by Sarah Ockler
Christian and I still hadn’t spoken a word to each other when, soon after the ceremony, our friends wandered into the Black Pearl and Christian’s father called out from the other side of the mob. We followed the sound of his command, the tight wave of his arm. In the midst of the celebration, Mr. Kane stood grim faced and cold, his hand tight on Sebastian’s.
My little mermaid offered a weak smile. “Congratulations,” he said. “You guys beat Never Flounder!”
Christian high-fived him, lacking the heart to tell him it hadn’t been good enough.
“And guess what?” Sebastian beamed. “I won too!” He pointed at his crown, and for a moment Christian seemed to forget about our loss.
Before Christian could officially congratulate his little brother, his father sighed loudly, shaking his head. He didn’t have a smile for me this time. He looked at me, almost sneered, raising Sebastian’s hand near my face. “I understand this is your doing.”
I hated him for that tone, how he’d made the word “this” sound like a piece of rubbish, some great inconvenience he’d have to deal with.
This.
His youngest son.
My mermaid.
Sebastian’s head sagged under the weight of his father’s endless disappointment.
Christian stepped in front of me, grabbed my hand. “Dad, not now.”
I looked at Sebastian, the sadness in him, only hours after his triumphant parade win, after he’d stood up to the mayor. I saw Christian, the tick in his jaw, the tense set of his shoulders, and I knew that it would always be this way for them, for my Kane boys. That their father would always have the last word, the final say. And that nothing either of them did would ever be good enough to make up for their parents’ mistakes.
It was a losing game.
With a surge of adrenaline I stepped in front of Christian, grabbed Sebastian’s hand. I was holding the Kane brothers at my sides, staring down their father, my heartbeat ragged.
I met Mr. Kane’s eyes, let the fire blaze in mine.
He looked at me like he’d never seen me before.
But he didn’t speak.
Call it off, I mouthed.
“All of what?” he said.
I tried again, slowly. Call off the bet.
The man bristled, taking a step back. “You don’t call off a bet the moment you lose it, Elyse d’Abreau. That’s not how things work.”
But—
He silenced my lips with a wave of his hand, turning to his eldest as if I wasn’t even there. A smudge, a wisp, a nothing.
I shrank.
Again.
Failed.
“Christian,” he said firmly, “it was a decent effort, but you didn’t follow through. I understand you’re all disappointed, but the bet is over, and the houses are going to P and D. That’s final.” He looked at me again, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Elyse, I’m sorry that you and your family might be inconvenienced by the development plans, but it is what it is. Boys, let’s go.”
It is what it is?
When Andy Kane talked, people listened. His voice preceded him, and when he walked into a room, people stood up and took notice. I imagined it had always been like that for him. All of his business dealings. His first job interviews out of graduate school. Defending his thesis. Debate team in college. Even when he was a kid, I bet he always got his way, always got his say.
No wonder the mayor was so bent on burying him.
The funny thing was, for someone with so much power, so much conviction in his words, he sure did waste them.
If I had a voice like that, I wouldn’t waste it.
My lips formed the words, but Mr. Kane wasn’t listening. He’d already turned away, dragging Sebastian by the hand.
My body shivered beneath damp clothes and a fresh splattering of rain, and instinctively I moved closer to Christian, tucked myself under the familiar comfort of his shoulder. I’d learned the skies of Atargatis Cove well enough to know that this was just a warning, that we had about thirty seconds to seek shelter before the downpour.
The excitement of the day quickly fizzled. Parents grabbed up sticky child hands and herded everyone to their cars, to the Black Pearl for the last party, to Kat and Ava’s Sweet Pacific for their famous mermaid cookies. Mr. Kane was already partway down the shore with Sebastian in tow, and the Mermaid Queen of Atargatis Cove looked back at me with a blank expression, blue-green swirls of makeup running down his cheeks.
I turned my face to the sky.
Drench me, I willed it.
Pour your heart out; soak me through.
Wash away the makeup, the tears, the blood,
the day, the week, the month.
Wash away the entire last year and bring us all back to where we began.
As if to answer, the rain sluiced from the gray mist, pelted my eyelids and lips. Salt-tinged water ran in rivulets down my chin, my neck, my pale silver scar.
But it didn’t change anything.
The marina was nearly empty, but Christian was still next to me, his arm around me like a life preserver, and when I turned toward him, I saw his face tipped toward the sky too. Eyes closed, mouth open to catch the rain on his tongue.
Sebastian and his father were two dots in the distance now, one gray and tall, the other tiny and silver-blue, and in that moment I knew without a doubt that for the rest of forever, I’d look back on this moment as my one regret, the one thing—unlike so many other events in my life—I could’ve done something about if only I’d been brave.
If only I’d found my voice.
Wordlessly I laced my fingers through Christian’s and caught his sigh on my shoulders, slumping beside him. Black Star couldn’t have been more than five minutes ahead, ten at most. It was less than the amount of time I’d spent frozen on the deck, paralyzed by fear. It was less than the time it had taken Christian to talk me down, to convince me to trust him, to trust the Queen of Cups, trust my sailing skills, my own deep, lost love for the sea.
It was less time than it had taken for him to kiss me, to tell me that he knew I had the strength to do it. That he believed in me.
I tightened my grip on his hand.
Christian turned, pressed his mouth to mine, his kiss cool and wet from the rain. “I can’t think about this right now,” he said. “I just want to spend as much time with you as possible. Okay?”
My eyes drifted back to the Queen of Cups. I mouthed, Go back out?
“Back out? In this weather?”
I nodded. Anchor. Sleep. Watch the sunrise. Do-over?
Christian looked exhausted and half-wrecked, but he tightened his arm around me anyway, leading us back to the Queen to shelter from the gathering storm.
Chapter 35
The ocean was placid and sleepy, as if it had been worn ragged by today’s regatta and the rain, which had thankfully passed quickly, and it needed time to regain its strength. Christian and I sailed back out and watched the Mermaid Festival fireworks from a distance, but we agreed not to talk about the regatta, about what the loss meant, about what tomorrow or the next day would bring. So after the smoke faded from the sky, after we shared a sailor’s meal of canned stew and oyster crackers, Christian and I floated wordlessly above deck, shoulder to shoulder, fingers intertwined as we watched the stars blink to life in the deep blue sky.
When the moon was high over the marina, we retreated to the saloon, sitting again in comfortable silence. I thought of the first night I’d met Christian, how I’d watched him at the Solstice party, jealous that he and Vanessa seemed to have so much history together. I’d been wrong about them, of course. I saw it now, felt it, knew it by heart. The sign of a deep connection wasn’t necessarily outward affection, but silence. The ability to sit still with another, wholly aware of him, neither needing nor desiring anything but his presence,
the shape of him, his breath in the air between you.
A wave jostled our little vessel, and I finally stirred, looking up to meet Christian’s eyes. He’d been watching me, I realized, and when I rose from the cushion, his smile turned wolfish. I grabbed his hand, leading us both to the berth.
Despite the exhaustion of the day, my body was wild with wanting, my own breath ragged and rough as I slid my hands inside his sweatshirt. My touch lingered only a moment before I pushed his sweatshirt up, slipped it over his head, and tossed it on the floor. The rest of our clothing quickly followed, and then he was, blissfully, inside me.
His kisses were more hungry, more desperate, more devouring than ever.
Our time together, we both knew, was finite.
I closed my eyes, searing this moment into my mind, committing his touch to eternal memory.
Hours later something tugged me from a deep sleep, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that it was the moon, shining down on me in a silver beam. I rose from the bed, careful not to disturb Christian as I slipped out from our warm cocoon.
In the saloon my mermaid dress hung from the hook where I’d put it before the race, blue silk spilling down the wall like water, just as shimmery. For a moment I thought I could put my hand through it, feel the cool wetness run through my fingers. But it was only my old familiar dress after all, and I lifted it carefully from the hook and pulled it up over my nakedness. If the night air was chilly, I no longer noticed.
I crept out through the companionway, silent as the stars on the sea. Out on the deck, alone, I heard nothing but the gentle lapping of water against the hull, and beneath the vast diamond sky I felt both all important and utterly insignificant, the goddess and the damned in equal measure.
I thought about Lemon’s tarot cards, the deceiving moon, the call of something deep within, and wondered for a long moment whether looking at a reflection of the moon in the water made it the opposite of deceiving. I wanted to trust this pale and lovely moon, the flicker of starlight that seemed to glow from the bottom of the ocean. The sea was so impossibly still, so dark, that the longer I stared, the more uncertain I became. Was the night sky reflected in the Pacific, or was the Pacific reflected in the heavens? Had they switched places as I slept?
How had everything I’d ever known been turned upside down?
When I’d volunteered as Christian’s first mate—despite my reservations about sailing—I truly believed I could help. That we might actually win this thing, prove Christian’s father and the mayor wrong. Show them all by saving Lemon’s house, Christian’s house, the fate of the entire mystical town.
But again, the ocean had other plans.
Again, I’d failed. The people I loved. Myself.
And again, everything would change.
The night was so calm, the ocean so inviting, offering none of its usual warnings and threats. Entranced, I reached my fingers out and trailed them through the black soup, through the moonlight, as though I could capture the stars beneath the sea.
Soon I was in up to my wrist. My elbow. The tender skin of my underarm didn’t register the cold, though I thought it should.
I am a mermaid, goddess of the sea.
Midnight is upon me.
Her lover is near.
Death, come to take me home.
And then I was slipping into the void, a tipping forth that seemed both uneventful and inevitable, not even a splash to mark my descent.
Silent, as ever.
Chapter 36
“World tour! World tour, Elyse!” My twin sister, Natalie, throws her head back, howls up at the Tobago stars.
It’s March. Carnival season. And we’re celebrating. We’ve got every reason to, after all. Dreams like this don’t come true very often.
“You crazy, gyal,” I tell her, but I’m giddy too. Rum and adrenaline, the electric buzz of wishes granted. All around us the night shines with promise.
“Tell me it’s real,” Natalie says, and I roll my eyes. “It doesn’t feel real.”
I grab her arm, pinch it until she shrieks. “It’s real, see?”
We’re laughing again. Last night we opened in Port of Spain on the main stage for Bella Garcia. She loved us so, the crowd loved us so, and her manager, too.
Everyone loved us so much that when Bella took the crown later, Queen of the Bands, she called us out, introduced us to everyone watching.
Cameras. Videos. Reporters. International tourists.
“Elyse and Natalie d’Abreau,” she said. “Rising stars, mark my words.”
Later in our dressing room, as we slipped out of our matching mermaid gowns, we got the invitation from Bella’s assistant. The note was handwritten, black ink on fine, cream-colored stationery, words swimming before our eyes.
So talented.
Potential.
World tour, expenses paid.
Singing with Bella.
Recording at Trinidad’s top studio.
Dreams, dreams, dreams, rushing at us at once. We’ll finish school in a few months, continue singing, rehearsing, and then, come summer, get on that plane.
Now we laugh again, rehearsing the words we memorized from Bella’s note. Alcohol and joy have loosened our tongues, all formality and properness gone.
Natalie howls again, tells me she’s a werewolf inside.
“Shut up, gyal,” I say. “You’ll call Mami Wata from the deep with that crazy noise.”
“Let her come, then.” She sucks her teeth, leans over the rails. “She got nothin’ on us. Hear, Mami Wata?”
I shake my head, but soon I’m howling too.
“First thing I’m gonna do after we drop our album,” she says, like it’s a list, something we should write down, and I reach for our notebook, because I think maybe she’s right, we should make a list.
“I’ll buy Granna a house in the country,” she says.
I laugh. “Granna already live in the country, what’s wrong with you?”
“Another country. She always wanted to visit Grenada, all their spices and chocolate growing. I’ll buy her a big house. We can stay with her when we tour.”
“Let’s get through school first, okay?” I say, as if I’m the boss. “Before you start with your spices.”
But her spirit is contagious.
Natalie, the quiet one, the gentle soul brought to life by music.
“Allya talk so much nonsense,” Julien, my boyfriend, says. He came with us tonight, out on the boat to celebrate the start of the rest of our lives. He dives into the cooler for another round, comes back out with more punch for each of us. “Don’t forget your friends when you get all famous.”
“Nah,” I tell him. “We ain’t forgetting. You coming too. You could carry the suitcases.”
Natalie laughs. “For real. You can bodyguard us.”
“To friends,” I say, tipping my cup in toast.
Julien slaps me on the boomsie, and my sister howls again. The three of us clank our cups loud enough to make a shark’s teeth rattle.
“Julien,” Natalie says, and my boyfriend smiles at us both. “This party needs some Bella Garcia. Our patron saint.”
I laugh. “Don’t let Granna hear you talk like that.”
“Granna be laughing,” she says. To Julien, she says, “You heard us. Hook it up, boy.”
“Already giving me orders,” he says, but he’s laughing too.
And then Bella’s voice is on the speakers, floating out across the Caribbean Sea.
Instinct, heartbeat, soul flow, Natalie and I stand together. Break into melody and harmony, verse and chorus. In sync we wine our waists, dip our hips.
We know every word, every step, and we sing it like this:
We dance up on it, dance up on it
The floor rise up when it see we comin’
We dance u
p on it, dance up on it
Beats bom-bom when they see we comin’
We dance up on it, dance up on it
Boys in the house when they see we comin’
We dance up on it, dance up on it
Drop to they knees when they see we comin’
We dance up on it, dance up—
“No! Elyse! Wave!” Julien shouts. A warning, his face suddenly slack and afraid. “Hold on!”
My heart sinks.
Impact.
Natalie slips, screams as the boat shudders beneath us, and though I try to grab the rails, the lines, anything to keep from tumbling out, it’s no use. I feel myself tipping backward, and I brace for the warm, wet dip, try to remember to breathe out my nose so I don’t get salt water burn.
But I don’t hit the water.
There’s only the hollow crack of bone against fiberglass, and for a second I wonder if my sister fell again.
Fear seizes me as I recall the old legends, wonder in a panic about Mami Wata.
All of this happens in a heartbeat. The moment I realize the noise came from my own head, I go numb.
I slip from the deck, into the deep blue sea.
Which is black at the bottom, where the impossible things live.
Been waitin’ on you, gyal, the voice says. Maybe it’s Mami Wata, come to claim my soul for the sea. Maybe it’s Death, come to claim my soul for himself.
I don’t open my eyes, just hold my breath as the warm water presses in, tries to choke me. To break me.
I can’t fight. I open my eyes, fall to the bottom where I stare in wonder at all the stars beneath the sea.
Claws are around my neck, sharp and tight. Pulling my hair, tugging, yanking.
Inside, I go black, black, black.
Dim.
And then a bright, sharp pain like nothing I’ve ever felt.
Knives and blood, blood and knives.
My throat is bathed in warm liquid, and as the light rises around me, I tremble. I’m on the deck again, calm waters, the stars overhead where they belong.
Shivering, I am, body wrecked and ragged.
Something is pulling at me, threatening to take me under again.