Lost Voices (21 page)

anyone who heard them? When Luce shot above the water for another glimpse, the men she could see all looked drugged.

Ten minutes passed, the yacht driving so hard its engine squealed and then began to smoke. Up ahead the cliffs stuck out in a hard jag, and Luce knew it must be the spot Catarina had chosen. Luce could see smoke pouring out of another place near her, too, maybe from the kitchen. It looked like something had caught fire in the yacht’s center, but no one moved to go put it out. Luce braced herself for the crash.

There was a grinding, earsplitting crunch, a shudder, and the first body pitched into the water. Luce could tell from the limp way it flopped overboard that it was already dead from the blow, and when it hit the water she saw to her horror that it was wearing a white bandana blotched crimson with blood . . .

How could we?
Luce thought numbly.
How could we?
The yacht was still driving forward, its hull splitting wide like a skull hit with an axe, and human bodies tumbled from inside. All Luce wanted was to get away.

Then she thought of Tessa. Catarina must have her by now.

Luce began to swim dizzily between hunks of debris, expecting to hear Catarina’s voice swell with the wrenching song that would change Tessa forever. A second later it came faintly from far ahead: unmistakably Catarina’s exquisite voice, but transfigured into a sound so cold and painful that Luce’s chest was crossed by lines of cutting ache. Luce recoiled, and bumped into a warm, flailing body.

It was Tessa, submerged with her eyes closed, her lips oddly pinched. Her brown braids pitched rhythmically with the movements of the water. And Catarina was nowhere near them.

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There was only one thing Luce could do. She caught Tessa in her arms, and willed herself as hard as she could into that icy night on the cliffs, into the broken heart of a girl whose uncle had almost raped her, whose mother was long dead, whose father was lost at sea. She felt the pain and darkness beating within her, until the whole cold ocean seemed to be trapped in her heart. And when the ache grew so fierce that she didn’t know how she could stand it for another moment, she sang.

It was a terrible, beautiful song, different from anything Luce had ever heard before or would ever want to hear again.

The whole sea seemed frantic with grief. Tessa opened her lids and gazed at Luce. Her hazel eyes shone like blood and shattered crystals. And then, to Luce’s infinite relief, a cloud of dark shimmering winked around Tessa’s head. Luce’s song reached into the girl in her arms, bringing back all Tessa’s secrets, and in the sparkling Luce saw the beginning of a story: a man screaming at her mother, slamming the door, the sound of a car starting . . .

An ugly divorce . . .

It wasn’t all that bad, really. Not by mermaid standards. But it was all Luce had to work with. Her song gathered up the angry screams of Tessa’s parents and twisted them into bitter music.

The screams became another strand of music, weaving through the dark melodic cries of the girl lost on a cliff above the sea.

Tessa squeezed her lips closer, and Luce watched a soft, watery trembling blur the lines of Tessa’s body. She was changing! Luce felt ice cold and weak from the pain of her own song, but she knew she had to keep on, just a little longer.

Tessa suddenly thrashed wildly in Luce’s arms, and a look of determination tightened her face. Another thrash and her 176 i LOST VOICES

body was solid again, kicking a pair of strong human legs. She glared at Luce, and then an awful realization almost made Luce choke.

Tessa was
fighting
the change. She was struggling against Luce’s enchantment with all the strength she had left. Luce looked around and realized they’d been sinking deeper and deeper into the sea as she sang. There was less sun down here, and spiny creatures propelled themselves through the deepening green on all sides.

“No,” Tessa said. Luce couldn’t hear her speak over the singing that still throbbed up from her chest, but the movement of Tessa’s lips was all too clear. A rush of bubbles escaped, and Luce moved to pull Tessa closer, to blow her own air into Tessa’s lungs the way she’d seen Catarina do with the young sailor.

Tessa raised one hand and shoved Luce back. The dark shimmering around her was completely gone.

“No,”
Tessa said again, more bubbles gushing out with every word. “I won’t let you.” Luce was still singing, but the song was much quieter, losing force, and she could hear what Tessa said with the last trace of air in her chest. “I want to die
human
.” i 177

12

Anais

Luce barely knew what happened next. She swam uncertainly, still holding Tessa’s heavy, unmoving body and feeling its warmth ebb away. It was only when she reached the surface that she really understood she was cradling a corpse, and abruptly let go. Her tail began to lash from rage. Why hadn’t Tessa let Luce save her? She had been so
close
. . .

From somewhere around a bend in the cliffs, Luce could hear a song that seemed to be made of metal claws, slashing knives, bright rivulets of mercury. Without thinking, she swam toward it. Even sinking into the cutting grief of Catarina’s song was better than being alone with the image of Tessa’s face.

The song stopped dead, and Luce could hear Samantha screaming hysterically. “Oh, Catarina, please let her have more air! Just one more try! I can tell, she’s about to change, she’s about to . . .”

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“ Samantha, I can’t keep
on
like this! I’m exhausted. We’re going to have to let her drown.” It was Catarina speaking, but Luce was still too stricken to make sense of the words. What did it matter?

“ Catarina, please!” Samantha was sobbing, and Luce felt a dull surprise. She hadn’t known Samantha could care so deeply about anything besides herself. “She’s not human, Cat, even if she does still have legs! She’s really one of us! Please, please don’t let her die.”

Oh,
Luce thought vaguely. The metaskaza Samantha was so obsessed with hadn’t been Tessa at all, then. There’d been a second girl on board that yacht. That made sense. It was mean-ingless, stupid, but it made sense. She heard Catarina release a deep sigh, and the cruel song started again. Luce turned the corner and saw a crowd of mermaids with faces contorted from pain, their hands pressed over their ears. They parted to let Luce through, and she saw Catarina and Samantha. On the water between them there was a face, tilted back so that each wave splashed over it. The face was surrounded by a cloud of golden hair, and it was so beautiful Luce could hardly believe it belonged to a human being. Dark sparkling surrounded the girl’s closed eyes, and a liquid wobbling took over her limbs in sudden fits . . .

She was right on the verge of changing, Luce could see, but Catarina looked so tired that she seemed like she might faint.

The song broke off again, and Catarina gasped. The golden- haired girl’s body reverted to a distinct human form.

“Drown her,” Catarina snarled. “If she hasn’t changed by
now
. . .”

Samantha stared around, tears streaming down her swollen face and spotted Luce.

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“Oh, Luce! Oh, please! You’ve got to help Catarina! I know if the two of you sing together . . . Luce, I know I’ve been mean to you sometimes, but
please
help!” Catarina stared wearily up at Luce. Luce was stunned.

Now, when she was so utterly sick and empty, she was supposed to do for this girl what she hadn’t been able to do for Tessa?

But how could she just stand by while the girl was drowned?

“Only if you hold her
under
this time, Samantha.” Catarina moaned. Samantha started to stammer some objection, but Catarina glowered until she fell silent. “I’ll only try again if you hold the girl underwater while we sing. It’s her last chance.”
There’s been enough death,
Luce thought.
Enough death to last until
the world rolls away and leaves the sun forever.
Sick as she felt, she nodded at Samantha and drew a deep breath.

In the next moment the circle of mermaids around them broke mermaids were diving under the water and racing away, desperate to escape from the nightmare music Luce and Catarina made together. Only Samantha stayed, the human girl’s immersed golden head cradled in her shaking hands. Luce felt so drained that she didn’t think she could sing well at all. She was astonished to hear the alien power of her voice. She was singing her own grief but also Tessa’s death and Miriam’s longing as she wandered the rooms of her silent house waiting for the mother who never came back again . . . Luce even sang Samantha’s broken bones. For a moment she even wondered if she should make an effort
not
to sing so well would Catarina think Luce was trying to outdo her? but the song had her tight in its grip, in its living darkness. Even as they sang together, Luce noticed 180 i LOST VOICES

Catarina suddenly looking up at her, her eyes wide with pained comprehension. But the song itself was a laceration, a deep wound; surely that was reason enough for Catarina to stare that way.

The face in Samantha’s hands trembled, turned into transparent jelly, then vanished, leaving only a pair of blue human eyes. A wave rocked the girl’s clothes away. Luce was too consumed by the terrors of her song to feel even faintly surprised, but she could hear Samantha shriek. Then the wavering came back, the water frothed . . .

And the golden- haired girl reappeared. She was even more beautiful than before, and her brilliant azure eyes opened and gazed up at them dreamily through a veil of rippling waves. Her tail was the same sweet, hazy blue as her eyes, her skin was like porcelain, and her golden tresses swished through the shining water. Even in that first moment something about her made Luce uncomfortable. She looked like something off the prow of an old sailing ship, like somebody’s fantasy of a mermaid or like a plastic mermaid doll. The iridescence on her sky blue tail was actually
pink
.

Luce and Catarina both stopped singing and watched her.

Now that it was quiet the other mermaids started gliding back toward them. Samantha was sobbing with relief.

The blue- tailed metaskaza caught Samantha’s shoulder and pulled herself upright, water streaming from her luxuriant hair.

Most of the tribe was floating close by now, but no one spoke.

Catarina’s lids were half closed and she was leaning heavily on Jenna’s shoulder. The sky blue eyes gazed carefully at each of them; again Luce felt the same cold unease.

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“You killed my
daddy!
” the metaskaza said, and burst into tears.

* * *

It took everyone a moment to recover from the jolt produced by these words. What could they possibly say? Luce was particularly disturbed; her first impulse was to cry out that they’d killed her father, too; that they had to
stop
. . . Then Luce had the sickening realization that, even as the new mermaid howled melodramatically, she was sneaking glimpses through her fingers, watching how they all reacted. Were her tears even real?

“But we but you oh, you need to understand, we had to
save
you from him!” Samantha was stammering. Catarina was still too depleted to react at all, and the new mermaid seemed to decide that Samantha must be in charge. She threw her graceful hands around Samantha’s throat, though she didn’t seem to be making any real effort to squeeze.

“YOU KILLED MY DADDY! It was
you,
wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?” Samantha was wide- eyed, sputtering garbled attempts at excuses. The new mermaid watched her for a moment with fury that Luce was suddenly perfectly sure was faked.

“Admit it!”

“I had to!” Samantha wailed. “I couldn’t help it!” The metaskaza’s wails stopped as suddenly as they had started, and her stunning face suddenly composed itself into a sly, halfway smile.

“Well,” said the metaskaza shrilly, “I guess it’s a good thing I don’t care!” And she let out a high, tinkling laugh.

Luce felt like she might vomit. Catarina stared up from Jenna’s shoulder, her mouth open, and a look of what Luce hoped was 182 i LOST VOICES

aversion in her eyes. Samantha was also gaping, but her expression was very different, a blend of astonishment and fervent admiration. Jenna and Kayley seemed to be impressed as well. Mermaids might be used to killing, but even for them it was breathtaking to hear someone be so callous about the death of her own family.

The metaskaza seemed to be bored of laughing now. She was inspecting her own tail as if she were trying to calculate how much it had cost.

“Mermaids!”
she said. “Now, that’s going to blow Sasha Jennings’s mind when I get back to school!” This was Catarina’s cue, of course, and she tried to launch into an explanation of the situation, that from now on the girl would be living with the tribe. But she was still exhausted, and she sounded strangely feeble. The metaskaza barely listened for a few moments before waving Catarina’s explanation away.

“These things don’t come off? That’s a
serious
drag. Oh, no, you mean I’m
stuck
here?” She looked around at them with obvious distaste; no one but Luce seemed to realize they were all being insulted. “Can’t you take me back to Miami?” No one even tried to answer this. Luce was starting to feel desperately sorry that they hadn’t drowned this girl. Was it really too late?

“What’s your name?” Samantha asked nervously. The metaskaza looked sharply at her, and seemed to note her expression of rapt adoration with approval.

“Anais,” the metaskaza said, flipping back her golden locks.

She pronounced it “ ann- eye- EEESS.”

“I’m Samantha . . .” It came out in a murmur, and Anais fixed her azure eyes on the other blonde’s face, assessing something.

Luce thought she was deciding how useful Samantha might be.

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“Yes?” Anais’s voice was suddenly much sweeter. “Well, Samantha, could you please have these . . .” She cocked her head at the watching mermaids. “Your followers, I mean. Could you please have them take me back to Miami?”