by A. L. Knorr
I went after her, not too quickly, but I didn’t want to lose her. Dodging dancing couples, I watched as she disappeared through one of the doorways, green feather bobbing and waving.
Moments later, I emerged on the terrace. Couples and small groups stood about chatting, laughing, and swaying to the music. I scanned the heads for the green feather, but I didn’t see it anywhere.
Several sets of stairs led down one level to the gardens––a huge patch of land relegated to a maze of rose bushes and other growing delights. The evening air was rich with perfume, both from the party attendees and the night blossoms.
The woman with the green feather was nowhere to be seen, and as much as I wanted to pinpoint who she was, and talk to her, I wasn’t about to go running out into the garden to track her down and leave Jozef to wonder where I was.
Frowning, I turned back to the party and almost ran into Jozef. He handed me a glass of champagne.
“Good idea to catch a breath of fresh air. It’s bloody hot in there, even with the doors open,” he said, hooking a finger into his collar and pulling it away from his throat. He noticed my expression then. “Anything the matter?”
“There was a woman with a green feather in her hair. I had the strangest feeling that I knew her, but I couldn’t remember where I’d met her.”
“A green feather…” Jozef’s expression went faraway as he thought about this. “A young woman?”
“Not a maid. A mature woman. Her features, though…” I put my fingertips to my forehead and wracked my brains. “She was so familiar. I’m certain I know her, but it just won’t come. My memory is not very good at the best of times.”
Jozef smiled. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall seeing a woman in a green feather. There are a lot of…” he glanced at the women on the terrace, dressed like cupcakes and princesses, “feathers around. It’ll come to you.”
I nodded and smiled. “I’m sure it will.”
But when it finally did come to me, it was too little, too late.
Twenty
The day after the party, I just had entered Okeanos’s inner ring and was making my way to Mount Califas when I caught a glimpse of the Foniádes. They appeared to be holding a struggling creature between them. Drawing near enough to make out the details, I realized with horror that it was a mermaid. This was not the way we handled our own kind, especially within our own borders, so why were they hanging on to her so tightly. And more importantly, was why she was struggling so hard to get away?
It was only when I got much closer that I realized the answer––this siren was salt-flush and she was trying to escape them because that is what any wild creature of the ocean would do. The Foniádes were taking her to the freshwater pools under Mount Califas to bring her reason back.
“Wait,” I called out, catching up to them. I unclasped the aquamarine from my neck. “This will make your job much easier, will it not?”
The question was a rhetorical one, and actually a kind way of reprimanding them. Sirens were reluctant to part with their gems, and for good reason, but there was no risk to a Foniádes if she parted from her gem for a few hours. It annoyed me that they were so hesitant to remove their gems from their bodies that none would loan hers to a salt-flush sister to end her primal state and make it easier to get her to safety.
Reaching for the salt-flush siren’s hand, I uncurled her fingers and tucked my gemstone into her palm. Reflexively, and almost spasmodically, her fist closed around the gem and her body stiffened as her mind was returned. She relaxed then, but her gills were still working hard and I could hear her heart pounding rhythmically in her chest.
Only then did I recognize her. She was one of the last batch of volunteers that I had sent out searching for tritons. She was the first one to have returned home, though clearly, she had not been in control of her travels.
The Foniádes, with chastened expressions, released her and backed up to give her room to breathe.
“Better now?” I asked.
She nodded, clutching the gem. Her big, dark eyes made contact with mine and her shoulders dropped away from her ears as the relief settled in.
“Thank you, Sovereign.” She held the gem out to me, but her reluctance to release it was obvious in the way her fingers curled around the stone.
“Keep it,” I replied. “I’ll get another.”
The Foniádes shared a look at this. It made me realize that the gems were being thought of as a personal possession of the siren who had received it. Her gem belonged to her as much as her hair color or eye color did. Sirens often commissioned custom jewelry to set off their gem. But any of our stones would cure and protect any siren from the Salt Curse––so I wasn’t particularly attached to mine. As Sovereign, I guarded Okeanos’s supply of aquamarines. They were kept in the Hall of Anamna and they were plentiful.
“How did you come to find her?” I asked the Foniádes, who drifted quietly in the background now.
“I discovered her just beyond the northern border, saw her in the distance, luckily. She came just close enough to be spotted but was swimming away from us, so lucky for her I caught a glimpse of her and recognized by her behavior that she’d gone flush.” The Foniádes who was speaking had long dark hair tied at the top of her head into a tail and the sides of her head were shaved. “I had trouble bringing her in. She’s stronger than she looks.”
“I heard Ama calling and came to help,” said a redheaded Foniádes with short, jagged hair. “First time I’ve ever seen a salt-flush siren so close to home. If Ama hadn’t spotted her, she’d be headed into the North Atlantic. Who knows how long she was in that state?”
“Your name is Toni, right?” I asked, proud that after so many years gone, I could remember.
She nodded, looking pleased as well that I’d remembered.
“Welcome home, Toni,” I said. “I’m sorry for your suffering. Why don’t we get you into the sweet water under the mountain and then we can talk? I think, from your look, you have quite a story to tell.”
After Toni had bathed in the freshwater pools and drunk her fill, she came to find me at the base of Mount Califas. I sat on a moss-covered stone at the edge of a deep lagoon filled with flashing fish and watched as Nike and Toni picked their way over to me. I had retrieved a new aquamarine and wore it on a silver chain snug around my throat.
Word spread quickly that a missing siren had returned home, but she’d done so without a gem and she’d needed to be rescued.
Toni was wearing a simple, knee-length robe belted at the waist, the kind we had multiples of near the freshwater pools for any who wished to wear one. Nike was in her chosen state whether she was in siren form or human form––naked, and skin glistening with damp. They each chose a stone and settled down.
The sun was journeying toward the horizon and had turned the sky into a rainbow of colors. Toni closed her eyes as the light of the evening sun touched her face, basking in the feeling of the warmth and energy she hadn’t felt in too long.
She opened her eyes and looked at me. “What I have to say will alarm you, Sovereign.” Her eyes were not nearly so dark as they’d appeared underwater, but a verdant green and full of worry. “If you would like this information to stay secret, I recommend we talk alone.”
Her eyes darted to Nike and back at me. Toni had the natural hesitance that all of the sirens of Okeanos had for the blue-haired sorceress who was the same but not the same.
“It’s all right.” I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile, for her words had set me on edge. “Nike is my closest confidante. Whatever you have to say can be said in front of her.”
Toni nodded and swallowed. She stretched out long legs and set her feet in the pool.
“Before you begin,” I asked, “do you know how long it’s been since you left us?”
She nodded. “Lia told me. I’ve lost sixteen years to the Salt.” She raised her eyes to meet mine again. “I was somewhere around the horn of Africa when I was attacked. There were three of
them. I had no reason to fear them, based on my experience with those in our waters. But they didn’t look much like the ones I’d seen before. I was curious, and they looked friendly.”
“Who did?” Nike asked before I could.
Without taking her gaze from mine, she answered, “Atlanteans.”
A cold feeling swept my forearms, raising hair and gooseflesh. “You were attacked by Atlanteans?”
“I know it’s hard to imagine any siren, even a thin one like me, being overtaken by any Atlantean. But like I said, they weren’t like the ones I had seen before. These were strong, fit, muscular. Their expressions were intelligent, but also calculating. They were talking and laughing while giving the appearance of traveling. They had weapons and strange clothing.”
“Giving the appearance of fishing?” I echoed. “You think they lured you? That it was a trap?”
“I know it was.”
“The clothing,” I shifted forward on my rock seat and look into Toni’s face. “What did it look like?”
“Almost all black and skin-tight. One of them had stripes down the sides of his legs, and another had them down his arms. The stripes were such a bright color, like the most vivid tropical fish you could imagine. The last one wore all black, simple and uninteresting. The clothing was fastened with a long zipper. If I hadn’t already known it was modern from the texture of it, the zipper would have confirmed it for me. I remember the first time I ever found a zipper. It was on clothing caught in the coral. I played with it for hours.”
“And the weapons?” Nike’s brows were drawn with worry.
“They were like spear-fishing guns, like the rusted ones we have in the cave closest to the grotto. I was here the day someone brought it in so I knew what they looked like. Still,” she shook her head, “I did not fear them. I know we’re natural enemies, but I had never heard of an Atlantean attacking a siren, and we were nowhere near Okeanos so I had no reason to have a quarrel with them.”
“Go on.”
“They were laughing and seemed friendly. When they saw me in the distance, they waved at me and one of them beckoned me over.”
At this, Nike tore her eyes away from Toni to look at me. The alarm in her expression had only grown, and it matched the quiver of apprehension growing in my own gut. I was thinking of Jozef and the other Atlanteans––healthy and fit Atlanteans. But the ones Toni was speaking of were so far from Okeanos, we had no idea who they were or where they were from.
“When I drew close, they attacked. Two of them held my arms while the other”—Toni took a shuddering breath—“the other took my pendant. I felt helpless not just from their strength, but also from pure shock. It was over so quickly. Suddenly, they had my gem and they were gone. They turned tail and disappeared into the blue, in three different directions.
“I took off after one of them,” Toni said, rubbing her hands over her face and pushing her hair back from her forehead. “I chased him for a long time, but he was always just out of reach, and he was…”
She paused and her eyes seemed to glaze over and she appeared to be looking at something far away.
“What?” I nudged her gently.
“He was laughing.” Her gaze snapped back to me and anger darkened them. Her eye teeth extended a little, caught the light of the sunset, and gleamed. “Like it was a game for him.”
She shook her head, her anger palpable. “I never caught him, and even if I had, there was only a one in three chance that he had my gem. At first, I hoped it was a joke, that they were just playing with me. But when none of them came to find me and give back my gemstone, I realized it was intentional, what they’d done.”
“Why would they do something like that unless they understood what it meant?” Nike asked, quietly, thoughtfully. She looked from Toni to me. “It’s like they wanted her to go flush.”
Toni nodded. “I continued to search for them, hoping to run across more Atlanteans––if not the three males themselves––so I could get my gem back. I didn’t know what to do. By the time I turned tail and headed for home, I was already losing my mind.”
Her lower chin quivered and she put her face in her hands as she remembered. “I don’t know where I was in the world when I lost my ability to think rationally, but somehow, sixteen years later…”
Her voice broke and she looked up, her expression a hybrid of gratitude and profound sadness.
“By chance you came close enough to our borders to be found,” Nike finished for her.
Toni nodded. She looked from me to Nike and back again, confusion etched on her brow. “Why would they do that to me? Was it just a cruel prank?”
Nike was nailing me with a glare.
“It was not personal to you, Toni,” she said through a tight jaw. “You’re just one of many sirens who have not returned home in many years. Our numbers are dwindling because mermaids who go out on mating cycles are staying away for longer than ever before.”
“And the last group you sent out to look for tritons?” Toni queried, an alarm growing on her face. “Have any of them returned?”
Nike shook her head and I said, “No. Just you so far.”
Toni’s face crumpled. “But this is a disaster. It cannot be. Something is dreadfully wrong. What if I am not the only one this has happened to? What if my sisters are lost in the world’s oceans, too? Stripped of their gems, we might never recover them! We have to do something!”
“We will.” I tried to keep my voice soothing and calm. I was anything but calm, and my imagination was more than likely creating a worse scenario than what was actually happening. At least, I hoped it was. “I will make an investigation. There are a few people I can ask.”
“People?” Toni cocked her head.
“Atlanteans,” I explained. “In spite of what happened to you, we have been at peace with them. They are allowed within the ring of our outermost border, and they’re allowed to fish there and forage for food. I’ve been getting to know some of them.” I didn’t say that I had really only had success getting to know one of them. I didn’t want to make her feel worse.
Toni’s eyes were growing wider and wider.
“You’ve just been through a traumatic event, perpetuated by what I’m hoping were rogue Atlanteans with a view to making mischief for a species they’ve never been at peace with until recently. We haven’t had any problems with Atlanteans in the length of time you’ve been gone.”
“Not that we were aware of, anyway,” Nike murmured.
“You are the Sovereign,” said Toni, eyes still wide, “so I trust that you know things the rest of us do not. The Salt chose you for a reason.”
“Thank you.” I reached over and put my palm on top of her hands where they still clenched her knees. “I will get to the bottom of it.”
Toni nodded. “May I go back to the freshwater pools now? It’s all I want at this moment.”
“Of course.”
She stood, then kissed her fingers and placed them at my throat in a gesture of respect.
As she turned to leave, I asked, “Did you ever find any tritons, before you had your gem taken from you?”
Toni looked over her shoulder with one foot on the edge of the pool. She shook her head, her eyes sad. “Not a one.”
Twenty-One
It was the evening of the following day when I arrived at Drakief Manor. The sun was just slipping below the choppy surface of a restless Atlantic. I had been through the Strait of Gibraltar enough times now to be acquainted with its predictable currents and wave patterns. When swimming from Okeanos to Gibraltar, I rode high in the Atlantic waters where the less salty majority continuously flowed east. When heading back to Okeanos, I would ride the deeper, saltier Mediterranean tidal flows which consistently ebbed west. These natural highways allowed me to get to and from Jozef’s home much more quickly than the first few trips I had made on my own. Now that I’d figured it out, it was an easy commute.
Taking the steps up to the large wrap-around porch, my hear
t was heavy and my mind was buzzing like a beehive. A good measure of hope blossomed in my chest that Jozef might have some light to shed on things.
Gabriela opened the front door before I even had time to knock.
“Can I fetch you some tea?” she asked as the door creaked shut behind me.
“No, thank you, Gabriela. I’m here to see Jozef, and it’s rather urgent. Where is he?”
She frowned, her forehead creasing. “I haven’t seen him since early this morning, so I’m not sure. Please wait in the parlor while I find out.”
“Sure, but do you mind if I wait in the library instead?”
“As you wish, Miss Bel.” Gabriela bustled away, leaving me to find my own way to the room I thought Jozef was most likely to be in. As I pushed into the library, however, I was met only by the sound of the grandfather clock. No lights sent their usual soft glow over the spines and nooks of the library. The fireplace was cold, and long shadows sent their fingers across the floor.
I took a seat on one of the couches and waited for Gabriela.
In a matter of two or three minutes, footsteps in the hall preceded her entrance.
“I’m sorry, Miss Bel,” she said, stepping inside the library but not approaching me. “Apparently, Jozef is out and won’t be back for a couple of hours. You’re welcome to wait here for him; I know he’d be put out with me if I let you leave.”
I smiled at the woman. “Don’t worry, I’ll wait for him. I don’t mind keeping occupied until he returns.”
She nodded. “Can I bring you anything while you wait? Some tea?”
“No thank you,” I declined a second time.
It seemed to me that Gabriela was nervous about something. Nervous and distracted.
“Don’t let me keep you from your duties,” I said. “I know this house wouldn’t run without you.”
She let out of a sigh of relief and gave me another smile. Then she gestured to the bell-pull beside the door. “Thank you, Miss Bel. Don’t hesitate to ring if you change your mind.”