The Twice Lost (32 page)

He asked instead for the peculiar pleasure of watching Anais try to think, of hearing how she’d reply. Her face contorted as she mulled the question.

“I don’t know! How am I supposed to know that? It’s not like I ever
let
anybody live—when I was still with the tribe! Why do you always have to ask me these
questions?
”

For the first time, Moreland wondered if she genuinely missed her slaughtered friends; if, perhaps, she even regretted surviving. “Let’s assume
permanently,
then. The victim would be left permanently utterly insane. A gibbering idiot. It would be apparent to anyone who observed him afterward that he was mad and that nothing he’d ever said should be believed. For example, his outlandish claims that mermaids are lost little girls who’ve been terribly hurt somehow.”

Anais tipped her head. The strain of following his reasoning showed vividly on her face. “Mermaids—but girls do change because they get hurt! Except for, like, me.”

“Oh, I know that. Tadpole, of course we know things—you and I do, I mean—that we’d prefer the American public
didn’t
know. And if someone goes around
telling
them those things, we’d much prefer if they didn’t take him seriously.”

“But—who are you
talking
about? I don’t know what—”

“Ah, tadpole, quite a prize. A prize and a surprise for you. I hope you’ll be pleased.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Whom in all the wide world would you most enjoy hurting, Anais?”

“I—you mean Luce? Did you catch her? But me singing wouldn’t make another
mermaid
go crazy!”

“I’d like to propose that you can wound Luce most effectively by destroying someone she loves.” Moreland grinned. “
Now
are you happy to see me? I have Lucette Korchak’s father in shackles just down the hall, and when you’re ready I’ll bring him to you.”

Anais didn’t look happy at the news. Moreland was genuinely surprised. She blanched and hunched her shoulders.

“You see, dear? You don’t have to try to track down his phone number anymore because we’ve conveniently brought him straight to you. And, given what an unholy nuisance he’s turned out to be, I’d have to surmise that his bitch of a daughter must take after him.” Anais’s expression didn’t change. Moreland felt the first twinge of worry that she might actually refuse to do what he wanted. “Anais? You will collaborate with me on this little project, won’t you? You wouldn’t want me to think that you’ve . . . outlived your usefulness. Of course not.”

“You wouldn’t do anything to hurt me! Not after—I’ve helped you so much! You
wouldn’t
. . .”

Moreland glowered at her sternly until her voice trailed away. She was much too precious to him to be killed, but there was no reason to let her know that. “Just follow my instructions, tadpole. That way there won’t be any need for us to find out what I
would
do if I were ever forced to deal with your disobedience.”

“Okay,” Anais muttered.

“Okay? You’ll do a nice, thorough job of destroying Andrew Korchak’s mind? Not one speck of sanity left?”

“I said okay, already!”

She was hunched in the water, her sky blue tail coiled tightly and her arms wrapped around her chest. Moreland regarded her for a sustained moment, one hand lazily tracing the outline of her head and shoulders on the glass. “I’ll have him brought in, then. You’ll be able to . . . enjoy yourself . . . for as long as necessary. Though I think you should be able to accomplish the job fairly quickly, don’t you?”

Anais didn’t answer, didn’t look up at him. After a moment he gave up waiting for a reaction and left the pale, soundproof room. When Moreland returned there were two guards with him leading a man in shackles and a black hood. They plopped him on a plain wooden chair and fastened him to it with a few deft adjustments. “So,” Moreland said. He positioned himself directly behind the captive. “So, Anais. You were complaining that you don’t get to see them properly? We can fix that for you.” Moreland tugged off the hood and dropped it to the floor, letting Andrew Korchak stare straight at Anais, her azure eyes suddenly lifted to meet his. “Better? The shock system in your tank will be switched off in precisely two minutes.”

Then Moreland and the guards stalked out of the room.

He could observe the proceedings through live video, for once, even if he couldn’t listen. He could witness on Andrew’s face the same expression that had floated on his own on the hateful day when he’d put those earphones on, when he’d
heard
her and his mind had given itself to new configurations, the dark intestinal corkscrewing of relentless song.

This was the happiest he’d been in months.

***

Then Anais was left alone, facing the shabby, helpless man strapped to the chair. He had short-cropped, grayish brown hair, stubble, and a look somewhere between bleak and oddly whimsical as he regarded her. One cheek was swollen by a large greenish bruise. “Heya. That guy said your name’s Anais?”

Anais couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t seem even slightly surprised to see a mermaid in a tank.

“What if it is?” she asked sullenly.

“Did you know my Lucette? Sweet girl, short dark hair, light green tail? I was trying to swim out to see her when they bust- ed me.”

Anais hesitated for a moment. But it was a relief to have someone speak to her so simply after all Moreland’s sadistic verbal contortions. “I knew her.” She pouted. “So? It’s not like Luce is going to get me out of here!”

She watched while the man in the chair nodded thoughtfully. “They’re holding you against your will? Yeah, well. Luce doesn’t even know we’re in here. Doesn’t look like there’s much she can do for either of us. But maybe we could help each other out.”

There was a shocked pause while Anais took this in. Her tightly coiled tail started to loosen and trail deeper in her tank. “Like how?”

“Well, maybe if I ever get out of here, I could let people know you’re trapped. Does anybody even know about this? How they’ve got you stuck in here?”

Anais gave a small yelp of surprise. This guy really
was
dumb enough to be Luce’s dad. “They’re never going to let you out! Are you
stupid?
They won’t let you out, unless . . .”

“What have they got in mind for me, Anais? They must have a pretty big reason for leaving me here with you like this.”

Anais looked at him, watching his wry cinnamon eyes and scruffy intensity. He should have seemed utterly contemptible, a bum and a lowlife, but Anais found that she didn’t quite see him that way. “You don’t actually look much like Luce.”

“Lucky for her, right?” the man asked. He grinned back at her. It was strange how relaxed he seemed in spite of his immobilized legs, his arms bound behind his back. “Yeah, Luce always looked like her mom, Alyssa. About as beautiful a girl as I ever saw. Before she went mermaid, Luce looked a little more—like, a quieter kind of pretty than her mom was. How about you?”

Anais jerked back a little. “What do you mean?”

“Who do you take after more? I mean, you had human parents and everything, right?”

He’d asked in the same casual, warm tone he’d used ever since they’d dragged him in here, but Anais couldn’t escape the feeling that the question was some kind of trick. “I don’t know!” Her voice came out in a thin squeal.

“You don’t know?” He considered that gravely. “You don’t know what your parents looked like, then?”

Anais didn’t answer. It wasn’t like she normally disliked thinking about her parents—they’d been rich and adoring, after all—but somehow now it bothered her to be reminded of them. Was her own father’s skeleton still clanking along the blue carpet of his office in their long-submerged yacht?

“How about Kathleen Lambert?” the man asked. His voice suddenly sounded flatter, as if he was suppressing his emotions. Anais felt an almost physical discomfort, as if the water of her tank was charged by a cold, jagged energy. “Did you come across her somehow? Like—” He stared at Anais then glanced searchingly around her tank. “Say, did you ever sing her any songs, maybe?”

Anais decided not to look at him anymore, and her mouth twitched up into an awkward smirk. Those two minutes were definitely up by now.

Even with her eyes averted, she could
feel
the man regarding her somberly. “That’s how it went down, then?” he asked. “They made you kill Kathleen, and now you’re supposed to do me, too? Not that I can get to an ocean too easy, tied up like this . . .”

“He doesn’t
want
you to drown.” Anais was surprised to hear herself mutter the words. “He wants you to go crazy.”

“Crazy, you say? So just don’t do it, Anais. You don’t really want to, do you? Look, I promise you I can fake crazy just fine. Then once I’m out I’ll tell everyone you’re in here. I’ll get you help. How ’bout that?”

“I have to do what he says,” Anais whispered. “If I don’t do it he’ll kill me, like he’ll drain my tank, or they’ll electrocute me, or . . .”

“You
don’t
have to. We can trick him.”

“I—” Anais was astounded by the words that had formed in her head. She didn’t want to say them, but they kept repeating in her thoughts, aching and clamorous. “I—but you won’t be able to tell Luce anything! You’ll just be a vegetable, like, too retarded to even talk!”

“I loved Kathleen. I want you to remember that forever, all right? I
loved
her.”

Anais couldn’t keep those insistent words
quiet
anymore—and they wouldn’t make any difference anyway. No one would ever know she’d said them. “Uh, tell Luce I’m sorry about this.”

Anais sang.

26

Luce was secretly dismayed to see how quickly Nausicaa mastered singing to the water. Nausicaa was an amazing singer, but Luce had hoped that she might have trouble picking up this particular skill. Within three days Nausicaa was lifting waves big enough to curl over her head, and she’d already started training Opal, the blond metaskaza who’d traveled with her from Hawaii. Luce tried to focus on her work, on helping to train new arrivals and keeping up morale, but she couldn’t completely fight off a sneaking depression as she realized how soon Nausicaa would be leaving her.

On the fourth day after Nausicaa’s arrival, Luce woke in the late afternoon to find Imani next to her, looking concerned. “Hey, Luce? I’m afraid you’re going to be upset about this.”

Luce jerked upright and gazed helplessly through the azure-streaked shadows, searching for Nausicaa’s dark silhouette. “Is she gone?”

“She said to tell you goodbye. She said it would be easier for both of you if she left while you were asleep, but she’ll come back as soon as she can.”

“Why didn’t you
wake
me? What if something happens to her out there, and I never . . . Imani!”

Imani was stroking Luce’s arm, trying to calm her down, but it wasn’t working. “I . . . thought she might be right. And I thought it might be better for everybody else here too. I understand that Nausicaa’s incredibly important to you, more than any of us, but that hurts . . . some of the girls. And if they saw you get too upset about her leaving—I don’t know—it might be pretty bad.”

Luce groaned, thinking of Catarina. Cat had taken to sleeping in one of the other encampments ever since Nausicaa had showed up, singing on the shifts opposite Luce’s and conspicuously avoiding her. A few of the other lieutenants had been acting a bit edgy too. It was as if they thought Luce was committing a crime by loving Nausicaa as much as she did.

“I know it’s not fair,” Imani went on gently, almost as if she could hear Luce’s thoughts. “But it can’t just be about what you want, Luce. It has to be about what’s best for the Twice Lost Army, about keeping everyone together, okay? You have to at least act like you’re fine.”

Luce stared off, unable to reply. She knew Imani was right, but she still couldn’t help resenting what she was saying. Now that she was general she wasn’t allowed to cry or break down just because of how
other
mermaids might feel about that? Since when did she not have a right to her own emotions?

“It’s going to be time pretty soon for our shift,” Imani pursued, still stroking Luce’s arm. “You look tired. You need to eat, and you need to be strong for us. When the war is over you can scream at me for this or cry or do whatever you need to, and I promise I won’t complain.”

Luce turned to look at Imani, with her midnight face and searching eyes. Blue light curled like feathers on her dark cheeks. “I’m sorry, Imani.”

“Why?”

“If I’m acting so wrong that you think I’d
ever
want to scream at you, I must be . . .”
Really selfish,
Luce thought, but instead of saying the words aloud she shook herself. “We need to get to the bridge early, anyway. We should see if there’s any news . . . about the letter.” Ever since Seb had wandered off with her missive, Luce had been waiting for a report, for any sign of how the humans might be reacting to her proposal. Some of the Twice Lost had started to make friends with certain humans on the shore, and there were already a handful of budding romances. If Luce’s letter was discussed on the news, the mermaids would be sure to hear
something.

Imani leaned in and hugged her silently. All Luce’s grief and weariness and worry surged in that embrace, only to be met by the strong, sweet containment of Imani’s arms.

***

As they were rounding the Embarcadero, a young mermaid came dashing toward them through the deep green water. “General Luce! Lieutenants Yuan and Cala sent me to find you! They’re talking about us on the news!”

“The humans got the letter?” Luce asked breathlessly. “How did you find out?”

The little mermaid saluted, in a messy, embarrassed way. “They got it! They keep talking about it! And we can go watch the whole thing! On TV!”

Luce was perplexed. “TV? How do you mean?”

“They—two of those humans, the really nice ones? The woman with the brown hat? Who came looking for their daughter, except they say they know she’s gone? They brought a way for us to watch. Come see! General . . .”