“Don’t leave me!Please!”
He takes another step, shaking his head slowly. He no longer sees me as one of the living. I am in the sea and without protection for my ears.
I am dead to him.
Realizing it’s no use, I turn away from him, thoughts frantic. I must choose between the boat and the shore. The boat is capsized, but the tide is still rushing in. I think the shore’s a better bet. I begin to try to swim with the currents, trying to get back before the sirens or their monsters can claim me.
But it’s too late. It’s been too long since the bell tolled. There’s already whispering on the wind.
A haunted hymn, barely audible at first, grows. It swells in me with a force greater than high tide. My eyes flutter closed against my will and my muscles relax. I exhale softly in harmonious relief. The sound soothes away my aches, physical ones and the frustrating pangs that never leave my heart.
The singer is masculine, a rich bass finer than any I’ve ever heard. He holds low notes, full of mourning and longing. As if he sings to the whole expanse of the sea…to every cold, lost soul condemned to its depths.
A smile cracks my wind-battered lips. He sounds so sad. So broken.
So much like me.
The notes shift, pulsing.Calling.
It draws closer. Throbbing behind my eyes. The notes are almost a snarl and I am suddenly aware of movements in the waters around me. Darting shadows.
At that moment, the water hardens around my ankles with invisible hands. The current pulls my feet down. I don’t let out a shout or a cry, but a gasp—before my head slips underneath the waves.
Rushing water fills my ears, roaring to the tune of the song. I fight for the surface once more, lungs aching. In a whorl of textile and color, I rip off the scarves and clothing I’d bundled myself in so I can swim better. I can’t die like this. This can’t be all there is for me. Not when I had just found the courage to feel real again—to live, really, truly, unabashedlylive, no matter the cost.
I fight against the currents that pull at me with ghostly hands. My body is shuddering from the icy cold. My lungs are already stinging.
But it’s not the currents that have taken me. The shadows have come alive in the form of a monster—half man, half fish, with hollow eyes. Milky and unseeing. His mouth is slightly ajar. In place of ears are fins, the cartilage pushing through the skin of his cheeks.
For a moment, I am stuck in shock.
The song begins to pulse, faster and faster. The singer is louder now. I can’t tell if it’s the siren before me, or the other one that emerges. Or another. All void of color and life. Somewhere between living and dead.
Panic sets in. I kick and push against them as they reach for me. I try to free myself, but I’m like a fish in a net and somehow only end up ensnaring myself further. Their hands are on me, grabbing. I shudder in the horror of what’s to come. They will drag me down to their lair and allow their monsters to feast on me.
Lungs burning, I reach toward the pale moon high above. Umbra wraps around it.
I let out a silent scream.
The cold water burns as it crashes into me. Knives rip through the muscles in my chest, carving out my lungs, nicking my ribs. My throat spasms. Heart squeezes and seizes.
At once, the immense pain vanishes, and everything begins to go still. Numb. The night grows thicker around me.It’s over…that’s it…all I got in life… The cruelty of it all is astonishing.
There’s a flash of light.Lightning?Movement in my fading vision. The song is at its loudest now. And then, all at once…silence.Did the bell ring already?
Two arms wrap around my midsection.Charles has come for me.I can’t believe he did. I never thought he would go into the ocean willingly for me…or swim this deep.Maybe he does care…
I’m wrong.
The moon vanishes completely, consumed by an ocean of night as I’m dragged farther down, consciousness slipping from me and mingling with the melody still buzzing in my ears. The other sirens seem to have vanished. One has claimed me for his own. For a second, there’s nothing more than an endless void of water. But then, specks of light like fireflies dance on the currents—pulsing to the beat of his melody. The cold ebbs from my bones and heat flows in. Thoughts return to me. I blink awake.
I’m twisted, manhandled by the hands around my waist, and I meet the eyes of my savior.No, my enemy.
This man’s face is different from that of his kin. Illuminated by the spheres of light that are floating along the currents, bright green and shades of cerulean highlight high cheeks perched over an angled jaw and sharp chin that is almost human in shape. These are not the hollow, skeletal angles of the previous sirens. But something fuller, more…real. As real as the curl of his tail underneath me.
Tracts of pale cartilage gently rise from his cheeks by where human ears would be, branching into fans of turquoise membrane reminiscent of a fish’s fins. His brows furrow together. They’re two platinum arches, the same shade as the hair that drifts around his face. More specks of light illuminate his cheeks and shine underneath intense, dark brown eyes. Not milky. Not void and dead. But the bright, intelligent gaze of a man in his prime.
His skin is fair and his right arm is almost completely tattooed with line and color—black, navy, white—that spread up his neck and chest, unfurling like ribbons. His left forearm bears similar markings. A wooden spear is strapped to his back. And while he looks not much older than me, he has an aura of timelessness around him.
