by Sarah Porter
“They aren’t batting for anyone,” Luce said a little curtly. “Because this isn’t a game, Mr. President. Anyway, if this is about peace, then nobody has to choose sides anymore!”
From the way he stared at her, Luce knew she was halfway enchanting him without even wanting to. A different mermaid might have known how to use that to the Twice Lost Army’s advantage, but his fascination just made her feel fidgety. “Well. You’re just full of the zingers today, aren’t you, general?” he purred.
“May I introduce you to them, Mr. President?” Luce said. Exaggerated politeness seemed like the best way to handle his disconcerting reaction to her. She waved Dr. Perle and Seb over and couldn’t repress a smile at Seb’s bashful, half-stumbling advance. “President Leopold, this is the Twice Lost Ambassador, Seb Grassley. And you must be Audrey Perle?” Luce was suddenly just as shy as Seb. “The great oceanographer?”
“That’s a kind way to put it,” Audrey Perle said, smiling, and held out her hand to shake.
President Leopold turned a slow, shifting look on Seb. “And how did you meet our lovely general, Ambassador Grassley?”
“She saved me from drowning, Mr. President,” Seb muttered. He couldn’t make himself look up.
“I see.”
Luckily for Luce Audrey Perle wasn’t self-conscious at all. With a few deft words she brought everyone’s attention around to the question of the treaty, and soon negotiations were starting in earnest.
As Luce had expected, the parts about how humans and mermaids would treat one another were easy: nonaggression and full amnesty for the mermaids in exchange for an end to all the Twice Lost Army’s blockades and a promise: not only that the Twice Lost wouldn’t attack human ships, but also that they would send envoys to any mermaid tribes that still did hunt ships and persuade them to stop. Basically it amounted to assurances that humans and mermaids would let one another live in peace.
The parts about how humans would treat the oceans, though, were much harder to settle; that was why they needed Audrey Perle. The mermaid lieutenants had trouble hiding their boredom as the discussions dragged on. Various human assistants sat nearby busily drafting different versions of the treaty while Audrey Perle waved her hands with brusque animation, debating what percentage of U.S. waters should be designated Protected Zones safe from fishing boats and discussing carbon-reduction timetables and energy policy and on and on. Luce did her best to be attentive—this was what they’d fought for, after all—but there were times when she had to admit to herself that she had no idea what they were talking about. Now and then President Leopold would snap at Audrey Perle, saying, “Nonstarter. Try getting that through this Senate!” or “Our lovely general might have to take that particular matter up with Japan.”
It was some kind of victory for the Twice Lost, Luce supposed, but it wasn’t nearly as clear-cut and glorious as she’d imagined. And were they really going to have to go raise waves around Japan next?
Pale dusk was just starting to silver the bay when Luce realized that the humans had finished. Someone was running a printer. “This is a ridiculously informal way to be putting a peace treaty together,” President Leopold observed waspishly. “But this is one of those times when the smart thing to do is to roll with what life deals you.”
Luce’s lieutenants were snapping out of various states of idleness and lethargy now that the treaty was finally in front of them: three sheets of white paper on a clipboard. The pages kicked in the breeze, dense with fine black print. President Leopold was already scratching his signature across the bottom.
Luce looked up at Audrey Perle. “Do you think it’s good?” Even now that she’d led an army, her voice sometimes came out sounding uncomfortably fragile and childlike.
Dr. Perle’s answering gaze was patient and sympathetic. “Truthfully, General Luce? It’s far from perfect. But it’s also better than anything I’d hoped to see in my lifetime.”
Luce wanted to end the war so desperately that she didn’t trust herself. She might be giving in too soon. She might betray everything they’d struggled to achieve out of sheer emotional depletion. “Do you really think I should sign it? I mean—” Luce broke off, dismayed not so much by the thought of continuing the struggle herself as by the prospect of asking all the other mermaids to keep going, too.
Dr. Perle watched her, the wisdom in her olive eyes like a steady glow. “This treaty will make a tremendous impact for the better, general. So, yes, I really do think you should sign.”
The papers fluttered in front of Luce. She read them through, still feeling weary and doubtful. Her lieutenants began whispering. Of course, Luce thought, they were impatient to get this all over with. The black letters winked like fish in a moon-colored sea. There was President Leopold’s jagged signature, and there was the line for hers. Seb smiled wryly—or was that a grimace?—as he handed her a pen.
She signed.
Around Luce mermaids started cheering and clapping. Even most of the Secret Service men applauded. “Time to lower the wave, Luce?” Yuan asked giddily. “I’ve got it all figured out. I’ll pull one singer out every few minutes so the water level has plenty of time to adjust without causing any problems. We’ll do this nice and slow and safe. It will probably take all night, but then damn will it be time for a party! Sound good?”
Luce couldn’t even answer. She just nodded.
The cries of celebration were spreading from hill to hill. Mermaids spun high in the air, shrieking and laughing. People had started dancing on the bridge, and Luce saw a few mermaids who had swum to the top of the wave trying to leap far enough into the air to exchange high-fives with the humans leaning against the railings. Cars honked, and soon the uproar spread from the bridge and across the city until the entire bay seemed to reverberate like an immense liquid drum. Everyone was delirious with joy.
Everyone except her. Luce made herself go through the motions, first shaking hands with dozens of excited humans and wishing them all a good evening, then trying to look happy when her friends launched themselves at her in wild hugs that sometimes turned into playful wrestling or sent her tumbling through lilac-gray water.
The Twice Lost had won, more or less. They’d won against incredible odds, and for the first time in history mermaids and humans were reconciled. They were right to be ecstatic.
The problem for Luce was that she couldn’t forget the price they’d paid for their victory. As soon as she thought no one was looking, she slipped away, skimming recklessly out toward the open sea. She hadn’t swum out into the savage waters far beyond the shelter of the bay since the night when the submarines had attacked the Twice Lost—not since she’d seen Bex cut in half by a spurt of machine gun fire. Even now Luce didn’t really know how many mermaids had died that night: dozens of girls were still missing, but there was no way to determine who was dead and who was simply hiding.
At first the song of the Twice Lost still purled around her. It curled and ebbed like a second ocean made of music, a timbre that infused the waves and answered their secret songs. Then she went on, and the music slowly faded out behind her.
And as she swam she kept noticing something that looked like a golden lantern trailing ribbons of light. It kept pace with her the way the moon does, only it followed her through deep sea rather than clear sky. It would vanish for long stretches as if disappearing behind rooftops or trees, then Luce would catch sight of it sailing along beneath her again.
The fifth time she saw it, she understood what it was: the face of a sleeping girl, her long golden hair rippling in her wake like tentacles. The face wasn’t attached to a body, but its expression offered a sense of enveloping peace.
Anais, Luce realized. She didn’t know if the fact that she was seeing Anais meant her mind was going. And it was astounding to see Anais looking so utterly serene, so sweetly transfigured . . .
The face blinked away again. There was only a hint of golden rivulets, a subtle fluctuation as if the darkness was straining to remember
the glow it had held moments before. Maybe the face was behind something, a stingray or a tangle of kelp? Luce didn’t know how far she’d gone beyond the bridge, but her body was rocked by deep swells again, disorienting after the calm enclosed waters of the bay. The pressure thickened as she swam deeper, layers of sea heaping above her back.
The golden girl reappeared, lambent and drowsy and still somehow precisely the same distance away from Luce, although she had to be much farther from the surface now. Anais’s face guttered, its deep internal light disturbed by a play of darkness. For an instant Luce thought that Anais’s lips were moving, as if she was murmuring something in her sleep.
Rationally, of course, Luce knew that Anais was dead. Her lifeless body was thousands of miles away from the surging Pacific. Even now scientists might be stroking her flesh with shining blades, opening her cold chest to search for any sign that she’d been anything but human. Whatever she was seeing, Luce reminded herself, it wasn’t actually Anais.
She could tell herself that, but she couldn’t persuade her heart that it was true. She couldn’t stifle her longing to know what Anais was saying and to talk with her one last time. Maybe, now that they’d both lost so much, they would finally make sense to each other.
“Anais?” Luce called. Even the dusk light was gone now, crushed by the enormity of the water above. Night saturated the deepening brine, and an immense weight began to squeeze Luce’s ribs from all sides at once. “Anais? Can you wake up? There’s something I need to tell you.”
But what? Luce thought. Anais had saved her own life, though only for a time, by betraying her fellow mermaids. She’d murdered larvae, she’d tried to kill Dorian, and she’d deliberately shattered Luce’s father’s mind. But somehow, unfathomably, Luce couldn’t make herself feel any anger toward her old enemy. All she wanted was to heal the hatred between them, soothe the malice Anais had felt toward Luce ever since—
Ever since Luce had helped transform Anais into a mermaid. It had been the only way to stop Catarina from drowning her, but still . . . All at once Luce understood what was troubling her, what made her blood fight inside her as she stared at those always-retreating, gold-lashed eyelids: whatever Anais had done, Luce’s own choice was at the root of it.
“Is that why you hated me?” Luce asked softly. “Because I changed you, and maybe you would have rather died the way you were?”
Anais’s lids fluttered at bit as if she were gliding through the fringed edge of a dream. Her long hair waved as if it was trying to communicate with an unknown but graceful sign language. Luce had completely forgotten how far she was from the surface now, or at least she didn’t care. Anais had something to say to her, something important, and this was their final chance to forgive each other.
“Anais?” Luce called again. The sullen weight of the water gripped her body. It kneaded the air from her lungs and mashed own her scales against her flesh until they felt like biting coins. “If that’s the reason . . . everything went so wrong, then I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you because of me. Please . . .”
Anais blinked dark and gold, dark and gold. Her eyes finally opened, but they were the whitish blue of nimbus clouds and seemed perfectly blind. The last time Luce saw her she was smiling.
Smiling like an evil dream. Luce’s lungs were burning.
Well, she told herself, you said you didn’t care what happened to you, Lucette. Not as long as you could end the war.
40
The Forever World
“So she went off to get some sleep, Cala,” Yuan said a little brusquely. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Luce has been seriously burned out ever since those mermaids got pulled out of the water. Whatever. I wish she’d stayed up to celebrate with us tonight too, but it’s more important for her to rest.” Yuan and Cala were hovering ten feet below the surface. Through the thick rippling ceiling above them the wave-wall appeared like a long rag of glowing lace. It was already significantly lower. Yuan had been gradually removing singers from the line for hours, and Cala thought Yuan’s nerves must be fraying from overwork and exhaustion.
“She isn’t in her hammock,” Cala said. “I checked there first. Yuan, I know you’re busy! I wouldn’t bother you if this wasn’t serious.”
“Then she’s with Dorian. Good, I like him. I think he’ll really help her recover from all this craziness.” Yuan’s lips pinched as she surveyed the line of mermaids. “Awright, that’s been long enough since the last one. Hey, Eileen? Lower your voice nice and slowly, okay? You’re done here.”
Eileen nodded, her strawberry blond hair tossing with the movement. Filaments of light from the bridge curved around her face as her song began to drop through a long series of fading, silky tones.
“She isn’t with Dorian, either,” Cala insisted gently. All at once she was afraid that Yuan wouldn’t be able to cope once she understood that Luce was truly missing.
“How do you know?” Yuan’s snappishness only made Cala more concerned. “Of course they wouldn’t be making out right where everyone could see them!”
“Because he’s been looking for her too. Paddling around in that kayak. We’ve both been searching every place we can think of, and she just isn’t anywhere. Yuan, I don’t want to freak you out, but we have to send out search parties or something.”
For the first time Cala saw Yuan’s eyes light with genuine concern. Eileen was just leaving the line, swishing below them. “Hey, Eileen?” Yuan called down.
“Yeah?” Eileen reared back to look at them, her tail sweeping above her head in an immense C.
Everyone was just so tired, Cala thought. The exhilaration of victory seemed thin and wispy now compared to the weariness of their long struggle.
“You’re not off duty after all. I’ve got a brand-new assignment for you. General Luce is missing, and we need to get as many lieutenants as we can to organize search parties. Get a few of the girls who are just playing or whatever and go. I’m giving you the coast around Sausalito.”
Eileen groaned. “The war’s done, Yuan. If Luce wants to disappear she can go right ahead. I’ve got somebody else to look for.”
“Like who?” Cala snapped.
“My sister, Kathleen Fain. She hasn’t showed up here yet, but I know she’s going to.” Eileen looked so miserable that Cala melted. “The only thing that would stop her would be if she’s dead.”
Eileen swirled onward, and Yuan grimaced with exasperation. “I’d come help you search if I could, Cala. But I’ve got to keep on directing everyone lowering the wave until it’s completely finished.” Yuan sighed and tipped in the water as if she wanted to lean her head on something, but there was nothing there except a twinkling constellation of tiny silver fish. “Luce—she wouldn’t give up on herself now, would she? I mean, we won the war, and nobody really believed we’d be able to do that! Luce seriously better not have done anything stupid. I’ll kick her ass if she—”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Cala admitted. “Luce giving up. Like, she might think nobody needs her anymore? Now that we’ve won?”
“Of course we need her!” Yuan’s beautiful face was crumpling even as her voice rose furiously. “And what about her dad? And Dorian?”
Strong as Yuan was, Cala thought, the strain was obviously getting to be too much for her to handle. “I’ll organize the search parties. I just need to be able to tell everyone you agreed we should do that. Okay? Yuan, you don’t have to worry. We’ll find her.”
“Report back here right away if you find anything! I swear, Luce is getting bitch slapped if she even thinks about doing anything besides being totally happy from now on! You tell her that!”
Cala wanted to say something playful and comforting in response, but she couldn’t think of anything that would make Yuan feel better. “I’ll report back as soon as I can.”
There were mermaids chatting with the humans onshore, and Cala headed over there to look for volunteers. In some cases
mermaids were kissing new human boyfriends. Late as it was Helene and Ray Vogel were reading aloud from a huge illustrated volume of fairy tales to a circle of the youngest mermaids. From the longing on their small faces, Cala knew that many of them had never had anyone read them stories before.
“Hey,” Cala called, too softly. No one turned around. “Hey, I need help! Luce is missing and she might be in trouble!”
That got their attention. Ten minutes later Cala had managed to get three small groups together and sent them out to search in different directions: along the north and south sides of the bay, with the third group heading out into the open sea.
Cala thought of how Luce had looked just after she’d signed the treaty—her blank, faded gaze, her forced smiles, her air of weary abstraction—and wondered if the search would prove futile.
∗ ∗ ∗
“What a scrap she is,” a gruff voice said nearby. “A rag of skin and scales. Easily destroyed, easily thrown away.”
Even though someone was speaking, Luce supposed that she was still in the ocean. The medium that contained her was cold and terribly heavy; it ebbed and pitched. And yet somehow it felt not like the Pacific on a chill night in early September but like everywhere and always. It felt like the place where days and years burst their membrane-fine skins and poured into a single fluid sphere. The forever world, Luce thought vaguely. She thought of continents and seas ripped into confetti and gusting out of the map. She could see nothing, not even darkness.
“To what purpose?” This time the voice was a girl’s. “What we have before us is the rag, but is that rag truly Queen Luce? Or is Queen Luce the changes now wrought on the world?”
Luce felt an icy current wrapping her body. It was strong enough to bind her arms to her sides. Then with a kind of contemptuous flick it sent her rolling, and seized her again.
“She should end here. Her every act has been defiance.” A pause. “She has led all your kindred into defiance. And so I choose to lead her to these depths, here to abandon her. Her mermaid’s form is forfeit, and she will die very soon once I take it from her.”
