by Sarah Porter
The mermaids' voices were clearer underwater. Luce swam toward them so quickly that it felt as if she were plunging down a waterfall, thrusting the waves behind her. Her vision brimmed with bubbles, the undulating movements of jellyfish, then a gray seal's mouth clamping down on one thrashing, reddish fish. Pictures gathered in her eyes and scattered again, everything confused by speed. Luce could distinguish several of the mermaids now: Dana's loving, velvety caress of a voice, Rachel's excitable dread, the brutal joy of Anais's soprano.
She slashed her way forward. If trouble was coming, it would be when the voices stopped.
When she popped up to catch her breath, the boat was much larger, and even though the distance made it appear to be traveling much more slowly than it actually was, Luce could make out the noise of throbbing engines pushed to their limit. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the ship had a military look to it. Incredibly, the mermaids were leading it back to the same island, even though a helicopter had buzzed overhead perhaps twenty minutes earlier. Luce shook her head; it was willful craziness, a drive toward their own destruction as well as the destruction of the humans. Luce dove again.
Even deep underwater she could hear the crash, broken into wavering echoes by the movement of the waves around her. The pulsation of mermaid songs reeled louder. Luce didn’t want to picture it, but the image was unavoidable: young men and women in uniform, lunatic smiles on their faces, welcoming their own descent into the waves while the mermaids called them on. They’d be getting to the point soon where individual mermaids would break away from the group to target the few humans who had the strength of mind to try to pull free from the enchantment and swim for it ... The point where a mermaid might think she could slip deeper than the rest, unnoticed.
Luce threw herself into a violent forward trajectory. Her tail spun so quickly that the muscles cramped. She swam deeper, too, angling for the same spot where she’d seen Catarina take her prey before.
Hair as bright as an ember, gradually descending: Luce could see it, far away in the green deep. She was swimming so quickly that her vision smeared, but she was almost positive the sinking form she could make out ahead was too big to be Catarina alone. And, Luce realized, the ocean had slipped into silence; she couldn’t hear the mermaids singing, not anymore. She hurled on, though her tail was burning from the effort.
A towering crag rose from the sea bottom, not so far below Catarina now. And waiting just behind it—where Luce could see it but Catarina couldn't—a mass of something too soft and too colorful to be stone, a mass that hovered in place but with a slight disturbance of flicking tails at the bottom. Luce drove herself faster, but she could already see that there was no way she could make it there in time.
The tribe was waiting in ambush, and Catarina would float past them before Luce could get there. Luce was so sick with expectation that when it happened it seemed almost like it might be a movie of the thing she'd dreaded unspooling in front of her. It almost felt like it might not be entirely real, like by the time she arrived there'd be nothing there but some drifting seaweed. Luce was close enough now to see Catarina writhing urgently in the arms of a young dark-skinned man, close enough to hear the low, satiny whorls of her song as she kissed his hungry mouth. The couple sank, lost in the feeling of each other's bodies, until they were no more than ten feet away from the lurking tribe.
There was a momentary lull, and then a shout of vicious triumph from Anais. Luce was almost there now. She could see the young man abruptly ripped from Catarina's arms, and the huge silver bubble that stretched for an instant between their lips. Anais threw the boy aside, ignoring his sudden frantic flailing as the enchantment abandoned his mind. He sank deeper all alone.
A crowd of mermaids closed in on Catarina, all of them drunk and enraged, with a chorus of delirious shrieks.
Luce was only moments away now. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She'd expected Catarina to be formally expelled, and she was prepared to go with her, but this! Fists swung dizzily into Catarina’s sides, hands raked at her face. Already Luce could see a subtle taint of blood leaking through the water. Even Jenna was pounding Catarina as she cowered, trying to protect her head; even Rachel ...Water foamed around their whipping tails. Only Dana and Violet hung back, looks of appalled bewilderment on their faces, but even they didn’t do anything to stop it. The tribe was going to murder Catarina right in front of them and they only gawked helplessly. Anais’s hard voice was shrilling with excitement, egging the mermaids on.
Luce was swimming faster than she’d ever gone before, and she drove headfirst right into the middle of the mob, her own body pummeled by a confusion of fists and swinging tails. She was slightly higher than the others, dashing in at a downward angle, and she beat her own tail into their faces, shoving mermaids apart with the full force of her long body. She had to clear a space, just enough that she could get in front of Catarina, block the others ... If she could even separate her from her attackers for a moment...
Mermaids began to fall back. Some were still shaking with blood lust, but others widened their eyes with looks of stunned recognition, as if they were shocked to realize what they’d been doing. Luce managed to drag Catarina’s limp body a few feet back and slip down in front of her. Catarina was conscious enough to cling to Luce’s shoulders; her face sagged against Luce’s neck. There was a dreamlike pause, a hesitation, as Luce looked around at the faces of her former tribe.
“You’re all breaking the timahk..." They were deep enough that everyone was low on air, squeezed uncomfortably by the unaccustomed pressure of many thousands of tons of water above them. Speaking was difficult, and it would only hurry the moment when even a mermaid would drown. There was a brief silence, then Anais replied haughtily.
"I'm queen now, Lucette. And I say the timahk doesn't count in a situation like this ... where a mermaid was actually kissing ... If you don't get out of our way, we'll just have to kill you, too.” As Anais spoke Luce was gathering power in her chest, pulling in the secret music that the ocean understood and that it would answer. Anais nodded to Jenna and Samantha, and they reached to grab Luce.
Luce's song leaped up in one long, expansive, earsplitting cry. It joined with the water and made it into a wall, strong as stone, slamming forward. Tangles of tails and struggling arms were flung suddenly away from her, driven back at least ten yards, and Luce could hear their yells of outrage, see the swirl of colors as they pulled themselves apart, maybe getting ready to lunge at her again. Luce knew she didn't have enough air to sing that overwhelming note a second time, not if she was going to have any hope of making it back to the surface. She pushed up, as fast as her own sore muscles and Catarina's weight would let her.
Their pursuers would be exhausted after all their violence and just as desperate for air as Luce was. And their shock at being hit by an underwater wave in that unexpected way might cause some of them to think twice about taking Luce on; it should buy Luce and Catarina some time. They broke the surface together, and Luce could hear the rush of air drawn deeply into Catarina's lungs in unison with her own ravenous inhalation. Luce maneuvered Catarina around to her right side so that she could tow her by her waist, just the way Catarina had done for her twice before.
There was blood on Catarina’s forehead, on her chest, and she swayed in Luce’s arm. Bruises mottled her pale skin, and Luce suddenly noticed the way her left wrist flopped. Cat was clearly in no shape to dive again; that was unlucky, since swimming on the surface would slow them down. They’d have to swim a long way, too, to reach some fairly remote cave where Anais wouldn’t think to look for them. Luce’s own cave was out of the question. There was nothing to do but head south and hope for the best. Luce began to make her way across the water, pulling Catarina with her. The fiery head wavered and tipped onto Luce’s shoulder. For several minutes they swam in silence, slight tremors flowing now and then through Catarina’s back.
“Luce?” The voice was very quiet.
“It�
��s going to be okay, Cat.” Luce glanced back. “I don’t think they’re chasing us. Not yet. I’ll take you someplace where you can rest.”
“You don’t have to do this, Luce. You shouldn’t. You should let them kill me.” Somehow these words hurt Luce more than anything Catarina had ever said to her. She glanced over, but Catarina’s eyes were closed tight, her lips swollen and plum colored.
“Catarina?” The gray eyes opened very slightly, like a tiny leak of moonlight in the golden afternoon. “This is exactly what I have to do.” And as she said it, even in her exhaustion, Luce felt a rush of sad, sweet pride.
Her strength was starting to fail her. It took at least two hours of painful, laborious swimming before Luce decided that they were far enough from the main cave to be safe. She'd towed Catarina farther than she'd ever gone before, out past the fishing village and down to another stretch of wild coast, where she finally found a small round cave with a perfect underwater entrance. It was situated in a crevice between two high cliffs, and it felt wonderfully peaceful after the horror of the morning. Luce collapsed on the shore, and when she looked over she saw that Catarina was already asleep. Maybe she'd been sleeping for a while, and Luce just hadn't realized it. As gently as she could, Luce washed the clotted blood from Catarina's dreaming face. They needed food, Luce thought; in just a few minutes she'd go out and search for some. She needed to find some driftwood, too, and maybe washed-up rags or fishing net: something she could use to set that broken bone in Cat's left wrist. Any moment now, she'd gather her willpower and go...
***
The cave didn't have any fissures. It was only by the pale blue glow hazing in through the entrance that Luce guessed it must be midnight. They'd slept for hours, then. She sat up, lightheaded and unsteady. Catarina seemed to be sleeping still, but she was clinging to Luce's hand with her own. Impulsively Luce leaned in and kissed her softly just above a green swell on her forehead. When she pulled herself back up, Catarina was gazing at her.
"You have to go back, Luce. The sooner the better. It's a waste of time for you to worry about me. The way things are now ... You have the tribe to think about.”
“No!” Luce was surprised by the anger in her voice, the intensity. “Of course I won’t leave you, Cat. I’m going to look after you until you’re better, and then we can swim south together.” Catarina glowered at her with a bewildering mixture of emotions; Luce wasn’t sure if Cat was feeling tenderness, or fury, or shock, but her gray eyes flared and she tried to sit up. She couldn’t do it, though.
“Absolutely not. You’re queen now, Luce. You can’t just leave. You have to accept your responsibility.” Luce found herself grinning bitterly.
“Is that an order, Cat?” She still felt dizzy. Dots of green light flocked across her eyes; she saw Catarina grimace on the far side of a moving field of chartreuse. “And anyway, how can anyone be queen in a tribe where every single mermaid just broke the timahk? I’d have to expel everyone. I’d be the queen of a bunch of rocks and some larvae...” She heard herself laugh, but somehow she couldn’t feel it. “Anais wants to be queen. She’s the perfect queen for them. After what they did to you!”
“I deserved it.” Luce opened her mouth to object, but Catarina waved her to silence; Luce was annoyed but also secretly glad to see Cat’s old imperiousness coming back to her. “Luce, really. Did you see what I did? Anais can’t be queen. She could never be the true queen, not if you were living within a thousand miles of her! But she’s right, that I—am unworthy—to be protected by the timahk...” Luce just felt impatient now.
“You know what? I’ve seen you do that before, Cat. After the Coast Guard boat, when I was still metaskaza and you tricked me into singing with you? I saw you with that boy then, and I knew you were breaking the timahk. Dishonoring us.” Luce looked straight into Catarina's eyes. She felt so weak, balanced precariously on a strange force of life that seemed to push up from somewhere below her. "I knew you were breaking the timahk, but I didn't care.” There was a moment's silence.
"Luce!” It came out in a kind of howl. "Oh, you're too innocent, you don't understand...” Luce just stared at her. Catarina was beside herself, the words coming up as if she were gagging on them. "Luce, there are reasons why, why we can't ever permit ourselves to do—what I did, what I've kept doing! How long do you think it would have been before I gave in to temptation, and let one of them survive? Do you think I didn't want to? That I didn't fantasize about it? Saving a human boy, and having him as my own? Oh, Luce. Everyone in our tribe is disgraced. All except you! But you can—you can restore their honor. If you'll only do what you have to do, and lead them...”
Catarina was in hysterics, her eyes squeezed tight, so she didn't see the blood rush into Luce's face. She didn't see Luce bite her lip and turn suddenly away, didn't hear her heart drumming painfully. Shouldn't she tell Cat the truth and confess that she'd done the very thing Catarina hated herself for even daydreaming about?
"Even Marina...” Catarina was moaning. "Our great queen, our voice ...There was a human boy, seventeen, with the sparkling all around him, in the wreckage of a ship we brought down. And even she succumbed, Luce! She carried him ashore. She started visiting him secretly. I was her lieutenant, her right hand, the way you were...” Catarina laughed horribly now, tears streaming from her closed eyes. Her words fell rhythmically, joined to the beat of the sea, and there was a trace of singing in them. “The way you were to me before I really understood that you’d made me into a false queen! I noticed that Marina was missing too often, and I followed her. Now do you understand?”
Luce was mesmerized by the story, and so weak that she tipped back down to lie on the rocks beside Catarina. But she couldn’t tell where this was all going. She shook her head, and her dizziness slopped like water in a tipped basin.
“I don’t think I do. Understand. Catarina...”
Cat’s terrible laugh came again. “I followed her; I saw them together; I couldn’t believe my eyes. If you realized—what she meant to me! I couldn’t bring myself to denounce her, though I knew that I should. Instead I confronted her. I gave her an ultimatum. Her lover had the indication, after all. Why shouldn’t he join us?” Luce remembered what Catarina had told them all on the day when Anais had first joined the tribe.
“You told her she had to change him into a merman. Or else you’d tell everyone?”
Catarina let out a long, droning sigh, a sigh that was half a sob. When she spoke again it was almost an incantation. Her accent was thicker than Luce had ever heard it.
“Change him or drown him. Yes. I told her there was no other choice. I told her I’d kill him for her if it hurt her too much to do it. She knew how wrong it was to fall in love with a human, of course. She was ashamed of herself, and she agreed that I was right to demand that of her. She agreed! When she swam off to meet him that night I persuaded myself that I’d done the right thing ... You understand?”
“You told us she couldn’t do it. You said it almost killed her...’ Luce’s voice merged with the rhythm of Catarina’s now. Catarina's tears picked up the dusky glow from outside, reflecting it back in twin lines of blue neon.
"I found her the next morning, lying at the edge of a beach where humans came sometimes. Crazy, anyone could have seen her, but she was too weak to move. I carried her to a hidden cove. I didn't want the tribe to see the condition she was in, start asking questions. She was weeping, on and on. She said he hadn't changed. She'd sung until both their hearts were broken from the cruelty in her voice, but still he hadn't changed...” Luce could feel the hot seep of tears, but they didn't seem to be her own. The tears belonged to Marina.
"So she killed him?”
"I asked her that, of course. I thought she was weeping so terribly because he was dead, and I began to regret that I'd forced her ... She told me not to worry. She told me it was all resolved. Those were her words, but in Russian.” There was silence and a dim phosphorescent pallor in the rocks above them. Luce had deci
ded that must be the end of the story when Catarina spoke again.
"She crawled on shore that night. He was there, and he held her while she screamed, but he didn't bring her back to the water.”
Luce thought she understood now. "You heard her, Catarina?”
"I heard her. I saw her in his arms at the very end. I shouted at him to carry her to the sea and he refused. He was in a rage. He said he was certain she'd survive the transformation back, that she belonged with him on land...” It was hard to know if the sound that came from Catarina now was laughter or sobs. "I could have enchanted him, made him walk into the water, but I didn’t know how to make him bring her along. By the time he stopped yelling at me, she was dead. And I—I never saw my tribe again. I couldn’t look at them.”
There was a long silence. Luce wanted to know what Catarina had done to the man who’d kept Queen Marina out of the water, but after a moment’s consideration she decided not to ask. Cat had told her enough.
“So, Luce...’ ’ She could hear Catarina straining to raise herself, and Luce opened her stinging eyes to see Catarina half smiling above her in the dimness. Still, Luce was astonished by what came next. “So, now you understand why I saved your life the night we met. Even though I knew perfectly from the first moment that you were a threat to me ... That voice! Now you see why I needed you anyway.”
Luce gaped at her in bewilderment. Was Catarina losing her mind?
“I—don’t actually know what you’re talking about, Cat. But I’m really not a threat. I promise ...”
“I won’t live as a false queen, Luce. How do you imagine I could bear to rule, knowing my place was rightfully yours? Although that’s beside the point now.” Catarina gazed searchingly down at her. “You really don’t understand? Luce, when I heard your song it made me believe that Marina might have been able to forgive me for what I did to her. It gave me hope that in her last moments...” Catarina shook her head, and her hair brushed Luce’s wet cheeks.
