Salt & the Sovereign

Mira/Sybellen relates her story:

Prologue

“I can’t find him,” Antoni said as he strode into the parlor and tossed his coat over the back of the couch where Targa was sitting. “No one knows where he is.”

My heart sank and I made eye contact with my daughter––Targa. I had wanted Jozef here with us when I began recounting my story, refusing my children’s prompts to get started without him. Just the thought of seeing him again––now that my memories had returned to me––put me into a cold sweat of anxiety. Nerves were not something I normally suffered from, but in this case, under these circumstances…only a dead person wouldn’t have butterflies.

Targa glanced from me to Antoni and back again. “How can that be? It’s the middle of the day on a Tuesday, he works for our salvage team. Shouldn’t he be at work?”

“You might not believe this, but he gave his notice.” Antoni sat down beside Targa, shooting a nod of hello at Emun, who was sitting beside me.

Targa goggled. “He resigned?”

I closed my eyes as guilt and remorse washed over me like a bucket of ice water. The last time I’d seen Jozef had been in the front yard, and I’d rejected his invitation to dinner. It was far from certain that he’d quit because I’d declined his offer, but I couldn’t halt the notion that the two were somehow linked. 

I opened my eyes and swallowed down the tears that wanted to come. It was too much all at once. “Do you know why?”

Antoni shook his head. “I talked to his boss––Lizster. Jozef didn’t give a reason and he didn’t give much notice either, only forty-eight hours. No forwarding address or number, and his apartment is up for rent already.” Antoni’s hazel eyes were full of sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Mira.”

I had wanted to go searching for Jozef myself within hours of recovering my memory, but neither Targa nor Emun would allow me to leave the manor until they were sure I wasn’t going to lose myself again. Shock went through our little circle in waves. Even Antoni––who was not related to me and not directly affected––hardly spoke for a few hours as he processed what had happened. 

Truthfully, I had never felt so exhausted as I had in the days following Targa’s calling me home, and Emun giving me the aquamarine which now sat at the base of my throat on a chain. 

I had tried calling Jozef’s cell but got a message saying the number had been disconnected. I’d sent him emails which went unanswered, and had finally begged Antoni to go find him for me.

“I’m truly sorry we’re not able to find your friend, Mother.” Emun shifted against the sofa for a better look at me. “But since he can’t be found, and I think I could actually die of anticipation if we wait another minute, do you mind very much if we get started without him?” 

His words were tentative, uncertain, and full of longing. I looked at my son and reached for his hand. He grasped my fingers and squeezed. Emun had waited a very long time for this moment, and with or without Jozef, I didn’t want him to wait any longer, either.

I cleared my throat and began, “I was born on March 4, 1810, and given the name Bel Grant…”

“Wait, Mom.” Targa reached for her bag on the coffee table in front of her and dug inside. Retrieving her phone, she activated the screen and selected something. “Do you mind if I record you? This is way too important to relegate to something as fallible as human memory, let alone siren memory.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” I told her. “It’s a good idea. While it might not be as vivid as the memories provided by the Hall of Anamna, it’s a lot more convenient.”

The kids (I knew they weren’t kids, but I couldn’t help but think of them that way) glanced at one another.

“The Hall of Anamna?” Targa echoed. “What’s that?”

“I’ll explain, but first we have to go back to London, England. The war with France was over, but as I was just a young child, I had no interest in the war. My life revolved around my mother.” My throat tightened as I thought about the last time I had seen her, and I shoved the awful scene aside. “She was like a god to me.”

***Bonus***

To this day, I could not tell you how much time passed as I swam back and forth, slept, and lived in the hold of that old wreck. But I’ll never forget the day I was discovered by humans who’d come into my territory (for by that time, I thought of the tiny space which had become my home as ‘my territory’). Looking back––and once I’d been freed and returned to myself again––this territorialism I shifted into may have helped me understand Apollyona’s determination to keep the Atlanteans from sharing our resources, for if any creature––human or otherwise––had made an attempt to fish near my wreck, I was overcome by a fierce desire to protect my livelihood.

I did not process this in any logical way, for I had become very much like the other creatures of the ocean who survive on pure instinct.

I heard them before I saw them.

Men’s voices. My ears told me they were relaxed––laughter and levity in their tones. I retreated to the darkest shadow of the wreck and became still, the sharp stones and coral of the reef pressing into my back. Seaweed cradled me, swaying gently to cover me. I became still, only listening and breathing, my gills moving minimally as I drew water through them.

When the voices drew close and the splashing sound of feet wading through the rocky shallows told me they were drawing nearer to my hiding place, my heartbeat accelerated. The pace of my breathing increased and my hands tightened into fists, the now long and sharp nails of my fingers cutting into my palms. I could see nothing but shadows moving across the cracks in the hull. I was afraid, afraid but also curious, and these two battled inside me, for I wanted to get a look at my enemy, determine whether they were larger and stronger than me.

Staying in the darkest shadows, I inched my way along the hull to peek from a crack, my head breaking the surface. Through the soggy wooden slats, fuzzy with years of algae growth, I saw a pair of ankles. The voices had grown conversational. They were curious about the wreck––my wreck.

One of them dropped something into one of the larger cracks on the other end of the broken old ship. Silver flashed in the sun, passing through a small shoal of fish. Some part of my brain recognized the hook shaped metal. They were after my food.

Darting forward, my desire to stay hidden completely forgotten, I grasped the line and yanked. The shoal of fish darted in every direction and there was a cry of surprise from above as a rough wooden rod was pulled from its owner’s hands. The fishing rod flew toward the wreck, became wedged in the crack and snapped in two as I pulled the rest of the fishing kit into the water with a snarl.

Splashing sounds approached as the man who’d cried out called to his friends in excited tones. Three heads blocked out the sun at various points in the hull. There was silence as they squinted in at me, then hushed and excited chatter.

Nothing about their language was familiar to me, and their features and faces were barely visible with the morning sun at their backs.

I retreated to the seaweed-riddled shadows again, my fear returning.

One of the men left, leaving the other two to look in at me at intervals. As the sun moved across the sky more faces appeared, followed by more excited talking, but the energy seemed to change with the addition of a man who blocked out much more of the light than the others by means of a very large head.

There was a lot of movement then, splashing footsteps around the shallowest parts, the coming and going of shadows and voices, the sounds of work being done.

I hissed, startled when they dumped a bucket of water between the planks and it splashed overhead. It was the first of many. Confused and frightened, I pressed against the furthest depths of the hull as the splashes became frequent and steady. Bucket after bucket was deposited into the wreck without ceasing. Voices came and went and sometimes the men laughed, other times they were quiet, but the coming and going of feet on the coral and splashing steps through the shallows did not cease as the shadows continued to grow sharp, the sun now directly overhead.

Then the water began to change. Slowly, the texture, taste and tone of the water I was breathing was being transformed.

My fear began to dissipate, and I wondered what they were doing. Curiosity drew me from the depths to taste and smell the water.

Sweet water, tasting of cold stones and minerals had begun to permeate the briny seawater. A current moved through my wreck, driven by the repeated pouring of water into the top, which brushed over my skin and tail, and slowly pressed the saltwater out through the cracks in the wreck’s frame.

The intrusion of sweet water continued for the rest of the day and all night. Many men came and went, the voices changed as they took turns at this chore, talking amongst themselves until dark, and then working quietly and slowly, stepping carefully with bare feet among the sharp shallows.

I became conscious of my own thoughts and a dawning wonder began to overtake me. Coupled with the wonder was a panic that I’d been seen by humans in my siren form. But as time and freshwater wore away the animal instinct, pushing it to the back of my brain, I recognized that there was nothing to be done about being discovered, and these men were actually rescuing me. Further to this deduction, I realized with no small amount of exasperation that I had had the power to free myself from the wreck the entire time I’d been trapped, and had only been lacking the human’s intelligence required to conceive of a plan and execute it.

Another startlingly logical question struck my mind. How did these men know that sweet water would save me? They had to be aware of the existence of mermaids already. Could it be that our world was not as secret as we thought it was?

Drifting in that empty and ruined hull, as more and more human thoughts and emotions forming in my psyche, a whispered name came from all around, pressing in on me like a blanket.

Bel.

Startled, my head jerked up and my ears perked. Had I imagined it? My name passed by my ears again like a warm current.

Bel.

“Yes?” It took me a moment to realize the ocean was speaking to me. No, not speaking to me. Naming me.

Sybellen.

My siren name settled over my shoulders like a cloak, familiar and special and mine. I became so excited I began to swim in loops and figure-eights, tight ones, which I realize now probably made it appear to my rescuers as though I was having a sudden panic attack. Grinning from ear to ear and full of grateful joy that I had finally acquired my siren name, the desire to share it with someone, anyone, overcame me.

I broke the surface and said my name aloud, it bounced off the hull and echoed around me, and for the first time since I had become trapped in that wreck, my human lungs filled with oxygen. In an aching and violent reaction, I began to cough. The tickling in my throat and the pain as my lungs expanded seized control of my body.

Alarmed, the men reacted by moving quickly.

A great cracking noise startled me back underwater. The coughing ceased and the pain in my chest eased as I breathed through my gills again, but by then the oxygen in my lungs had returned me to a near fully human mind.

I watched with curiosity as one of the men pried lose several planks from the hull, making a hole large enough for me to pass through. The crack and groan of soggy wood and rusty nails giving way filled my hollow. Fear was nonsensical. These men were freeing me, and even if they had some malignant ulterior motive for doing so, I did not need to be frightened of them. I could make them do whatever I wished with my siren voice.

The man with the abnormally large head peered into the hole hole and then reached in a hand. “No one will hurt you,” he said, with an accent I had never heard before. He smiled and his eyes crinkled, transforming his face into something beautiful. Early morning sun passed behind his hat, giving his whole countenance a corona of warm yellow light.

My heart rang like a bell and the vibration ran along my spine and to the very ends of my fingertips and tail.

My face broke the surface and I looked up into the eyes of the man who owned the voice. I realized his abnormally large head only looked so because of the hat he wore. None of the other men wore hats. Somehow, this man was set apart from them.

“You’re free.” He continued to smile and beckon to me. My heart felt as though it had tripled in size and become soft and juicy, like ripe summer fruit. “No one will hurt you. I’ve forbidden it.”

“Sybellen,” I croaked from a raw throat.

His brows drew together momentarily. “I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Sybellen.”

He didn’t say anything for a time, and I didn’t know if it was because he was startled that I’d spoken, or startled that I’d introduced myself.

He gave a sudden and delighted chuckle. “You speak English! My great-uncle was right.”

I didn’t process this phrase, which was so oddly out of place, because my eyes were taking in his features hungrily. The attraction I felt to him was steadily warming my body, right through my soul. His proportions, symmetry, frame, features, kind expression––his every detail screamed at me that he was perfect for fathering my next siren child.

I reached up a hand, and even though help was the last thing I needed, I allowed him to pull me from the wreck. As I passed out of the water, I shed my mermaid’s tail and crawled from the wreck with long, pale woman’s legs. Naked as the day I was born, and about as slimy. I got to my feet.

Only then did I see the crowd of men who had gathered to watch.

The man in the hat spoke to one of them in a foreign tongue. The fellow produced a lump of dingy white cloth, which was taken and then handed to me.

Standing there in the shallows with the sharp stones cutting into the soles of my newly formed feet, I stared at the cloth stupidly.

“It’s all we have on short notice,” the man in the hat said, shifting from one leg to the other to move between me and the staring crowd.

I looked into his face, quizzically.

“Here, let me help you.” His voice was so gentle, and it made my insides vibrate in a way nothing else had (at least that I could remember at the time).

He shook out the cloth and looped it over my head. It was a shirt to cover my naked body, and reminded me that humans were ashamed to be naked. I put my arms through the billowy sleeves and the shirt––smelling of sweat and beer––fell to just above my knees. The gaping collar fell over one shoulder, and the man in the hat laced up the thong at the chest to tighten it. His fingers brushed my skin and nearly set it to flaming.

My recent state of affairs––trapped in the wreck, salt-flush, living on instinct alone––was not really something I felt the need to process any further. All of my concentration was now centred around this man, and I had already begun to think of him as mine.