Lost Voices (24 page)

“You
totally
are.”

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Luce shook her head. “You’re still a lot prettier than I am.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Luce was sure that Dana was just saying it to be nice; Dana’s clear, dark face had a haunting glamour that even Luce’s transfigured appearance couldn’t approach. “You have those amazing eyes. And such great lashes. Maybe we could find you, I don’t know” she laughed, too brightly “some, like, waterproof mascara? You’re coming with us, right?” Luce looked for Catarina again, but she wasn’t on the beach.

She couldn’t help thinking that Catarina would put a stop to this. It wasn’t exactly against the timahk, maybe, but it still seemed wrong. The clinging larvae had paddled closer now; they massed together like seaweed, except with a scattering of sorrowful human eyes. As they approached the beach a couple of the braver ones began to break away from the group, and Luce noticed that a lot of them were staring at Anais.

“I don’t really want any human stuff,” Luce finally said; Dana just looked uncomprehending. “I mean, isn’t that kind of weird for a mermaid? If we want to be like them, then why do we go around killing them?” Luce knew instantly that she’d said too much. Dana was obviously offended.

“God, Luce. Don’t you think you’re maybe being too up-tight about this? We’re just having
fun
for once.” Dana’s tone suddenly shifted; the flippant irritation was gone, and she spoke in a sudden rush of wistful sorrow. “I mean, whatever, we all have to deal with . . . with all the things we’re never going to have now. Like, I really wanted to go to college and be a pedia-trician. I’ll never get to do any of that. And Rachel . . . she just had this one necklace from her mom, and she lost it when we changed. So just because
you
don’t miss human things, Luce . . .

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I mean, it’s easy to go around
saying
we shouldn’t want anything that might, kind of, make up for all that . . .” Luce wasn’t sure how to answer this, and stared off with her cheeks burning. Maybe Dana was right; if owning a few human objects helped the mermaids ease the ache they all felt, then why shouldn’t they collect whatever they could find? After all, she could comfort herself with her singing, but that wouldn’t work for everyone. She wondered if she should apologize, but Dana wasn’t looking at her anymore, and she couldn’t bring herself to try to break through the awkward silence that had come between them.

She noticed that one fairly large bluish larva had gone nuz-zling up to Anais’s satiny cobalt tail, watching the brilliant scales with obvious fascination. Anais was busy chattering and seemed not to see it. As Luce watched, the larva reached out and barely touched Anais’s fins, and when Anais didn’t react the larva grew bolder, and closed its small lips softly on the waving, pink- shimmered tail.

Still Anais didn’t seem to register what was happening for a second. Then she let out a wrenching shriek and flung her tail up in an enormous cascade of water. The bluish larva jerked back and splashed down on its side, waving its stubby arms in fright.

It seemed too disoriented to swim away and only gabbled, a bubble of saliva swelling on its pink lips. Everyone cracked up laughing, even Luce.

Everyone except for Anais, that is.

“That is SO not funny! That disgusting thing was actually tonguing me! Oh God, that was just so
gross
. . .” Anais raised her tail threateningly above the larva, which cowered below i 203

her, too afraid to move away. “I should bash its nasty little head in.”

Do it,
Luce thought eagerly.
Do it, and then we can finally get rid
of you.
Then Luce saw the helpless terror on the larva’s face and felt deeply ashamed of her wish to see it injured.

Samantha threw herself across the expanse of water separating her from Anais, and caught the blue tail in her arms before it could strike. Anais tried to twist free, and rocked sloppily over into deeper water so that she and Samantha landed in a wet heap. Samantha’s pink sunglasses were knocked off one ear and hung at an absurd angle across her face, and Luce could hear the raspy sound of ripping chiffon. The larva finally had the sense to flop back a few feet, but then it stopped and gawked again. It seemed mesmerized by Anais, by her bland golden perfection.

“ Samantha! Why are you trying to stop me from killing that thing? Eeew, we should really kill all of them. If I just had our housekeeper here I’d make her do it. Clean this place
up
.” Anais sat up, and abruptly seemed to realize that every mermaid there was staring at her in stunned quiet.

“Anais! I’ve told you! The timahk! If you hurt that larva Cat will throw you out on your own!” Samantha wailed. She was still clinging to Anais’s tail, sprawled across it and pinning it to the seabed. To talk she had to torque her upper body back and crane her neck, barely holding her mouth above water.

“Jeez,” Anais said. “It’s not like Catarina’s even here. She wouldn’t have to know about it, would she?” But there was a dubious look on her face as she glanced around at the circle of mermaids watching her. Samantha finally let go of the sky blue tail and pulled herself upright, straightening her sunglasses.

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“You can’t hurt larvae, ever,” Kayley finally said. She sounded nervous, and the words clearly cost her tremendous effort. “Maybe there are a few mermaids here who would lie to Catarina about something really important like that, but most of us wouldn’t even dream of it.” Luce knew Kayley meant it as a dig at her; she clearly hadn’t recovered from her resentment of the time Luce had lied to protect Jenna. Jenna shot Luce a long, contorted, almost hostile look.

Luce found herself wondering what she was doing with them. Had her idea that she belonged here never been more than a fantasy?

“So you’re saying you’d tattle on me, Kayley?” Anais asked disdainfully. “You would never break one of Catarina’s big bad rules, would you?”

“They’re not just
Catarina’s
rules,” Luce objected, but her sudden discomfort made her voice shrink almost to nothing, and no one seemed to hear her.

There was a long, disturbing pause; Luce was acutely aware of the silvery diamond patterns flowing across the surface of the water.

“Want to head back to the yacht?” Dana asked uncomfortably. “I’d like to look around.” No one answered.

“Who says Catarina gets to be queen, anyway?” Anais snapped after a moment. “Like, how do you guys
decide
that?” Luce was grateful to see that even Samantha seemed piqued by this. Luce couldn’t understand how even Anais could ask that question; Catarina was so savage, so strong and elegant. Who could compare to her?

“ Catarina is our best singer! Definitely. You haven’t really i 205

heard her yet, Anais like, you were sort of half unconscious when she was singing to you before but she’s just she has the most gorgeous voice! And the things she can do with it . . .” Samantha had begun with enthusiasm but then trailed off envi-ously and looked away. Anais gazed around at everyone.

“So
what?
Like, just being the best singer makes you queen automatically? Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, something that makes sense? Like, whoever was oldest when they changed?” Kayley shot her another look; they all knew that Anais was almost seventeen, three months older than Catarina had been at her transformation. Luce grimaced at the lack of subtlety. But Kayley’s courage seemed to have exhausted itself. A glance shot around the group, passing from one girl to the next before Miriam finally looked up, and Luce suddenly realized that Miriam almost never talked anymore.

“Of course it has to be the best singer who’s queen! That’s how it is with all the mermaids in the world. You can recognize the one who has the right to be queen by her song.” Anais glared around and seemed to realize that no one disagreed with this. “Okay. You guys say that’s how it is; I guess it must be.” She tipped her golden head and mulled this over. “So, who’s
second
best here?”

“ Luce.” Miriam said it instantly, as if it were simply un-questionable. “She’s amazing, too. Almost as great as Cat is, really.” Luce could see Anais recoil with a look of mingled surprise and irritation, then flick a contemptuous glance in her direction. “You don’t know that, Anais? Luce was the one who helped Catarina change you. If it wasn’t for her you would have died.” There was a cold edge to Miriam’s voice now.

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“Ooooh!” Anais said. “Then I guess I owe her a huge thank-you.” Luce had never heard anyone sound less sincere. “ Luce, I want to thank you very much for being so brave and wonderful and saving my pitiful little life!” She didn’t even bother to meet Luce’s eyes as she said it, and the stab of queasy alarm Luce had felt the first time she met Anais came back in her stomach.

Luce wasn’t about to answer. She didn’t see any reason to play along with one of Anais’s games.

“ Luce! What’s your problem? You could at least tell Anais

‘you’re welcome’!” Samantha sniped. So she was back to being Anais’s sycophant, Luce thought bitterly. “She said ‘thank you’, like, totally nicely! Don’t you think her feelings will be hurt if you just blow her off?”

Luce gaped at Samantha for a second. Did she really believe a single word she was saying?

“I don’t think it’s possible to hurt Anais’s feelings,” Luce announced flatly. “I don’t think she has any.” Several of the girls gasped and Anais crumpled up her face; Luce knew there was going to be another fit of fake sobbing. Even if Luce had belonged here at first, she thought, maybe she didn’t anymore; there was no way she could belong in a place where anyone took Anais seriously, admired her, much less let her boss them around. At the same time this was the first place where anyone had ever accepted her, where it had almost seemed she might finally have a home; why did Anais have to ruin everything? She knew, too, that nothing was waiting for her in her own small cave except loneliness, and the fear of what her voice might be able to accomplish.

Anais started whimpering, pointing at Luce with a trembling finger while she sank her face against Samantha’s shoulder.

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The murmuring got louder, and Luce saw Jenna scowling at her, her forehead crimped from anger, her knuckles pale in her brown hands. Luce decided to get away before anyone could insist that she apologize. She spun out into the open sea, rolling her body over and over to try to shake the anger she felt at everyone. How could they possibly fall for Anais? She was so horribly, transpar-ently phony, so obviously out to take over control of the tribe if she could. Why else was she so interested in what it took to become queen?

Something long and bright yellow rocked in a sloppy, haphazard way on the surface a short way ahead, but the quick rippling distorted it so much that Luce wasn’t sure what it was.

A large school of fat, bluish fish suddenly stirred the water in front of her, making it hard to see much besides quick winks of color. Still, she was glad to have something distract her from the seething aversion that made her keep thinking about Anais.

She swirled up to get a look at the yellow thing: it turned out to be an empty single- seat kayak, tossed on the waves. It was still right side up, though, and Luce noticed a bottle of water and a bag lunch tucked at the bottom, along with a single gray man’s sneaker. Whoever had been paddling it hadn’t capsized, then. A neon orange life jacket was floating a few yards away, and Luce had the disturbing sense that the kayaker had stripped off the life jacket deliberately before diving overboard. She knew immediately that there’d been something in the water he’d wanted more than life itself, something with cream- colored shoulders surrounded by drifting rays of red- gold hair, something with a voice like living flames. He’d sunk down held in the arms of the most perfect beauty he’d ever seen, breathing the 208 i LOST VOICES

bubbles she fed him from her lips, until he didn’t breathe anymore . . .

It was
much
too close to the dining beach, Luce thought.

Someone could have heard, someone could have swum out to see what was happening. How could Catarina take a risk like that?

Impulsively Luce grabbed the kayak and started towing it away.

It would be better if none of the other mermaids saw it; that way no one would ask questions. As she swam on dragging the kayak behind her she found herself roiling with anger. It was bad enough that Catarina had just murdered someone, but did she really have to be so stupid about it? Was she
trying
to get caught? Luce tugged the kayak a full two miles from shore before shoving it away. The awful image of Catarina surrounded by a pack of indignant mermaids kept recurring in Luce’s mind: Catarina banished and swimming off into gray emptiness while Luce watched helplessly.

By the time she got back to her small cave Luce was in such a foul mood that she didn’t even bother to control her own singing. She didn’t care if the death song came back, how high and wildly it rose, or where it carried her. She even wanted it. She let her voice stretch out in free, feverish expansion, waiting for that heart- piercing note at the top of the stairs. She waited, but her voice was somewhere lower, smoother. It was the first time she’d deliberately allowed it to do whatever it wanted, and to her amazement it ignored the death song completely. Instead it glossed itself outward, rolled up at the corners . . .

And a feather- shaped wave appeared directly in a beam of brilliant sun: a frond of water, golden green, with a star in its heart. It pranced and waved at Luce as if it were overjoyed to i 209

see her, then as her voice tightened in on itself it gave a little gleaming leap and raced at her. Luce tried to make her voice stop but its hold was too strong, and the tiny, shining wave rose taller and straighter, bobbing a little at the tip. It swayed and waited for Luce’s voice to tell it what to do.

It was real, then. The wave was at her command. It was exactly, exactly like her horrible dream. She must have a secret desire one she couldn’t even consciously acknowledge to hurt the people she loved most. She must be just as cruel as Anais, or maybe even worse. Anais had laughed when her father died, but even so, she probably didn’t have dreams about murdering him herself !