by Sarah Porter
“I saved her!” The sea voice was now a roar. “I saved her and I offered her great gifts, and she repaid me with this rebellion, this contempt.”
“She repaid you by leading the mermaids into a future you never imagined for them,” the first girl said coolly. “Everything between mermaids and humans is different now. Queen Luce has repaid you with transformation. Surely that is your own coin?”
The deep voice growled. “You listen to Nausicaa too much.”
Luce tried and failed to cry out at that. Nausicaa? Where are you?
“I listen to what my own long experience tells me. So does my sister. Even the sea is too confining when your destiny is settled for you, and when that destiny describes so small a circuit.” The girl paused again. “Queen Luce should be with us. She’s earned that choice.”
“She’s earned nothing but death!”
“We claim her. Luce is ours. As we were first, so is she the first of the mermaids as they will now become. And we refuse to see her harmed.”
The sea rumbled in Luce’s head. Her whole skull roared like the inside of a seashell. There was a sound like vast currents quarreling. Sheets of water seemed to grind against one another until they squealed like iron; Luce’s empty eyes suddenly poured down tracks of blue phosphorescent flame.
Then, very quietly, she was no longer everywhere. Though it was impossible to guess precisely what had changed, Luce could sense that she was now somewhere quite specific. Her body was a point in space, it was enclosed in latitude and longitude, and the world was again banded by magnetic pull.
The time was no longer always, but now. She was weak and nauseous and—though she knew beyond all doubt that she’d been hopelessly far from the surface when her consciousness had merged with that strange forever—a cool breeze was brushing across her face. It took her a moment to understand that, and to remember to breathe.
Everything was dark, but that was because her eyes were closed. The process of opening them seemed confusing at first, but with an effort she managed it. Dark sea, towering night, and in the distance a star of piercing radiance high on a cliff. Behind it rolling tree-fringed hills. To the star’s right a long expanse of beach shone like a pale fissure in the darkness. “Is that light the Cliff House?” Luce asked aloud.
She felt a quick swish of displaced water as someone nearby spun around in surprise. Ten feet away from her a dark head swung to see who’d spoken.
Luce had never imagined that it would even be possible for Nausicaa to look so utterly discomposed, so flabbergasted. She grinned at her friend’s dropped mouth and rounded eyes; Luce couldn’t have explained why, but she wasn’t surprised to see Nausicaa at all. She’d just emerged from the always, after all, and Nausicaa was Luce’s private always, the ocean continually cresting in her heart. “But . . . Luce?” Nausicaa stammered at last.
Luce laughed and swam over to her, then realized again how weak she was. “Let’s swim to the beach. I think I might faint soon.” She leaned her head on Nausicaa’s shoulder.
“Luce!” Nausicaa hugged her tight and looked around. “But where . . . are we?”
“That looks like the Cliff House. I thought I went farther south than that, but . . .”
“Near San Francisco, then?” Nausicaa was regaining a hint of her usual poise, though she still seemed uncharacteristically shaky.
“I guess so. Where do you think we are?”
Nausicaa gave a crazed laugh. “When last I knew where I was, I was watching from a distance as the lights came on for the evening across the vast city of Alexandria. In Egypt, Luce. It might be ten thousand miles away from this place. I had just left the Twice Lost mermaids there.” She shook her head, her dark curls ruffling. “I thought that was only moments ago. But perhaps . . .”
Now it was Luce’s turn to be unsettled. “Egypt?” She thought for a moment. “Then . . . did you go through a place that didn’t seem like it was anywhere exactly?”
Nausicaa bit her lip. “I heard myself speaking. How did I hear that, Luce, unless it was a dream? I heard myself in conversation with the first mermaids, the Unnamed Twins. But I often dream of them, of course; they were my dear friends when I was newly in the sea.” Nausicaa stared, searching through billows of memory. “But now I think this was no dream. There was a discussion . . . about you. And I believe that they . . . extended an invitation, Luce. To the two of us.”
That made sense, Luce thought. She nodded, and then her head seemed to keep nodding by itself. Her eyelids swagged, and her face felt warm and watery. “I . . . really need to sleep. I can’t talk now.”
Nausicaa gazed at her in sudden concern and began towing her toward the shore. Luce saw the light of the Cliff House prancing and swinging through the dark. It was lucky that Nausicaa was holding her, Luce realized hazily, because she couldn’t possibly hang on to consciousness any longer.
***
When Cala’s search party found them it was well after dawn. They couldn’t wake Luce and so they carried her home, Cala and Elva in the lead with Luce’s tail slung across their arms, Nausicaa swimming behind and supporting her friend’s head at the surface. Nausicaa studied Luce’s jagged dark hair and long crescent eyelids, wondering at how transfigured she was. Her features were the same as ever, but even in her sleep Luce now had the aspect of a mermaid who’d been in the sea for centuries.
They passed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. The huge standing wave was completely gone now. The bay gleamed mirror-smooth, without even a line of foam to show where the blockade had been.
Luce didn’t wake up to see it. But on the shore not far to their right, mixed with the usual crowd, there were doctors in white coats, gurneys, and ambulances.
The mermaids had started turning back.
A girl in a borrowed bathrobe tried to stand on legs as wobbly as a newborn calf’s then toppled slowly sideways. Her skin had a faint greenish shine.
“Hey,” a slightly tattered man with cropped hair and cinnamon eyes shouted across the water. He waved his arms high overhead, looking straight at the group carrying Luce. “Hey! You’ve got my girl! Is she okay?”
“That’s the general’s dad,” Cala sighed. “How are we supposed to explain what happened?” Then she raised her voice. “She’ll be fine, Mr. Korchak! We promise! She’ll come see you later!”
Nausicaa gazed at him with interest. For the first time she wondered if she might have to let Luce go forever. She pictured Luce stumbling toward her father on human legs and looked away.
41
Promises
“Heya, general-girl,” Yuan said as Luce at last opened bleary eyes. She barely knew where she was, but Yuan’s determined face was clear enough. “Damn, it’s about time you woke up! I’m here to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Luce asked in confusion. “Yuan, where—”
“To Boston. With Gigi. She’s got to get back to college.” Yuan made a face. “And I’m going to go finish high school, of all insane things. There are these human groups organizing to, uh, rehabilitate ex-mermaids, so it looks like I’ll have some help.”
It took Luce several more moments to understand what Yuan was talking about. Then she groaned and sat up abruptly. One reaching hand found Yuan’s shoulder and squeezed it. “Yuan, are you serious?” All at once Luce felt like crying. “You’re really leaving the water?”
Suddenly grave, Yuan said, “Yeah, I am. Because you were right, Luce.”
“How do you mean?”
“When you told me that Gigi was actually my best friend. That I saved her because she’s—the person I love most in the world. I didn’t know that when I was pulling her to safety, but I know it now.” Yuan waited a few moments for that to sink in. “But we’re really hoping you’ll come and visit us, Luce. You and your dad.” She paused for a moment. “Or you and Dorian. We’ll have a blast together! And you and Dorian could maybe look at colleges in Boston too, right? ‘Twice Lost General’ is one hell of an extracurricular, so I bet you can go anywh
ere you want.”
Luce shook her head. She still felt obscurely sick, and she was bewildered to realize that Yuan took it for granted that she’d be turning human again. Imani had made the same assumption. Why did her path seem so obvious to them? “I can’t think about college. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Sure you do!” Yuan was sincerely shocked. “I mean, what about your dad?”
“If he needs me to take care of him . . .” Luce swayed a little as she considered the question. “If he’s not all the way cured, then . . . I guess that would be the right thing to do.”
“Of course it is! Family has to come first, Luce.” Yuan saw Luce’s stunned look and grimaced. “Okay, I know that probably sounds hypocritical, coming from me. But your dad is a good guy and mine was a monster. You do appreciate the distinction, right?”
Luce didn’t answer that. Instead she dropped from the hammock and hugged Yuan hard.
“You gonna come see me off, general-girl?” Yuan was straining to keep her tone light.
“Of course I’m coming. But I’m not actually anybody’s general,” Luce murmured. “Not anymore.”
“Yeah? Who is?” Yuan didn’t wait for an answer before diving abruptly. She whipped away at top speed and then vaulted over a sea lion with her pink-gold fins gleaming in midair. It’s for the last time, Luce thought. Yuan’s never going to leap that way again.
A long procession of mermaids followed her. Some of them had larvae cradled in their arms.
***
Yuan held her arm out for the injection. Then a group of human volunteers carried her inside a small white room made of folding screens while Gigi looked on with worried eyes. Luce caught a final glimpse of Yuan’s fins twitching as the air hit them.
She’d hoped—even assumed—that the drugs would make the transition painless, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Soon they all heard Yuan’s thin, keening screams. Luce had to throttle her own impulse to scream in sympathy, to send a wave that would lift Yuan and pull her back to them. Luce clenched her teeth instead, her heart charging and her nails digging into her palms until they were flecked with blood. This was Yuan’s choice to make, and no one had a right to interfere. By the time Yuan came stumbling out in a borrowed lilac sundress and bedroom slippers Luce’s face was slick with tears.
“I’m cool,” Yuan slurred. “Seriously, it’s not that bad.” Then she fainted into Gigi’s arms.
She’s alive, Luce told herself. She’ll be fine. That’s all that matters.
Silently some of the mermaids around her started handing larvae to the doctors. It was terrible to think of the infantile little mermaids suffering that way, but everyone knew it was better than the fate that waited for them in the ocean. As human children they could be adopted; they would grow up and possibly even find happiness. In the sea they’d be unlikely to survive for long.
The afternoon took on the feeling of an endless ceremony. Now and then a mermaid’s face would start to waver, crossed by alternating doubt and longing, and then she would nod to herself and call the doctors over, looking back at her friends who were still in the water with puzzled sorrow. It was hard to watch, but Luce knew that it would feel worse to swim away.
It was at least an hour before Luce realized that her father was there, well back in the crowd; she couldn’t tell if he’d just arrived or if he’d been standing there quietly all along. He looked older and sadder than he should, but he definitely didn’t seem crazy anymore.
He was watching Luce somberly, so lost in thought that he didn’t react when she smiled at him.
“Oh my God!” Elva screamed next to her. “Luce, look!”
Luce turned away from her father just for a moment. She couldn’t tell why Elva was splashing so excitedly and waving at a handsome human couple who were picking their way gingerly through the crowd.
Her father was gone when she looked for him again. Where was he?
Elva grabbed Luce’s arm and shook it ferociously. “Luce, don’t you see?”
Luce’s head swung in bewilderment. Elva was still pointing to the human couple: a tall slim man with a narrow, light brown, sharp-boned face. A remarkably beautiful redhead was leaning heavily on his arm. She was long-legged, wearing teal cowboy boots and skinny black jeans with a fuzzy sea green sweater—and when she met Luce’s eyes her foot halted in midair. If her boyfriend hadn’t held her by her narrow waist she might have fallen.
Luce heard herself gasp. That lovely girl looked horribly similar to Catarina; she even looked at her with Catarina’s gray, wounded eyes.
“Catarina!”
Suddenly Elva wasn’t the only mermaid screaming. Voices were shouting on all sides, “Catarina! Cat! Cat! Cat!” It was becoming a chant now, but Luce still couldn’t quite believe it. Her insides were watery, roiling; her heart seemed to be caught in a whirlpool.
The redhead slowly approached as if she couldn’t hear the clamoring voices, and her eyes never left Luce’s for a moment. Her steps were unsteady, and Luce briefly wondered if she’d hurt her legs somehow.
“Cat?” Luce couldn’t believe she’d said that name.
The redhead didn’t smile, but now that she was closer there did seem to be a subtle green-golden cast to her skin. She was at the line of rocks separating the parking lot from the bay when she staggered and dropped to her knees.
Luce didn’t know she was reaching wildly forward until her hand found the redhead’s hand in midair and squeezed it. “Oh God, Cat . . .”
“I’m sorry, Luce. I know the things I said to you were unfair and unkind. I hope we can be reconciled.” Catarina delivered the words as if she’d rehearsed them, her voice clipped and formal. Beside her the dark young man knelt too, gazing at Catarina with ardent tenderness.
Luce started sobbing. She didn’t care that humans and mermaids were staring at her or that she might seem weak. Sobs wrenched from her so fiercely that she thought they might tear out her heart. She clutched Catarina’s hand above the row of stones and wept from gratitude.
Catarina laughed. Not harshly but with relieved delight. “I didn’t know if I should dare to come here! I was afraid you would be disgusted at the sight of me, my Lucette. Rafe told me that wasn’t true. He said you would be overjoyed to know I lived. He said it was important that we meet again, you and I. I had to wait until your treaty was signed to gain my freedom, but then I was terrified to show my face here. For hours Rafe persuaded me.”
Luce looked at Rafe through her tears and reached out her free hand to him. “Thank you,” was all she could say.
Rafe grinned. “You’re very welcome, general. It wasn’t hard at all for me to believe you still loved Catarina.”
He went for a walk while Luce and Catarina talked and sometimes cried, their words coming fast and overlapping, oblivious to the world around them. It didn’t take Luce long to notice how often Catarina said Rafe’s name and how her eyes seemed to deepen whenever she mentioned him. It was strange after all of Catarina’s vehement hatred for humans, but this was unmistakable. “Are you in love with him, Cat?” Luce asked.
“I never knew there were such people. I did not imagine a man like Rafe could be possible, Lucette! If you knew the humans I grew up with, if you had met my parents or those men who bought me, you would understand why I believed all humans were bestial. Vile. To learn so late . . .” Catarina shook her head and let out a plaintive laugh. “But Rafe says that all of us base our conclusions on our experience and that I could not be expected to do otherwise. Still, when I think I would have gladly drowned him, removed such a great heart from the world without a thought, I feel . . . as I suppose you sometimes felt, Lucette. I can only focus on the future so that shame won’t consume me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Attend university. First I must complete intensive studies, though. I can only read the Cyrillic alphabet that is used for Russian, for one thing; I never learned yours.” Catarina’s gaze was momentarily far away. “When I
finish my education, I want to work . . . on behalf of girls like me.”
For a fraction of a second Luce thought she meant ex-mermaids. Then she realized it wasn’t that at all.
Catarina completed the thought. “I mean, girls who were sold.”
Luce nodded. “That sounds like a completely amazing thing to do, Cat.”
Dusk was falling. Catarina was starting to glance around, and Luce knew her former queen was waiting for the man she loved to reappear. It was both heartbreaking and wonderful to realize how soon Catarina would stand up and walk away with him. And, Luce knew, there was something she had to ask first. “Um, Cat? Do you miss being in the ocean?” Luce hesitated, afraid that she might make Catarina angry. “I mean, are you sorry you changed back?”
Catarina glanced at her sharply, as if she guessed why Luce was asking this particular question. “Miss the ocean? Of course I do, Luce. I didn’t choose to be made human again. Humanity was forced on me. And yet I choose it now, now that I know what it can mean.” She smiled ruefully. “All I’m sorry for is that I have to use a name that comes from my father.”
Suddenly Rafe was there, listening and smiling to himself. Luce hadn’t noticed him approaching, but now he reached to lift Catarina to her feet. “In a few years,” Rafe said softly, “we might change that.”
Catarina paused to say hello to a few of the other mermaids, Rafe close beside her. Then she looked around: mermaids and humans were talking and laughing together under the hazy rust-colored glow of scattered streetlamps. Yuan slept in a lawn chair with her head on Gigi’s shoulder, her slippered feet sticking out from under a blanket, while well-wishers stopped by with gifts of clothes and books to help Yuan make the transition to her new life. Catarina glanced back at Luce. “It’s all your song, Luce. It’s your song come to life!”
“How do you mean?” Luce asked. Catarina looked magnificent and brave standing there, and also somehow much more grown-up than she’d ever seemed before. Her hair no longer shone with its own internal luminance, but it still flowed like fire in the lamplight.