by Sarah Porter
Luce kissed the paper, soft and slow, glad that no one was there to see her do it. After she'd stared at the pictures for another hour she dug a shallow pit in the loose pebbles of the shore, as far above the tide line as she could reach, and carefully tucked the folded jacket and the drawings inside. Then she covered everything with a flat stone. There was no guarantee, after all, that Anais or one of her followers wouldn't find the cave sometime.
***
Before she went to look for Dorian, Luce tied wide leaves of brown seaweed across her breasts in a kind of improvised bikini top so that she wouldn't have to feel self-conscious around him. Then she started wondering if the seaweed looked ridiculous. It felt a little foolish to be worrying about that, though, when she was almost certain he wouldn't be there.
As she'd expected, the beach was gray, dull, and empty, the failing daylight the color of slate. Rain slashed down like millions of tiny silvery fish, then burst into gray stars on the rocks. For an instant Luce had the strange idea that the endless rain might somehow erase her from the world, as if she were no more substantial than one of those hurtling drops. She tried to stifle her disappointment. Wouldn't it be unfair to expect Dorian to come out in this weather? But on the other hand, she’d come out, and it wasn't like Dorian was the one who had to worry about getting snapped in half by an orca either. Her tail swung out of the water in a sullen flip, sending up a high cascade of water. She turned to leave.
“Luce!” Hard steps came rattling down the beach. “Hey, wait! Oh, I almost didn't see you.” He had a new jacket, Luce saw, a navy blue one this time, and he was holding a flag-sized slab of tattered tarp up over his head. His eyes were wide and darkly golden, and for the first time Luce saw something hesitant in his expression, as if it had only occurred to him now that she might be some kind of mirage. He glanced at the bikini and smiled strangely. “ 'Sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown...' ” Luce didn't know what to say to that. She was somehow too sad to respond, but he didn't seem to notice. “So. How's the being mythological going?”
It was uncomfortable to hear him sound so clownish, so awkward. He seemed to be trying to hide a spasm of embarrassment, and Luce noticed, he didn't splash out to hug her the way he had the day before.
“I don't feel any more mythological than ever,” Luce snapped. It came out more sharply than she'd intended; for some reason she was annoyed with him, even as he stood bedraggled and gawky under his dripping tarp. The slope of the beach was steep, and since Luce was sprawled stomach-down against the shore his face seemed much too far above hers. “Just grossed out by all this stupid rain.” Why was that what she said when there were so many more important things she wanted to tell him?
“Water bothers you?”
“Rain is fresh water. It's different.” Suddenly she had an idea. “Dorian? Can you swipe that rowboat again?”
“Want to take another crack at me?” Dorian was almost sneering, and Luce stared at him, too hurt to react at all. He saw the shocked look on her face, and for a moment they just gazed at each other, his ochre eyes wary and hard.
Luce tensed with the urge to turn away, and suddenly the tightness in Dorian's face unraveled and he fell to his knees, leaning over so far that he lost his balance and one hand splashed down into the water. “Oh, Luce, I don't actually mean it! I've been freaking out all day. I keep thinking the same shit over and over, and none of it makes any sense.” He reached to touch her face, and Luce stiffened but didn't pull away. Dorian's eyes went wide and bright, almost desperate-looking. “I'm really, really glad you came. I've been going crazy waiting to see you all day! Don't get mad at me.”
“Don't say stuff like that to me anymore, then!” The words burst out of her, raspy and wild, even as it occurred to her that she couldn't really justify her fury. He might truly be worried that she'd try to kill him again. “Dorian, I'm sorry I ... helped sink your ship. I can't take it back, though. So if you hate me just don't talk to me anymore!”
Her face burned even through the streaks of slippery rain, and Dorian caught her wrist and held it tightly. She'd known that he would, really. In her heart she'd known perfectly well how dismayed he would be at the thought that she might disappear from his life.
“I need to keep talking to you, though! Luce, I really ... I need it more than anything. Like, you're the one who isn't supposed to be real, right? But you just make it seem like everything else is fake instead.” From something in his voice Luce could tell he'd thought those words over and over, maybe even whispered them to himself in private. His face was much closer to hers now, and the tarp was slipping back from his shoulders. Rain twisted in long streams from the tips of his trailing hair.
“It's only humans who go around thinking they're supposed to be realer than everything else,” Luce said. The words were still angry, but her tone was softening, and in spite of herself she reached to stroke the rain from his face.
“So, where do you want to go?” Dorian asked.
Luce looked into his eyes, disoriented. He was so close she could feel the faint cloud of warmth that breathed from his skin.
“You said to get the boat, right? Doesn't that mean you want to go somewhere? I can probably get away with borrowing it whenever we want. It belongs to my—to the people I'm staying with, and they never use it.”
“Oh.” His cheeks were bright from the cold, his breath misty and scented with coffee. He had such a beautiful mouth, Luce thought, especially when he smiled the way he was right now. “I was just going to take you somewhere out of the rain.”
Suddenly his lips were on hers, hovering so lightly that it was barely a kiss. Why couldn't he just make up his mind how he felt about her, once and for all?
“I'll meet you.” Then he was up and running again, the tarp flapping above his head, flinging loose streamers of water. Everything about him seemed so quick, so fluid, at least by human standards.
Luce was possessed by a sudden impulse, and she slashed deep underwater. There might be humans around the dock at this time of day, even in the rain, so she swept along in the low green regions where the light graded away and she could hide in the dimness. She didn't start to slip closer to the surface until she sighted the gray blot of the rowboat just above her. Too many boats jostled overhead, and she could hear faint human voices; she wished Dorian would hurry. After several minutes his steps came urgently pounding along the planks, beats of vibration transmitting through the water and around Luce's skin. She had trouble stifling a laugh as he caught the rope and the rowboat jarred closer to the dock; of course he never suspected that she was lurking just below.
Dorian thudded down into the boat, off-balance and out of breath, and untied the rope, absently letting it slide down into the sea. He started carefully turning around to settle in without tipping over. The next second the boat was whipping away from the dock so quickly that he almost tumbled backwards off the seat. Luce heard him yelp with surprise and laughed loudly enough for him to hear her. The rope was in her hand and her tail spiraled out, driving her through gray-green shade, through long pale streaks of bubbles, past pollock and the glassy reddish blots of jellyfish, and Luce noticed with sudden delight a sea otter that briefly tried to keep pace with her then danced away.
Behind her, Dorian whooped. They were going faster than any motorboat now, and Luce drove her tail harder, smiling at Dorian's breathless laughter. He must be watching the cliffs jumbling by, the trees blurring blue-green, while his hands clenched hard on the boat's rim. She rolled onto her back and streaked up to the surface just long enough to grin into his halffrightened, half-thrilled face, water slicing around her shoulders like a trailing dress. Then she vaulted herself up in a backwards arc, her long tail breaching and twisting in the air, brash with silvery lights. She just had time to hear Dorian crying out before she was under the waves and racing on again.
Just before they reached the shallow cave Luce began to slow, sending pulses of water backwards with her tail to counter the boat's
momentum. At least here they'd have some shelter from the wind, the rain. Stands of rock broke the waves so that the sea only flicked gently at the stones. Water dripped from the tangled roots overhead, and a curtain of rain cut off the world beyond. Dorian clambered out of the rowboat and flopped onto the shore while Luce tied the rope to a spiky branch of the fallen spruce tree. “Jesus, you scared me!” The words gasped out, but he was smiling at her.
“It kind of serves you right.” Swimming so quickly had streaked the tension out of her, though. Dorian stretched out near the edge of the water, and she swam close to him and let him slide his hands into her hair. After a moment she rested her head on the beach, her face inches away from his.
“If I keep kissing you all the time we're never going to talk.” His voice was warm and already going throaty. “But it's hard not to.”
“I don't even want to kiss you now.” Luce was surprised to hear herself say it, especially in such a strong tone.
“Because I said one stupid thing? And it might not even have been that stupid, anyway. Luce, I mean, how am I supposed to know—”
“No. Because it's too hard for me that you're always changing how you feel about me.” His fingers were still curling back and forth across her cheeks, brushing against her neck. Almost against her will she found herself leaning into his touch. The warmth of each caress washed through her skin.
“That's not true.” He sounded so serious that Luce let her hand drift up to touch him back. “Luce, I mean ... I've been getting freaked out because it doesn’t change. I'm way too into you, and it doesn't ever stop. You don't know that? And I hardly even know you. I don't even know what you are, really.”
“You hate what I am.” Even though you’re one of us, Luce thought. You just don’t know it. “You think we're all evil, and you're still talking about going to the FBI, even though that would make them start coming after us—”
“Most of you are evil! You said your friend Dana is one of the nicest ones, and she tried to get you to kill me.” Dorian halfway laughed. “You can't say that's not—some pretty warped shit.”
“I showed her your jacket.” This was what she had to tell him, Luce realized. He needed to understand. “You were right. She completely believed me that you were dead. She was even embarrassed to be asking me about it at all.”
“Good. We fooled the bitch.”
“She couldn't stop crying. For hours. Dorian, she never even met you, but she couldn't stop crying thinking about it, and I had to sit there and keep lying to her...”
Dorian's eyes went wide and uncertain. He was too startled to answer her at first, but his quick breath fluttered on her mouth. “Why do you guys keep doing it, then? Killing people? Luce, I don't want you to think I'm, like, rubbing it in ...” He gave a sick, airy laugh. “But what the fuck?”
She had to face it, Luce realized. They'd just keep going in circles until she did. “You mean, why did we sink the ship your family was on? The Dear Melissa?”
“Oh, for example ...”
“My friend Miriam had just killed herself. The Dear Melissa ran into—” Luce tried think of a way to explain it. “It was Miriam's funeral. "We were all singing for her, and then the ship was almost on top of us. And our law is that humans aren't allowed to live after—”
“After they've heard you.” Dorian was biting his lip, and his hand had stopped stroking her face. It was almost completely dark now. The only lights were a few faint sparks of green phosphorescence where the water licked the shore, the dim luminosity of Luce's skin.
“Yes.”
“It still doesn't make any sense, though. I mean, who gave you that law to start with?”
As soon as he said it, Luce couldn't understand why she'd never asked herself that question. “It's supposed to be ... They told me it's the same for all the mermaids in the world. That we all have the same laws.”
“But do you actually know where it came from? Like, who the boss is?” Dorian asked. Luce was flummoxed by the idea that there might actually be a boss. The mermaids were so free, the timahk so impersonal and strong. But, she realized, he had a point. The timahk must have come from somewhere. It must have a beginning, and she had no idea what that beginning might be. Dorian sat up abruptly and coaxed her head up onto his knee. “Luce, okay, this is going to sound crazy. But I have this theory, and I can't stop wondering if maybe I'm onto something...”
“What theory?”
“I mean...” Dorian seemed embarrassed, but he pushed ahead. “What if you used to be human, and you just don't know it? Because I realized there are all these things that don't make sense, like you knowing how to read, but they would if ... like, if the mermaids are the ones who are really enchanted? If, okay, if somebody is using all of you.” Luce was glad that she was lying down. The words swam through her, bright and swarming and unmanageable. He was so close to the truth, but also so wrong...
“What makes you think I'm enchanted?”
“Well, I mean...” He was definitely embarrassed now. He looked away, deep blue shadows and the dim reflections of the water curling around his face. “It's exactly like a story, right? The boy who falls in love with a mermaid?” Luce felt her heart start to race. What was he saying? “So in a story—if you were, like, under a spell...” Dorian suddenly stared down at her, his face wild with longing.
“What then?” It was awful, Luce thought, but maybe she couldn't avoid telling him the whole thing much longer.
“Well, then it would be my job to break it, right? Like, kill whoever enchanted you?” Dorian looked so hopeful as he asked this that Luce ached inside.
“There's a big problem with that.” Luce shuddered a little as she remembered that terrible night on the cliffs when her uncle had tried to rape her, then left her alone and howling. When the change had started to come over her, she knew, she did have a choice, even if she didn't understand what that choice was going to mean.
“What problem?” Dorian was getting too excited, and Luce cringed. “You know who did it, don't you? And you think he's too, like, powerful for me to fight—”
“No! Dorian, it's not like that!” They were gaping at each other, and Dorian's hands squeezed her shoulders convulsively. “I did used to be human, Dorian. But the trouble is—
“But if you were human before, then—”
Luce cut him off. “But nobody enchanted me! Or maybe I did it. I enchanted myself!”
Luce had never seen anyone look so completely astonished. Dorian gaped and seemed as if he was trying to say twenty things at once. Crosscurrents of emotion surged in his face, and his nails sank into her shoulder.
“Luce!” It was the best he could do.
“I didn't know I was going to turn into a mermaid or anything. I didn't know what was happening to me, but I still let it happen...”
“Oh my God!”
“I didn't want to tell you. That I was ever human. Because I knew you'd flip out...”
“But how can you be sure there's nobody else behind it, Luce? Behind whatever did this to you? Because if there is then maybe we could...” Luce knew what he'd been about to say: “Maybe we could turn you back.” How could she tell him that she didn't think she would want to turn human again, even if it were somehow possible? It was terrible to realize what he'd imagined: stabbing some wizard or demon, the enchantment vaporizing as it died and the mermaids all miraculously restored to human form. And in his daydreams she was so grateful to have legs again, to be rescued from her life in the sea...
To be stuck in foster care somewhere, to lose her freedom and her wildness. Even worse, to open her mouth and hear those thin, clacking squeaks humans called “singing” coming out of it.
Luce sat up and wrapped her arms around him, scattering soft kisses around his face. He was trying to be heroic, to risk death out of love for her. It was just a kind of heroism she didn't want.
“Is it okay if you're out late? Because I think I'd better tell you what happened, and it's a really long sto
ry...”
“I don't care about getting in trouble.” His breathing was labored, and Luce felt a tremor in his back. She desperately wished there was some way she could make it all easier for him.
Luce sighed. There were so many things she didn't want him to know about, and she was going to have to start with some of the worst of them: her father's death, her uncle's beatings, and the attempted rape. Oddly, one of the things that worried her most was what he'd think of her father. Dorian gave the impression of being one of those kids from a big, elegant house, the kind with packed bookcases and a rose garden and art objects brought back from distant countries. And boys like that didn't have anything to do with girls whose fathers were petty thieves, girls whose bedrooms were just a sleeping bag thrown in the back of a red van.
Maybe that was the real reason she hadn't wanted to tell him the truth?
Luce kissed his mouth, and he tipped back to gaze at her with frantic eyes. Then she began at the beginning.
***
As hard as it was for Luce to tell him, it was even harder for Dorian to hear it. He wanted to hurt her uncle somehow, so Luce refused to tell him what town she'd lived in or what her last name had been. Dorian had too many emotions that he didn't know what to do with, and Luce was afraid they'd goad him to do something crazy. As the story went on she felt him falling into it, as if they were both sharing the same dream. How she'd sunk her first ship completely by accident, how Catarina had found her and saved her life, the living magic of tall gray waves and ferocious music...
The rain died down until there was no sound beyond the sullen drip of water from the roots above, but still the story went on. He interrupted her a few times; he seemed especially interested in what Luce told him about the dark shimmer around each mermaid and how it revealed the private horrors that had turned each one of them from human girls. He asked her more than once about Catarina, who had always refused to let anyone look into the nightmare images of her own transformation. Something about the topic seemed to make him uncomfortable.