Waking Storms

by Sarah Porter

  Then Luce stopped short. Something froze her where she was, some thrum of agitation. It was like a silent noise she couldn't put a name to, a stiffness in the way the night held itself, an indrawn breath. Luce hovered in the water, her tail barely stirring, and listened.

  All she could hear was the savage drumming of her own heart, the light repetitive slosh of waves on rocky walls. But for some reason the quiet did nothing to ease her terror.

  She was being irrational, Luce told herself as she backed slowly away from the dark hollow in the rock. Silly and cowardly. She should be ashamed to let her fears control her this way.

  Luce skimmed out of the inlet, still insulting herself in her thoughts, but even so she stayed under the surface as she went. She needed to leave a message for Dorian: something simple, something that would make sense only to him. She'd spell out I'M HOME in pebbles on the edge of the dock where he kept the rowboat tied. Then, Luce thought, she'd go sleep in that shallow cave where she used to take him, the one with the fallen tree spanning the water.

  That would be almost like being with him again.

  ***

  When Luce woke the sun glared near the center of the sky, so high that she knew it must be noon and also not so long after the spring equinox. It could even be early May. She started. She had no way to guess if this was a school day or a weekend, and Dorian might be waiting for her at the beach already. He could have been sitting there for hours, frustrated and impatient. Luce shook herself, stretching her tired muscles, and sped off without even stopping for breakfast. Worried as she still was about the tribe, she felt that the water was streaked with happiness, and each familiar boulder, each leaning spruce, was a reminder of him. She was so glad to be home.

  Dorian wasn't at the beach, though two small children were playing there, watched over by their mother. Maybe he knew there'd be too many people around, and he was planning to meet her after dark?

  Luce went to get something to eat and waited nervously. Maybe Dorian hadn't found her message? What if he was seriously angry with her for being so late? She knew she had to think up a plan—some way to protect her old tribe—but as the day wore on she just couldn't concentrate. She watched a pair of sea otters playing not far from her. They were beautiful animals and Luce usually adored them, but today they bothered her. They treated their joy so casually, as if it weren't something rare and precious, something you could lose at any moment.

  For the first time it occurred to her that Dorian might have even moved away. How could he let her know?

  ***

  “Hi.” It was early dusk when Dorian finally walked down the beach's slope, pebbles grinding under his sneakers, his face secretive and unsmiling. Luce's happiness at seeing him turned into something clammy and unsettled, twisting in her stomach. She lay against the beach, but he didn't drop to his knees to reach for her, didn't even come close enough to let her touch him. “You broke your promise. The water's been pretty clear for a month already.”

  Luce moaned inside as she heard his voice, so beloved but so thick with resentment. “Dorian! I know it seems ... But I came back as soon as I could. A lot happened.” Why wouldn't he at least hold her?

  “You had to do something heroic? Have some big dramatic adventure? Save someone's life?” His sneer made Luce cringe. “Whatever. It doesn't matter what it was. You abandoned me again—”

  “I found my dad alive!” Luce blurted. Dorian's face shifted, his eyes widening and his tensed mouth dropping, and Luce went on frantically. He'd forgive her once he understood. “I'm so sorry you had to wait, but I—got blown out into nowhere in a storm, and there was this island, and my dad was living there as a castaway! He didn't die! And...” Luce wasn't sure how to explain. “It wasn't easy to get him out of there. Dorian, I missed you all the time, but I only managed to get him back to shore a few days ago. And then I came straight here.”

  Dorian's expression wavered a little. There was a hint of softening as he stared at her desperate face, and one hand drifted slightly forward as if he wanted to touch her. Luce waited for him, gazing up at his ochre eyes in the blue light, his dark blond hair tangling in the breeze. Then he stopped where he was, and Luce turned cold with dread.

  “It doesn't matter,” Dorian repeated. He sounded just a bit gentler now, but that didn't help at all. “It's too late, Luce.”

  “It can’t be. You couldn't expect me to leave him stranded! Dorian, please...”

  “You're not listening to me, Luce! It's too late. If you'd only come back here before, it never would have happened, but...”

  “But what?”

  Dorian stared straight at her. His hands were clenched. “I'm with someone else now.”

  “You...” A human, Luce thought. Zoe. It seemed impossible, but there was Dorian's set brutal face. “Are you in love with her?”

  Dorian sighed. “Honestly? Not really. But I like her a lot.”

  Luce felt a fresh jolt of hope. She opened her mouth to say something, to ask something important, but Dorian glowered and interrupted her.

  “But maybe that's what I want, Luce. I like it that I'm not all in love with her, and that she's not freakishly beautiful, and that there's nothing magic about her! Maybe I like it that, whatever I feel around her, I never have to wonder where my feelings are coming from...”

  “I can't help that,” Luce whispered. She heard a kind of subliminal droning, a scream-song buried in her heart. She was afraid to let her voice come out at all in case the scream took over.

  “You what?”

  “I ... can't help being magic. I can't help what my face is like now, or that you think—”

  “You could have helped it, though,” Dorian snarled. “You had a choice!” He hesitated for a second but then went on, lashing her with the words. “So did Zoe. She could have changed, too, but instead she decided to stay human and deal with all the real problems! Instead of just being some kid forever, and playing at all this heroic crap...”

  Luce was too stunned to even be angry. The scream seethed inside her, and she gaped at Dorian in bitter astonishment. Her problems weren't real? Rescuing her father wasn't real, the risk of war with the humans wasn't real, Anais committing murder wasn't—

  “That's an insane thing to say.” Luce's voice was still very quiet. “I was saving my father.”

  Dorian gazed at her thoughtfully, and for a few seconds he didn't say anything. He opened his mouth and paused, as if the words he was thinking were too cruel to be voiced. Then he halfway smiled.

  “I'll never get to save my father.”

  The scream fought harder now, trying to get out. Luce couldn't say anything, and she felt too broken to move.

  “Luce, listen...”

  She gaped at him, her face crumpling from the struggle not to scream or cry.

  “I won't sing back,” Dorian announced.

  Luce clutched the shore. She didn't understand at first.

  Dorian watched her, then spoke again. “If you want to kill me for this, you can. I won't sing back.” He actually grinned: the impish, defiant grin Luce had loved so much. “Now's your big chance! It's a one-time offer, though, so you better—

  His grin fell away. He shouldn't say that to her, Luce thought, not when her voice was already so close to overpowering her, when she could hardly keep it restrained...

  The note rose up, velvety and piercing at the same time, and hovered for a moment like a living star. The beginning of the death song, of Luce's song of enchantment, so fiercely beautiful that the air itself seemed to crystallize into pure longing.

  Luce watched Dorian bite his lip, hard, and close his eyes. Preparing himself. As her song tumbled down the scale she could feel his mind falling with it, letting go of everything, giving in to that feeling of absolute forgiveness ... But nobody was actually forgiven now, were they? He took his first steps into the sea, and even as she sang Luce was weeping uncontrollably. But he should die for what he'd done to her, and even if he shouldn't, the song was too po
werful for her to call it back. The boundaries of her own mind seemed to disintegrate in that torrent of violent music.

  Waves parted around Dorian's chest, slapped at his shoulders. His back was turned to Luce now, but she could hear his labored breathing. Even without trying to defend himself he still had much more resistance than a normal human would. But arrogant as he was, he didn't have enough.

  He took another step forward. Two. Luce could feel his thoughts as she sang: his mother was there smiling at him with such tenderness; the air ran with streaming colors, and his mind winged outward to feel the whole world beckoning him home ... Maybe, Luce tried to tell herself, maybe it was better this way. Maybe this was the only way things between them could have ended all along. Dorian staggered as the first wave crashed across the top of his head.

  I hope you will be the one... a voice suddenly murmured in Luce's mind. Even in the trance of her singing Luce wanted to reach for that voice, to pull it closer. The death song swirled through her, trying to drive the voice back, but all at once she thought that maybe, just maybe drowning Dorian wasn’t the only possibility left for her. Dimly Luce felt herself make some terrible effort. Her body rocked, lunged...

  ... who discovers the strength...

  Was she still singing? Luce couldn't tell anymore. All she could recognize now was that voice, Nausicaa's voice, and with it a burning, unbearable pain. Heat licked at her scales, and the sting pierced deep. Like knives of pure sun slashing into her.

  ... to make a different choice...

  Luce wasn't singing anymore. Instead she was screaming from horrifying pain, her body racked by icy fire. She was still lying at the edge of the beach, but she'd swung around far enough to throw her tail out of the water. Convulsions beat through her, her tail slapping so hard that rocks flew in all directions. Dorian was running toward her through the drag of the water, not enchanted at all anymore, his hands pressed tight over his ears. Luce felt him seize her spasming tail in both arms and then stagger sideways, pulling her with him.

  Pulling her back into the sea.

  Luce gasped and choked, tears streaming over her face, and Dorian stood drenched and trembling in the water nearby. He was gazing at her as she flailed, as that awful burning cooled. Luce wouldn't look at him.

  “Why did you stop?” Dorian whispered. Plaintively, childishly. Luce found his babyish tone utterly sickening. She was dishonored, humiliated, shattered. She'd let Nausicaa leave without her, she'd betrayed Dana and abandoned her father. For this?

  Luce hated him then. Her pride flared, dark and scathing. Dorian wasn't even worth killing. And as for everything she'd hoped might still be possible...

  She'd imagined perfect, shared forgiveness, Luce thought with disgust. She'd wanted reconciliation, of all things, with humans. Now it seemed like the sickest joke she'd ever heard. And she'd even thought of risking death to turn into one of these creatures, who betrayed so readily, who never seemed to have more than half a heart...

  Her body was already rippling without her having to consciously control it.

  She was gone.

  ***

  Dorian stumbled back a short distance and sat down. The waves leaped in front of him, foam streaking their always-descending curls. Was she really gone? Forever?

  Running footsteps sounded in the distance, coming closer. Dorian didn't move. Whatever it was, it wasn't his problem. All this human stuff just wasn't his problem. The footsteps thudded onto the beach with a loud clatter of dislodged stones.

  “Dorian! Oh, thank God. But you're soaking wet!”

  Slowly Dorian turned his head. Ben Ellison ran toward him, eyes urgent, and reeled to a stop as he registered Dorian's miserable face. Ellison stared around the beach, obviously puzzled. “Dorian, I was looking for you, and then I heard—I thought—wasn't someone screaming?”

  “Oh.” Dorian turned back to gaze at the waves again. “That wasn't me. It was Luce.” He nodded toward the breakers. Ellison followed the gesture and teetered slightly as he grasped what it meant. “If you're worrying about her, she's probably fine.”

  “Luce. That's her name? That's why I was looking for you.” Ellison stood unsteadily, considering, and then sat down close to Dorian. “There's something I wanted you to tell her if she came back, your girlfriend.”

  “She's not my girlfriend anymore. I'm not going to be telling her anything.” Dorian felt shocked by the words even as he spoke them. Could they really be true? “I just broke up with her.”

  Ellison looked flabbergasted. “You just what?” He paused, his face working strangely. “And you're still here? I would have sworn that breaking up with a mermaid was a guaranteed way to get yourself killed.”

  Dorian exhaled. There was no reason now not to say whatever he felt like. Ellison knew; the whole FBI probably knew. “I offered. I told her to go ahead and drown me if she felt like it.” Dorian glowered at the midnight blue waves and pitched a rock. “She wouldn't do it.”

  “You offered yourself up for murder?” Again that odd chewing motion passed through Ellison's worn face. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  Dorian didn't answer. The wind on his sopping clothes chilled him, but he didn't want to move. An idea came to Ellison; his voice grew more animated. “Was it that you used to be so deeply in love with her that it seemed like the only way you could honor that lost connection? A grand gesture...”

  Dorian rubbed his face against his knees and groaned. He'd thought Ellison was smarter than this, and he looked up bleakly into the older man's face. “No. I offered because I'm still in love with her.” Dorian wanted to let go. He wanted to sway in that blue darkness, melt into song. “I more than offered, actually. I tried to make her do it, and she still wouldn't!”

  Dorian knew it was true when he heard himself say it. He'd hurt Luce that way to control her, drive her to murder. And she'd wanted to; she'd started ... But somehow she'd held back.

  “But then if you still love her...”

  “It was never going to work!” Dorian exploded. “You don't understand. She'll just run off and abandon me whenever she thinks there's something more important. And she doesn't even want to grow up, and she doesn't care what that's going to do to me. I talked to her and talked to her about it, but she won't even try to turn human again!”

  Dorian caught himself and buried his face in his arms. He was determined not to burst out crying, determined to get a grip on himself, but he could feel his control slipping. He couldn't afford to meet Ellison's eyes, and for several moments they were both silent. Then Dorian felt a hand touch his shoulder, and he flinched in annoyance. He was in no mood to accept anyone's sympathy, Ben Ellison's least of all.

  The hand was shaking. Dorian turned his head, but at first he couldn't identify the look on Ellison's face. Could that be horror?

  “Again?” Ellison asked.

  His cell phone started ringing.

  ***

  Nausicaa had been right all along. Luce had been an idiot not to listen to her. But even if Nausicaa was gone now, it wasn't too late for Luce to do what her friend had wanted. She'd hurry back to her old tribe's cave and formally challenge Anais in front of everyone. If they attacked her, fine, she would fight. If they didn't she'd shame Anais by proving once and for all who the true queen was, and then she'd lead anyone who would come with her south and away from here. They'd leave for good, start over somewhere new, and maybe Luce would even find Nausicaa.

  It was better to think about her plan than about how degraded she was. She'd been foolish enough to put her trust in a human, and he had utterly failed her. He couldn't even wait one month past the melting of the ice before he'd thrown himself at someone else. He was shallow, faithless, empty ... just like all of them were.

  Luce sped up the coast, blind to the streaking night blue bubbles, blind to the refracting starlight.

  Anais had no idea what she was up against.

  ***

  As Luce drew near the cave that had once been her home th
e water changed. It felt subtly unclean, sticky, and it licked her with a faint, sweet, metallic stench. It was disgusting. Had Anais dragged back so much garbage that it had actually begun fouling the sea? The water looked murkier, too, with a brownish tint, and it only seemed to get worse as Luce slipped into the deep underwater tunnel that led to the cave. Now the water didn't just stink. It tasted vile, too, with a slick tang, a raw-meat flavor as if a seal had just been torn apart. It was so revolting that Luce could hardly make herself keep going. How could the other mermaids stand it?

  Hadn't she once tasted something like this before? Luce fought down the hideous memory, water stained and sticky as orcas leaped, as a tiny hand floated by...

  Maybe the tribe had deserted this cave, though. It was oddly silent as Luce reached the spot where the rocky walls widened. The pollution was getting thicker, too: the water was actually red.

  Luce gasped with the first shock of understanding, then gagged as the blood-drenched water flooded her mouth. She broke the surface sputtering, spitting, trying to get that taste out ...

  It couldn’t be real. It couldn't.

  A milky leg floated right in front of her, toes wrinkled and grayish pink. It was bobbing by itself in the filthy water, and Luce saw the ragged flesh where it had separated from its body, pale bone protruding like a snapped-off branch. Luce spun, trying somehow not to see—

  That open neck, blood still burbling slowly up through dark tubes. A pink, gleaming bubble swelled at the top of one tube, filled by the air still rising from a dead girl's lungs. Luce twisted again.

  Rivulets of crimson dripped down the rocks. A chest wound gaped wide between flat, childish breasts; Luce thought she saw the heart ... There, a pile of intestines hung from a pale brown stomach ... Inches away two blue eyes stared into nothingness, but the face below them was missing...

  There were no tails anywhere, though. For half an instant Luce persuaded herself that no mermaids had died, that Anais had ripped apart a group of humans. Luce was still telling herself that when she turned and jumped wildly back as she saw Rachel's weak, babyish face. It was split open down the middle, fragments of her skull sticking to her cheeks, and her blond hair was clotted with blood. That elegant brown foot belonged to Jenna; those pale curls led to Samantha's severed head...