He pushed himself onto the raft and Syreena touched his hand. “Are you okay?”
Dylan coughed seawater out of his throat. “Where’s the snake?”
“Right here,” she said. “Around my neck. I think it’s the one from the beach.”
What in the fuck?
“No way,” he said, feeling his way across the raft toward her. “It couldn’t be.”
“I’m telling you, Dylan, it’s the same snake.”
“How can you tell? It’s impossible to see anything out here.”
“I just know. He feels the same.”
“I’ll throw him into the ocean.”
“No,” she said. “It’s Mami Wata’s familiar. He’s here to help us. We can’t harm him. That would make Mami very angry.”
Son of a bitch. He sank to his knees and put his head in hands. He’d fallen into the water, lost the paddle and nearly drowned and now Syreena wanted to keep the snake as a pet.
“What are we going to do without a paddle?” he asked.
“We’re going to let Mami Wata lead us.”
Too much. Entirely too fucking much. “A snake will lead us?”
“Yes,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
By the time dawn broke, they saw it. On the horizon was the shadow of land. The sun was coming up behind it highlighting the greens and browns of the island.
“Is that?” The snake was still wrapped around her neck, its head resting between her breasts. She looked like the white version of the woman on her amulet. Syreena was beautiful, exotic. With the early morning sun turning her hair the color of spun gold, she looked like a goddess.
Who the hell had he been kidding? What man in his right mind would ever let this woman slip through his fingers?
Dylan, who’d been awake all night lamenting the loss of the paddle, rubbed his eyes and looked. “That’s the right direction,” he said. “But I can’t imagine that we’ve traveled far enough. We’ve only been on the water ten or eleven hours.”
He hadn’t mentioned it to Syreena but Dylan was concerned that getting to Haiti was only part of the battle. What if they found the island and ended up on the side opposite Belle Emilie?
The snake raised his head and pointed it right in the direction of the land. “The snake says we’ve nearly reached our destination.”
“I hope he’s right. We lost all the breadfruit when the raft tipped to the side last night.”
*****
It was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.
As the raft floated closer and closer to the island, her heart sang. Even after all the years of swimming alone, she’d have known the gentle curve of the beach anywhere. It was the beach where it all began.
“It’s Belle Emilie!” The snake’s tongue tested the air. “You brought us here, didn’t you?” she asked him.
Dylan put his hand on his forehead to shield his eyes from the midday sun. “Are you sure?”
Syreena smiled. “I’ve never been surer of anything.” She touched the amulet that had hung around her neck for so long. “This is where we’re meant to be.” She hadn’t meant to say that exactly.
“It is beautiful,” Dylan said.
The beach was deserted. From the water, about a hundred feet from shore, no houses or buildings could be seen. It was just a pristine white beach curving like a quarter moon. It looked exactly the same as it had the day she left it.
All those years ago.
When the raft was a few feet from shore, Syreena hopped off and waded to the beach. “I’m home,” she yelled. She knelt in the sand, the snake still wrapped around her neck, and kissed the ground. She turned back to the water, tears of joy streaming down her face. “I know you’re not staying, but you should at least look around for a few minutes before you leave. We need to at least say goodbye.”
She didn’t want to say goodbye. She wanted to take his hand in hers and lead him through the paths that led to the house. Bordered with blooming trees and brimming with chattering, colorful birds. Syreena wanted to share her home with him.
The feeling wasn’t mutual.
“It’s okay,” she said after several seconds of silence passed. “You don’t have to come ashore. Thank you, Dylan, for everything.”
It killed her to yell goodbye across the water. She didn’t want to lose him at all but she wouldn’t hold him hostage. She’d figure out something on her own.
Syreena took a deep breath and blew him a kiss across the water.
*****
He’d been a fool.
Everything he’d even wanted in a woman was less than a hundred feet from him. The only thing separating him from his wildest dreams was some lousy seawater.
Dylan dove in.
Syreena swam out to meet him.
In the shallow water, he took his mermaid woman into his arms and kissed her as if his life depended upon it. Snakes, water, time. None of them were a match for what he felt deep in his heart. “Syreena,” he said, pulling his lips from hers. “I was a fool. I’ll follow you anywhere.”
“Follow me to Saint-Domingue,” she said.
Dylan took her hand and followed her onto the beach. He watched as the
The snake made its way down her side, onto the sand and then into the scrubby brush a few feet from the water.
“I think it’s time,” she said. Her smile was so open, so genuine. “Finally.”
“Better late than never.” Dylan took her hand in his and they turned to face the water. “Let me help.” He stood behind her and untied the leather strap securing the amulet. He handed it to her. “Ready?”
She took the charm into her hand and rubbed its weathered surface. “Ready.”
Mami Wata, still attached to the gris gris bag, skipped on the surface twice before she fell into the deep.
Author’s Notes
1. You can make a raft from water bottles and net. Not only is it possible, but these guys did it.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Project-rRaft-Building-a-Raft-out-of-Water-Bottl/?ALLSTEPS
2. Divorce became legal in France in 1792, a year after the Slave Uprising in Haiti. It’s highly unlikely that Syreena would’ve understood the concept as until this time the only way to get out of a marriage in France was through an Annulment from the Catholic Church. They weren’t easy to get. Just ask Henry VIII.
3. Marie Antoinette was met by fireworks in several cities along the route from Vienna to Versailles to celebrate her marriage to Louis XVI. There was a firework show at Versailles after the wedding in 1760, a year after Syreena’s birth, which lasted more than half an hour and included, among other fireworks, at least 2,000 Roman candles.
4. Coast Guard Cutters routinely patrol the Atlantic seaboard and the Caribbean. The missions vary but often times these boats are drug enforcement and surveillance vessels.
5. The modern zipper was in invented by Gideon Sundback in 1913.
6. Mami Wata is an interesting figure. Thought to have originated in Nigeria, she’s known for her beauty, her materialism and her seduction of human men. She’s often spotted walking around markets carrying expensive baubles with her. Most images of Mami Wata include a snake, often wrapped around her neck with its head resting between her breasts, which is a symbol of divinity. In African and Afro-Caribbean legends, she often kidnaps men and takes them to her underwater realm. In exchange for wealth, she demands faithfulness from them. If they refuse, she’ll make sure the fates bring them ill-fortune. The men often return to land totally dry, richer, more attractive and more virulent. While it sounds like a heck of a good time, especially if you’re having trouble making the mortgage payments, it’s probably not a good idea to jump off a cruise ship in hopes she will capture you. You can read more about her here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mami_Wata
7. Haiti (Saint-Domingue) was the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean. It gained independence from France in 1804 and is the only nation in the world which gained
its independence as a result of a slave revolt.
8. I’ve woven parts of Mami Wata throughout the book. Extra points if you spot them.
9. Haiti is one of the few places in the world where there are no species of snakes that are dangerous to humans. There are some snakes there, most of which are non-venomous, but snakes are not a concern in this island nation. With Syreena’s exposure to voodoo and her likely limited exposure to the fields and wooded areas, she might not have ever seen a snake in real-life. In her era, snakes would’ve been associated with the mystical and paranormal.
About the Author
Blaire Edens lives in mountains of North Carolina. She grew up on a farm that’s been in her family since 1790. Of Scottish descent, her most famous ancestor, John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch and Guardian of Scotland, was murdered by Robert the Bruce on the altar of the Greyfriars Church at Dumfries.
She has a degree in Horticulture from Clemson University. She’s held a myriad of jobs including television reporter, GPS map creator, and personal assistant to a fellow who was rich enough to pay someone to pick up the dry cleaning. When she’s not plotting, she’s busy knitting, running, or listening to the Blues.
Blaire loves iced tea with mint, hand-stitched quilts, and yarn stores. She refuses to eat anything that mixes chocolate and peanut butter or apple and cinnamon. She’s generally nice to her mother, tries to remember not to smack her bubble gum, and only speeds when no one’s looking.
She’s the past president of South Carolina Writers Workshop and an active member of Romance Writers of America.
Keep in touch with Blaire online:
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The Water is Sweeter by Eli Constant
When the land becomes a desert, the water will quench your soul
Orphan Lena McMillan used to think that what she shared with Truman Kent was real. Now she sees their relationship for what it really is- controlling and abusive.
She has to choose to die slowly from ‘love’ or say goodbye to the family she’s always desired. Leaving scares her though, so much so that dying seems like her only option.
But fate won’t let her quit life and Truman won’t let her quit his love. Not without a fight.
Under the layers of a lonely childhood and an adulthood romance gone wrong, a starfish holds the key to Lena’s parentage and the answer to the mesmeric ocean dreams that haunt her.
If she can find the strength to leave the only life she knows, Lena will discover the truth. And she will find a new world, one that will cleanse her of the memories of false love and abuse.
One that will finally lead her home.
Goodbye
Two couples, eight temporarily transformed legs between them, stand in the sand—on the beach that the humans call Tybee—hating the feel of the grittiness between the ugly toes connected to the awkward feet connected to the gangly legs that have replaced their beautiful, scaled, and shimmering tails tonight.
“I don’t know why this is still necessary.” The woman’s voice is high and girlish—melodic, almost like a child’s lullaby. Her hair is blowing in the sea breeze, individual garnet locks catching fire in the light of a near-distant beach lantern.
“It’s tradition.” The voice that responds is a low, throaty bass, but it is still musical—in the way a cello is musical next to a flute.
“Traditions can change, Eldoris.”
“The whole world is changing with the tide, Medina. Sometimes it is nice to have constants.”
The second couple stands silent, worry lines etching their smooth, pale faces. Indeed, of the four gathered adults, not a one looks like they have spent more than a few hours under the sun their entire lives. They are translucent and other-worldly.
“This is not a constant—we’re choosing to make it that way. I don’t want to leave her. No, I won’t leave her.” Medina, despite the high nature of her voice, sounds fierce, a mamma dolphin protecting her babe.
“Do you still think that I want to leave her? We’ve talked about this over and over. This is the best thing for her—the selfless thing.”
The second couple continues their silence but shifts uncomfortably. Eldoris realizes that he has spoken in a way that puts down the choice his friends have made for their own unborn child.
Silence falls across the entire group like a great shadow now.
Not too far away from the couples, a lone man runs along the docks. He is tall, lanky; headphones blast music and drown out the world around him. The sight of the “human him” causes both women to clutch at their stomachs. Four hands rest on two pregnant bellies that are large and fully to term.
“This feeling… it’s awful. Why? Why do we have children if we aren’t going to raise them ourselves?”
“Would you rather our daughter stay underwater, Medina? Helpless, tailless, gill-less? Keep her alive in an air chamber until she’s old enough to transform? What kind of life would that be for her?”
“Others are doing it…” But the woman’s voice is melancholy, as if she knows that both choices for her child are terrible ones. “Laira and Njord are keeping theirs.” Her left hand points half-heartedly at the woman next to her. Jealousy sprouts like insidious seaweed inside her stomach and floats about in digestive juices and the remnants of fish and mollusk.
“It’s not easy for us either, Medina,” Laira whispers. “We won’t get to hold him, feed him, comfort him… And when the time comes…” Her hands still protectively around her belly, Laira cannot finish her thought. No one needs her to.
When the time comes, Laira and Njord will have to watch while their own child is killed. He will drown as the air chamber fills with water. He will die to bring on the change.
“But you’ll get to see him! You’ll get to see how he grows and changes, and you’ll get to love him.”
“Through a barrier, Medina, and rarely. And that will be his entire life until he’s ready—a small room with little to do and precious little company. You’re giving Meri a chance to really live, to make friends—albeit human ones. She’ll have experiences and memories.” As Laira’s voice rises, it is apparent that she isn’t sure if she and Njord are making the right decision. Her mate places his arm around her shoulder and kisses her on the cheek.
“We all can only hope we’re doing right by our children. There is no option that comes without risk or sacrifice.” Njord speaks softly, his voice a pleasant baritone that reminds the air of what it’s like to be touched by a spray of sea.
Silence is once again an oppressive shadow. This time, no one attempts to banish the quiet.
Because it is time—time for Medina to birth the baby, time for the goodbyes, and time for the acceptance that the baby’s return to the sea is not guaranteed. Every merchild’s transformation is different: some are ready too soon, some too late, some never. Riva, a gifted singer within the mer-community, has been waiting eleven years for her twin sons to return. Medina cannot imagine worrying and pining for two children.
As the child slips from her—an almost painless event that Medina hates, because at least great pain would give her keener memory of her daughter’s first moments—a single, musical wail flows out into the night.
“She’s beautiful,” Laira whispers, holding the baby as Eldoris ruins the tether between his mate and child. Njord hums the ocean song, the one that has celebrated the dual joy and sadness of merpeople births for centuries.
“We love you, Meri, Ocean Eyes, sea child. We love you. Come home to us.” It is Eldoris’s voice. A single tear rolls down his face, dangles from his chin, and then falls onto his newborn daughter’s forehead. It sits there for a brief moment, glistening on the surface, and then it sinks into Meri’s skin, leaving the ghost of a jade shimmer. Medina adds her own tears to her mate’s, but hers are unrelenting things, salty and grief-laden.
After her tears are spent, Medina stands for the longest time, holding and rocking her daugh
ter with the two perfect human legs. She repeats a hundred times, “Please come back to us soon, my little one.” It is a prayer sound that must reach heaven, because there is no greater angst and love than that of a mother for her child.
“It’s time, Medina.” Eldoris’s words are gentle and kind, but they are also stern and tinged with a note of finality.
“For the first time in my long years, I wish I was not what I am.” Leaning down, Medina places Meri on the beach. She is plenty far away from the sea and someone will find her soon. It never takes long. Merbabies can cry in a way that draws a human to them. Most merpeople leave their babies further inland—near dumpsters, in back alleys, on doorsteps. But Medina cannot imagine leaving her precious daughter somewhere so human, so dirty.
The beach is where her Meri belongs, near the ocean and her family.
Before the four return to the ocean, Medina leans down yet again and places a newly-made starfish pendant of silver and pearl, connected to a sea chain of kelp and coral, across the beautiful pale baby skin of her Meri—who will soon be nothing but an orphan in this different world that is so necessary and brutal.
Chapter 1
The First Change
I dip lower into the bathwater, wishing to wash every bit of the awful day from my body.
So much went wrong. Everything. And none of it was within my control to prevent. I float so low in the deep tub now that only my face from the nose up is exposed to the chilly bathroom air. I sink even lower, as far as possible, allowing my bare back to hit the bottom of the cast iron, claw-foot tub. My hair floats around me, a maroon halo with a life of its own.
Falling in Deep Collection Box Set Page 77
