“LOOK WHAT YOU DID.” I cry, wanting so much to kill my sister in that moment, despite the fact she manipulated the prophecy she told Titus to save us all.
“I tried! I didn’t know, Orion!” She begs me and Starlet looks stony behind her. I swear I see a tear trickle down one cheek.
“You couldn’t have possibly told me she was the one they were after!”
“This needed to happen, Orion, it was for the greater good.” I gape at her. The urge to kill rising within me.
“How the hell is this the greater good? You think offering up some poor innocent girl for the slaughter is better? It makes us no better than them!” I scream and I am immediately exhausted. I turn away from my sisters looking down into Callie’s face. She is porcelain. Still and perfect.
“Orion, I …”
“Leave me alone …” I manage to make the guttural sounds into words.
“Orion …”
“I WANT TO BE ALONE WITH HER.” I cry out and she backs off looking shocked, retreating into the dark.
“Callie … what have you done …” I shake my head and bury it into her hair; she is so cold. I move down towards the city and I do the only thing I can think of that may reach her beyond death. I sing … The song is a lullaby I heard once, a long time ago from my village:
Hush my little mermaid.
You’ve had a busy day.
Lay down on seaweed pillows,
Let the waves take you away.
Sweet dreams my darling mermaid.
May the sea become your bed
Let the starfish sing you off to sleep
And the tides caress your head.
Be tranquil loving mermaid.
I’ll kiss you on the cheek,
I’ll lay me down beside you,
As my fins they feel so weak.
Hold me beautiful mermaid.
I need you more than ever,
I need to feel your scales on mine,
To stay with you forever.
I’m singing this as I swim through the streets and people are coming out from their houses at the sound of my voice. The Knights are falling through the water to the streets, the lament of the avoided conflict that signals more to come reaching them all in melancholy rhythm. As I move deeper into the city, I see the sun rising overhead and the golden light hitting the buildings.
Hundreds of our people line the streets and bow before me. Paying their respects, and praying for me to the Goddess. I can see the words under their breath. I start to sing again as I carry the body through the city. I don’t know where to take her. I want to take her away, where nobody else can see her, where she can be mine and only mine. Where no one can take her from me.
I think of all the times we shared and more tears flow, her laughing while eating all those chicken wings, her sleeping in my arms, her sitting on that beach, her eyes as she kissed me while the sun rose above us … Oh Goddess … What have you done? I’m terrified I’ll never see those aqua eyes alight with excitement again. How can she be gone? Her chest isn’t moving and neither are her gills. Oh Goddess … More bows, more prayers as we pass from mer that line the streets, I hate how they look at her, a display, an exhibit, something to be examined. Saturnus is at the end of the road and I spot him as my eyes move upward. Somehow he has found consciousness again. I hear him say something but I don’t look at him. He knew, he must have. I can hear it in his voice but I no longer care what he has to say. I swim faster now, hoping maybe if I swim fast enough, sing loud enough, it will bring her back. I make my way out of the city and into the melancholy gold of the ocean’s morning waters, her body like an icy statue in my arms.
CALLIE
My eyes fly open, my body is soaked in sweat … gross. The alarm blinks neon green to my right as I turn over under the simple white duvet that clings to my perspiring form. I sit up, the white ceiling looming overhead; I want to scream out for him, the icy blue eyes that invade my dreams. Yes now I remember I think instantly as all becomes clear. My bedroom is exactly as I left it; turquoise faded walls, white furniture, too many quilts on the bed. The vanity even holds the mascara I applied in the last hours I was alive here on land as a human. The turquoise feathered dress, in which my heart was run through by Azure and Caedes when Orion held me, is hung up on the wardrobe. I slip into it; no damage is visible on the part that covers my breast. Good as new. Talking of new, I look at my chest, no scar, just smooth white skin, smoother perhaps than the day I was born. Then something else strange reaches me as I move to touch my skin gingerly. I can feel; so this must be real? Mustn’t it? There is no sound, the alarm clock on my beside table faces me, blinking, but no sound emits. There is no breeze, not a whisper to be had in the air. I walk across the wooden floorboards and the one that usually creaks remains mute. I pull open the white wooden door, there is no sound as it brushes across the wood floor either. I open my mouth to speak, wondering if I can,
“Hello?” I call out; my voice echoes gently back at me, the whiteness of the walls looking sun bleached, everything a little too bright, grainy even. I walk down the steps, one foot in front of the other, my toes cooling against the wood. I move through the house like a ghost, it is empty and seems to have been used recently, Kayla’s toys are strewn across the floor in the lounge, and a pot of freshly brewed coffee steams on the kitchen counter, I notice it doesn’t smell as it should, in fact it doesn’t smell of anything. Kayla’s favourite teddy is on the sofa, I sit, and the turquoise and lilac dress floats, billowing out around me. I hold the bear to my chest hoping for the love of God I’ll know what’s going on. Surely nothing can hurt me if I’m holding a teddy bear, right?
I move through the lounge, on my feet again, restlessly phantasmal. Outside the sun is high in the sky, shouldn’t I be turning to sand right now? Was I just dreaming that I swam the seas? Was I fantasising that Orion and I really were together? It would make sense; I always thought he was too perfect anyway.
Outside underneath the willow trees and beside the petunias that line the front of the house, I see it. A glistening in the corner of my vision, I turn to view it, my heart expanding slightly. My little red vintage, on the tarmac and ready to go, there is still no sound and no people as far as I can see. I feel like there’s something I’m missing, I need to go and investigate. I walk in bare feet over to my car, open the door soundlessly and slide into the driver’s seat. The white leather cushions me, the blazing sun making me squint, on the dashboard are a pair of sunglasses, I slip them on, the grainy whiteness of everything dimming considerably. I put the car into drive after turning the key, which I already find in the exhaust. Every movement seems to take forever. Pulling out of the driveway, I drive out into the road, smoothly passing the curb. It had never driven this smoothly or quietly before. Maybe my mom had taken it into the shop; I wonder absently. I want to see her. But something inside me is urging me to drive.
I move through the silent city, there is no one anywhere and now I’m sure I’m stuck here, in a ghost city. Am I a ghost? I drive to the only place I know I feel truly safe, and as I pass the school and head onto the cliff top roads that lead down to the beach, I feel neither a whisper of sea breeze nor a whiff of the salt spray that I so crave. The only thing I feel is the grainy white sun beating down relentlessly on my back.
I get to the place where Daryl attacked me that night so long ago, and then it comes back, as though the act of recalling the memory opens a flood gate. The scythe, Titus, the ritual, it all becomes clear. Oh God! I AM a ghost. I died, didn’t I? I panic and go to get out of the vehicle, to run back to the sea.
“Hello, Callie.” A voice I’ve only ever heard once clearly sounds through the silence, the break it causes is mercifully sweet. I turn, and there she is, all lilac hair and turquoise eyes, her skin a glowing golden, her lips a silent prayer.
“Atargatis …” I breathe and collapse back into the white leather, she’s here, and she’s sitting in my little red vintage.
“Yes.” She
smiles.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I demand, looking at her with a raised eyebrow, feeling ripped off despite this being what I signed up for.
“Well, that’s all up to you.” She says waving a manicured hand, I wonder if Goddesses frequent the salon.
“How? Isn’t this heaven?” I wonder aloud, she smiles, her hair has so much volume it seems to become her, I notice the sea stars in her wavy lilac locks.
“Ah, no. This is just … what comes after.”
“After heaven?”
“No, just after, it is a place that materialises depending on what you wish to see, to be comforted, in order to recuperate, or make choices.”
“So, you mean I’m, like, in a coma?” I feel stupid against her, she is so beautiful, so smart, but I guess that is how one is supposed to feel when in conversation with a Goddess.
“Not a coma, more like magically induced ethereal state. Your soul has left your body. But it cannot move on until you decide what you want to do.”
“What are my options?” I ask feeling hopeless; the icy blue eyes still haunt me.
“You can drive from this place … or you and I can take a swim.” She says simply.
“That’s it. You mean I’m stuck here?” I feel my heart sinking.
“No, that’s not what I mean, you can move onto something new, Callie, or you can return to where you have always belonged.”
“The sea?” I ask looking at it, silent beyond the windshield across the beach.
“Well, if that’s where you believe it is that you belong.”
“Do I even have a body to go back to?” I ask, wondering if, like Atlas, I am now simply sand along the bottom of the ocean floor.
“Well, of course.”
“Shouldn’t I have turned to sand?” I ask, her turquoise eyes look calm, surreally calm.
“You are not just any mermaid, my dear. You are ‘The Vessel’, do not underestimate yourself, you are one of my daughters, and a special one you are indeed.”
“How do I choose? When I don’t know what I’m giving up by driving away.”
“I suppose that depends on what you want, life, or happiness?” She asks musing, her fingers stroking the bottom of her chin as though she is deep in thought.
“Aren’t they kind of the same thing?” I ask confused, a divot appearing in my forehead.
“Not exclusively.” Her reply is vague. I frown.
“Don’t look so sad, child, this isn’t a punishment, this is a reward. There have been less than a handful that are faced with the choice you are about to make. It’s a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes, the gift of choice.” Atargatis says it so calmly, though there is a hint of impatience.
“I’m sorry; it’s not every day I’m put in this situation.” I feel the sun hot on my back as the words leave my lips. I look up at her, “What would you do?” She turns her head to me, looking surprised, turquoise eyes widening.
“I’d choose life.” She says without a break for pause.
“Why?” I ask and she smiles.
“Because you can affect change, not all of us had the choice you have, Callie, some of us weren’t allowed to choose to turn the job down. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, you are all powerful and everything, but you can’t feel, can’t change, can’t experience all those emotions that you humans so despise.” She looks out at the sea again, a melancholy line forming from her lips.
“So, you’re saying if I choose to drive away, I become a Goddess, just like you?” I gape.
“Don’t you think you’ve earned it?” She looks at me, cocking her head, purple locks of her hair falling over her shoulders. She is wearing a blue satin floor length gown, kind of like sky blue, but I can’t describe it in such simple terms, it was deeper than the very ocean I had swum in.
“I don’t know.” I mumble, my ringlets tickling my ears in that way they do.
“You don’t?”
“I don’t think I want that much power.” I mutter.
“Ah, coming from one who has never possessed it, I can see the fear.” She nods, accepting my response, her eyelids hooding her turquoise pupils. “Life isn’t the easy choice.” She muses. “But the right choices never are.” I smile a little; oh, don’t I just know that to be true. We sit for a few moments in the little red vintage, allowing the eerie silence to cover us completely.
“No matter what you decide, Callie, just know, life is not a foregone conclusion, cherish it.” Atargatis imparts this little nugget of wisdom upon me. I get out of the car. “Ah, I see. Well, before you go. I have another piece of advice to give you.” She says, licking her lips, getting out of the car, wow she’s tall.
“Which is?”
“Even those who live in the most direct light of my love can be corrupted. Don’t think it makes them invulnerable to darkness.” I wonder what she means.
“Uh, thanks I guess.” I say and she smiles.
“Come on we have to hurry, I have a favourite son of mine I need to greet.”
“Atlas?” I ask.
“Yes, of course.” She gives me a knowing smile, curving her beautiful lips up into a smile and I know Atlas is going to become a God, I just know it. She holds out her long fingered hand to me and I take it.
“There is something else daughter. Before you go.” she says looking with a smile.
“Yes?” I ask her and she leans forward and kisses my forehead quickly. She cups my chin in her smooth hand and stares into me as if I am no more than glass; transparent and fragile.
“You are not alone.” Her voice seems to echo in the silence that surrounds us. Together, we walk across the stark sand and back into the sea. I could have chosen to be a Goddess, but in a very yellow brick road like manner, I have chosen instead to follow my heart, and I do.
I follow it all the way home.
I breathe and it hurts, my lungs on fire, my neck aching. I choke.
“Callie!” I hear the voice and my heart constricts. I don’t want to open my eyes; I don’t want to break this beautiful dream. I stay for a moment in suspended time, focusing on breathing in and out. There is something cold on my back, cold and hard. I sigh slightly and open my eyes. There before me, is what I so desired to see, a chiselled jaw, golden tanned skin, mahogany tousled locks, white teeth, and royal blue scales. In the centre of it all, I find what I’ve truly been seeking, ever since I stood on the balcony with him at my back shedding a tear over what I was to lose. The icy blue eyes, deeply in love, deeply mine, alight anew with our vow of forever.
AZURE
Little has changed in the time that has passed since I last drifted down the halls of the Alcazar Oceania, the light still drips in through the stained glass lazily, falling on the floors like puddles here and there and the ceilings still tower above me. There is one thing that’s different however, and that something settles over me in an empty stillness heavy with regret, and that’s the death of my father. I turn a corner discovering that I have unintentionally floated through the still warm waters and into the throne room. I find as I examine the scene before me, that I am also not alone.
“Star.” I sigh her name, glad it’s her. I can’t quite stand the looks on the faces of the other mer. They don’t understand, they are suspicious of me even now, after I killed who I had loved, and who I thought had loved me.
“Hey.” My sister sounds tired. She’s leaning against the back of our father’s throne, which grew from the roots of our past. An olive tree from our homeland.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask her, looking into my own eyes that stare back at me.
“Just …”
“You’re thinking about that vision, aren’t you?” I pry. The time with the psirens has not made me patient, and social etiquette was never my forte even in life. Star looks at me surprised as her eyes widen. She nods, her lustrous blonde hair settling over her shoulder like a white halo of goodness, I envy her that purity.
“It’s not o
ver with the psirens.” I state bluntly.
“It’s never over with the psirens.” Starlet sighs again. Momentarily, the anger I am so used to using for warmth curdles in my blood, turning my heart to ice as I will her to toughen up, discard her grief and embrace what is to come.
“They are powerful. The master they serve is seductive.” I muse this aloud, swallowing down my anger.
“You should know.” Star doesn’t sound angry, her eyes are glazed.
“It’s not so black and white, you know.” I want to tell her everything about why I fell for the darkness, the rush of choosing my form, channelling my power, and exerting my will. Putting a stopper to destiny, controlling my life for once. But I keep it back, knowing she won’t understand. My sister who fell victim to fate when I left her as half of what she was. The connection between us I feel is tenuous even now. It’s there, but fragile and I fear any wrong word will shatter it forever.
“I’m well aware of the blurred boundaries between right and wrong in the paths of this life.” My sister doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t purse her lips either and for someone who shares part of her soul, I find her unreadable at best. She has hardened over the centuries we have existed under different masters.
“So you saw it too … Callie.”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t tell …” I begin but she cuts me off mid-sentence with intrigue.
“Which side she will choose?”
“Yes.”
“Me either, it was like I was seeing two events happening simultaneously, but I couldn’t be, because Callie was in both.” Star moves forward through the water above the throne, rising and then flopping into its wooden hold.
The Kiss That Killed Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 1) Page 46