Salt & Stone: A Water Elemental Novel & Mermaid Fantasy (The Siren's Curse Book 1)

by A. L. Knorr

  I swallowed down a cold feeling at these words and resisted the temptation to say, “I’m not a Novak.” It would be a bad idea to even mouth the words when so many eyes were on us. Instead, I forced my lipsticked lips into a smile and stood for the cameras for a minute, wanting to shrink inside my coat and slink into the museum.

  “Targa!” One of the journalists caught my attention as she held a small recording device out toward me. “Where is you mom, Mira Novak—will she be joining us tonight?”

  Antoni put out a hand and spoke to her politely in Polish; the journalist nodded and asked another question back in Polish. She and the others looked as though they wanted to ask me more questions, but with a hand at the small of my back, Antoni guided me into the museum.

  “The media isn’t allowed inside at this point,” Antoni whispered in my ear. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to run from them all evening.”

  I was stunned at the realization of how many people wanted to know more about me. I wasn’t anybody but a teenager from a small coastal city in Canada that most of the world had never heard of. I felt like a fraud just being here, pretending that I was who they thought I was. I deeply wished from the very soles of my high heeled shoes that my mother was beside me. It was an ache that took my breath away with its intensity. If she were here, I wouldn’t be left feeling like a fraud all on my own; someone who knew and shared the truth of me would be here, and that would be such a comfort.

  I watched Antoni’s face as he held out a hand to take my coat. Unbuttoning the long wool coat, I wormed out of it unconsciously, wishing suddenly and earnestly to spill all of my secrets out to him. With my mother gone, I felt isolated and burdened under the weight of what I was, under the weight of who all these people thought I was. The one person who knew absolutely everything about me, who knew what had brought me to this moment in my life, was gone.

  “Wow, Targa.”

  Antoni’s words snapped me out of my wistful thoughts. “What?”

  “What do you mean, what?” His eyes combed my body from the top of my updo to the hem of the turquoise and blue mermaid gown he’d gifted to me. “You look like a woman out of a fairytale. You don’t even look real.”

  “Thank you.”

  His words reminded me to relax, and that I was supposed to enjoy myself, not torture myself with thoughts of being a fraud all evening.

  I took a breath. “You look gorgeous, too.”

  “Oh, you haven’t even seen… wait.” He handed my coat to the smiling man behind the coat check counter and unbuttoned his own coat. Shucking it with a knowing look, he turned his body in a little ‘ta-da’ posture, palms out.

  His suit was dark gray, perfectly tailored to complement his shape. Beneath the suit jacket he wore a navy vest and tie; on the tie, embroidered in the centre, was one of the Novak logos––the tall-masted ship.

  “Very appropriate,” I said. “The man knows how to dress.”

  He gave a little bow, handed his jacket over to coat check, said thank you, and put out his elbow for me to take. We passed through the foyer and into the museum lobby together.

  “Miss Novak, welcome!” Abraham, dressed in a tuxedo and looking dashing, called to us from across the room. He crossed the foyer, dodging waiters carrying trays of champagne and canapés. Taking my hand, he smiled down at me. “You look simply enchanting.” He shook Antoni’s hand as well. “There are so many people I would like to introduce you to, please come.”

  For the next hour, I rubbed shoulders with the who’s who of Gdansk—old families with old money, supporters of the Novaks in some form or another. Even though I’d met some of them at the gala in the summer, I wrestled with matching names with the right faces. I plastered a smile on my face, sipped small amounts of champagne, ate interesting snacks from a high-quality fabric napkin, and tried not to say or do anything stupid or trip over the hem of my dress.

  “How unfortunate your mother couldn’t be here,” Hanna was saying to me. Her long tapered fingers shone with a French manicure as she held the delicate stem of an empty wine glass. “It must be quite an all-consuming job she and her team are working at the moment. Where did you say it was?”

  “Uh…I didn’t say. Sorry, I’m not sure if it’s confidential or not.”

  Hanna looked taken aback and blinked like a startled doe. Couldn’t blame her. Salvage jobs weren’t usually confidential, but it wasn’t impossible.

  “How intriguing,” she finally said, moving closer and lowering her voice. “It’s not got something to do with that Vanderbilt yacht accident, has it?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” I smiled nervously. The last thing I wanted was for Hanna to be ‘intrigued’ about where my mother was and what she was up to.

  I felt Antoni’s hand at my back as a waiter came with a tray to retrieve Hanna’s empty glass. While she was distracted by choosing another drink, I took the opportunity to move away.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  I smiled and said through my teeth, “If one more person asks me why my mother isn’t here, I’m going to throw a perogy at them.”

  He chuckled and made to respond when a gorgeous, willowy young woman with auburn hair and a porcelain complexion appeared from out of nowhere and threw her arms around him, speaking in Polish. She wore a strapless, peach satin gown. A fine necklace graced her collarbones and chandelier earrings dangled beside her jaw, glittering in the light. It took me a moment to recognize her as Antoni’s sister.

  “Hi Targa,” Lydia said in breaks between streams of Polish.

  “Hello, Lydia.” I wondered how she’d snagged a ticket. It wasn’t the sort of event I had thought would interest her. I stood for her cool assessment of my dress, hair, and makeup.

  “You look sweet,” she said, tilting her nose up a little. She surveyed the room through eyes hooded by extravagant false lashes. “Is your mom here? I’m dying to see what she’s wearing.”

  Antoni gave me a sympathetic smile. He’d told Lydia long ago that my mom had moved back to Canada for work. I wondered if she’d forgotten or if she was rubbing it in, then I decided I didn’t care either way.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said through a tight jaw, “I haven’t seen the exhibition yet. I keep hearing Martinius’s voice and have been wanting to watch the video the museum made.”

  I excused myself, leaving Lydia and Antoni to talk. Passing from the foyer through a set of double glass doors, I entered the darker, cooler exhibition area.

  The recorded sound of Martinius’s voice grew much louder over a soundtrack of soft music and waves. On several screens scattered throughout the exhibition space, which was more of a maze than a wide open room, Martinius was being interviewed by a Polish TV personality about the salvage and the story of The Sybellen. It was in Polish, but small English subtitles scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

  I stared at Martinius’s kind, weathered face for a while, not really paying attention to what he was saying. It was easy to miss him. Once we’d figured out that he wasn’t the enemy, he’d become a good friend for the short time he’d been alive after we’d met him. He was the only man who knew our secret, and he’d gone to the grave with it. Seeing Martinius’s face again reminded me of removing the figurehead from The Sybellen with my mom, and a wave of sadness washed over me.

  The museum had created a serpentine path across the exhibition floor, guiding people through display cases and educational showcases. Though the exhibition was primarily about The Sybellen, the story and the artifacts, numerous other shipwreck salvages were referred to, and finds brought up from those Baltic wrecks were also displayed.

  Through a crack in one of the displays, I caught a glimpse of Lydia laughing and flirting with a man in an ill-fitting tux. He was handsome, though he seemed a lot older than her. Stepping closer to the crack for a moment, I watched as he put an arm around her waist and nuzzled her just below the ear. Confused, I thought Antoni had said her boyfriend was a young blond guy from her grade–
–Makary, the fellow she’d mentioned at Christmas. I shook it off and moved on. It wasn’t my business, anyway.

  While I was poring over the case of jewelry recovered from The Sybellen, I felt a presence move beside me and a shadow fell over the glass casing. I looked up and was taken aback by the man’s appearance.

  Tall and lean, he towered over me, and may have even stood taller than Antoni. His hair was the color of snow and cut very short due to the thinning crown, yet his face was mostly unlined. His eyes were a bright crystal blue, different from mine because they seemed faded, like denim that had been washed many times. His skin was pale but bright, and his expression seemed fixed into a permanent small smile, the corners of his mouth turning up naturally. High cheekbones and a wide mouth spoke of youthfulness, but the white hair and thick glasses belied age.

  He glanced at me as I looked up, and crooked a polite nod in my direction before bending at the waist and peering curiously at one of the pieces in the showcase.

  “Gerland Chamberlain,” he said, surprising me.

  I looked around, thinking that he must have been addressing someone else, but there was nobody but us in the vicinity. He didn’t look like a fellow who might be interested in conversing with a teenage girl, more like a stuffy scholar who enjoyed brandy and cigars in a library at a gentlemen-only type of club, but I couldn’t discount the wild card in every encounter I had––my siren appeal.

  “Targa MacAuley,” I replied, scrutinizing this interesting character with an intense inquisitiveness. “You sound Scandinavian,” I guessed, keeping it broad just in case I was off base.

  “I am half Swiss. Very good.” He smiled again.

  “But Chamberlain is English, isn’t it?”

  “Ah, but there you are wrong. It is actually rooted in old Norman French. ‘Cambrelanc’ is what my ancestors would have said.”

  I liked the rasp of his voice, and thought from its rough timbre, that he was more old than young.

  “What are you doing in Gdansk?”

  His thin white brows crept up a notch. “Why, I’m here for this.” He plucked the spectacles off his face and held his hands out, indicating the display. He put his fingertips on the edge of the display case. “And in actual fact, this, in particular.”

  “The jewelry?”

  “Yes, I have a particular interest in pieces with,” he paused, “let’s call it historic significance. Most relic aficionados are interested in value. Cut, color, and clarity, and all that.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Not me. I am interested in something like this, for example.” He pointed to a pendant in the middle of the case.

  The pendant was nothing spectacular, but it was interesting to look at. A long chain held a unique design wrought in gold and set with a small teal gemstone.

  “What is that? Turquoise?” I squinted at the stone.

  “Turquoise is opaque and a deeper blue, so no, this is aquamarine. A very small piece, but interesting nonetheless, don’t you think?”

  “Sure.” I humored him. Scanning the rest of the case, I found numerous other items to be more eye-catching. A set of large amber pendant earrings, a ring made from an old coin, a choker set with opals and onyx in an alternating checkerboard for the neck. “Why are you interested in this one?”

  “It’s the stone itself that I find most fascinating, and also the glyph it is set in.”

  “What does the glyph mean? It almost looks like a letter from a foreign alphabet.”

  “It does, I know. To be honest, I am not sure, but it gives me something to research.” Gerland produced a cell phone from his breast pocket and took a photo of the pendant.

  I opened my mouth to tell Gerland that photography was forbidden by the museum when...

  “Here you are,” Antoni said as he joined us, slipping an arm around my waist. “Sorry about my sister.”

  “Family problems?” Gerland’s white brows jerked up a notch as he tucked his cell phone away.

  “No, everything is fine.” I replied. “We were just looking at this pendant,” I explained to Antoni, “the one with the small aquamarine. Wondering what the glyph meant.”

  Antoni’s eyes landed on the pendant and his face became very still. Eyes glued to the twisted gold symbol, it was several moments before he finally responded. “It means ‘anything for you.’”

  Both Gerland and I looked at Antoni with surprise.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  Antoni took a breath. “I…I’m not sure. But I’ve seen that shape before, and that’s what it means. I’m almost positive.”

  “How intriguing.” Gerland’s bright gaze locked on Antoni’s features.

  “Would you excuse us?” Antoni addressed Gerland. “There’s someone else who would like to meet you,” he said to me. “You can finish the exhibition afterward?”

  “Okay.” I nodded at Gerland. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Chamberlain.”

  “Charmed,” he replied, still staring at Antoni.

  I let Antoni lead me from the exhibition room back to the foyer to talk to a historian who was writing about Martinius’s life. For the next hour, I juggled answering questions with vague, evasive answers––normally my mother’s specialties, and wondering when Antoni and I could go home and finally be alone.

  11

  “You looked amazing tonight,” Antoni murmured into my hair as he helped me out of my coat back at the manor. “I haven’t had a chance to give you proper birthday kisses, at least eighteen...hundred of them.”

  He hung my coat, then picked me up and swung me around until we almost fell into the living room, giggling as he kept his arms wrapped around my waist.

  “Who are you?” I squirmed in his embrace, wrapping my arms around his neck. I toed out of my shoes and stood on tiptoe, pulling his face toward mine. His eyes were hooded pools of desire.

  “Still me.” His lips traced my jawline and I shivered.

  “Is this because I just crossed over into a certain legal bracket?”

  He pulled back and gazed at me and I could see the gears in his mind rotating slowly and steadily, choosing how to answer.

  “Yes?” he finally went with, but said it like a question.

  I burst out laughing. “You’re so predictable. So conservative and proper.”

  He went back to nuzzling my neck. “Do you have any more attractive descriptors to add?” He nipped my earlobe.

  “Like what? Good in the kitchen? Bilingual?”

  “I’m trilingual, thank you very much.” His voice was muffled in my neck as he stepped around me and started pulling me toward the stairs. My heart skipped and I wondered if it was finally, actually going to happen. It seemed my thinking slowed down suddenly, like a record flipped to half-speed.

  “You are?” I droned.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “English, Polish, and…?” I waited for him to fill in the missing language but I tripped over the hem of my dress as we reached the top step and Antoni hugging me to him made my thoughts fly apart. I couldn’t remember what I’d just asked. Wait, had I asked a question? Oh, who really cared.

  “It’s an ancient, very important language. Spoken now only in the sitting rooms of prestigious libraries and universities.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about anymore. As he opened the door to my rooms with one hand, I lifted a finger to trace the line of his lips, dumbfounded by the simple beautiful curves I found there. We almost fell into my bedroom.

  “Wait.” Antoni took a half step backward. “I’m mad at you.”

  I blinked, some of the fog of desire clearing. “What?”

  The sudden vacancy of his warm bulk made me feel abandoned. I reached out for him, but he pulled away, gazing down at me.

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been keeping secrets from me,” he stated softly, and took his own turn tracing the contours of my face.

  I shivered with pleasure at the touch of his fingertips but his words had jolted me out of my hunger for him. I sat d
own on the bed, trying not to let the alarm show on my face. “What are you talking about?”

  “All this time and you’ve never told me you could sing.” He shook his head like he was chastising me, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

  I allowed a small smile to creep onto my face, but I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going. “I can’t really sing.”

  Antoni laughed. “And she denies it. I knew you would. You can. I have it on good authority that your voice is rather remarkable, so good in fact that it brought my witness to tears.”

  I looked down, shyly. “I didn’t know anyone was listening.”

  “You have to sing for me.”

  My eyes flew open. “No way. Uh-uh. Not going to happen.” I got off the bed and walked to the window. I hadn’t even known I’d been singing, but if I told Antoni that, I’d look like a crazy person.

  “Why not?” Antoni looked genuinely taken aback. “I’m the one person you’re supposed to share everything with. You can sing for the fish, but you won’t sing for your sweetheart?”

  He made an adorable pout with his lower lip.

  I shook my head and pinched my lips in on themselves. I pulled the curtains. “By the way, who was that older man Lydia was hanging out with tonight?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” he muttered, but glowered. “That’s Adrian.”

  “Who is Adrian?”

  “I don’t know, I just met him tonight in passing, but I suspect he’s bad news for Makary.” Antoni made a comical tsk-ing sound. “But why are we talking about my sister’s dalliances? You are not allowed to dodge my request. Tell you what.” He put his palms together and rubbed his hands like he was preparing to negotiate. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. This was interesting.

  “I’ll reveal one of my hidden talents,” he said, “and you sing for me.”

  “You have hidden talents?”