Lost Voices

by Sarah Porter

  Luce rolled onto her back and strained to lift her legs out of the water. They felt bizarrely heavy all of a sudden and also much too long. With an effort she managed to heave them up out of the sea.

  A silvery green tail, halfway between a fish’s tail and a serpent’s, waved uncertainly in the darkness of the cave. It weighed so much that Luce could barely hold it up, and the cold air made it burn. Luce shrieked and let the tail drop, and salt water spattered across their faces.

  The red-haired girl was staring open-mouthed at Luce, and then the laughter came back all around them. Almost all the girls were laughing now, but it didn’t sound mean. It sounded like the way people laugh when they suddenly understand something that should have been obvious all along. Luce gaped around in desperation. She could hear a few of the girls repeating another word she didn’t know: “metaskaza.”

  When the redhead spoke again her voice was much gentler, and high-pitched with surprise. “Nobody would have believed, hearing the way you sang...” She shook her head and smiled suddenly at Luce, and the smile was so warm that Luce almost felt safe. “You mean, you really didn’t know?”

  Luce started laughing along with everyone else, but it was too shrill and fast. Hysterical. The redhead let out a kind of soft, lulling hum, and Luce felt her panic receding. She kept humming until Luce calmed down.

  “I’m Catarina,” the lovely redhead said, still smiling her luminous smile. “I’m queen here. "Who are you?”

  "Luce,” Luce answered, but then that didn't seem like enough of a name when she was so lost. "I mean, I'm Lucette Gray Korchak.” She thought of explaining that she lived with her uncle in Pittley, but then she realized how absurd that would sound.

  "Not anymore,” Catarina said. Now her voice had a hint of that magical singing in it, and Luce started to feel sleep washing through her like waves. "You don't need one of those complicated human names anymore. You're just Luce now. And you're one of us.”

  4. The Timahk

  Luce slipped into a velvety sleep, but even as she slept she was somehow aware of the row of girls' heads, all lying like hers on the pebble beach inside the cave. As the tide came in, she let it lift her softly and carry her farther up the beach, and when it went back out her body followed the water. It was effortless. All the girls' bodies traveled with hers in the same way, so that their haunting faces formed a kind of second tide as they slept. Soft echoes washed around them from the waves booming against the rocks outside; she slept in a sonic cradling, a deep bath of rich, whispered sound. Even in her sleep she was surprised by how safe she felt, too. Only now that Catarina was beside her did Luce realize she'd been living for months with a constant undercurrent of fear.

  When she finally woke it was just a tiny bit less dark. A few holes in the roof of the cave let down shafts of light that gleamed off the spiny crystals all over the walls. Luce stretched and felt her strange new body twisting out into the water. It was so powerful, so smooth, and the soft lapping of the water thrilled her. It felt like small gliding kisses. Around her in the cave other mermaids were starting to roll and squirm. Some of them even sat up, but Luce noticed that all of them kept their long tails in the water. The tails had different shimmering colors. Next to her she could see that Catarina’s tail was a fiery bronze color, almost the same color as her waist-length, rippling, gleaming hair, except that the tail was more golden...

  Luce sat up and ran her fingers through her own spiky hair. She realized at once that it was all wrong for a mermaid.

  “I’m going to let my hair grow long,” Luce announced to no one in particular, and Catarina laughed and sat up at her side. Such a wonderful, delicate laugh, even if it was also somehow harsh. Luce hadn’t realized Catarina was awake, but hearing her gave Luce a feeling of being wonderfully protected. The night before she’d been too stunned to really absorb everything, but now it hit her: Catarina had actually risked her own life to pull her to safety. Luce turned to see Catarina’s warm, sardonic smile.

  “Your hair won’t grow anymore, Luce. It’ll never grow any longer than it is right now.” Luce looked at Catarina’s moon gray eyes and tried to understand. “That’s the bad part. But your hair won’t ever fall out either, and it will never turn gray. And your nails won’t grow. Not even if you survive for a thousand years...”

  Luce thought about it. “I don’t think I understand.” Catarina smiled wryly.

  "How old were you yesterday? When you changed?” It was strange, but for a second Luce had trouble remembering. Hadn't there been something special about yesterday? Then it came back to her.

  "It was my birthday,” Luce explained. "I turned fourteen.” Catarina lolled drowsily in the water and splashed her tail a little.

  "Then I've got good news for you,” Catarina said, a little sarcastically, Luce thought. "It's always going to be your birthday. Forever. It will be your fourteenth birthday for the rest of your life. And if you don't do any more of the crazy stuff you tried yesterday”—Catarina smiled—"then the rest of your life could be a very long time. Potentially. Most of us don't make it for that long, though.” She watched patiently as Luce absorbed all this new information.

  "You're saying we don't get any older? We don't have to be adults?” Luce thought about Mrs. Cooper, her uncle Peter, who wasn't forty yet but already seemed so old. She thought of their miserable, broken-down eyes and sick, dragging bodies, how pathetic they all were, how heartless, and how tired they always seemed when they moved ... Excitement charged through her like an electric current, and her tail gave a huge involuntary flip that sent a wave of salt water splashing over everyone. The other mermaids didn't seem to mind, though. Instead everyone was grinning at her, enjoying her obvious happiness. "Oh, Catarina, that's fantastic! That's the best thing I've ever heard!” Catarina tried to look strict, but then she couldn't help laughing.

  "I think so, too,” Catarina admitted. "Adult humans are monstrous things. Just disgusting. Foul. And the things they do ...” Her voice faded, and Luce watched the lovely face turn stone hard and furious. Luce wasn’t quite sure which bad human actions Catarina was so angry about, but she wanted to agree with her.

  “The things they do to what?” Luce asked, and Catarina looked at her with so much bitterness that her shining gray eyes almost seemed blind.

  “You ask me that! You ask me! Your revolting uncle kept beating you, but even that wasn’t enough to change you into one of us! You didn’t change until he actually tried...” Catarina was choking with outrage, and Luce was too surprised to talk. She hadn’t said a word about what had happened with her uncle; she was positive she hadn’t even mentioned him. When Catarina was finally able to speak again the fury was gone, replaced by a dead, flat coldness that was even more frightening than her anger. “I’m talking about the things humans do to their own daughters, Luce. To the little girls who trust them, and who can’t escape from them, because they don’t have anywhere to go...”

  “How did you know?” Luce whispered. But even as she said the words, she was already starting to understand. She’d begun to notice something peculiar as she looked around at the other mermaids.

  When she looked straight at any of the mermaids all she could see was stunning beauty. Every mermaid was so excruciatingly lovely that her beauty almost seemed like a living thing, like something just a little bit separate from the mermaid herself ... F or the first time it occurred to Luce to wonder if her own face was really that breathtaking now, more striking than any human model’s. And every mermaid had a kind of dark shimmering around her, too, like a pulsating glamour.

  But whenever Luce observed another mermaid from the corner of her eye, that dark sparkling haze took on shapes. It wouldn't be quite true to say that the darkness formed pictures and that the pictures shifted and told stories. If Luce had been asked to describe what she was seeing in words, that would have been the nearest explanation she could have come up with. But in reality it was more dreamlike, more subtle than that; the darkness suggested th
e story, gathered the story up in itself and revealed it, but in a way that Luce could read as clearly as a book.

  Luce tried looking at one of the older mermaids that way: a slightly chubby girl of about fifteen with such pale curly hair that it could almost be mistaken for sea foam sliding over her shoulders, and with pale, exquisite, sea green eyes. As Luce watched she could see how the girl's mother had thrown her from a speeding car, breaking half her bones as she smashed into the asphalt. Even now, there was something just slightly awkward about the way the girl held her rounded, elegant body. It had a barely perceptible twist around the shoulders, as if not all her bones had healed correctly. The girl watched Luce watching her, but she didn't seem bothered by it. "Hello, Luce,” the girl said distantly in cool bell tones. "I'm Samantha. You're an amazing singer, especially for somebody new...”

  Luce looked down, suddenly embarrassed. If she could see Samantha lying shattered by the side of the freeway, then Samantha could see her uncle's crude hands sliding down around Luce'sh ips.

  "You don't need to feel ashamed, Luce,” Samantha continued airily. "You didn't do anything wrong. And besides, all of us...”

  It was true. One girl who seemed no older than seven had been starved almost to death by her foster parents; another had had a pot of boiling water poured over her head; another had lived with a father much worse than Luce’s uncle. Others had simply been abandoned or orphaned or even just unloved, and had turned cold from pure loneliness. And Catarina ... Luce let the beautiful red-gold head shift into the corner of her vision.

  There was a sudden whirl and a smack as something icy, wet, and shining lashed into Luce’s face. The blow wasn’t hard enough to really hurt, but Luce was still shocked. Catarina had actually slapped her, right on the cheek, with her golden tail. Luce cried out and covered her face with both hands.

  “I can’t believe you hit me!” Luce screamed, even though she knew she might be overreacting. After all, her uncle always hit her much harder than that. But somehow it felt so much worse to be slapped here, and especially by Catarina. Luce had been so sure she could trust her.

  Around them the other mermaids gasped and whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Luce,” Catarina said roughly. “I didn’t hurt you much, though, did I?” Luce glared up at her without answering. “I should have explained. You can never look at me that way!” Now Catarina’s voice had a wild, piercing sound that made Luce stop scowling. “I don’t allow anyone to look at me that way! It’s just ... I can’t stand for anyone to see...”

  Suddenly Luce felt horribly sorry for her. It was bewildering to feel pity for anyone so strong, so ferocious, and so lovely, but Luce did. If she’d been sure Catarina wouldn’t just get more upset by it, Luce would have hugged her.

  “It’s okay, Catarina,” Luce whispered. “I’m really sorry I tried to look. I promise I won’t ever try again to see anything ... anything you’d rather keep private.”

  "You don't need to be so nice about it, Luce,” Samantha announced in her too-serene voice. "Catarina gets ridiculously sensitive about everything from when she was human. And about some stuff afterward, for that matter. You'll see. But she doesn't mind seeing the things that happened to us!” Luce expected Catarina to get angry at this, but instead she just turned her face away from them and rippled her long body, and then disappeared under the water without a splash. A dozen other mermaids flicked themselves and dove after her; they were so fast that it was almost impossible to see them leave.

  Samantha shook her head disapprovingly. "Catarina's a tremendous singer,” Samantha explained. "Definitely our best. She has every right to be queen here. But she still feels degraded by what happened to her. And no mermaid should ever allow herself to feel that way. That's almost like saying we deserved what the humans did to us.”

  Luce thought she was starting to understand; she felt an ache of tenderness for Catarina as the truth sank in. "That has something to do with why we all changed? Into mermaids?” It felt awkward to say the word out loud, but somehow Luce was sure that she'd hit on the truth. "We changed because of what human beings did to us.”

  "Yes,” Samantha agreed. "That's what we are. They made us.” Suddenly she gave an awful laugh, sharp and high. "And then the humans wonder why their ships sink! They wonder why so many of them end up drowned! And they never even suspect we're here!” Samantha wasn't calm at all now. She sounded like a vicious baby. "But there wouldn't be any mermaids anywhere in the world if the humans weren't all so evil!”

  Luce couldn’t help thinking that there must be something wrong with what Samantha was saying, but she wasn’t quite sure where the problem was. She felt a little dizzy. There was a soft waving in her head that matched the rhythm of the lapping water. But one thing seemed clear from what the other mermaid was telling her: the ship that had crashed into the cliffs yesterday must not have been the first one ever to sink in the waters near this cave. She gazed around at the dim space with its glowing crystals like half-obliterated stars, listening to its constant resonance as the waves roared outside. Like living in the hollow of a violin, sustained in one endless note...

  “You mean you sink ships a lot?” Luce asked. Her own voice sounded wrong for a mermaid, broken. The others always seemed so clear and confident, even when they were angry or sad.

  “You mean 'we,’ ” Samantha corrected. She was very cool and stiff now. “You’re with us now, Luce. We sink ships when we can get away with it, which isn’t anywhere near every time we see one. That ship you sang to yesterday—we wouldn’t have ever tackled a ship that big if you didn’t force us to. There just aren’t that many of us, and only a few can really sing.” Samantha shook her head. “That was impressive work, Luce. I bet Catarina would have been a lot angrier than she was if you weren’t so talented.”

  Luce didn’t like being told she was responsible for what had happened to the ship, but she couldn’t help feeling flattered. It felt odd and exhilarating to hear the admiration in Samantha’s voice. Even so, she didn’t think she could let that pass.

  “Catarina kept saying that, too—that I sank that ship,” Luce objected. “But I didn’t do anything. I mean, I heard the singing, and then the ship came straight at me, and it was really just an accident that there was a cliff right there.” Luce was trying to remember exactly how everything had happened; it had all been so overwhelming, and her memories seemed to get mixed up. "I didn't even know it was me doing the singing. It was just like something I felt, like it came out of nowhere...” As she said it Luce wasn't completely sure whether or not she was telling the truth. How could she sing like that and not realize she was doing it?

  Samantha looked at her skeptically for a long time, and Luce began to cringe a little. Mermaids flashed away under the water, one by one. Soon they were all alone in the cave.

  "Maybe,” Samantha finally conceded, but she still seemed doubtful. "Maybe you just started spontaneously singing the perfect song of persuasion, and everyone on that ship went mad for it, and you didn't know what you were doing at all. But that ship definitely went down because of you, Luce. And we definitely had to clean up your mess. You still don't realize what a big job that was, do you?”

  Luce looked at her in bewilderment. She realized that Catarina had said something about this, too: that it had been stupid to go after such a big ship. She'd said Luce almost broke something, the teemeeka or the teemaya...

  "What's wrong with it being a big ship?” Luce finally asked. "And what do you mean, 'clean up my mess'?” Samantha just stared at her, first with disgust, then with exasperation. Then finally she burst out laughing.

  "I'm forgetting how much you have to learn,” Samantha admitted. "You're still metaskaza.” Whatever the word meant, Samantha made it sound more than a little insulting. "Let's go find everyone. I bet Catarina’s done sulking by now.” There was a flick and a flash, and Luce was alone in the cave.

  The idea of diving into that dark, surging water frightened her, even though she knew she
’d done it just yesterday. But yesterday, after all, she hadn’t done it on purpose!

  If she let herself hesitate much longer, though, she’d never find Samantha and the others ... Luce gathered her courage and swung her head around toward the sea. Her tail seemed to move by itself in a single whipping motion, and suddenly Luce found herself slicing through black water.

  She had such force, such speed. She’d almost forgotten how magnificent it felt, this rushing power, the clear water parting around her shoulders, the sting of salt on her tongue. She could see a slightly brighter blot in the darkness, and she knew that must be the underwater tunnel Catarina had dragged her through the night before. With a sudden burst of delight Luce let her tail spin out, driving her faster. She hurled through the tunnel so quickly that she almost knocked her head against a bend in the rock.

  Then she was in the open sea. It was vast, silvery, and treacherous, full of drifting life. Ice floes drifted and bucked in the distance. She started at a moaning, coughing sound that shivered through the water around her before she realized it was only the barking of seals. Luce was afraid to go any farther alone—what if she couldn’t find her way back to the cave? A giant reddish octopus pulsed by, and farther off there was the sinuous dipping of a small group of porpoises. She pushed her way to the surface and looked around at a lonely expanse of peaked water and craggy rock walls, an overcast sky, feeling her body rise and fall rhythmically with the swells. A chill wind whistled in her ears, and she began to feel something of the sickening, icy abandonment she'd felt that night on the cliffs. How could they all have gone off and left her on her own when it was all so new to her and she had no idea which way to go?

  The whistling became brighter and sweeter, too musical for wind, and Luce realized it wasn't whistling at all. The mermaids were calling to her from a place just around a zigzag in the coastline. It was something else they could do with their voices, Luce suddenly understood: disguise them as wind, just in case any humans were close enough to hear. As she listened, Luce even recognized the voice: it was Catarina. Carefully, experimentally, Luce tried to make the same sound in reply.