Waking Storms (7 page)

Still, Luce couldn’t stop remembering that boat, the sleek black diver, those distorted voices.

She hadn’t mentioned the boat to Dana. And she’d kept quiet about that, Luce realized, because she’d known exactly what Dana would think. Those black-suited divers were no scientists. They’d come hunting for solid evidence of the reality of the mermaids. And if they wanted evidence it must be because they already had an idea.

And if that was true, well, probably someone had tipped them off. Someone had told the authorities a story that seemed too incredible to be real—but if it
did
turn out to be true, it would really explain a lot. Who had a better explanation for why so many ships crashed in this area, even in good weather?

Luce didn’t want to believe that the bronze-haired boy had talked about them. But that was clearly irrational, and she knew it. He had every reason to hate the mermaids desperately. As far as he was concerned, mermaids were vermin that had to be eliminated in order to protect human beings, and human beings were the only creatures who counted. When Luce tried to imagine things from his point of view, she knew that he simply couldn’t feel any different. It didn’t matter that she’d broken the timahk for him and carried him to safety, not when her tribe had murdered his family. It would be insane to hope that he could feel any gratitude for what she’d done. Any
loyalty
...

Then why did she feel so betrayed?

Dana was absolutely right, Luce realized. Luce had endangered the mermaids by saving that boy, and that meant it was her responsibility to undo the damage. She’d been a fool to trust him. A sucker, even, for caring what happened to someone who didn’t hesitate to inform on her. As long as he lived he’d keep talking, insisting to anyone who would listen that there were mermaids living right there at the edge of the Bering Sea, that they had to
do
something...

She’d promised herself that she’d never kill a human again. But she was going to have to make an exception, just this once. The prospect of drowning him appalled her, knotted her insides with sorrow and disgust, but there was no alternative. If she didn’t, Miriam’s nightmares might very well come true.

There was no choice. However, there
was
one enormous problem.

Unlike all the other humans Luce had encountered, the boy had the ability to resist the power of her song.

***

With any other human it would have been ridiculously easy. Luce could have gone to the cliffs and gently uncurled her song of enchantment: the death song, wilder and lovelier than any music on Earth. The melody would insinuate its way into the victim’s mind, promising that all the sorrows and wounds of his whole life would be healed, promising that every bad or cruel thing he’d ever done would be forgiven completely. A human who heard that music would
want
to die. They’d dive into the water under the spell of her fantastical song, even swim straight for the bottom of the sea. And, just as long as Luce kept singing to them, they’d die without any pain or fear. More than that, they’d die with their minds flooded with sweet, silky bliss, with a sense of rapturous homecoming.

But that wouldn’t work on the bronze-haired boy. As much as Luce hated the idea of killing him, what was even worse was that she’d have no way to protect him from torment while he died.

Dusk fell over the sea like a judgment. Luce knew she couldn’t turn back, but it occurred to her that it might be best if she died along with him. Much as she wanted to hate him, Luce couldn’t help feeling a soft but definite bond with the boy she was about to murder. It would be by far the ugliest thing she’d ever done. She would live through it physically, but she knew beyond all doubt that her spirit could never survive an act like that.

She swam slowly along the surface, looking at a world turned a thousand shades of blue by the twilight. Then she noticed how the northern horizon was melting, its contours softening into a purple vapor, and forced herself to swim a bit faster. The fog was rolling in. The boy had to be able to see her for her plan to work. She curved away from the harbor in front of the village, then passed the pebble beach. The memory was so potent that it came over her like a vision: she watched her former self lashing frantically through the surf with the bronze-haired boy caught in one arm. She could see her dark jagged hair emerging from waves where they collided with the beach, her pale back straining as she pushed the boy as far onto land as she could. She watched his weakened crawl up the shore, and saw how he turned to stare back at her as she rose and fell in the heart of a wave...

The cliffs were next. Luce closed her eyes, trying to shut out the impending horror, but she still kept swimming.

His voice came into the darkness of her closed eyes. The same mangled version of her song, but this time the voice was sad and the melody moved like something half asleep. Luce swam directly below him and stopped, stirring her fins to hold herself in place a short distance from the shore. She could hear the song break off with a sharp cry.

“You did show up! Did you find my drawing?”

Luce made herself look up and meet his gaze. He was leaning eagerly from his perch on the cliff, his hair gusting across his cheeks. She saw the same wide-set ochre eyes and strong cheekbones, the same big, slightly crooked nose, all blue-dusted with evening glow. But there was something that Luce wasn’t prepared for at all. She’d pictured him glaring down at her, his eyes slick with venomous hatred.

Instead he was smiling. Warm and relieved. He actually seemed happy to see her.

Luce didn’t say anything; she only gazed at him. If she got into a conversation with him, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

“Okay. I know you must think I was trying to mess with you. I
really
wasn’t. I’m even glad you didn’t get in trouble. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I kind of felt bad about doing that.” How could he behave so familiarly? From his casual, open tone, anyone would have thought he talked to her all the time. Tears blurred Luce’s eyes, and she tried to fight them down. She shifted her position in the water. Just a few feet to start, being careful to keep herself where he could look into her face. She had to draw him back in the direction of the village.

He came along a few steps. Confusion creased his forehead.

“Why won’t you say anything? I know you speak English, remember? You talked to me that time. You told me to take a deep breath.” Luce began swimming very slowly as the trees came between them. He kept weaving away from the path and leaning out between the trunks to look at her. “Is somebody watching you? Like, one of your friends? Is that why you won’t talk?” He was suddenly speaking far more quietly, and he stopped pushing his way out of the cover of the trees. “I thought I’d figured out that you aren’t supposed to talk to me. I got that right, didn’t I? Okay. At our beach there’s this giant boulder at—for you it would be the left side. If we stay behind it they won’t be able to see us.”

Luce couldn’t see him anymore, but she heard his steps as he took off running.

It was a start, but she had to lure him past that beach. If she could draw him close enough to the village, he’d probably get the idea of filching a boat and rowing out to her. As long as he stayed on land there wasn’t much she could do, but in the water she was far stronger than any human.

Our
beach, he’d said.

When she’d seen him before, he’d called her evil and sick. A monster. And much as it had hurt her to hear him say that, Luce found herself wishing urgently that he would lash her with insults again.

It would be so much better than the way he was acting now. Almost as if they were friends.

***

She was there way ahead of him, waiting. She didn’t slip behind the boulder he’d mentioned, though. Instead she floated in place offshore where he would see her as soon as he came out from the woods but far enough out that he wouldn’t be able to speak to her without shouting. The fog was pressing in on the coast and a midnight-colored haze swallowed the cliffs where he’d stood minutes before. She could barely hear the crunch and scuffle of his steps as he leaped out from the shadow of the trees, almost falling as the stones skidded away beneath him, and gazed wildly around the beach.

Luce forced herself to wave, once and then again. The second time he saw her. She could see the sweep of his arm as he beckoned to her, but she stayed where she was, riding the swell of the sea.

He looked in the direction of the village, toward her again, then toward the encroaching fog. She could almost see the thoughts forming in his head: he could steal a boat, but would he be able to find her in the mist? Luce gathered her voice and let out a long, sweet note, music that sounded like shimmering light, like a gliding wing. It wasn’t the beginning of the death song, but a musical beacon, just loud enough for him to hear. Would he understand?

Luce was just able to see him stare at her and nod before a swirl of dim blue cloud erased him from her view. She could hear his footsteps grating hard against the stones as he took off running again, and Luce drifted along parallel to the shore. She’d go as close to his village as she dared; she couldn’t make it too hard for him to find her. The long note trembled and coiled in her throat, becoming a hovering lullaby. Luce closed her eyes as she pitched alone in the fog and sang to comfort herself. Anything to soothe the dreadful chill in her heart, to hold off the sense of creeping evil. Her heart raced as she tried to lull it with unearthly music, but even the beauty of her own song wasn’t enough to protect her from the brutality of what she was planning.

Theres no other way,
Luce told herself, letting the thought sway with her song.
Theres no choice, but tomorrow
... She finished with an image: floating on her back through Bristol Bay, eyes closed, until the water surged below her and sharp teeth snapped shut around her sides. She stayed suspended in her song and that awful vision for what seemed like a very long time, before she caught the steady beat of oars coming closer. The waves out here were too rough for a small rowboat, and its hull slapped down hard with each passing swell. When she opened her eyes again and looked around, the fog was so thick that the world seemed engulfed in deep blue velvet, and she could barely make out the slightly sharper form of the rowboat first approaching and then gliding past her, the boy’s body tipping forward as he spotted her. His oars thumped as he pulled them in, and Luce swam close enough that they could see each other clearly. The lift and fall of her face wasn’t quite matched to his, so that they stared at each other in a kind of vertiginous dance. Of course, she remembered, his night vision wouldn’t be nearly as good as hers, but the subtle light of her skin would help. She noticed a strange look on his face, awkward and bitter and, she suddenly thought, resigned.

Did he guess what she was planning? Suddenly her heart doubled its speed, and dizziness rushed through her.

“Hi,” he said flatly. “Going to talk to me now? Or you can’t be bothered with that?”

It would be so much better for both of them, Luce thought, if he would only succumb to the death song. Tentatively, she tried it out, letting her voice slide up into the soaring note where it began. It was disturbing to hear that fierce, haunting song sound so choked and shy.

The boy clenched the edge of the boat and gave a single gasping laugh. Then he poured out the melody in return. Now that he was so close, Luce could actually feel how he seized her song with his voice, bent it, and twisted it back at her. It felt like a physical movement, as if her voice were caught in a hard grip and wrenched. Trying to enchant him was pointless. He could deflect her as long as he had to.

Luce let the music drop abruptly, and they stared at each other again. She could see the golden brown tint of his eyes even in the blue darkness, see the harsh skepticism on his face. A cloud of dark sparkling flickered around his head. With a human girl that shimmer would have been a sign that she was on the verge of turning into a mermaid herself. But as a boy he couldn’t possibly change, even though he was marked the same way Luce was.

The wind sighed around them. He laughed again, with the same hurt, sarcastic suddenness.

“You think I’m surprised? I know what this is about. I knew it as soon as you didn’t come to the beach.” His voice was low, taunting. Luce shuddered, wishing she could pull her gaze away from his. “I just wanted you to talk. I need to understand—what
happened
to me. But I guess you’re never going to give me that. What’s it to you, what I need, right? You really won’t say anything to me? One word?” Luce heard herself sob. He stared hard for a moment, as if he wanted to give her time. “Then get it over with, already.”

Why did you have to tell the police about us?
Luce wanted to ask, but the words seemed too difficult. Instead she bit her lip, and let her body drop straight down into the water. Catarina’s voice whispered on in her mind, telling a story about her previous tribe on the Russian coast, about Marina, who’d been queen there.
One man—I don’t know how he managed to resist her. Marina was a singer like no one I’ve ever heard; her voice could swallow a ship whole. But he held out, so three of us shot up from beneath his lifeboat and capsized it. Marina pulled him under
...

Luce sank down until the rowboat was nothing more than an inkblot on the blue-gray darkness above her, squeezed her eyes tight, and aimed. A violent spiral of her tail sent her rocketing upward, and she felt the bruising thud on her shoulder as it slammed into the hull, knocking the boat clear of the surface. She just had time to see him reaching out into nothing as he was thrown through the air, to hear him cry out in shock. She dipped through the blue and caught hold of him, and his arms reached back and grappled with her. All she had to do was keep her grip while she used her tail to drive them deep under the waves. No human could hope to overcome a mermaid out in the water.