Moon-Bright Tides

by RoAnna Sylver

  "In the place of the moon," Riven confirmed. "This, and the song. My family’s always done it, since I can remember—since it happened, I suppose. Whatever it was that...made it necessary for us to do it."

  She fell silent, and for a moment, neither moved nor spoke. Moonbright’s curious gaze stayed on her, but a sad realization came over her face, and she stopped her slow twirl, holding as still as possible while staying afloat.

  "You’re alone. Doing this. You don’t want to be, but you are." Moonbright slipped closer to the boat, reaching up to grasp the edge. "I know what ‘alone’ looks like. And feels like."

  "I know you do," Riven answered, just above a whisper. Her eyes flicked down, but not to Moonbright. She stared into the dark water for a few seconds, then tore her gaze away, and made herself continue. "It’s just the way it is. It’s better for everyone."

  "Not for you," Moonbright said, and Riven looked over to see her resting her arms and chin on the boat’s edge, regarding Riven with a pensive gaze. "You’re nothing out here but sad and scared."

  "You’ve got that right..." Riven sighed. "I’m nothing out here. I don’t feel powerful doing this, I feel like I’m drowning, every night. If I had a choice, I’d be home, in a bright, warm house, making good food and eating it with people I love. The people I love would still be here." She swallowed hard, blinking her suddenly-stinging eyes. "And the sky would still have a moon. But it doesn’t, and I don’t have a choice—none of us do. Some things can’t be fought. The tide always has to come in."

  Moonbright remained silent, clearly troubled, but not supplying any solution. Riven couldn’t see one either, and her heart sank, the way it did so often in bad dreams. But as she guided her boat back in to shore, she didn’t quite reach the depths of hopelessness to which she was accustomed. She might have to continue her nightly ritual, but this time, she wasn’t alone.

  THAT NIGHT, RIVEN HAD the dream again. The same darkness, the same cold, same pressure crushing the air from her lungs, the iron grip around her wrist. But then, just as her days and nights had changed since finding a mermaid on her dock, her dream changed as well.

  Dappled light filtered through the dark, dim at first but growing stronger, brighter. It seemed to pulse with irregular flashes, like lightning behind storm clouds.

  And for the first time, Riven knew where she was being taken. Toward that faint, flickering light that intensified every airless second.

  And she wasn’t alone. Beyond the hand on her wrist—thin fingers that ended in points, grey-blue skin, iridescent-shining scales—she saw a face. She knew the sharp-toothed smile, the eyes as dark as the place the moon had once shone. For the first time, she didn’t feel lost.

  Then, she broke the surface—or it broke around her, a world of icy depths shattering into light. Her vision erupted into blinding flashes, and roars of thunder replaced the rushing in her head. She sucked in a desperate breath, and it hurt her lungs to finally inhale almost as much as it had to almost drown. There was a storm above the tossing ocean, her head spun from thunderclaps and crashing waves, but she could breathe.

  And she could still see her rescuer’s face. Her smile.

  Riven started to laugh, she could hear the storm laugh with her.

  Yes, she felt the words on her salt-caked lips and in her ringing ears and pounding heart. Yes, this was it, this was what she'd always known, this wasn't an alien enigma, this was familiar and true, this was recognition, brilliant and blinding as the lightening that crackled and flashed around them. She wasn’t afraid anymore.

  Riven woke up gasping for breath like she’d fought her way to the surface in the waking world as well, tangled up in her sheets, drenched in cold sweat. She rolled out of bed and finally struggled free, staggering to her feet and starting to run, out her bedroom door, through her small house, and out onto the beach, under the grey sky that came minutes before sunrise.

  She didn’t stop, kicking up the sand until she reached the side of Moonbright’s sleeping pool and fell to her knees. The surface rippled and broke in an instant. Riven didn’t even have time to say a word or even catch her breath before the mermaid’s face appeared, dark eyes inquisitive.

  Moonbright didn’t speak at first either, taking in the way Riven had fallen to all fours beside the warm water, shoulders heaving as she panted from exertion and adrenaline, hair falling around her in messy waves.

  "You remembered?" Moonbright asked at last, a nervous hum beneath her words and a faint tremble in the flanges along her neck.

  "It was you, wasn’t it?" Riven whispered, barely voiced, but loud in the stillness before the dawn. "In my dream. All those years ago."

  "Humans fell," Moonbright said, subvocals stuttering in a way that almost sounded like the way a human’s voice might break just before they burst into tears. "My sisters caught them, pulled them down. I caught one... and pulled her up."

  "Why didn’t you tell me it was you? That you saved me?" Riven cried, not even trying to stop her own tears. Mermaids didn’t seem to shed them, but she certainly had enough for both of them. At least these tears weren’t from grief or pain.

  "I’m banished," Moonbright said, and Riven felt the heaviness of shame in her own chest. Others’ emotions could be overpowering, and this seemed to extend to mermaids as well. "You would have felt bad about it. Worse than you do now."

  Riven started to shake her head and deny it, but stopped. The truth was always easier, even if it hurt. "Maybe I do a little."

  "You would have thought it was your fault," Moonbright continued. "And I didn’t want you to say I could stay because of that. Don’t stay with me because you feel bad, or think you owe it."

  "That’s not why I want you to stay," Riven said, smiling through her tears. "And I do. I want you right here with me."

  "Then here I am," Moonbright said, mouth turning up in the smile Riven had always known, but just now recognized. "Then, and now."

  She reached down to pull Moonbright into her arms, and the mermaid met her halfway. The hug was wet and slippery but Riven had never felt so warm in her life. Above them, the sky turned the delicate gold-pink of a new dawn. The moon might be missing, but the sun still rose.

  MONTHS PASSED, AND Riven’s world continued to change. She still went out every night, but this time she followed the glow of scales as Moonbright swam ahead. She still sang her song, and it was still sad and filled with loss of many kinds, but now another voice sang along, harmonizing and trilling around her melody. Moonbright was much more energetic now, moving through the water with an easy swiftness that astounded Riven. As she recovered she gained weight easily until she was plump and strong instead of sickly thin, scales lustrous instead of dull.

  More people seemed to happen upon her home now, more fisherman lured by the delicious smells and the occasional small craft putting in at the dock. She fed everyone who asked, and while the beach was never exactly lively, her small profit added up to more money than she’d ever seen, or thought possible.

  Every positive change made her nightly ritual easier. Every improvement was a reason to hope. But Riven could still never bring herself to be joyful when it came time to cast away from shore in the dead of night.

  As Riven now knew, Moonbright wasn’t overly talkative, but she did ask the occasional question. Such as if the sea-flow could be directed—which Riven had never tried and didn’t know was possible. But still, she tried, for the sake of experimentation and breaking up the tedium. As she raised the shell, she concentrated on an eastward direction, and, to her surprise, found that the tide seemed to follow at least a bit. They drifted home on a more easterly path than usual, and had to make up the distance along the coastline to get back to the dock.

  "Why did you want to know this?" she asked as they landed, watching Moonbright with unabashed curiosity partially galvanized by her success.

  "Fish," the mermaid answered. "The few we catch seem to come from the west. If the tide brings us more..."

  "Then they may
not have to search for food elsewhere."

  "Mm." Moonbright said, giving a nod a moment later, as if she’d just remembered the gesture. "They won’t starve." Riven smiled, heart aching. "Nobody else will have to leave, or be cast out again."

  "Not for showing mercy," Moonbright answered with a soft trill that sounded like a sigh.

  Riven said no more on this, but kept directing the tides to flow from west to east, excited when it continued to work. But her delight was short-lived, as nothing came close to lifting the gloom that came from simply having to continue her midnight voyages. But now, every night, Moonbright traveled with her, lighting the way with her luminous scales, listening to the song.

  "Does it have to be you who calls the sea?" Moonbright asked in the silence before Riven raised the shell and her voice. The song was never a happy one, and Riven tended to procrastinate for at least several minutes.

  "I always thought so," Riven said with a tired shrug. "Nobody else seems to want to do it. I don’t think they can. It’s my job, that’s the way it’s always been."

  Then Moonbright asked something Riven didn’t expect, something no one had ever asked before, voice soft and hesitant. "May I try it?"

  Riven didn’t answer right away. All her life she’d followed two rules: call the sea every night at midnight, no matter the weather, and keep the shell safe, no matter the challenge. Letting it out of her hands or letting it slip from around her neck for a moment went against every imperative in her life—but it was also all she’d ever wanted. Most nights, it felt like nothing more than an anchor pulling her down into the brine. If anyone else had asked, she would have refused in a heartbeat, never trusted them for a moment. But with Moonbright...

  "Maybe it’ll work for you," Riven said at last, lifting the chain from around her neck and holding it out. The shell swung like a pendulum, heavy in her hand. "I’ve always wondered why it fell to me, a human—out of anyone, shouldn’t the sea answer to you, shell or not?"

  "Do humans call the sky?" Moonbright asked, eyes following the movement of the shell, but not reaching out for it yet. "Command storms?"

  "Not without magic."

  "So it is with us. None of us has ever commanded the tide-flows, not without something like that, and not the way you can." Moonbright said, tone darkening. "Which has caused us no end of fury. If humans are to blame for the loss of the moon, for humans to command the seas now only adds to the pain."

  "No wonder you eat us," Riven murmured, arm beginning to falter from the effort of holding up the surprisingly heavy shell.

  "It won’t bring the moon back," Moonbright said, reaching out and catching the chain as Riven let it drop. "But maybe, someday, the song will."

  Moonbright drew in a breath, gill-slits on the sides of her neck opening as she did. When she sang, it was in the same otherworldly, self-harmonizing voice that made the hair stand up on the back of Riven’s neck. A wave of prickling chills flowed over her skin like she’d been caught in a cool breeze, and a contrasting warmth filled her belly.

  Waxing, waning, full and blood,

  Harvest, gibbous, wolf and snow.

  Flower, worm, corn and cold,

  Let your light shine down.

  First, there was nothing. Gentle waves lapped at the boat’s sides, but the air was still. Moonbright’s long fingers worried at the chain, shell twisting in the air, but still nothing happened. Riven sighed and leaned back, gazing up at the stars as Moonbright dropped the shell into her hand, letting down its chain in a slow coil. She hadn’t really expected it to work, but here was the disappointment anyway.

  "Of course not..." she murmured, running her fingers along the shell’s familiar curve and eyeing it with tired resentment. "Too much to ask. For both of us. I don’t know why the tides listens to me, but... I thought after all this time, it might give me this one thing."

  Silence stretched between them, and Riven felt her heart sink. Maybe all the way to the ocean floor. Would the shell sink as fast, if she simply tossed it overboard, let the chain slip from her fingers?

  Moonbright said something just then, but between her voice’s startled subharmonics and Riven’s sad reverie, the words were indistinct.

  "What did you say?" Riven asked, half sitting up and looking over to see the mermaid’s hands still on the boat edge, but the rest of her gone.

  "Moving," Moonbright repeated, peeking back up at her. "There’s a current—"

  "What?" Riven cried, leaping to her feet, sending the boat rocking and Moonbright rearing back in surprise.

  "What’s wrong?" Moonbright asked, anxiety-layered voice coming out tight, pinched.

  "Nothing!" Riven laughed, earning a perplexed head-tilt from her mermaid friend. She could feel it now, the water moving beneath them, faster and stronger than anything she’d been able to do with her shell and song. "It worked—you did it! I can’t believe it! I can’t..."

  Moonbright swam alongside the boat, heading back toward the far-off light of the lantern waiting on the dock. She stayed quiet as Riven continued to laugh and cry at the same time, clearly confused but not as worried as she’d been.

  "I never wanted that power," Riven sobbed after a few quick breaths. They were moving faster now, caught by the current that carried her home every night, but now stronger than ever. Going home. It was done, and she hadn’t been the one to do it. The idea burst in her brain like an exploding star. "Nobody asked me—not when they were alive, and not after it was too late. I only did it to honor their memories."

  "But you hated it," Moonbright said, voice soft despite her customary forthrightness. "Every minute."

  "Yes," Riven agreed without hesitation, dragging a forearm across her wet face. "But in a way... I thought I should hate it. And I should do it, and be glad that I hated it—I could never forgive myself for surviving, still being here when the rest of my family isn’t. I had to do this, and if I hated it, good! It was the only way I could somehow atone for living when they aren’t allowed."

  "You have nothing to atone for," Moonbright said, and Riven blinked her eyes clear to meet the mermaid’s steady gaze. If it had been anyone else asking for the shell, she would have refused. If it had been anyone else saying these words, she would have dismissed them.

  "Giving it away was the best thing that’s ever happened to me," she whispered, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. For the first time in years, it wasn’t an effort to smile, it happened on its own. "Except for meeting you."

  She drifted down more than leaned, only half-surprised to find Moonbright rising to meet her, eyes gently hooded and lips parted. Of all the gestures unfamiliar to mermaids, this didn’t seem to be one of them. Riven was smiling before their lips even met. This was no trickster-siren, bait-and-switching her out of her power, her home, or her life. Riven shut her eyes and sank down into the salty kiss. She expected it to taste of the sea. She didn’t expect it to be so sweet.

  AFTER ANOTHER FEW WEEKS of practice, Moonbright was familiar enough with the song, shell, and magic to call the tides herself. She learned much faster than Riven had, already having a natural affinity and lack of fear for the sea. She was healthier in every way now, once-dull scales brighter, once-angular face rounder, and once-thin arms and waist nearly as thick and soft as Riven’s. Seeing her recovery, and the peace that had come over the previously skittish mermaid gave Riven a wave of relief every time she looked. She was safe. They both were.

  The first night Moonbright went out herself was both blissful and nerve-wracking for Riven, who stayed safe and warm in her bed, counting her lucky stars even as she fought the pervasive worry that she’d seen the last of both the mermaid and her family’s heirloom shell. But her fears were soon laid to rest by a sound from outside, a soaring melody, like the musical spell sung in whalesong.

  She ran outside to find Moonbright happily sprawled on the beach near her warm pool, shell in her hand as she lay on her back, the round of her soft belly gently curving up toward the still-moonless but s
tar-filled night sky. Waves rose and fell, splashing over her tail—the night tide. She was smiling wider than Riven had ever seen, and her neck flaps twitched as she let out happy trills, what had to be her equivalent of laughter.

  "You did it!" Riven cried, falling to her knees in the wet sand and pulling Moonbright into her arms, for once not minding the ocean’s spray. "You called the water, and it answered! I can’t believe—I mean, I do, I knew you could do it, but, I can’t believe I..."

  "You’re free," Moonbright said, almost in a purr, wiggling closer and wrapping her arms around Riven, returning the hug. "And so am I. I don’t have to wander alone anymore. And you don’t have to venture out alone on a dark sea ever again."

  "Really?" Suddenly Riven’s eyes stung, salt water flowing down her face as well as her feet. "You mean this? You don’t mind?"

  "As I said, no mer has ever controlled the tides," Moonbright said, lips curling up in a human-looking smile, but the flash of her pointed teeth affirmed her as anything but. "But I like it. The sea is ours, and now, so is its flow. It is the way it should be."

  "We should never have had this," Riven reflected, looking down at the shell that rested against the blue-grey skin of Moonbright’s chest. "It was yours to begin with. Or should have been."

  Moonbright nodded, running one long finger down the curve of the spiral shell. "The same power that weighed you down gave me new life. I've never had power before, not for one moment. Now, it is mine." She spoke like a queen, and Riven smiled at the thought of Moonbright in a crown and draped in gold. But then her smile wavered.

  "What is it?" Riven asked, praying for no new riddles, no new pain.

  "The others," Moonbright said, nervousness re-entering her voice. "They still don’t know it’s me bringing them prey. I don’t know how they would receive me if they knew, but..."

  "You have to try," Riven finished. Like venturing out across the ocean at midnight, some things just had to be done, no matter how frightening.