by Sarah Porter
Did he guess what she was planning? Suddenly her heart doubled its speed, and dizziness rushed through her.
“Hi,” he said flatly. “Going to talk to me now? Or you can't be bothered with that?”
It would be so much better for both of them, Luce thought, if he would only succumb to the death song. Tentatively, she tried it out, letting her voice slide up into the soaring note where it began. It was disturbing to hear that fierce, haunting song sound so choked and shy.
The boy clenched the edge of the boat and gave a single gasping laugh. Then he poured out the melody in return. Now that he was so close, Luce could actually feel how he seized her song with his voice, bent it, and twisted it back at her. It felt like a physical movement, as if her voice were caught in a hard grip and wrenched. Trying to enchant him was pointless. He could deflect her as long as he had to.
Luce let the music drop abruptly, and they stared at each other again. She could see the golden brown tint of his eyes even in the blue darkness, see the harsh skepticism on his face. A cloud of dark sparkling flickered around his head. With a human girl that shimmer would have been a sign that she was on the verge of turning into a mermaid herself. But as a boy he couldn't possibly change, even though he was marked the same way Luce was.
The wind sighed around them. He laughed again, with the same hurt, sarcastic suddenness.
“You think I'm surprised? I know what this is about. I knew it as soon as you didn't come to the beach.” His voice was low, taunting. Luce shuddered, wishing she could pull her gaze away from his. “I just wanted you to talk. I need to understand—what happened to me. But I guess you're never going to give me that. What's it to you, what I need, right? You really won't say anything to me? One word?” Luce heard herself sob. He stared hard for a moment, as if he wanted to give her time. “Then get it over with, already.”
Why did you have to tell the police about us? Luce wanted to ask, but the words seemed too difficult. Instead she bit her lip, and let her body drop straight down into the water. Catarina's voice whispered on in her mind, telling a story about her previous tribe on the Russian coast, about Marina, who'd been queen there. One man—I don’t know how he managed to resist her. Marina was a singer like no one I’ve ever heard; her voice could swallow a ship whole. But he held out, so three of us shot up from beneath his lifeboat and capsized it. Marina pulled him under ...
Luce sank down until the rowboat was nothing more than an inkblot on the blue-gray darkness above her, squeezed her eyes tight, and aimed. A violent spiral of her tail sent her rocketing upward, and she felt the bruising thud on her shoulder as it slammed into the hull, knocking the boat clear of the surface. She just had time to see him reaching out into nothing as he was thrown through the air, to hear him cry out in shock. She dipped through the blue and caught hold of him, and his arms reached back and grappled with her. All she had to do was keep her grip while she used her tail to drive them deep under the waves. No human could hope to overcome a mermaid out in the water.
Luce closed her eyes tight again. She didn't want to watch his face as he died. She heard his sudden inhalation as the water lapped over their heads.
Then they were struggling with each other, his legs flailing as her tail lashed, his hands gripping her shoulders. Her arms were around his back, and she clung to the drenched fabric of his parka. It should have been so simple for her to overpower him, but somehow her body felt weaker than usual. Her tail refused to move the right way. Even with her eyelids squeezed shut, Luce could feel by the lightness of the water above that they weren't far from the surface at all. She could feel his hair swirling against her cheeks, the rolling motion of his back as he twisted. She willed herself to drag him deeper...
The surface of the water shattered like a window, and the wild air billowed against Luce's face. She could hear breath rake into his lungs. It was all wrong. He would only suffer more this way. Luce tensed herself to plunge under again, when the chill, pulsating wind was interrupted by something inexplicably warm and soft. A silky pressure took hold of her mouth.
Luce gasped in disbelief. He was kissing her, his full lips slow and smooth on hers. One of his arms squeezed her waist, while his other hand cupped her cheek. It felt like all the sensual wavering of the sea against her skin but so much warmer, the sweetness unbearably concentrated where they touched.
Her tail wasn't spiraling to drive them under. Instead there was only a subtle rippling of her fins, just enough movement to support both their heads above the surface, and she could feel the recoil of the water as he started to kick. They were sliding across the ocean's skin together, and the kiss wouldn't break. It only turned hungrier, and even the bitter waters of the Bering Sea prickled with a soft, unsettling heat.
She wasn't fighting him anymore. If anything, she was helping to propel them back toward the shore. Luce didn't know how long it was before there was a light scraping and a few pebbles rolled away beneath her back. She looked up and saw his face above hers, the mist so close that all the world beyond was canceled out.
He pulled away from her, and Luce let her head fall back against the stones. Her thoughts rocked dizzily in blue darkness.
She'd failed abjectly. He was still alive, and Luce realized with despair that she would never find the willpower to attempt his murder again. He was half crawling and half thrashing up onto the beach, dragging himself upright until he sat cross-legged just beside her, bent over so that his face was only a foot above hers. Salt water streamed from his slicked hair and coursed like tears around his cheeks.
“Jesus, that's cold!” He almost barked the words, and Luce let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. He was looking straight at her with the same lack of surprise he'd shown the first time she'd seen him, when he'd gazed at the mermaids as if he'd known about them all his life. “Can you come sit under the trees? At least that way we'd be out of the wind.”
Luce sat up, still waist deep in the water, and shook her head. “I can't take my tail out for more than a few seconds. None of us can.”
“Why not?”
“It's incredibly painful. When they start to dry out. And if we can't get back to the water pretty soon it kills us.” It was strange to hear her own voice addressing a human being. She sounded shaky and her hands were trembling. He leaned back and grimaced at her.
“You just tried to drown me. And now you're seriously coming out and telling me the best way to kill you?” He snorted. “What makes you think I won't do it? Are you really dumb enough to trust me? I could drag you onshore right now.”
Luce considered the question. The waves dashed against her back. “I could get away. I can outswim an orca. Getting away from you would be practically nothing.” His expression stayed rough, sardonic. “And I didn't try to drown you that hard, anyway. Not hard enough. I'm supposed to make sure you die tonight. And I just blew it completely.”
For a second his face froze in astonishment, and then he cracked up laughing. Luce found herself laughing, too, though her laughter had a desperate sound, and she knew it wouldn't take much for her to burst into tears instead.
“Supposed to? So it wasn't even your idea? Somebody told you to? Another mermaid, I mean.” Luce was still laughing, or gasping, too hard to answer. She just nodded. “So how come you didn't do it? It's not like you give a shit about killing people. You murdered my whole family. Or at least you helped.”
“I don't want to kill anyone,” Luce objected, but her voice was feeble. The boy just glared at her, suddenly vicious, and his eyes went blank and desolate.
“But you don't even know what that means, do you? A family? Do you—whatever you are—do monsters like you even have parents?” Luce's insides clenched with pain, and she looked down. Getting drawn into this conversation was obviously a horrible mistake. Mermaids and humans couldn't possibly have anything good to say to each other. How could she have forgotten that? “Got it. You don't.”
Luce made herself look back at him. “I don't an
ymore. My parents are both dead.” She still half hoped that he would soften again, but instead he gave a bitter laugh.
“Yeah, but for you that's normal, right? I bet your parents swim upstream to spawn and then die. You were hatched from an egg or something. Like a salmon with...” He hesitated and pitched a rock into the waves. His whole body was trembling. “Whatever. You look beautiful, but that doesn't mean anything. You don't have any real emotions at all.”
Luce fought down an angry impulse to point out that, if he really thought she was a talking salmon, maybe he shouldn't have kissed her. That wasn't what mattered, and he could say he'd only done it to stop her from killing him. It didn't matter that she'd once been human herself either, though it was becoming obvious he didn't know about that. The sadism in his voice reminded her of Catarina.
“You know you sound exactly the way mermaids do when they talk about humans. They say the same kinds of things. Like having legs makes somebody automatically worthless.”
He was still glowering. “I bet they do!”
“Well, if you think we're monsters with no emotions, why do you want to act the same way we do?”
His expression changed, and he sat back. Luce was surprised. She'd expected a blast of hostility or defensiveness; instead he seemed to be seriously thinking over what she'd just said.
“So you don't agree with that? That humans are all trash?”
“If I did, why would I even be talking to you?” She shouldn’t be talking to him, Luce thought. She should just race south before Dana found out that she'd let him live a second time. He nodded, and now Luce could see that he was trembling harder, wrapping his knees against his chest for warmth.
“Then maybe you shouldn't have tried to kill me.”
“What about what you did when I didn’t kill you!” Luce snapped it out in exasperation. “I broke our law to save you, and you just went and told the police about us!”
If he had denied it, Luce would have been sure he was lying. Instead she watched his expression turn utterly flummoxed, watched him obviously struggling to understand what she was talking about.
“Told ... Is this about the drawing? But I didn't even put my name on it...” Luce stared, wanting urgently to believe that he'd kept her secret. She wanted it so much that she knew she couldn't trust herself.
“You really didn't tell anyone?” Luce asked, and he looked at her too hard. Suddenly Luce realized that he was having trouble keeping his gaze from sliding down to her chest. She'd been living with other mermaids for so long that she'd completely forgotten how the sight of her naked torso would affect a human male, and she flushed and wrapped her arms across her breasts. His stare flicked down, taking in the gesture. He looked as embarrassed as she felt.
“I mean, I put that drawing in the water. To force you to talk to me. But I'd have to be insane to go around talking about seeing mermaids!” He gave a raspy laugh, and his teeth chattered. “You thought I ratted you out to the cops?”
Luce let herself believe him, then. It was like a sudden rush of warmth in her heart, a deep release.
“I thought I had to drown you, to protect everyone. And then Dana found the drawing and realized I'd saved you, after that boat...” The words bubbled out too fast in her relief. She turned and splashed water on her face to stop herself from crying.
“I mean...” He was being careful now, but there was also an incomprehensible gentleness in his voice. “I feel like I'd have a right to tell the police if that wouldn't sound totally nuts to them. After what you guys did. It's actually sick that I don't hate you more than this. I should want to kill you. I'm, like, a fucked-up person for not wanting to kill you. Do you—I mean, does that make sense to you at all?”
Luce couldn't answer, not without letting her tears loose, and she didn't want him to see that. She just nodded. The wind lifted damp strands of his hair and slapped them against his cheek. He hunched his shoulders and stared around at the beach. His teeth clicked more loudly.
“You're going to get sick,” Luce said. It came out broken, whispering. “You should go home.” He twisted where he sat, grating the rocks together.
“And you care about that? You're just trying to get rid of me.”
Luce's voice halted in her throat. She shouldn't care, of course. She shouldn't even be there. The thud of trampling hooves sounded from the woods, maybe an elk running nearby, followed by the snap of branches, and somewhere a seal moaned. Suddenly she was aware of how isolated the two of them were together, buried in the core of the vast dim fog. He stared at her with fierce concentration.
“You're talking to me now, is the thing. If I let you go you're never going to come back. So I'm going to sit here and freeze.” He was shaking so hard that the pebbles rattled faintly under his sneakers. “Are you really not cold at all?”
“It's against the law for me to talk to you. We're not supposed to have any contact with humans.” She didn't know how to explain that the timahk was much more than just the law, at least in the way humans thought of it.
“So?”
“So Anais will kill me if she finds out. Literally kill me. She wants me dead anyway.” She watched him suppress an impulse to ask who Anais was. “And I can't let Dana find out you're still alive. You don't get—For us this is really serious.”
“Dana's the one who found the drawing?”
Luce nodded. “She's actually—she's one of the nicest girls in the tribe. But there's no way she'll understand how I could do this. Let you get away twice. She'll feel like I let her down.” His eyes took on the same expression of intense consideration she'd noticed earlier. She couldn't stop herself from liking that look.
He reached up and pulled down the long zipper of his drenched parka, shrugging it off his shaking arms. His longsleeved T-shirt was still soaked, clinging to him. Luce was ready to snap at him for doing something so stupid when he grinned and leaned closer, holding the parka out to her. It was olive wool, with a lot of pockets and a quilted orange lining; even soaking wet it felt warm in her hands.
“Give it to Dana. She'll think I'm dead. That way you'll get enough space to hang out with me.”
“Enough...” Luce wanted to refuse, to tell him to forget he'd ever seen her. Instead she said, “Why would she believe me? That it's yours?”
He smiled brilliantly. “There are five more of my drawings folded up in the pocket. She'll totally buy it. You'll see.”
Luce cradled the jacket, and noticed a name written in black marker down one sleeve. “Dorian.”
“You can read. Crazy.” He was still smiling. “Are you going to tell me your name?”
She hesitated. It seemed wrong to tell him, but then everything else she was doing was wrong, too. “Luce.”
For some reason that made him laugh. “But I guess since you're a mermaid that isn't short for Lucille or anything?”
The question made Luce snort in annoyance. “It's short for Lucette! I hate Lucille; it's like the worst name ever.” He laughed harder. Now that he didn't have his parka he was almost doubled up with tremors. “What's so funny?”
“You ... sound so human ...”
“I...” Luce started, and then caught herself, dismayed at what she'd been about to say. I am human. How could she even think something like that?
While she was consumed by the disturbing implications of that thought, Dorian got up on his knees, leaned across the narrow span of sea between them, and kissed her again. The kiss was so soft that it could have been part of the night, a single drop of blue darkness spilled on her lips. Foggy heat gathered inside her, reminding her of her lost human body. This was what Catarina had felt, Luce thought, the reason she'd kept up her forbidden encounters with drowning boys...
“You're going to come back?” It wasn't really a question.
“Yes,” Luce told him, and instantly regretted it. She watched as he staggered to his feet, then realized that she didn't want to see him leave. She slashed away fast into deepening waters, trying to obl
iterate her thoughts with movement.
6. A Glass of Water
The wave faced him, swaying slightly. It was enormously tall and hunched over so far that the foam dribbling like spittle from its crest dripped onto Dorian's upturned face. Huge as it was, it leaned pathetically, stretching out its hands like a beggar. There was even something piteous in its roar. Dorian backed slowly away, pushing through a dense gray substance that was neither air nor water, but the wave shambled stubbornly after him, pressing closer and licking him with cold tentacles. Its breath stank of seal carcasses and weeds; it exhaled chill mist until Dorian's moistened hair clung to his face. It wanted something, and if he didn't find a way to placate it the wave would turn from fawning to savage in a heartbeat. It would lash down and crush him. The trouble was that he had no idea what to give it. A drawing? He groped through the pockets of his parka, searching for one, but somehow the fabric disintegrated at his touch and his hands kept reaching endlessly through cavernous space.
The wave stretched itself, its watery chest inches from Dorian's eyes, and then he saw a little girl's curled arm and hand suspended in its core. The hand was green with decay. Tiny fishes nibbled the loose skin from its fingertips, but as Dorian gaped the forefinger crooked twice, beckoning him inside.