Between the Sea and Sky (2 page)

Chapter Two

“Well, you’re a true siren now, Esmerine,” her father said proudly. Her parents and Dosia were waiting for her when she left the center of the great room. The crowd was already beginning to disperse and resume conversations. “How does it feel?”

“Good.” Esmerine didn’t know what else she could say. Maybe it was impossible to achieve a great honor without feeling numb.

“Two sirens in the family,” her mother said. “I would never have guessed it. Not a single siren in our entire family history, and now two! You girls are truly treasures.” Not only did sirens bring prestige to a family, but even after death, a siren’s belt was passed down through generations and could be used in times of need to work powerful healing spells or even defend the village. The status of Esmerine’s family would be forever elevated from mere fishermen.

When Esmerine, Dosia, and their parents arrived home, Esmerine’s youngest sister, Merramyn, was swimming to and fro, adorning the cave walls with flower chains. Tormaline, usually the most serious of the sisters, was moving the magic lights to find the best position. Esmerine’s mother swept in to interfere.

“Tormy, what are you doing? I said put one in the middle of the room and—wait, where is the fourth?”

“
Mother
, we don’t have a fourth.” Tormy was thirteen, and lately she had taken to saying “Mother” in a particularly irritated way.

“We should have four. This one is ours, and I rented three.”

“You rented two. You decided to save the rest of the money to buy sea bass, remember?”

Merramyn twirled through the water, draping the last flower chain around her shoulders. Dosia tried to take it from her. “Merry, don’t be silly with that, you’re going to damage it.”

A flower broke free from the garland and swished around Merry’s hair. She snatched it. “Dosia, look! Now you broke it! Mother, Dosia broke the flowers!”

As Esmerine swam out of the main room, she made a silent prayer to the sea gods that her family would make it through the evening without embarrassing her. Through the narrow door to the kitchen, her poor aunts were preparing food for a crowd with only one magic light to see by. The cave was old and had few windows, just small holes to keep water flowing in and big fish out. In wealthier homes, window nets kept out the fish
and
let in light.

Fragments of seaweed drifted through the water from the salad Aunt Celwyn was making, while Aunt Lia tucked bits of neatly sliced raw fish into empty seashells for presentation.

“Can I help?” Esmerine asked.

“Chase out this silly fish that keeps bothering me.” Aunt Lia waved her hand as a slender fish darted past her face and into the shadowy corners. Just as Esmerine chased the fish out with the net, Dosia hooted a summons from the main room.

“The guests must be arriving,” Aunt Celwyn said. “Go on and greet them! This is your day.”

Esmerine raked her fingers through her hair, checking that her beads were still in place before she returned to the main room for hugs and congratulations. The guests arrived in a steady stream: her mother’s friends, the fishermen who worked alongside her father, friends she and Dosia had made in school and in their neighborhood singing group.

She knew the routine from when Dosia had become a siren, and although she blushed and said humble things, she was secretly pleased to have a little piece of the attention Dosia had gotten for so long.

At dinner, her aunts brought the food around. Esmerine wished they had servants, particularly since her mother had invited Lalia Tembel and her family. Esmerine and Lalia had been casual friends for years now, but Esmerine had never forgotten how Lalia had teased her about playing on the islands and for her lack of bracelets when they were little. Lalia also used to tell Esmerine that if she spent too much time in human form, she’d get stuck that way, and even when Esmerine had Dosia tell her off, Lalia had never apologized.

Still, her mother had not skimped on the food. They had the freshest fish, rare sea fruits sent from the Balla Sea, almonds and hazelnuts, enough olives that Esmerine had her fill for the first time in her life, and sea potatoes filled with minced shrimp.

They sang the Siren’s Hymn in her honor, her mother’s eyes growing red and wistful.

Come and hear the siren’s call

Keep mankind in fearful thrall

As long as sirens guard the sea

All the waters shall be free!

Dosia, sitting beside Esmerine, squeezed her hand tight, and Esmerine knew she was thinking how wonderful it would be to be sirens together.

“Well, we ought to bring around the gifts, if anyone’s going to sleep tonight!” her father finally said.

Esmerine received all the things she expected: necklaces of shell, a new brush and comb, the matched earrings and tail jewelry that had come into fashion lately—the last from the Tembels, of course, who wouldn’t give anything less than fashionable even though Esmerine refused to pierce her tail fins and Lalia knew it. Her parents gave her the most beautiful bright-red headdress of beads to wear in her hair, much like the blue one Dosia had.

“I have a present for you too,” Dosia said.

“Oh? But I didn’t give you a present when you became a siren …”

“That’s all right, because I’m older. And I have just the thing. Tormy and Merry helped me hide it.”

Merry giggled and hurried to her sleep room with a flick of her tail that disrupted the table arrangements. Tormaline, who liked to think of herself as older than her years, folded her hands like she’d had nothing to do with any of it.

Merry came back holding a small figure in her arms, about one fin tall. Esmerine recognized it instantly.

It was a statue of a winged person, springing from a tiny pedestal into the sky, wings lifted. Dosia took it from Merry and tried to give it to Esmerine.

Esmerine didn’t take it at first. She glanced, ever so quickly, at Lalia Tembel, whose brow had furrowed with amusement. Then her eyes moved to her mother.

“Dosia, what on earth is that?” her mother said. “Where did you get it?”

“It’s a statue of a winged person,” Dosia said matter-of-factly. “I found it in the scavenge yard.”

“Esme, do you still like winged boys, then?” Lalia said.

“No,” Esmerine said. “I never
liked
winged boys.” Not that it was much better, liking what Alander had brought—books with worlds tucked between their pages, stories about animals that spoke and brave youngest princesses—always the youngest, Esmerine noticed, never somewhere in the middle.

“You were just jealous, Lalia,” Dosia said. “Everyone wished they were friends with Alander back then.”

“I certainly didn’t wish to be friends with Alander,” Lalia said. Her mother nodded as she spoke. “I’m glad we can trade with humans, but nevertheless, land people have a certain aroma, and crude manners to match.”

“Alander smelled like books!” Esmerine said.

“Oh,
that’s
appealing.”

“I mean,
dry
books.”

“Don’t bother,” Dosia whispered in Esmerine’s ear.

“It is a very finely crafted statue,” said one of her father’s friends. “You could get a good price for that from the traders, all right.”

Esmerine stuck the statue behind her with the other gifts, and only after everyone had gone did she finally take it to her sleep room and study it, half with her fingers, by the faint light of glow coral. The figure was unclothed, neither boy nor girl, and unlike Alander, it lacked personality. It was like those winged people she sometimes saw far in the distance, hovering on the wind, leathern wings stretched wide.

Dosia slunk into the room they shared, jabbing Esmerine’s tail with her elbow in the dim light. Not only did the cave lack light, but it lacked space. At least they didn’t have to share with Tormy and Merry as well.

“Now Lalia Tembel is going to think I have some sort of obsession with winged people,” Esmerine said. The gift was a nice thought, but only Dosia had really understood her friendship with Alander, and Esmerine wished she had not made an example of it at the party.

“Who cares what she thinks?” Dosia said. “Anyway, it’s a lovely piece.”

That was true enough. The lines were smooth and graceful and realistically proportioned. It was the finest thing Esmerine had ever owned. “You really found it in the scavenge yard?”

“Well … not really. I found it in a garden.”

“What garden?”

“Oh … outside of the village.” Dosia was maddeningly vague.

“Were you with Jarra?”

Dosia laughed once, almost nervously. “No, no.”

She shifted close enough that bubbles tickled Esmerine’s ear when she spoke. “Well, now that you’re a siren too, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to make a big fuss about it.”

“Oh?”

“You know that big house on the rocks by the point?”

“Of course.” Sometimes they both liked to sit on the rocks and watch the distant human house. On pleasant days, humans climbed down the path cut in the cliff with picnic baskets to eat on the rocky shore, and at dusk, lanterns glowed in the windows and intriguing shadows passed behind the curtains.

“I went inside it.”

“
What
?”

“Shh! You’ll wake Mother! Don’t be so dramatic, I’m not going to do it anymore. It just happened. I was watching these young men on the rocks and suddenly one of them waved to me.”

“And you went closer? That’s the first thing they tell us not to do! What if he’d taken your belt?”

“He wouldn’t do that. I was very careful—at first I stayed in the water and talked to them, but they were so nice, and so curious about me, that I promised them I’d come back. And when I came back, they asked if it was true that I could turn my tail into legs, and when I said it was, they offered me a dress.”

All merfolk could turn their tails into legs if they wished, but every step shot pain from their heels. Only sirens could fully join the human world. If a human man stole their enchanted belt, or if they gave it willingly, the pain would cease, but they could never turn their legs to tails again. All mermaids grew up whispering stories of human men who beat wives, terrible food cooked over raging fires, unwashed bodies, and horses run amok. But it was also said that every human man yearned for a mermaid bride, and they loved more passionately than any man under the sea. Of course, they only said this when no mermen were around.

“I wanted to tell you,” Dosia continued, “but you’ve been so busy these last couple of weeks, and the way Minnaray’s been filling your head with all those human horror stories, I figured you’d overreact.”

“Because it’s dangerous,” Esmerine hissed. “What if they’re tricksters?”

“They’re not
tricksters
,” Dosia said. “You of all people should know not to believe rumors. Look at all the rumors people still spread about Alander.”

“Well, but—Alander’s different.”

“We always did say we’d go to the human world together,” Dosia said.

“Together,” Esmerine agreed. She turned onto her side, facing the wall. That was what upset her most. Dosia had kept a secret.

“I knew I ought to tell you,” Dosia said as if reading her mind. “I just … worried you wouldn’t understand. And it happened so fast, and you weren’t there—” She put a hand on Esmerine’s shoulder. “Anyway, I hoped you’d like the statue. I admired it in the garden at the human house, and Fiodor—the young man—said I could have it. I was thinking of you. Wishing you were there. We should go back together.”

“You truly think it’s safe?”

“Perfectly. Fiodor and Giovan—that’s the other one’s name—are near our age, and they’re both handsome, and I told them you might come later. We mostly stayed in the garden and by the shore. I could’ve run away anytime, or enchanted them with a song. No need to worry.”

Their desire to see the surface world reached back to a time long before they had been chosen for siren’s training. As children, they had talked a thousand times of going to the surface world, to marry humans if they felt romantic, to become the first female traders when they felt adventurous. Still, they weren’t children any longer, and the elder sirens would disapprove of them spending time with humans.

“I don’t know, Dosia … I took my oath today. It seems so soon.”

“Oh, that’s just tradition. Anyway, you never said you wouldn’t associate with humans, just that you’d protect the sea from them. We aren’t running away. We’re only going to see their garden and house … their books …”

Esmerine had a weakness for books. When Alander had stopped visiting, books vanished from her life. If Esmerine truly believed Dosia was only interested in the garden or books, she would have agreed that moment. But something in Dosia’s excited tone frightened her, made her want to steer her sister away from the human house perched on the rocks, just above the sea, so near and yet in another world entirely.

“Maybe later,” Esmerine said. “You know how busy I’ll be just now.”

Usually, Esmerine went along with whatever Dosia wanted to do, but usually Dosia never kept secrets either, and Esmerine would not be convinced.

Chapter Three

Dosia typically slept latest of all the sisters, but the next morning Esmerine woke alone. She slunk into the main room, bleary from her fitful sleep. Her mother was cleaning up after last night’s festivities, softly singing as she went. The room was still bright from the rented magic lights, which would be returned by afternoon.

“Mother, have you seen Dosia?”

“Isn’t she sleeping?”

“No.”

“Goodness. It’s too early for her to be up and about. Don’t tell me she has some new suitor.”

Esmerine suppressed a twinge of anxiety. “I think her eye’s been on Jarra.”

Her mother smiled. “Jarra, really? He seems rather tongue-tied for our Dosia. But maybe that’s what she likes about him.”

“I think so. He’d listen to her talk all evening.”

“Still, she won’t marry a man like that, I hope,” her mother said. “What woman really likes a husband with a jellyfish spine?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Esmerine laughed a little. People sometimes commented that her mother was too bossy, her father too agreeable.

“What about you, my dear? You never say a word about boys, and you’re almost a woman yourself! Or—not almost. You’re a siren now. Goodness.”

Esmerine edged toward the kitchen, hoping to distract herself with breakfast. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll get married at all.”

“I suppose the village can seem a very limited pool.” Her mother waved her off. “Perhaps a traveler will grab your attention someday.”

Esmerine ignored her. She had never been especially interested in boys. It was as if they all belonged to Dosia automatically, leaving her a quiet observer, which suited her fine most of the time.

Esmerine swam out to the bay, thinking she might find Dosia with the other sirens, but none of them had seen her either.

“She never comes this early,” said Dosia’s friend Alwina. “In fact, I’m surprised you’re here now after such a night!”

“I didn’t want to be late.”

Alwina grinned. “That’s just like you.” Time was as fluid as the water in the mer world—the sun came up, the sun went down, and the moon changed phase, so when Alander told her about hours and clocks, she didn’t know what he meant. In order to meet him, she had to change her thinking, to pay attention to a stricter rhythm. “But you certainly look lovely, and the parties are all over.”

It was easy to stop thinking of Dosia amid the congratulations of the other sirens, who showered her with compliments and joked about parties past and how aggravating certain village elders were, always acting so puffed with importance on these occasions.

Siren magic had many uses—diverting warships from inhabited areas of the sea, for instance, or sinking whaling ships—but most days were spent in routine monitoring of the sea traffic. All the ships departing the great port of Sormesen sailed past the rocky point, where the bay completed its half-moon curve. A group of sirens kept watch there most hours of the day. The ships paid tribute to them, tossing a box overboard. The offering varied depending on the type of ship—gold was most common, but fishermen gave a portion of their catch, and some ships even gave kegs of wine. Mermen would fetch the tribute and blow a shell whistle once it was searched and found acceptable.

Esmerine knew from Dosia’s stories that when the eldest sirens weren’t present, the others would call to the sailors, especially the navy men in their great ships with tall masts and bright sails. The sirens would tease the small fishing boats to come nearer and nearer, almost within hands’ reach, dashing beneath the waters at the last moment to stare at the hull above. Occasionally a fisherman would jump overboard to try and find them, and the sirens would scatter, laughing and shrieking. All sirens were fascinated by human men. The very quality that made their magic potent seemed to make them susceptible to the lure of the surface world.

Today Lady Minnaray and the other elder sirens were there, so the younger ones only gossiped and combed their hair. Morning turned into midday. The sirens shared fish the mermen brought.

“Where’s Dosinia?” Lady Minnaray asked when Esmerine’s sister didn’t appear. “She was so excited for you to be sirens together, I’m surprised she isn’t here on your first day.”

“I suspect she’s just … tired, from all the excitement.” Esmerine didn’t know why she was making excuses. Where
was
Dosia? The thought nagged at her, and she wanted to look for her, but she couldn’t very well leave now without someone asking questions. And if Dosia had gone back to the human house, as Esmerine was beginning to suspect, she’d be furious if Esmerine told anyone.

In the afternoon, the sun reached its highest point, and the sea was a brilliant green blue at the rock and pure deep blue in the distance. Only Esmerine sat straight while the others sprawled on the rocks, singing old songs, occasionally dropping into the water when their scales began to dry out.

Esmerine imagined Dosia going to the human house, limping up the steps. The young men were waiting, leering, reaching for her—no, it wasn’t the young men at all, it was an older man with a black moustache—a pirate. No, two pirates—one to grab her arms and the other to grab the belt from her waist … Dosia would cry for Mother and Father and Esmerine, and no one would hear her—no, Dosia would fight back and one would club her on the head—

Should
Esmerine tell Lady Minnaray? But what if Dosia had simply snuck off with a friend—it wouldn’t be the first time. All the fuss would be for nothing.

The life of a siren was easy most days, and Esmerine didn’t wish to bring down a dangerous ship and drown humans, but she began to wish for something thrilling to happen to keep her from wondering about Dosia.

When Esmerine came home for dinner, Dosia was not there.

“Maybe she went to the scavenge yard with your father,” her mother said. “Go tell them it’s time to eat.”

When human ships sunk on the rocks, whether from siren song, human error, or nature’s wrath, professional scavengers brought the best loot to the elders to trade back to the humans. After they’d swept through, anyone might take the smaller pickings—weathered leather shoes, wooden spoons, fragile maps of the land that quickly fell apart.

Esmerine’s father was a fisherman by trade, but a scavenger at heart. Whenever he had a holiday or a bountiful morning catch, he went straight to the ships’ graveyard. Children used to scavenge too, but when Esmerine was a little girl, two boys had been killed when the wreckage of a ship collapsed on them, and now children were forbidden from entering the graveyard. Esmerine had sometimes been allowed to bring her father messages from her mother if something important happened, but that was only because she was careful to stay clear of the wrecks, whereas Dosia had gotten in terrible trouble once at the age of ten for ducking inside a ship to grab a perfectly intact china cup.

Now Esmerine was sixteen and allowed to come if she wished, but she still grew nervous as she drifted over the skeletons of ships. Sometimes she lost sleep worrying a ship might collapse on Father. She hated that Father came here, but she couldn’t deny the fascination of the broken hulls that whispered ghostly secrets on the currents. Even when dozens of men and maids were picking through fresh wreckage, and the water grew dim with stirred sand, it was always eerily quiet. Out of respect for the dead, no one sang as they worked, as her father would while he caught fish. Today she only saw Wella and Triana, two older widows who scavenged for a living.

“Esmerine!”

She turned at the sound of Father’s voice.

“Over here, my girl! Come here …” He ducked his head and arms through a broken window. His tail flicked, nudging him farther in.

“Be careful, Father …”

His grinning face ducked back out, and he held up a stubby top hat, dark gray with a black band. He clamped it on his head. “What do you think? It’s in good shape yet. We can use it for theatricals.”

Esmerine forced a smile. She couldn’t think of theatricals without fretting about Dosia, with her talent for mimicking deep-sea accents and singing flirtations of comic songs, like “No More a Siren for Me.” It wouldn’t seem comical ever again if something happened to Dosia.

“Esmerine, dear? What is it? You seem troubled.” He struggled to fit the hat in the bag at his waist. Through the loosely woven mesh, she saw that he’d already found a dented pewter plate and some small metal objects—spoons, possibly, or tools.

“It’s Dosia. Have you seen her today?”

“Of course. She was up early with me,” he said. “Said she was going to the rocks early.”

“What rocks?”

“Well, I assumed she meant the sirens’ rocks. She wasn’t with you today?”

Esmerine had been nervous all day, but that seemed a feeble emotion compared to the terror now surging through her. “I haven’t seen her at all.”

“Oh,” her father said, but now his voice was hushed, and he reached an arm to her. “Well, we’ll find her. I’m sure she’s not far.” He drew her close to him, and she folded her head against his. She could feel her father’s love for her, like warmth in the currents, like lights in the darkness.

“I’m worried … something happened to her,” she said.

“What makes you think that?”

“She told me she went in a human house.”

“Are you sure?” He stopped. “When have you girls been speaking to humans?”

“I haven’t. Just Dosia. You know how she likes to sit on the rocks by the point.”

“But … surely she has the sense to— You’re
sure
she went in the house?”

“She told me last night. I would have told you, if I thought—” If something happened to Dosia, Esmerine would never forgive herself for not trying harder to convince her to stay away from the humans.

He smoothed her hair one last time. “We should tell your mother.”

It was more difficult to tell her mother, because her mother overreacted to everything, and this was no exception. She gathered all the neighbors, even the ones she didn’t care for, questioned everyone about whether they had seen Dosia, and before long a search party was combing the village for her. Esmerine began to dread Dosia’s return almost as much as her disappearance—Dosia would be so mortified by all the commotion.

But Dosia did not come home that night. It was difficult to search the sea in the darkness, but some of the traders went to the point to inquire about her at that grand house. Esmerine had never spent a night without Dosia, and she swam little circles in their cave, unaware that she had slept until she woke to the serious voice of a trader in the entry room.