Authors: Sarah Porter
The cliffs had two different voices: one for day and one for the blue, sun- streaked Alaskan night. Even when she was awake her mind was stained by the residue of dreamed music, until she sometimes wondered if she was hallucinating, and she sang to herself in the voices she heard pouring from the tides, the sun, the jagged cliffs . . .
The only song she never seemed to hear anymore was the mermaids’. She didn’t run into them again, and no one came to see her. Maybe everything was okay after all, and she’d been worrying for nothing. Only once or twice Luce woke from a song like a trance with the aching sense that someone had been listening to her, just outside her cave.
Everything was music, even her. She didn’t feel quite as lonely now that the whole world kept singing back to her, though she still missed Tessa, and Catarina, and Miriam. It was i 273
all her own fault, Luce realized, that she and Miriam hadn’t become very good friends. Miriam had tried to get close to her, but Luce was so accustomed to isolation that she hadn’t really responded. Miriam couldn’t hear her, but Luce still sang to tell Miriam how sorry she was . . .
Her dream of changing the tribe was ridiculous, though. Luce knew that now. If she was ever going to realize her vision of belonging to a tribe that didn’t kill, she’d have to start over fresh; she’d have to travel down the coast, maybe find brand new metaskazas who weren’t already addicted to their songs of murder.
And, Luce realized, she’d have to be the queen. It was the only way. And since she couldn’t imagine wielding so much power she stayed where she was, listening to the enchantment of pure being. Sometimes she floated down the coast, letting the currents control her body. It was a bit reckless with so many humans around now; Luce often heard their graceless voices carrying over the water, but she didn’t quite care.
She lost track of time. (Sometimes she knew whether it was night or day only by the pitch of the cliffs in her ears, the blue or bright timbre of their song.)
* * *
Luce was stretched out on her back out in the open sea. She knew, of course, that it was reckless to drift that way, so far from the cliffs. If something leaped at her from below she wouldn’t see it coming, and she’d have no chance to escape. She didn’t care anymore. She floated, listening to the waves that gently lapped against her ears. Their song was a slow, percussive chant, a kind of moan.
Beautiful,
Luce thought. As she floated onward the mu-274 i LOST VOICES
sic split into two sounds, gaining a very faint harmonic overlay, and Luce smiled appreciatively. It was like living warmth inside the wind, and it seemed to come from far, far away: the hum of distance itself. It brought heat rushing to her cheeks, made her blood run faster, and Luce suddenly thought of the boy with bronze- blond hair, the one she’d saved. She thought of his mouth sneaking up inside the waves next to her and then cresting onto her lips in a slow, smooth kiss . . .
Luce started from her daydream and rolled over, scanning the sea in all directions. The sound shattered and echoed off the water and off the cliffs, so that she couldn’t be sure which direction it came from. Somewhere ahead, probably, and a bit to her right.
It wasn’t some half- hallucinated song of the distance she was hearing at all. It was Catarina, singing in the soft, insinuat-ing lull she used when she was just starting to lead a boat to its doom. And out on the horizon Luce caught sight of it, no more than a gray speck. She could tell that it was turning by the way the bright sunlight on its flank was gradually rotating into shadow. Luce could swim at terrific speed, of course, but she was many miles away.
The note rose, and the gray speck began to move faster. Luce knew what was coming, and a lump of shame almost choked her.
She’d been wasting her time on selfish dreams, and all the while Catarina was in danger.
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18
Violation
The mermaids’ voices were clearer underwater. Luce swum toward them so quickly that it felt as if she were plunging down a waterfall, thrusting the waves behind her. Her vision brimmed with bubbles, the undulating movements of jellyfish, then a gray seal’s mouth clamping down on one thrashing, reddish fish. Pictures gathered in her eyes and scattered again, everything confused by speed. Luce could distinguish several of the mermaids now: Dana’s loving, velvety caress of a voice, Rachel’s excitable dread, the brutal joy of Anais’s soprano.
She slashed her way forward. If trouble was coming, it would be when the voices stopped.
When she popped up to catch her breath the boat was much larger, and even though the distance made it appear to be traveling much more slowly than it actually was, Luce could 276 i
make out the noise of throbbing engines pushed to their limit.
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the ship had a military look to it. Incredibly, the mermaids were leading it back to the same island, even though a helicopter had buzzed overhead perhaps twenty minutes earlier. Luce shook her head; it was will-ful craziness, a drive toward their own destruction as well as the destruction of the humans. Luce dove again.
Even deep underwater she could hear the crash, broken into wavering echoes by the movement of the waves around her. The pulsation of mermaid songs reeled louder. Luce didn’t want to picture it, but the image was unavoidable: young men and women in uniform, lunatic smiles on their faces, welcoming their own descent into the waves while the mermaids called them on.
They’d be getting to the point soon where individual mermaids would break away from the group to target the few humans who had the strength of mind to try to pull free from the enchantment, and swim for it . . . The point where a mermaid might think she could slip deeper than the rest, unnoticed.
Luce threw herself into a violent forward trajectory. Her tail spun so quickly that the muscles cramped. She swam deeper, too, angling for the same spot where she’d seen Catarina take her prey before.
Hair as bright as an ember, gradually descending: Luce could see it, far away in the green deep. She was swimming so quickly that her vision smeared, but she was almost positive the sinking form she could make out ahead was too big to be Catarina alone. And, Luce realized, the ocean had slipped into silence; she couldn’t hear the mermaids singing, not anymore. She hurled on, though her tail was burning from the effort.
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A towering crag rose from the sea- bottom, not so far below Catarina now. And waiting just behind it where Luce could see it but Catarina couldn’t a mass of something too soft and too colorful to be stone, a mass that hovered in place but with a slight disturbance of flicking tails at the bottom. Luce drove herself faster, but she could already see that there was no way she could make it there in time.
The tribe was waiting in ambush, and Catarina would float past them before Luce could get there. Luce was so sick with expectation that when it happened it seemed almost like it might be a movie of the thing she’d dreaded unspooling in front of her. It almost felt like it might not be entirely real, like by the time she arrived there’d be nothing there but some drifting seaweed. Luce was close enough now to see Catarina writhing urgently in the arms of a young dark- skinned man, close enough to hear the low, satiny whorls of her song as she kissed his hungry mouth. The couple sank, lost in the feeling of each other’s bodies, until they were no more than ten feet away from the lurking tribe.
There was a momentary lull, and then a shout of vicious triumph from Anais. Luce was almost there now. She could see the young man abruptly ripped from Catarina’s arms, and the huge silver bubble that stretched for an instant between their lips.
Anais threw the boy aside, ignoring his sudden frantic flailing as the enchantment abandoned his mind. He sank deeper all alone.
A crowd of mermaids closed in on Catarina, all of them drunk and enraged, with a chorus of delirious shrieks.
Luce was only moments away now. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She’d expected Catarina to be formally ex-278 i LOST VOICES
pelled, and she was prepared to go with her, but
this!
Fists swung dizzily into Catarina’s sides, hands raked at her face. Already Luce could see a subtle taint of blood leaking through the water.
Even Jenna was pounding Catarina as she cowered, trying to protect her head; even
Rachel
. . . Water foamed around their whipping tails. Only Dana and Violet hung back, looks of appalled bewilderment on their faces, but even they didn’t do anything to stop it. The tribe was going to murder Catarina right in front of them and they only gawked helplessly. Anais’s hard voice was shrilling with excitement, egging the mermaids on.
Luce was swimming faster than she’d ever gone before, and she drove headfirst right into the middle of the mob, her own body pummeled by a confusion of fists and swinging tails. She was slightly higher than the others, dashing in at a downward angle, and she beat her own tail into their faces, shoving mermaids apart with the full force of her long body. She had to clear a space, just enough that she could get in front of Catarina, block the others . . . If she could even separate her from her at-tackers for a moment . . .
Mermaids began to fall back. Some were still shaking with bloodlust, but others widened their eyes with looks of stunned recognition, as if they were shocked to realize what they’d been doing. Luce managed to drag Catarina’s limp body a few feet back and slip down in front of her. Catarina was conscious enough to cling to Luce’s shoulders; her face sagged against Luce’s neck. There was a dreamlike pause, a hesitation, as Luce looked around at the faces of her former tribe.
“You’re all breaking the timahk . . .” They were deep enough that everyone was low on air, squeezed uncomfortably i 279
by the unaccustomed pressure of many thousands of tons of water above them. Speaking was difficult, and it would only hurry the moment when even a mermaid would drown. There was a brief silence, then Anais replied haughtily.
“I’m queen now, Lucette. And I say the timahk doesn’t count in a situation like this . . . where a mermaid was actually
kissing
. . . If you don’t get out of our way, we’ll just have to kill you, too.” As Anais spoke Luce was gathering power in her chest, pulling in the secret music that the ocean understood, and that it would answer. Anais nodded to Jenna and Samantha, and they reached to grab Luce.
Luce’s song leaped up in one long, expansive, ear- splitting cry. It joined with the water and made it into a wall, strong as stone, slamming forward. A tangle of tails and struggling arms were flung suddenly away from her, driven back at least ten yards, and Luce could hear their yells of outrage, see the swirl of colors as they pulled themselves apart, maybe getting ready to lunge at her again. Luce knew she didn’t have enough air to sing that overwhelming note a second time, not if she was going to have any hope of making it back to the surface. She pushed up, as fast as her own sore muscles and Catarina’s weight would let her.
Their pursuers would be exhausted after all their violence and just as desperate for air as Luce was. And their shock at being hit by an underwater wave in that unexpected way might cause some of them to think twice about taking Luce on; it should buy Luce and Catarina some time. They broke the surface together, and Luce could hear the rush of air drawn deeply into Catarina’s lungs in unison with her own ravenous inhalation. Luce maneuvered Catarina around to her right side so that 280 i LOST VOICES
she could tow her by her waist, just the way Catarina had done for her twice before.
There was blood on Catarina’s forehead, on her chest, and she swayed in Luce’s arm. Bruises mottled her pale skin, and Luce suddenly noticed the way her left wrist flopped. Cat was clearly in no shape to dive again; that was unlucky, since swimming on the surface would slow them down. They’d have to swim a long way, too, to reach some fairly remote cave where Anais wouldn’t think to look for them. Luce’s own cave was out of the question. There was nothing to do but head south and hope for the best. Luce began to make her way across the water, pulling Catarina with her. The fiery head wavered and tipped onto Luce’s shoulder. For several minutes they swam in silence, slight tremors flowing now and then through Catarina’s back.
“ Luce?” The voice was very quiet.
“It’s going to be okay, Cat.” Luce glanced back. “I don’t think they’re chasing us. Not yet. I’ll take you someplace where you can rest.”
“You don’t have to do this, Luce. You shouldn’t. You should let them kill me.” Somehow these words hurt Luce more than anything Catarina had ever said to her. She glanced over, but Catarina’s eyes were closed tight, her lips swollen and plum-colored.
“ Catarina?” The gray eyes opened very slightly, like a tiny leak of moonlight in the golden afternoon. “This is
exactly
what I have to do.” And as she said it, even in her exhaustion, Luce felt a rush of sad, sweet pride.
* * *
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Her strength was starting to fail her. It took at least two hours of painful, laborious swimming before Luce decided that they were far enough from the main cave to be safe. She’d towed Catarina farther than she’d ever gone before, out past the fishing village and down to another stretch of wild coast, where she finally found a small round cave with a perfect underwater entrance. It was situated in a crevice between two high cliffs, and it felt wonderfully peaceful after the horror of the morning.
Luce collapsed on the shore, and when she looked over she saw that Catarina was already asleep. Maybe she’d been sleeping for a while, and Luce just hadn’t realized it. As gently as she could, Luce washed the clotted blood from Catarina’s dreaming face.
They needed food, Luce thought; in just a few minutes she’d go out and search for some. She needed to find some driftwood, too, and maybe washed- up rags or fishing net: something she could use to set that broken bone in Cat’s left wrist. Any moment now, she’d gather her willpower and go . . .
* * *
The cave didn’t have any fissures. It was only by the pale blue glow hazing in through the entrance that Luce guessed it must be midnight. They’d slept for hours, then. She sat up, lightheaded and unsteady. Catarina seemed to be sleeping still, but she was clinging to Luce’s hand with her own. Impulsively Luce leaned in and kissed her softly just above a green swell on her forehead.