Water Games

by Juliann Whicker

  I nodded. He caught my chin and lifted it to examine my injuries.

  “Did you miss a strike? Doesn’t look like it.”

  “There were five of them. Are you supposed to be handling me like this in public?”

  He let go and nodded me inside. “Gerveeg asked me to look out for you before I closed the door.”

  Gerveeg wasn’t happy to see me or the coffee. Or my face. He said, “I need someone to spend the concert under the bridge stretching out the webbing. It shorted during rehearsal which you would know if you’d been here. Missatt will show you what to do.”

  It was to crouch inside this teeny tunnel beneath the gray shell surface of the dome floor aligning these circuits and getting electrocuted whenever I shifted them a fraction of an inch out of place.

  Not really electricity, but shock waves of some kind. The concert was one I was supposed to attend, but I couldn’t climb out of the tunnel without Missatt noticing. He scuttled around in the dark, adjusting sound paraphernalia and tweaking strands while I hung out with my shockers.

  The concert, when it finally started, hit me hard. Those bass notes went through me and through me, reverberating like I was a string. I felt each rise and fall of melody, harmony, the conversation from one family to another, and me, I had to hold perfectly still. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the music. The music kept going through me on and on and on until I thought I would shatter. Finally, the concert came to an end and Missatt gestured me out.

  I pulled myself out of the tunnel into the larger curve of one of the gray shells lining the dome. My hands shook and I thought I was going to die.

  Cassie came up to me with a stern frown. “Gerveeg doesn’t want to see you until you look less like a street punk. Don’t come back until Monday.”

  I rolled my eyes at her once her back was turned then swam to the nearest exit. There was a guard at the door because it was a concert night. He had to check the roll for my name and picture before he let me through. Like why would anyone sneak out?

  I took the elevator, got to mushroom tower and finally stepped out into the dry hall that led to my room. I took two steps and stumbled to my knees. I gripped the red carpet and tried to breathe. The music still crashed through me, sound that demanded I add my voice to it. I wasn’t going to last a night.

  “Spyguy, get the ship ready. We’re going to Siren’s rock tonight.”

  “There’s a game tomorrow, more importantly, Takeo has a big meeting with his supporters and the final judgment on the suit against the Examiner.”

  “We’re going to Siren’s rock tonight. See if Lucien is playing in the games. If not, he can come with us.”

  “He’s not. I’ll let him know.”

  “Not that he has to come. If he doesn’t want to…” I put my face against my knees and tried to breathe. It was so hard. I didn’t need to breathe, not like I needed to sing.

  “Hang on, Princess. I’m almost there.”

  A few seconds later, the elevator made a melodious sound and Spyguy was there, scooping me up against his chest. I inhaled deeply. Even if he smelled like a Siren assassin/lover, it was weird enough that it pulled me away from the edge, the dizzying edge of insanity.

  We took the roller coaster to Sean’s room. A ship waited right outside. It was nondescript, silver, not pretty like Goldie. I didn’t care. Lucien was driving it. Apparently we’d take it all the way to Siren’s rock on the bullet currents. I didn’t care. The song pressed at my lips, making them ache while I curled up in a ball and trembled.

  Spyguy squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll be there in a few hours. Even if you sing now, you aren’t going to destroy Cierdeep. We’re already at its outskirts. Lucien is an insane driver.”

  “Lucien, go faster.”

  Lucien laughed, his beautiful golden laugh that reminded me that I hadn’t heard my mother’s laugh since her lung reconstruction. Maybe I should cook her lunch or something. Dinner because lunches I spent interning or singing on Siren rock. My mother. Think about my mother, not about Siren Rock where I’d finally be able to voice my part of Gerveeg’s song.

  “Why don’t you eat something?” Lucien suggested.

  If I opened my mouth, I’d sing. I pressed my face to my knees and hung on.

  The trip took an eternity, but somehow I managed to not sing until I burst out of the doorway and scrambled onto the dock.

  The song was all wrong. I needed the instruments. I needed the drums. I turned and gestured to the ocean. It rose and crashed down around me, drenching my skin in the freezing cold water, but the sound was almost right. I smashed the water against the rocks in time with the song in my throat. I walked down the dock, taking my drums with me.

  I needed more. I walked along the edge of the island on the path to the highest point. The surf crashed below me but I needed notes. I brought the water up and sent it through the channels of rock. The sound was a mess, but it was something. I sang and worked with the water until I collapsed from exhaustion. The song still ran through my head, but I couldn’t move.

  Spyguy carried me to the house, wrapped me in heated blankets and stuck me in bed. In the morning I was hoarse, but I still needed to sing. Spyguy gave me a lozenge and a slight shake of his head before I went back to my spot. This time I used a little more control, okay a lot more control as I explored the sound, sending the water through the rock channels at different speeds and with different weight until I had notes that I needed. I was still wet and cold by the time I went back to the house for dinner.

  Spyguy’s fried fish was incredibly delicious, so good, melting and crisp without the slightest fishy flavor.

  “You’re magic,” I rasped.

  He smiled slightly. “You create a symphony with rocks and the ocean and I’m magic. That sounds like your logic. Takeo won’t be here until morning. His meetings are going to last awhile.”

  “The thing with the Examiner, right? What’s he like?”

  “You met him.”

  “For two seconds. You worked for him.”

  His mouth twisted. “I never met him, though. I can’t even prove that he’s who I worked for.”

  “You still know what he’s like.”

  His smile was downright dangerous. “I do. He’s slick. We call him the eel of Cierdeep.”

  “We?”

  “Half-breeds, spies, the criminal element.”

  “Ah, that we. Does it bother you that you haven’t broken the law in ages?”

  “Aiding and abetting a Siren is against the law. Don’t worry, princess, my lack of conscience isn’t going anywhere.”

  I laughed then sneezed. “But this guy, the Examiner, do you think that he’s the one who tried to kill me? You never found the assassin, did you?”

  “No. But we will.”

  “You mean you, but you’ve got a steady day job to keep you busy.”

  “That’s what nights are for.”

  I exhaled. “You look ragged. You’re going to get too tired and sloppy. Lucien’s out there keeping an eye on the local sea life, right? You should sleep. In fact, you can have the bed. I’m going to spend the night with the ocean.”

  “You’re getting sick. You shouldn’t let the water touch you.”

  “It feels like cheating if I stay dry.”

  He lowered his eyebrows. “Your conscience is utterly irrational. I’m not sleeping in your husband’s bed.”

  I stared at him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Good.” He left the hut leaving me all weirded out. He was always bossing me around and taking care of me. Wasn’t I supposed to kind of reciprocate? Whatever. I still couldn’t sleep until I’d walked through the dark night, the sky clear and studded with stars above me, singing its own song as I found my place and began mine. It wasn’t Gerveeg’s song. It wasn’t mine either. It belonged to the monsters. Peter, Haverre and his edible ear tips, all of the hidden creatures who were beautiful in their own way. The darkness was right for that song.

&nbs
p; I sang out quiet, in the shadows, darkness and hissing my only backup, but as I moved through to the chorus, it was strong, bold, beautiful like a storm that swept across the world. The water spun around the island, powerful and explosive before it faded into haunting notes as distant and untouchable as those stars.

  I dropped to the rock but forced the water off my skin so Spyguy wouldn’t complain about me sleeping damp. The song seemed to grow around me as I lay there. I was probably dreaming.

  “Princess, you need to hear them.” Spyguy’s tall, lean figure blocked out a stretch of stars above me.

  “I’m perfectly dry.”

  He bent down and picked me up, letting me fall against his chest like I wasn’t revolting. How odd. He carried me to the point that jutted out and for a moment I thought he’d toss me off, but instead he just held me there while the song, the monster song swelled and rose from a thousand throats. Not only throats. Drums. Palms against water, fists beating flesh. There was so much variety to the sound as it rose and grew as it caught the chorus, the storm and proud monster part. I raised my head and turned to gaze out over the dark water. Heads bobbed as far as I could see.

  What the crap.

  I joined in, my song echoing back growing stronger and stronger. Was that Lucien’s voice? Yes. I’d know his tenor anywhere. I listened with my heart pounding until tears trailed down my cheeks. These were my people. Hidden but still alive, still beating.

  After the last notes faded and those heads vanished, Spyguy turned and carried me back to the hut.

  “You’ve awakened the Deepness princess. We both know that you have no idea what you’re doing, but you’re doing it anyway.”

  I inhaled deeply while he carried me through the tiny door. He smelled so much like a Siren lover/assassin, but he only dumped me on the bed and slammed the door behind him as he left instead of stabbing me in the back.

  Sean woke me up climbing into bed. He tucked me under his chin and almost immediately began snoring. I didn’t fall back asleep. I stayed there for a little while before I got up, grabbed a jelly stick and went up to my rock. Maybe I’d dreamed the monster concert from the night before.

  I sat there, just listening to the ocean for a long time as the pale light grew warm and golden. Funny, the sun hadn’t really shone in all those weekends I’d come here. What was I going to do with a monster nation that ached for freedom from being captured and sold into gladiator games, or just wiped out? It was as legal to kill them as it was to kill me. All the Deepness creatures were expendable. Oliver was working on legislation to change that, but how was it going? What could I do about it? I wasn’t a politician, not adaptable like Sean, whatever Spyguy said about me. I was too emotional, unstable, liable to wipe out what I was trying to save.

  I wasn’t smart, either, not like Sean and every other half-breed genius. I wasn’t going to destroy the Soremni world. It was beautiful. It had problems, but wiping them out wasn’t the solution. What was? I thought and thought and thought, but only had more questions and my head ached.

  I went back to the hut and climbed in bed, putting my cold feet on Sean’s warm ones. He just pulled me against him like he didn’t mind. What about him? If he was really going to win all those games, would that really make him the Soremni king? It didn’t compute. We were just doing this doubles, monster games thing for a little while before we went back home and got normal jobs, got married for real, put the assassination attempts and the political maneuvering behind us. Why hadn’t we talked about this? Maybe we had. Maybe I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around living in Cierdeep as some kind of Soremni figurehead until I was here experiencing it.

  I didn’t hate it, but needing to sing like that, it wasn’t going to go away. It would probably get worse. Is that what I was waiting for before I married Sean for real, for things to get back to normal, for us to live like humans back home, for the obsession and the compulsion to go away? I’d always been drawn to the lake, to sing to it, but now it was the ocean. With an ocean I could destroy anything. Everything. There was no going back to normal for me. What was I thinking? I’d never been normal. I’d tried to be normal, but being obsessed with Cole and compulsively singing to a lake wasn’t normal. I had to stop this denial stuff. The stakes were too high to live life on accident.

  Chapter 31

  I went to my internship on Monday morning with makeup covering every trace of my little street fight, way fight? Whatever. Gerveeg didn’t notice me. He was in his office, yelling at Cassie every once in awhile to get some recordings or instruments, or reclusive musicians that no one had been able to get in touch with for decades.

  I floated over to the nearest group of whispering interns. I sort of smiled at them, but they didn’t notice me. I’d firmly established my aloof and shy persona. Good job, Gen!

  I had to be happy with floating there while I worked on a particularly interesting strain that was in my head, something about Sean and the confused and complicated future we’d have. Multiplicity? That would be a good title considering how many doubles I had. I’d been neglecting my college homework. I had to get on it seriously tonight. No playing with the cool stringed harp thing I’d picked up in the market the night before with Junie.

  The voices got a little loud so I could pick up their conversation, couldn’t really ignore it. “That isn’t a language. I bet she has no latent intelligence at all. She’s just a monster, like the rest of them.” Priss didn’t try to keep the sneer out of her voice. She was the short-haired brunette.

  “Maybe they’re monsters, but have you ever heard that kind of harmony? That many voices perfectly pitched? It’s incredible. I didn’t know they had a culture, but this, this is culture.”

  Carni was the red-head and had great composition chops. She was definitely top of the class. So talented, nice, and apparently open-minded about monsters.

  I moved closer. “What are you guys talking about?” I was loud enough they would have to be really, really oblivious not to see me.

  Carni gave me a slight smile. “The Siren put on a monster concert over the weekend. It was all over Monster City, and some Soremni ships picked it up. It’s a big deal in musical communities, but it hasn’t reached mainstream media yet.”

  “Wait, the Siren put on a concert? The Siren who did the bay thing? Why would she do that?”

  Priss wrinkled her nose. She was the one who had said they were all mindless. We were all mindless. Particularly me. “I think she’s raising an army.”

  “An army of mechanics who help rebuild Terramore?” Madd asked all snarly.

  I glanced at him. He shot me a dark look back. Okay. Apparently he’d gotten up grumpy.

  “That’s a conspiracy. Like the open borders policy where the monsters have protection while they take over Soremni jobs. I mean, the prince has always been a monster lover. Why would the King’s team start losing steadily as soon as he takes over when he’s been cultivating the finest team the King’s ever had? Because he wants us to lose. He’s probably been brain-washed by the creature. I mean, not like anything could seriously happen because ew.” Priss’s face was all squished up at the idea of Prince Oliver with a gross Siren monster.

  “Yeah, ew,” I echoed then shook my head, trying to focus on not Oliver and his disgusting green eyes and mesmerizing smile. “So, what’s with Gerveeg?”

  Carni shrugged. “He heard the monster ballad and is freaking out about it. He’s trying to find monster singers to replicate the sound. I mean, are those all singing voices? Some of them sound like reeds or strings, or pipes. There’s so much diversity. It’s really exciting. It’s impossible, of course. If communication weren’t a big enough barrier, you have to get them to cooperate. Still, if Takeo can recruit a Crustique and a Grimny, maybe he can organize a monster orchestra.”

  “The Cleaver Queen could do it. She’s got to be going crazy without a musical outlet, and what else does she do?” Brig said, a blond guy with a constant sort-of leer.

  “She says
that she’s pro-equality, even for monsters, but what actual experience has she had? I hear that she’s really young,” Jermain, a skinny and usually quiet guy said.

  “She was raised in Monster City with Morganagh,” Brig said.

  “No, she was raised on land,” Carni said with a serious frown.

  That’s when Gerveeg came back and yelled at all of us to listen up. He’d piped the monster song to the dome so we could listen to it in stereo.

  I braced myself for the musical impact, but it wasn’t nearly as moving as when I’d stood there on the edge, singing. Listening to it, my voice was kind of horrible.

  “All right, students,” he said after the song ended. “What strikes you about this piece? There’s a lot to talk about.”

  Priss who hated monsters said, “They don’t have lyrics.”

  “Are you certain it isn’t a language you just don’t know?”

  She scratched her neck. “I can’t be certain but…”

  I knew the language. It was called ocean. Apparently I was fluent. Maybe that’s part of what I disliked about my voice, the way it sounded more like water than like words. But there had been words. It had seemed like it at the time anyway.

  “What else about the prima?”

  “She’s loud. Whatever the distance, wind, water, she carries over all of it,” Carni said.

  “Come on, students. Let’s delve a little bit deeper, shall we? Listen closely.”

  He poked his little black disc a few times and I got to listen to my voice isolated. My voice which had three pitches at the same time. My range was phenomenal, at least if you counted all my vocal cords. If you didn’t, they weren’t that great individually. The low one had maybe a low tenor range, no bass. The high one didn’t seem to have any limits except for what I could hear. Fascinating. My training with Madame Claria had all gone out the window on that performance.

  “Goggles, what do you hear?”

  I stared at him. “Complex harmonic patterns that remind me of your Depths piece.” Did I do that on purpose?

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “I hadn’t noticed that. Good. What else. About her voice.”