Polite smiles dampened the ambassador’s passion, but here and there, a wife or an under-ambassador wiped away a tear.
David whispered to Jake, “She’s good. Very good.”
Jake nodded. Of course she was good at what she did. Their family had always been in politics, and from childhood, Dayexi had been trained for just this sort of thing. Sadly, Jake reflected, his own training had been interrupted by the threat of Rison’s implosion when they had sent him to live with his biological father stationed on a Navy base on Earth’s moon. He didn’t think he had the right sort of personality for politics, anyway.
Trying to be a better ambassador’s son, Jake pulled out an ink pen and jotted notes beside names on the roster, trying to remember snatches of conversation. Odd things that would make him remember either the person or some small detail about them. For example the Portuguese ambassador’s wife, Leonara Zalarich, wore only rubies or red jewels. A small thing, but maybe someday that small bit of knowledge would give them an opening they needed. You had to connect with people and one way to do that was to remember what was important to them. She wouldn’t be a fan, for example, of the amber jewelry he had bought for his mother and Em yesterday.
But Jake quickly exhausted his meager knowledge of the politicians. Frustrated, he doodled while mentally reviewing the problems of the Risonians: they had to find refuge or face extinction. But even if Earth allowed them to live in the seas, would they get along with humans?
A rousing applause brought him back to the moment. He clapped woodenly, anxiously studying faces. Had Mom convinced anyone? Changed anyone’s mind?
Lady Coombe nudged his elbow. “You dropped this, I believe.”
Jake looked down at the roster to see that he’d drawn Em’s face over and over.
“Who is she?” asked the old woman.
Frowning, Jake deliberately folded the paper, hiding Em’s face and put it in his jacket pocket. “Just a friend.” His voice was cold, discouraging more questions.
Lady Coombe took the hint. She stood, took his hand, and dropped a quick curtsy. “It’s been a pleasure getting to visit with you, young Risonian. Is there anything else I can explain or help you with?”
Jake bowed formally in return. He hesitated, but he needed information. “Where is Aberforth?”
“Aberforth Hills, you mean,” she answered promptly. “My Granny used to tell stories about that. It’s a Mer folk story, about their underwater city. Edinburgh is built on seven hills and Aberforth Hills is supposed to be built on seven underwater hills.”
At Jake’s look of surprise, she chanted:
“Abbey, Calton, Castle Grand,
Southward see St. Leonards stand,
St, Johns and Sciennes as two are given,
And Multrees makes Seven.”
She looked toward the ceiling, as if some answer was written above. “There used to be another rhyme for the seven hills of Aberforth Hills, but I can’t remember it now.” She tapped a finger on her lips as if that might make the rhyme appear.
Startled that she actually had information, Jake pressed for more. “Are the Mer folk the same as the Phoke?”
“I’ve heard that name lately. I think the teenagers call the mermaids and mermen, the Phoke.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s the same.”
“The Mer folk—they’re not real?” Jake said tentatively.
“Myth,” agreed the old lady. “But it’s a persistent myth here along the North Sea.”
Jake remembered the conversation with Enid about mermen. He asked, “Any idea where Aberforth Hills is located? If it’s real, that is.”
“The North Sea,” said Lady Coombe. Her eyes twinkled and her lips twitched as if they wanted to smile.
Jake laughed. “That doesn’t help.”
Lady Coombe pursed her lips and cocked her head, as if in thought. Finally, she said, “My Granny grew up in St. Abbs. Go fishing at St. Abbs. Try the Merlin Charters.”
Jake and David looked at each other and nodded. Tomorrow, they’d go to St. Abbs.
7
Family
December 19
The door to Em’s hospital room shoved open, swinging silently inward.
Em pulled herself upright and winced at how the effort strained her reserve energy. She recognized the blond woman with wire-rimmed glasses as the marine biologist from Bainbridge Island. Confused, she struggled to remember her name. “Miss Fleming?”
The woman pushed up her glasses and asked, “Emily. Um, Em, are you okay? I’ve been worried.”
“Fine,” Em shrugged. “Except no one will answer any questions.”
“Like what?”
“Where are my parents? Why can’t I see them?” Em’s voice was ragged with frustration and anger. Why had the aliens allowed this woman here? Why not her parents? And besides that, what she really wanted to ask was, “Where is Jake?” She had mixed feelings about him, but mostly she just wanted for him to walk in the door and make her laugh.
“Yes,” Ms. Fleming said. “You need answers. It’s time you had answers.”
“I know you won’t know anything, but the doctors and nurses—” Em trailed off at Ms. Fleming’s nod of understanding. Her hair, tied up in a ponytail, nodded, also. Em noticed now that Fleming wore a hospital gown, terry-cloth robe and house slippers. She must be a patient here, too, for some reason. What were the aliens doing to her?
“But I do know something,” Ms. Fleming said.
Em nodded cautiously. If Ms. Fleming had answers, maybe she was an alien, too. Being a marine biologist—it made sense if she was Risonian.
Ms. Fleming looked around. “We need somewhere to talk, but there’s no place to sit here. Do you feel like a ride in a wheelchair?”
“Yes!” Em had been out walking in the hallway with Shelby Bulmer, a nurse’s aide, at her side. He had held her arm to keep her wobbly knees from giving way. But she’d only had the strength to walk to the nurse’s station and back, a couple hundred feet at best. A wheelchair would get her out of this horrible room. Everything in this crazy hospital was white: white floors, white walls, white hallways, white uniforms, white sheets, and white hospital gowns. Whoever built it was one strange alien. Em desperately craved color.
Ms. Fleming returned a moment later with a wheelchair and helped Em get settled in it before she pushed out into the hallway. They went the opposite direction from the nurse’s station out into another hallway. Apparently, Ms. Fleming knew her way around this place, this alien installation.
She stopped at a doorway that read: Observation Room.
“Are you ready?” Ms. Fleming asked.
“For what?”
“For this.” Ms. Fleming pushed into a room that was dimly lit. The far wall was a floor-to-ceiling window and beyond the window were city lights. But—a fish swam by the window.
“We’re underwater?” Em’s voice rose an octave in excitement. Her dim memory of being in a pod that dove deep underwater, it hadn’t been a dream. How long had the Risonians been on Earth? To build something like this, they must have come right after first contact.
“Yes. About 250 feet under water,” Ms. Fleming replied.
Ms. Fleming parked the wheelchair beside the window, where Em could overlook the city. She reached for the wheels and adjusted the chair to be exactly perpendicular to the window.
Em looked from the city to Ms. Fleming, and said flatly, “You’re one of them.”
Ms. Fleming’s eyes widened in surprise. She nodded agreement.
Em jabbed her finger at Ms. Fleming and accused, “You’re aliens from Rison, right? How long have you been in our oceans already?”
“What? Aliens?” Ms. Fleming shook her head, and her eyebrows were drawn in confusion.
Em nodded. “I figured it out. Dr. Bari brought me down here in some sort of pod or something. He wasn’t wearing scuba gear, and the only creatures that can breathe in the ocean are the aliens from Rison.”
Ms. Fleming pulled up a chair, position
ed its back to the window—exactly parallel—and sat straddling the chair with her arms resting on the chair’s back. “I can see why you’d think that. But this culture is much older. It’s ancient.”
“You mean aliens have been on Earth for years?” Em’s voice squeaked in surprise.
“No. We’re the Mer folk.”
Em drew a blank and shook her head slightly. “What?”
“Mermaids and mermen,” said Ms. Fleming.
Em stared from Ms. Fleming to the city lights outside the window. A school of halibut dashed past the window. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Em said. Believing in aliens was hard enough. Believing in mermaids and mermen—well, it was ridiculous. She waved at the buildings and tunnels and—“What am I looking at here?”
Ms. Fleming said, “Light pollution.”
Instantly, Em understood what Ms. Fleming meant. At a depth of 250 feet, there should be no light. But the scene in front of her was like a major city lit up at night. The buildings nearest their building—a hospital, she assumed—varied in height from what looked like one story to maybe five or six stories. Part of that height difference seemed to be the age of the building, with the smaller buildings looking older. The smallest was obviously made of some metal, but the surface had aged a dirty green and it looked pitted with age. Salt water would be a brutal environment for building materials. It was also a strange shape, like an upside down brass bell.
She responded, “The city looks old.”
Ms. Fleming said, “Yes. Aberforth Hills is 100 years old, or thereabouts.”
Now, Em was starting to see beyond the nearby buildings and trying to make sense of what lay beyond. The hospital was clearly built on a hill that gave them a wide view of the underwater city. Instead of streets, the buildings were connected with tunnels, and Em could dimly see figures moving in the tunnels. This was fascinating. But Mer?
“Um, are you sure this is a Mer folk city and not an alien city? Do you know any of the Mer?”
Ms. Fleming’s blue eyes were solemn. Frizzy wisps of hair escaped her tight ponytail and framed her face. She said, “I am one.”
Em whirled around to stare. “Wait. You’re a mermaid?” she said skeptically.
Ms. Fleming said simply, “Yes.”
“Oh.” Em appreciated that Ms. Fleming was doing this in an understated way and allowing her time to process the startling information. But did she really think that Em would believe it?
“You mean you could walk out the door—no, swim out—however you get out—and just swim around all you want out there? Where’s your tail?”
“No tails, that’s all a myth. Our anatomy is different than humans, and we have limitations. But yes, basically, I could go swimming around out there in the city whenever I wanted.”
“Oh.” Em wondered if she had fallen down Alice-in-Wonderland’s hole or something. “You’re serious.”
“It’s a fact.”
“Wait.” Em put some information together and said, “Your brother is Dr. Bari, right. Is he a merman?”
Ms. Fleming nodded.
Bong! Trying to locate the sound, Em realized that it came from a tall tower that lay straight ahead. Bong! It seemed to hold a huge clock, sort of like Big Ben in London. Bong!
“Is that ringing the hour?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s the Gunby School Clock Tower. We call it The Gunby. And yes, it’s ringing the hour. School is just letting out.”
“School?” Em closed her eyes and tried to process the whole thing. This was a secret mermaid and merman city and they had a school and a hospital, and a marine biologist like Ms. Fleming, someone who called herself a scientist, was admitting to being a mermaid.
“Am I hallucinating?” she murmured. She closed her eyes and ran a hand over her forehead.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t the way I wanted to tell you,” Ms. Fleming said, her voice deep with regret. “I imagined this so many times, but never like this.” She waved a hand at the wheelchair.
Still massaging her temples, Em said wearily. “Why am I here? Will I wake up in the morning and this will all be a dream?”
“Your illness is water borne and the Mer doctors know more about it than anyone else.” Ms. Fleming said.
At that, Em looked up in relief. “Oh. That makes sense. If there were such as thing as Mer folk, they would specialize in water-borne illnesses. I’m getting better, right?”
“Yes,” Ms. Fleming said. But her forehead was creased, and she didn’t meet Em’s eyes.
Suddenly homesick, Em said, “Where are my parents?”
“Ah, that’s a problem.” Ms. Fleming waved at the city in front of them, “Aberforth Hills is in the North Sea, off the coast of Scotland, the northern part of England.”
Em felt almost numb with shock. “North Sea?”
“Yes. I arrived yesterday in Edinburgh, Scotland. I came out to Aberforth Hills this morning.”
Scotland? Em was in a Mer folk hospital because she had a water-borne illness and that hospital was half a world away from Seattle. “Mom,” she whispered. “I want my mom.”
Ms. Fleming stood and patted Em’s shoulder. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. I know. They won’t let your adopted mother come here. But she knows you’re safe and that you’re getting expert treatment. We’ll ask Dr. Bari later and see if you can telephone her.”
Em looked up in despair. Ms. Fleming’s face was pale. Desperately Em wished for someone else to talk with, someone calmer. But Ms. Fleming was her only option. Em took a shuddering breath and said stoically, “So. I am kidnapped. By the Mer folk.”
“No! We’re just trying to help you get well.”
“Then I can leave whenever I want? Or my Mom and Dad can come and get me?”
Ms. Fleming sat again in the chair and stared out at the city. The tunnels were busier with figures walking back and forth now. Em supposed that with school out, families were going to pick up children’s and then maybe do some shopping. Did they have shops underwater here? They must. A city this size, they couldn’t run up to the surface for bread and milk. Was she really starting to accept that this underwater city belonged to Mer people?
“Can Mom pick me up later today?”
“About that.” Ms. Fleming turned decisively in her chair and leaned toward Em.
A stab of fear shot through Em. “Are they OK? Did they get this illness, too?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Then, what?”
“This is hard.” Ms. Fleming cleared her throat, held out a hand toward Em, and then let it fall back into her lap. “You know you’re adopted?”
“Of course.” Mom and Dad had never hidden that from her or her adopted sister, Marisa. They grew up knowing that they’d been specially chosen for the Tullis family.
“Do you know anything about your real parents?” Ms. Fleming asked.
“My biological parents,” Em corrected. “No. I have a necklace they gave me but nothing else.”
“Let me tell you a story about a boy and a girl—”
Em broke in. “My parent’s love story and how they didn’t love me?” She’d read enough about reunion stories to know how this went. It was the Romeo and Juliet thing, where they shouldn’t have ever met. But it was a great love. Except, they didn’t love enough to stick it out and create a family for their baby. She didn’t need this story.
Ms. Fleming winced. “It’s not quite like that.”
“From their point of view, maybe. But it’s fair from my point of view.” Em’s face was rigid and her stomach cramped. She’d often dreamed of the chance to say that to her biological mother. Giving up a child, it was a cruel.
Ms. Fleming whispered. “Still, will you hear me out?”
Em shrugged. A sudden weariness settled over her, probably from the illness and the shock of her situation. She needed to sleep. “Whatev.”
But Ms. Fleming turned back to the city without talking.
Em closed her eyes and si
ghed. She needed to go back to her room.
At last, Ms. Fleming asked in a low voice: “Have you ever met a Mer before?”
Em yawned, so weary that she didn’t even raise her hand to hide her open mouth. “Not that I know of.”
“Good answer,” Ms. Fleming said. “Because I’m sure you have and you just didn’t know it. The problem with living hidden like the Mer folk do is that you get isolated. But we don’t like that. We like to meet people and have fun and–well, you know that story about mermaids singing and enchanting men?”
“Everyone knows that myth,” Em said dismissing it with a casual wave of her hand.
“But did you know that human men are also sirens for mermaids? For some mermaids, the experience of meeting a human male is overwhelming. It’s like what you read about in a love story, where someone sweeps you off your feet.” She paused. “That happened to me. I was swept off my feet by Damien Fleming. He charmed me from the first moment we met. Not that he knew it. It was high school, and he didn’t really see me till we met again in college.” Softly, almost to herself, she added, “I always loved his laugh.”
“And?” Em fidgeted impatiently with the tie on her white terry cloth robe.
“And he wanted me to marry him. I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Em asked because it was expected of her, not that she really cared.
“My brother wouldn’t let me.” Ms. Fleming’s voice was hard and flat.
Em threw up her hands, incredulous. “You let your brother stop you from marrying the man you loved?”
Ms. Fleming shrugged. “I’m half-Mer. Many of the Mer folk are only one-fourth Mer or less. Our race is slowly being threatened by marrying outsiders. Those of us with at least half-Mer blood, we swore to marry only Mer, to have only Mer babies. It wouldn’t have been bad. It’s rather like countries where there’s an arranged marriage, you know.”
Sirens (The Blue Planets World series Book 2) Page 4