Lost Voices (20 page)

“Oh,” Catarina said, smiling over at Luce. “Oh, I still forget sometimes . . . Luce, when a human girl is almost ready to change, she starts to have that . . .” Catarina shook herself and waved her hand at something just over their heads. “That
indication,
just the way we do. You can see it. Humans can’t but we can.” Luce realized she was talking about the dark shimmering that clung around the mermaids, but it made her feel only more confused. She definitely hadn’t seen anything like that around Tessa! Or had she?

“Well, I mean, I saw that girl, too,” Luce said as casually as she could. It felt dangerous to admit so much, but she plunged 166 i LOST VOICES

ahead. “I noticed her on my way over here, and
I
didn’t see any of that kind of sparkling around her.”

“She
totally
had it!” Samantha yelled. “I saw it! Cat, don’t listen to her! Luce just has some kind of messed- up problem with being a mermaid. I sometimes think she
likes
humans . . .” Samantha turned quiet right away when she saw the scowl on Catarina’s face, the angry swishing of her tail.

“Have you ever heard Luce
sing,
Samantha?” Catarina asked; her tone was heavy, almost menacing. “Oh, that’s right, you have. You heard her sing so well that twenty men hurled themselves straight down into the ocean.” Luce listened to this with a tumult of emotions; it hurt to be reminded of what she’d done to those men, but at the same she was grateful to hear Catarina defending her. “Maybe you should think of that before you make these . . . these senseless accusations.”

“But maybe Luce just didn’t notice it?” Violet put in shyly.

“Because I think I saw some kind of indication? that, like, weird kind of sparkling in the air around her, too. Not that I mean, I’m sure Luce is telling the truth.” Violet had been nervous around Luce ever since the time when Luce had crawled on shore to save her life.

“Well . . .” Catarina said. “The girl could be wavering.

Sometimes the indication it goes in and out, like a light blink-ing. But if there’s a metaskaza on the boat we can’t just leave her there! Trapped with those . . .” Catarina shook her head like she could barely stand to say the word. Luce’s heart was pounding now; she hoped no one could hear it. “We simply have to help her change. Save her from those
humans
.”

“But if . . .” Luce tried to think it through, fast. “But if that girl is wavering like you say . . .” Catarina and the others were i 167

staring at her too hard, and she struggled to clear her thoughts.

Tessa’s life was at stake. “Does that mean if we get her . . . at the wrong moment, when the indication isn’t there . . . she’ll just drown?” A distinct look of relief flashed on Catarina’s lovely face.

“Oh, Luce! Now I understand why you’re looking so worried!” She smiled brilliantly and stretched out on the waves again. “No, if that girl is on the edge of changing into one of us I can help her. It’s difficult. Very difficult. But I’ve done it before.

And when you think that our only alternative is to leave that poor metaskaza with humans who are doing who knows what disgusting things to her, Luce, you can see we have to try.” Luce understood Catarina’s point of view. But she still had trouble believing that Tessa was unhappy enough to become a mermaid, and even if she did she’d be heartbroken at her mother’s death.

And then Luce stopped thinking about that, overcome by fascination with what Catarina had just said:
help
someone change?

“How do you do it?” Luce asked. She still didn’t want all the people on that yacht to die, but she couldn’t help feeling tempted, just a bit, by the prospect of Tessa joining the tribe.

“I told you, Luce. It isn’t easy. You need to leave this to me.” Luce felt more impatient than she ever had with Catarina’s habit of avoiding questions.

“Of course I’ll leave it to you! I just want to know how.

What do you have to do?” Catarina gave her a strange, almost angry look.

“What do you imagine, Luce? That someday I won’t be around anymore” Luce’s stomach tightened as she thought of what those words might imply “and you’ll have to do it without me?” Catarina’s tail was thrashing up foam now, and Samantha 168 i LOST VOICES

grinned maliciously. Luce ignored her, and spoke as calmly as she could.

“No, Cat. But think about it. What if someday there was a ship with
two
metaskazas? It’s possible, right? Wouldn’t it be good if I was able to help?” Catarina considered this, and her tail’s swirling slowed.

“Two? I suppose it could happen. I hadn’t thought of that.” She gave Luce another strained, sad stare. “You’re certainly the only other singer here who might be able to pull it off. Dana’s not bad at all, and Miriam, even if she doesn’t have much confidence . . . But I wouldn’t want to see them try
that
. They’d hurt themselves for nothing, and the girl would just drown.”
Of course,
Luce thought. Catarina was so touchy about it that she should have guessed. The method for changing human girls into mermaids involved singing.

“Oh, it’s just a singing thing!” Samantha squealed. “Wow, I thought you meant something a lot harder than that!” Luce bit her lip at the irony of Samantha, of all people, calling singing
easy,
and Catarina glowered.

“Do you remember how you felt when you changed, Samantha ?” Catarina hissed, and Luce watched Samantha’s giddy face collapse into dismay. “Go on. Try to really remember. Feel it again, just the way you did when you were lying beside that road with all your bones broken, watching your mother drive away and leave you to die. Like you were no better than garbage.” Luce was shocked at how cruel Catarina was being. Samantha’s behavior was obnoxious, but did she really deserve this? “Now tell me how
easy
it would be to go back into that feeling, as deeply as you could, and sing it! Knowing that if you couldn’t i 169

bear the pain and stopped, even for an instant, the metaskaza would drown . . .”

Samantha looked as stunned as Luce felt. Her green eyes were goggling and her mouth hung open. Luce shivered as she thought about attempting the kind of singing Catarina had just described: reliving that horrible night on the cliff and somehow making her song contain all that suffering. She was relieved now that Catarina didn’t want her to try it.

“Oh, Catarina,” Luce whispered. “You’ve done that before?

It must be” words failed her, and she gazed into Catarina’s moon gray eyes. Catarina stared back at her, and Luce saw a dark, violent grief in Catarina’s face. Luce imagined that she must have looked that way at the moment when she’d first felt her body melting into brilliant liquid, threatening to flow away.

“That’s an incredibly courageous thing to do, Cat,” Luce said softly. “I don’t know if I could be brave enough.” Catarina visibly shook herself, and then Luce seemed to wake from a trance: she could see the warm golden sunlight streaming down all around them again, flecks of sun flashing on the waves.

“It’s the only way,” Catarina said. Her voice was calm and hard now. “You have to
sing
the metaskaza into that feeling and hold her there until she changes. And the only way to do that is to feel it yourself. It’s terrible, yes, but it’s only temporary, and then when you think that if you don’t do it you could be leaving the poor metaskaza with men like your uncle, Luce, or even worse . . .” Catarina was starting to get that faraway look again, the way she did when she was remembering her past. “When you think of it that way you really have no choice.” They were quiet for a minute. Catarina was gazing off across the sea and Samantha looked like she was about to be sick. Luce 170 i LOST VOICES

watched both of them, and couldn’t stop herself from remembering that night on the cliffs. Even in the brilliant sunlight she could still feel the sharp grass cutting her face, the icy wind rushing over her back. Then Catarina slid a hand through her gleaming hair and smiled at them, though her cheerfulness looked a bit forced.

“We can’t go after the yacht while it’s anchored, though.

Samantha, do you want to keep a lookout? Come back and tell me as soon as the yacht starts to move, and we’ll take it down. We’ll get that metaskaza out of there.”

Luce wondered if Catarina could be right. Was it possible that Tessa needed them to rescue her? If somebody was doing horrible things to Tessa, Luce was sure it couldn’t be her mother.

The love between them had been so apparent, so immediate and vital.

But even if Tessa was fine where she was, Luce had already done everything she could to warn her. There was nothing to do now except wait.

The air was warm and sweet, the sea glowed green with sunshine. Even the last lingering blobs of sea ice were completely melted. But Luce couldn’t keep from shivering.

* * *

Samantha was back an hour later.

“Cat, they’re just starting to move now! Really slow! Oh, and I saw the girl again” and here she shot Luce a nasty look

“and she was definitely sparkling like crazy. Maybe Luce is still so new she’s just
clueless
about this stuff.” Luce knew she couldn’t bear to sing that yacht into the rocks, but she couldn’t say that. On the other hand, she had much stron-i 171

ger control of her voice now, and she knew she could listen to the other mermaids without just breaking into song herself.

“Hey, Cat?” Luce said. “I’ve been thinking. Since it’s such a small boat? Maybe the two of us should kind of hang back and just watch, so Rachel and Dana can get some practice. And then you can concentrate on the metaskaza.”

Luce suddenly had a new worry. If Tessa changed would she tell everyone that she’d already met Luce?

Catarina gazed tensely at Luce; maybe Luce had said the wrong thing?

“That might be a good idea,” Catarina said at last. “If we’re there, we can jump in if Rachel and Dana get into trouble. Doing a boat that small is pretty boring, anyway. Okay.” By now a circle of excited mermaids pressed in around them, waiting for orders. “We’re going to let the new girls practice this time.

Dana, do you want to take the lead?” Dana looked anxious at the idea but also thrilled.

“Sure, Cat. As long as you and Luce are there if I need help?” Luce wasn’t happy with what they were doing, but she couldn’t help admiring Dana’s nerve; it was brave to try leading her first time out. Soon Catarina and Dana had moved off to the side, discussing the route Dana should take. Catarina thought it was still too soon to go back to the rock where the Coast Guard boat went down, and they were debating alternatives. They eventually decided on some particularly high, steep cliffs several miles back in the direction of Pittley. It would mean a fairly long chase and a lot of singing, but Catarina insisted they had to use a new location as a precaution against the humans noticing a pattern.

172 i LOST VOICES

They spread out, racing along underwater in a V like flying geese, and in just a few minutes the yacht was surrounded. Dana darted out of sight and pulled ahead of the rest of them while Rachel took up the position Luce had been in with the last boat, right in the center of the wake.

Luce swam off to the side, sad and worried. She had to stay underwater most of the time to avoid being seen by anyone on the yacht a round, silver- haired man with a squashed red face was wandering around, glaring critically at the deck but as often as she dared she peeked above the water line, scanning for Tessa.

She didn’t see her anywhere. She pushed farther ahead and spotted, sprawled on deck chairs, three practically identical middle-aged women with stiff, frosted blond hair and what looked like expensive sunglasses. One was painting her toenails.

“Of
course
I didn’t want to come someplace so cold and depressing,” the toenail painter whined to the other two; Luce wondered if this was the person she’d heard being addressed as

“kitten.” “But Harris you know he has these delusions that he’s some sort of amateur marine biologist, and he said he wouldn’t replace my Jaguar if I didn’t come along. I don’t think he knows the difference between a seal and a whale!” Then Luce heard the first curling line of song and watched the bottle of polish slip from the woman’s hand and clatter onto the deck.

It was immediately obvious to Luce that Dana was nowhere near as gifted a singer as Catarina but then, who was?

The notes jumped in much too fast, without the coaxing subtlety of Catarina’s song. The people on board weren’t instantly enchanted in the way the Coast Guard sailors had been. They had time to be nonplussed, to gape at one another with disoriented i 173

expressions. Luce was a little surprised that Catarina could restrain herself from just taking over. After a minute, though, Dana seemed to become more confident, and the song smoothed out and warmed the air. One of the women Luce was watching suddenly stood up from her chair, then threw herself down on the deck again and embraced the complaining woman’s knees, showering them with adoring kisses. No one seemed to think this was unusual behavior. Their eyes were wide, glazed, unfocused from so much bliss.

Luce dove down and shot across to the other side of the yacht, in case Tessa and her mother were over there somewhere.

The yacht was speeding up now as the pilot strove to reach the source of that wonderful sound.

A few more people came out on deck, their mouths lax and round with wonder. They all seemed to be grizzled old sailors, probably hired from the local towns; Luce wasn’t surprised that Catarina hadn’t been able to work up much enthusiasm.

The yacht was going so fast now that Luce gave up on swimming with her head above water and just ripped along below the surface. She heard the eerie, volatile thrum of Rachel’s song joining Dana’s velvet tones and then other voices she recognized: Kayley and Violet, followed by Samantha’s tinny soprano. She and Catarina were the only ones keeping quiet, Luce thought. It was overkill, far more enchantment than they needed to drive such a small boat to its doom, but she knew no one cared. They were all caught in the exaltation of their own voices, mad with the joy of power. She felt a rush of compassion for all the girls singing now: after all, they’d spent their human lives being so utterly helpless; how could they fail to be delighted by their ability to dominate 174 i LOST VOICES