-American currently based in Brooklyn with their wife, daughter and two chihuahuas.
Their work has appeared in several venues, including Strange Horizons and Correo. This story is narrated by Essie Bats. Essie is the chronically sleepy bat ghoul of the Pacific Northwest. They are a mixed Korean-American genderqueer woman with invisible disabilities, including narcolepsy, which means most afternoons require cozy catnaps with their black cat familiar. They are a neurodivergent artist and musician who sings and plays improv theremin.
As a voiceover artist, they have role-played for tabletop RPG actual play podcasts and streams, and equally enjoy bringing characters to life by simply reading stories to children. Reach out to them about narration opportunities on Blue Sky at batspajamas.bsky.social and see their streams at twitch.tv slash batspajamas. And now, we've a tale to tell.
Pearl Diving Makoto Matoba is enduring her third ever scaly day when her mother drives her down to the shore. She hasn't yet adjusted to the itchy, scratchy rash covering her legs. nor the tight agitation crawling over her entire body. Even worse, the Los Angeles pollution is thick today, which irritates her developing gills. Mako doesn't get periods. She's not that kind of girl.
But she imagines this is what cis girls feel like when they do. Cramping, an urge to retreat into themselves like hermit crabs. When Mako and her mother arrive at Toe's beach, the sunset shines through the thin haze stretched over the California sky. Mako lowers her feet from the dashboard to sit up a bit at the sight of the pink sky meeting the flat gray line of the ocean. They clamber out of the car, and Mako eyes the water, scowling.
Mom, don't make me pearl dive today. I can't. I just can't. What? Mako's mother, Etsuko, a name which means joyful child, is a cheerful woman. And she laughs at her daughter's brattiness. What did you say? I can't hear you. Mako knows her mother can hear her just fine. That she's just pretending. but she cups her hands around her mouth and screams. I don't want to pearl dive today! She screams so hard that her eyes water. She rubs at them in embarrassment.
her mom pauses and kneels in the sand before her she's always been understanding of mako's boundaries what's wrong mako mako looks up at the shore to double check that they're alone then covers her face with both hands blushing into her palms. Mom, I'm... I'm scarily all over. It itches. It's okay. Mako's mom is of the opinion that everything about her daughter's body is okay. I'm going to let you in on a secret. The scales itch way less in the water. Mom, please.
Mako mumbles into the shell of her hands. I don't want anyone to see. Who to see? The fish? Me? I'm scaly too. Look. Mako's mom thrusts her leg out and wiggles her foot around. Mako doesn't have to look to know her mom's skin is covered in glittering scales like sequins. Mako throws her hands off her face, more exasperated than embarrassed now, which was maybe her mom's plan. God, mom, can you not? Her smile turns mischievous. I cannot. Square.
Bolan. Anchor. Mako rolls her eyes. I'm not doing this with you again. It takes some bribery. Mako can never refuse the promise of a taco truck. But Mako is eventually lured into the water. Though she had never admitted it, Maka was glad she agreed. She forgot how good it feels to be in water. The salt and buoyancy of the sea alleviates some of her pain, washes away any leftover car sickness and itchiness.
They swim out until her mom suddenly announces that they've come far enough. Time to rest. Mako floats for a bit on her back, thinking about how the water inside her body is the same as the water of the ocean. After a few minutes of calm, it's time to dive. You have a swim organ now, a body part that helps you stop floating, her mom says. Can you feel it? Mako thinks about her body, but...
Can't find anything. I don't know. Where is it? It starts just below your ribcage, Mako's mom pokes her stomach, and presses up against your back. Mako isn't sure if she feels it at all. How do you feel your own stomach or heart? Much less an organ she didn't even know she had. But she nods anyway. Okay. Now try squeezing it, the same way you squeeze a muscle. Mako tries. She tries so hard she holds her breath. She can't. She shakes her head, hating herself and her body.
and the whole world for making her be herself in this body. Keep trying, Mako's mother coaxes. Mako balls up her hands, tenses her jaw and her nose. She clenches her biceps and her thighs and her calves and her toes, and then her stomach, and something else. Something behind her stomach. A thin, shivery feeling courses up her spine. As if pulled down by an invisible hand, her body sinks into the ocean. She pops right back up. In her excitement, she forgot to keep squeezing. Mom!
she exclaims when she surfaces. I did it! Treading with just her strong legs, Mako's mom takes her face into her palms and proclaims, My smart, brave daughter. Of course you did. Come, I have something to show you. Into the deep they go, down into the dark, velvety ocean. Mako finds that the harder she clenches, that odd organ nudging between her spine and stomach, the faster she sinks.
It scares her a little. She has gills, sure, but they aren't developed enough to be fully usable, so she still has to hold her breath. Her mom is a more sure swimmer. She glides forward easily as if the water moves just for her. She guides Mako down, down to a big craggy reef. Humans might mistake it for a misshapen barnacled rock, but it's not. It's a cluster of oysters, all stuck together.
The two of them search the oysters for pearls. Her mom carefully mouths open each one. Though her teeth are as sharp as a shark's, she only uses them to leverage open the shells. Then she releases each oyster alive with a smacking kiss. Mako's teeth are still human. They aren't as tough as her mom's, so it takes her more time to open the shells. Neither of them finds any pearls.
Mako's mom waves her hands to guide her attention away from the empty oysters. She points to an opening like a dark cave just below the oyster reef. The water is colder here, and Mako is running out of air. Her lungs feel tight, like they might burst or cave in, she isn't sure. She gestures that she wants to go back up, but her mom shakes her head. With her hands, Mako's mom digs into the sand until she draws out something.
Black and slimy. Is it seaweed? They come up together, two black heads bobbing on the waves, slick and wet like seals. Help me carry this to shore. her mom says, handing Mako a corner of this seaweed clump. I have one more thing to show you. They swim back under the setting sun, and when they reach land, it's totally dark. Now there's just the moon and the distant lights of the industrial planet down the shore. The mass of seaweed ends up not being seaweed at all, but a silk kimono, inky black.
Her mom heaps the sodden robe into Mako's arms while she fixes a fire in the dry sand of the beach. Hold it, she warns, but don't put it on. Like I would, Mako shakes out the kimono. It's crusted in sand and salt. It's wet. Her mom laughs again. Are you surprised? I've been keeping it in the ocean. Mako squints out towards the sea. Then in her mom.
She's used to how weird her mom is, but there's usually a reason for it. Mako's mom is odd, not irrational. Why the ocean? Because that's where it's kept. she says, as if this is obvious. Then, unusually serious, she says, there's a story I need to tell you, but I'm not sure you're ready for it.
It's almost exactly how she introduced the idea of scaly days to Mako three years ago, and exactly how she warned Mako that she might take after her mom, that she might not be human. Mako says now what she said both times before. I'm ready. Mako's mom takes the kimono from her daughter and lays it out on the sand near the fire. They settle onto it like a picnic blanket, and Mako is shocked to find that it's dry.
She opens her mouth to ask about it, but her mother is staring into the fire, the cataracts in her eyes giving them a pearly fog. The firelight dances in those eyes now, and Mako goes quiet. Still. Waiting. My mother, Mako's mom begins, and her mother's mother, and all the mothers before were pearl divers. Mako knows this already, and tells her mother that she's repeating herself. Her mom teasingly kicks her knee with her bare foot. But we weren't always like this. Like us.
She pauses here, as if checking to see if Mako understands. Long ago, when our family lived in Japan, when the spirits lived closer to people, our great ancestor was a pearl diver like us. Yes. but a human one, a human woman known for her courage. She was the daughter of a samurai, and bravery ran in her blood. She was also known for her exceptionally large lungs.
She could stay underwater for 40 minutes and still have air to spare. Mako's mom sweeps her arms wide as she delivers this. Like even she's amazed by the greatness of their ancestry. Mako has to dodge her elbow. When her father died, she was able to support her mother and six sisters with her pearl diving. But it wasn't her courage or her wealth that made her exceptional, Makoto. Do you know what it was? Her hard work, Makoto guesses.
No. She pounds her fist over her chest. Her heart. Her large lungs and their great air capacity allowed her a kindness that other pearl divers didn't have. Where most would use their knives to cleave the oysters in two, our ancestor would ease their shells open, carefully pluck out the pearl with her soft fingers, and then let the oysters go, still alive. Like we do.
Mako interrupts. She's leaning forward on her palms now, listening intently. Yes, like we do. She lays a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Their skin is cold, still dewy from the sea. But a small warmth kindles between them. And one day, she dove deep into a strange new place. There, she found a reef teeming with oysters. In the first oyster she opened, she found a black pearl, so rare.
Elated, she opened the next and there, another black pearl. She filled her basket to the brim with pearls, each as black as your hair. She reaches out to tug at her daughter's hair. which has formed salty clumps over her shoulders. Mako shoves her mom's hand off, but not meanly. It was the most pearl she'd ever collected in one dive, her mom goes on. But she had dove too deep.
so deep that she couldn't feel the storm brewing above water when she tried to surface she was in the midst of a great tsunami she was tossed by waves a thousand miles tall Each time she swam towards what she thought was the surface, she'd be tossed in the opposite direction, flung sideways and mixed around until she lost track of up and down. Mako curls tighter into herself.
She might have drowned in that storm, but the sea took pity on her. It pulled her down into its darkness and gave her a kimono made of fine black silk. This kimono that we sit on now. Lovingly. Her mom smooths her palms over the silk. Under the collar, there is the Matoba family mon, stitched in silver thread, with three swirls going in different directions like waves meeting to form a whirlpool.
Our ancestor wrapped it around her shoulders. This kimono, this gift from the deep. The sea made her one of its creatures. Mako was quiet for a long moment. Then she scrunches up her nose. Mom, she begins doubtfully. You don't have to believe me, she interrupts, palms raised. But when the time comes...
Any Matoba pearl diver can wear the kimono and receive the same gift from the ocean, so long as she's willing to receive it. Mako unfolds her knees and crawls off the kimono towards the fire her mom built. She shoves her feet into the sand. It's warm from the sun and the fire. What if I don't want to? What if being a creature of the sea just isn't... me? Her mom shrugs. That's your right, too. A long silence, then. Longer than any before. Just the crash of waves. Mom?
Mako? I'm hungry. Then you will eat. Her mom stands, plants a kiss on her daughter's head, and sweeps up the kimono. Let me just return this to the reef, and we'll be on our way. She carries the kimono from the fire down to the shoreline. When she is just a shadow on the moon-glittering water, she draws the kimono around her shoulders. It settles around her body, but in a new shape.
Gone are her waist and legs. Gone is her human body. Mako watches her mother, now lithe and slippery, slink into the ocean. She sees a flash of moonlight reflect off something after her mother dies. Is it a tale? This is a lovely, gentle story of family togetherness. I love how the mythology of the piece never overshadows the very human realities of puberty, scaled or otherwise. But more than that, I love the joyous acceptance of a trans child by her mother.
and how passing on generational law is no less and no more important than a good taco truck after a swim. Mako is awkward and uncertain. She's at an awkward and uncertain age. But her mother's confidence in her really shines through, as does the sense that Mako is free to walk or swim whatever path in life she chooses. It's a really positive piece.
and a nice one to have published just ahead of the United Kingdom's Mother's Day. For those of you who celebrate Mother's Day later in the year, consider this an early treat. Join us again soon. We love bringing you the best audio fiction week after week. but we can't do it without your support. Your donations pay our authors, our narrators, our servers and our staff. Please consider supporting us with a monthly donation through either PayPal or Patreon.
You can also review us on Apple Podcasts, request us on Spotify and consider the stories we publish for award consideration. There are lots of ways you can help. You can join the discussion on the EA Discord and visit us on Blue Sky at castofwonders.org. Come say hello. Cast of Wonders is brought to you by Editor Catherine Inskip, Assistant Editor Alicia Caporasso.
Associate editors Rebecca Ahn, Tanya Adelit, Amy Brennan, Kappa Cobb, Becca Miles, Ray Oh, Samuel Poots, Emma Smales, Denise Sudau and Rin Yee. Our editorial assistant is Amy Brennan. and our audio producer is Jeremy Carter. Cast of Wonders is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, 501c3 non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons.
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