Chapter Twenty-Seven
M errow and I found a small cave to sleep in. There was a bed made from coral and seaweed, sand layered where a mattress would be. A stone table with three small stone stools around it. Someone had placed shells and coral on the center of the table, and the color seemed so out of place from the rest of the cave.
We weren’t too far from the sunken ship, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Or the scales we found. Or the coin.
Or her. How I admitted how much I loved her, and she didn’t flinch away. She didn’t say it back, but that was okay. She didn’t have to. I told Merrow I loved her because she deserved to know and I owed it to myself to be honest. The way her eyes shimmered and how her body warmed against me told me that she felt something too. Maybe she wasn’t in love with me, but that didn’t change how I felt. I’d hinted at it before, but this was the first time I said it out loud. A weight lifted from me that I didn’t know that I’d been carrying. No more regrets, I promised myself.
Merrow didn’t snore so much under water, but her breathing was still louder than mine. I felt the water pulse in and out of her as she rested. Her tail curled around her like a cat, and she had her head resting on my shoulder. Holding her in my arms for another night felt like a blessing.
Today was my last full day alive.
Tomorrow her ritual began. I didn’t want to think about what the ritual would bring, how much death would hurt, or how it would hurt her.
There would be no sleeping now, thinking about how few hours of my life remained. I tried to play back all of my favorite memories, but they were all with her over this last week. The gallery. Opening up to Anne Marie finally. Merrow eating noodles and watching cartoons. How she’d made me feel more loved in these last few days than I had my entire life.
She had been right about my eyes; they finally adjusted to the darkness of the water, and now I saw it through a new lens. The ocean’s beauty wasn’t the light, dancing colors that I tended to favor on land when I painted. It was darkly enchanting, the vastness so all-consuming and visceral, that the beauty came from how primal it felt. The water was life itself, brimming with energy and darkness. I wanted to capture all of this on canvas before the memory of it slipped too far away. I didn’t want to miss the details, or change the shades of blue on accident. So I just stared at the water all around us, searching in the distance to see as much as I could.
“You’re awake already?” she asked. I didn’t notice that she had even woken up. Merrow scratched at my scales along my ribs and it tickled as they fanned out.
“Still, I don’t think I’ve gone to sleep yet,” I said. The ocean brightened and I realized that it must have been daylight now. Maybe I had fallen asleep.
“Today we have to find my tribe. They should be nearby. They promised to stay near the shore while I was on land.”
“Will they be angry with you? For coming back early? ”
“I think they’d be more surprised, but I’m not sure how they’ll react to seeing you with me. I think that’s probably worse than coming back early,” she mumbled. It charged the water with nervous energy.
“What’s the plan?” I asked, turning so we were closer together again. Merrow’s hair was everywhere, just like on land. I loved it. Merrow buried her face in the nook of my shoulder and sighed. She flapped the sand around us, making a cloud of it before letting it settle on top of our fins.
“Why does that feel so nice?” I asked, letting my own fins wriggle in the sand.
“Because you’re part fish now, Owen, and you need to embrace all of the ocean’s small joys.”
We played in the sand, and I molded it with my hands. The sand felt different here too, thicker and heavier. The water obviously weighed it down, but the comfort of the weight was different. I reveled in the sand with Merrow as she balled some up and tossed it. The little sand-ball fell apart immediately, clouding the water enough for her to pounce on top of me.
“Embrace the ocean, Owen,” she purred, but this time she wasn’t talking about the sand. Her nose tickled against my jaw until she lightly bit my throat.
And then she zoomed off, out of the small cave, her laughter echoing everywhere.
I swam after her, determined to catch up, when I saw her go still. Very, very still. I nearly slammed into her, my body still fumbling with how to move and glide through the water like she did.
“Lilia,” she whispered, as another mermaid came into view. She had the same long braid as Merrow, but hers was longer. Everything about her was pale; the white-blonde hair, the white-blonde skin, and white-blonde scales. She looked like moonlight .
“Merrow?” her voice was so quiet, I thought I imagined it. Lilia didn’t just glide like Merrow, she floated. Her tail barely moved, like the ocean knew it had to carry her instead of forcing her to swim. Her beauty was overwhelming. She wasn’t more attractive than Merrow, but her draw was different. Merrow had the welcoming, playful, loving face that I’d always dreamt of, while Lilia could have been a goddess. She was quiet and regal, and Merrow was loud and wild. Her spirit couldn’t be contained in the ocean, and Lilia’s was never meant to leave the waves.
They hugged fiercely like it had been much longer than a week since they saw each other last. Lilia’s eyes shone with tears, and she blinked them away for the ocean to consume. I wanted to paint her with those tears streaming down her face.
“Lilia! I’m so happy you found us. There’s so much I need to tell you–”
“Us? Who is with you?” she asked. Panic marred her lovely features, but Merrow held her still.
“Owen is here,” she said, and Lilia looked confused. Very, very confused. She crossed her arms across her chest and the fins along her arms splayed.
“Hi,” I said, waving as I approached. They drifted on the current, now nearly ten feet away. Lilia swam up to me so fast I didn’t see her move. She circled me, grabbed my arm and lifted it up, poked at my tail, my face.
“Merrow, sister, this is a merman. Not the human you were assigned for the ritual,” she said, giving Merrow the gentlest smile I’d ever seen.
“It’s him,” she repeated, and Lilia gave me a pitying look like you poor thing, she’s really lost her mind .
“Hi, yeah, I am a human. We talked to your tribemates on land and they gave us these stones and here we are,” I said. Lilia laughed, slightly panicked, like she was now surrounded by two crazy people instead of just one.
“Lilia, listen. I found some sisters on land that stayed on land. They have breathing stones. This is Owen, I swear. And I think we’ve found a way around the ritual,” Merrow said. The words tumbled from her fast and faster, like she couldn’t stop herself. Merrow explained everything we knew about Anahita and the wishes, the shipwreck with the coin and the golden scales, how she couldn’t bear to go through with it because she lov–
She stopped, turning to me, those words on the tip of her tongue but I felt them. I felt what she wanted to say but wouldn’t. I gave her a feeble smile, and Lilia blew out a breath.
“We can’t let anyone see him. This week has been bad,” she said, and Lilia’s lovely face turned even paler. Sorrow etched itself in the lines of her face, and I saw the painting. Tears of the Siren .
“What happened?” I asked. My heart hammered in my chest. Another mermaid–merman–drew closer and I wanted to back away. He was enormous. His tail had to be at least two feet longer than mine, the fins thicker and longer, his torso was solid muscle and he moved silently. The waves didn’t seem to brush against him; he glided through and they made no movement at all to yield to him.
If I had pants, I might have shit them.
“Caspian!” Merrow cried and flung her arms open to him, hugging him tight. Caspian held her awkwardly, not fully sure what to do with his hands, and I watched in silence. His eyes locked onto me, as he studied me, unsure of what to do with me. For a second, I saw the flash of violence before the urge to snap me in half quelled.
“Who’s that?” he hissed, and this time the water did move for him. The current broke against me instead.
“This is Owen,” Merrow said, reaching for me. Our hands tangled together and Caspian’s face softened.
“The human. This is Owen, the human, that you were supposed to bring back tomorrow for the ritual.”
“Yes?” she said tentatively, smiling at him, and I winced. I wasn’t going to die tomorrow; I was going to die today. Right now, as a matter of fact.
“Why does he have a fucking tail then, Merrow? ”
“Well–”
“Breathing stones. We just got them yesterday, hi, by the way,” I said, fighting the urge to wave or speak or move. Caspian blew out a hefty sigh, bubbles streaming from his mouth and nose. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head.
“Merrow, this isn’t going to work. You can’t just escape the ritual by changing him into one of us for a few days,” Caspian said gently. Far more gently than I thought him capable of.
Merrow launched into our story again and Caspian listened with rapt attention. His face was so expressive, and with every twist of the story, he reacted to it. I liked him more and more, as long as that attention wasn’t focused on me .
When Merrow finally stopped, Lilia cut back in, “Merrow, there’s something you should know.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Pasha,” she whispered out. The sound didn’t even echo. I tried to remember who that was; Merrow mentioned the name but only in passing. And then it dawned on me.
“Your mother?” Ice traveled through my veins, each pump of blood painful and sharp. No, no, no, please let her be okay–
“What happened to my mother?”
“Oh Merrow, I’m so sorry,” Lilia hugged her tight again and she went limp in her friend’s arms. Merrow’s tail drooped, like she didn’t have the strength to even hold it up.
“Please tell us what happened,” I said. Even though they mixed with the ocean, I saw her tears. Her fingers dug into Lilia’s shoulder, a sob wracking through her.
“Our magic is failing. The elders are getting hit first,” Caspian said. His watchful, distrustful eyes scanned over me again. Caspian’s moods changed with each brush of the current, and I wondered how he wasn’t drained all the time from those churning emotions. His face hid nothing either. Those eyes narrowed at me, waiting for me to screw up enough that he could justify impaling me.
“Take me to her,” Merrow demanded, and that was the end of the conversation. I didn’t reach for her hand. I didn’t try to comfort her. Cradled between her friends–her family –they led us away. I cast one last glance back at the small cave where Merrow and I spent the night. As each second passed, the more I wanted to get out of the ocean.
When Merrow finally turned back to look at me, there was so much sorrow on her face that it cracked my ribs open, leaving my heart exposed. Her mother. Her family. Merrow had a life under these waters, and I could give her enough magic to keep it going. I could give her this one thing, and it would be enough. She’d hate me for it, but she’d hate herself for not saving her mother.
I blew a her kiss, smiling like nothing was wrong, praying that she couldn’t see how my throat threatened to close, and let that be my goodbye.