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

by A. L. Knorr

  “Antoni doesn’t know anything?” Georjie ventured, quietly.

  I shook my head. “How can I tell him the truth?”

  “I understand why you’re scared to, Targa,” she replied, turning and drawing her knees up so she was sitting on one hip and facing me. “But if you want to have a life with him, how do you think you can keep your identity a secret forever?”

  “My mom did it.”

  “Yeah, but your mom lost her husband about nine years into their marriage. You don’t know what would have happened if your dad had lived.”

  I knew this also, and I did have my doubts about any mermaid’s ability to keep her identity a secret for any extended period of time to the person she was closest to. Trina, my grandmother, had needed to use her voice on Hal to keep her secret.

  “You said you never wanted to use your voice on him ever again,” she reminded me.

  “I know what I said.”

  “Do you still feel that way?”

  “Of course, I do. I already had to tamper with his memory once just to get him to stop asking questions about the day we both drowned.” It made me ill to think about it. Messing with someone’s thoughts and memories made me feel like an abuser.

  “What is the downside of telling him, Targa? The worst thing that could happen?”

  I didn’t answer. She knew what the worst thing was––losing Antoni.

  “Now think about the worst thing that could happen if you don’t tell him, but he discovers it on his own, as he’s likely to do if you’re together for long enough.” She paused. “You’d be forced to use your voice on him, or face how he’d feel when he discovers that you’ve been hiding your identity from him since the night you guys drowned.”

  I shot her a venomous look, not intended for her but at the thought of that very scenario. “I thought you were on my side?”

  “I am, Targa. And I think you’re making a mistake if you don’t tell him.”

  I couldn’t turn the question around on her, ask her if she’d tell Jasher her secret, because Jasher already knew. Envy for her situation filled me like a mouthful of lime juice.

  “And if you and Jasher don’t end up together, and you met someone new, would you tell them what you are?”

  “I would,” she said, easily.

  “But it’s not the same,” I almost wailed. “You don’t shapeshift into something totally different from what you are right now. You draw healing power from plants, and watch fairies hatch from water droplets. You’re… quaint.”

  Georjie laughed, and I might have too if I didn’t feel sick at the thought of telling Antoni what I was.

  “What is so repellant about what you are?”

  “I’m not fully human, Georjie. You have magic, too, but you’re still human, you and Saxony both. If Antoni and I have a baby, and that child is a girl, she will only be half human, too. Don’t you agree there is a pretty significant risk that Antoni won’t be happy about that?”

  Georjie’s brows shot up. “Absolutely!”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re not helping.”

  She shook her head. “You misunderstand, Targa. There is absolutely a risk in revealing your true nature to the man you love, I do not deny that. And yes, that risk is bigger than the risk Saxony or I would ever take. But if you don’t tell him, then you’re making that decision for him, and if he ever learns that, he might resent you for it. Wouldn’t you?”

  I couldn’t answer out loud because I knew that I would. I would be extremely upset with Antoni for taking away such a choice away from me.

  “If you were the human, and he was a… mer-dude,” Georjie went on, “and he told you what he was, would you leave him?”

  “There are no mer-dudes, Georjie.”

  “Humor me. It’s hypothetical.” She studied my face. “Would you leave him?”

  I thought about this but found it difficult to put myself in the position of being only human, of remembering what that felt like. “I don’t think I can honestly answer that because it’s one of those things where you have to be in the situation to know what you would do…”

  She sensed the answer waiting in the wings. “But?”

  “But, no. I don’t think I would. He’s Antoni, and I adore him.”

  Silence stretched out between us before Georjie said, “Well, that’s something then, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t a guarantee, and if it wasn’t a sure thing that Antoni wouldn’t abandon me and break my heart, then it wasn’t enough. I had just lost my mother, I couldn’t bear to lose him, too.

  Finally, Georjie and I said good night to one another and she slipped out to her own suite, she to her dreams, and I to mine.

  13

  Georjie’s visit flew by. We minimized the time we spent doing school work and I canceled all my business meetings with Hanna and Marian in favor of spending time with my friend. I took her to all my favorite places in Gdansk, enjoying showing her around my new home city and delighting in how much she enjoyed it. We had dinners with Antoni, and long walks along the beaches and canals. Georjie’s friendship was a balm to my heart and our holiday was just the peaceful break I needed...until it wasn’t peaceful anymore.

  “Targa,” Georjie’s whispered call and touch at my shoulder woke me with a startle. “Sorry,” she said, “but do you hear what I hear?”

  I lifted my head from the pillow, now wide awake and body tense, more from the alarm in Georjie’s whisper than anything else.

  Distantly, there came the sound of breaking glass through the open window.

  “That was downstairs,” Georjie said. “Like down-downstairs.”

  “Ground floor storeroom?” I guessed, wondering if Sera or Adalbert were up looking for something and tripped in the dark. I was used to hearing the occasional sounds of one or the other of them moving about late at night or early in the morning, which might explain why I’d missed the sounds but Georjie hadn’t.

  There were a few dull thuds, muffled by distance and levels of building, but unmistakable. It sounded like wood hitting against wood. Okay, those were not normal ‘staff’ noises.

  Like a couple of ghosts, Georjie and I padded to the window to listen, where more distant sounds could be heard. We stared at one another in the dark, wondering what to do. I didn’t want to call the police until I was sure it wasn’t a staff member fumbling in the dark.

  Without speaking, we made for the door, me in plaid cotton pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, and Georjie in a pair of knee-length sleep shorts, a long-sleeved t-shirt and slippers. I slipped my toes into my sneakers when we got to the door.

  Opening the door a crack, we listened for sound in the hall, but all was quiet. Walking down the hallway to the main staircase, Georjie followed me silently. When we reached the doorway to the private passage and steps leading into the ground floor, I paused to turn the handle slowly.

  Swinging the door open, we listened.

  Nothing.

  I didn’t turn on the light as we made our way downstairs, but went slowly. I avoided the step which I knew to be a squeaker, warning Georjie with hand gestures to do the same. She nodded and stepped over it with ease, those long legs coming in handy.

  “It came from that side,” Georjie mouthed at me in the gloom, as she pointed to the workshop.

  I nodded. Whatever we’d heard, it had been coming from that corner of the house.

  Tiptoeing to the door leading to the workshop, I put my hand on the handle and listened. Still nothing. I began to turn the handle.

  Georjie put her hand over mine and sent me a questioning look. I knew what she was thinking. Were we being stupid? If we were regular teenagers, I might have thought so, but we were supernaturals. True, there was no plant life on which to call for Georjie, but my siren voice was powerful enough to stop anyone except another siren or a descendant of a siren in their tracks. I also had superhuman strength, and wasn’t afraid.

  I gave Georjie a look that I hoped translated a
s ‘it’ll be okay,’ and she lifted her hand from mine and nodded.

  Opening the door in a quick movement, my hand darted for the light switch.

  The workshop flooded with artificial light.

  There was no one there, but it was clear that there had been.

  Georjie and I entered the workshop and surveyed the evidence. Drawers had been left open, and boxes carried to tables and rummaged through, their contents spread across the tabletops. Cupboard doors were open and things had been pulled out. Two sprays of broken glass lay at the base of the door leading to the backyard, and the two window panes closest to the inside lock and handle were broken. The door was still open.

  I moved toward the door, and Georjie said quietly, “Watch yourself, there. Looks like some oil was spilled on the floor.”

  A small bottle of overturned machine lubricant dripped a stream of clear oil onto the basement floor, and it was slowly spreading.

  Georjie grabbed some rags from one of the open drawers and dropped them on the oil so it wouldn’t spread farther. “Did they take anything?”

  “I really can’t tell. Last time I was down here was the day the museum guys came to get the artifacts for the exhibition.”

  “The artifacts were down here?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, they were all packaged and labeled. They took up most of this wall.” I gestured to the largest of the wooden shelving units, the one where most of the drawers and cupboard doors were open, revealing only emptiness.

  Georjie made a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat. “Why isn’t there more security?”

  “There is more than you think,” I said, pointing to the broken padlock and chain on the inside of the door. As I really focused on it, a chill settled over me. I nearly picked up the broken chain, but stopped myself when I realized I shouldn’t disturb the evidence. The broken ends revealed metal that had been bent and stretched, as well as a warped padlock. “Look at this.”

  Georjie stepped over the mess of oily rags on the floor and came over, brows drawn. Bending at the waist to get a better look, she inspected the metal. “That wasn’t snipped with bolt-cutters. It looks…almost like pulled taffy.”

  Our eyes met, the consternation on her face matched my own.

  “Who could do that?” I asked.

  “A supernatural could do that,” she said quietly, putting words to my very thoughts.

  Fear kindled in my gut the way it hadn’t earlier. Even when we’d heard someone breaking the glass and thudding around down here, I hadn’t been afraid. What human being should I be afraid of? The only human I should fear was the kind I couldn’t see coming, couldn’t anticipate. But this was different, the evidence pointed to someone with a very strange tool for stretching and twisting metal, or someone with the ability to do such a thing with their bare hands. I swallowed, and rubbed my arms with my hands.

  “We’d better let the police know,” I said.

  Georjie nodded. “It’s too bad this isn’t a dirt floor. Is there dirt outside the door?”

  I shook my head, and knew why she was asking. If there was earth for her to pick up, Georjie could look back in time and see the residual of what had happened here.

  “The walkway leading up to this door is paved.” Hope sprang in my chest. “But there’s lots of grass and dirt beside it that they could have stepped on. What if they didn’t follow the path? What if they scaled the hedge or something?”

  We went outside into the cold cloudy night. A motion sensor light blinked on above our heads as we stepped into the back yard.

  The path of paving stones led from the backyard, across to a patio where a covered seating area held patio furniture stacked and covered for the winter season. The path branched from there, one leading to the front of the house, and the other to the rear gate I used to get down to the beach.

  Georjie’s slippers went from paving stone to paving stone until we were halfway to the back gate. Bending, she scraped at the dirt beside the pathway, trying to get enough together for a handful. The ground was hard-packed and difficult to penetrate. She squatted, working at it until she had a small pile of the stuff in her palm. Standing, we both stared at the little lump of dirt.

  “Is that enough?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but it’s worth a shot.”

  I took a step back, mesmerized. Georjie had explained to Saxony, Akiko, and me that this was one of her gifts as a Wise, but I’d never seen her use it. A small gasp issued from my lips as her closed eyelids popped open, the irises gone and replaced by a blue-white glow. Her blond hair lifted from her shoulders by a preternatural wind I couldn’t feel and blew back from her temples and cheekbones, revealing her face in a way I had only seen in a photo. Her hand held steady in front of her stomach, the little pile of dirt sitting benignly in her palm.

  I couldn’t see her pupils anymore, but it seemed as though she was scanning the yard. She turned in a circle, slowly, while I stayed still so as not to distract her.

  Suddenly, her other hand snaked out to grab me by the wrist and she yanked me across the pathway to the grass, her lips open with a quick intake of breath. My heart leapt into my throat and began to sprint.

  “What is it, Georjie? You’re freaking me out here.”

  “Sorry.” Her hand upturned and the dirt fell to the ground. Her eyes lost the ethereal glow and her focus returned to my face. “A residual passed right through where you were standing, and I didn’t think, I just moved you. It’s too weird seeing a residual pass through a living body.”

  “So it worked? You did see someone?”

  She shook her head. “Only a momentary flash. He came from that gateway and must have used the path except for a second where his foot hit the ground right there,” she pointed to just beyond where I’d been standing. “I only saw him for a flash, the time it took for him to take half a step. And he had his back to me.”

  “Well, it’s something. We know it was a man. Did you see anything else? What color was his hair?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t see in color, but he had a hood on anyway, so I can’t even tell you if it was dark or light colored.”

  We gazed at each other, disappointed. “Shall we try outside the gate?”

  “There’s nothing but sidewalk out there, it’s all paved.”

  Her shoulders drooped a little. “Well, we got something anyway.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Something we can’t tell the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll ask us how we know, and what are you going to tell them? That you have magical powers gifted to you by the fae? They’ll think you’re crazy.”

  “No, of course not,” she replied, as we moved back inside the building. “But we could say that we saw something from your window. It looks into the backyard, so it’s plausible, right?”

  “But how are you going to explain that you saw him only from the back?” I closed the door behind us.

  “I’ll say I saw him leaving.”

  “And when they ask you the color of his clothing?”

  “I’ll just say it was dark, and I couldn’t tell.”

  “There’s a motion sensor light out there.”

  “Right.” Georjie frowned. “Well, his hoody was dark, it could have been navy or brown, black or gray, or maybe really dark red or purple. I’ll tell them that it all happened too fast for me to register the color, just that it was a dark tone. Plus we were frightened.”

  “You were frightened,” I knocked her on the shoulder, playfully. But I agreed her explanation to the police could work

  “I was, actually,” she admitted, dimpling. “But kind of excited, too. Is that wrong?”

  I shook my head and chuckled. “I wasn’t frightened until I saw the chain. Still a little freaked out. Next time, it’ll be a code or a combination.”

  “I don’t think that would make any difference. If they can bend metal like this, why couldn’t they do that to a combination lock too?”

&nbs
p; “I was thinking one of those electronic panels where you have to punch in a code.”

  “You’d have to change out the whole door for that,” she said.

  “Exactly. What are glass window panes doing in a ground floor door, anyway?”

  “This door could be eighty years old for all you know, and you said the vehicles were kept in a super secure garage, so I guess this old workshop wasn’t really in need of better security until now.”

  “Yeah, I guess. They’re going to examine the lock. The police, I mean.”

  She nodded. “I know. But there’s nothing we can do about that.” We scanned the mess. “Better leave everything be for now. It’s a crime scene, right?” Georjie crossed her arms. “I’m freezing.”

  “Let’s go. I’ll call them right now.”

  “What do you think they were after?” Georjie asked as we made our way upstairs.

  “From the fact that nothing was taken, and the only things of much value in that room were the artifacts from the wreck, that’s my guess. They wanted the stuff from The Sybellen. There were some valuable pieces, so it kind of makes sense.”

  “I guess it was all over the papers,” Georjie surmised in a whisper as we closed the basement door. “Everyone in Poland would have known that this house probably had valuable stuff in it.”

  I frowned. “Maybe.”

  I didn’t know if that was a detail that had been printed in any articles, but it was a fact that wouldn’t have been difficult to find. Novak staff, salvage team staff, journalists, museum staff, lots of people knew where the artifacts were stored. I made a mental note to check the press articles. Martinius had a scrapbook with them in his office, not to mention all the digital files which had been pulled together for a slideshow for the party. If it was noted publicly, that would throw a discouragingly wide net, but if it wasn’t, then at least the police could narrow their search a little bit.

  “I have to wake up Adalbert and Sera,” I said as we made our way back to the main staircase.

  “Right. They speak Polish,” she added. “I’ll come with you.”

  We crossed the manor to the suite Adalbert and Sera shared so they could call the police.