by A. L. Knorr
“Do you think the mermaid the Atlantean stole the gem from was your mother? Seems quite a strange coincidence.”
Emun’s brows knit together. “I don’t know. The jewelry he had was not the same as the one my father had made, so I suspect it was a different siren.”
“Well, it at least explains why someone would break into the museum and steal this particular gem without stealing any of the other artifacts. They believe it to have power.”
“Yes.”
But why Antoni’s sister was the one to have stolen it was something that made no sense to me whatsoever.
“So you were the one who made a mess of the wreck, looking for the pendant?”
Emun gave me a crooked smile. “You saw my calling card, did you?”
“Mom and I went to visit the wreck one night, and we noticed that it had been recently visited by someone who seemed to be looking for something.”
“That was me.” His expression turned sheepish. “I also have to apologize for breaking into the house. I had referenced an old article published not long after the wreck was salvaged and it said that the artifacts were stored in the old Novak mansion, so I thought they might still be here. I hadn’t realized until later that they’d been transferred to the museum.”
“So you went to the museum to ask around, but it was after the pendant had been stolen already.”
“And I made the museum staff very uncomfortable and suspicious. If your hearing is anything like mine, it means you can listen to conversations not meant for you. When I heard one of the staff calling the police, I got out of there posthaste.”
I nodded. “It’s how I knew to run after you when I saw you poking around the house from the gate. The curator had called me and described the man who was there asking questions.”
“So what about you, then? If you’re not a Novak, what are you doing here?”
I told Emun about how my mother had been a salvage professional and part of the team that worked on the wreck. “Martinius found a photo of my mom in the press and thought she was Sybellen. He lured her here by granting the salvage job to the company my mom used to work for––The Bluejackets.”
“I see.” His eyes combed my face. “Well, if you look anything like you mother, then she and my mother definitely shared similar features. Even you have a remarkable likeness to Sybellen, it’s why I was so dumbfounded when I saw your face for the first time.”
“My mom suspects that it’s likely we do share common ancestry in some way, but there’s no way of knowing how we’re linked. Mermaids don’t do a good job keeping track of these things.”
Emun shook his head. “No, I should think not. But you and I could also be related, then.”
I nodded. “It’s not totally impossible.” I had to admit that as I gazed upon his intense blue eyes, pale skin, and blue-black hair, if we weren’t related it would be very surprising.
“What happened with the Atlantean after he told you the story? Did you try to take the gem from him?”
“It crossed my mind, I have to admit, but no. The more questions I asked him, the more I think it made him realize he’d made a mistake in talking about Atlanteans and mermaids as though they really existed. He didn’t know what I was, but I was awfully interested in what he had to say. He became argumentative and aggressive, so the bar staff finally bounced him. I didn’t want to seem like I was following him, so I waited a few minutes before I left. By the time I got outside, he’d disappeared and I didn’t know which way he’d gone. But that night, before I reached the hotel, I was jumped by four men. They were surprisingly strong, but thankfully I have a triton’s power and was able to fend them off.”
“That’s crazy! Why do you think they jumped you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with the stranger. Maybe it was his friends trying to wipe out the human who knew too much. They got off a few good shots and I had a headache the next day and a stiff jaw. But I never got good looks at them and I haven’t seen them since.”
“Wow,” I said, whistling under my breath.
“The stranger’s story made me realize that my father knew my mother’s nature and believed in the power of the gem. It made his actions make more sense. I had to find out for myself if the power of the gem was real, and the last time I had seen the aqua, it had been in my father’s hand. I knew he was going to get it put into a setting, and I knew he had taken to sea on a stormy night in a mad attempt to find my mother. He’d even taken me with him because he knew we were strongly connected and perhaps he was hoping she would hear my voice on the wind, or that just knowing I was aboard, she would want to prevent The Sybellen from sailing any further out into the gale. I surmised that the jewel had gone down with the ship and would likely still be there. I wrapped up my business in America and flew here as quickly as I could. I didn’t bother to research the wreck, I had been there before and knew where it was. I hadn’t realized there had been a salvage this past summer. When I saw the wreck, I could see there had been work done on it, so I tore it apart looking for the pendant just in case it had been missed. When I didn’t find it anywhere, I thought it had to be here.”
I wondered if I should tell him that I knew who had taken the pendant. I’d already said her name aloud to him while we were outside. Emun had a peaceable vibe about him, but I didn’t know how he’d react if I reminded him of the clue I’d already given––that I knew who had what he was looking for. I decided to wait a little longer.
“What do you plan to do with the pendant, when you do get it?”
His expression said that he thought it would be obvious. “I would search for my mother with a renewed vigor, of course.”
“You didn’t find her before—what makes you think you can find her now?”
“I have no idea if I will see my mother again, Targa,” Emun replied, “but if I ever do run into her again, don’t you think that I’d regret not having the pendant to give her? Even if the pendant doesn’t have the magical properties that Atlantean thinks it has, it would be wonderful to give her the gift my father thought it so important she should have. And if it does have the ability to stall the curse while she’s wearing it, then maybe she could be rescued. I have seen a siren in a salt-flush state.” He shook his head. “It’s a horrible thing to witness.”
I swallowed hard and my mouth felt chalky. Picturing my mother with a vacant expression in her eyes, behaving like an animal with no self-awareness or logic, threw a fresh wave of terror over me. If I found her like that one day, it would be worse than losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s, for her body would be strong and vital, but her mind would be lost to me. She wouldn’t even know me—it was a sentence worse than death.
A new desire was being birthed in my heart, one that echoed the want that I could see in Emun’s eyes for Sybellen.
I had proved that I had the ability to call my mother back to me. I believed that I also had the power to call Sybellen to me, but I kept that critical piece of information to myself.
Given the choice between it ending up in Sybellen’s hands or Mira’s hands, there was no question as to the only outcome that was acceptable to me.
I wanted that pendant for Mira. I wanted my mother back.
20
A knock at the door made me jump and a stealthy guilt threaded through my mind as I got up to answer. Thankful Emun didn’t have Petra’s mind-reading powers, I put a smile on my face and opened the door. Adalbert stood in the hall.
“Dinner is served, and the suite across the hall from yours has been prepared for Emun.”
Emun got up from the couch and came to the door. “Thank you, that is very kind.”
Adalbert nodded and retreated.
“Hungry?” I asked the ‘guest’ who actually had more right to own this mansion than I did.
“Famished.”
We made our way to the dining room where the smell of fish, potatoes, lemon, and dill filled the air. Adalbert and t
he other staff had moved the large dining table over to make room for a smaller, more intimate set-up near one of the windows, after they’d heard Georjie crack a joke about feeling like she was sitting down to The Last Supper with Antoni and me. It was intuitive of them, and I appreciated it. As hard as it was adjusting to a life of having a staff, it was amazing to have simple desires like this fulfilled before I even knew I had them.
“You asked me before,” Emun said as he tucked into the food, “if I knew someone named Lydia.”
My heart sank to my stomach. I’d hoped he’d forgotten. “Mm-hmm.”
“Who is she, and why did you think I knew her?” He put a forkful of fish in his mouth and watched my face.
“She’s Antoni’s––my boyfriend’s––sister.” I took a sip of water, mind racing for a believable excuse. “I just thought maybe you might have met at one point.”
“But why?”
“It was just a feeling. I was mistaken.”
He swallowed, his eyes seeming to burn into mine, but he didn’t push further. He hadn’t let it slide though, I could tell. It was grounds to think I was hiding something.
“Antoni, he is Polish?”
Relieved to be off the topic of Lydia, I nodded. “I met him in the summer, during the salvage project.”
“He is…the one?”
I knew what Emun meant by this––was Antoni the guy my siren desire had targeted to be my mate. I swallowed my bite of potato. “He is.”
The dining room went quiet. Most people would have said congratulations, or given some kind of best wishes, but Emun knew more than most people.
“He doesn’t know?” Emun speared an asparagus shoot but didn’t put it in his mouth, as he was more interested in my answer.
I shook my head. “Did any of your…mates?”
He rested the fork on his plate. “Actually, tritons are not burdened by the same vicious cycles as sirens. I’ve never felt compelled to find a mate because of the effect of salt on my system.” He gave a chuckle and his eyebrows jumped. “I say ‘tritons’ but truthfully, I don’t know if there are any others. All I can speak to is my own experience. But any romantic relationships I’ve ever had were entirely of my choosing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to feel so compelled.”
“You don’t have the salt and land cycles? You can move through the world as you choose?”
Emun nodded. “Thankfully.”
“Why do you think you haven’t run across any other tritons? Have you not spent so much time in the ocean, perhaps, since you don’t have to?”
He smiled, and his face became endearing, charming. When he wasn’t smiling, Emun looked downright intimidating. “While it’s true that I do prefer a life on land more because I like interacting with people, I have spent years in the world’s oceans and seas, and a few years ago, I actually documented my experiences in a journal. But in all the time I spent underwater, I never did run into another triton. I ran into Atlanteans and sirens, but never another like me.”
“That explains why my mother thought only females could become mer.”
He agreed. “I read once that all crocodile eggs are inherently female, and that it requires a very specific and small window of temperature for a male to form. Because of this, only one in every five crocodiles that hatch are male. Perhaps it is something like that.”
“Only with a smaller gap?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “It would be nice to learn why it is this way. It can be lonely at times, being the only one of your kind.”
“I’ll bet.” I cleaned my plate and took a drink of water. “So, you wrote your life story?”
“Parts of it, anyway.”
I was about to ask him if I could read it when he said, “It’s in no condition to be read by anyone other than me.”
“You’re not worried that the manuscript will fall into the wrong hands?”
He laughed. “It’s locked in a safety deposit vault in a bank back in Maine, but if someone actually did manage to steal it and it was leaked somehow, it would be taken as fiction anyway. So no. I don’t worry.”
“Do you plan to publish it one day?”
He lifted one shoulder.
“You should consider bringing it here so it can be part of the Novak history. That way I’ll have the right to read it,” I teased.
He chuckled and wiped his lips with his napkin. “I would let you read it one day, after it has been polished.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
He grew serious. “I can tell you, as someone who has fallen desperately in love more than once, you really should tell Antoni what you are.”
“You sound like my best friend,” I murmured unhappily before taking another swig of water. “You don’t know what’s at stake.”
“Oh, but I do.”
We looked at each other across the table as the grandfather clock in the corner ticked away the seconds of our lives.
“Might I get to meet the lucky fellow?” he asked.
The way he said lucky made me narrow my eyes. I couldn’t quite tell if he’d given it a sarcastic undertone, or if I was just imagining it.
“I don’t see a way around it. This is your home now, as much as it is mine.”
He blinked in a startled way, as though this hadn’t actually occurred to him. “How would you explain to him who I am?”
That had me stumped.
“If you’re not going to tell him what you are,” he went on, “then it will be awfully complicated to explain who I am. Don’t you think?”
My eyes narrowed again and my back stiffened. I realized now the danger Emun posed. “Am I going to have a problem with you?”
“Relax,” Emun said soothingly. “Your secret is not mine to tell. I’m no threat to your relationship. We can tell him that my family is the original owner of the pendant, that Rainer Veigel actually stole it and sold it to Mattis. That way he won’t be surprised when it is passed over to me rather than given back to the museum…once it is found, of course. I can choose a name from the manifest of sailors and manufacture a link to the family.”
“You can do that?”
He waved a hand. “This is the easy part. I have had to create many identities in my long life. I have no intention of moving into this place.” He looked around the room. “As much as it feels familiar, it long ago ceased to be my home.”
“I understand.”
Emun might be able to manufacture some right to the pendant that would satisfy the authorities well enough, but the pendant legally belonged to my mother, and that was how I intended it to stay. I said none of this, but my own secret plans had already begun to weave a web that would keep the aquamarine in my posession.
“Once it is found,” I echoed.
I was already a step ahead of Emun. I knew who had stolen it, though not why. And, although I hadn’t heard from Antoni since early this morning, I was hopeful that he had found Lydia and learned what she had had done with it. What I didn’t want was for Antoni and Emun to start talking to one another, or my plans would quickly unravel.
The sound of voices arguing in the hall brought us both to our feet, eyes wide.
“Targa? Targa!” The cry was desperate and not from a voice I recognized.
Adalbert’s voice came next, trying to calm whoever it was who was having a fit.
Bolting from the dining room, I was in the front foyer in moments, with Emun right behind me.
“Lydia!” I exclaimed.
I hadn’t recognized her voice because I’d never heard it sound like that before––hysterical. Her face was streaked with mascara and her expression was a rictus of terror. Adalbert was holding her by the shoulders as she strained forward. There was an awful keening sound coming from the back of her throat.
“Targa.” She took a gulp and made an effort to stop crying. “They took him, Targa. They took Antoni. I didn’t know where else to come. I didn’t know what to do.”
My skin felt coated with ice as her
words took root. The feeling was like watching the earth heave at the base of someone’s headstone, a burgeoning terror.
“Who?” I was at her side, an arm around her shoulder. “Who took Antoni?”
Lydia was crying and gulping too much to answer, black tears making tracks down her cheeks. Her beautiful eyes looked done up for Halloween.
“Perhaps if she sat down for a moment, took a breath.” Emun’s voice punctured the hysteria like a foghorn on a misty night. “Whatever happened, you’ll be able to tell us more clearly if you settle. Perhaps a drink of water?”
Adalbert was on it in a moment. “Right away.”
I looked up at Emun, momentarily distracted by how his voice had changed. Its soothing qualities were amplified and though it didn’t have any physiological effect on me, I felt the tension ease out of Lydia’s body and her breathing regulate. This was a magic I did not have. In order to get Lydia to calm down, I would have to give her a command that would force her brain to evacuate whatever experience she’d had, which wouldn’t do any good in this situation.
Lydia nodded and began to breathe more steadily, and her tears thinned. I escorted her into the sitting room and she perched on the edge of a chair, finally getting control of herself. I handed her a box of tissues.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Emun prompted with that same tone.
Lydia reacted like a cat under a soft touch, melting and leaning into the sound of his voice.
I wanted to send Emun away, fear clutched at my breast at what Lydia was going to say, but if Emun left, she might not be able to speak at all. I pinched my lips shut in frustration.
“Antoni confronted me earlier today,” Lydia said, still taking gulps of air. Her tortured eyes found mine. “I’m so sorry, Targa. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
From the look on her face, I guessed that Antoni hadn’t told her who had ratted on her, and she thought that I didn’t know.