The Search for Aveline

by Stephanie Rabig

  He'd begun spending more and more time with the First People, whom his family had tolerated. Eventually, new people had come in from the sea, people with paler skin and different weapons, and a strong desire to build pathways of iron across the land. He and the other Fae families had tried their best to sabotage the pathways, but they'd eventually bisected the country anyway, splitting apart Fae territories that had existed for centuries.

  Some Fae had moved away entirely, taking the form of the humans they so despised in order to seek passage on great wooden ships, intent on reaching safer lands. Others had gone into hiding, seeking solace among others of their own kind.

  He, meanwhile, had grown more and more interested in the humans that unwittingly traveled through their home.

  His parents said his fascination with humans, particularly sailors, was a phase, and one they didn't approve of, because he used his talents to help them rather than confound them. And he'd believed them; he'd been content to wander around human establishments and listen to their wild stories of life at sea, and that had been enough.

  Then The Sappho had arrived.

  He'd never met a crew entirely made up of women before; judging from the looks on the other sailors' faces, it was equally odd to them. He'd been charmed by Captain Roberts, so much so that he'd been half-convinced that she had Fae blood in her somewhere.

  By the time he'd spent a full hour in their company, he'd known he wanted to leave with them.

  He hadn't said a word about it to his parents or other relatives, save for his cousin Aurelia. He knew Aurelia would keep his secret for as long as need be, while his mother and father and aunts and uncles and siblings would merely argue with him endlessly—or, worse, put a curse on the ship in order to keep him home.

  At that point in time, Kai hadn't yet been with the crew, nor had Lucky Franky. Believing that one had to be a woman to sign on, Marcel had shifted form, and joined up as Marcella.

  She had relished every day of her life on the ocean, finding it to be everything she'd been unconsciously longing for all these years. Though she knew now that Captain Harry was purely human, without an ounce of true magic in her blood, Harry still had a way with inhuman creatures that Marcella felt might impress even her stoic great-grandmother. Not many sea captains could claim the loyalty of a Fae, much less that of a Fae, two merfolk, and a siren.

  The only complaint she had was how much the former blacksmith, Lizzie, still liked to work with iron. She'd even forged herself a ring made from the stuff, which kept a necessary distance between them. She always made sure to speak to Lizzie very nicely, so that the other woman wouldn't think she had a grievance against her; she just didn't get close physically. Which kept in line with how she was with everyone else anyway; physical closeness wasn't something she was always interested in. Two centuries of being in small, crowded homes with all of her extended relatives, sleeping in tight rows and sometimes messy piles on the floor, and the ship seemed like a spacious haven. It was quite freeing, to have space to herself.

  Even if Katherine did insist on giving hugs that might have crushed a lesser Fae.

  It was a pity that her family was so disdainful of humans in general. If they chose to, they would find many commonalities between themselves and this crew.

  Maddie was every bit as sweet and kind as Marcella's mother—and every bit as terrifying when threatened. Imriska had Berserker blood in her; though she didn't sense the same about Maddie, she was certain her mother would appreciate the fast, brutal way Maddie dealt with those who meant her or her crew harm.

  When she'd first seen Katherine, she'd been half-sure she was part Giantess. Marcella's grandfather's cousin had married a Giant, and despite how supremely crowded their home always got, she loved when they visited. They reminded her very much of Katherine, all booming laughter and lewd jokes and claps on the back that nearly sent you tumbling.

  Deborah reminded her of a Pixie—a creature that was much like a Fae, but smaller and more refined, possessing higher voices and committing fewer tricks. They were, however, capable of unimaginable cruelty when wronged. She hoped to never find out if Deborah was like a Pixie in that way as well.

  She knew that Wil would want to hear about all these creatures and more... the moment she found out what Marcella truly was, she would surely ask myriad questions. If she didn't take off her wooden leg and pummel her with it for not revealing herself right away. Aurelia would love that about her: they shared the same insatiable curiosity.

  She didn't know who Alvar reminded her of. She'd spent a good deal of time trying to figure it out before finally realizing Alvar hadn't taken over her thoughts because of any resemblance to someone she'd once known.

  Memorial

  By the time he reached their ship, a beacon of fire in the cloudless night, it was already far too late.

  Kai swam through the debris-thick waters, searching for anyone who had survived, anyone who had turned. He encountered several bodies—including that of the cabin boy, a lad so young that it broke his heart—but either all had died in the fire on board their ship or, in their drowning, whatever controlled these waters had not seen fit to give them the gift of continued life.

  He thought of Harry's ship, of the state it had been in when he'd first encountered it. With their ship, the fire had been put out and they'd found safe harbor. This...

  He wondered who had been on this ship, where they had been going.

  Resurfacing again, he scanned the waves for any signs of life. A couple of bodies were braced against debris, but no light emanated from them; they blended seamlessly into the cold water.

  Then, only a short distance away from a small patch of land, he caught sight of a very faint glow. Pale orange, flickering like a dying candle. Kai swam quickly to it, realizing as soon as he saw the elderly woman that drowning would be her only chance.

  She blinked at him, smiled. "Hello," she said, her arms wrapped around a charred piece of the ship. Her hands were blackened and scarred, as was her face, and Kai was surprised she was even conscious, let alone speaking. Her face registered no pain, and as he watched, the light extinguished completely before immediately flaring up again.

  "Hello," he said back, carefully taking hold of the driftwood. He was afraid to touch her—just because she felt no pain now didn't mean she wouldn't if he jostled her. He swam slowly, aiding the driftwood along on its journey to the beach. Once they were on the sand, she still clung to the piece of the ship, resting her head on it as if it were a pillow, staring at his tail.

  "Well," she breathed. "Of all the things I never thought I'd live to see." She reached out a shaking hand, resting it on his hip, staring at the individual scales with bleary eyes. "Oh, Florence and the others should be here. They helped make an entire society about you, you know."

  "Me specifically?" he asked, smiling. "I'm flattered."

  She laughed, the wide smile crinkling up her face and in that instant, she looked so much like Euphemia that he almost had to turn away.

  "Mermaids. And I suppose mermen, too, if they'd been sure you existed. Bit harder to find." She coughed: a wet, rattling sound. "Society for Mermaid Safety. Ten members on the ship. Did they turn?" she asked, trying to raise her head. "Anyone?"

  "Yes," he said, because what good would the truth do? "I'll check on them again soon. Right now—Miss, I can't do much to help you here. If you come back into the water—"

  "No." She said the word so fiercely that she coughed again, so harshly that her light almost faded out.

  "It's your only chance," he said. "Please. Let me help."

  "Wouldn't be helping," she said, her grip tightening on the driftwood. "Always been scared of the water." Seeing the look on his face, she laughed again, a smear of blood showing at the corner of her mouth. "Can't even swim! Yet I'm the one who made it."

  "The others are—"

  "You're a terrible liar, lad."

  He didn't try to argue. Harry had told him as much on multiple occasions; he'd
hoped it wasn't so much a flaw with his ability to tell a falsehood so much as it was her being supernaturally perceptive.

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  "Minerva Claire Harper. Going to see my son, you know. Moved such a long way away from us. Never understood it. Wanderlust. Never had it myself. Thought I'd die in the house I was born in."

  "You don't have to die here," he said. "If—"

  "Can you promise?" she asked. "Can you... can you guarantee, that if I go back into that water and drown, that I'll wake back up?"

  He closed his eyes. "No."

  "I know I said I wouldn't try and talk you out of it, and I'm sorry, but... no, please, just listen. You don't have to go."

  Kai started to ask what she meant, and then he saw the faraway look in her eyes, the way her aura was flashing, switching from one shade to another so rapidly that he could barely keep track of the colors. He had seen this before: memories before death taking hold of a person so completely that they were their younger selves again for a moment.

  "Minerva?" he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face, but her eyes remained unfocused.

  Holding her hand, he knew this was his last chance. He could drag her back into the water, hope that a tail and gills developed so that he could get her back to the Sappho. She would get on wonderfully with Euphemia.

  But she had asked for a guarantee, and he couldn't give that to her. Even if he could, it would be going against her wishes. She was at least lying still now, her expression peaceful. She wouldn't be granted that peace if he took her back into the ocean.

  Then the embers of light faded, and this time, they didn't rekindle. Kai squeezed her hand, praying that he'd made the right decision. Maybe the momentary panic would've been worth it, justified, to have her still be alive.

  He couldn't bury her. He had nothing to dig with, no way to make a hole deep enough to keep her body away from predators. But knowing she had feared the water, dragging her out to sea seemed wrong.

  Kai slid back into the water, gathering rock after rock up from the ocean floor, making dozens of trips, until her body was completely covered. It wouldn't last. Eventually, through the tides or a storm, the water would claim its own. But at least this would delay it for a while.

  He had set aside the driftwood she'd clung to, and now used one of the sharper stones he'd retrieved to carve into it. Though Euphemia and Wil had been trying to teach him how to read and spell in their language, he was far from an expert, and doubted he could spell the woman's full name correctly. But it began with an 'M', and that he did know how to carve.

  Even with the marker for her name on it, her cairn looked barren, plain. Though he hadn't known Minerva long, he doubted she would approve.

  He dove again, searching, until he found a shell bigger than his fist. It was an opalescent silver-white on the outside, and what was visible of the inside was a sunset-toned orange that reminded him of the aura she'd displayed before it had begun flashing.

  Kai set this on top of the board, staring at her cairn for several long moments before he turned and dove back into the water, swimming hard for the Sappho.

  When he arrived, he didn't call up to them as he usually did, though he'd been intending to. He'd rehearsed everything he could possibly say, just a lighthearted "didn't find anyone tonight" and then he could let himself be distracted by Maddie's antics or one of Wil and Hope's spirited arguments. But no words would come, and the way Harry stilled as soon as he came into sight told him that everything wrong was showing on his face.

  "Kai?" She approached slowly, as one might a wild animal, keeping her eyes on his as she climbed into the landing craft. "What's the—"

  He didn't let her finish the question, nor did he answer it; he simply hauled her into his arms, holding her tightly—too tightly, if her breathless squeak was any indication. He knew he should let go, should apologize, should go back into the ocean until he'd managed to calm himself down. Instead, he held on to her, his ear to her chest, the beat of her heart as rhythmic and steady as the waves on a beach. Kai closed his eyes, trying not to dwell on the sight of an aura flaring brightly for just an instant before disappearing altogether, trying not to dwell on how easily that could have been Harry and her crew, their lights extinguished in the midst of uncaring waters.

  After a moment, her arms slowly went around him as well. She gave no platitudes, no reassurances—he hadn't expected them. She simply held still, anchoring him, and finally the terror and anguish faded enough to allow him to let go. Harry stayed where she was, one hand reaching out to hold his. A slight motion over her left shoulder drew his attention, and he realized half the crew was standing around the landing craft, looking worried. Maddie had bitten her lip so hard it had drawn blood, reminding him of the bloodstain at the corner of Minerva's mouth. He quickly looked away, focusing his attention on Harry's hand in his.

  "Who was it?" Jo asked softly.

  And he told them.

  Isabelle

  Isabelle grimaced as she chewed on a piece of seaweed and once again debated the merits of trying to catch a particularly slow-moving fish.

  But even if she could catch it, how was she supposed to kill it? She was far enough away from the small island that the water rose well over her head; she couldn't hold the fish up into the open air. And she most certainly couldn't eat one raw. She would have to drag herself up onto the beach in order to try and start a fire—how, she had no idea—and that meant she could well be discovered.

  In all the times she'd secretly wished to be a mermaid, she'd never once pictured this.

  Biting her lip, she looked down at her tail. She didn't know what precisely had happened to the ship, whether a lightning strike had taken them down or whether a fire had started in the room that held the supply of gunpowder. All she knew was that the wall she had been leaning against had suddenly blown apart in a shower of light, and the pain in her legs as she'd plunged into the water had been indescribable.

  The next thing she remembered was resting in the rocks and sand at the bottom of the ocean, and being able to breathe. She'd lain there in wonder, just breathing, before everything came rushing back and she'd sat up, intent on searching for other survivors.

  Half of her body was dead weight.

  She'd looked down at her tail, at the way it had formed into a bent, misshapen mess in a mimicry of the way her legs had broken in the shipwreck. It didn't hurt anymore, but neither could she truly swim. If she put all her energy into it, she could make it a couple of feet using the strength in her arms before her bottom half dragged her back down.

  She'd pulled herself along as best she could, searching the wreckage that littered the ocean floor.

  Bodies. All she found were bodies, trapped and pinned in the remnants of their ship. No humans-turned-merfolk searching for her, no survivors diving again and again in hopes of finding someone. Only her.

  Cursing, she'd headed upward, intent on reaching the place where the sand disappeared above water before she realized that showing herself on land in this state was probably a horrible idea.

  She knew what people did to merfolk. She had even witnessed it once. Wasn't that why she and Florence had formed the Society for Mermaid Safety in the first place?

  Florence.

  She might have survived. There had been bodies trapped in amidst the sunken wreckage, but none of them had been hers. Maybe she was on the shore, exhausted and resting, waiting.

  But, as cowardly as she knew she was being, she couldn't make herself get out of the water.

  She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting in this patch of seaweed; only knew that her stomach was growling and her efforts to hold back panic were less and less successful with each passing minute.

  Then she saw motion in the water—something much larger than a fish—and instinctively ducked down, the word 'shark' ringing through her head like a scream.

  But it wasn't a shark, and she peered out amongst the seaweed, staring in awe. She and Flo
rence and the other members of their society had spoken to four mermaids over the years, but they'd never been fully in the water with them. And seeing one dive into the water or swim lazily at the surface was nothing compared to seeing one fully in the ocean.

  So mermen did exist, she thought. She and Florence had had an ongoing bet for the past six months: when they arrived at port, they were to have a meeting with a group of mermaids who lived around the Cape and they'd intended to ask them...

  Many people, her own mother included, had felt that creating the Society was a foolish mistake, trying to actually contact mermaids even more so. They'd told horror stories of drownings, both intentional and not; of slavers who drew innocent souls under the water to work their mines; of merfolk who hated humans and delighted in torturing them.

  But she wasn't a human anymore. She didn't have to worry about any of that.

  She did, however, have to worry about trespassing. Mermaids were extraordinarily territorial creatures, they'd discovered, and could grow quite violent with others of their kind. One of the mermaids Florence had spoken to had been missing an eye for precisely that reason.

  Damn it. At least as a human, she'd had training in how to defend herself.

  She edged further back into the seaweed, wondering what the odd glow was around the merman. She'd never seen it around mermaids: was it something only the males of their species had? Or was it something she could only see now that she was one of the merfolk herself?

  If that was the case, then was she herself sending out a beacon of light?

  The thought had scarcely occurred to her when the merman focused directly on her hiding spot.

  She scrambled backwards, dragging her useless tail along and letting out a stream of curses that her mother would've fainted at. Seeing her panicked motion, the merman stopped approaching.

  "My name is Kaimana," he said. "Yours?"

  "Isabelle," she answered, her hand slowly closing around a good-sized rock. The fact that he wasn't moving any closer was somewhat reassuring, but she wasn't taking chances. She couldn't kick, couldn't run, and couldn't swim. That left punching, throwing things, scratching...