I suppose I thought it was a dream at first, whatever called me out of Christian’s embrace, luring me to the sea. The kind where you know it’s a dream, and you just settle in for the ride and see what your wild subconscious might invent. Flying, perhaps. Or breathing underwater. Or time traveling, back to the past.
But by the time I realized what had happened—that I’d slipped beneath the Queen of Cups in the middle of the night, left Christian sleeping soundly in the berth—I was wide awake.
The sea had finally come to make good on its promise.
To claim me.
Not to ruin the story, but if you’ve come this far, you should know how it happens.
The end begins, as all things must, in the water. Now.
Ropes of black hair twist before my eyes, swaying like reeds. One by one, red clips loosen from the braids, tiny jeweled starfish that
drip-drip-drop
into the deep.
Midnight stands before me, her body ebony and deep blue, half woman, half moon. Long black hair tipped with moonlight spills down over her breasts and hips, and with one eye open she watches me, imploring.
I nod, and she turns to lead the way, enticing me to follow.
Every step sends knives through my limbs, so tight is my dress, so restrictive. My mouth tastes of blood, my lungs burn with red-hot pain.
But still, I follow.
Finally Midnight turns, one finger pressed to her lips.
Before her a pale soldier appears, dressed in a red coat with golden buttons, loose but well-appointed over bone-white breeches. Tattered bandages hang from his head and limbs; in the water they sway and shift, wrapping around Midnight’s ankles.
He wears no skin, only bones. Death.
Death bows his head, hiding from me the sunken black caves of his eyes. Midnight’s legs run red with blood.
Behind them a new figure emerges from the darkness.
The mermaid queen. She’s been expecting me.
I am Atargatis. I am the First. Her scarlet lips don’t move; I hear her voice inside me. Her eyes shine with yellow flame, the same light emanating—impossibly—from double-ended wands she holds in each hand. Her breasts are pale and bare, save for a tiny golden crab in the center of each, and at her throat a starfish clings to her skin. Witch queen of the watery realm.
At my nod, her beauty turns to rot and ruin. I dare not look away, dare not flinch.
“But I am Atargatis,” I say. The sound of my own voice is shocking to my ears.
Her laughter drifts like soap bubbles, each landing and bursting against my lips. Do you not see? For I am you, she says. From the blackness behind her a serpent slithers forth, coiling around her waist. The snake consumes its tail, vanishing when it reaches the end. And you are me.
The serpent reappears, encircles her, consumes itself again.
Again. Again.
The yellow flames extinguish.
A flash of silver, and her knife is in my mouth, her fingers cold and slippery between my lips. Blade against my tongue.
I don’t fear her. There’s peace in knowing it will finally end, that I will exit as I arrived, last breath as my first. Salt water. The sea.
I’m ready.
But as my heartbeat stalls, as my limbs give their final tremble, as all around me turns to darkness, I can’t help but wonder. . . .
If the sea had offered me one last chance—if I could’ve bargained with Death to make this broken wing mine, a soul with all its beautiful imperfections—would I have taken it?
Even after everything I’d lost?
Blackness envelops. . . .
No, child. Her voice is a painful hiss inside, fingers digging into my jaw. I’ve not yet released you from the realm.
At the crush of her hand, ice rushes through my veins, and I open my eyes again.
This is not the first time our paths have crossed, Atargatis says. But you had much to learn then.
She regards me for another long moment, then releases my jaw. The knife is still in my mouth, though, sharp and bloody.
Oddly, my final thoughts are not of Christian, but of his brother, Sebastian. Of his words that day on the Vega, just after I’d signed on as first mate.
I read a story about a mermaid who couldn’t talk because the sea witch cut out her tongue. . . .
I’d stuck out my tongue then, shown him it was still intact. But I was wrong. I did let the witch cut out my tongue. Not now, with the blade of Atargatis pressed against me. But then.
In March.
In a hospital in Port of Spain.
The accident took my voice—my physical voice—the ability to make sounds emanate from my mouth.
I’d given up the rest all on my own. My voice. The inner power that comes from neither sound nor form, but from soul, from truth, from one’s deepest self. That’s what I’d let the witch cut out.
And ever since, she’s been stalking me, haunting my steps and shadows. My dreams. My future.
Now Atargatis’s voice is in my head again. Do not trouble yourself with such things, Elyse. I want only your tongue. In exchange, you will be free to love whom you wish, live as you wish.
She slips the blade out from my mouth so that I might answer.
Lips closed tight, I hesitate.
Love requires great sacrifice, she presses, a warning slithering beneath her cool tone. You must give something up to get something in return. It is the way of all things, Elyse. Life, death, life again.
I consider her words. My words. My voice.
I think of Christian, our first meeting and our last, our naked bodies entwined above.
Love has its own costs, its own sacrifices, yes. But in its true form, love is borne of neither spell nor bargain.
I won’t take it through trickery.
“I will give you what you ask,” I tell the sea witch, and my voice is strong and clear, vibrating across my tongue. “But only because you ask, and I have come to your domain. It is a gift, as it must be. I’ll take nothing in return.”
As you wish, she says.
I open my mouth against her silver blade. Her cool fingers again hold my chin as the knife does its work, cold and quick. Copper and salt fill my mouth. The pain I’d been expecting, though . . . it doesn’t come.
In its place instead I feel a lightness, a freedom.
Atargatis cut out my tongue, with my permission, yet a veil falls from my eyes, my heart suddenly unburdened.
Death, who’d been silent thus far, bows to the queen.
And then he is gone.
At once the ocean warms.
You’ve asked for neither love nor life in return, Atargatis says, but I will freely grant you one thing. An answer, child. If you’ve a question. Consider it my gift to you.
I nod in thanks. There’s so much I wish to know—how long she’s lived here, whether she’s still looking for her lost shepherd, what other great mysteries dwell in the deepest places of the world. But as the words form on my lips, I sense danger, the trouble that comes from being too greedy for sacred knowledge.
Instead, I ask only, “How is it that you’ve taken my tongue, yet I can still speak?”
Atargatis raises her arms. Twin serpents—eels, sleek and black—slither from her wrists. I’m not afraid. They circle me, twine around my ankles, and still I don’t move.
Before my eyes, the serpents turn to words.
My words.
My scribbled-on-the-wall words, scrawled-in-my-journal words, whispered-into-the-wind words. My summer words. They wrap around me gently, limb to limb, toes to curls. All the poems, the fairy tales I’d told Sebastian, the boat lists I’d made for Christian, all the raw and heartfelt things I’d written on his body without a single utterance passing my lips.
My dreams. My stories.
My voice.
A warmth pulses behind my scar, a golden-blue glow I can feel more than see, and in an instant the haze lifts. The word-serpents release me, slithering back into Atargatis’s sleeves.
From her pocket Atargatis pulls forth a net of stars, scattering them before us. Hundreds, thousands, millions twinkle, lighting a path from the sea to the moon.
You are ready.
With no further wisdom or warning, Atargatis vanishes.
My body convulses with the desire to breath, but I fight it, focusing on the path of stars and the bright white moon overhead. With all the strength left in me, I scissor kick my way to the surface.
Rising.
Rising.
Rising.