by A. L. Knorr
Did his question sound nosy to me now because I had something to hide? I grabbed my glass of water and opened my throat, draining the glass in one gulp. Goodness knew, I was going to need it. He raised his eyebrows.
"I spent the day with my mom. How are your ribs?" I asked, trying to sound cool and detached. I piled my dirty dishes together and took them to the bins that the staff left out for that reason.
Antoni stepped closer. His scent drifted over me. I swayed unsteadily. "I'm fine. Can we talk?" he asked, reaching to put a hand on my shoulder.
"I don't think that's necessary.” I ducked under his arm and left the breakfast room.
"I need to know what you remember, what happened to us in the water," he said as he followed me into the hall.
So that's what he was after. "What do you think happened?" I said, stalling for time as my mind went scrambling for an answer. Why hadn't I thought further about this? I should have known he wouldn't let it rest.
"Don't play games with me, Targa," he sighed. "Why won't you just tell me what happened?" The pleading sound in his voice gave me pause. I turned to face him. His eyes explored my face, seeking some kind of truth. He needed peace and I couldn't give it to him, not by telling him what really happened.
I closed my eyes and called the dormant violins in my chest to life. "You passed out," I said, opening my eyes and looking straight into his. The music poured out of my throat and washed over him. His face went still, listening. "I swam to you using my lifejacket as a paddle board. I dragged you to shore and went running for help. The boys in the boathouse found you."
He slowly repeated everything I had said, word for word, as though they were sinking into his mind and becoming his new reality. Goosebumps ran down my back. He believed everything; I could see the authenticity of his belief etched on his face. Once the violins came out they seemed to want to stay out. I pushed them away with effort, cleared my throat and said in my normal voice, "Now, have some peace about it Antoni."
He seemed to snap out of the reverie at the sound of my human voice but he no longer looked confused. "Thank you for saving my life," he said, solemnly.
I nodded and smiled, but inside I felt bitter. I had just used my siren wiles for the first time, on purpose, to deceive a man. A faint wave of nausea rolled over me, along with the sensation that I needed to scrub myself clean. I turned to walk away, resolving never to use my voice to deceive anyone ever again.
He followed me. "Thank you for explaining Targa, but that's not all. Can we talk about what happened after please? It's important."
I turned to face him, but kept my distance. "Ok, go ahead."
That pulled him up short. "Here?"
"Why not here?" I took another step back and crossed my arms. I realized that any gesture I made that was meant to protect him from my siren wiles would appear as defensive. I dropped my arms.
"You know why not here." He came closer and lowered his voice. "Just for a few minutes. Did I hurt you so badly that you don't even want to speak to me now? Your mom's work is just getting started; you'll be here for a while yet. Do you really want to avoid me all summer?"
My brain was fuzzing out again. I took in the hazel eyes, the soft mouth, and the sound of his voice. I was losing focus in spite of the water I'd just guzzled. I stepped backwards realizing with annoyance that once again, my body language and what I was about to say were going to contradict one another. "You didn't hurt me, Antoni," I said. "I just won't be responsible for you getting fired."
He took a step closer. "And I appreciate that, but it's going to cause even more suspicion if we suddenly stop hanging out. What conclusion do you think everyone will come to?"
His scent washed over me again. My heart was speeding up. My skin began to tingle. Electricity zinged through every nerve. Now I was the one who was grinding my teeth. "Will you stop that please?"
"Stop what?" He looked genuinely confused.
"Standing so close to me. I can't think straight."
He had the audacity to grin. My temper flared. He had no idea how hard this was for me. The squeak of a trolley wheel came from around the corner. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him through the nearest door, praying the room was empty. It was. It was an office of cubicles abandoned for the weekend.
"Stand there please. And for the love of Pete, stop moving around." I stepped away from him and my thoughts cleared a little.
"You are a very strange woman." He grinned, "I like it."
"Don't flirt with me, Antoni. You'll only make this harder."
"I want you, Targa,” he said suddenly, using my own words against me. His eyes darkened and I recognized desire. I had seen it a million times before in the faces of men when they looked at my mother.
I let out a frustrated groan. "You're playing with fire, Antoni. You think you're in control here? You're not. You don't want to lose your job? Then stay away from me. Tell Martinius I irritate you. Ask him to assign someone else. Or better yet, tell him that I'm happier to be left on my own. I don't need a babysitter." This was certainly true. Now that I was a mermaid I wanted to be in the ocean, not drinking coffee along a canal.
"I can't stop thinking about you." He stepped closer.
"Don't," I warned.
"Don't what? This?" In two strides of his long legs he was on me. My brain checked out like I'd been shot up with morphine. We staggered backward together until my back hit the wall with a dull thud. His hands slid around my waist and his mouth covered mine. His fragrance surrounded me like a cloud. The siren in me thrilled to his touch and the tingle in my skin was back. A faint note of musk emanated from me.
He lifted me off the ground and pressed me against the wall. His tongue found mine as the kiss became hard and deep. One broad hand slid up the leg of my shorts and cupped my bottom, fingers splaying towards my centre. No one had ever touched me so intimately before. I gasped against his mouth, curling my leg around his waist. His other hand found the skin of my back and snaked around me, his fingers curling over my ribs from behind and grazing the bottom of my breast. An animalistic sound came from deep in his throat, vibrating between us. For a half second I thought someone else was in the room, the sound was so unlike him.
His mouth moved from mine, across my jaw to the skin under my ear where he inhaled. "What have you done to me?" he groaned. "Your smell, your taste. You've bewitched me."
"I've bewitched you," I repeated in a daze, my eyes closed. Somewhere down deep something sparked. My eyes snapped open. "Bewitched," I said again. I gritted my teeth and pushed at him, siren and human having a serious cage-match inside me. I squirmed and he put me down. I ducked out of the circle of his arms, moving away from his scent. "Yes, I've bewitched you Antoni." I heard a violin and swallowed hard, trying to shove it back down my throat.
"What?" he said, turning towards me, hands reaching. His eyes were barely hazel anymore, they were a rich limpid brown, his pupils fully dilated even with the morning light streaming in the windows. He looked drugged.
"This isn't real," I said fiercely, satisfied to hear that the music was gone.
"What are you talking about?" He looked confused. Didn't this guy ever get mad? I felt like the key was to get him angry.
"I tricked you," I said. Hating myself, I continued, "I was seducing you. I just..." my mind skittered, searching for an excuse. "I just wanted to see if I could get you to snap out of your professional facade for once.” I moved back as he stepped towards me. "It was a dare from my friends. I guess I can tell them that I won."
"You're lying," he said. "You're lying to protect me." He stepped forward. "You don't need to do that. What I said before, about my job. I can handle it. We'll be smart."
That didn't sound like the real Antoni. He was bargaining, and he was advancing when I'd clearly told him to retreat.
"I'm not lying." I stepped back again but my voice was steady.
"Whatever I feel, I know you feel it too. It's real. We have magic, Targa." But he didn't take another s
tep.
I had to go in for the kill now or I was going to lose my resolve. I wanted him, but I didn't want him like this – with siren tricks. "No, we're not magic, Antoni. I don't feel anything for you. I seduced you on a dare because I'm a stupid teenager and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I did that. It's my turn to apologize to you now. I was foolish."
The dark desire drained from his iris'. He searched my face, hazel eyes imploring. He didn't look angry. He just looked sad. But I still couldn't tell if he believed me or not.
"Have it your way, Targa," he said softly, and then turned and pushed out through the swinging door, leaving me alone.
I let my breath out in a frustrated groan and kicked an office chair. It rolled across the carpet on squeaky wheels and then tipped over. This sucked. I could have any guy I wanted, but how would I ever know if he genuinely wanted me too?
Chapter 24
After the day in the office with Antoni I got into a steady routine which centred around avoidance. During the day while my mother was diving with the team, I would leave the manor early and go down to the ocean. I would stash my clothes among the rocks at the secluded beach and then shed my human life just like I shed my legs and spend the morning exploring the Baltic. I knew where The Sybellen was and was always sure to stay far away from her and the dive team, my mother's cautions still ringing in my ear.
Mom and I discussed the figurehead at length, wondering whether Sybellen might still be alive, and where she might have gone after she had disappeared. For the first several days after we discovered the figurehead, I thought about the sculpture a lot, but as the summer days fell into routine, I began to forget.
There was a marvellous world under the water waiting to be discovered, at the speeds and depths that I could swim and the visibility that I had, nothing was hidden to me. I always stayed far from the shipping lanes, which were easy to detect by the scent of diesel in the water, and I never stayed where there was a vessel in sight.
I played with schools of dolphins and orcas. I made friends with a humpback cow and calf who frolicked with me like they were puppies. I joined a school of hundreds of thousands of flying fish and spent an entire morning leaping out of the water with them, seeing how high I could fly.
Whenever I found a sea creature in distress I would help them as best I could. I was shocked at how much garbage there was in the water. How could people use this beautiful place as their own personal dump? I borrowed a huge fishing net from the Novak boathouse and spent days doing nothing but dragging for garbage.
One day, while I was examining a strange graveyard of whale skeletons laying scattered across the ocean floor, the light suddenly dimmed. I thought maybe I'd lost track of time, as that could easily happen while underwater, so I surfaced to see if it was evening. As I ascended, I noticed that the light was greener than usual. Nearing the surface, I realized I was coming up under a thick layer of slimy green mush that was floating on the water.
My gills struggled and pulled, not able to find oxygen in the water. I felt as though I might suffocate. I descended again to where the water was clear and then swam along the ocean floor until the green light turned yellow, and then surfaced.
As far as my eye could see there was nothing but floating green mush. This must be the algae bloom that Antoni had been talking about. I was distressed to see how large the bloom was, and steered clear of the area from then on.
Even though some of what I discovered about the ocean was concerning, I felt carefree whenever I was in the water. It became a meditation for me. My worries melted away; thoughts of Antoni dissolved like powder. I was never once concerned for my safety. I had a communion with the creatures of the sea, even the predatory ones. I felt protective of them, like it was my job to be a guardian.
"Mom," I asked one evening as we were enjoying a cup of tea before bed. "What's salt-flush? You know, what you told Martinius about? You made it sound like something more than just the normal siren-cycle of salt and fresh water flushes."
"It is, it's very different. Salt-flush is not a state that any mermaid would ever pursue on purpose. I can only tell you the theory of it," she explained. "Sometimes, if a mermaid becomes over-saturated with salt, her system goes through another change. Usually, it'll happen to a siren who has experienced the urge to come to land and find a mate, but she's so far out in the ocean when the urge hits that she doesn't make it to fresh water in time. The salt takes her over and she becomes very much like any other creature in the ocean. She operates purely on instinct, and loses all of her human-like intelligence. If she's gone that far..." She shook her head. "There is usually no coming back."
I had some small idea of what salt-flush might feel like. What little salt there was in the Baltic seemed to wash away the concerns of my human life, but all the problems and stresses came rushing back to me as soon as I stepped on land. My siren consciousness would fade away and the human one would take centre stage. Sometimes, it would hit me with such force that it took my breath away.
In the mornings, I never went too far out because I wanted the staff to see my face over lunch so that people knew I was around. But I dodged Antoni with the craftiness of an undercover agent. I knew he was wondering where I was because everyday someone on staff would tell me he was looking for me. I'd say thank you and then ignore the message. I knew I couldn't avoid him forever, especially when it was his job to make sure I was looked after, but I would push it for as long as I could.
In the afternoons, I would explore further out. I found dozens of shipwrecks. Most of them were vessels that weren't that old, really just junk. I explored them anyway. I came to know the designs of different kinds of boats. Fishing vessels, schooners, and ferries, viking ships, even aircraft. I was amazed at how many wrecks there were on the ocean floor. I even saw a wreck that had settled on top of an older wreck.
I found myself researching at night, looking for the stories behind these disasters. Estimates put the number as high as three million wrecks on the ocean floor, and there were all kinds of reasons - fires, collisions, negligent seamanship, engine failure, storms, ice, insurance fraud, instrument failure, hydrogen sulphide bubbles, underwater volcanoes, running aground, naval battles. The list went on and on.
I was constantly fascinated when I was in the ocean and I desperately wished that I could share the time with my mother. I lay in bed with my phone in my hand, fingers hovering over the digital keyboard. I wanted tell my friends what had happened, what I was going through. Underneath the excitement around my big change was a loneliness and melancholy that I couldn't share it with anyone.
Texts from my friends were less frequent than I thought they'd be, but that suited me fine. I was totally out of reach most of the time anyway. I heard from Saxony that she loved Italy and that she'd bonded rather nicely with the younger boy, Isaia. She'd also met a couple of cute Italian men who were pretty much complete opposites of one another, and she wasn't sure which one she liked better.
Georjayna said that Ireland was turning out to be not what she expected, but that Jasher had finally shown his human side, so that was good. Akiko was noticeably absent from our group texts but she had warned us that might happen.
My phone chimed late one night, waking me just after I fell asleep. I rolled over and peered at the screen.
Saxony: Have you guys heard from Akiko lately?
Georjayna: Nope, not since she first arrived in Kyoto. You?
Me: No, me either. Should we be worried?
Saxony: Well, she did say that she was going to be remote so maybe she has no connection.
Me: I'm sure that's it. It's not like her not to touch base.
Saxony: Yes it is. It's totally like her.
Georjayna: Well, there you go. She'll write when she wants to. Akiko, when you see this - we hope you're having fun, let us know that you're alive sometime, k?
I shut down my phone, rolled over and went back to sleep almost instantly. If there was one friend that I never worried about it was Aki
ko. She was teeny and quiet but she was the smartest, most resourceful person I knew. I trusted that she'd write when she could.
Some evenings, if I wasn't tired and staying in our suite and doing research on what I'd discovered earlier that day, I would go out to sea again with Mom.
She showed me how she would set The Sybellen up so that the team would have a successful dive the next day. We did just enough to prep the site that the team wouldn't notice that anything had been disturbed, but enough to make artifacts visible to a human eye and place them out of danger. By the time we were through, artifacts were placed like cherries ripe for the picking.
We would move a piece of timber that looked like it was in a precarious position and might shift in a bad way. We untangled crates and barrels that were wrapped up in rope that might take a human diver hours to figure out. We gently uncovered artifacts on the ocean floor, blowing the sand back to reveal just enough that the men could easily spot them. With those that would be dangerous for a human diver to unearth, we would excavate and move them to a place that gave a diver easy access. Mom showed me how to use my tail and webbed hands to mimic the ocean currents and partially settle the sand over the item in a natural way. We were always careful to leave algae or barnacles on everything.
We'd be back at the manor in the wee hours of the morning and tucked into our beds like good little humans. Every two or three days, Mom would go out to the site without me because I'd finally crash with exhaustion from all the exercise. I would sleep from eight or nine in the evening until noon or one the next day. My sleep was dreamless and deep. I would bounce out of bed ready for more adventure.
I ate enough to fuel three men. I easily drank a dozen litres of water a day. I hid a lot of what I consumed, eating in private and at off-hours whenever I could, but the staff were still astonished at my appetite.
My body grew sleek, powerful and flexible. I learned how to use my assets. Through my gills, I could detect oxygen rich water, saltier water, and contaminated water. My tail wasn't just a powerful propulsion system, it could also detect currents and fine temperature changes as well as mineral content which would alert me to something metallic or artificial in the water, or a natural mineral deposit in the seabed. I sensed deposits in the ocean floor that mining, gas, and oil companies would have killed to discover.
