by Sarah Porter
Suddenly Luce couldn’t see them anymore. Instead she saw herself leaning on the railing, laughing so hard it hurt, while a dark-haired woman much younger and prettier than Tessa’s mother smiled beside her. A warm arm squeezed her shoulder, and Luce closed her eyes to feel soft fingers tousling her hair. Of course, Luce told herself, of course Alyssa Gray was every bit as playful and loving as the woman beaming at Tessa. Of course Alyssa had come back to lift her lost daughter out of the sea and hold her close ... Luce was so distracted by the daydream that she didn't realize, at first, that Tessa was talking again.
"Oh my God! Mom, there's a girl out there!” Luce looked up from the gray jagged waves in shock—and met Tessa's hazel eyes. She had a long, straight nose, a funny crooked mouth, and her full cheeks were flushed from the wind. "Hey, you! Come over here, we'll pull you up. You can hold on to the rope there...” Luce ducked under the motorboat. How could she have been so reckless?
"Tessa, where?”
"She was just holding the side of the boat out there. A girl with short dark hair. She didn't seem scared or anything. She looked right at me and vanished. Mom, I swear...”
"Well...’ The woman hesitated for only a second. "If there's any chance you're right, we have to get help right away. You say she was holding on to the boat back there? Oh, why did she have to let go? She must be delirious from hypothermia...” Luce heard the thumping as Tessa's mother ran off down the deck, calling "Ethan? Ethan, Tess says she saw a girl in the water.” Luce knew she needed to get away, but for some reason she couldn't explain she lingered where she was in the shadows under the small bobbing boat. Tessa didn't go anywhere either.
"Hey. You can stop hiding, okay? I know you're still out there. Why don't you come on board and hang out with me for a while? You can borrow my clothes, and I'll make you some cocoa.”
Luce wished she could. They could talk about books, tell each other crazy stories. Luce felt convinced she and Tessa would be best friends if only it wasn't against the timahk for them even to say hello.
Unless ... But there was no way, of course. No chance at all. Her mother was so kind that it was obvious Tessa could never become a mermaid.
Tessa was actually happy. And she was clearly very much loved.
Then Luce heard footsteps pounding along the deck, and forced herself to dive deep and fast, far down into the cool gray water, where she didn’t even have to feel her own tears.
She needed to find some way to warn them, and she thought of trying to get Tessa’s attention and telling her that the yacht had to speed away as fast as it possibly could. But even though Luce knew perfectly well that at least two of the mermaids in her tribe had already broken the timahk, she still didn’t want to break it herself.
11. Tessa
It rained hard that evening and on into the night. Luce was grateful for the awful weather; as long as the mermaids lounged around inside the cave they wouldn’t notice the yacht. Surely it would sail off soon?
Once everyone was asleep Luce slipped out, taking a sharp rock with her just in case the yacht was still there. She had the idea that she could scratch a message on one of the seats of that trailing motorboat, making the letters big enough that anyone who looked out from the yacht’s deck would notice. She swam slowly, trying to think up a warning that the crew would take seriously. She had the queasy feeling that Tessa might sometimes play practical jokes.
Even though she was swimming well below the surface of the water, Luce saw the yacht before she was anywhere close to it. A huge blob of glowing light wavered in the water ahead of her; the yacht was blazing with lamps in every window and large floodlights that shone down on the deck even in the pounding rain. There was a ruckus of drunken voices shaking up the quiet evening, and the thump of ugly music drowned out the soft rhythm of cresting water.
Luce was beside herself with rage. Why did they have to make such a clamor? Did these people want to die? At least the motorboat was still where she'd seen it last, swinging around with the rising waves. The currents were so strong tonight that swimming through them forced Luce into a kind of dancing motion, her body constantly adjusting to counteract the heavy push and pull. She was worried. She'd have to hold the boat with one hand while reaching far enough in with the other to gouge the paint on the seats, without either tipping it over or pulling her tail out for too long. She circled the little boat for a moment, wondering how to proceed, while the water popped all around her with the impact of the rain. No matter what she did, it was going to be tricky. At last she took hold of the side and peered in. Two inches of grayish rainwater slopped around the bottom, and there was a pile of old tarps Luce hadn't noticed earlier. She'd decided to keep the message simple: GO AWAY NOW. She bent in as far as she could without putting too much of her weight on the side and began scratching the G. It was harder than she'd hoped, especially with the boat bucking around so hard. She was digging in with the rock, trying to ignore the slippery, repulsive sensation of fresh water pouring down her face, when something moved, and the tarps shuffled over...
Luce lurched backward, but the hand was already tight on her wrist, and Tessa’s face was wild and determined. If Luce yanked any harder, she’d just pull Tessa in with her.
“I knew you’d be back!” Tessa whispered fiercely. Ribbons of rain-drenched hair striped her face, one cheek lit up by the shine from the boat. They pitched dizzily together with the manic gesturing of the waves. “Do you know how bad you upset my mom? She thinks you drowned because we didn’t help you fast enough. She’s still crying about it.”
Luce didn’t answer. Her thoughts were in chaos: this definitely seemed like contact with humans, but on the other hand she hadn’t actually said anything, and she hadn’t touched Tessa on purpose either. A second human hand was gripping Luce’s arm now, and Tessa gave such a vicious tug that she almost overbalanced the boat.
“I think you owe my mom an apology,” Tessa snapped. “You’re going to come on board and tell her you’re fine. Okay? Why don’t you say anything?”
If Tessa was still talking about Luce coming on board, then she must not have seen Luce’s tail ... That was a relief. But she had no idea how to make Tessa let go without drowning her, and for a second Luce felt tempted to do exactly that. In just a few minutes the problem would be completely gone. Tessa was squeezing her arm so hard it ached, and the throbbing bass from the yacht made her head hurt.
“Seriously,” Tessa insisted. “Seriously. Why are you acting like this? What’s your problem? I thought we could be friends, but not when you’re being so selfish!”
“Shut up!” Luce exploded. She was crying now, and she couldn't control herself any longer. "Just shut up! If I was that selfish I'd kill you right now. It would be easy.”
Tessa looked shocked, but she didn't let go of Luce's wrist. Luce didn't know whether to be impressed by her courage or infuriated with her stupidity.
"You're the one who's being selfish!” Luce added. "You're making me break about fifty laws when I'm only here to warn you. At least you and your mom, if you can't get anyone else to listen. Just steal this boat and get away!” Tessa was so surprised that her grip relaxed, and with a wrench Luce was free again, floating far enough from the boat that Tessa couldn't grab her.
"What are you talking about?” Tessa squealed in exasperation. "What are you, anyway?”
"That's a really rude question,” Luce snapped. The brilliant light from the yacht made the raindrops look like tiny bursting stars all over the black water. She was still half out of her mind with fury, both at Tessa and at herself. "What, you think everybody's supposed to be human?”
For half a second longer they stared at each other, the only sounds the harsh thudding music, the slap of waves, and the sigh of heavy rain. Then Luce dove. It would have been easy enough just to slice straight down, keeping her body hidden, but from some mixture of defiance and heartache, Luce deliberately let her tail flick above the surface. No one would believe Tessa if she said she'd seen a
mermaid, Luce knew. Not even her mother. Luce felt a little gleeful at the thought of Tessa trying to convince anyone of that.
And besides, it was too late anyway; she'd already ruined everything. Somehow the other mermaids would find out what she’d done and banish her, and even if they didn’t, Luce wasn’t sure she could live with the shame. The honorable thing would be to go ahead and expel herself from the tribe. Swim away tonight. She wouldn’t necessarily die. After all, Catarina had somehow survived a journey all the way from Russia!
Had Catarina been caught breaking the timahk by her first tribe? Luce realized she’d never heard any explanation of why Catarina had left the Russian coast. Suddenly Luce imagined that was it: Catarina’d been seen kissing some drowning human boy and cast out, and she’d swum across the Bering Sea in disgrace.
All at once Luce was overcome by exhaustion. Maybe, she thought, maybe it would be okay to sleep in her own little cave away from everyone, just for tonight. She could decide what to do in the morning.
She curled up against the cave wall to keep out of the rain that slashed down through the crack in the roof and sang herself to sleep. A new song, a dreamy song, made of sweet, spreading chords. It would have taken half a dozen great human singers all working together to try to copy it, Luce knew, and even then they couldn’t have come close.
***
Luce woke to brilliant sun striping the dimness of her cave. The water covering her was dotted and streaked with luminous green where the light hit it, and for a minute Luce lolled happily. She loved swimming on sunny days, watching the beams of golden light parting around her outspread fingers as if she were running her hands through long, shining hair.
Then she remembered the night before and sat up abruptly. The other mermaids would be out enjoying the sunshine, and they'd catch sight of that yacht in no time. Luce could only hope that the yacht had moved on, or at least that Tessa had persuaded her mother to run off. But how would that sound? "That girl came back, but she’s actually a mermaid, and she said we should get away... ”
And then there was the other problem: Luce had spoken to a human. She thought about the plan she'd made the night before of traveling down the coast alone and shivered. It wasn't sharks and fishing nets that scared her as much as the idea of being so utterly lonely. How could she give up the only family, the only home she had anywhere in the world? Even if she lived, no one besides this tribe and her father had ever wanted her, and she couldn't imagine that anybody else ever would.
But had she really broken the timahk? Luce told herself that she hadn't planned to speak to Tessa, after all. Tessa had grabbed her and held her by force. There must be some kind of exception for cases where mermaids were taken captive by humans against their will, even if Catarina hadn't mentioned it. And how was Luce supposed to make Tessa let go of her if she didn't say anything? Luce deliberately suppressed the thought of the other way she could have forced Tessa to release her arm, but for a second the image pushed its way into her mind: Tessa's enchanted face, her eyes wide in dark gray water, silver bubbles leaking through her lips...
Luce reminded herself of something else: Catarina had said that any human who heard the mermaids singing had to die. But Tessa hadn't heard one note from Luce! That might be a big enough loophole in the timahk; it seemed possible now that Luce hadn’t done anything quite bad enough to deserve expulsion after all.
Luce still felt a little sick, but she decided to head back to the dining beach. She took a slightly out-of-the-way route and spotted the white yacht still sitting there. She didn’t see the motorboat anywhere, though, and her heart quickened with hope. Maybe Tessa and her mother had escaped in the night; maybe they were safe, talking and laughing in a diner somewhere over strawberry-topped waffles and coffee ... Luce’s relief was suddenly mixed with an ugly stab of envy.
***
“There you are!” Catarina called. “Luce, I wish you wouldn’t go sneaking off like that. I get worried that something might happen to you.” They were all at the dining beach, as Luce had expected, nibbling their way through a lazy breakfast and soaking up the sun. It felt delicious after all the rain and darkness of the past several days. Well, almost all of them were there; Luce realized that Violet and Samantha were missing. Maybe they were still asleep?
“I’m fine,” Luce said. “I’m really careful when I go out alone, Cat. I stay right next to the cliffs.” It was a lie, but Catarina wasn’t paying much attention. She was too busy stretching her long body out on top of the water, rolling slowly over and over to sun herself on every side. Her bronze tail flashed, and the broad fins at the end rippled sensuously. Luce remembered her conversation with Dana: Catarina’s parents had actually sold her. But had Catarina changed as soon as that happened? Or had it taken something even worse?
Luce was distracted from her dark mood by a sudden splash of silver-blond curly hair, which was followed a second later by Violet's sleek brown head. Samantha was twittering with excitement.
"Oh, Cat, you're not going to believe this! Some doofus humans have just parked their yacht right near here!” Samantha laughed shrilly. "Even for humans it's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen!”
Luce felt embarrassed when she remembered that she'd thought something similar. She didn't like having anything in common with Samantha, who just seemed to become more childish all the time. Catarina rolled over and let her body tip upright; she didn't seem to be in any hurry, though.
"Oh,” Catarina said slowly. Luce was surprised to notice that she seemed bored by the news; she was even flicking her golden tail in irritation. "I noticed that, too. We'll have to be careful to keep out of sight until they leave.” Samantha looked horribly disappointed.
"Aren't we going to sink them, Cat? I mean the retards are just sitting there!”
"Oh, Samantha, use your head for once,” Catarina snapped. "How many people can there be on a yacht like that? Maybe fifteen? Twenty, at the very most. Pathetic. And if we take them down we'll have to wait for weeks before we do the next one, probably let all kinds of bigger ships go by...” Luce had the feeling that if Catarina had noticed any handsome young men on that yacht she wouldn't be taking such a dismissive tone. Catarina shook her head, sending ripples through her fiery hair. "It's a waste of our time, especially with all these new singers. No, we'll wait for something better.”
Luce looked away so that no one would notice the relief on her face. She didn’t need to worry anymore that Tessa might still be on the yacht.
“But there’s a girl on the boat,” Samantha pleaded, and Luce jumped. “Cat, she looked like a metaskaza.”
Luce was confused; she’d only heard the word used for new mermaids. What did it mean to call a human being that? She was appalled to see Catarina brightening suddenly at this, as if it changed everything.
“Really? Are you sure? Violet, did she look like a metaskaza to you?” Violet was obviously just as bewildered as Luce was by this; she was glancing around in alarm, hoping somebody would explain before she made a fool of herself. Luce decided she didn’t care if she sounded stupid. If Samantha was talking about Tessa, Luce had to know what she meant.
“What does that even mean, Cat? I mean, calling a human metaskaza?” Luce tried to assume the same lazy, disdainful tone Catarina had used, to suggest that Samantha was just being silly. Samantha pouted.
“Oh,” Catarina said, smiling over at Luce. “Oh, I still forget sometimes ... Luce, when a human girl is almost ready to change, she starts to have that...” Catarina shook herself and waved her hand at something just over their heads. “That indication, just the way we do. You can see it. Humans can’t but we can.” Luce realized she was talking about the dark shimmering that clung around the mermaids, but it made her feel only more confused. She definitely hadn’t seen anything like that around Tessa! Or had she?
“Well, I mean, I saw that girl, too,” Luce said as casually as she could. It felt dangerous to admit so much, but she plunged ahead. “I noticed her on
my way over here, and I didn't see any of that kind of sparkling around her.”
“She totally had it!” Samantha yelled. “I saw it! Cat, don't listen to her! Luce just has some kind of messed-up problem with being a mermaid. I sometimes think she likes humans...” Samantha turned quiet right away when she saw the scowl on Catarina's face, the angry swishing of her tail.
“Have you ever heard Luce sing, Samantha?” Catarina asked; her tone was heavy, almost menacing. “Oh, that's right, you have. You heard her sing so well that twenty men hurled themselves straight down into the ocean.” Luce listened to this with a tumult of emotions; it hurt to be reminded of what she'd done to those men, but at the same time she was grateful to hear Catarina defending her. “Maybe you should think of that before you make these ... these senseless accusations.”
“But maybe Luce just didn't notice it?” Violet put in shyly. “Because I think I saw some kind of—indication?—that, like, weird kind of sparkling in the air around her, too. Not that—I mean, I'm sure Luce is telling the truth.” Violet had been nervous around Luce ever since the time when Luce had crawled on shore to save her life.
“Well...” ’Catarina said. “The girl could be wavering. Sometimes the indication—it goes in and out, like a light blinking. But if there's a metaskaza on the boat we can't just leave her there! Trapped with those...”Catarina shook her head like she could barely stand to say the word. Luce's heart was pounding now; she hoped no one could hear it. “We simply have to help her change. Save her from those humans.”
“But if...” Luce tried to think it through, fast. “But if that girl is wavering like you say...” Catarina and the others were staring at her too hard, and she struggled to clear her thoughts. Tessa's life was at stake. “Does that mean if we get her ... at the wrong moment, when the indication isn't there ... she'll just drown?” A distinct look of relief flashed on Catarina's lovely face.