Our Bloody Pearl

by D. N. Bryn

  “We found Perle, and we took the ship intact.”

  “One siren and a ship.” Simone snorts. “Perle is a prize on their own, but with the cost of repairing the Tsunami’s shield and Kian out there, likely vengeful… What good does one siren and a ship do us in the long run?”

  “Maybe none.” Dejean’s next words are lost as he locks the cabin door.

  He’s just looking for investments. Of course, that is the way his kind function. No honor, only greed and cruelty. I can’t trust the humans. But as I’m left alone with my thoughts, relaxed against the funny sponge, licking the last traces of liver off my nails, I realize something.

  The pain is nearly gone.

  [ 2 ]

  SIREN SQUALLS

  The sea calls to me; in the tow of the tide and the salt in the breeze. But it calls loudest the moment the storm hits.

  DEJEAN COMES IN with the dawn. Eyes tired and face slack, he looks like Kian after she’s stayed up two consecutive nights to write notes and yell at her crew. He carries a human stomach and a bag of pungent smelling fish. I huff at him, crossing my arms, and turn my attention away. Outside my little window, the sun rises as a dim haze through approaching clouds.

  “I just got here, and already I’ve done something wrong.”

  “You existed.” But I don’t mean that. If not for him, I wouldn’t be crossing my arms or complaining about food. His existence benefits me. Though, he could do a lot better; even his freshest meal lacks the excitement of the hunt, and this tub is a tight prison when compared to an equal-sized tide pool.

  He sighs and leans against the wall. “What is it now?”

  Glancing at him, I grumble under my breath. “Everything.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re trying to say.” With a groan, he moves back toward the door. “If you need something, I’ll be asleep in the cabin.” He shakes my meal at me a couple times, taunting me to take it before he leaves.

  Ignoring the foul meat, I point at him and make the crab claws.

  “I’m crabby, I know.” His lips quirk in a lopsided grin that makes him look a little less tired. The baggy shadows beneath his eyes darken as his expression drops. “Or do you just want to eat crab? I didn’t think sirens would know that sort of slang…”

  I motion to the ship around me. “I learned it here.”

  Dejean nods, but then his brow creases. “How long have you been here?”

  Too long. Months, maybe even a year. But I reply with a shrug, clicking for his attention.

  “I want…” I say as I point to myself, then cup my hands, palms up, and pull them toward my chest. Next, I form my fingers into a circle, squeezing them twice before pausing, repeating the motion once more. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. “Heart.”

  “You want… to… strangle me?”

  “Every other minute.” Bringing the motion to the center of my chest, I repeat it. “Heart.”

  “A heart. You want the man’s heart?”

  I nod, waving him away again.

  “If you say so.” But Dejean chuckles as he leaves, taking the rejected food with him. Barely a minute later, he returns, a heart in hand. Though chilled and long dead, with a slight hint of decay, it bleeds when I slice my nails through it.

  I pick it apart. Dejean plops down against the wall as I eat, his gaze fixed on the dark clouds approaching. The ship tips farther than usual, revealing the harsh, dark peaks of wind-whipped waves in the port window.

  “What do sirens do during storms?” His voice sounds distant.

  Setting the rest of the heart to the side, I form the waves with my hands, and myself beneath them, riding the fresh currents, giddy in the turbulence.

  “You want to be out there.” At first I think surprise lifts the pitch of his voice, but his lips turn down and his glare drifts away from me. Guilt.

  I nod, wistful sounds building in my throat. “More than anything.”

  “Maybe someday you will.” He speaks with a confidence that can’t be sincere. He keeps me locked here, the ocean a wall of wood away. He cannot mean to free me… can he? Maybe Dejean truly wishes to let me experience the sea once more. Maybe he’s kinder than most humans. Or maybe he simply believes he is.

  Finishing the rest of my meal, I wave for his attention. I point to him, then make the gesture I used for heart, adding in a modified want motion and pinching my cheeks in the typical siren emphasis for a question. Together, my body asks you - have - heart - ? though the humans would phrase it in a longer, clunkier way. “Do you have a heart?”

  He stares.

  I repeat myself, both in my own tongue and with the series of motions. “Do you have a heart?”

  Realization creeps over his face. He chuckles. “According to Simone, only for fish in bathtubs.”

  I’m not a fish any more than I’m a whale or a human, but I’m not going to bother explaining that to Dejean. I point to him again, then to my head, twirling my finger once before popping it away, cheeks once more pinched. “What do you think?”

  “Me? Am I crazy? I’m thinking… What do I think?” He makes the think gesture and laughs, a sharp, harsh sound. “I don’t know, Perle. I’m using strange hand motions to talk to my kind’s natural predators, yet this is easier than any conversation I’ve had with another human in a long time,” he says dryly. “I threw Kian’s crew overboard last night, you know—well, all but one. He wishes he were with them.”

  That explains the screaming.

  “You tell me. Am I heartless?”

  All humans are. But he and Simone have been different from Kian and her crew. Even within humans, perhaps some variety exists. Dejean looks at me with such a soft, worried gaze that I almost can’t picture him hiding deadly siren traps in the shallows. Almost.

  I make the gesture for heart, but I shrink it as far as I can while still making it beat. “A small heart.”

  His smile reappears. “That’s better than nothing, I guess.”

  I need to ask something specific, but I don’t know how to show it. After a bit of thought, I motion him over.

  He looks surprised, but he kneels beside the tub, so close that I could bite him. I don’t. I still need him.

  I point to him and then make the same cupping and drawing motion I used with the heart. Brushing one hand up my throat, I open my mouth as though I’m singing. For the last motion, I clasp my hands over his ears. I try not to touch him as I do it, but my fingers brush his hair by accident. “You want the instruments Kian created to block out siren songs.” And the obvious addition: “Why?”

  Dejean pulls back. “I… don’t know what that means.”

  But he does. He proves it in the darting of his gaze and the drop of his brow. I hiss at him, and he scoots away, averting his eyes.

  A purposeful knock comes from Kian’s quarters, and Dejean stands. He ignores my scowl as he closes the door to my little room. After the lock’s click and the swing of the main cabin door, a shuffle of steps echo, too indistinct for me to tell how many have entered. Only one voice follows.

  “Here he is, Captain, as promised.” The speaker sounds like the crew person who interrupted Dejean yesterday. Chauncey.

  “He certainly looks terrible.” A blunt lack of emotion leaves Dejean’s voice hollow.

  The smell that hits me confirms his words, the sharp tang of blood overwhelming. Whatever they inflicted on this human Chauncey brought in didn’t bode well for him. He makes the low, pathetic noises of a wounded creature. Maybe I’ll have another liver soon.

  “I’m not a cruel man, Flavien. If you tell me where Kian keeps her siren song blockers, you are free to leave at the next port,” Dejean says, each word precise and monotone.

  Flavien; third mate of Kian. I flinch. If I had held any sympathy for this pitiful, whimpering prisoner, it would have left me in that instant, replaced by the feeling of his fingers digging into my scalp and his fists cracking my ribs.

  “Kian told me nothing!”

  Dejean’s boots make a distinctive thu
d as he walks, his pace more erratic and heavy than most humans. “This is your last chance. Choose your words carefully.”

  Flavien yelps, his shout turning into a soft, sputtering sound and a blubbery cry. “I don’t know! She never told me where she locked them up.”

  “Then you have no use to me.”

  Flavien’s screams slice through the cabin, and then returns to a faint sobbing.

  “Throw him over; dead or alive, I don’t care.” Dejean’s voice catches on the last word, whether from frustration or something more, I can’t tell.

  In some ways, he shows all the harsh, insensitive traits of the humans I’ve known, of Kian and Flavien, and even Kian’s second mate, Theirn, when she pressures him. But his actions toward his own crew, though distant, seem far from cruel. He is not kind, yet a part of him is good, somehow.

  The shuffling returns as Chauncey and his silent helpers take Flavien away. Not until the lock of the cabin door clicks does Dejean open my little room. He carries a long, flat, pink muscle with him, one end oozing red. A tongue.

  My stomach grumbles.

  “You’re still hungry then?” He offers it to me.

  “I’m always hungry.” Snatching it out of his hand, I split it open with my nails and chew on the bloody meat.

  Another clatter of boots interrupts my meal, and the cabin door clicks once more before flying open. Simone sprints in. The wind comes with her, a stormy gale carrying salt and brine.

  “We picked up siren vibrations, ten minutes out.” A sudden pounding of rain against the port window rumbles beneath her words as the clouds break.

  Sirens! I grip the sides of the tub, my heart lifting. Breathing deeply, I search for the mark that tags our territories. Even locked in this stinking box of wood and metal I find faint whiffs of the soft, floral scent.

  Dejean ignores me, rising to his feet in an instant. “Are you sure?”

  “The meter is steady at fifty em-trons. There’s a whole pod of them coming.”

  “At least we have fair warning this time. Get everyone below deck,” Dejean orders. “Aileas reported secure locking mechanisms on the first and second storage units. I want the entire crew there in five minutes.”

  “But the storm? With no hands on deck…” Simone walks back toward the cabin door, Dejean following her closely.

  “We’ll secure the ship as best we can, lock the helm away from land, draw in the sails and wings, and stoke the stacks to full,” he says. “I won’t sacrifice my crew for the well being of a stolen ship. We only need to survive the siren attack, then the quick jaunt home.”

  Their footsteps pause, and Simone speaks again, softer, more urgent. “Be careful. Your call to the seas has always been deeper than most. I don’t know what that pet of yours will do to you when you lose it…”

  “They haven’t hurt me yet.” Dejean resumed walking, his voice growing muffled as he passes beyond the main cabin door.

  “They haven’t had this sort of chance before…” Simone continues talking, but the creak of the ship masks her distant words.

  Sinking back against the tub, I tap my fingers on the rim. Killing Dejean now would do me little more good than it would’ve yesterday, whatever state he might be in. But I might still gain something from this storm.

  Under Kian’s watch, a siren attack had been a horror, the screams of my kin echoing through the hull of the ship for days after. But Dejean and his crew have nothing to block our song. The humans aboard this ship are the prey once more—the world turned right again.

  The rain continues to pound, and crewmates shout somewhere above me, heavy feet pounding against the wood. Simone returns to the cabin first, hiding a piece of paper between a stack of Kian’s books and leaving again. Not long after, another human comes in, closing Kian’s door with a series of clacks, like an intricate lock sliding many bolts into place.

  Dejean meanders into my little room, giving me a wary glance. He drops to his usual position, sitting against the wall across from the port window, tense and alert. He digs his fingers into his arm, tapping his foot erratically. His motions slow, and he closes his eyes.

  All goes quiet as the happy rhythm of the siren’s song reaches me. My chest flutters. It can’t be heard yet, the vocals still too far off to make out, but our power lies not in sound. It comes from something even the humans can’t describe, something they can only monitor the vibrations of with their strange technology. It rises in me like it does in all sirens, drawing from our love for our home, our desire to protect it, and our ability to thrive within it.

  I want to touch the ocean now more than ever, with the ship keeling beneath me and the song flooding my veins. My scales shiver for it, my heart thumping in longing and excitement. It tears me apart just as it builds me up.

  Finally, I can hear their voices, a soft call in the distance.

  “It’s so beautiful, you know?” Dejean sinks against the wall, loose and relaxed, a crooked grin on his face. “It sounds like life, like a brush of warm seawater on my bare toes, and the sand slipping away as the wave rolls out. Like the little fish diving into the coral, and the dolphins leaping in the distance.” He sighs, his gaze distant. “It’s peaceful and colorful. And real… so real.”

  If I agree with anything a human says, I prefer not admit it. But he’s right. It is beautiful. “It’s our love song.” One that’s taken the lives of many human intruders.

  He nods, though I doubt he has any idea what I’ve said with no hand motions to explain it. “I wish I could live there, deep down, beneath the waves. No humans, no nightmares. No fear. Just fish and whales and a long, eternal stretch of water.”

  The singing resonates from just beneath us now, pounding through the ship more violently than the howl of the wind and the piercing of the rain. A bucket’s worth of my tub water splashes out as the boat tosses to one side.

  Dejean staggers to his feet, wobbling before steadying himself. “I need to see it.” He bobs his head, glazed eyes drifting through the window. “I have to be there.”

  “If you get eaten, I’ll laugh.” I watch him closely, though. In this state, I could rip him to bloody shreds and he would barely whimper. But he might just as easily hurt himself without my help.

  Dejean leaves the little room, and the cabin door rattles as he tries to open it. “Locked,” he mumbles. Clanks follow, and then a curse. “A combination. I need a combination.”

  He moves into my view once more, stumbling backward as the ship careens over a wave. His eyes don’t quite focus on Kian’s desk, but he makes for it anyway. “Simone. Simone said she’d bring one by…”

  He grabs for a drawer, but misses, pulling off a paper weight instead. The stack of books comes next, then a decorative shell Kian’s first mate brought her. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

  Flinging himself back at the door, he shakes the knob more vigorously. “No! Let me out. Let me out, let me out.” His voice cracks. “I need… need to be there.”

  He’s so desperate for the sea. It’s not the mindless greed I once thought the humans turned to, but the same desire I share, the same love for the wild ocean, increased until all rational thought is lost. It pulls him like a riptide, ever toward destruction.

  I snap my head around at a bang on my little window. A gray siren clings to the wood, peering at me through the glass. My heart billows, and I grip the sides of my tub, pulling myself as far as I can manage.

  “Help me!” I shriek. “Let me out.”

  Gray flings themselves at a hand hold higher up and bangs their tail against the glass. The wood around the window creaks, but it holds. They pause from their song to call for aid. A deep teal siren with black accents appears. A blue one leaps up beside them, grasping unsuccessfully, and plummets back into the waves.

  “What have they done to you?” Teal hisses into the glass. Their gaze flashes from me to Dejean.

  He stumbles into the little room. His unsteady feet carry him a step back for every two he takes toward
me. He reaches desperately for the little window, toward the raging ocean, but he slips. Arms outstretched, he falls against the tub.

  I grab onto him, my teeth bared. His head lulls, the hollow of his neck vibrating as he breathes heavily. Within his chest, his heart pounds a frantic rhythm. A heart so near, so vulnerable, I could rip it free between beats.

  Liquid wells in the corners of his dark eyes, and he shifts against the tub, as though fighting an invisible weight. “I need the ocean, please,” he whispers. “Please, let me go to it.”

  I tighten my grip. Even if I had my freedom in reach, I couldn’t eat him, not while he’s like this, crying the same words that are on my lips, mangling them with his human tongue. In one great heave, I shove him away, my weak arms trembling from the effort.

  He stumbles back to his feet. Scooting his way around the tub, he flings himself at the window. “Please, let me out!” he cries hoarsely, banging his fists against the glass.

  The little lock holding it closed rattles, but he ignores it, pounding all the harder. Teal and Gray tilt their heads, pressed so close to the glass that they can stare into his eyes. They grab the edges of the window, shaking it.

  Please, please.

  But the window’s lock holds. The ship tilts, tossing Dejean backward. He lands heavily and knocks his head against the tub. Chest heaving, he collapses into a heap on the floor.

  Teal screeches at Dejean’s limp form, a vicious sound born of hate and pain. Their voice turns to a mournful melody as they turn their attention toward me. “I am sorry.”

  You did all you could. I can’t bring myself to utter the words, so I use my body to convey them, sloped shoulders and forehead lifted, the tiny fins along my arms quavering twice.

  They nod and shove themselves off the side of the ship. Through the rain, I see others doing the same farther along, leaping from the main deck. Watching them leave rips a hole in my chest larger than any I could take from Dejean. But I expect no more from them. They can’t reach me, and I can’t reach them. They are not my pod. They bear me no allegiance to the death. So long as Dejean keeps me down here, I’m doomed to this life.