Emerge

by Easton, Tobie

  He raises an eyebrow. “About my ancestors? Honestly, I try to avoid it, with Adrianna and all.” He lowers his voice when he says her name.

  “Still, you must get curious about her,” I press. “Don’t you ever ask your parents about her? Or your grandmother?”

  “I did a few times when I was little. My grandmother’s so ashamed of the scandal she won’t even say the word ‘siren’ out loud. And I can tell it upsets my parents.”

  I hear the words he’s not saying: that it upsets him, too. For years, I’ve avoided the topic of sireny around Caspian to spare his feelings, and I hate what I’m about to do.

  “But you know some stuff about her, right? When she was imprisoned, what happened to the man she sirened?”

  A grim look settles on Caspian’s face. “He was executed.”

  It takes me a second to find my voice. “E-executed? By who?”

  “It was after the Mer monarchy fell and the wars started, so I guess whatever faction was ruling at the time. None of them ever stay in power long.”

  “Why would they execute an innocent human? Imprisoning Adrianna I can understand—she knew the penalty when she sirened him. But the human was a victim.” My volume rises.

  “I guess they couldn’t risk him telling other humans what had happened to him.”

  “But nothing like that would be sanctioned today, right? Not up here.” I fight to tamp down my panic. Our community would never execute Clay, would they?

  “I’d like to think it couldn’t happen, but Adrianna’s crime was only a century ago.” Caspian’s right; a hundred years is nothing for Mer. Change comes very slowly to a culture as ancient as ours. “Lia, why do you look so worked up? It’s not like any sirens exist anymore. Adrianna’s been the only one in six hundred years.”

  “Yeah, but hypothetically, why would they execute a human now? If he started talking about Mermaids, wouldn’t people just think he was nuts?”

  “It’s hard to say what he’d remember. Sure, Mermaids would sound crazy, but accusations of brainwashing could be a real threat if the authorities suspected us of being a cult or something. Why do you look so nervous?”

  I smooth my brow. “It’s just such a scary thought.”

  Caspian raises a hand out of the water and squeezes my shoulder. “You don’t need to worry, Goldfish.” I smile at the pet name he’s used since we were kids. “No one knows any siren songs anymore.”

  “What if someone does?” I ask, hearing Melusine’s eerie song in my head.

  “Teaching those songs has been illegal for centuries, and all the shell records have been smashed. Let’s just drop it.”

  Then how did Melusine learn that song? Was it passed down through her family in secret all these years? Sung to her like a lullaby when she was a baby? I cringe inwardly at the sinister image.

  “How do you stop a siren?” I ask, my voice urgent. “I mean, how would you?”

  “For tides’ sake, I don’t know!” Caspian snaps. I back up at the force of his anger. He’s never spoken to me like that before. “Why are we talking about this? Sireny is the reason my family went from being respectable Mer nobility to virtual pariahs.”

  “Casp, you’re not pariahs. Now that you’re on land, your family has a fresh start.”

  “In the eyes of your parents and a few others maybe, but plenty of the Mer here still won’t let us into their homes.” Caspian stops near the pool’s edge. “Do you know what it’s like to tell my six-year-old sister why her new friend’s parents won’t let her come over for a play date?” His blue eyes shine with sadness.

  My own sting with unshed tears. How many times have I gone to a birthday party that Caspian wasn’t at? How many times have I heard people whisper when he walked into a room? I hate that my questions have reminded him of his pain. I want to tell him what I saw. I want to explain why I’ve brought up a topic that hurts him. More than that, I’m in too far over my tail, and I need to confide in him.

  But involving Caspian would be unforgivably selfish. He’d insist on helping me, even if it meant implicating himself and his family in another siren scandal. That’s the last thing they need. So instead, all I say is, “I’m sorry, Casp. I’m really sorry.”

  After a few awkward laps around the pool, we bring the conversation around to lighter topics, like the recent dance at Caspian’s school and all his lame excuses for deciding to go without a date.

  The whole time, I’m thinking about the horrible, empty look in Clay’s eyes. If Caspian doesn’t know anything else about sirens and I can’t ask my parents, there’s only one place that might have the information I need.

  Chapter Nine

  “Dad,” I ask Monday morning over breakfast, “can I start working after school at the Foundation?”

  My dad coughs on a bite of his sturgeon scramble, but recovers quickly. “Of course you can.”

  My mother covers it up better, but the slight angling of her head tells me she, too, is surprised. “What brought this on?”

  “I’m a junior now, so I figure it’s time I take more of an interest in our Community.” My parents look skeptical. “Plus, I’ve been spending kind of a lot on shoes lately.” Understanding dawns on their faces.

  “Aurelia, you know we’re more than happy to help you girls assimilate in any way we can,” my mother says, “and shopping is pretty much a requirement for assimilation in this neighborhood.” As she sprinkles pink sea salt onto her plate, a new designer watch sparkles on her wrist.

  “Yeah, and I’m super grateful, but I still feel like I should contribute,” I say. Across the table, the twins gawk at me like I’ve grown tentacles, but Em smiles approvingly. Amy is too busy sneaking Barnacle pieces of sturgeon under the table to listen.

  “That’s very responsible of you,” my dad says. “How about helping me in the P.R. department?”

  That won’t get me anywhere near where I need to be. “Actually, I was thinking I could help with the Information Input Initiative.”

  “You want to spend all your time listening to dusty old shells?” Lazuli says, shock evident in her voice.

  Luckily, I prepared myself for a question like this. “Someone has to do it, and I’m good with computers.” My parents and most other Mer raised Below are hopeless when it comes to technology. My offer will be too tempting for my parents to refuse.

  “When would you like to start?” my mother asks.

  “How’s today?”

  “Lia, you look a little green.”

  “Huh?” I haven’t been listening to Kelsey. Melusine and Clay stand at the end of the hall. One of her hands rests on his t-shirt clad chest, the other grips his bicep possessively. That’s what she’s turned him into. Her possession.

  “Are you sick?” Kelsey’s voice buzzes from a million miles away.

  Melusine leans up to kiss him. Hunger gleams in his eyes, and it reminds me what he said about something coming over him when they kissed. Whatever he’s feeling right now, she’s forced it on him. This stunning seventeen-year-old girl with her glossy black locks and striking figure is a monster.

  “Kelsey, can you go get Mel to talk to you?”

  Kelsey looks over her shoulder in realization. “Lia, you really shouldn’t be watching their smooch fests. It just upsets you. Why don’t we head out to the courtyard?”

  “Go talk to Mel,” I beg. “Please?” It’s stupid, but I have to separate them, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

  Kelsey studies my face, then marches up to them. She taps Melusine on the shoulder.

  “Sorry to interrupt this entirely appropriate use of a public hallway,” Kelsey says, “but I need to ask you a question about biology.”

  Melusine tears her mouth from Clay’s only long enough to say, “We’re not in the same biology class.”

  “I know, but I’m organizing the field trip, and I have questions for everyone. Urgent questions.” With that, Kelsey pulls a surprised Melusine away f
rom Clay by the arm and leads her farther down the hall. “Do you suffer from seasickness?”

  Clay just stands there, staring blankly after Melusine, until she calls behind her in a sultry voice, “Go talk to your friends as long as you want, baby. I’ll see you later.”

  He snaps into action, his eyes roaming the hallway, presumably looking for his friends. They land on me, and he walks over.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” His voice is the robotic one I’ve heard him use before, but now the lifelessness makes sense.

  “You have lip gloss on your face,” I say. His mouth is smeared with it.

  When he just stands there, I pull some polka dot tissues from my bag. “Here,” I offer. Clay doesn’t move to take them. “May I?” I ask.

  I brush a tissue gently across his mouth, wiping away the remnants of her lecherous kisses.

  His hand covers mine, and he looks down at me, clearly trying to regain focus. He then takes the tissues from me and finishes the job himself. “Thanks,” he says.

  I take a step back. “I can’t come over to work on the project today,” I say. “I have some other research to do.”

  “Another project?” he asks in a voice still not his own.

  “A big one.”

  I usually swim through the underwater entrance to the Foundation. Today, though, I’m coming straight from school, so I enter the towering office building through the doors of blue-green glass meant for human visitors. I walk past a gleaming, white alabaster sculpture of a dolphin on my way to the reception desk. A giant aquarium comprises the entire wall behind the desk, and my eyes linger on a basketball-sized, turquoise discus fish as it swims from the left side of the tank to the right before disappearing into a clump of java moss.

  “Aurelia? Your father mentioned you were coming.” I turn my attention to one of the two receptionists, who I recognize from a few of my parents’ parties. I’m used to seeing her in a bright yellow tail and traditional siluess, so the sight of her in a well-tailored suit disconcerts me. In her current outfit, the only hint she’s Mer is that she wears her copper hair long and flowing, as does the other receptionist.

  “Follow me,” she says with a smile. She steps out from behind the desk, and the heels of her black patent stilettos clack against the marble floor. I know in order to work on the upper floors and interact with humans, Foundation employees must pass leg-control tests, and only the best of the best would be allowed to work in the front lobby, but it still irks me that she can manage to walk so gracefully in stilettos. I’ve taken my golden pair out a few times to practice, and I always stumble across my upstairs bedroom like a zombie with a broken foot.

  She leads me to a long row of elevators, then uses a small golden key to unlock the last one on the right. “This one leads downstairs,” she tells me with a knowing look.

  The brushed chrome doors slide open with a bing. “Press seven for the research department. I’ll let your father know you’re here,” she says. I thank her. Then the doors close, and the elevator takes me underground.

  I can sense the salt water before the doors even open. I step out onto an elevated slip-resistant walkway built over a deep canal. Mer in suits move quickly along the walkway while Mer in fins swim up and down the canal before disappearing behind any of the countless doors that line the walls. My father exits one of the doors and swims toward me.

  “Hey, angelfish. Better keep your legs on—there’s no water in the file room. Apparently it’s very bad for the computers.”

  He shows me how to find the room where I’ll be working and gives me my instructions. I’m supposed to listen to the beginning of a shell and enter its topic and orator into the database, then label it with a correlating number. This will eventually allow Foundation members to search for and locate information easily. My father’s eyes gleam with excitement when he tells me the long-term goal is for Mer linguists to transcribe the contents of each shell, creating a digital file of each one. Shells are fragile, and it’s not unheard of for a tsunami to wipe out entire libraries.

  “Think how many problems technology can solve,” my father says. “I’m telling you, it’s proof we should always respect humans. There’s so much we can learn from them. Just look how savvy they are.” He shakes his head as if he can’t believe something as miraculous as a computer exists. “Computerized information is a valuable tool we hope will benefit us as much as it’s benefitted humans.”

  Since so much work goes into keeping an entire Community of Merfolk operating in secret, though, this project is still low-priority. Fortunately for me, that means I should be left more or less alone in the file room.

  I’m glad I’ve been set such a boring task—hopefully, I won’t be expected to get much accomplished on my first day. I picture the surprised excitement on my parents’ faces when I volunteered to work here, and a pang of guilt rolls through me for feigning interest. But this is the only place with access to the information I need.

  Once he’s escorted me to the right room, my father heads off down another canal to get ready for a meeting with the Ocean Intelligence Commission.

  As soon as the door to the file room shuts behind me and I’m left alone with shelves upon shelves of shells brimming with information, hope surges within me. Centuries’ worth of knowledge fills this room—the answers I need to help Clay must be here somewhere.

  I head directly for the row of computers and login using the information my father gave me. If I’m lucky, some of the books that have already been entered will be on sireny, and I’ll be able to find the information quickly.

  Even though I’m alone, I look over my shoulder one last time before gathering up the nerve to type “S-I-R-E-N” into the search box. The look of the word in black and white letters makes my heart race. Doing what I’m about to do—looking up information on something highly illegal in Foundation files without permission—is the most criminal thing I’ve ever done.

  “For Clay,” I whisper. With a shaky hand, I click the search button and hold my breath.

  Only three hits and none of them have text entered into the computer yet—not even summaries. Just three titles with orator names and file numbers. Well, it’s a place to start. Besides, there must be a lot more information in the shells that haven’t been recorded yet. It’ll just take some extra digging.

  I scribble down the numbers and make my way to the cases of labeled shells. The array astounds me. Tiny balier shells that I assume hold short children’s stories to encyclopedia-like tomes in massive diadema shells, and everything in between. The first number corresponds to a yellowed, spiny murex shell, slightly larger than the palm of my hand.

  I carry it over to a long, glass table and choose a seat at one end where I’m partially concealed by the shelves but still have a clear view of the door, just in case. I lift the shell to my ear and wait.

  When humans place shells against their ears, they hear the ocean. My science teacher says it’s the echo of your own body’s blood flow and the amplified noises from nearby, but that’s only because he doesn’t have any other explanation. It’s really a hint at the secrets within. You take the shell home, place it on your mantel or in your drawer, and have no idea that you’ve actually found a konklili—a Merbook.

  Now, as I press it to my own ear, instead of the crashing waves a human would hear, I’m greeted by a dry, scholarly voice. At least the Mermese he’s using is modern.

  “Dangers of the Seven Seas, first recorded by Cleodora Charybdis and voiced here by Seger Murrow.

  “The first sighting of the highly poisonous blue-ringed octopus of the Pacific and Indian Oceans … ”

  As the voice rattles off facts about the deadly blue-ring, I grab a thin whalebone stylus from a bowl in the center of the table and drag it along the natural spiraled indentation on the shell’s surface until it hits a tiny groove. I pause and bring the shell to my ear again.

  “Many have feared the Croatian sea serpent of the Adriatic for
centuries, but few know of its—”

  I slide the sharpened whalebone to the next groove and the next, holding the shell to my ear each time. Finally, the voice says:

  “Once present in all the world’s oceans, but prevalent mainly in the Atlantic and Aegean, dwelled the most scheming and maniacal of all aquatic predators, the siren.”

  I sit up straighter in my chair.

  “While the threat of sireny has been all but eliminated since the 10,160s, no record of sea predators would be complete without the inclusion of this deadly monster.” Hmm … the 10,160s … I do the math in my head, converting from the tidal Mer calendar to the BC/AD distinction humans use. So … that would be the early 1400s on a human timeline.

  “Of course, the danger of the siren arose from its Mer intelligence paired with its abominable cruelty to humans.”

  The speaker confirms my worst fears when he details the horrors committed by sirens throughout history. By the time he almost casually mentions a siren named Xana who ordered a man under her spell to gouge out his own eyes while she watched in amusement, I feel sick. Who could choose to do those things? Would Melusine ever hurt Clay that way? Would she enjoy it like the sirens in the recording did?

  I don’t understand why she’s doing this to him. Why would anyone siren another person—steal that person’s life from them? Does Melusine just want Clay to be her boyfriend? It doesn’t make sense. How could she do something this horrible to him just so he would date her? Maybe she really is an udell like the rest of her family, and she thinks it’s no big deal to keep a human as a slave. Maybe … I swallow, picturing the disturbing glee in her sapphire eyes … maybe she just thinks controlling him is fun. Feeling even sicker than before, I force myself to focus on the recording.

  When the speaker moves on to tiger sharks, I take a few deep breaths before walking on shaking legs back to the shelves for the next konklili on my list. This one is a gleaming canarium shell. In my eagerness to erase the last shell’s grisly images from my mind, I press this new one to my ear before I even return to the table.