Lost Voices (26 page)

The music flowed through Luce’s mind until her thoughts seemed to bend and sway in time with it. She saw moving amber lights caught in a pale blue web, and a boy with dark curly hair reached out his hand and waved to her through water that shattered into blobs and then reformed like mercury . . .

When she woke again the sun was high in the sky and the other mermaids were flashing away one by one to go to breaki 219

fast. Luce couldn’t shake the feeling that Catarina hadn’t come home at all, and the warm crashing water outside the cave seemed veined with frightening possibilities. Worry made her careless, and she slipped up for breath too close to a huge, sleek yacht sailing along at a somnolent pace under a sky so blue it graded into throbbing violet at its meridian. There were at least a dozen people leaning on the railings with their hair streaking out along the breeze, and Luce dove again as fast as she could.

She was almost sure no one had seen her, but even so, she thought it showed that they all needed to be more careful, at least until the summer passed.

* * *

As she’d expected, Catarina wasn’t at the dining beach, but the other mermaids were all there, and they seemed oddly excited. Luce broke through the water into air that trembled with eager voices, and she heard Anais saying, “Well, we can’t just wait
all
day for Catarina to get back, can we? It’s not like they’re just going to sit around forever . . .” Luce was confused. Who was she talking about? Luce looked around at the bright, blazingly lovely faces, all gathered in a circle near the shore. Only Miriam was keeping her distance from the others; she was lying prone some twenty feet away with her face buried in her folded arms, her jet black hair in rivulets along her faintly blue- shining back. Luce couldn’t tell if she was asleep.

“Let’s at least see what Luce thinks, now that she’s here,” Dana answered; her tone was a disquieting combination of nervous and exuberant. “Maybe she can decide if that boat is too big or not. I mean, if we don’t have Cat with us . . .” 220 i LOST VOICES

“It is
so
not too big,” Anais griped, shoving back her white, rhinestone- studded sunglasses, and Luce realized they were talking about the yacht she’d swum so close to minutes before.

But even Anais couldn’t be crazy enough to sink it without Catarina’s approval, could she? “If you don’t want to be helpful, Dana, then I’ll just do it with whoever feels like coming with me. I can’t see why you want to ask
Luce
about anything.” Dana’s warm, wide- eyed face squeezed into a grimace, and she glanced from Anais to Luce and back again.

“I know Luce has sometimes been not super fair to you, Anais ” Dana began, but Anais cut her off. Her voice was higher and more ragged than Luce had ever heard it; it thrummed with a kind of hysteria.

“Jenna,
you
want to sink that bitch, don’t you? And Rachel, you’re definitely going to come after I gave you that great ruby bracelet, right? And Violet . . . there’s no way you’d be so goody- goody that you’d just let that awesome boat get away, would you?” Violet and Rachel clung to each other, their eyes shifting around as if they didn’t know where to look, but their tails were stirring fervently under the water. They were intimidated by Anais, Luce thought, but they were also dying to go with her. Luce understood. Even the thought of going after that ship made her crave the bliss of singing, too; her mouth actually started watering, although she knew perfectly well she wouldn’t permit herself to succumb to the desire. Besides, the idea was so insane that for a few moments Luce was completely speechless, lost in calculation. It was too soon after Anais’s yacht, for one thing, and then the boat she’d seen had seemed very crowded; it was probably ferrying at least two hundred tourists, maybe more.

A boat that size would be child’s play for Catarina, of course, i 221

but if they didn’t have her
or
Luce with them, wouldn’t there be a strong possibility of human survivors?

“I’m not going to help with any boat unless Catarina says it’s okay,” Luce announced angrily. “Dana, you
really
shouldn’t either. It’s completely crazy. You’ll attract way too much attention, and you’ll wind up breaking the timahk . . .” Luce hoped Anais would see reason, but it occurred to her that if Anais did refuse to listen, there might be some positive aspects.

“There’s a woman on deck wearing a Dolce and Gabbana dress!” Anais snapped. “This season’s! I bet those people have all kinds of great stuff ! Maybe Luce is stupid enough to let a chance like that go by, but I’m not. I’m sinking it.”

“Without me,
or
Catarina,
or
Dana?” Luce asked; she couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. The idea of sinking a ship in order to rob the passengers’ corpses struck her as the most repellent thing she’d ever heard, a sick distortion of what being a mermaid was all about, but she didn’t expect anyone there to agree with her. She’d have better luck persuading them if she stuck to the practical issues. “Who’s going to lead the ship in? You’re just going to screw up completely.”

“Dana’s going to lead!” Jenna snapped. “You think she’s going to listen to
you?
Just ’cause you’ve given her, what, a few lame singing lessons? Dana did it before; she can totally do it again . . .” Everyone was staring at Dana now, who was twisting her long golden necklace around one slim brown finger, biting her full lower lip. Luce knew she must feel terrible being put in the middle this way, but there didn’t seem to be any alternative. Her stomach tightened as she waited to hear what Dana would say.

Anais opened her mouth, and Luce glowered at her, expecting another burst of shrill bullying. But instead a note came 222 i LOST VOICES

out, spun out long and smooth like a glowing silk ribbon wrapping up the air. Then it rose higher, leaped and twirled. Everyone was gaping at her, and Luce felt her own face fall in dismay.

She’d secretly assumed that Anais would be a terrible singer; how could you sing well unless you had a real heart, real emotions? But now it was obvious that, even if Anais’s singing was steely and somehow brutal in spite of its beauty, it was also powerful, fierce, and wonderfully controlled. Luce hated to let it affect her, but she couldn’t completely prevent the enchantment from infusing her mind, and she felt its promise. It filled her with shapeless dreams of power, with a cold urge to dominate and possess everything she saw . . .

Anais broke off with a nasty laugh, and Luce shook the remnants of that awful magic from her mind. She stared around at the others. Was it possible they’d consider Anais as good a singer as she was? For a full minute everyone was silent, dazed by the emotions Anais had sent coursing through them.

“Wow!” Jenna said at last. “Well, it looks like we know who’s leading now! Dana can take the position Rachel had last time, at the back.” Anais smirked while Samantha broke out in gleeful tittering, shaking her pale curls; Dana only nodded blear-ily. “ Luce is just going to have to suck it up; she can’t get her own way for once.” Luce couldn’t understand why Jenna seemed to hate her so much all of a sudden, but she was still too stunned by the force of Anais’s singing to think of anything she could say in reply. There were the splash and froth of quickly spiraling tails, and streaks of bubbles silvered the water as the mermaids dipped quickly away.

Dana was one of the last to go; she angled an apologetic smile at Luce. “Don’t worry, okay? I won’t let them get too crazy.

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Catarina won’t have any reason to be pissed off with us, I promise.” Then she was gone, too, with a crimson and coppery blink of scales. Only Miriam was left, still sprawled against the shore, not even moving when a big bluish larva, maybe the one Anais had wanted to kill, ambled over and began slurping on the corner of one midnight- colored fin. She had to be asleep, Luce thought, if she was tolerating that sad little creature chewing on her.

“ Luce?” Miriam suddenly pushed herself up on her elbows, and twisted around to gaze back toward the patch of water where Luce floated limp and shocked, her tail brushing loosely against the pebbles on the seafloor. Luce swam over and stretched out beside her; Miriam’s dark eyes were troubled. “I know she doesn’t deserve any help from you, but shouldn’t you go with them? Just to make sure they don’t break the timahk?” Luce couldn’t believe her ears.

“Why would I care if they do?” Luce snapped. She had the impression she was saying too much, but now that her feelings were starting to seep out it was hard to stop them. “I hope Anais
does
break it. Cat will throw her out, and then . . .”
Then
everything will be okay again,
Luce thought.
Then Cat will trust me and
be my friend again, and we’ll all learn to sing in ways where nobody has to die
because of it. I’ll finally have a real home.
But she didn’t let herself say those parts out loud. They could hear the stirring vibration of the mermaids’ song now, echoing from far across the water.

“But, I mean, Luce, don’t you see what she’s doing?” Miriam seemed horribly depressed, Luce realized. The words dragged out of her. “Even if she blows it and there are human survivors, who’s going to throw her out? You and Catarina won’t be able to do it alone, not if everyone else . . .” Luce suddenly understood 224 i LOST VOICES

what Miriam was saying. Of course, Luce thought; she’d been so focused on Anais that she’d overlooked the obvious. Anais had made sure that almost everyone in the tribe was complicit in what she was doing. They’d all be equally guilty, and they’d almost surely turn on Catarina before they’d help her expel their de facto leader. “But, Luce, if anyone gets away from them, the humans will definitely come after us. And it’s not just our tribe either. If people start to really understand we’re out here, soon they’ll be hunting mermaids all over the world. You see? I’m not asking you to like it. I don’t either. But you
have
to help her.” Luce understood the reasoning, but the idea of going out and singing those people to their deaths just because Anais had said so was more than she could stand. “I’m not going,” Luce said; she felt reckless, almost desperate. “I’m not killing anyone, not ever again. That’s not why I sing.” It was out before she could stop herself; still, it was a relief to finally say it out loud.

But Catarina already thought she was a traitor, Luce realized with a rush of vertigo; what would she think if Miriam reported that Luce was such a human lover that she’d rather let a bunch of strange humans escape than help her fellow mermaids? Miriam’s blue- black gaze was fixed on Luce’s face; it was calm, cold, and sad. There was a long silence as they gazed at each other.

“Maybe the humans
should
hunt us down,” Miriam said at last, and Luce recoiled. It was eerie how dull and emotionless Miriam’s voice was now. “Maybe mermaids and humans don’t belong on the same planet. It would be a lot easier to slaughter all of us than all of them. They have us so outnumbered . . .” Luce couldn’t tell if Miriam was serious; was she just trying to shock Luce into swimming out? “I just don’t like to think i 225

about, you know, you and Rachel . . . I dream about it sometimes, Luce. Men with guns, and machines in their ears so they can’t hear us, and blood everywhere . . . But maybe it’s better that way . . .”

Luce wondered if Miriam was right. Was it really impossible that humans and mermaids would ever be able to live without fighting?

“I just . . .” Luce didn’t know how to say it. “I feel like . . .

like maybe we could figure out another way? I know they do all kinds of terrible things . . .”
But so do we,
Luce thought. A bizarre, unwelcome idea occurred to her: that mermaids were really just as
human,
just as brutal and destructive, as the humans themselves.

Miriam gave her a slow, bitter smile. “They’re
still
hurting you, aren’t they?” Luce didn’t know what she was talking about. “The humans you loved, I mean. They’re still killing you inside. You can’t get over it. Isn’t that true? Or is it really just
one
human?”

Luce was overwhelmed by heartache. She felt as hurt and bewildered as if Miriam had suddenly stabbed her in the gut.

“That’s none of your business!”

“You’d rather see them kill all of us than help kill them!” Miriam didn’t seem so depressed anymore; instead her face was frozen in a mask of unfeeling savagery, her voice dead. “It’s your decision. But the only reason you’d make that choice is if you still secretly love one of them. Luce, I’m not
stupid
. . .” Luce didn’t want Miriam to see her cry. She turned and dove through water that shivered with the high, sweet death songs of the other mermaids. If they were heading out to that rocky island, then the yacht must be very close to crashing now.

226 i LOST VOICES

She rolled violently over and over in the green waves, her eyes wide open while streams of shining bubbles lashed across her vision. Foamy crests rose and fell just above her face, then the green shade of the depths rotated past, then the daylight again. It occurred to Luce that it was possible Miriam hadn’t meant to be cruel, that maybe she was overreacting, but those thoughts didn’t do anything to calm the ferocious emotions that gushed through her heart. Her dream had been right:
everyone
was turning on her, and she’d been crazy to trust any of them. Was she even lonelier now than she’d been as a human girl?

She knew, of course, that she had to stay away from her small cave, at least until she’d proved to Catarina that she was faithful to her that she didn’t want any other queen, not even if that queen was her, not even if she didn’t agree with every single thing about how Cat ran the tribe . . . But Catarina was still away, and if Luce went to the main cave she’d have to face Anais and Jenna much too soon, see them giddy with celebration over the downed ship. What would it hurt to steal a few hours alone, just this once?

* * *

“ Luce!” The voice was Catarina’s, and Luce pulled herself up from a well of darkness in her mind into the blue glow of her cave. Had she fallen asleep? “ Luce, I’d like to talk to you if you could spare the time.” Luce winced at the brittleness and formality of Catarina’s voice.