Lost Voices (8 page)

Luce looked at her in bewilderment. She realized that Catarina had said something about this, too: that it had been stupid to go after such a big ship. She’d said Luce almost broke something, the teemeeka or the teemaya . . .

“What’s wrong with it being a big ship?” Luce finally asked.

“And what do you mean, ‘clean up my mess’?” Samantha just stared at her, first with disgust, then with exasperation. Then finally she burst out laughing.

“I’m forgetting how much you have to learn,” Samantha admitted. “You’re still metaskaza.” Whatever the word meant, Samantha made it sound more than a little insulting. “Let’s go find i 57

everyone. I bet Catarina’s done sulking by now.” There was a flick and a flash, and Luce was alone in the cave.

The idea of diving into that dark, surging water frightened her, even though she knew she’d done it just yesterday. But yesterday, after all, she hadn’t done it on purpose!

If she let herself hesitate much longer, though, she’d never find Samantha and the others . . . Luce gathered her courage and swung her head around toward the sea. Her tail seemed to move by itself in a single whipping motion, and suddenly Luce found herself slicing through black water.

She had such force, such speed. She’d almost forgotten how magnificent it felt, this rushing power, the clear water parting around her shoulders, the sting of salt on her tongue. She could see a slightly brighter blot in the darkness, and she knew that must be the underwater tunnel Catarina had dragged her through the night before. With a sudden burst of delight Luce let her tail spin out, driving her faster. She hurled through the tunnel so quickly that she almost knocked her head against a bend in the rock.

Then she was in the open sea. It was vast, silvery, and treach-erous, full of drifting life. Ice floes drifted and bucked in the distance. She started at a moaning, coughing sound that shivered through the water around her before she realized it was only the barking of seals. Luce was afraid to go any farther alone what if she couldn’t find her way back to the cave? A giant reddish octopus pulsed by, and farther off there was the sinuous dipping of a small group of porpoises. She pushed her way to the surface and looked around at a lonely expanse of peaked water and craggy rock walls, an overcast sky, feeling her body rise and fall rhythmically with the swells. A chill wind whistled in her ears, 58 i LOST VOICES

and she began to feel something of the sickening, icy abandon-ment she’d felt that night on the cliffs. How could they all have gone off and left her on her own when it was all so new to her and she had no idea which way to go?

The whistling became brighter and sweeter, too musical for wind, and Luce realized it wasn’t whistling at all. The mermaids were calling to her from a place just around a zigzag in the coastline. It was something else they could do with their voices, Luce suddenly understood: disguise them as wind, just in case any humans were close enough to hear. As she listened, Luce even recognized the voice: it was Catarina. Carefully, experimentally, Luce tried to make the same sound in reply.

It came out in a long, beautiful gust. And it was much more powerful than she’d intended: a luxurious rush of sweet, high sounds. Luce was so delighted she laughed out loud and dove again.

She understood how it worked now. She still needed to breathe, yes. But a single breath was enough to last her for a very long time.

She found them in a skinny, pointed beach squeezed between high rock walls: a beach no human could ever get to without a boat, where protruding crags would block the view of anyone who chanced to pass by. The mermaids were cracking mussels on the rocks and sucking them down raw. Luce’s stomach roiled with nausea at the sight, but then the nausea turned into hunger.

“Hey, Luce! I was just about to go back and look for you when we heard you answering.” It was Catarina, who looked more beautiful than ever in the pearly daylight. She was perched out in the middle of the inlet on a wide underwater crag shaped i 59

almost like a sofa, lolling back against an outcropping of rock, and Luce joined her there. Luce was surprised by how cheerful Catarina sounded now, and also by the intense joy she felt at the sight of Catarina’s welcoming face. She almost didn’t care what the other mermaids thought of her, Luce realized, just as long as Catarina liked her. “You really have a wonderful voice,” Catarina added, and this time Luce heard something a bit resentful in her tone. And wasn’t there something strange in the way Catarina looked at her, something hungry and suspicious at the same time?

Luce’s sudden worry must have shown too clearly, because Catarina laughed, and when she spoke again all the resentment was gone. “Do you want help getting breakfast? I bet you’re not used to cracking your own this way.” She took a mussel from her stash on the rocks and bashed it open. Luce accepted it uncertainly. This was a new start for her, after all, and Luce was very conscious that she couldn’t afford to make a bad impression. It hadn’t lasted long, but even so, her experience that morning of finding herself abandoned to gray, rocking emptiness still lingered, its cold pressure filling her chest. She made an effort and gulped the mussel down.

It wasn’t bad at all, actually. It was chilly and smooth and salty in a way that felt right to her. She ate more, and then she swam to the beach and tried some rubbery leaves of brown seaweed. The other mermaids were very entertained by the diffi-dent way she bit into the first leaf and then by the changing expressions on her face as she chewed. She was introduced to more of them: Kayley, who was eleven, with an Inuit tint to her skin and beautiful tipped- up eyes and who had sleek black hair; Miriam, who was the same age as Luce, but had been a mermaid 60 i LOST VOICES

already for more than seventy years and had lived with other tribes along the coast. But as they ate and talked there was something that was starting to make Luce uncomfortable.

The mermaids on the beach ranged in age from five or six up to about sixteen, and they chattered and giggled like any young girls. But at the farthest edges of the group and out on the water, there were a few smaller, softer heads that bobbed and stared or suddenly popped out of nowhere like the heads of seals and then vanished again. Some of them didn’t even have hair. They watched Luce in a sad, yearning way that made her feel a little queasy.

Samantha saw her looking. “Larvae,” Samantha explained, although that didn’t help Luce understand much. “Don’t pay any attention to them, okay? It only encourages them to hang around more.” Then Samantha failed to take her own advice, and shot a look of distaste at one little head that had floated up too close.

“And besides, they attract sharks.”

Luce didn’t know what to think of that. She was just starting to understand how much she didn’t know, how many questions she would need to ask before everything made sense to her.

Larvae?

“Are they mermaids?” Luce finally asked, and Samantha grimaced. Kayley nudged Samantha and shook her head to say that it was time to change the subject.

“She does need to know these things,” Samantha snapped at Kayley. “We have to talk about it sometime.” Then she turned back to Luce. “
Technically,
yes. Technically they’re mermaids.” Her bell voice was colder, more emotionless than ever. “That is, the timahk protects them.”
That word again,
Luce thought. “You can’t ever hurt one, no matter how much you want to, and you’re i 61

not allowed to drive them away. But they’re not, not
proper
mermaids. They can’t even talk, and they just make these awful squeaks when they try to sing . . .” Luce couldn’t help thinking of Gum.

She realized she missed him, and she glanced around at the bobbing larvae curiously.

Babies, Luce suddenly realized. Toddlers. What happened when someone hit a baby girl or left one in a Dumpster? They turned into these mermaids that weren’t quite mermaids, and they could never get any older, never learn how to talk or act right . . .

Luce shuddered. She was starting to understand why the other mermaids were so repulsed by the larvae, but at the same time she felt sorry for them. They had such sad, mushy, helpless little faces, and they stared at her with such longing in their wet, wide eyes.

“Couldn’t we try to take care of them?” Luce hazarded, and saw the disgusted looks the other mermaids flashed at each other.

“That’s a really terrible idea, Luce,” Kayley snapped. “We told you. They attract sharks. It would be a lot better if we
could
drive them away, but the timahk . . .” She shook her head angrily. “Anyway, there’s no point getting attached to one of them. They can’t swim that fast and the orcas just gobble them up all the time.” She made another grossed- out face. “But there are always more of them. They just keep coming.” Luce realized that it wouldn’t help to talk about it more now. She was just making the other mermaids angry. Maybe later she could try to talk to Catarina.

Catarina was right there suddenly, leaning on one elbow.

She’d swum over from her rock so smoothly that Luce hadn’t even noticed her arrive. Now that she was here, though, her 62 i LOST VOICES

presence was so elegant and so forceful that Luce had to make an effort not to stare.

“It just occurred to me,” Catarina announced. “We still haven’t explained the most important thing to Luce. She doesn’t know what the timahk is.”

The other mermaids stopped chattering at once. Their faces turned severe and solemn.

“What is it?” Luce asked. “Everyone keeps saying that word.” Catarina reached out and lightly, tenderly, touched Luce on her left cheek, right where the golden tail had smacked her earlier that morning.

“I almost broke the timahk myself today,” Catarina admitted softly. “If I’d slapped you even a little bit harder . . .” There was a low murmuring among the other mermaids. “If I’d actually
hurt
you, Luce, I would have deserved expulsion from my own tribe. That’s the penalty for breaking the timahk. And a mermaid who’s thrown out on her own like that . . .” Catarina didn’t have to finish the sentence. The grim looks on the faces all around her were enough to let Luce understand the truth: the ocean was full of dangers, and a mermaid swimming off on her own probably wouldn’t survive for very long.

Luce couldn’t bear the idea of that happening to Catarina.

With a small start Luce realized that she already loved Catarina, and not only because she was so grateful for the risk the older mermaid had taken in rescuing her. If only she had had a sister like her, so powerful and clear and fair, maybe being human wouldn’t have been so hard at all.

“It’s our code,” Catarina said. “The timahk is the code of honor for all the mermaids in the world. Breaking the timahk is i 63

the worst thing that can happen to a tribe. It would be better if we were all killed than if we lost our honor that way. That’s why a mermaid who violates the timahk has to be expelled. It’s to preserve the honor of her tribe.”

Luce began to grasp how serious this was. She straightened herself, and her voice turned so cold and strong that it surprised her.

“What do I have to do?” Luce asked. “To obey the timahk?” There weren’t very many rules, really. The most important rule was that no mermaid could ever hurt another. No mermaid could ever be banished from a tribe either unless she broke the timahk first. Anyone who came would be automatically welcomed into the group. And if you saw another mermaid in trouble, you had to do your best to help her, unless it was a situation where interfering could get you killed, too. Luce agreed in her heart with these rules. It all sounded much better to her than the way people on land treated one another.

And then there were the rules concerning humans. These were harder for Luce to accept.

“No contact with humans,” Catarina said firmly. Luce was upset by that; she’d already been thinking about swimming back to Pittley to visit Gum, though she wasn’t sure which direction would lead her there. She had the vague impression that she’d swum a long, long way after she fell off the cliffs the night before. But if she found her way back and called to him, maybe he’d scramble down to the beach.

“That just means we can’t be friends with them?” Luce asked. She had to suppress an impulse to ask
why
she couldn’t have human friends. She understood that questioning the timahk 64 i LOST VOICES

wouldn’t go over very well. Catarina was already scowling at her.

“
Friendship
with one of those creatures is
unthinkable,
” Catarina snarled. “Friendship! No
contact
means much more than that. It means you never
speak
to a human, and you never
touch
one. No interaction at all. You can sing to them if you feel like it,” and here Catarina’s smile turned cruel. “But then they have to die. That’s the last rule. That’s the rule you almost broke last night, Luce.” Catarina’s voice was bitter now and merciless, so that Luce felt a little scared. “No human who hears a mermaid sing can ever be permitted to remain alive.
Ever
. And that means you don’t sing to a boat, unless you can guarantee that there won’t be a single survivor.”

Luce was so shocked that she couldn’t restrain herself now.

“Why? Why shouldn’t they get to live? At least the good ones?” Her voice had turned pleading, and Catarina’s tail flicked out of the water; it waved urgently for a moment, drops flying from its golden scales. She was obviously fighting a desire to smack Luce for real this time.

“
Good
humans? Luce, haven’t you learned
anything?
” Luce couldn’t answer. She was thinking of her father’s warm voice, his sidelong, playful smile. But if she tried to explain about him to Catarina, she’d have to tell the truth: that her father was a crook and a liar. Almost anyone would judge him to be an extremely bad man. Luce was perfectly aware of that. He was a thief, a scoundrel, a cheat, and he was also the best and kindest person Luce had ever known . . .

So maybe that proved Catarina’s point in a way.