Born of Water: An Elemental Origins Novel

by A. L. Knorr

  The valet had been crossing the foyer and he clutched at his heart in a dramatic manner. I would have laughed if things hadn't felt so serious. He watched us wide-eyed as we barrelled past him and sprinted up the stairs two at a time. We must have been quite a sight, my mother with her eyes flashing angrily and both of us with our hair still wet and tangled from our swim.

  "Mom," I hissed, "what are you going to say?" I was twirling my hair into a rope, trying to put it into some kind of order.

  "I'm going to find out what's going on," she said, calmly. Her tone did not match the pace at which she was taking the stairs.

  "Just, don't do anything crazy. Please," I pleaded, stumbling after her. She was heading straight to Martinius' office on the second floor.

  She didn't stop at the closed door leading to Martinius' personal space; she barrelled right on through. I followed her into the room, an apology already on my lips. The doors slammed open, startling two of the cleaning staff who were dusting and watering plants. Martinius wasn't there.

  "Where is Martinius?" my mother asked, bluntly.

  The maids looked at each other and then back at us. One of them said, "I believe Mr. Novak is in his library, ma'am. Is everything ok?"

  My mom turned on her heel and left.

  "Sorry about that," I said to the ladies. I followed my mother up to the fourth floor through the narrow staircase. We arrived at the same room they'd been in earlier when I'd overheard her and Martinius talking.

  "Mom, maybe you should..." I started.

  She barrelled through this door, too. I sighed. "Knock," I finished, lamely.

  I looked around at the room I'd stood outside of earlier, and was able to satisfy my curiosity about its contents. The room was a small, cozy library. The fire was lit, casting a warm glow over the red carpet and the brown overstuffed leather chairs angled toward the fireplace. A long sofa faced the fire, an antique coffee table in front of it. The legs of the table were sculpted wooden mermaids.

  Why did we not suspect that mermaids were not just an icon for the Novak family? How much did he know? Even my own father never knew that my mother was a siren.

  The ceilings of the room were sharply vaulted and the room had a dormer. Ruby curtains framed the dormer window and the seat below it was upholstered in scarlet and gold velvet. Bookcases lined the low walls, rows upon rows of antique books filling every nook. A ship encased in a green glass bottle with a short, fat neck and closed with a crumbling cork sat on a bookcase. I recognized it as The Sybellen.

  But what startled me the most was that Antoni was there with Martinius. He was gazing into the fire with a hand on the mantelpiece. He looked up suddenly when my mother and I came barrelling into the room.

  Antoni's eyes flicked from her to me and I could see that he thought we were there about what had happened between the two of us that morning. The colour drained from his face. He opened his mouth to say something and I gave him the subtlest headshake, no. He snapped his mouth shut.

  Martinius was seated in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, a closed file folder on his lap. He also looked up abruptly, but I noted that he wasn't surprised like Antoni was. He'd been expecting us.

  "We've seen," my mom paused and flicked a look towards Antoni. "Do you mind?" She gestured to the door, inviting him to leave.

  Antoni and Martinius shared a look, and then Martinius nodded to him. Antoni walked towards the door, and me. He focused on my face as he approached. I looked him full in the eyes and held his hazel gaze. His scent thrilled my blood as he passed, then the door clicked quietly shut behind him.

  "We've seen your masthead," my mother said, and I detected a faint violin. "What kind of game are you playing?"

  "Have a seat," Martinius replied calmly, gesturing to the empty chair and the sofa. He closed the folder on his lap and tucked it between the cushion and the arm of the chair.

  "I don't want to have a seat. I want you to tell me what the hell is going on," my mom replied.

  "Please," he said. "I can see that you're angry. I really did not mean to upset you."

  Mom perched pertly on the edge of one of the chairs and I sat on the sofa. The leather squeaked under my weight and I stifled a nervous giggle.

  "Talk," Mom ordered, as though she was the one in charge. And it certainly seemed that she was. It no longer mattered that Martinius was her client.

  "My grandfather, Jan," he began, "used to tell me stories every night before I went to bed. My favourite were the pirate stories, the tales of murder and mayhem on the high seas-"

  "Cut to the chase, Martinius," she interrupted rudely, her teeth bared.

  "Mom," I said, quietly. I wanted to hear what he had to say. There was nothing threatening in his demeanour so far.

  He continued, graciously allowing my mother's rudeness to pass. "But my grandfather's favourite stories were about The Sybellen. He'd make up some wonderful adventure story and put The Sybellen at the heart of it. He'd speculate about how she went down and where she might be. He made Mattis out to be a privateer and the crew were his invincible fighting men. Sybellen of course, was a mermaid, a magical creature that Mattis had rescued from the clutches of a kraken." As he spoke, he got up and went to one of the library shelves and pulled out an old leather book. He came back and sat down, setting the book on the arm of his chair and steepling his fingers on top of it. From what I could see, the book didn't have a title and it looked antique.

  "As a child, I knew it was all fairy tales but when I got older, I stumbled across some family records. Aleksandra, Mattis' mother, had kept a diary. She was concerned when Mattis, who had returned from a particularly long journey from the West Indies, brought back a mysterious woman with him to marry. In those days, the family all lived together in the same house. So you see, Aleksandra was able to observe her son's new wife, Sybellen, very closely."

  It occurred to me that the book under his fingertips was most likely the diary. Curiosity fired up in me like it had a ripcord attached. I wondered if he'd let us read it, but then I wilted when I realized it would be in Polish.

  "Of course," he continued, "they were madly in love and that was what Aleksandra wished most for her son. But it bothered her that Sybellen appeared to have no family, no heritage, no personal documents, and she disliked very much to talk about herself. She was extraordinarily beautiful, or so the diary says. With long, wild black hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin. Not unlike you two young ladies," he said pointedly. "Sybellen was known for being abrupt and distant to everyone but Mattis and her children. Eventually, even with those she loved most, she began to grow detached. Aleksandra writes that she spent an inordinate amount of time down at the sea, especially after she'd had her twin boys."

  I stole a glance at my mother. She was expressionless, listening.

  "Jan had always told me that Sybellen had sailed with Mattis on that final journey, but the truth according to the diary, was that Sybellen went missing the night before they were meant to depart. Mattis was beside himself, but he didn't go to the authorities or send a search party to scour the shorelines or countryside. No. He quickly gathered the minimum number of men required to sail The Sybellen, and took the ship to sea in search of his beloved wife. He left that very night, and Aleksandra writes that there was a fearful storm. He also took one of the twins with him, Emun Jr, and the diary reports that Mattis believed that he would find Sybellen faster if he took one of their boys. Rather a strange choice for a father, don't you think?" he raised his eyebrows at us and paused for a moment. Still my mother didn't react.

  He continued, "Aleksandra writes that Emun Jr was very attached to his mother. Perhaps Mattis thought that that attachment would somehow be enough to lure Sybellen to the ship. It didn't make much sense to Aleksandra, and it didn't make sense to me when I first read it either. But now that I've met you..." He paused, perhaps waiting for us to fill in some gaps. "Well," he went on, "the ship and all of those on board were never seen or heard from again."
r />   The flames were crackling cheerfully in the fireplace, completely unaware of the tension in the room.

  Martinius continued, "The real story behind how The Sybellen went missing had to stay a secret because there was insurance money at stake. Aleksandra doesn't give a lot of detail about that situation, but she alludes to her husband meeting in secret with the sailors that had been contracted to sail but not been on the ship when it left that night. No doubt, he struck their names from the crew list so that the insurance company wouldn't be the wiser, and he promised to compensate them well from the insurance pay-out in exchange for their silence. If the insurance company had known that Mattis took the ship out of port on a stormy night to search for his missing wife, they might never have paid."

  My mother spoke for the first time since he began the story. "So, Novak Shipping is guilty of insurance fraud?" I gaped at her for the thinly veiled threat. Intimidating Martinius was not going to improve our situation.

  He paused for a moment, looking at my mother blankly and then said, "My dear, the statute of limitations has long since expired on the matter. The insurance company doesn't even exist any more. I believe they bankrupted in the 1930's, not long after the stock market crash."

  My mother didn't respond, her face an expressionless mask.

  He picked up the folder from between the cushions and opened it. He pulled out two documents from the back - a yellowed page that had been slipped into a plastic cover to protect it. The first was covered in pencil sketches of the masthead, showing it from several different angles as well as whole images of the mermaid and close-ups of her face. The likeness of the features to my mom's were unmistakeable. She may as well have sat and posed for the artist. The second, I couldn't see as it was covered by the first.

  He handed the page to my mother. It hovered in the air between them for a moment before she reached out and took it.

  "These are drawings that the sculptor made for Mattis to approve while the ship was still being built."

  We both stared at the drawings. My mother flipped the first behind the second. The second was more of the same, only these were paintings done in colour. The masthead must have been painted at one time, either that or the sculptor changed his mind and kept it as bare wood. There was no colour on the actual masthead, that I could remember. Whether that was the effect of the sea and time, I didn't know. The eyes looking out at us from the page were a bright supernatural blue, the hair blue-black and the skin pale. "How many people have seen these?" asked my mother quietly.

  "These documents have always been kept in my private collection, not in the Novak archives. My wife and son both saw them, but as you know they've since passed. I'm sure many Novak employees from the past have also seen them but it has been many years since these sketches have seen the light of day. I had always intended to have it framed and put on display, but I never got around to it."

  My mother visibly stiffened but Martinius was already opening the folder once more and removing another document. This one was not antique looking, it looked like a printout of a news article and it had a photograph with a caption.

  "I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when during my search for the best salvage team in the world, I came across this." He handed her the printout and she took that as well. She held it out so I could also see it.

  The headline said: Bluejacket Underwater Recovery & Salvage Team Salvages 'Un-Divable' Wreck To Return Priceless Heirloom.

  I recognized the photograph. It was taken less than a year ago. Simon was shaking the hand of a lady in a big hat, displaying all of his teeth in a wide grin. Tyler, Eric, and Micah were all in the shot as well. And of course, standing beside Simon with a bored look on her face, was my mother. The caption on the photograph stated: Lady Margaret Stowe is thrilled to have her mother's priceless brooch back in her care after freak accident claims her luxury catamaran.

  I remembered that contract. It wasn't a freak accident; it was an alcoholic captain who'd fallen asleep on the job.

  "And then," Martinius continued, "I went to the Bluejacket website and looked at the team roster. There you were again, looking back at me clear as day through Sybellen's eyes."

  He pulled out another printout and I recognized this one, too. Martinius had taken it directly from the Bluejacket website. It was my mom in her uniform, standing for a professional headshot. No smile, just a perfunctory pose to get the job done.

  "Sybellen," Martinius said quietly but with such emotion that we both looked up. My heart squeezed painfully in response to the expression on his face. There were no tears, but his face was full of wonder and his eyes were shining. He looked heart-broken and full of joy at the same time, if that were possible.

  His voice cracked with emotion, "You've come home."

  Twenty-Two

  I couldn't breathe. Something was very wrong. How could my mother be the long-lost Sybellen? It wasn't possible. She was Mira MacAuley - my mother and the deceased Nathan MacAuley's beloved wife. I had no siblings, I was my mother's first and only child. She'd told me so.

  "You don't understand," my mother's voice broke through my swirl of thoughts. She spoke far more gently than I had ever heard her speak to anyone outside our family. "I'm not Sybellen."

  "Please, don't deny it," Martinius said, leaning back against his chair and holding out his palms. "How can you look at those images and tell me that's not you?"

  "Because it's true. I am not your long lost however many greats-grandmother. It's impossible," she said, gently.

  Martinius looked at her as though he could not believe that she was denying who and what she was in the face of all of the evidence. I was wondering if she was going to call him crazy next and make the poor old guy question his own sanity. I understood the need to protect our identities but I wasn't sure how she was going to explain it all away. Here we were standing on two legs but our hair was wet and we'd clearly just seen the masthead for ourselves and we hadn't taken a boat from the fleet out to do it. There was no hiding from Martinius, it was clear that he knew what we were.

  He had begun to splutter in protest but my mom went on. "We can live a very, very long time, that's true. But I'm still young for a siren."

  I looked at her with surprise. So there it was. She'd admitted it. I looked at Martinius. He'd slumped in relief when she'd admitted the truth but he still looked confused.

  "I'm nowhere near as old as your ship. My daughter is 17 and she is my first and only child. I left the ocean to find Nathan when I was very young. I couldn't have been older than 19 or 20 myself. I'm sorry I can't say exactly how old, we tend to lose track."

  Martinius did not look convinced.

  "Look," she continued, "I'm admitting that I am what you think I am. And Sybellen was too, I have no doubt about that, but Sybellen is more than likely an ancestor of mine. My own mother died when I was very young, I was lucky to have survived on my own. She didn't tell me much about my lineage. Mermaids don't keep family records and I never knew anyone else from my line."

  His expression was wilting and I thought maybe he was beginning to doubt himself. He took the pages from my mother's hands.

  "But... these," he said, holding them up. "You are she. She is you."

  My mother was shaking her head. "I'm sorry. Look at my daughter. We look a lot alike. We pass our genes down to our daughters. It is likely that I am related to Sybellen, but I don't know her. I wouldn't have come to Gdańsk in the first place if I had recognized the name. Do you think I would have endangered my daughter by bringing her to a place where people might know what she is?"

  I thought from his expression that maybe he was beginning to believe her now, but he didn't want to. "It's true, Martinius," I added. "I know my mother. She wouldn't lie about this."

  Mom gave me a grateful look and then said, "I'm very sorry," with real sympathy. Her kindness impressed me. When it was necessary, she did have it in her. She surprised me even more when she added, "Think how lucky it is that you got this far. Yo
u can say that it's very likely that Sybellen was indeed a siren. You've found your ship, and it's perfectly preserved and positioned for a successful salvage, which almost never happens. And you're the only man I've ever met who knows that we exist." Then with an edge in her voice, "And I hope you realize how important it is that it stays that way."

  I had a thought. "Does Antoni know?" I asked.

  Martinius shook his head and I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been keeping in. "No," he said. "No one does. Do you think they'd let me keep control of my company if I started raving that mermaids were real? It's on our family crest for Pete's sake. They'd think I'd gone stark raving mad." He chuckled a sardonic laugh.

  "Good," said my mother. "Do we have your word then that you won't tell a soul?"

  "Of course," he said, affronted. "I have no interest in ruining my reputation and losing my business, as much fun as it would be to spook everyone. There is a clause in my Presidential contract that stipulates that if reason and I part company then so will Novak Shipping." He grew thoughtful. "Do you think that you could find her for me? Sybellen. I'll pay you whatever you want."

  My mother was shaking her head before he was even finished. "You don't know what you're asking, Martinius. It would be impossible. There is over 330 million cubic miles of ocean out there and we're nomadic by nature. She could be anywhere. She could also be salt-flush by now."

  "Salt-flush?" Martinius asked.

  "If a siren spends enough time in salt water she'll slowly change over time. She becomes a primal creature with very little memory of where she's been or who she's known. Even if I found her, the odds of which are almost zero, she might not even remember Mattis. And I'm not about to try and force-feed a salt-flush siren with fresh water. I'd be taking my life in my hands."