by Sarah Porter
The first thing Ellison noticed was the sheet of water glossing over the side of the sink. That water looked so lovely, so inviting. Secretary Moreland's thick, bent figure interrupted his view of it, though. The back of his inky suit was ripping down the center seam as he hunched forward, his hands clutching both sides of the sink while his face disappeared into the basin. Ellison heard peculiar gurgling sounds, and it occurred to him that Secretary Moreland might be drowning. Was that important? He reached to seize the inky shoulder, to haul it back, while the gray man appeared and tugged the Secretary from his other side. A crimson face burbled up from the basin and squealed, gray eyes slopping around in a way that reminded Ellison of ice cubes on a hot sidewalk. The Secretary's dark, lumpy shape began to writhe, trying to throw them off. It looked like he was crying in frustration, though the trails of water dribbling all over his face and down his suit made it hard to tell. The bathroom was crowded with human bodies now, all of them scrabbling to get a hold on Secretary Moreland. The inky jacket tore again as they dragged him out of the bathroom and dumped him on the floor. A few of the men sat on him.
Moreland lay on the Persian carpet like some hideous primeval fish on a beach, weeping loudly. His face was blobby and scarlet, capped with twists of drenched white hair. He vomited a watery soup down his own front, still sobbing.
“Why don't you ever let me do what I want?” Moreland whined. “Why can't I...” He snuffled and stopped. “Why don't I get to be happy?”
Ellison felt terribly sorry for him. Maybe it was unfair to keep the poor, sweet man from getting to experience true happiness, just this once.
Maybe it would have been nicer to let him drown.
10. The Beckoning Wind
“Luce? Would you do something for me?” It was two weeks later, back in the same cave in early afternoon. A Sunday, so Dorian didn't have school. Things had been wonderful between them recently and getting constantly better as they learned to understand each other. Still, there were some subjects they'd silently agreed not to talk about anymore.
“Probably.” He'd been kissing her and stroking her hair for hours, and Luce was flushed and blissful, softly sliding her cheek against his. “What is it?”
“I want you to sing for me.” He saw the shocked look on her face. “Not, I mean, not to try to kill me or anything! But you said you can sing in other ways...”
Luce tried not to mention singing around him, though she'd slipped up once or twice. She was back to practicing a lot, and sometimes she was simply too excited about the discoveries she was making not to say something. Still, she was always afraid when she did, always glancing nervously to see how he reacted. It might remind him of the Dear Melissa, or of his idea that her song had affected his brain somehow.
“You said hearing me sing messed you up,” Luce objected. “It seems like a horrible idea to try that again!”
“It did mess me up. It's getting easier now that I'm seeing you and everything, but I still hear you singing the whole time I'm asleep. Even when it's not like I'm dreaming. I mean, it's all dark, but I still keep hearing that song.”
“So, I mean, I don't want to risk hurting you, Dorian. Or of course I would.”
“I need you to.” Luce didn't understand. “It's like your song went into me and shoved a lot of stuff around, and I still ... I'm never scared when I'm with you, Luce, but the rest of the time I can suddenly start feeling like I'm drowning, out of nowhere, just sitting in a chair or whatever, and my head starts filling up with your voice. It's really crazy.”
“Then why? Why would you want me to?”
“Because maybe...” He seemed to be searching for the right words. “I've been thinking about it all the time, and I feel like hearing you—but hearing you sing something else—maybe that would be the one thing that could help?” His voice kept getting higher as he spoke until by the end it had a thin, desperate ringing. He stroked her, looking wildly into her doubtful eyes. “Just show me that thing you can do. Move the water for me. One wave?”
“You promise you'll tell me right away? If it hurts you? Dorian, humans really aren't strong enough to deal with it. I've seen them go totally insane...”
“Try it. Even a few seconds. Please.”
Luce sighed. Then, watching him carefully, she let out a slow, spinning note. Dorian squeezed her hand, hard, and even though he'd said he wanted to watch her raise the water his eyelids closed tight.
Her song stroked into his mind, throbbed around his thoughts. She could feel it happening, and she completely forgot any idea of sculpting a wave for him. Her voice spiraled in a long strand, three separate notes that wove over and through one another, and the music waltzed through the mind of the boy she loved. It lifted his memories, breathed in the crevices of daydreams he could barely even admit he had ... Dorian let out a sound halfway between a gasp and a moan, and Luce abruptly broke off.
“Are you sure you're okay? Dorian...” She didn't want to stop, though. She wanted to feel her song moving inside him, her voice like a flock of birds that soared endlessly even while they were fast asleep, like biting stars, like a strangely brilliant world where no one had ever walked before.
“Please, Luce!” He opened his eyes just a slit, so that their dark gold showed between the soft brown fringe of his lashes.
She still felt worried, but the desire to sing, and to sing into him, to caress his living thoughts with music, got the better of her. The song came back, and the cold wind spiraled strands of Dorian's long bronze hair just as the notes spiraled in his dreams. Luce watched his closed eyes, heard the quick pulsations of his breathing. He reached to pull her tight against his chest.
The song smoothed across thoughts like a rippling landscape—then abruptly Luce hit a jagged place, an area of fissures and misalignments. Even in his arms she experienced a sensation of stumbling, falling. He was damaged, and this was part of the problem...
She had to concentrate. She had to sing very precisely, very delicately, to set the broken planes back in order, smooth the cracks. Dorian's breath was quick and raw, and he was trembling. Luce wrapped one splintered thought in a note like binding silk, then when she was sure she'd sensed everything correctly she gave a quick push, swishing up the scale, and felt something snap back into place. He moaned and kissed her randomly, his mouth landing just below her ear. Luce found another trouble spot, something like a field of rubble, and she gently rolled the fragments over and over, looking for the matching edges ... This broken area wasn't her fault, Luce realized. This was the result of all those sleepless nights when Dorian had waited in icy dread for the noise of his mother's footsteps.
Ten minutes later Dorian's face was streaked with silent tears. He still hadn't opened his eyes, and Luce was suddenly afraid that she'd pushed him too far. This time, though, she was careful to lower her voice very slowly, to hold him in the last wisps of music for a softly sustained moment, so that he wouldn't be too shocked when it stopped.
“Dorian? Are you okay?”
He looked at her through lashes diamond-flecked with teardrops, his eyes like molten gold. But there was something crazy in his look, an inhuman glow, a wavering exaltation. Did he even know where he was?
“Dorian?”
“I don't know how anyone can stand to be alive. The world is way too beautiful to live in, Luce! Just being me is—it's so amazing I can't begin to deal with it. And the sea, and the light. It's so beautiful I want to stab it with daggers, or I want to blow up into those colors ...”
This didn't exactly make Luce any less worried. “Tell me you're okay! Before I get completely freaked out.”
“You are the most beautiful thing in the world. If you were the sea I'd walk right in, and I'd be so happy.”
“Dorian!”
“Of course I'm okay, Luce! I'm so, so much better now. More than I've ever been.” There was still something manic in his smile, but he seemed to be slightly more grounded. “I wish my mom was alive. I wish you could sing to her that w
ay. Maybe you could have fixed—whatever it was that made her do those things. Luce, I was so scared of her, but even more than that I was so, so, so sorry...” Luce held his face in both hands, watching his eyes. Their gold looked a little more solid now. Even though she could see for herself what he'd been through with his parents, she knew it would be much better for him, and for their relationship, if he could tell her the truth of his own free will. Was he about to? “I'm really in love with you, Luce. You know that, right?”
“I'm in love with you, too...” She couldn't help smiling, even as she watched him intensely, hoping for signs that he was truly sane.
“If you can't be human again then I want to be like you,” Dorian announced. The melted craziness came back in his eyes.
“I don't think it's possible—”
“You said I am, though, that I have the ... that you can see it...”
“You do. I can see the sparkling around you right now. But Catarina said boys can't change, and I'll hurt you if I try.”
“What did Catarina know? It's not like she'd seen everything. Her saying it's impossible—that doesn't prove anything.”
“Dorian, I mean...” She hated to remind him of it, but he still seemed deranged by joy. He just wasn't being rational. “The mermaids killed your family. Mermaids, including me. You really want to be a merman?”
“They killed your father, too, though. Probably Catarina killed him, right? But if you ever saw somebody try to hurt Catarina you'd drown them, like, boom. Instant death.”
Luce couldn't actually deny it. “That's the only way I'd ever kill a human again. If I had to, to protect another mermaid.”
“Exactly.”
“I loved Catarina. It was too hard for me not to forgive her.”
“Yeah, well, it's too hard for me not to forgive you. I've always told you that. I couldn't help forgiving you, not even when I used to try to make myself hate you.”
As important as Dorian's words felt to Luce and as hungry as she was for the forgiveness he was offering her, she was suddenly distracted by a distant sound. The wind was whistling, but there was something unusual in the tone of it. A kind of musical accent, an urgent intonation. Luce's skin prickled, all her nerves rising to meet the cry.
“Luce?”
“Dorian, I'm sorry, but ... do you hear that?”
“You mean the wind? It does sound kind of strange.” “That's not wind!” Luce couldn't see past the crags that walled them in, but it sounded like the source of that sound was getting steadily farther away. It was a terrible moment to leave Dorian, but...“I have to go. Now.”
“Did I do something? Luce, I mean, at least take me back! It'll probably take me hours to row.”
“I can't. It—she sounds wrong somehow, like she might be in trouble...”
“Another mermaid?” Luce didn't answer, just flashed him a blind, frantic smile and dove. That voice in the wind didn't exactly sound like any mermaid she'd heard before, but it didn't sound like anything else either. And it had a dreadful quality, a crawling alarm, that made Luce's heart race and sent cold, trickling sensations running through her skin.
The voice was louder under the water. The waves transmitted its silvery, whispering resonance; Luce was more certain now that it was another mermaid and that she was calling for help, but from farther out in the sea: out in those deepening waters where Luce had avoided swimming lately. Too many orcas. There didn't seem to be much choice about that now, though, if only she could figure out exactly where the call was coming from. It fractured in the deep water, shivered into her ears, and she couldn't pinpoint its direction. Luce broke the surface in confusion, staring wildly around. A huge fishing trawler was just starting its swing out to sea, heading away from the mermaids' territory. Not that it would have interested them much in any case. Luce could remember Catarina saying that most of those ships were double-hulled to protect against collisions with sea ice. Trying to sink them was too chancy, not worth the risk, and Luce reflexively looked away from its rust-colored bulk, still scanning from one horizon to the next. There was only the ship, a few bobbing seals, the far-off spouts of whales. Nothing to indicate where that strange voice might be coming from.
Then Luce looked again and felt a cold flash of certainty. The ship edged by, hideous and monolithic, a floating mountain. Deep below the water its vast net sieved endless volumes of water, catching and entangling hundreds of animals. The net was hungry and undiscriminating, and any mermaid unlucky enough to be snared in it would surely drown.
Unless ... It was barely possible, but if she swam faster than she ever had before, there might be time. Luce's tail was already spiraling, whipping her through the gray-green water in a corolla of streaming bubbles, blurring her vision. She was going so fast that she had to slow momentarily to make sure she was heading in the right direction. The smallest mistake would surely result in that strange mermaid's death.
Luce oriented herself, trying to stay calm. Then she lashed out her tail again, but she didn't rush toward the ship. Instead she was headed north, and as she swam that distant voice whispered steadily through her mind, begging her to hurry.
Back to her old tribe's cave.
Fifteen minutes later Luce was streaking through the familiar tunnel, her lungs aching for air, dizzy and sore from the violent speed of her swimming. Even deep underwater she could hear a babble of voices; it sounded like the whole tribe was there. All Luce could do was hope that they wouldn't put up a fight. “I don't care what we have to do!” The voice was probably Jenna's. “I don't care if we swim for hours as long as we finally find a ship somewhere. I can't stand not having anything to do all the time. If I can't sing to someone soon, I don't know, I'm going to go to a human town and get right up near them and get to work—"
“Just because you're bored doesn't mean you should act like an idiot,” Dana snapped back. Then Luce's head broke through the water.
Samantha looked right at her and screamed. Dana stared, her expression both alarmed and hopeful. Mermaids dashed back and forth across the cave, obviously unsure what to do. Luce noticed the confusion of the cave, the piles of ripped clothing, the empty liquor bottles and broken jewelry. There was a complicated stink of stale perfume and spilled beer and mold. Anais's obsession with collecting human objects had resulted in this awful trash heap crowding the cave. Maybe she could take advantage of the chaos here, Luce thought, and get what she needed before they decided to attack her.
“You get out of here right this second!” Anais was shrieking somewhere behind her. Luce ignored it.
“I need a knife, quick! There has to be one here somewhere...” Luce begged. She stared desperately around the piles of debris. Even if they left her alone, there was no time to search. That trawler must be far out to sea by now.
“Like anyone would give a weapon to a psycho like you!” Anais shrieked. Luce glanced around at Anais, her lovely golden hair contrasting horribly with the infuriated smirk that contorted her face. Then Anais thought of something. “Everyone, pin her down! We'll gag her before she tries any of her stupid tricks.” Several mermaids shifted uncertainly forward, but most of the tribe just hung back around the walls, clinging to one another and whispering nervously. The water frothed from the twitching of their tails. Luce stared from face to face, noticing Rachel and Kayley gawking at her weakly. These were the same girls she had laughed and swum with, and her head had rested beside theirs as they slept, but now they met her eyes with the unfeeling gaze of strangers. She found herself wondering if any of them were on her side at all.
“Some of you still care about the timahk! There's a strange mermaid caught in a net; we have to save her! I need a knife. Now!” Luce heard her voice crack with urgency.
Jenna had fetched a pile of scarves. She was edging closer to Luce, working up the nerve to lunge at her. And Anais was still behind her somewhere, moving, closing in.
“Why are you all such cowards?” Jenna raged. “Aren't all of you sick of worrying about
her? Let's get this over with!” A few more of the girls swam slowly forward, and Luce realized that she was almost surrounded. Mermaids were digging through the random trash heaped up all over the shore, probably gathering pantyhose and ropes that they could use to tie her up.
Suddenly Luce saw Dana's face. Her brown eyes were wide in warning and her mouth sagged wordlessly. The truth flashed in front of Luce: once they had her gagged and helpless Anais would order them to throw her on shore, just like she'd done to those larvae. Instead of saving the strange mermaid all she'd managed to do was set herself up to be murdered. Something silvery gleamed in the shadows behind Jenna, and Luce felt a flash of primal terror at the thought of metal violating her flesh. A slim hand held a curved, sinister-looking hunting knife up where Luce could see it, and for an instant fear almost overcame her. She was ready to dive blindly into the crowd of mermaids around her when she noticed the hand with the knife wasn't poised to threaten her. Instead it was held out in a furtive offering, and Violet smiled shy and proud from the dimness behind Jenna's back. Then Violet's glossy brown head licked under the surface, so smoothly that no one but Luce saw her go. Deep below the water a soft hand gently tugged Luce's fins, urging her to follow.
“I can send a wave to throw all of you on shore,” Luce announced. She tried to sound cold and determined. “Let me go now, and I won't have to hurt you.” A few mermaids stopped where they were, gaping in sudden doubt, but Jenna gave a piercing cry and leaped.
Luce didn't have a chance to gather her breath or to think about what she should do. Instead the music that burst from her was shrill and spontaneous and uncontrolled, yanking a vertical pillar of water straight up under Jenna. Jenna suddenly flailed at the peak of a steep-sided wave ten feet high, towering in the tightly confined space of the cave, and then Luce realized with dismay that the wave was about to throw Jenna far onshore. Luce barely mastered her voice in time to send the wave swinging sideways, slamming Jenna against a rocky outcropping instead. Jenna howled in shock from the impact and then dropped into the water, stunned and keening. Dozens of voices were jabbering, and tails flashed randomly through the cave's continual dusk.
