by D. N. Bryn
Hurried shrieks and hisses catch my attention as a fresh batch of sailors swims from the sinking form of the ship. Sirens pick them off, one by one, filling the water with small clouds of pink. They keep away from Dejean, either because they recognize him from before, or the equally likely case; he looks half dead already. Drawing my remaining tide off my brace, I hold it between my hands and burst toward him. It takes me three tries to aim right, but I reach him, scooping him up and shoving us both to the surface.
We break the waves. Immediately, we sink back down. I keep us above the water-line with the tide’s power, but each blast grows weaker. Dejean coughs once, drawing in air. Though the waves are small and fragile in the wake of the storm, the incoming swell still shoves us back down. I beat my hips but the shifting water engulfs us relentlessly. My arms shake once more, the fatigue returning in the wake of Kian’s death.
Panic tightens my gills. I search for a siren who will help me support Dejean. Instead, another human appears, his braids swirling like tiny eels around his head. Theirn grabs Dejean and drags him to the surface.
I follow, pumping my arms steadily. “Theirn!”
He stares at me, a mix of surprise and fear on his face as I whistle the tune of his name for the first time.
“You killed her.”
“She died,” I correct him, but I know my nod is all he’ll understand.
Sorrow droops his features, but he returns the motion. His attention shifts to the barely-conscious Dejean. “If he’s going to live, we need to get him to the shore.”
“You’ll help?”
He must understand something from me—my confusion, my suspicion—because he says, “If I support Dejean, the sirens will leave me alone?”
I nod again. “Yes. I think.” I’m glad he can’t interpret that last part.
Theirn takes it as an affirmation. Holding up Dejean as best he can, he swims toward the distant beach.
Dejean awakens just enough to kick his legs. I come up beside him, wrapping his restricted arm around my back. His fingers tighten against my side. He says my name, and I smile at him.
The shore sits a long way off, but between my tides and Theirn’s help, we’ll make it.
[ 16 ]
TIDEMARKS
What could I ever know but these: I love the sea; I always will. And one more thing.
THE SAND WARMS beneath me, its caress better than any sponge. Somewhere behind the trees, the sun rises. It fills the sky with its brilliance, turning the leftover clouds pink and purple. The wind off the sea still whirls, hurried and wild, but the calming waves crash through their normal dance across the slope of the beach, drifting in little peaks and valleys. No trace of the Oyster remains, and the siren pod who attacked it has vanished as well. With Kian and her blockers no longer a threat, they’ve likely split up and moved on, off to find their old territories or mark new ones.
I run my hands through Dejean’s curls, tenderly weeding out the snarled clumps. His eyelashes flutter as he continues to drift. Lingering hints of distress cling to my stomach with sharp teeth, but the healthy color of his face and the steady rise and fall of his chest comfort me. He seems relaxed, and he managed a few words to Theirn as we neared the beach before collapsing onto the sand, his head in my lap. The quiet is a necessity. We all need the rest.
Theirn sits a little ways off, his head on his knees. In the glimmer of the morning light, the bruise Kian left along his jawline turns his dark skin puffy and purple. He stares at the sand, silent. I don’t know why he spent so long watching Kian hurt me, or why he let her inflict a similar life of pain on him. Nor do I know how I would broach the topic, even if he could somehow understand me.
The gentle crashing of the waves has nearly lulled me to sleep by the time Dejean shifts. He opens his eyes and tries to sit up, but I make him lie still.
“How do you feel?” My signs match my tone, soft and a little worried.
“I think my head is trying to pound its way out of my skull, and the rest of me feels like I’ve been thrown about by a hurricane all night.” He shields his eyes from the rising sun, squinting at me. “My ears are ringing just a bit, but I think I’ll live.”
“You’d better.” I glare at him for good measure.
He chuckles. His eyes sparkle, and relief floods through me. He’s still my Dejean. He’ll be just fine.
“How did you get here?” I ask. “How did you know Kian was taking me to the Oyster?”
Dejean’s brows knit. A glimmer of morning light shines on the waves crashing along the shore, their water a gentle lap by the time it reaches us. “I… think I saw you, in town… somehow. It’s not hard to follow people here. There’s only so many roads through the jungle. I stole a ride… a car or a truck, maybe? I can’t remember all the details from the night, just flashes: you on the beach, the Oyster going down.” He sounds ashamed to admit it, as though he expects me to be angry.
“I thought you might not. You didn’t seem all there.” But he was there for me. Even half-conscious and in pain, he still came when he knew I’d be in danger. My awe fades to worry. How much of Kian’s speech does he remember? I have to know, yet it takes me a long time to shore up my courage. “Why didn’t you tell me about your father’s death?”
He hums quizzically in the back of his throat, but his features droop. “It was a long time ago,” he whispers. “I wasn’t on the ship; I didn’t see it happen. I knew it was a siren attack, but I never thought for a moment you might have been the one who killed him. There are so many sirens in these waters.” He presses a finger and thumb to the corners of his eyes, drawing in a long breath. “I know now that the attack—all attacks, outside of Kian’s—have been bloody, painful misunderstandings. It hurts to dwell on. But I refused to blame you, and I didn’t want to bring you into it.”
I realize my heart pounds to a rapid beat only as it finally starts to slow. Dejean’s reason is silly, but I understand, somehow. It’s easier to pretend we have nothing against each other, to claim the war between my kind and his doesn’t extend to us simply because we moved past it. And still… “You should have told me.”
“I know.” He follows his words with a quiet, “I’m sorry. I was afraid that it would come out wrong, that it would change the way you think of me, or… or the way I think of you, if you knew I had your ghost in my past, same as Kian.”
An empty feeling sucks at my chest as I realize his fears were right. When Kian first mentioned Dejean’s past, I doubted him. My gaze slides over his face, picking out every little wrinkle, every harsh line. I can see his doubt too, subtle and overpowered by the other, stronger things he feels for me. But still there.
“Was it you?” He says it so softly that I think it might be my imagination.
“What?”
“Was it you who ate my father?” Not a hint of accusation hangs in his voice, but it hurts all the same. “I know you’ve killed many humans, and I don’t hold that against you, but I’d like to know.”
I try to draw up memories, frantically searching for a face from a sea of blank features. If I can’t remember whether I tried to eat a small human girl, how could I pick a man I have no reference for? It’s a fruitless attempt.
With a start, I realize it isn’t necessary.
“It couldn’t have been me,” I tell him, my relief changing the pitch of my whistling and lightening my hand motions. “I know the rate at which humans age, and I’d have been very small at the time, perhaps not even born.” It seems obvious now that I think about it. Humans wouldn’t know how sirens mature, but some of us watch the land-dwellers grow, happy to leave them be so long as they keep to their sand and trees. “The siren who killed your father—” and scarred Kian “—was probably the parent who birthed me. They had the same colorings as I.”
Dejean nods, pushing himself to a sitting position. I mourn the loss of his warmth, its absence as shocking as the sting of a ray, but he wraps me in his mobile arm and pulls me against him. I melt into his s
ide, the pain in my ribs masked by the comfort his closeness brings.
“You know, even if you were that siren, it was at a point when you didn’t know any different. You did what you did because you thought you were protecting your territory from humans who ignored the paths you set for them.”
I whistle a gentle, wordless noise. “Do you think we could teach them; the humans and the sirens? Teach them to communicate? To work together?”
“We won’t know unless we try.” Dejean traces his fingers along my shoulder, drawing a happy tremor through me. “Do you think it would help? There are plenty of human groups who still hate each other even though they speak a common language.”
“We won’t know unless we try,” I say, repeating his wording as best as my signs can manage. “I don’t think there’s anything we could do to eliminate the fighting entirely, but it would be very good for some, and that’s enough.”
“How would we manage it?”
“We’d need to travel.” That would be best for us anyway, being on the sea. The cove and the cliffs are home, but sirens are made to swim deeper waters too. I love the wide open between the islands just as much as Dejean. “But I don’t want to leave our territory open. It’ll take time to build a large enough pod that some of us can depart for a season, so we should stay at the house for a while first. Keep an eye out for anyone who might be willing to join us.” The delay would give everyone time to rest. Just the thought of my tub makes me want to sleep for a week.
“I’ll ask Simone if she’d like to take command of the Tsunami for a couple runs,” Dejean says. “She could bring Murielle with her. There’s some good pirating waters near the coast where they’re planning to take their honeymoon.”
“You’ll want to return to pirating eventually, won’t you?”
“Well…” He hesitates. “I got into that business by accident, and I think my old captain would support this venture. It could make the seas safer for other pirates and merchants alike.” He chuckles, his shoulders trembling. “You never know; blends of human crews and siren pods might form along the way. Maybe we can start a special brand of pirating."
“You're terrible.” The warm swell in my heart seeps into my voice and softens my hand motions. I pause, scanning the horizon. “If any of the sirens Kian sold off are still held captive, we should search for them.”
“They might not be near the sea, you know.”
“I know.” A shudder runs through me at the thought of traveling farther onto land than Dejean’s cove-side home. “But if I don’t look for them, who will?” He opens his mouth, and I cut him off with a grin and a whistle. “Other than you.”
He smiles. “Mur can probably build you something for navigating across the ground. Some kind of little water-filled vehicle you can drive yourself.”
“I’d like that.”
Dejean replies with a soothing brush of his fingers along my arm.
No other words seem necessary at the moment. It’s surreal to look out over Kian’s grave and plan a happy future. But I wouldn’t want anything else. Except maybe a fresh dolphin liver.
As we sit in relaxed silence, the tide rises enough to soak my tail. I can’t feel its gentle touch, the waves stopping before they reach my hips, but it turns the warmth of the sun from scorching to lazily pleasant. Somewhere far off, a human machine chugs away.
The sound grows steadily closer, until both Dejean and I turn to look at the trees. A boxy driving machine bursts down the road, swerving to a stop at the edge of the beach. Murielle flies out of it with a crooked yet energized limp, her hair a metal-raining cloud behind her. Simone follows at a slower pace, surveying the area as she approaches. Her eyes lock on Theirn, still huddled in place, but Dejean shrugs to her and she leaves him be.
“We thought you died!” Murielle shouts, tackling us with such force that I tumble onto my back, taking Dejean with me. She wraps her arms around us both at once, so tightly that I yelp. “Shit. Shoulda asked if you were injured…” She lets us go, looking embarrassed.
Grinning, I ruffle a hand through her fluffy hair. Her affection brings a smirk to my lips, and seeing her safe and happy takes a weight from my heart I didn’t realize I still carried. I give a little wave to Simone.
She smiles at me before aiming a glare toward Dejean. “You! How dare you leave town in the middle of a storm and not tell us where you’re going?” Her palm raises as though she’s going to smack him in the back of the head, but then thinks better of it.
“I didn’t have the time! And you would’ve come with me,” Dejean says.
Simone grits her teeth, her fingers tightening. “By the looks of you both, you could’ve used the help.”
“We’re alive.” He shrugs his good shoulder. “And Mur stayed out of the fighting. I knew she’d be by your side no matter what you did, so I decided it was better if it took you a while to get here.”
“Ah.” Her face softens. She leans forward, giving Dejean a little squeeze on his scarless shoulder before carefully detaching her protesting fiancée from our bodies and scooping her up. “This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you,” she adds, settling into the sand at Dejean’s side.
Murielle leans against Simone, poking Dejean’s leg with the tip of her boot. “Bet she’d accept an apology if it came in the form of a wedding present.”
Shaking his head, Dejean laughs, his voice blending with the melody of the waves.
The sand shifts as Theirn finally moves. He doesn’t stand though, just changes positions, covering the sides of his face with his hands. I don’t want to feel bad for him, but I do.
A small, round shell bounces off my shoulder, and I snap my head around to find Murielle grinning at me. “How’d those little powery pulser things work out for you?”
“They worked beautifully, but I lost one of them blowing up the Oyster.”
Murielle’s face goes blank for a moment before lighting up like the blinding morning sun, her grin stretched across her entire face. Simone can’t have any idea what I said, but she sees Murielle’s expression and groans. It’s Dejean who speaks, though.
“That… that was you.” His words come out too flat to be a proper question, as though he’s trying to convince himself of something he already knows. Or, more accurately, something he’s forgotten.
“You were upset with me then, too,” I tease him.
He groans, dropping his forehead onto my shoulder. “I hope I shouted some sense into you.”
I bare my teeth playfully. “For that, you would have to have sense in the first place.”
Tightening the arm still around me, Dejean grumbles a soft, “You be nice, Perle.” Murielle tosses another shell at us, but this time it hits Dejean instead. He growls under his breath, snatching it out of his lap and chucking it back, a smile pulling at his lips. “What, Mur?”
“Did you get any of Kian’s blockers?”
Dejean glances at me, and I shake my head. “The crew who wore them were picked apart by sirens, and the rest sank with the Oyster. They’re resting on the sea floor somewhere, but I doubt any human could find one.”
Murielle sighs, going dramatically limp in Simone’s arms. “Would’ve been nice to glance at one before you two went and destroyed them all.” She doesn’t seem put out. The blockers might’ve been unique, but I suspect she has enough to play with in the scrap around Dejean’s house alone.
Theirn interrupts our conversation by pulling himself to his feet. He walks toward us slowly, one fist balled tight.
“What does he want?” Simone sounds ready to drive a sword through the center of his chest.
I silence her with a dismissive wave. “Theirn?”
He looks at me oddly, as though his mind refuses to process my existence. In a jerky motion, he crouches down and shoves his fist at me. I lean back on instinct, but he only opens his fingers, palm up. In it lays one of the blockers, glowing faintly.
I’m not certain he’ll let me have it, but when I don’t take it right away,
he dumps it into the sand at my side. Picking it up hesitantly, I roll it between my fingers. The small frame squishes enough to sit comfortably in an ear, with small, sound-admitting spaces cut through the glowing and mechanical compartments.
Closing my hand around it, I turn my attention back to Theirn. “What do you want from us?” I sign, giving Dejean time to translate.
Theirn’s mouth opens, only to hang there vacantly. His brows come together, and he looks as lost as a fish on land. He drops his gaze to the ground, digging the toes of his bare feet into the sand, his shoulders caving. The hair along his chin masks his age, but looking closely, he can’t be any older than I.
“He has no one,” I sign to Dejean. He catches the thoughts I’m not sure how to voice.
“He’s here and he accepts you,” he says softly. “We could use the help.” With his hands alone, he adds a quick, “Are you all right with him around?”
I pause to consider it. If Kian had lived, I could never have been comfortable near her. But Theirn only scared me because of his relation to Kian, and he hurt me far less than she hurt him. If he wants to be done with that lifestyle, I can adjust. I’d like to see what sort of a man he’ll become when he’s no longer crushed under Kian’s constant influence.
“Tell him he has a place in our pod, if he wants it.” I add quickly, “On a trial basis. If he doesn’t behave himself, I’ll eat him.”
“Perle says you can stay with us if you have nowhere to go. For the time being, at least.”
Theirn’s head shoots up, and his mouth opens again, but it takes a moment for anything to come out. “Thank you. That—” He stammers, looking embarrassed. Finally, he repeats the, “Thank you,” and tips his head. Some of the tension drains out of his shoulders. He takes a few steps back, shifting between his feet, and settles onto the sand again, not quite close, but much nearer than before.
Murielle snatches the ear piece out of my hands while I’m distracted. I glare at her, baring my teeth, but I want to know what she thinks of it too much to try and take it away. She spins it around in her fingers. Yanking a tiny, stray tool from her hair, she picks at the thing, pulling it apart. Her grin grows wider the longer she works.