by D. N. Bryn
“Good.” He sits at the edge of the tub, still grinning. “I would’ve had to pay a heaping chest’s worth of something shiny if Murielle hadn’t agreed to do it for me.”
Murielle? I have no way to mimic her name, but I whistle the same fluctuation he uses when he says it. “She is Simone’s…” I can’t remember the word he used, any more than I know what it means.
“Fiancée.”
“What is that?”
“It’s someone you love. Someone you’re dedicated to being with, usually romantically and sexually, but not always.” He looks at me expectantly. “Do sirens do that?”
“Sometimes.” I shrug. “Usually there’s a handful of us to a territory, and we move between pods many times in our lives. But if two or three sirens work well together, we might create a new, smaller territory.” I don’t sign all those exact words, my motions dictating something that in his tongue would translate to, normal ten, fifteen, big area swim. Switch many happening. But small area swim create if two, three sirens… I fumble then, not certain how to convey the next word.
“Love?” Dejean asks. He holds up his fingers to his mouth and then lowers it to his chest, pumping them in and out like a heartbeat.
“. . . Love.” Maybe that’s what it is. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never felt it for other sirens. I sign what I do know: desire them not hurt, want them near; and future with a much longer, greater motion than Dejean and I normally use. “For a long time. Maybe forever.”
“Did you have one of these smaller groups?”
“No.” I ignore him in favor of the windows, trying not to care what he thinks of this.
He says nothing for a moment. Then he asks, “What is it like, living in a pod?”
“Good. Safe,” I answer. “We work together, hunting as a group through a territory we set. Sometimes there are fights with other pods, if the water is very good, or the prey very scarce. But never death. We don’t kill other sirens.”
Dejean lifts a brow, his jaw tightening. “You only kill humans, then?”
“Of course not.” I huff. “All intelligent creatures are bound by honor to stay out of our territories, unless given permission. We kill those who refuse, and what we kill, we eat. Whales and octopuses respect this. Dolphins too, often.” I drop my speech to a hiss, separating my motions so each is blunt. “But never humans.”
“Of course we don’t!” His voice rises and he blurs his signs. “We have no idea where your territories are!”
“They’re very clearly marked!” I growl, my hands fast and abrupt.
“To a siren, maybe!” He throws his arms out to the side, speaking with only his voice now. “My people—pirates, yes, but also innocent merchants and passenger ships—we take wild guesses based on spotty predictions, and half the time we’re wrong. You sirens pick us apart for it!”
“What?” I don’t sign either, my head spinning. All creatures smart enough to create a language of their own understand our borders. The smell and sound of a full pod is obvious to anyone looking for the signs. A few individuals pass on the exact placement of the border to the rest of their kind.
My stomach turns. Perhaps in some ways it makes sense. Humans are not of the sea. But they also would have little reason to share information with each other, not the way we do. They wound and kill their own kind more often than dolphins, and with just as much vengeance. Even Dejean.
“Why do you defend them? You kill humans too. You all kill each other!”
“We aren’t perfect.” The words fly from his lips, his face pinched. “But some of us try. They don’t deserve to be eaten because of an honor code they don’t know exists and territories they can’t find the borders to!” He swings his arms once more, leaning forward this time.
I recoil off the edge of the sponge, the memory of a fist in my face bringing a hazy sort of pain with it; not quite real, but still terrible and harrowing. Whimpering, I struggle to pull my tail back up.
“I’m sorry.” Dejean draws back, tucking his elbows close to his body. His gaze drops to his lap and a heavy breath leaves him. “It’s not your fault you attacked us. You didn’t know…”
I didn’t. None of my kind did. I want to snap at him, to bare my teeth and fight him through it, to prove that his stupid humans caused all this. Last week I would have. Now I know it would be a lie. My kind are smarter and less murderous than the humans, but we made a mistake. We hold some of the blame for this.
And the way Dejean brushes a hand under his eye makes me think his own pain lurks deeper than mine, closer to his heart. Slowly, I brush my fingers against his leg, asking for his attention. When he looks up, I make the sign for understand.
“Thank you.” A weak smile stretches his lips, but his eyes remain clouded, sad. He resumes his hand motions. “Pods sound nice.” It’s an odd regression in topic, like he’s trying to distance himself from the talk of territories and death.
“They are. They’re a family.” I don’t sign the last part, not sure what to use for family. Fondness? Safety? Home? Even creating a new hand motion feels wrong. Nothing can portray the ache in my chest when I think of the sirens I knew in the past, any of whom might die by a human trap or Kian’s song blockers.
“Do you miss it?”
“Constantly.”
Now it’s his turn to look away. With a sigh, he stands and removes his coat, draping it over one of three chairs rimming a cluttered table. “I’ll catch you something in the morning. There’s a little tank around here somewhere I could stock…”
He moves into a hallway leading to the back of the house, but I stop him with a whistle before he can ascend a flight of steps there.
“Yes?” His brows lift, his expression hopeful.
“Goodnight, idiot.” The last sign is a tap to the head, wiggling fingers, and then a throwing away motion. I like to think it’s a symbol of Dejean’s hair.
He chuckles. “I’ll be back down,” he pauses, then adds, “If you don’t mind. I sleep best in sight of the ocean. And—” With a shake of his head, he moves up the stairs. “I’ll be back down.”
As soon as the creaking of the wood fades, I settle down to stare out the window, waiting for him. Or perhaps I’m waiting for myself. Waiting for my mind to return so I can go back to loathing Dejean for the human he is, waiting for my tail to move and react as it should, waiting for the ocean to accept me as its own once more.
Waiting, and worrying that none of these things will ever happen.
I can live like this for the moment, but what will happen to me if I let it become the rest of my life? Maybe pain is better than emptiness. If my choices are to die in the ocean or waste away here, which option will I pick?
[ 4 ]
RIPPLES
If many soft waves tear through big rocks, then many weak fists break strong hearts. But many small smiles piece them back together again.
IN THE EARLY ocean mornings, light would dance through the waves, soft and tender, coaxing the world to life. I lie at the bottom of the tub, breath held, wishing Dejean’s house could replicate the effect. What it does give me isn’t terrible—golden light ripples across the copper metal and shimmers my body into a multitude of hues—but it’s not home.
I pretend that it could be. Closing my eyes, I try to forget the human dwelling enclosing my tube, my space so pitifully cramped compared to what I once had. I ignore the metal brushing against my back where sand should be and turn the humming of the water pump into the rush of distant waves.
It still feels wrong.
I sit up, drawing in air. It’s such a normal action that it takes the subtle sting in my chest to remind me that it’s not my natural way of breathing. I almost drop back into the water, but Dejean shifts in his sleep, and I turn my attention to him.
He lays beside the tub on the largest sponge rectangle I’ve ever seen, blankets and pillows covering it. Unlike his sporadic naps on the ship, he’s taken off his boots and belt. A single slip of flowing cloth takes the place o
f his usual billowing shirt and tight pants. It’s still far more fabric than I would ever want to wear, but at least it looks comfortable compared to the clothing humans normally don.
After tossing throughout the night, whimpering and crying out, he finally looks restful. His curls lay flatter on one side, frizzing up on the other, and a lock of them twists into his mouth, trembling as he breathes. In the light that pours crookedly through the front windows, his brown skin seems to glow, making the million little darker spots spread across his cheeks look all the more prominent.
He stirs in his sleep. His shifting holds none of the sudden jerks into wakefulness I’ve seen from him during the night. Instead, they’re little, graceful movements: the fluttering of lashes, the curling of fingers, the rise and fall of shoulders. Slowly the heavy movements of someone in a dream drift into the lazy stretching of a waking person.
Snapping my eyes closed, I float on the water, pretending to nap. He pauses for a moment, as though waiting for me to breath. Once I do, he moves toward the other side of the room.
I peek at him, the world blurred and twisted into a tiny sliver. He rummages through a pile of clothing. His slip of night-clothing hangs off one of the chairs to his right. Little black sun-speckles cover so much of his dark skin that the unmarked regions look almost strange in comparison. I have just enough time to wonder why humans grow so much hair between their legs if they have plenty of it on their heads already when he shoves on a pair of baggy brown pants and turns toward the door.
I feign sleep once more. A series of shuffles follow, and he leaves wearing his heavy, chunking boots. The back door clanks behind him. I sit up to watch him walk toward the cliff, one of the human’s thin, rod-like fishing contraptions swinging over his shoulder.
He whistles. It contains none of the beauty and soul of the ocean, but it’s not an unpleasant sound either. He reaches the edge of the cliff, and the whistling dies as he jumps off it.
On instinct, I burst forward, coming as close to the window as I can. A little boxy machine of wheels and belts pokes out over the cliff. From the edge of it, a long metal beam extends, like those the humans use to lift cargo off their ships. A rope runs through the center of it, its length releasing over the side of the cliff. Dejean must be holding to it while he descends. The water may be a liquid, but I have seen sailors leap from flying ships for my song, and they are always dead before I reach them. Dejean is too smart to attempt that.
Probably.
As I sink into the water up to my chin, my little flap of unsealed gill opens for a moment. I draw in a deep breath of stinging air, clinging to a bit of the sky when I should be embraced by the water. I let the air out and dip my head just beneath the surface.
Fear holds me there for a moment, but I force my mouth open, taking in the water. It pushes against my gills. When it seems as though it might press through, the feeling of the harbor dragging me down wraps its terrible fingers around my neck. The water rushes the wrong direction. I burst over the side of the tub, clinging to the edge as I cough out searing liquid. Trembling, I lower myself back down.
Something feels different; the temperature around my gills is a bit colder, my neck a bit less stiff. I submerge my head again. If I don’t try now, I know I won’t have the courage to try at all.
When I open my mouth, I let in as little water as I can manage. Instead of assaulting my chest, it pushes through the crack in the side of my top left gill. I repeat it, again and again, feeling the gap widen. My head feels light by the time another crack forms, but I keep going, giddy at the progress.
My gills all come loose at once, clarity returning to my vision in an instant. Laughter bubbles out of me, ringing off the sides of the tub. I tear through the water, using the handholds built into the floor to aid my still immobile tail. My arms quickly start to ache, but it’s the good sort of ache that tells me they’re regaining muscle.
I can’t wait to show Dejean.
The instant the thought pops into my mind, I wish I could take it back, but the excited smile that will consume his dorky, speckled face makes me cling to the desire all the same. Slowing, I break the surface.
The back door rattles. I prepare to whistle the tune of Dejean’s name, but the sound dies in my throat as the door swings open. A human far shorter and rounder than Dejean appears.
Their coiled red hair is piled on top of their head, held up by two pens and some sort of tool humans use on machines, with curls springing out at erratic angles. The human wear a piece of clothing that looks like pants, but it comes all the way up their chest and buttons at their shoulders. Something tight around their waist holds it in place. Swirls cover one of their arms, like the chaotic but beautiful lines of a reef, drawn in brilliant colors against their near-black skin.
I slink beneath the water, pressing myself against the side of the tub. No one can know I’m here. Dejean I can accept, but if someone else steals me away…
Footsteps echo ominously through the metal of the tub. I don’t move a muscle. The water above me stills.
Go away. Go away! I shout in my mind, as though somehow Dejean will hear my thoughts and return.
The human’s face appears above me, peering into the water. Their brow shoots up, and their mouth hangs open for a moment before letting out a squeaky scream.
Now that they’ve seen me, I can’t let them go. “I guess I get to eat you now.” I launch out of the water, using the edge of the tub to pull myself forward. They scream again as I tackle their legs.
“There’s a fish person in the tub!” they cry, waving their arms like a trapped shorebird.
I try to drag them in with me, but my tail slips, its unresponsive length refusing to brace against the tub’s edge. Gripping hard to their weird pants, I yank them toward me, but they toss their hands in the air, toppling backward.
“Stop that. You’re making this very difficult.” I haul myself out of the water, throwing my body on top of the human. They continue to wave their arms, their legs convulsing at random. Maybe they’re in some kind of shock.
“There’s a fish person out of the tub!”
“I’m not a fish!” I hiss in their face, catching their hands and pinning them down. Their throat vibrates as they shriek. If I don’t kill them cleanly, they’ll stain the floor red before I can drag them into the tub. I don’t think Dejean will appreciate that.
“Dejean. Dejean!” The human screams, struggling against my aching arms. “Captain Dejean Gayle, you ass!”
“You’re a friend of his?” I probably shouldn’t eat them then. What a terrible shame. “You get off easy this time,” I grumble, snapping at their face for show. But I can’t just let them leave, not before Dejean has convinced them to keep me a secret. Maybe if I can find something to bind them with?
I glance through the junk scattered around the room. My grip fails as the human jerks their hands upward, one of their thumbs shorter than the other. They pull a tool from their hair and slam it into the side of my head. Pain spreads through my skull, my vision wavering. My heart skips a beat and I flinch, shying away, Kian’s gruff laugh echoing in my ears.
But Kian is gone, and whether or not I can contain this human might determine whether she finds me again.
In my moment of weakness, the human knocks me off, flinging my torso onto the floor. I crush something small and pointy, and the partially healed sores on my elbows sting as they knock into the ground. The human almost stands, but one of Dejean’s blankets trips them. They tumble onto the giant sponge pad.
My gills tremble as I growl, the chamber beneath them releasing. I could sing. I could sedate the human without attacking them. Stilling the tremble in my chest, I close my eyes, looking for the song within me.
But I can’t feel it.
I love the ocean as much as I ever have, my desire to protect it unwavering. Yet the rejection I faced at the harbor taints my love, that one denial piercing deep into my heart until I think I might break open from within. Even with my gill
s open, the song won’t come. I’m not worthy of it.
A blanket flies at me as the human kicks it off. I bat it to the side. I’ll have to find another way to subdue them.
My tail lays crooked and unfeeling on the wood floor, but I shove myself forward on my hips and hands, ignoring the pain in my side from whichever of Dejean’s treasures I crushed. I throw myself into them just as they rise to their knees, tossing us both off the big sponge. We knock over three of Dejean’s long fish catchers, and land in a pile of spare window fabric beside the table.
“Don’t eat me! I taste terrible,” the human blubbers. “See, see here.” They hold up their hand so close to my face that I flinch before my instincts take over and I snap my teeth at their stubby fingers. “I cut off a bit of my thumb once, and it fell into my rum, and I didn’t know it was in there, you see, so I—” They make a funny noise in their throat, like they’re gagging. “It was nasty. Really, really nasty, dammit. I promise, you won’t like me. I’m not worth it.”
“Do you know when to shut up?” I hiss at them. But their rambling, the tool in their hair, and their interest in the tub, not to mention their casual entrance into Dejean’s house, all fall together. They—she’s—that girl, Simone’s fiancée, the one who couldn’t keep a secret. “Murielle?” I ask, though her name sounds like a funny series of notes in my tongue, far from a proper replication.
“I—I don’t talk fish. I mean, half the time I don’t even talk human very well. Can you really expect me to know not-human languages too?” she sputters. “Though you know, I don’t think people speak fish languages at all; isn’t that like—”
“I am not a fish!” Stupid humans.
“Shit, sorry. You’re mad, I know.” She grimaces. “But please, don’t eat me.”
“I wasn’t planning on eating you because you mean something to Dejean, but if you keep calling me a fish, I might change my mind,” I growl, baring my teeth at the end.
She squeaks. The door clangs. Dejean shouts.
