Our Bloody Pearl

by D. N. Bryn

  “Perle!”

  I slide off the possibly-Murielle human, and roll onto Dejean’s sponge, glaring at him. “I was just keeping her from leaving. I wasn’t going to eat her. Probably,” I sign at him.

  “Probably?” The fish in his transparent pouch bounce as he returns my last hand motion. “You can’t just attack my family, Perle!”

  “How was I supposed to know who she was? I didn’t want her to go telling anyone else that I’m here,” I reply in frustration, slowing my motions just enough that he can understand them. “If Kian returns, she’ll take me and kill you. I don’t want that! I don’t want that.” I repeat the last phrase, the words heavy on my heart. I don’t want to see Kian again. And, strangely enough, I don’t want her to hurt Dejean.

  He sighs, walking through the room. “You were doing what you thought was best.” Frowning, he nudges something with his toe. “That was one of my favorite models.” The bits on the floor look like pieces of a tiny ship, which probably caused the bruise on my side.

  “It’s not my fault you leave your favorite things laying on the floor.” I make a face. “Or your back door unlocked.”

  “That’s fair, I suppose.” He steps over the crushed ship, and his gaze focuses on me. A soft smile stretches over his face. “You don’t belong on my bed.”

  “It’s a nice sponge.” I have to make up a sign for sponge, but he seems to pick it up.

  “Wow,” Murielle says, breathless.

  I’m amazed she managed to stay silent for so long.

  “Dejean! Dejean, you have a siren in your bathtub. I made you a bathtub for a siren. A siren!” She laughs. Still tangled in fabric, she waves the tool she hit me with, her hair a mess.

  Dejean kneels beside the sponge, setting the fish bag to the side. “The siren’s name is Perle. They’re a guest here.” He opens his arms to me, and I let him help me back into the tub.

  Though I haven’t been out enough for the air to take effect, the water still feels wonderful.

  “A guest! You have a siren as a guest.” Murielle sits up, doing her weird bouncing thing again. Maybe she’s still in shock. “No one’s ever had a siren as a guest. I mean, no one I’ve heard of. And you’re communicating with them, like properly communicating. That’s—that’s crazy.” She pauses to glance at me. “Can they sing? They didn’t sing at me.”

  “They couldn’t sing when I first met them. Though…” Dejean’s gaze lingers over my gills.

  I shrug and look away, changing the topic. “She’s Simone’s fiancée, right? And your… family?”

  “Adopted, nearly disinherited on multiple occasions.”

  “I thought she wasn’t supposed to know about me?”

  Dejean’s cringe is all the answer I need. Removing his boots, he sits on his sponge. He pats the space beside him, and Murielle plops down, the hair piled on her head hanging lopsided.

  “Yeah?”

  “Murielle, you know I…” But he trails off, swallowing hard.

  I release a snort. “Threaten her already. If I eat her fingers, would that help?”

  Dejean shoots me a stiff glare, but Murielle speaks before he can reply.

  “What did the siren say?”

  “Perle wants to be sure you won’t tell anyone they’re staying here.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’d be a real bad idea. Everyone’ll want them.” She nods, then her eyes widened. “Oh—me? You’re worried I might say something. That’s fair. But I can keep a secret, you know. I think. I mean, I could just avoid people entirely for a while. Except I already agreed to fix Perceval’s truck, and I have the parts I ordered for Ivonne, and I’m halfway through constructing a sexy bed for Dareil and Elita—that—that was supposed to be a secret too. Damn. You won’t tell anyone?”

  “I’m doomed.” I sink backward, staring at the ceiling. Will Kian’s ceiling look like this, or will she shove me back onto a ship?

  The sound of Dejean’s voice is perky, but his expression mirrors mine. “This is more important than Dareil and Elita’s eccentric habits.”

  “You’ve got a siren in a tub next to your bed. That’s a pretty eccentric habit.”

  I might not know much about human mating customs, but I can’t suppress a snort.

  The color drains out of Dejean’s face. “I’m going to lock you in a closet and feed your fingers to Perle if you make too much noise.”

  “Please, can we?” I grin.

  Murielle eyes my excitement warily. “Simone won’t be real happy about that.”

  A strangled breath comes out of Dejean, his shoulders sinking. “You’ll try your best not to speak of this, won’t you?”

  “Yeah, of course. I won’t say a word. And I’ll say as few words as I can about other things, just to be sure.” She gives us a smile that I assume is meant to be reassuring. “You know I don’t want to get you into any trouble.” Waving her tool in the air, she adds, “But in return, you’re going to finally marry Simone and I, properly, with a big wedding on the beach. And you’re not gonna put up a fuss when we go honeymooning.”

  Dejean nods. “That’s fair. But only after you’ve successfully kept Perle a secret.”

  Murielle’s eyes narrow. She extends her mechanical tool toward Dejean, slow and purposeful. He shakes the end of it. I can’t decide if this is a strange human custom, or if Murielle and Dejean are both just really strange humans.

  Murielle hops up, bouncing along the rim of the tub to the water-pumping machine. “How’s it holding up? I thought maybe it could use a once over, since I shoved it together from all those spare ends.” Dropping down beside the humming box, she opens a side panel to reveal a strange array of turning cogs, with some other machinery farther in, beyond my view. She hums. “Looks alright, but I still think I should replace the third spoof with a number ten.”

  “Whatever you think is best. I have no idea how you got that thing pumping to begin with. My opinion would be redundant.”

  “All of your opinions are redundant,” Murielle shoots back, closing the panel.

  I laugh, the sound echoing like the wind through a series of sea caverns. “She’s not wrong.”

  Murielle squats at the edge of the tub, looking me over. “What’s the matter with your tail?”

  Grabbing it, I pull it toward me, giving her a hiss as I bare my teeth. “Nothing. It’s just healing.” Like my arms and my gills did. It’ll come back to me too.

  “Perle says it’s nothing, that it’ll mend itself.” Dejean doesn’t sound convinced, and after a pause, he adds, “I don’t know anything about a siren’s recovery rates. It just doesn’t seem…”

  I hiss at him too.

  He gives me a worried frown, and his signs wobble. “Can we look at it?”

  Drawing further into the tub, I try to maneuver my tail away from him.

  Dejean lifts his hands, his palms up. He’s performed the motion enough that I finally understand what it means. Submission. Vulnerability. “I’m sorry. I won’t force you.”

  “We won’t hurt it, you know.” Murielle says, joining him near the shallow end of the tub. “And hey! I ain’t much good with people, but I’ve seen a few nasty ouches working on the machines. Maybe I could even help a little?”

  Forcing my eyes to my tail, I try to draw it in closer. It remains stiff and lifeless. With hesitant fingers, I touch the area, feeling nothing from it even as my hand clearly brushes against the smooth, soft scales. I jerk my arm back. Maybe I do need help, though I don’t know what these humans can offer.

  Murielle’s eyes widen as she watches me, her hair lopsided, and Dejean gives me his soft, open smile. They might not know anything about siren physiology, but they want to do what they can for me. At least, Dejean does. I’m not so sure about Murielle, but I suppose she can’t be awful if Dejean and Simone put up with her.

  Pulling myself back into the shallows, I prop my tail on my long sponge, using my arms to lift it when my hips won’t give me enough rotation. Murielle leans over. A gleeful look
consumes her face, but she sobers as I glare at her.

  “May I?” She asks, hovering her hand over the water.

  I would rather she didn’t, but she can’t hurt me when I already feel nothing. “Fine,” I snap, my hand motions brisker than normal. Dejean translates.

  Watching Murielle slide her hand along my tail sends chills up my spine, but I don’t pull away. Her fingers move higher, until the sensation finally appears. She presses gently, her hands calloused like Dejean’s, but in different places. As she pulls her arm out of the tub, she makes a thoughtful noise.

  “What is it?” Dejean asks.

  “I have absolutely no idea. But ‘not good’ would be my general opinion.” Murielle wipes her hand on her clothing. “We should ask a proper physician. I could stop by the doc’s place when I’m in town? She’d know what’s up.”

  “No!” I pair the word with such obstinate hand motions that no human could misunderstand me, but Dejean echoes my feelings all the same.

  “You can’t tell anyone about Perle, not even Doc,” he reminds her. “If we speak with a physician, I’ll do it, outside of town, and it’ll be Perle’s choice.”

  “Right, right.” She presses her hands against her cheeks. “But we should still do something.”

  “We will. I’m sure there’re some books that’ll help?”

  Her face lights up. “Oh! I could find those! I won’t even have to talk to anyone but the librarian.”

  Dejean grimaces. “Maybe stick with just books. No intelligent life.”

  “No talking to the librarian either,” Murielle replies, slow and firm, as though she’s trying to convince herself. “Got it.” Standing, she twists her tight curls into something resembling a shell and shoves her tool back into it. “If you don’t have anything else I gotta fix, I should be out.”

  “Check in on us tomorrow, as soon as you can,” Dejean says. “And if you do accidentally tell someone, come immediately. We’ll have to move Perle into the cove, at least.”

  The thought of touching the ocean again makes me recoil, an ache forming in my chest. If Dejean notices, he says nothing of it.

  “Will do, weird bro.” Murielle grins. She sprints out the back door, laughing as Dejean throws a pillow in her direction.

  “I’m your only brother—you could be a little nicer!” He calls, grumbling under his breath. “She’s the weird one anyway.” He waits until she disappears around the front of the house before handing me a fish from the bag he discarded earlier. “Breakfast, a little late.”

  I accept the offering. Biting into it, I let the juices drip down my chin, a happy rumble in my chest. But my mind jumps back to my tail, laying unresponsive and crooked along the sponge.

  Murielle and Dejean can’t be right. It’ll still heal… won’t it?

  “We’ll figure out what to do with your tail.” Dejean says softly. His weak smile turns to a full grin, sparkling in his eyes. “You know, it’s good to see your gills reopened.”

  Whatever the sate of my tail, that look creates a soothing warmth in my chest, as though a ripple of morning light streams through me. It feels good to know someone else is happy for me. If I can hold onto this, maybe I can push through whatever comes of Murielle’s library search.

  I return his smile.

  [ 5 ]

  REFLECTIONS

  Trust is a funny thing; half logic, half nonsense.

  DEJEAN STICKS AROUND for most of the day, chatting with me about small things. He touches on the weather, his favorite being the warm winds from the east. I relate them to the glorious currents that run along the big island, far, far to the south. He shows me the little model ships in his collection, pointing out the features he loves best, and I tell him of the vessels I attacked in the past.

  He digs out a big glass box and a machine like the one attached to my tub, only much smaller. After I ask enough questions, he finally teaches me how to set it up beside my tub, water and all. When he returns with my wiggling dinner, he brings three extra fish, putting them in the box. I tell him how my pod used to keep fish in a similar manner, locked in a cage made of rock and bone and braided seaweed.

  Whenever Dejean’s chores and fishing preoccupy him, I wait in worry of what Murielle might accidentally say about me, but he stays nearby once the sun sets and talks with me long into the night. I fall asleep happy, listening to the distant rush of the ocean out the windows and the gentle tune of Dejean’s breathing. I hadn’t realized how nice it was to have someone I trust nearby while I rest. It’s almost like being in a pod again.

  The contented feeling leaves me during my sleep. If Dejean turns with nightmares, I don’t hear them, for I have terrors of my own. Kian haunts me at every corner, threatening to take what little I’ve gained.

  I pull out of the turmoil slowly. The sun peeks over the edge of the land, coating my tub in reds and golds. I startle as Dejean bolts upright with a cry, his blankets scattered around him. His stiff posture relaxes after a moment and he rubs his eyes, groaning.

  “Did I wake you?” he asks, his signs sloppy.

  “As if you could.” I flick water at him.

  Chuckling, he stretches his arms over his head. The back door bangs open, and we both jolt fully awake.

  Murielle bursts in. “I got some books! And I read them too.” She plants a small stack on the table.

  “You read all those books.” Dejean runs a hand through his messy hair, making the poof lay more evenly on his head.

  “Well, more like I scanned most of them, and just read the important bits.” Murielle opens one and plops down beside him. “See, here.”

  For a moment, Dejean seems to be looking and not seeing, but then his eyes focus and flicker across the page. He nods. Turning the book around, he presents an illustration of a human skeleton to me. “This is a spinal cord, inside your vertebral column.” He traces the skeleton’s backbone, from its skull down. “The nerves inside it transmit all your movements and sensations. This book says that if it’s crushed or broken, it can’t transmit to the lower parts of the body anymore. No more feeling, no more movement.”

  I stare at the drawing, and my whole body seems to drift. “But… it can heal?”

  Dejean shakes his head, his expression grim. “Not the spinal cord, at least not in humans.”

  The world grows hazy around me, my arms as numb and lifeless as my tail. “I’m not human,” I plead with him in blurred signs.

  “But you’re not a fish either,” he corrects me, his voice pained. “If there was going to be a change, it should have already happened.”

  “I’m real sorry, Perle.” Murielle sounds genuinely apologetic, but her words are like a distant echo.

  It can’t be true. My chest hurts, and I fling my hips, anger burning in my muscles. My tail smacks into the side of the tub, but I feel nothing. The air in my lungs seems to vanish, my torso trembling as my chest tightens. I drop into the water, begging it to soothe me.

  The rumble of the pumping machine screams in my pounding ears, my gills flaring painfully. Dejean’s hand brushes mine, and I yank away, curling up around my lifeless tail. I shake; shake until the darkness rushes in.

  Gasping in water, I stretch my fingers back toward Dejean. I grab his hand, clinging to it. He lets me, though my long nails dig into his skin until I can smell his blood in the water. My vision continues to spin and flicker, but I latch onto the feeling of Dejean’s fingers in mine. The awful panic wanes, turning to dread. Dejean draws me up, and I lift my head just enough to see him.

  “This isn’t the end.” Somehow hearing the words I’ve been repeating in my head for days makes me doubt them more instead of less.

  “Isn’t it?” I snap, the emptiness inside me stretching until my words echo. I knew this would come. I tried not to admit it, but I knew.

  Murielle catches my gaze with a smile. “It’s not all bad news, you know. We make humans prosthetics, so maybe we can make you one? You can still use your hips and your arms, so you’ve got so
me viable muscles there. Maybe we can’t get back your tail’s motion, but we can try to mimic it,” she says. “But I’ve got to know if that’s okay with you first.”

  Her words meet my ears, but my mind spins them around a few times before they settle. It’s too much; too much hope and fear, loss and longing. I might swim again. I won’t heal, but I might swim. I want to curl up in a bed of sand beneath my reef back home and not think on any of it, or perhaps think on all of it for a very long time. But a ray of light still bursts through the emptiness. This isn’t the end.

  “Yes…” I sign the word sluggishly, adding a nod of my head so she understands. “Yes, I want this,” I repeat, stronger. “If you think you can make something, then we might as well try it.”

  Dejean translates, and Mur’s face lights up. She reaches for a few books in the center of the stack. The others topple to the ground, but she ignores the mess, flipping one of them open and tucking a small pile of spare paper into it. “I’ll draw up some schematics!”

  As she moves to the table to start on her diagrams, I sink deeper into the water.

  “Hey, Perle…” Dejean holds a little rag to the bleeding marks I made on his hand, his expression pinched in worry. But whatever he meant to say changes as it reaches his lips. “You know, I never asked whether you have a name you’d rather be called.”

  I blink, startled. “No… no you may call me Perle.” The relief that washes over him, softening his features, fills me with a gentle warmth. “Nicknames are never a problem, but there’s a lot of meaning in who gives it and why,” I explain. “Sirens don’t have birth names, just those we are given by others. A few simple colors are typically used for strangers or acquaintances—you got that right by chance. Between sirens in a pod though, often nicknames will change; become more personal.”

  “What are yours?”

  His question gives me pause. The sort of nicknames he’s asking after are intimate, so much more so than I would ever dream of sharing with a human. But Dejean is not just any human.

  “They’re hard to translate.” Like most personal nicknames, mine include all aspects of my kind’s language, creating a label more complex and meaningful than any human phrase or sign could portray. But I try anyway. “As I child I was ‘the one who goes after fish that’s long gone.’ A siren two pods ago gave me the name ‘stingray,’ because the sand there was so soft and fine that I would burrow into it. To other pods I have been ‘first to the ship,’ ‘excites eels,’ ‘best when in the sun,’ and ‘attacks from beneath.’ The siren who birthed me called me ‘the one who is never full.’ “