Brida crept forward, balanced on the balls of her feet and ready to sprint away. Despite the chilly air blowing off the Gray, her hand on the sickle handle was slippery with sweat. She used her knees to nudge Moot out of the way so she could get a closer look at the two stranded merfolk.
The child made a faint noise, a cross between a kittenish mew and a whistle. The small fluke flapped against the sand, dislodging swags of seaweed. The merman’s hand flexed in response to the sound, fingers splaying wide to reveal webbing between the digits, the translucent skin patterned in a lacework of tiny blue veins.
Brida leapt back, nearly trampling Moot who’d stuck to her legs like a barnacle. The hound let loose with another round of barking, the hair on her back stiffening into a ridge that ran the length of her spine.
“Moot! Hush!”
The dog only did what instinct and training required of her, but Brida didn’t want half the village running over here to see what all the commotion was about. Moot quieted, though her hackles remained high and her teeth bared as she guarded Brida.
The merman’s eyelids lifted, and Brida gasped. His eyes were pale and strange, not human, yet so full of misery and pain that an involuntary moan of sympathy erupted from Brida’s throat. The bloodshot whites of his eyes contrasted against irises almost silvery in color. Two pupils, one atop the other and no bigger than the heads of pins, dotted their centers.
He blinked, a rapid flutter of a double set of eyelids, one a delicate membrane nestled under a thicker-skinned lid. The movement mimicked the sudden thrash of his tail. A piercing whistle cut the air, the sound so sharp that Brida dropped the sickle to cover her ears with her hands. Next to her, Moot yelped and danced backward, shaking her head hard enough that her ears flapped like flags in a hard breeze.
Brida held out one hand, palm forward, and pressed the index finger of her other hand against her lips. “Shhh. Shhh,” she told the merman. “I mean no harm.”
Blood cascaded down his tail to drip off the edges of his fluke. A jagged wound, where the hip might be on a human man, pursed open with his movements. Crescent in shape, it matched another one farther down his tail. Something had bitten him. Something big.
Numerous smaller wounds marred his body, from human torso down to dolphin tail, a mural of slashes and shallow bite marks. Brida glanced at the child, noting the absence of any bites or blood. Had the merman battled a hungry predator to save the merchild and ended up stranded on the shore, too weak to propel himself and his charge back to the water?
Both were alive, but not for long by the look of them. Their breathing was shallow, barely discernible, and the merchild’s newing sounded thin. Blood ran in continuous rivulets along the merman’s body, tempting tiny crabs to investigate and taste the salt and iron in the red flow. The lovely abalone shell shimmer of the pair’s flesh was dulling before her eyes, and flecks of skin furled off their tails and arms under the weak sun, peeling away as if they’d suffered sunburn.
She knew nothing of merfolk, but creatures born of the water belonged in the water. Beaching was a death sentence. She’d seen it firsthand as a child in the tragedy of a dying whale crushed by its own weight as it lay on the sand.
The urge to call to for help warred with the caution to remain silent. Brida’s cries would bring the entire village running to her aid. Of that, she had no doubt. But she feared that call would elicit a massacre, driven by a mindless fear engendered into people still traumatized by the terror the obluda had subjected them too not so long ago.
She jumped again when a voice boomed over the beach. “Ziga! Odon!”
Moot renewed her frantic barking, capturing the hem of Brida’s skirts in her teeth and tugging to pull her away from the tidal pools.
“Stop it, Moot!” She tugged her skirts up, lifting the dog with them as those teeth remained firmly clamped on the fabric.
Hobbled by the dog’s weight, she shuffled from behind the concealing rock face to see the new arrivals on the shore. Odon Imre and his daughter Zigana had joined the harvesters, leading their two mares by tether lines into the shallows.
The villager who greeted them pointed at the water, nodding and gesturing to the water seers as they engaged in conversation. Brida was too far away to hear, but she could guess at what was said. Odon and Zigana possessed the gift of water sight, an ability that allowed them to sense whether or not it was safe to trawl the waters for shrimp, fish from the boats or rake the seaweed from the shallows. The last had never required their unique assistance before. The horses and villagers harvested the kelp, wildweed, featherweed, sea whip, and pepper fern from the rocks or in the surf where the water was too shallow for predator fish to lurk. These days, however, the Imres’ talent was in high demand. No one dipped a toe in the waves without their signal that all was well. Brida could only imagine the reactions if she showed them the two merfolk trapped in the tidal pools behind her.
Laylam waved to her not far away, his gelding standing patiently beside him, cage rake attached to the traces behind him, as the pair waited for the signal it was safe to harvest. “All right there, Brida?” he shouted.
The wind caught his question, whirling it toward her. She waved back. “Fine.” She pointed to Moot who finally let go of her skirts. “Moot’s battling crabs, and they’re winning!” she shouted back to him.
He nodded and returned his attention to the Imres who stood together and gave a tandem nod. It was safe to enter the water. Like racers perched on a starting line, the harvesters guided their horses into the surf with a snap of the lead lines. Around them, women and children with baskets hoisted on their backs or strapped to their hips waded into the shallows, bending to pick the Gray’s gifts washed in by the storm.
Brida strode back to the beached merfolk. They lay as she left them, the merman’s webbed hand still resting on the child’s small body. The pool under the adult’s tail had turned a dark pink, evicting resident starfish from its tainted waters.
The merman watched her with that strange double-lidded gaze, his face a study in suffering. Discounting the most obvious physical differences, he looked mostly human. His nose was like any other she’d seen, neither too long or too broad, but his nostrils were smaller. They flared in rapid bursts as he struggled to breathe. In contrast to his nostrils, his eyes were large, sunk a little deeper in their sockets than a human’s. He didn’t have eyelashes, and his eyebrows were arches of rippled flesh instead of short hairs along his brow ridge. No hint of beard shadowed the sharp line of his jaw or his chin, and his partially open mouth hid his teeth from her view.
Beside him, the merchild breathed just as hard, though seemed in less pain than the adult. From the waist up, it looked much like a human child of two or three, with tiny webbed hands, rounded belly, and features still plump with baby fat. Brida couldn’t tell the child’s gender by the appearance of its face or torso, but there were differences between the pair on the exposed undersides of their tails not far from the flukes. The merman possessed two slits in the flesh, one long, the other much shorter and just below it. In the child, there was only the one long slit. If her assumption was right, the merchild was a girl.
Brida stared at the surf and then the distressed pair so far from it. The merman was much too big for her to move. She could see that in a glance, but if she was quick enough, she might be able to sneak the merchild into the water without the harvesters noticing.
Then what? Leave her in the water to drown? That inner voice, with its merciless reason, made her curse under her breath. She had no idea, no true plan for how she might possibly save these two on her own, and asking for help from the villagers wasn’t an option.
Moot’s ears pricked forward when Brida turned to her and shook her finger. “No barking, Moot. Understand? Hush.” The dog cocked her head to the side as if considering, her tail wagging. Satisfied, Brida shrugged off her baskets.
She pushed one to the side and used the other as a pail to scoop water from the pools. Liquid streamed from the basket’s holes, but enough stayed in for Brida to gently pour it over the merman. He gasped, a convulsive shiver rippling along his tail and up his torso. The muscles in his arms, chest, and midriff flexed, and blood streamed off his skin in pink ribbons. Still, he didn’t let go of the merchild.
The little girl twitched and mewed as Brida trickled water across her body. Brida crooned to her in a sing-song voice, words of reassurance she’d sometimes used to comfort her younger nieces and nephews after a spill in the garden or a nightmare during a nap. “Easy, love. You’re a brave girl. We’ll get you home soon.”
Lies always hung sour on the tongue, even when told with the best of intentions. Brida didn’t know if she could fulfill that implied promise to the merchild. Even if she managed to get her in the water, without the merman there with her, she wouldn’t survive. Some sea creature had already attacked the merman, gravely wounding him.
Overwhelmed with sympathy, Brida forgot caution, set the basket aside, and reached out a hesitant hand to push the lacy locks of seaweed hair away from the merchild’s face. Another shrill whistle nearly burst her eardrums. She had only a moment to catch a glimpse from the corner of her eye of an arching fluke before a powerful force slammed into her, flinging her sideways. She smashed into the rock face concealing the pools. A shockwave of pain bolted down her spine and up the back of her head while black stars exploded across her vision.
She sprawled on the wet seaweed, breath knocked out of her lungs. Moot’s frantic barking sounded far away, though the dog’s face was so close, they nearly touched noses. “Moot,” she whispered when she could finally breathe. “Stop.”
The dog whined and leaned forward to nuzzle Brida’s cheek with her wet nose. Brida turned away, wincing as the movement made her vision swim and her stomach roil. An odd set of clicks and pops sounded nearby, punctuated by a series of softer whistles that held the unmistakable tones of inquiry and regret. She must have hit her head harder than she thought if she was imagining such things.
An exploratory touch to her scalp told her she’d have a lump, but there was no blood. Her vision rapidly cleared, and her nausea faded as the pain dulled to a throbbing ache.
She met the merman’s wide-eyed stare. He’d drawn the merchild closer to him, sheltering her even deeper into the cove of his body. His mouth moved, emitting more of the clicks and short whistles that carried the ring of apology.
Brida clambered to her feet, swaying. She raised both hands toward the merman in a supplicating gesture. “Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She grabbed her basket and staggered to the pool for more water to pour on the pair. She bore no resentment toward the merman. He had only tried to protect his charge from an entity who might be a threat, despite the benevolent gestures she’d shown so far. Had she been in his place, she didn’t doubt she would have done the same. The fault was hers for being so careless.
Laylam would soon notice Brida wasn’t helping to fill the family wagon, so she split her time. After each trip to the beach with loaded baskets, she poured more water over the merfolk, and cut kelp, discarded plan after plan for returning the pair back to the Gray, alive and unnoticed.
“I’ll be right back,” she assured the merman. Even knowing he probably didn’t understand a word she said, she hoped the tone of her voice conveyed some of her intention not to abandon them.
This time her sister-in-law, Norinn, had joined the harvesters and met Brida at the back of the dray with a full basket of her own. “You didn’t tell Laylam about that nobleman accosting you last night, did you?” Disapproval dripped from every word. “Haniss told me when the children and I got here.”
Brida scooped out bits of kelp stuck to the bottom of one basket. “I wasn’t accosted. He didn’t even touch me, although I think he was on the verge of accusing me of stealing my flute. His lordship sent him on his way.” She shrugged. “What’s there to tell?”
The memory of Ospodine still made her uneasy. There had been about him an unnatural intensity. She’d been almost surprised not to find burn marks on her back this morning when she dressed, his regard of her had been that scorching. That hostile. Still, she didn’t think it either useful or necessary to worry her brother. His lordship had expertly diffused the situation, and Brida doubted she’d ever cross path with Ospodine again.
“Laylam won’t like that you didn’t say anything, Brida.”
Brida stiffened. She liked Norinn very much, though the woman sometimes had a bad habit of expecting Brida to report everything in her life to Laylam. “He’ll adjust. He’s my brother, not my keeper.”
The other woman sighed, reaching out to pat Brida’s shoulder in a gesture of truce. “You’re his only sibling, Brida. He’s just protective.”
“I know, and I love him for it, even when he’s being his most annoying.” She offered Norinn a quick smile before shouldering her empty baskets. She didn’t have time to chat. “I’ll talk to you later. Over tea. I still have a lot to harvest at my allotment.”
“Do you need help?” Norinn called to her as she left. Brida waved and shook her head, leaving Moot behind this time. She desperately needed help, just not the kind Norinn offered.
The dread building inside her from the moment she left the title pool eased a fraction when she discovered the merman and child still breathed.
Brida had emptied one small tidal pool trying to keep her charges wet and cool and started on the second one. The merman’s closed eyelids fluttered but didn’t lift as she poured water on him. Her mind raced as she did the same to the merchild.
Merfolk obviously communicated with a series of whistles and clicks, a language of the sea both mysterious and yet familiar to her. She’d heard something similar years earlier. Brief, sadly beautiful, and a balm to her soul when she was at her most wretched. She’d never forgotten those four tuneful whistles drifting off the night surf.
The whistles the merman and child made were different, frightened instead of mournful, yet Brida guessed they came from the same origin as the ones she played on her flute. She didn’t have the instrument with her now and could only attempt to reproduce those sounds with her mouth.
She set her basket aside to ease a little closer to the merman’s head and stay out of striking range of his powerful tail. Either he heard her approach or sensed her nearness, because his eyes opened, and the muscles in his torso visibly tensed.
Brida held up her hands once again to signal she wasn’t a threat. She pursed her lips and tried to echo the four whistles she’d heard years earlier. The merman’s eyes widened, his narrow nostrils flared hard, and his entire body twitched in reaction.
She had no idea what she just said and prayed it wasn’t some vile insult or promise to visit some violence on the merman or merchild. She eased back a little more, away from the tail and the reach of those muscular arms and webbed hands.
The merman’s chirp carried a wealth of question and surprise. Brida dared not show her relief that he didn’t react with anger and kept her expression neutral. She patted her chest with her hand. “Brida.” She repeated the gesture. “I’m Brida.” She pointed to the merman. “You?”
His answering whistle differed from the previous ones he’d uttered. Deeper, drawn out, with a stutter in the middle. His brow knitted in a frown.
Now we’re getting somewhere, Brida thought. She repeated it as best she could, only to have him shake his head and whistle again, this time without the stutter. The effort left him panting.
“I understand,” she said. That stutter had been inadvertent, a product of his pain and the weakening state of his body. She tried a second time, and was rewarded by a weak nod.
When Brida pointed to the merchild, the merman replied with a another higher whistle, one that made the child open her eyes and chirp at him. He chirped back, lifting one hand to cup the small face in comfort.
Brida’s eyes teared up, and for a moment she could neither whistle nor speak. Somehow she had to find a way to save these two. With a series of hand gestures, spoken word and the whistling of their names, she tried to convey the beginnings of a plan to get them both to the water.
He passed out in the middle of her oration, and Brida gasped when his body went slack. The merchild echoed her alarm, tiny fluke slapping the seaweed mounded under her. Brida promptly forgot the last consequence to her mistake of getting too close and rushed forward to lift the merman in her arms. He was monstrously heavy, and her arms strained under the weight as his head lolled back.
“Oh no,” Brida whispered. “No, no, no, no. Don’t you dare die on me.” She bent lower to listen, tears streaming down her face when no sound issued from his nose or mouth. She shook him as much as her strength allowed. He didn’t even flinch, body limp as a sack of grain. The child’s anguished mewing was nonstop now and growing louder.
“It’s all right, little one,” Brida lied. “He’s just sleeping.” The long sleep. The death sleep. Brida shook him even harder, panic giving her strength. A faint gasp followed by an even fainter exhalation gusting across her cheek sent a surge of relief—no, joy—coursing through her. She whistled his name, and his eyes opened. This time his pupils had changed shape, dilated so they converged to create a black horseshoe that almost eclipsed his pale irises.
Brida braced his torso on her knees and gently turned his head so that he faced the frightened merchild. His slippery hair spilled through her fingers where she cupped the back of his skull. “Show her you live.”
Whether or not he understood her words, he comprehended their intentions and issued a series of weak chirps that calmed the merchild. Brida carefully lowered him to his side on the seaweed, noting for the first time the ridge of a small dorsal fin that ran the length of his spine. The change in position exposed more of the grievous bite wound but also eased his breathing.
The merman reached for the child, and Brida helped him, careful only to touch his arm as he nudged the mergirl onto her side as well. Like the adult, the child’s breathing grew less labored. Brida sat back on her haunches and exhaled. Maybe, just maybe that small position change had bought them time.
She had an idea, one that held no guarantees of saving the pair, but it was better than nothing, and leaving them here on the beach. They’d be dead by the next day. If she could get both back in the water, they at least had a chance.
She spent the next hours keeping the two wet and cool with water from the diminishing tidal pools and hauling cut seaweed to the wagons farther down the beach. Brida declined offers to join others for lunch or a quick rest when she emptied her baskets at the wagon. By the time the harvesters called it a day, she was nearly seeing double from exhaustion. Still, her charges clung to life.
Cloud cover pillowed a sky the dull color of flint. Brida was grateful for it. Right now, the sun was an enemy, its warm rays punishing splinters on the beached merfolk. She briefly considered covering them both with a blanket of wet seaweed but discarded the idea. Their bodies gave off a feverish heat now, the shimmering sea colors streaking up their skin nearly gone, leaving their bodies and faces ashen. Piling on wet seaweed might camouflage them from passersby, but they’d overheat even more without the cooling breeze from the Gray drifting over them.
Brida crouched before the merman and whistled his name. His eyelids twitched but didn’t lift. She touched his cheek, unsurprised at how hot it felt beneath her finger. “I’ll be back when night falls. Hold on a little longer. Both of you.”
It was hard to walk away from them, even harder to pretend with her brother that nothing unusual had happened while she harvested. She glanced up at the dreary sky, silently counting the hours until nightfall when she could return to the shore unobserved.
Laylam side-eyed her curiously as he drove his wagon back to the village, its box piled high with dripping seaweed. “You’re far away in your head, Brida. Quieter than usual. You feeling peaky?”
She patted his arm, offering a tired smile and a yawn that was far more sincere than affected. “Sorry. I’m just sleepy. I might even nod off on your shoulder before you drop me home.” She resisted the temptation to look back to the beach slowly disappearing behind the feathery barricade of salt grass.
“Janen kept you and the others at the castle too long last night. He knew we had harvesting to tend to today.” Laylam flicked the reins, coaxing the horse into a faster clip. “Don’t worry about feeding me supper. Norinn said she’ll have a plate ready for me when I get home. One for you too if you want.”
“I just want to sleep. Tell Norinn thank you and that I’ll see her tomorrow to help you both with laying out the seaweed to dry.” She didn’t lie. If she didn’t have two merfolk to try and save, she’d fall into her solitary bed without undressing and sleep until one of her nieces or nephews pounded on her front door the next morning. But slumber was a luxury that would have to wait.
The obscured sun bloodied the western horizon by the time Laylam delivered her to her door. She waved to him from the doorstep until the wagon turned a corner and disappeared behind a row of houses along Ancilar’s market road.
Hinges squeaked softly as she pushed open the door and paused. A scent of exotic spices mixed with perfume teased her nose. She’d smelled that scent before, though the memory only skated the edges of her mind before flickering away.
The house she once shared with her husband Talmai was small and sparsely furnished, the line of sight from the door stretching into parlor, kitchen, larder, and bedroom. Silence rested within the empty rooms as if waiting to greet her the moment she crossed the threshold. Dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by the last bits of fading light that speared the front window. The pair of buckets she’d set out to catch the rain from her leaking roof stood undisturbed, nor had the book she’d left in her chair by the fire been moved. Still, she hesitated at the doorway, sensing a difference in the feel of the house from when she’d left it hours earlier.
She crept across the parlor on quiet feet before easing the poker from its stand by the hearth. Only her heartbeat sounded in her ears, and she gripped the makeshift weapon with both hands, ready to bash or stab anything that leapt out at her. Fear sent a trickle of sweat down her spine despite the house’s chill, but anger at the thought of someone robbing her pushed her deeper into the rooms. She refused to abide a thief. If she caught one, they’d regret ever crossing her doorstep.
No one. There was no one. Neither in the bedroom nor the larder. Not lurking under the kitchen table or hiding behind the two thorny bushes in her garden. Still she couldn’t shake the sensation that someone had been here, creeping about, touching things. The thought made her skin crawl.
She closed her door and threw the bolt home. Ancilar was a small village where most everyone knew each other. People didn’t steal from their neighbor, not if they wanted help for some calamity later. That someone might have done so here didn’t bode well for her or anyone in the village.
Sick dread roiled in her belly. She returned the poker to its spot by the hearth and strode to the bedroom. The floorboard under her bed hadn’t been moved, and she exhaled a hard breath when her hand dipped into the hiding space beneath the floor and felt the pouch of coins.
Her relief died a swift death as the memory of Lord Frantisek’s aggressive guest blossomed in her mind. The nobleman named Ospodine had stared at her flute with the fixation of a zealot.
The scent. She knew it now. Ospodine had reeked of it.
“Oh gods,” she muttered. “Not the flute! Not the flute!” She raced from the bedroom into the kitchen, stopping in front of the cupboard where she always stored the instrument. It lay as she’d left it, still within its protective cloth. Brida’s hand closed around it in a death grip, hesitating when more of the perfume and spice combination buffeted her nose.
She almost tossed the flute from her then, furious at the idea that anyone would dare enter her home and rifle through her things while she was gone. It didn’t matter that nothing was taken, she felt violated. The urge to torch the house warred with her reason that reassured her a hard day’s worth of scrubbing, mopping and washing would take care of the smell.
Still clutching the flute, Brida double-checked the bolt on her front door and did the same for the back before inspecting the latch at every window.
She could tell the village council what happened, but who would believe her? Her intruder left no trace except for a distinctive scent. He’d stolen nothing except her peace of mind and sense of safety, intangible things as precious as her flute. What did he want if not the flute? Why had her practice notes drawn him like a shark to blood in the water?
Any drowsiness she suffered burned away under the heat of her rage. She almost regretted not finding Ospodine still lurking in her house just so she’d have the pleasure of beating an apology out of him with the fireplace poker.
The image of the beached merman and merchild rose in her mind’s eye, cooling the fire of her anger and replacing it with an urgency of a different kind. She’d somehow deal with Ospodine later. She still had the flute, the key to her half-mad plan in saving her charges. Nightfall couldn’t arrive soon enough.
Evening brought a clearing of clouds along with colder temperatures as Brida hurried through the village’s deserted streets toward the distant beach. Even if she owned a horse, she’d still go on foot, unnoticed as she flitted between houses and skirted the pools of candle light spilling from windows as people settled in for the night.
She huddled in her heaviest shawl, teeth chattering as the damp breeze blowing off the Gray cut through layers of clothing to raise gooseflesh on her skin. She glanced over her shoulder every few steps to make sure no one had seen her, or worse, was following. Once past the village’s perimeter, she broke into a sprint, cutting a swath through the salt grass toward the shore. Part of her prayed the two merfolk still lived, another part cautioned her not to put much hope in the notion.
The tide had come in, black waves capped in white foam creeping farther and farther up the beach with every purl of the surf. Wet sand sucked at her bare feet, and cold water swirled around her ankles as she ran toward the tidal pools concealed by the short ridge of rocks.
A chorus of whistles, carried on a brine-scented wind, rose above the surf’s thunder, and Brida stumbled to a halt at the eerie sight of small, greenish lights flickering in the troughs and peaks of the waves like fireflies. Swatches of clouds floated past a bright half moon that paved a silver road on the water’s surface.
“My gods,” Brida breathed.
Moonlight unveiled the source of the lights. Not fireflies, but eyes, bright with the animal eyeshine that shone at night in many creatures, wild and tame alike. A cluster of the glowing eyes gathered in the water directly across from the tidal pools where the merfolk were beached, and Brida caught glimpses of flukes slapping the water as their calls grew in number and volume. Two of the whistles were repeated over and over. Names. They were the two names the merman had whistled to her on a weak breath. His kinsmen were calling to him and the wee girl trapped with him.
She resumed her sprint toward the tidal pools, splashing water as she ran. The whistles abruptly stopped, and the waves went dark. The merfolk had seen her. Brida prayed they didn’t swim away. She would need their help.
The merman and child were black silhouettes under the shadows cast by the rocks that sheltered them. Seaweed floated over their bodies, lifted by the encroaching tide. It wasn’t enough to make them buoyant, but Brida hoped the continued rise might aid her in moving them closer to the deeper surf. If they even still lived.
She tossed her shawl on one of the nearby rocks and crouched next to the merchild. “Please be alive, little one,” she prayed to any gods who might be listening. The bright moonlight didn’t reach here, and the darkness obscured details, but Brida noted the child’s tail had peeled even more, her small face hollowed out under the cheekbones as if she had withered in the autumn air. Her closed eyes were sunken, her lips cracked and bleeding. The child didn’t move when Brida laid a hand on her shoulder, nor did the merman beside her.
Brida’s eyes teared as she touched cold, dry skin. She drew a shaky breath before tightening her lips to whistle the child’s name. The mergirl didn’t respond, even when Brida’s tears dripped on her throat and chest.
Despairing, Brida scooped the child into her arms. Similar in size and maturity to a human toddler, the merchild was easily twice as heavy in Brida’s hold. She remained limp as Brida hugged her, pressing her face against her cheek, whistling softly.
The faintest twitch made her freeze. She pulled back abruptly to stare at the mergirl’s shadowed features. Her gaze traveled the length of the small body, and she swallowed back a triumphant cry when the little fluke jerked upward in an anemic flap.
She surged to her feet, staggering for a moment under the child’s weight, to face the Gray. Lantern flickers of eyeshine shimmered once more among the waves. The silenced calls started again, this time shrill or mournful. Sharp clicks and chirps accompanied them, reminding Brida of the merman’s vocalizations when she made the mistake of touching the merchild the first time.
Fairy tales, told by generations of mothers, grandmothers, and old salts land-bound but still sea-ensorceled, teased her memories. Leviathans that lived in the black deep and swallowed ships whole. Ancient obludas that lured their victims with grief and ate them with teeth like daggers. And merfolk who frolicked in the waters and rode the bow waves of ships, waiting for some unfortunate sailor to fall in the water and drown in a mermaid’s seductive embrace.
Brida had never sailed on a deep water ship or seen a leviathan, but she knew the obludas were real, and held in her arms proof that merfolk were more than myth. And all were dangerous to a land dweller like her. She had to get the merchild into the water, back to the family who watched her from the surf, but she didn’t want to die in a mermaid’s lethal arms.
She waded calf-deep into the surf before stopping, her unconscious burden heavy against her. Her flute nestled in a satchel slung from her shoulder, so close but completely inaccessible unless Brida put the merchild down. She sank to her knees in the water, submerging the little girl from fluke to belly but careful to keep her shoulders and face clear of the rolling surf. With one hand she fished the flute out of the bag, pulling away the cloth cover with her teeth. She spat the cloth out. It floated away, rolling back with the tide toward the cluster of glittering eyes and flashes of silvery flesh.
Twisted in a position that kept the merchild afloat in her arms, and the flute balanced in both hands, Brida raised the instrument to her mouth and blew into the end stem in a series of bursts. The sounds the flute made were sharper than those she made with just her mouth, but the tone was the same—one for the merman’s name, one for the child. He’d given her nothing else. Just their names, and she repeated them in a second burst of whistles played on the flute.
Silence greeted her playing, though she didn’t imagine that the eyes drew closer. Fear coiled snakelike up her body. She was tempted to draw back, but the merchild’s increasing movements against her kept Brida in place. She’d brought the flute in the fragile hope she might better communicate with the merman. He was either dead or too far gone into delirium to whistle to her now, but those in the waves might do so if they were as willing to set aside their wariness of her as she was of them.
She repeated the names twice more before changing tactics. Five years earlier, she had stood on this very beach and wailed her grief over the loss of her husband to a deaf sky. The moon didn’t answer, nor did the stars, but something in the Gray did—the four-note whistle she still played on her flute. A reply from the black waves, so full of sorrow and sympathy that Brida had fallen to her knees and sobbed until she retched.
A mysterious reply from an unseen source then. Possibly a mystery no longer. Brida braced the merchild against her knees as she swayed with the surf’s infinite purling. She licked her lips before pressing them to the flute’s mouthpiece again, fingertips perched on the playing holes, and played the four-note tune.
Had she lobbed a live, starving shark into the water, the reaction to the tune couldn’t have been more vehement, much like the wounded merman’s when she whistled it earlier. A frenzy of splashing heralded a cacophony of whistles and clicks that shrieked above the Gray’s dull roar. Multiple wakes of frothing water raced toward the shore. Brida almost dropped flute and merchild as she struggled to her feet, nearly falling face first into the water amidst a tangle of soggy skirts.
A deeper, sharper whistle rose above the rest, and as one body, the merfolk splashed to a halt, their eyes shimmering green coins in the darkness. Flukes slapped impatiently at the waves, and Brida got her first clear view of the sea people who had come to claim their own.
Like the merman on the beach, and the merchild in her arms, their kinsmen possessed the tails and flukes of dolphins instead of fish, and their skin glowed shades of silver in the moonlight. Seaweed hair spilled down their backs and shoulders, some woven with bits of shell. Like her merman, the males were muscular, with broad shoulders and powerful arms. The females in the group were smaller than the males, sleek and arresting, their long hair at times revealing or obscuring their bare breasts.
One female swam through the center of the group, moving slowly as if all the time in the world lay before them. She entered the shallows just shy of any danger of beaching herself and stared at Brida with a puzzling combination of wariness and recognition. She parted her lips and whistled the four-note tune in clear, perfect mimicry.
Brida’s throat closed against an involuntary sob, and new tears coursed down her cheeks. She swallowed several times in an effort to speak. “You,” she told the merwoman. “I heard you once. Long ago.”
The merwoman didn’t reply with either words or whistles, only watched Brida for a moment before her gaze slid to the mechild. She raised a webbed hand in an unmistakable command for Brida to bring the girl to her.
Brida’s feet moved of their own accord, or at the will of a sea spell cast silently by one of its denizens. She clutched her flute in one hand and waded deeper, closer and closer until she stood directly in front of the mermaid, and stared down into a pair of sea glass eyes full of ancient secrets. She dropped to her knees and held out her arms, her muscles quivering with the effort to hold the heavy merchild.
“She lives,” she told the merwoman. “For now.”
Slender hands lifted the girl from Brida’s embrace. The merwoman spoke in a series of soft clicks, and the child’s eyes opened for just a moment before closing once more. The merfolk surrounding them trilled as the merwoman passed her to a mermaid who snatched her away before disappearing into the deep. Three more merfolk followed, but the rest stayed behind, their regard unwavering as they watched Brida.
She braced a hand in the sand to keep the waves from knocking her over. She considered standing, but something warned her to stay put, at least for now. The merwoman whose voice had haunted her all these years whistled again, a single note ending on a question, and Brida recognized it as the merman’s name.
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know. I can’t know, and I can’t help unless I go back ashore.”
The two stared at each other for long moments before the merwoman nodded as if she understood what Brida said. Careful to act as if negotiating with merfolk was an everyday event, Brida stood and waded steadily back to the beach where the water glossed the sand like a thin shield of glass. Here she was safe from a drowning. Here she could gather her sodden skirts in her hands and bolt for the safety of the salt grasses, leave behind a beached merman and the danger of being drowned by angry merfolk if she delivered their kinsman back to them, dead. The thought crossed her mind, brief as a candle flame flicker, before she cast it aside.
She was scared, terrified even, but she wasn’t a coward. She returned to the tidal pools.
The merman was as she’d left him, sprawled across the filling pools, tangled in bloodstained seaweed. His wounds still trickled blood and a small cluster of sand fleas gathered around the jagged line of flesh that marked where sharp teeth had torn into his tail. Brida approached him far more cautiously than she did the merchild, whistling his name in a steady repetition in case he lived and could hear her. His neck, under her palm, burned hot instead of cold, and a pulse beat in a thready rhythm just below his skin.
“Thank you,” Brida said, not dwelling on whether she thanked the merman for not dying on her or the gods for being merciful in keeping him alive this long.
His oddly handsome face tightened for a moment, his breathing growing louder. He convulsed, one hand digging into the seaweed beside him.
Brida stroked his smooth cheek. “Shh, your daughter is returned to your kinsmen. They’re waiting for you now.” His eyelids lifted a fraction, giving her a glimpse of his eyes, no longer pale, but glowing with the same eyeshine she’d seen from the merfolk in the water. She offered him a smile and whistled the merchild’s name before pointing to the water.
Her heart jumped in her chest when his eyes rolled back and his body collapsed, as if her words offered not only succor but permission for him to die.
“No you don’t,” she snapped, her gentle caress on his cheek changing to a pair of quick slaps that made his eyelids flicker.
Inquiring whistles sounded behind her. The merwoman and her people were growing impatient. And concerned.
Brida stared at the merman. Now what? She couldn’t wait for the tide to move farther inland. It would be at least two more hours before it had filled the pools enough for her to float him into the deeper surf, and by then it would be too late. He was far too heavy for her to lift, much less carry.
There was nothing for it. She’d have to drag him across the sand, risking more injury to his already battered body, and no doubt a terrible amount of pain. Brida prayed the gods would remain merciful and keep the merman unconscious through the ordeal.
Her soaked skirt impeded her movements. She stripped down to her shift, shivering hard in the cold breeze that blew off the equally cold water. The flute joined her shawl on the rocks. Her teeth clacked together as she maneuvered behind the merman and bent to slide her hands under his shoulders.
“Mother’s mercy,” she said between grunts. “You are heavy!”
He was dead weight in her grip as she she slowly turned his body. Her discarded skirt became a useful tool when she wove the material under his armpits, and gripped the excess to tow him toward the surf and the waiting merfolk. His head lolled, and more than once she stepped on his trailing hair, jerking his head back so hard, she feared she’d broken his neck.
Brida laid him down and straightened, pressing her hands to the screaming muscles of her lower back. Her exertions made her forget the cold, and she swiped a forearm across her sweating brow. The whistles from the surf grew demanding and ever more impatient. She spun to frown at the figures patrolling the surf. “You’ll kindly hold down that racket and keep your flukes in the water, mind. This is even harder than it looks.”
A sharp click followed and the whistles stopped. Brida lifted the merman’s head and gathered his hair to drape it across his chest where she quickly wove it into a loose braid and tied it into a knot. That done, she resumed her task, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.
This time the merfolk didn’t wait for her to wade deeper into the surf. A half dozen mermen suddenly surrounded her, and she fell back on her haunches in the water as they lifted their brother’s limp body and floated him into the waves. The rest followed, their excited whistles and clicks resuming once more.
Short of breath and exhausted, Brida watched them go, both relieved the merman and merchild were no longer her responsibility and happy that she’d done all she could to save them. What a story she had to tell to her nieces and nephews, even if they thought it only an imaginative yarn spun by their eccentric aunt. Only she would know the truth of her tale or how the memory of the merman’s face would haunt her for many days to come.
She was thoroughly drenched in salt water, as was everything she wore. If she didn’t develop a cold after this, it would be a blessing. Dark memories of the now dead obluda motivated her to hurry out of the surf even more than the cold did. The merfolk hadn’t tried to drown her, but that didn’t mean she was safe from some other lurking danger that swam along the Gray’s shores at night.
Sand slid beneath her feet as she trekked to the rocks where she’d left her skirts, shawl, and flute. A clear whistle made her turn.
The merwoman who’d approached her directly bobbed in the waves, moonlight plating her skin in dappled argentum. She raised a hand, in thanks, farewell, or both. Enchanted, Brida offered a nod and returned the gesture, watching as the merwoman turned and dove, disappearing beneath a rising hillock of water.
“You’re welcome,” Brida said softly, with only the wind and the moon to hear her.
It was time to go home.