Page 2 of She Who Was Once the Sea

"If you’re going to speak of superstition, then we have nothing more to talk about," the cigarette-smoking man scoffed. "We have long since advanced beyond the confines of adherence to mystical delusions."

The room fell quiet for a moment, the soft sounds of ripples around my family the only thing saving us from silence.

"That is a dangerous way to examine the world." When my mother finally spoke again, her voice was low. "Those who abandon their ties to the natural world are doomed to the same fate they impress upon it."

The man smirked. "We’re willing to take that chance."

And with a collective swish of their cloaks, the Fratelli left the room, footsteps echoing on the stone steps from the chambers long after they’d disappeared.

Only the diplomat remained, staring after them, sad resignation on his face mirroring our own.

"I suggest," he said finally, "that you follow your kinsmen and leave the city." His voice was quiet, but urgent, and he did not face us as he spoke. "I have heard them speak about their continued plans. They are… not kind. If you stay, I promise you, you will perish. They will be sure of it."

My father sighed. "As much as I’d relish seeing them fall victim to their own hubris, I cannot, in good conscience, leave the innocents of this city to suffer the consequences of the actions of a few foolish men. It is my duty as envoy."

The man shrugged and placed his hands into his pockets. "As you like," he said gently. "But I cannot continue to help you. They are planning to place a bounty on the heads of anyone who assists the merfolk. I cannot risk my own family."

And with that, he walked away.

"I will take the girls to the sea," my mother finally said, grabbing my arm and beginning to pull me towards the culvert in the wall that would lead us back into the city canals. "Once they’re safe, I’ll return to help you continue the campaign."

"How is that fair?" my oldest sister protested, swimming forward to place herself between my mother and the culvert. "This will affect us as much as it will you. It is our duty as well. We are also envoys."

"Absolutely not," my mother chided, her grip tightening on my upper arm. I said nothing. As the youngest, it seemed I should follow my sisters’ leads. But the thought of being dragged from the water by my tail fin and hung out to dry made my blood still in my veins.

My father looked at each of us in turn. One by one, my sisters shook their heads, jaws set, eyes defiant. When his eyes finally rested on me, my mother’s fingers still gripping painfully at my upper arm, I followed their lead, even as I hid my shaking hands behind my back in the dark water.

I’ll never forget the long, shattering sound of my father’s answering sigh. It echoed through the quiet chamber like a death rattle. With a deep frown, he turned to my mother. "I cannot force them to leave."

When her hand finally dropped from my arm, it left behind an imprint of her fingers, white against the rest of my tanned skin.

"Then you’ve sentenced them to death." She didn’t look at him as she spoke, and after a few tense seconds, she dove beneath the water and swam away.

It was one of the last times I’d see her alive.

The timeline from there on out became foggy; it’s been so long now that I forget the order of events and how one led to another. But I do remember that they eventually filled in the canals beyond the city walls, trapping my family, and several others, inside the gates.

After that, the slaughter began in earnest, and it wasn’t long before the escalation of violence against our people became too much for my mother to continue to witness. So one night, long after my father and sisters had settled to sleep at the bottom of an underground canal outside of the city, my mother shook me awake and ushered me to follow her, green eyes blazing desperately and jaw set in a hard line.

I didn’t ask questions as she grabbed my hand and pulled me behind her, swimming rapidly against the flow of the canal into the heart of the city. Bubbles trailed behind us, and I worried for a moment that the disturbance on the surface might be enough to alert any waking humans to our presence, but we made the journey undisturbed.

"Where are we going?" I finally asked when I knew we were far enough away from the rest of the family that there was no risk of being overheard.

"We’re going to fix things," she answered, still not turning to look at me.

I should have asked how, should have pulled us to a stop right there and forced her to tell me her plan. And then, I should have swum as fast as I could back to my father and begged him to stop her.

But I didn’t, and she continued to pull me along, into a dark part of the city where the water tasted like sulfur. We slowed as debris began to fill our path; I’d never seen that much garbage and waste. It floated both atop and throughout the canal like a soup, and it was all I could do to stop myself from retching.

We moved along the surface, the shadows of buildings rising around us like sentinels, windows blackened and empty, stone covered in dark splotches that I refused to stare at for too long.

"Mother, where are we?" I hissed. There was no one around, but something about the place stifled my voice. If I spoke too loudly, the darkness itself might swallow me whole.

I was sure I’d never been here before, to this place of towering stone.

She silenced me with a glance, wet hair falling around her face in a tangled knot. It was the most disheveled I’d ever seen her, and that fact alone was enough to silence me.

Eventually, we came to a place where the canal hit a grate, and we could go no further. Here, the water was the thickest. Piles of garbage amassed around the grate, and the foul smell of something was heavy in the air.