The Twice Lost (54 page)

Andrew Korchak got up and climbed a nearby staircase, giving them some privacy. He stood half-concealed by the roof’s edge, facing the sea. He seemed to be watching the same patch of light Luce had noticed earlier: a place where the waves seemed to beat beyond the confines of time, where the light glimmered all the way to always.
The forever world.

“Luce!”

No matter how confidently Dorian had been explaining his plans to her father, Luce could see that he was actually worried. He knew the conversation might not go his way. “Hi, Dorian.” She caught his hand as he scrambled onto the rock above her. “I . . .” She didn’t know if she could say it; she didn’t even know if she
would
say it. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Don’t, Luce.
Don’t
say that.” Dorian paused. “You know how much I love you now, right? I’ve done everything I can think of to get you to forgive me. I really—”

“That’s not why. I forgive you and I . . . I love you more now than I
ever
have. I wish everything was different. But you need a human girlfriend.”

“You
can
be now. Luce, we can be together forever. We
should.
”

He was crying, and Luce knew that she would give anything to comfort him. Anything except for who she truly was.

“Dorian . . . it doesn’t matter if I
could
be human again. I’m not. I mean, that’s not who I really am.”

She glanced over her shoulder again. A figure emerged from that wavering blot of light. Luce knew it was Nausicaa. She turned to wave at someone Luce couldn’t see and then dived.

“What am I supposed to
do,
Luce?”

“Kiss me. Then get up and walk away.” She smiled at him through the tears that blurred her vision. “And tell Zoe I said hi.”

Dorian was in the water with her now. Tears merged where their cheeks touched, and Luce kissed his face and mouth again and again. How
soft
his lips were, how sweet each light touch of his hands . . .

Then she pulled away. She had to,
now,
before her heart shattered completely. “Go on, Dorian,” Luce whispered. “Go be a hero. I’ll remember.”

The gold of his eyes was so charged with grief and longing and exultation that it looked almost inhuman as he gazed at her for the last time. Then, like the hero Luce knew he was, he accepted it. He climbed over the rocks and half smiled at her before he straightened himself.

And turned away.

From the darkness of the bunker Luce heard his voice breaking out in a drawn-out, wordless cry. It faded gradually until it sounded like the last faint shimmer of a song.

Luce was staring again at that velvety patch of glow.
Everywhere
and
always,
a million bits of winking focus blurring through one another. Now there were two figures silhouetted in front of it: girls, visible from the shoulders up. They were waiting.

Her father saw them too from his vantage up on the roof. Luce remembered again exactly why she loved her father so deeply when she caught sight of his expression. She could tell he understood, and he was smiling down at her with such pride that her tears quickened all over again.

Nausicaa broke through the surface just beside her. “Luce! I told you before, we have an invitation. And if you wish . . .”

She saw the answer in Luce’s eyes and fell silent. As Nausicaa held out her hand the only sound was the rushing waves. The song of the waves rolled all the way to forever, and Luce pressed Nausicaa’s fingers in her own.

They didn’t have far to go.

I am especially grateful to my much-loved friends Tera Freedman and Jenny Lemper, both of whom took me on scouting expeditions around San Francisco Bay to locate suitable mermaid habitats. (Tera brought me to the encampment at Islais Creek, and Jenny showed me Mare Island.) The sailors hanging out at the Bay View Boat Club offered dubious information (“There’s a pod of whales out there, and they dance on their tails in the moonlight!”) but charming company. The Monterey Bay Aquarium was both thrilling and extremely helpful in forming a mermaid’s-eye-view of the area. And my wonderful husband, Todd Polenberg, first suggested that a blockade of the Golden Gate might be an effective strategy for mermaids in trouble.

***

In addition to the sources already mentioned in the acknowledgments for
Waking Storms,
I am indebted to Wendy Williams’s book
Kraken
for giving me an entirely new appreciation of squids.

Visit
www.hmhbooks.com
to find all of the books in the Lost Voices Trilogy.

S
ARAH
P
ORTER
is the author
Lost Voices, Waking Storms,
and
The Twice Lost.
She is also an artist and a freelance public school teacher. Sarah and her husband live in Brooklyn, New York. Visit Sarah’s Watery Den online at
www.sarahporterbooks.com
.