by A. L. Knorr
I knew you would come, she thought at me.
My mind skipped like a rock over choppy water. Nike sleeping and behind glass was one thing. I had felt nothing from her. But Nike awake and looking at me, even in a weakened state, was throbbing with power like a banked fire. I could feel it radiating off her and it was as beautiful to me as a summer sunrise.
Emun carried her forward and Antoni pulled me aside since I seemed to have trouble moving on my own. Only when they passed by and our eye contact broke was I able to stumble after them in a state of amazed bewilderment.
Eight
Knocking softly on the bedroom door where Nike had been sequestered and cared for by Mom for the last several days, I realized the door was open a crack.
“Come in,” my mom said.
I poked my head inside and saw Mom sitting in a chair beside the bed where Nike lounged against fluffy pillows. The room was large and had its own fireplace. It reminded me of an art gallery with numerous large portraits decorating the striped wallpaper. Thick blue curtains had been pulled aside and the windows opened to allow the fresh sea air to comfort Nike.
Nike looked at me and smiled. “Targa. Come here and let me look at you.”
She patted the coverlet beside her hip with long fingers. I noted that her nails had been trimmed to normal length, which made me look at her hair—it was now somewhat shorter, too.
“Mom wanted to give you a chance to rest and gain a little weight before I harassed you with questions,” I joked. “You do look better.”
Nike’s body had absorbed all the calories she could put into it without making her system revolt. The muscular striations on her arms and chest were no longer visible. She was still painfully thin, but her skin had softened and her cheeks were less hollow.
“You would never be capable of harassment,” Nike replied.
I crossed the carpet and sat where her palm had touched. She reached out and took my right hand in both of her cool ones.
“Now I can see you better,” she said as she reached up to move a stray lock of hair away from my eye. “Coming out of hibernation like that doesn’t do one’s sight any favors. You are so beautiful, the near spitting image of your mother.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “You are beautiful, too.”
And she was. In spite of her thinness, Nike had an exotic, almost unnatural, beauty. Her skin appeared dark most of the time, in a Mediterranean way, but when light from the window passed over her as the sun broke through, she somehow appeared much paler. Her gray eyes changed the way fast-moving clouds did on a stormy day, sometimes there was a flash of blue, other times a flash of green. She had small pointed ears, one of which stood out starkly against her white hair as she’d tucked her long locks behind it. And her cheekbones were high enough to make her appear elven. Her hair seemed like a being all on its own. Now that I was closer, I could see that it was lighter and puffier than any hair I’d ever seen, each strand so fine that the lightest breeze could lift it and make it sway. It reminded me of spider’s silk without the stickiness. It now floated over her shoulders like a thick cloud, spilling across the pillow and bedsheets on either side of her hips.
She gazed at me for a time.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked when I’d grown uncomfortable under her scrutiny. Nike did not appear to have a malevolent bone in her body, but I still wasn’t accustomed to such a penetrating gaze. It felt like she could see right through me. Maybe she could. She was a sorceress, after all.
“Much better, thank you.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as a light breeze blew in through the window. “The smell of the ocean is healing me faster than any food or drink ever could.” She opened those slate-colored eyes and smiled, a small dimple appearing in her left cheek. “You watch. I’ll be back to normal within a week.”
“A week!” I couldn’t hide my surprise and glanced at my mother, who was watching the two of us with a satisfied smile, like she’d recently eaten a luxuriant dessert.
Mom nodded. “Sirens coming out of diapause don’t take too long to recover because they’ve been in a resting state. While they’re asleep, their bodies work slowly to heal injuries, or diseased and damaged tissue, allowing them to wake up feeling younger and healthier than before. Provided they get proper nourishment and ease back into exercise, of course.”
I blinked at her. “That was quite a scientific assessment,” I said. “Didn’t sound like you at all.”
“That’s because it was from Loukas’s notes,” she said, her smile disappearing at the taste of the diabolical researcher’s name in her mouth.
“Diapause,” Nike murmured. “What a strange word.”
“What do you call it?” I asked the sorceress.
“We called it anapáfsi,” she said, the word sharp and accented. “It means the long rest in our tongue.” She turned her head and looked at Mom. “Did you not teach Targa any Mer?”
Mira laughed, her eyes crinkling with genuine mirth and affection. She leaned forward. “My friend, you erased my memory of not only my language but all of the life I’d lived. How could I teach my daughter something I had forgotten?”
“Oh.” Nike closed her eyes and shook her head, putting her fingertips to her temple. “I’m sorry, of course I did.” She opened her eyes and looked at me, taking my hand with both of hers again. “Our memories return like our strength does. It takes a few days.”
“Well, a few days to be back to normal after decades in anapáfsi,” I said, trying out the strange word and liking the way it felt, “is pretty incredible.”
“Mer sounds good on you,” Mom said, leaning back in her chair again. “Nike is doing well. We should be able to leave in a week or so.”
I glanced at Nike. “I guess Mom has filled you in on our plan to go to Atlantis?”
Nike nodded. “She has.” She hesitated, and an expression I couldn’t name crossed her features. Doubt? Concern?
“What is it?” I asked.
“Breaking a curse is not a simple matter,” she said. “A curse takes on the nature of the being who created it, and curses are rarely made by those with kind hearts. If you want to do this, you should prepare yourself.”
“For what, exactly?” I hadn’t figured curse-breaking was going to be like hot-wiring a car. Not that I could do that, but there was a right way and a wrong way. This was magic, and I didn’t know the rules.
“I won’t be able to tell you exactly, but Sybellen told me what your friend Lusi said when she translated the glyphs on the ruins.”
It was strange to hear my mother referred to as Sybellen, at least by someone in the present day. I really only thought of her as Sybellen when I thought of her past. To me, she was Mira MacAuley, and she always would be. That, and Mom.
“It’s important that there are no details missed,” Nike said, “tell me everything you remember.”
“Even though Mom already explained?”
She nodded. “Yes, because you might remember a tiny, seemingly irrelevant detail that her mind thought was unimportant and so discarded it.”
“I see.” I shifted on the bed and pulled my sock feet up, crossing my legs and clearing my throat. “Well, it came in disjointed bits of information, because whoever took the photographs wasn’t concerned about the story of the curse so much as the nature of the gemstones.” I told her what I could remember, speaking slowly and trying not to forget any details. “We did bring the tablet if you want to see it,” I finished.
“Your mom showed it to me already,” said Nike. “I don’t read Atlantean either and you are extremely lucky to have found someone who did.”
“She was willing once we explained what we needed it for.”
“Yes, any siren would be,” Nike agreed. Her eyes skimmed my collarbones, my earlobes, my wrists. “I notice that your gemstone is not visible.”
I looked at my Mom, surprised that Nike would bring it up.
Mom straightened in her chair. “I hadn’t gotten to that pa
rt yet.”
“What part?”
“Targa is kind of…allergic to the stones.”
Nike’s eyes clouded as they darted from Mom to me and she became very still. “Is this true?”
I nodded. “If they touch my skin, they burn me and sap all my energy.” It was an understatement. The gemstones had felt like they were killing me when I’d been under a pile of them deep in those caves.
“Sybellen, I hope you don’t mind, but I need to speak to Targa alone.” Nike looked at Mom, her expression serious as death.
Mom’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because I need to say something that is for her ears only.”
Mom’s brows drew together in irritation. “That much is obvious. I don’t understand what you could possibly want to say to my daughter that you can’t say to me? We’re all sirens. We all want the curse undone. We’re in this together, and of all the people in the world, I am the one who loves her the most. I should be here.”
“I am a sorceress,” Nike reminded her gently. “You asked for my help. I am giving it.”
“But…”
“We’re dealing with magic. It won’t always make sense to you.”
“But it will make sense to Targa?”
“Targa is the only one who will truly understand.”
Mom stared at Nike with a challenge in her eyes, but Nike did not look away, did not even wither under the glare of her Sovereign.
Mom finally let out a breath and got to her feet. “Fine, but I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Nike said, following my mother with her eyes as she left the room.
The door snicked shut behind my mom.
I turned and faced Nike. My heart had ratcheted up a notch and I let out a low laugh to cover up the anxiety growing in my chest like a weed.
“At least she didn’t slam the door,” I said.
“There’s going to be a lot of things she doesn’t like about what is to come if you pursue this.” Nike’s eyes, now a soft gray like the sky before a spring rain, came to my face. They were full of sorrow.
“You need to understand what it is you are committing yourself to,” she said. “You above anyone else, for this quest will cost you the most.”
“Why me?”
“Because the gemstones are poison to you.”
“I figured that probably had something to do with it.” I still wasn’t sure why Nike looked so grim, her mouth set in a straight thin line.
“Whoever made the curse was someone like you.”
“An elemental?”
“That isn’t the only thing that makes you who you are, but it is a characteristic that makes you rare. It could be that, it could be something else.”
“But you don’t know?”
She shook her head. “No, all I can tell you is that you are the secret key to breaking the curse. There is not another siren alive, at least to my knowledge, who ever reacted to the gemstones the way you do. There is something about you, Targa.”
I absorbed this quietly. “Okay, but you could have said all of that with Mom still in the room. So why did you send her away? What is it that she cannot hear?”
She took my hand again and squeezed it. “You need to decide if you’re willing to give your life to break this curse, because that could be what it takes.”
My mouth and throat suddenly felt as dry as the desert. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you and the curse-maker have something that binds you, something that makes you alike. But you’ll only be able to break the curse if you are stronger than them.”
“Stronger in what way?” My heart had begun to pound hard and heavy. “Physically? Emotionally? Mentally?”
“All of it.”
“Who is the judge?”
“The curse is.”
This was a confusing answer, but it was magic we were dealing with so it wasn’t like there was a rulebook to reference. It reminded me of how the Salt made new Sovereigns. It didn’t provide specific rules or look you in the face and deliver a report card on your performance. The ascension to the crown was either given to you or it wasn’t, and no one was able to refute the judgement.
“And if I’m not?”
“Targa.” She leaned forward away from her pillow and gazed into my eyes. “If you’re not, you’ll die.”
Nine
“Are you okay?” Antoni whispered in my ear before planting a kiss on my neck. “You barely ate and you’ve hardly said a thing since you went to visit Nike.”
We lay spooning in the big bed in the room Jozef had given us while we waited for Nike’s strength to return. It was down the hall and around the corner from Jozef’s own room, where he and Mom were sleeping.
“I’m okay,” I said softly and squeezed his arm where it rested in front of my chest.
Peering in the gloom at the small round clock on the bedside table, I saw that it was close to midnight. Rain spattered against the window panes and ran down in long streams. I’d been following the patterns they made between the panes for quite a while now, blinking in the dark. We had retired to bed shortly after ten-thirty and since then, I’d been meditating. I hadn’t shared what Nike had told me with anyone.
“I thought you’d be asleep by now,” I whispered to Antoni.
“I’ve been listening to you think.” Antoni said. I could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s quite loud, you know.”
I found a laugh for him. What could I say to Antoni? He was just as likely to be resistant to allowing the plan to go forward as my mother would be, but I kept thinking how it would be if the situation was reversed and it was Antoni whose life was in danger. How would I feel? Obviously I didn’t want to lose the love of my life, but I would never forbid him to do anything. Everyone had their own path, their own reasons, their own convictions for the choices they made. It wasn’t right or fair to forbid someone from doing something because you were afraid of them getting hurt, or of losing them.
And then there was the fact that I had died once before, and it had been the beginning of a whole new wonderful life. Sometimes death was death, and sometimes death was a beginning. Who was to say which was which?
“I’m here if you want to talk,” Antoni said, and relaxed down into his pillow. He snuggled his chest up to my back and sighed deeply.
This was one of the many things I loved about Antoni. He’d never force me to tell him anything I didn’t wish to. He’d never cajole me or pry secrets from me. He let me be, trusting that if it was something he needed to know, that I would tell him.
Tears sprang to my eyes and my mouth wobbled at the thought of my own death. Not for myself, though I didn’t want to die, but for how much Antoni, my mom, and my friends would suffer. I was loved, and I was shown that love regularly. My death would hurt them.
And what if I could break the curse with my death? Wouldn’t it be worth it to stop all the suffering that sirens and husbands and sons of sirens had to endure the world over? I had seen firsthand what the curse had done to my mother, both while my father had been alive, and during the time before she went into the Baltic. I had held on to her so tightly and it had taken so much from her. She had given so much to me, sacrificed so much to raise me, and stay with me even after I’d become an adult. She had shown me how powerful love was. All of those painful lessons, those agonizing memories of my mother’s weariness as the curse weighed on her, they still brought tears to my eyes if I thought about them too much.
It all had to have been for a reason.
I could have been born a boy, abandoned as a baby or a toddler the way Emun and Michal had been. I could have never known my own mother. If I’d been born male, my father would have raised me until he died, and then I’d have gone to my grandparents on my father’s side. Never knowing where I’d come from and who my mother was, just that she’d abandoned me.
How many male children had had just this kind of life? Over the centuries that had passed, they were innumerab
le. There was a tragic example in the Novak family itself—where Michal had been raised by elderly relatives after Mattis followed Sybellen into the storm.
And I had one chance to stop it all for good. How could I look myself in the mirror every day and know that I’d turned my back on them? I may as well tattoo the word ‘selfish’ across my forehead and be done with it, because that would be what I saw.
I had a chance. Nike said that I had to be stronger than whoever set the curse and there was no way of knowing anything about that person. They’d had a vindictive streak, that much was obvious. I had to be better than that, didn’t I? I could never dream of cursing an entire species. I couldn’t even fathom what would make an individual want to do such a thing.
“Hey.” Antoni’s hand found my shoulder and he gently nudged my back flat so he could see me. His fingertips found my cheeks and rubbed away the tears I hadn’t even known were falling. “Shh.”
I turned. My arms snaked around his neck and he held me as the tears flowed. He kissed my face, my lips, my cheeks, my jaw, anywhere he could reach, trying to comfort me. I could feel the confusion pouring off him, but still he did not force me to talk.
Finally, when the moisture began to ebb, I released him and pulled myself up to sitting. He slid up beside me and rested against the headboard. Plucking a tissue from the box on his side of the bed, he handed it to me.
“Sorry,” I sniffled, blowing my nose and dabbing at my face. “It’s very inconvenient when I cry.” I gestured to his pajama top and our pillows, which were now soaked.
“If you think I’m concerned about that,” he murmured, “you don’t know me very well.”
He stripped off his top and tossed it on the floor beside the bed, then he flipped both of our pillows over so the dry side was up.
I found my voice. “I’ve been wrestling with myself about whether or not I should tell you what’s going through my mind.”