Sirens and Scales

by Kellie McAllen

  I wince, my frown deepening.

  Then Verona jumps up from her position on the sand, drawing both my attention and that of my sadistic friend. Verona’s eyes dart our direction. “Did you hear that?”

  Stacia sneers. “How dare you speak to me first. You have no right, bottom feeder. I shall—”

  I grasp her arm and stop her mid-sentence. I hear it too. The chirps and squeals are unmistakable. It’s a cry of distress, coming from a youngling, and they are not very far away.

  5

  Where did I put my spear? My eyes dart around the cove, but I can’t find it for a moment. Verona’s gaze meets mine, and then she lifts the spear from under where she sits.

  I nod, dart over toward her, and take the spear she offers from her hands.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going?” Stacia asks, her pitch getting higher with panic.

  I glance her way and shake my head. Then I dart off in the direction of the distress.

  The current pushes against me, but I concentrate on controlling it. I slice my way between, cutting through the miles as quickly as I can. Adrenaline keeps me going, even though my synapses pulse in my muscles when I stop.

  Most of the hunting party has already dispersed. They have likely caught their fill and moved on. Hunting typically only takes up the morning, but by the time the sun reaches zenith, they fill their quota.

  A few of the hunters have straggled. No, not hunters. Younglings. One of them is caught on the hook of a tuna line and is struggling to break free. The hook has him caught in the flesh of his underarm. Two other younglings are pulling on the line to keep the boat above the surface from reeling him in.

  More Mer rush in beside me, their undertow pulling me back as they’ve used their water magic as well.

  “What’s going on?” a deep voice cries out. I don’t need to turn around to see who it is. The voice belongs to my brother, Brandeeb.

  I don’t care to see who else has arrived. Instead, I rush forward, sliding the grip on my spear so that I’m next to the sharp point. Using it as a knife, I grab hold of the line above where the younglings are pulling and begin to saw at the line with my three-inch long Great White Shark tooth. The serrated edge cuts through the line, but it’s a slow process, and we’re all being pulled up toward the surface by the mechanical wheel on the boat.

  By the math, there’s only about four-hundred or so pounds that we’re pulling with, which is less than the size of an average tuna. Two more Mer pull the line from under the younglings, adding more weight and strength, slowing down the reel’s pull upward.

  Brandeeb begins working on trying to get the hook out of the youngling’s arm. His rough hands make the youngling scream in pain. Blood clouds the water around the youngling’s face.

  “Stop it. You’ll make it worse,” one of the Mer below me corrects him. Verona. She slides forward on the line and rests a hand on Brandeeb’s. He winces and pulls away as though her touch burns.

  She begins humming a soothing tune to the youngling who had been struggling against my brother’s touch, and his panicked eyes rest on her. Once she has his attention, she speaks. “Don’t pull on the hook, you’re only embedding it deeper. Just relax. Come forward toward me. It will loosen. We won’t let go of the line. I promise. We won’t let you get reeled in.”

  The youngling’s nostrils still flare from the panic, but he’s no longer struggling against the hook. He settles down, even though he doesn’t come toward her. She reaches out a webbed hand toward the youngling.

  What am I doing? I’d let myself get distracted by watching the maiden correct my brother and soothe the youngling that my sawing against the line had slowed. To correct this, I attack it more aggressively. Then I feel the surface of the water breaking against the tip of my tail. The boat has almost reeled us all in.

  Brandeeb is next to me, and he pushes the water upward, causing a wave to crash against the side of the ship. If anyone had been looking over the edge on this side, they no longer would be. The boat rocks away from us with the wave.

  Finally, the line breaks free in my hand and relief floods over me. I allow myself to sink down and join the others, my arms growing limp and my muscles flaccid. The rest of the rescue party and the younglings are already at the seafloor when I reach the bottom.

  “Who do you think you are, touching him, bottom feeder?” a feminine voice asks.

  I glance down and find the mother of the youngling gripping his face to her chest. Her eyes are shooting daggers at Verona, and her words drip with venom. “You should know your place. You are not fit to look upon my son, much less touch him. Useless, revolting, unsightly thing. Your influence is not needed. Do not even lift your eyes my son’s direction, ever again.”

  Verona’s eyes remained fixed on the white sand below her. In her hands is the bloody hook and line she’d removed from the boy’s shoulder. Her treatment is unjustified. Verona had helped the boy, but instead of being rewarded, she’s being berated. I lurch forward, but my brother catches me by the arm.

  “Where are you going, little brother?” Brandeeb asks with a sneer. His blue eyes sparkle with mischief.

  “What is it now?” I ask, yanking my arm free from his grasp. His claws leave another scratch on my arm, but I refuse to show any symptom of the pain in my expression.

  “Our mother is looking for you. It seems your disappearance during the hunt did not go unnoticed. The parents wish me to accompany you to them.”

  I swallow and cast a glance toward Verona. But she no longer stands where she once was, only the hook and line remain set upon the sand. The maiden and her son have also left. Waters around us swirl with their departures. I frown.

  After being scolded by my mother, I swim like a bullet as far as I can go before the water magic exhausts me. At first, I head randomly west, the current rushing past my face where the pressures of the waters run low. I run blindly, until I realize I am heading to a specific place. Brandeeb and I had discovered an underwater cave once when we were exploring off the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia. To this day I still consider it a safe haven, but I haven't been there in years. I decide to make my way there and see if it still looks the same as it had years ago.

  Large rocks sit in front of the small mouth of the cave. Brandeeb and I had put them there to keep the opening hidden from others. This way, it was our secret place. Overhead, orange stretches across the sky as the sun begins to set. It will be dark before I get home if I leave now, but home is the last place I want to be. My hand sets against the rock formation, the barnacles biting into my palm. I'm so tired. The swim back taunts me because I know it's going to be too hard to handle with my muscles exhausted as they are. I push the rocks aside and enter in.

  Darkness swallows me almost immediately. The cave starts as a long narrow tunnel. It doesn't have as much room as I remember. My shoulders barely slip past the walls of the entrance tunnel. My tail slaps against the roof and the sand underneath. I'm blind. Whatever possessed me to swim this way when I was little? I try to think back.

  I was never the kind of youngling who was afraid of dark places or small spaces. Instead, the source of my fear was much more real. Brandeeb. At first it was Brandeeb at home, Stacia and Gabriel at school. My torment never ended day or night. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and no one to turn to. So, on that day many years ago, Brandeeb was likely torturing me in some way. I don't remember exactly what he had done to upset me, but I remember the way that my heart raced when I first entered this tunnel. I remember feeling that he would find me any moment and chase me through the darkness. I had hoped that I would get lost forever, and the tunnel would just keep going until I could finally get away. But the tunnel does not last forever.

  Back then, I reached the end of the tunnel, just like I do now. I'm still awestruck by the green luminescence covering the walls. The algae glows and keeps the wide, deep cavern dimly-lit. No one would ever think it was here. I swim to the top, an area littered with stalacti
tes, and swim around the giant columns created when this cave sat above the surface of the water. Black sand covers the seafloor here, and not many fish have ventured into the area except small ones.

  My excitement is short-lived. I've grown even more tired since expending my energy going through the tunnel. I sink to the floor and lay down, remembering that first time. Brandeeb found me back then. I don't know whether he saw me enter the tunnel in the first place or if he followed the blood left behind from the scratches he inflicted on me that day. I sigh, content that no one is coming now. I settle into the black sand and create a nesting for myself.

  It isn't long before I fell into a deep sleep.

  I wake with a start, and for a moment I don't know where I am. That's the problem with sleeping in a cave; the sun isn’t visible, so there’s no way to tell what time it is. The quiet solitude of this fortress surrounding me is something I am loathing to leave. My mother will probably call me a troublemaker again. Or maybe she'll call me something worse. In her mind, I'm nothing more than a problem child. Brandeeb never got into trouble that I can ever remember. Certainly, not like I always do.

  After a deep breath, I start for the exit of the tunnel, the one black spot in the wall covered in bioluminescence. When I break free from the tunnel, I find it is still dark outside. My night vision is keen, but I swim to the surface to take a look at the stars. I suck in a lungful of seawater and break through the barrier from water to air. I hold my breath for a good long time, watching the lights sparkle to the west. Humans. Cities and towns, houses and countryside. Lights brighter than the stars themselves and almost as numerous in their cluster. The stars overhead help guide me, so I know which direction is southeast, and then I sink back under the waves and start there.

  I use no water magic to help me this time. There's no need to hurry, no need to tire myself out in a rush. It makes no difference whether I arrive in an hour or three. Either way, I'm going to be scolded.

  My stomach growls. A pod of dolphins swims nearby, and they’re heading in the same direction, so I join them. Their language is not foreign to Mer. But typically, they chatter so much, we don't know everything that’s said. The dolphins swim along in formation until they come across a school of mackerel. Then they split up and surround the mackerel, causing the school of fish to pull in tighter. One at a time, the bottlenose dolphins dive through the center of the school capturing two or three fish that they swallow whole. Their hunting method reminds me of what Gabriel had done a few days ago, but the difference was the way the dolphins corral the fish in a tightly kept group. The fish continue to panic just like the tuna had, but instead of separating and fleeing, they stay together and refuse to leave the pod. One straggler mackerel comes too close to me, and I reach forward and grab it with a claw. I rip through it between my claws and teeth until I eat my fill.

  When the pod of dolphins head north, I separate from them. I continue south with the zenith of the sun overhead warming my back. When I finally reach the Bermuda township, I find the other Mer in a state of excitement. Drama. Too much for me right now. I don't really want to be in the midst of so much noise, so I turned toward the convalescing cove. As I reach the cove, I find Stacia with her back turned toward me beside Gabriel's nesting. Still, my eyes are drawn toward the nesting across from Gabriel where Verona's father still lays. Even though I watch the older man's nesting, I head directly for Stacia and Gabriel.

  Stacia turns when she feels the current of my presence. Her brown eyes meet mine, wide and excited. “Have you heard?”

  I frown. “Heard what?”

  “The bottom feeder has been chosen. Their reckoning begins tomorrow.” Her excitement mirrors that of the Mer I'd seen in the township gathering. She bounces up and down against the sand, clapping her hands.

  My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach. “Do you know who was chosen?”

  She shakes her head and lifts a shoulder and a half-shrug. “Does it matter?”

  I bite my bottom lip hard enough that my eyes sting. I want to say, “Yes of course it matters.” It feels as though someone is ringing my heart dry. Was it possible that I was found out? My mother had made it obvious that a lot of people knew about my involvement in Gabriel's injury. There was the father who glared at me during the hunt yesterday. If everyone knows about my involvement, it is possible that they looked into my usefulness to the clan, whether I am ruled by my emotions, or even my test scores in the schooling. I am as good a candidate as any other to be the bottom feeder that would be chosen to go on a reckoning. Once every four years, our clan has to choose a bottom feeder for the reckoning. The other three clans in the Atlantic Ocean chose their bottom feeder at the same time of year once every four years as well so that there is a new bottom feeder chosen each year.

  Who else could have been chosen? My mind cannot come up with any other names or faces. It is completely blank. Across the way, the man lying on the bed says a single name, “Verona.”

  6

  “No, it can't be,” I whisper, my muscles tensing, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

  “Huh?” Stacia asks. “What did you say?”

  My eyes remain fixed on the old man staring off into the distance. I don't look at Stacia even though she asks me again what I had said. I can hardly hear her. She sounds as though her voice is far away and getting farther. The edges of my vision darken. It is unfair. Over the past few days, Verona has done nothing but try to help. She helped when Gabriel needed it. She helped when the little youngling with the hook had needed it. She helped when she didn't have to, and now she will pay the price.

  If the bottom feeder is not me, it is Verona for sure.

  I must find her.

  Without a word, or even a glance in Stacia’s direction, I dart in the same way the old man was peering. Had she gone this way? How will I find her? I don't know where she lives, and I have no idea where she went when she wasn't at schooling. Besides all that, what will I do when I find her? If I help her in any way, I will be declared a bottom feeder as well and sent to exile too.

  But reason is overcome by my emotions. I truly am a bottom feeder. Mer life is more about being ruled by logic than emotions. Reason is the most prized of morals. And here I am panicking. Blindly, I run again until I pull to a stop by the reef where we conduct our schooling. No one is there, which is unsurprising. I settle in the sand, thinking. Which direction does Verona come from when she arrives at schooling? I can't remember. All I can see in my mind is Verona sitting in the sand in front of me. Like she always does. And then it occurs to me that she always arrives at the schooling before I do. This is no use.

  I hop up and head the opposite direction of the way I normally come, in hopes that I can find some clue, some sign, of where she might be. Instead, I run into my mother. Her glare stops me in my tracks.

  My mother's jaw tightens, the wrinkles in her forehead deepen. Then, she begins, hissing between her teeth at a low volume, so the other Mer around her can’t hear her, “Where have you been? It is after zenith, and you've been gone all night.”

  My muscles twitch. I feel as though a fisherman's hook has just caught me by the underarm. I want to escape, and struggle against it, but I know struggling will only make it worse. Besides, the hook can't be removed, because it is my mother. I frown and let my gaze drop to the seafloor. I chew my lip trying to think of how I'm going to answer. But the words fail me.

  Her claws wrap around my upper arm and squeezed so that the tips of her nails dig into my skin without breaking it. Her lips draw close to my ear and she hisses again, “No matter. But I do not want you out of my sight until after zenith tomorrow, understood?”

  My heart races in my chest, and my stomach churns. Reason finally catches up with me. Where was I going? What am I going to do? I have no plan, and I have no idea where I am going to find Verona in the first place. Even if I find her, what would I do? Warn her? Help her? Run away with her?

  My mother settles into the sand next t
o her friends, and I do the same, behind and slightly to the side of her--where she directs me. The waters around me feel cold, and my skin gains raised gooseflesh. The maidens chatter about this and that, occasionally bringing up the reckoning that would happen tomorrow.

  Eventually, an Elder’s court life-mate leans in conspiratorially. “I’m not allowed to tell you who the bottom feeder shall be, but I will say that it is a Mer who has stepped on many toes and has often shown their inability to respect their station in life.”

  I frown hearing this but continue to keep my gaze focused on the ground so I avoid glaring at her.

  “Like how?” my mother asks, leaning in as well.

  The maidens are keeping their voices low, but I do not need to strain my ear to hear them from my position.

  “They are responsible for the Elder’s son, Gabriel,” she seethes through clenched teeth, still being careful to not reveal the gender of the bottom feeder. “And they dared lay hands on the child of another of our court ladies.”

  One of the other maidens gasps. With those hints, it has now become obvious who the bottom feeder is without naming names. My frown deepens and my heart races. I clench my hands into fists trying to keep myself restrained and doing what my mother has commanded. But my stomach flips, and I suddenly feel nauseated. My muscles tense like a coiled spring.

  The maidens laugh, and the sound of their voices rings in my ear. I can take it no longer. I leap up. My mother’s glare pierces me and cuts straight through to my heart. But I just bow my head apologetically and dart off.

  “Where do you think you’re going? Bailey! Get back here this instant!”

  I ignore her calls, even though she continues. I’ve made a fool of my mother in front of her friends, and it won’t be an easy task to get her to forgive me. But the weight upon my shoulders has lightened, and my stomach unknots. For the first time, I feel like I’m doing something for myself instead of for someone else. And in this moment, I’m free.