Eight Years Earlier
Soft ripples spread out from where the mermaid's head submerged. Her coppery blonde hair revealed her position, but only just. If I hadn't seen her a moment ago, I would've mistaken it for a clump of seaweed floating in the murky waters.
Slowly, I pulled myself from the bush and crept down to the beach, crouching low into the grey sand and rocks. Black clouds masked the sun's rays, making it easier for me to blend with my surroundings.
A mermaid hunter must be stealthy, nimble.
With a quiet lapping sound, her hair disappeared. I paused, balancing on two stones with my bare feet.
Steps away from where she'd been, another ripple, this time brushing the line between the sand and water.
I held my breath and focused. The water was shallow in the tide pool. Up to my waist, maybe. That was no reason to assume I was at an advantage.
The rocks under my feet didn't budge as I stepped closer. After months of practice, I could move with the fluid silence of a puma.
Her forehead emerged. Her blue eyes glimmered like sapphires, inhumanly large and adapted for catching prey in the black waters.
My stealth was futile. She looked right at me.
With a war cry, I pounced. I landed on top of her with a great splash, soaking myself and the surrounding rocks.
She twisted beneath me and wriggled from my grasp with ease. I was left on my hands and knees at the edge of the shallow pool for only a moment, and then a pair of arms grabbed me around the middle and rolled me back onto land.
She pinned me on my back with her icy hands.
"Surrender, weakling!"
I thrashed beneath her arms, trying to free myself even a sliver so I could push her off me. "Not fair, Lysi! You're stronger than me."
She sat on my stomach and crossed her arms. Her tail waved in the pool, creating its own tide. "My brother says mermaids are stronger than humans."
Grunting, I rolled onto my stomach and forced Lysi to slide onto the wet rocks.
"I know that."
She smiled wryly and smoothed her knotted, seaweed-laced hair. "I bet I'm already stronger than your papa."
I jumped back into a crouch. "A ten year old? Fat chance, slowpoke!"
I soared through the air and knocked her backwards. We splashed into the water in a fit of giggles, scrambling to pin one another down.
"I—made you—something," she said amidst our scrapping.
Pinned beneath her again, I spared a minute to catch my breath. "What is it?"
Lysi pushed herself off me and reached to the bottom of the tide pool.
Before she could even tell me what it was, I knew it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. She must have read my expression, because her face broke into an enormous smile.
"It's meant for wearing around your neck. It protects you from the wrath of the sea god, or something. Also, it's pretty."
"A necklace," I said, awed.
"Necklace." She said the word to herself a few times, adding more of my language to her vocabulary. She had a funny accent when she talked, but I didn't mind because her voice carried in a way that made everything like a song.
I took it gently. It was a string of seashells, beaded along a twisted rope of seaweed in the most beautiful array of colours I'd ever seen—pastel blues and greens and violets, all glistening in the dim light.
"It took me months to find all the colours. I made two." She pulled another from beneath the water and slipped it over her seaweed-logged hair. "Now we can wear them and think of each other."
I dropped mine over my head, hoping the necklace looked half as pretty on me as it did on her.
"Thanks, Lysi," I said, rolling a soft shell in my palm.
She beamed at me with her even, white teeth, and the whole sky behind her seemed to brighten.
"What are the fish like underwater? Are they as pretty as the shells?"
I gazed into the tide pool by Lysi's tail, where an abandoned starfish clung to a rock beneath the surface.
"I wish you could see them all," she said. "By my house there's this rock—no, not a rock—I don't know how you say it in Eriana. It's all sorts of colours and fish live in it and even the rock is alive. I like to float and watch it sometimes."
"I think you're talking about coral," I said, still inspecting the shells around my neck.
"Coral. Coral. Coral," she repeated, turning the word into a melody.
Goosebumps rippled over my body and I hugged my knees, envying the way Lysi never got cold.
"I want to see fish and coral up close. One day."
I gazed out at the waves. The sea was calm, and not far from us, a pair of seagulls floated on their bellies.
Lysi stiffened and her deep blue eyes widened. "Maybe you can."
"I can what?"
"See underneath the ocean."
My eyes widened, too. "How?"
"You can become a mermaid with me."
I gaped at her for a second, then giggled and lay down on the pebbled beach, looking up at the cloudy sky. Warm, fat drops of rain splashed my face. "That'd be fun."
"You could live with me. We can be sisters!"
"Could I meet all your cousins?"
She nodded. "There's a way to do it. I've seen it."
My breath caught in my chest. "You've seen a human turn into a mermaid?"
"Well, I know mermen who used to be humans. I'll ask my brother how they did it. He'll tell me."
"If I was a mermaid, I could meet your brother," I said. She talked about him often, and it always made me miss my own big brother.
Lysi smiled. "You'd like him. I think he's like Nilus used to be."
"How Nilus is, not how he used to be," I said, careful to correct her. "He could still come home."
Lysi took my hand, her cold skin leeching what warmth was left in mine. "Of course he'll come home."
He would. I'd given him my onyx ring for good luck before he left on his Massacre. It was the same one he'd given me when he came back from training one day, claiming to have found it in a tree trunk. I was sure he had actually bought it from a store—but he and I liked to believe in magic sometimes.
"Meela!"
I let go of Lysi's hand and jumped up, looking over my shoulder towards home. Not far from here, Mama's voice carried on the wind.
I turned to say goodbye to Lysi, but she was already gone. Ripples spread out from the point where she'd plunged back into the ocean. The rain swelled, making the rings fade and gentle droplets slide down my nose. I huffed in defeat as I stuffed my gumboots in my backpack.
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I cut through the bush so it would look like I came from the road. I was old enough, now, to realise that pushing through the thorns of the blackberry vines was better than Mama and Papa knowing I was at the beach.
Smoke puffed gently from the chimney, and I picked up a run, excited to be near a warm fire.
The sticky front door popped open only once I'd leaned into it with all my weight.
"You're like a rogue cat out there, honey," said Mama. "Always sneaking around . . . I never know where you are."
"Oh, Mama. Where am I going to run off to?"
A strange smell met my nose, like a kind of vegetable soup. Mama looked up as I entered the kitchen and her eyes fell to the string of shells hanging around my neck. She dropped the soup ladle on the counter. "Where did you get that?"
I looked around her to the steaming pot on the stove. "What's for dinner?"
"Stinging nettle soup. Where did you get that necklace, Meela?"
I cupped a shell and rubbed the soft underside, wondering if I should've tried to hide the necklace. "I found it."
She wiped her hands on her dress and marched over to me. "Meela, you know you can't go to the beach. I forbid you from going outside on your own if you're—"
"I didn't find it on the beach. It was lying in the rocks, by the grass. Don't worry."
She sighed and held one of the shells in her hand, turning it over. "It is beautiful. Make sure you hide it. Don't let your papa see it."
I smiled and hugged her, burying myself in her soft belly that she thought unattractive, but that I thought was perfect for hugging. She felt so warm compared to Lysi. "I won't."
Mama hugged me back, then held me at arm's length, looking down at my feet. "Honestly, child, they invented shoes for a reason. Go clean up and then come eat."
Before I'd made it two steps, she added, "And brush your hair. It looks like a seagull could lay eggs in it."
I pushed a matted lock away from my face, wishing my hair was shiny like Lysi's, which was always pretty, even with seaweed stuck in it.
Running my fingers through my hair to untangle it, I ducked through the beaded curtains hanging across my bedroom door. Mama never liked them because they got in her way when she was trying to clean up, but the sea-blue beads made me feel like I lived in a grotto. I decorated the rest of my room to match, tying green ribbon in places and pretending it was seaweed. I never told Mama or Papa why, of course—they wouldn't welcome such fantasies.
I tucked the necklace safely in the bottom of my closet, which had more clothes on the floor than on hangers.
"Don't tell anyone," I said to Charlotte, who watched me from the window. She stayed there, motionless and non-judgmental as always.
Charlotte hadn't been a particularly welcome guest, but my window was a great spot for catching flies, so I let her stay and build her web. I didn't want her to go hungry because of me. That was several weeks ago. When she didn't leave, I'd picked her name out of an American story Mama once read to me. I liked that story because it made me think about friendship and loyalty, and how anyone can be friends—even if one of you likes to kill and eat bugs.
I watched her bob idly in the wind for a moment before realising I was hungry enough to eat stinging nettle.
The front door creaked. Papa was home. I rushed to scrub my feet clean in the tub and dried them by shuffling across the bathroom rug.
Papa was grumbling when I entered the kitchen, his wide back to me as he stood over Mama. He'd brought the smell of petroleum and wood shavings into the house with him, masking the warm smell of soup and bannock.
". . . bad feeling in my bones about this one," he said. I pulled a chair from the table and he turned, squinting down at me. "Nice of you to join us, Metlaa Gaela."
I sat down quietly. Papa almost always called me by my full name. He and Mama had named me after the earth and a sort of matronly figure, a choice I always thought was terrible. I liked the sea better than the earth and I sooner would've taken care of a snail than a baby.
"How was your day, Papa?" I said, not looking up from my hands.
"No action down at the shop," he said grumpily. "Nobody's got a penny to spend."
I didn't know what to say, so I kept my eyes on my hands and nodded in an understanding sort of way.
Mama shuffled over with our largest bowl full of steaming soup and set it down in front of Papa.
"A man does miss having fish," said Papa, frowning at the bowl.
"I know, dear." Mama looked at the side of his dark face with concern.
"I'll have milk with it."
Mama hurried to the fridge to pour him a glass. Papa guzzled it and handed it back to her for a refill. I watched him take another sip, then put it down and start on his soup. Mama brought me a much smaller bowl and a glass of water.
"Did you finish your homework?" said Papa, raising his bushy eyebrows at my full backpack by the door.
I swirled my spoon around my bowl. "Not yet."
"Why not?"
I lifted one shoulder.
He looked pointedly at the old handmade clock on the wall. "It's five o'clock. You should've done it straight after school. I won't have a lazy—"
"I was at Annith's house," I said quietly, still swirling my spoon.
"Eh?"
Mama cut in as she sat down with us. "She was at a friend's house, dear."
It was partly true. I was there for a whole hour after school before I'd gone to see Lysi.
"On a weeknight?" said Papa, sounding angry.
"She's only ten years old. They don't have much homework at that age."
"Then give her chores, Hana. She's growing up to be lazy."
Mama said nothing, but I knew she didn't think I was lazy. I always helped her when she asked.
Papa returned to his soup and I glanced at Mama. She pressed her lips together in a shadow of a reassuring smile, which made me feel better.
I lifted my spoon to my lips and slurped tentatively, expecting something grassy and bitter. But the soup was bursting with flavour, and I smiled at Mama, once again amazed at her ability to turn weeds and scraps into something tasty.
"It's delicious!" I said, and lifted the bowl so I could drink it more quickly.
"It'd be better with some meat in it," said Papa.
Mama made an indiscernible noise, maybe in agreement or pity, and we spent the rest of the meal in silence. I listened to the loudly ticking clock, then to a sudden downpour of rain against the kitchen window, then again to the ticking clock. I thought of the necklace sitting in my closet, colourful and shimmering. Annith would think it was pretty, too. I'd have to sneak it to school and show her.
"We heard some good news today," said Mama, setting down her spoon in her empty bowl.
I looked up. "About the Massacre?"
She nodded. "It's rumoured that the lighthouse reported a sighting."
"Nilus' ship?"
She placed her hand over mine. "No, honey. This year's."
"Oh."
She glanced at Papa, but he didn't lift his eyes from his bowl.
My gaze darted from one to the other. "Well, it's still a good thing, isn't it?"
"Of course. Elaila will be happy to see her husband again."
Elaila was our neighbour. She'd married her boyfriend at seventeen, just before he left on the Massacre.
Papa put down his spoon.
"If they'd had any success, we'd know," he said. "We wouldn't have so many mermaid sightings because the vermin would all be dead."
Mama stared back pointedly, whispering, "Not in front of . . ."
She nodded towards me.
I frowned. "I can handle it. You don't think the sailors are gonna make it, do you?"
Neither of them said anything, but Papa raised his eyebrows at Mama.
I looked down at my empty bowl. Why did we have a Massacre every spring when they weren't working? Every year, we grew shorter on fish to trade with the mainland, which meant no supplies coming into our port. Every year, we had to harbour more fishing boats because it was only a matter of time before the mermaids decided they'd had enough and another boat was lost to the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska. Every year, it kept getting worse, and even though we tried to fix it, all we had to show were more boys lost at sea.
"Whether or not they come back," said Papa, "they're heroes to this island. Eriana Kwai only chooses the most able-bodied boys to go on Massacres, and I don't doubt for a moment they battled for our freedom with all their hearts and souls."
"So listen for the Homecoming bell tomorrow, Meela," said Mama.
I prodded at the dregs in my bowl. "I know."
The Massacre was the only time we were allowed near the water—to watch the warriors depart on the first of May, and if we were lucky, to watch them return some weeks later when they'd driven away the sea demons. When the ship was about to dock, the boy on lookout rang a big rusty bell and everyone went to see it arrive.
Two years before, my brother had been sent out on a ship with nineteen other boys. The Homecoming bell had not rung in three years.