Brightly (Flicker #2) (19 page)

Davis peered at Carrie’s neck. “Do they look weird to you, too?”

“Yeah. They don’t look like barnacles.”

Carefully Davis reached up with one gloved hand and probed the edges of the growth on one side of Carrie’s neck. As Nasser watched, the growth gave a little, shifting to one side like a half-peeled scab, then sloughed off entirely.

For a second, Nasser and Davis both froze. Then Nasser flexed his fingers and bent to pick up the growth that Davis had dropped in his surprise. Touching it made his fingers tingle slightly, but he held it anyway. “No root,” he observed. “What do you think this could be?”

At first, Davis didn’t answer. He was staring at Carrie’s neck, at the spot where the growth had been. “Nasser…”

“What?”

“Look.”

Nasser did. The tendons in Carrie’s neck stood out. The veins at her throat were as dark as those at her wrist. Where the growth had come loose, the spot was slightly shiny and pink, like the skin under a scab that had been ripped off a day too soon.

But none of that was what made Nasser drop to his knees beside her chair and lean in close.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

On the side of Carrie’s neck were three parallel slits. When the growth sloughed off, the slits had been revealed. For a second, Nasser thought they were cuts, but when he looked closer, he saw that her skin wasn’t torn.

They weren’t cuts. They were little flaps of skin that fluttered slightly when she breathed.

Gills.

Chapter Ten:

As soon as Nasser and Davis had finished explaining what they’d seen and as soon as Filo agreed to try translating, they all made their way to the water. After the disaster that had been their first encounter with the merfolk, Lee couldn’t help the feeling of dread that coiled in her chest at the thought of facing them again.

Henry thought Nemo Cove was too dangerous to try again. Meeting the whole colony was a recipe for disaster, so he led them to Finley Cove, on the northern side of the island. It had never attracted many merfolk, but some liked to lounge in its warm waters during the late afternoon. If any merfolk swam around here, Henry said, there would be only a few.

This place was smaller, shallower and rockier than Nemo Cove, not to mention harder to reach. The cove sat at the bottom of a steep hill, below a sheer rock face nestled against the hillside. It was a five-foot drop between the end of the rock to the sand below.

Finley Cove had no dock for them to stand on, so they gathered on a wide, flat stone that lay where the sand met the sea. Farther out, black rocks that jutted up from the surf, wet and glistening in the golden sunset light.

“What now?” Alice asked. “Are we just going to stand here and hope one swims by?”

“No,” Clementine said. “We’re going to call.”

She reached for the gold chain she always wore around her neck. A small brass mermaid hung from the chain, holding a tiny, glimmering ruby over her head. When Clementine pushed on the mermaid’s tail, a bright blade unfolded from the side.

“Blood, freely given.” Clementine swept the blade across her palm without flinching. “An offering and an invitation. It’ll attract merfolk and show them we’re here in good faith.”

Jason made a sound halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “Or it’ll kick their bloodlust into high gear!”

Clementine held out her hand. Blood dripped from the cut, sprinkling the edge of the rock dark red, where lapping tongues of water sucked it into the sea. “They’re not sharks,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Jason. “If we follow the rules, so will they.”

“What rules?”

“Blood rules,” she said simply. “Sea rules. The only rules that matter. We didn’t respect that last time. We tried to take before we’d given, but it doesn’t work like that, not with them. It was a stupid mistake. This way, they’ll be appeased. For now.”

After a minute, Davis handed Clementine a length of gauze, which she wrapped around her hand. She slid the knife back into the mermaid’s tail.

Farther out, a shape surfaced with a ripple: a pale green mermaid, her eyes huge and yellow, her face half-covered in dark barnacles. She bobbed gently with the waves, watching the humans with an expression Lee couldn’t read. Slowly, she drifted closer to the rock. Lee could see her nostrils flaring, as if she were sniffing for something.

The mermaid uttered something in that liquid dialect of Old Faerie. Her eyes were trained on Clementine’s hand, the white gauze stained red from seeping blood.

“She says she accepted your blood,” Filo said. “She wants to know what you want in exchange for it.”

Clementine curled her hand into a fist, then hid it behind her back. “Tell her we want to talk about the curse. Tell her we have questions that need to be answered.”

Filo translated. He spoke carefully, but his words were as slick as fish. His studying sounded like it had paid off. “She says her answers will cost more than a few drops of blood. She wants more.”

“More?” Clementine blinked.

He shrugged. “I think she liked the taste.”

“How much?”

“Enough.” Before Clementine could protest, he clarified: “That’s what she said. ‘Enough.’ I don’t know how much that is. I don’t even know if
she
knows, but that’s her price. She says she’ll answer truthfully if you pay it. And faeries don’t lie.”

“Fine.” Clementine exhaled through her nose. When she started unwrapping her cut hand, Henry caught her wrist.

“Let me do it,” he said.

Clementine tried to pull her hand away. “She already likes mine.”

“Then ask.” Henry turned to Filo. “Ask her if she’d accept my blood instead. Please.”

“Why?” Clementine asked, furrowing her brow.

Henry didn’t answer. He just looked to Filo.

At first, Filo didn’t move. He met Henry’s gaze in silence, and something seemed to pass between them. He turned to the mermaid and spoke quietly to her. The mermaid listened, her yellow eyes sliding slowly from Filo to Henry.

The mermaid smiled: a wide, open-mouthed grin. Lee cringed; the mermaid’s mouth was crowded with a double row of sharp teeth, the space behind them black and depthless. She spoke again, teeth disappearing behind her lips, and Filo nodded.

“She will,” he informed Henry. “But… she says you have to come closer. The water’s too shallow for her to get close enough. You have to meet her halfway.”

Davis stiffened. “Henry,” he warned.

Henry shook his head as he moved forward. “It’s fine.”

Clementine raised her gauze-wrapped hand, reaching for his sleeve, but he shrugged her off and stepped into the water. The mermaid swam forward to meet him in water up to his knees.

“Henry,” Clementine called, in a voice Lee had never heard her use before: thin, almost panicked. “This isn’t how you deal with it!”

But Henry just pulled out a pocketknife and slashed a red line across his palm. The mermaid tilted her head back and opened her terrible mouth as he extended his arm. Blood ran in rivulets down Henry’s fingers, fat garnet drops spattering the mermaid’s jaw, falling past her teeth into her waiting mouth.

When she finally closed her mouth, her lips were a scarlet smear, her chin messy with blood droplets. Henry backed away from her and rejoined them on the rock. Davis produced another length of gauze and Henry accepted it silently. His expression was carefully neutral, but in his eyes, Lee recognized a strange blend of rage and despair.

The mermaid said something to Filo, the words swirling together, but he didn’t translate.

“What did she say?” Davis asked.

Filo shook his head. “What do you want me to ask?”

Clementine gave him a hard look. “Ask why her colony came here.”

He turned back to the mermaid and repeated the question. She watched him with gleaming eyes, and when she spoke, he translated easily. Lee had always wondered what it was like for him, understanding every word he encountered, even if he didn’t want to.

“A sea serpent,” Filo reported, speaking over the mermaid even as he listened to her. “It entered their territory from the open sea. They came from a pass, it sounds like. Someplace not too far from here with a big bridge. Serpents eat a lot and it wasn’t long before it ate most of the fish that the merfolk depend on for food. The colony was starving and so was the serpent. It started hunting merfolk. Nearly two thirds of them were eaten. It was flee, starve or be devoured. Siren Island is a safe place—no serpents and good hunting. They were willing to fight for it. They did.”

“What does she know about the curse?” Davis asked. “Are the merfolk casting it?”

“She says the colony’s population is dangerously low,” Filo said, a minute later, still listening to the mermaid. “They’ve pushed the Siren colony out for now, but they’re fewer in numbers and they can’t hold them back forever, not as they are. For their own survival, they need to increase their…”

Filo trailed off. He asked something in Old Faerie; the mermaid replied. They went back and forth as dusk continued to gather around them, purple and blue. Filo listened more than he spoke, interjecting with questions.

“Well?” Clementine prompted.

It was as if Filo hadn’t heard her. He stared at the mermaid, who stared back impassively. The spatters of Henry’s blood had traced red trails down her chin. When he finally spoke again, Filo sounded stunned. “It’s a survival mechanism,” he said. “The curse. When their numbers get too low, they… increase their population.”

“What does that mean?” Nasser asked.

“It’s transformative magic,” he said. “The curse changes humans into merfolk. That’s its purpose. That’s what it’s doing.”

Everyone went very still. The only sound was the whispering of the sea against the rocks.

“Is that possible?” Lee sputtered.

“Selkies can go from seal to human just by taking off their skins,” Henry said, his voice low and hollow. “So can swan maidens. That kind of magic isn’t unheard of.”

Clementine was breathing hard, like she was winded. Davis reached for her hand, but she crossed both arms over her chest, gripping her elbows. “How do we reverse it?”

“That would only hurt the colony,” Filo said. “None of them would want to—”

“Ask her, dammit,” Clementine said, through gritted teeth.

“Fine.”

When Filo translated the question, the mermaid didn’t answer. Her lips peeled back into another smile, revealing pink-stained teeth. Without a word, she drifted backward, into deeper water, then disappeared under the surface with barely a ripple.

“I should’ve realized it sooner,” Filo said, grimacing. He was perched on the end of the couch in the living room, where they had all gathered after returning from the cove. “It was right in front of me the whole time. The Maiden of Deception Pass.”

Davis, who had been furiously flipping through his notes, looked up. “Who?”

“It’s an old story,” Filo explained. “A long time ago, a young woman fell in love with a water spirit. Each time they met, the spirit told her about the underwater kingdom where he lived. Eventually, he took human form, walked onto the land and accompanied the maiden to her village to ask her father for her hand in marriage.

“The spirit promised that the maiden would be given eternal life and that his people would be good to her, but her father refused to give up his beloved daughter. The spirit became angry. He vowed that all the sea food would disappear and famine would descend upon the people until he was allowed to marry the maiden.

“From that moment onward, no sea food could be found, and the people starved. Even the streams dried up, leaving them without fresh water. The decision pained him, but the maiden’s father finally agreed to let her marry the spirit, on the condition that she would return once a year, so he could see if she was happy. The spirit agreed, and the maiden walked into the sea with him. She waded deeper and deeper, until the water closed over her head and only her long hair could be seen floating in the current.

“The sea food returned, more plentiful than ever, and the maiden returned to land every year. But with each visit, the people noticed changes in her. Barnacles grew on her arms and legs, even on her face. A strange, cold wind followed her everywhere she went. She seemed unhappy when she was out of the sea. Finally, her father released her from her promise. That was the last time he saw her, but it’s said that she still lives in the waters of Deception Pass, and her long hair can sometimes be seen drifting on the current.”

For a moment, they were all silent.

“Barnacles,” Clementine echoed. “So you’re saying the water spirit was one of the merfolk?”

“Could be,” Filo said. “It meshes with what the mermaid described. There’s a bridge at Deception Pass, isn’t there?”

“Yeah,” Lee said. “I saw it on the news the other day. There have been a bunch of drowning in the last few months—freak whirlpools sucking boats and kayaks under. This guy they interviewed said he saw something moving under the water when one of the whirlpools appeared.”