by Sarah Porter
“In such cases,” Nausicaa observed coolly, “it is the man who will not survive. The mermaid will kill him. Then die of grief herself.”
13. The Grays
The storm thrashed against the cliffs for three days. When Luce darted out for food, she found for the first time that the force of the water almost overpowered the quick dancing flow of her swimming, and she hardly had the strength to fight her way back into the cave. The currents jerked her back and forth, and waves caught her and threw her into the air before she had a chance to compensate for their aggression. Even if she used the full power of her singing, Luce realized, the storm would be even stronger. Its roar was enough to drown out her voice. Trying to reach Dorian was hopeless, and then he'd certainly be shut up indoors himself. Nausicaa repeatedly made quick forays out of the cave, only to return in frustration minutes later. She listened while Luce practiced singing or else swam in circles like a shark trapped in a tank.
On the fourth day Luce woke to waves that suddenly beat a drowsy cadence, and she slipped out into the open sea. The late, lazy dawn smeared the eastern sky with peach and crimson and pale bluish lilac, and the waves rose and fell as if they could hardly be bothered to make the effort. Even after the terrible things Nausicaa had told her, the change in the weather meant one thing to Luce: later that day she'd be able to see Dorian again. He'd run his hands through her hair, then down around her throat; kisses would settle on her shoulders like soft, tiny, loving animals. It would be obvious that all their problems were insignificant compared to what they felt together, and maybe she'd sing for him again...
“Do you see them, Luce?” Nausicaa was suddenly beside her, and Luce glanced over sharply, annoyed at having her daydream disrupted. “Look there. To the north.” Luce looked. A kind of pale disturbance traced the distance. It reminded Luce of a scene in a movie she'd once seen, where a far-off cloud of dust revealed the approach of a vast army. What could that mean out here in the sea? Nausicaa's eyes flared with green exultation. And, Luce realized, the water popped, trilled, and hummed with sounds, still far away but all coming from the same direction.
“What is that?” Luce stared at the oncoming froth; only Nausicaa's obvious joy kept her from feeling alarmed by the sight.
“The grays, Luce! The gray whales are migrating! They were nearly all slaughtered not so long ago, like so many other animals have been. I've seen blue whales killed in their hundreds by harpoons made to explode inside their brains, and countless other nightmares brought to this earth by humans.”
Luce had trouble believing that those enormous billows of mist were being thrown into the air by a species that was nearly extinct. “But if they were almost all killed, then...”
“They've come back! Luce, so many things are gone forever. Creatures that once ran so thick they were like a second ocean rolling through the first ... But the grays, the grays are coming back! It is one reason I can still have hope.” Nausicaa spiraled her tail in the water and leaped straight up, pirouetting in naked space, the emerald flash of her tail answering the dawn. She dove deep and came up with gold-lit droplets flinging out around her hair. “I must go to them, Luce. Would you like to come with me? There are some I've known before. They should remember me...”
“Maybe I'll ... come find you later.” Luce could hear the embarrassment in her voice, and Nausicaa glanced at her sharply but didn't say anything. There was the possibility that Dorian would cut school and wait for her at their beach. The gray whales barely seemed interesting compared to the prospect of touching his face again.
Nausicaa was already gone.
***
Luce knew that there were other things she should do besides go to find Dorian. She hadn't seen Dana since the day of the fight with Anais. And, while Luce didn't know what she could have done differently, the fact was that she'd thrown Dana's twin sister into a wall. Jenna might be seriously injured, and Luce should at least try to find out how she was doing. And then there was the question of Violet: would Anais figure out that Violet had betrayed her to help Luce? Maybe it wasn't completely safe for Violet to stay in the tribe any longer.
But what was she supposed to do? Luce asked herself resentfully. Going back to the tribe's territory to look for Dana and Violet would only mean another fight, wouldn't it? The last thing Luce wanted was to find herself in a situation where she'd be forced to hurt another mermaid again, and then Dana was probably furious with her over Jenna. Luce slid through the gold-streaked water, listening to the high, silky moans of the gray whales. She was almost to the beach where Dorian might be waiting for her, and she quickly peered above the surface to see if she could catch a glimpse of him.
He was thirty yards away, sitting with his arms around his knees and scanning the waves hungrily. But for once he wasn't alone on the beach. A strange woman was walking her dog along the shore and Luce darted under the waves again, her tail almost whisking from impatience. It looked like the woman was on her way back to the forest trail, but still ... Luce couldn't completely repress a sudden fantasy of letting a few notes uncoil from her mouth, just a few, and luring the woman out into the ocean. Then she'd be out of their way more quickly.
“Come on, Biscuit!” Luce heard the pebbles grind far to her right. They were almost gone, at least. And there was a slight disturbance in front of her, Luce realized: somebody wading in the icy water. So Dorian had seen her, and he couldn't wait either!
Luce skimmed along the seafloor until she could see Dorian's bare feet, blue-white from the cold, then slipped close enough to kiss his ankle. “Wait till she's farther away, okay?” Dorian murmured. Luce rolled onto her back so that a rippling pane of water covered her face and smiled up at him, his image split and curled by the unresting sea. He didn't exactly look happy, staring away in the direction the woman had taken. “Maybe we're ... I think we're good now. God, I missed you. I even came down here two days ago, just in case. The wind was blowing so hard I could barely walk.”
Luce came up and wrapped her arms around his knees. She leaned her face against his thigh and breathed in his warm smell; it was all beautiful to her, even the faint trace of mildew in his unwashed jeans. “It was the first time the water's ever been too strong for me. Swimming was almost scary.” The dog was barking again, not really far enough away, and Dorian tensed a little.
“But you missed me, too?” Dorian asked; he sounded a little sad, Luce thought.
“You know I did. I missed you so much!” But Nausicaa's words still rebounded through her mind in a stream of bitter echoes. “Dorian, Nausicaa knows. About us. I don't think she'll do anything to hurt us, though.”
Dorian staggered back out of the water and sat down hard on the beach. “You told her that? That you're breaking those big-deal laws? Luce, I mean—what makes you think we can trust her?”
“I didn't tell her! She—Dorian, she's been a mermaid for like three thousand years, and I thought she might know more than Catarina. I asked her if there was any way a boy could change, and she realized right away why I wanted to know that.” There was no way she'd ever tell him all the other things Nausicaa had said, Luce thought. Repeating those words out loud would give them too much power. Even remembering them seemed destructive, as if delicate fibers between her and Dorian were being torn. And while she couldn't quite put her finger on why, she had the impression that Dorian looked a little different somehow.
“Are you saying she wasn't mad?” Dorian pulled her closer so that she was leaning back against him and wrapped her in his arms. Everything was fine between them, Luce decided. Doubting him before had been unfair of her, and Nausicaa was just being pessimistic. Mermaids always believed the worst where humans were concerned.
“She was totally mad, actually. But it wasn't like it would be with another mermaid. It was more like she thinks I should try to become queen. Challenge Anais for the tribe. She thinks I'm being irresponsible because I want to be with you instead.” Luce snuggled into him. It was hard to believe she'd felt this a
bsolute warmth only a few days before.
“I can see her point,” Dorian said. Luce tipped her head back to look at him, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I've thought about it a lot, Luce. If you took the tribe away from Anais, you could keep them all from killing any more people, right? And, seriously, 'queen of the fucking mermaids' does sound like kind of a no-brainer.” He laughed.
“I'd just be queen of this one messed-up tribe, though!” Luce gazed up at his wide gold-brown eyes, his crooked nose, thinking that he had no idea what he was talking about. “And if I did, I'd have to stop seeing you. I wouldn't be able to keep it a secret.”
“If you were queen, though ... couldn't you just tell everybody that you have a human boyfriend, and too bad for them if they don't like it?”
“You mean, just make up my own timahk?” Luce delivered the words with heavy sarcasm. She suddenly realized that Dorian hadn't asked the most important question: if Nausicaa knew about some way he could change. Why wasn't he at least curious?
“Yeah. I do mean that. Why shouldn't you make your own version? Like, why should we care at all about these random laws that come out of nowhere? Especially when they screw us over? Luce, think about it, you could just take the good parts...”
Luce had imagined doing exactly that a thousand times, but now she felt a stubborn impulse to argue with him. “The timahk doesn't come out of nowhere, actually. Nausicaa told me the whole story.”
“She also told you she's three thousand years old,” Dorian observed roughly.
“And you're kind of right, about somebody making us into mermaids. Except he was trying to help us by letting us change.”
“Some help, making you all into murderers,” Dorian hissed. Luce felt Dorian's body shift as he pulled himself straighter, and she looked up to see the dark smolder gathering in his eyes. “Who is this scumbag?”
Luce suddenly remembered what Dorian had said before, about wanting to kill whoever was responsible. He wouldn't be crazy enough to think he could fight a god, would he? A little nervously she told him the story of Proteus and the Unnamed Twins, and how the mermaids had first come into the world. “And that's why it's just a thing that happens to girls. That's what Nausicaa said. She said there aren't any exceptions for boys, ever. But, Dorian, maybe if we asked him...”
“Forget it,” Dorian snarled. Luce gazed up at him in dismay. “Not because I don't want to be with you, Luce. I do. But because—Think about it. This story. It sounds like Proteus is just another asshole dad who doesn't want his daughters to grow up. Of course he wouldn't let any boys change. Because then his daughters would just leave him.” Luce was surprised and also a little impressed. None of this had occurred to her, but now that she heard Dorian say it she thought he might have a point.
“I don't think my dad would have been like that,” Luce objected, but her voice was suddenly uncertain.
“Yeah, well. Too bad your real dad is dead. Just because he ran into this, like, project Proteus had of making a bunch of girls into total killers. Luce, I don't know how you can even think about asking this creep of a god for a favor.” They were both gazing out at the narrow band of sea that showed beyond the boulder, and Dorian had started lightly stroking her body. Platinum ribbons of sunlight stretched in sleek layers on the water. “Look at that! Luce, do you see ...” An arch of dark gray flesh like a living cathedral split the surface, not that far away.
“The gray whales,” Luce said. “They're migrating now.”
“They were talking about that in school yesterday...” Luce began to feel Dorian's sudden excitement running through her own body, and she twisted around to face him. “Oh my God, Luce. Let's get the boat! We can go out there—”
“Nausicaa is swimming with them, though!”
“So?” Dorian was grinning now, with the hard, defiant courage Luce loved so much. “You said you want me to meet her.”
“But ... I don't know how she'd react to that! I mean, she knows and everything, but if she actually saw you ... She keeps talking about how much humans have messed up the world.” Nausicaa probably wouldn't try to kill him unprovoked, Luce thought. But it didn't seem likely that Dorian and Nausicaa would get along too well, and there was no telling what Nausicaa might do if some human made her angry.
“Let her say that stuff to my face, then.” Dorian's smile had a cast of grim determination now. “I'll tell her she's right about humans sucking. Fine. And I'll tell her that my being human doesn't mean I shouldn't love you!”
Maybe he was being reckless, Luce thought. But she couldn't say no to him, not when his recklessness was so strong and beautiful. She found herself grinning back at him.
“Let's go.”
***
Half an hour later they were skimming out across the unstable sea, the water brushed pale green and milky blue by the glowing sky. White seabirds flocked in strange, continually shifting patterns against the delicate blue above, all of them rushing south. The rowboat knocked rhythmically against the low swells, and the water hummed around Luce's scales and trembled on her bare skin. The haunting soprano moans of the gray whales echoed inside her skull. Now closer and now farther away, their spouts rose in frost-colored plumes, V-shaped, spanning the blue air. Dorian kept twisting in his seat, his face luminous with excitement. All at once Luce had an idea and started laughing.
“I want to try something. Okay? Wait right here.” Luce had almost forgotten that Dorian didn't have any choice about waiting, until he cracked up laughing, too. She smiled at him and slipped just below the surface, watching the golden light weave through the green around her. She gathered her voice into two narrow, soaring notes, sweet and as focused as twin beams of light, then sent them vaulting into the air above her. Two jets of water leaped skyward in sympathy, and Luce heard Dorian's shout of astonishment. They weren't quite as tall or diffused as the spouts of the whales, and they arched as they fell; the result looked more like a fountain in a park, Luce thought. Still, it wasn't bad for a first try.
She came up thirty feet from the rowboat and grinned at him. “God, Luce!” Dorian shouted; he was out of breath, leaning so far toward her that the boat tipped dangerously. “I know you told me you could do that, but actually seeing it, and the way you sounded ...”
“I didn't get it right, though,” Luce told him.
“What wasn't right about that? It was fantastic!”
“But I'm trying to imitate the whale spouts. Wait, I'm going to do it again. Tell me if I'm close...” She dipped back under, rolling again and again in the green glass brilliance of the sea, then let those bright expansive notes burst up again and spill out through the water. This time the plumes were airier, broader, full of froth and the resonance of mist. She held the song while the jets of water fanned up above her, white and fresh as the clouds of geese flying in formation. She thought the effect was almost perfect, and she let herself float gently to the surface, face-up, watching the far-off shimmer of a million wings.
“Luce!” She swung around, and her heart stopped when she realized she couldn't see the rowboat anywhere. Bizarrely, she couldn't really see anything in that direction: only a gray rolling wall, crusted white with barnacles, like something in a dream. Trying to understand it was like trying to read a book as the paper suddenly darkened and the letters crawled away. And, Luce realized with horror, Dorian was somehow behind this thing, or inside it...
The broad gray flukes cleft the air, lofting a shower of sunlit water with them, and Luce heard her own cry of relief. "Why hadn't she understood that it was only one of the gray whales, maybe coming over to investigate the peculiar music she'd been making? The rowboat was rocking wildly just behind the place where the whale had disappeared, and Luce rushed over. Dorian was gripping the edge of the boat so hard that his hands looked like knotted rope. His face was white with shock, and he gazed at Luce and then past her as if he could barely comprehend what he was seeing. His breath jerked out, fast and uneven. Luce covered his hands with hers, squeezin
g gently, and then he finally looked into her eyes.
“Dorian, what happened? I couldn't see you for a minute.”
“It just—” He seemed to be searching for words. “Luce, the way it looked at me ... The whale was suddenly right there, and I saw its eye come up, and it looked at me so hard. I mean, I've never had a person look at me like that. And then your voice was in my head, and it felt like I was exploding...” Dorian shook himself and laughed a little, but he sounded shaky.
“I shouldn't have left you alone...”
“No, it was fine. It—You know how you said that time that only humans think they're realer than everything else? The way that whale looked at me, I felt like it was a lot realer than I am.” Golden strands of light reflected off the water and wobbled on the curves of his face; his full lips were parted.
“And that comes as a surprise to you, of course.” Nausicaa's deep, thrumming voice came from behind Luce's shoulder. Luce twisted around to see the dark flash of Nausicaa's eyes—while a few feet farther back another immense gray presence came surging up. Its head was long and tapered, patched with barnacles like pale scabs; its eyelids were thick, lemon-shaped, and as rough as rinds. One glossy black eye pivoted to inspect them with fathomless awareness. Luce gasped a little, suddenly understanding what Dorian had felt. She forced herself to look away so that she could meet Nausicaa's ironic stare, and all the while she kept her hold on Dorian's left hand where it gripped the boat. Just in case...
“Nausicaa...” Luce struggled to sound normal, to remember what she was supposed to say. “This is Dorian. Dorian, meet Nausicaa.”
Luce watched Nausicaa calmly twist her head sideways to inspect the indication that flickered around Dorian. Luce hoped Dorian hadn't noticed.
“Hey, Nausicaa.” Dorian's gaze was challenging and, to Luce, impressively steady. He actually leaned from the boat to extend his free hand in Nausicaa's direction. “Luce has told me a lot about you.”