05. sink or swim: a novel of lady pirates and merfolk
"We should not take her fully out of the water," Kaimana said.
"Why the hell not?" Harry demanded, adrenaline coursing hot through her blood, making her body demand action. "She looks half-drowned."
"She is more like me than you," he tried to explain, moving along the edge of the lagoon to a spot where he could lay her down so her legs remained submerged. "Water is a healing element. I truly believe it is the only thing that has kept her alive this long."
"Jo! Jo, the medic bag!" Harry shouted, trusting her first mate would hear. She had a captain's skill of being heard over storms and violent waves and Jo had always had excellent hearing. "Good God, someone's cut out her tongue..."
"Stay with her, try to wake her," Kaimana said. "I have things to collect." Another splash, and he was gone.
"Can you hear me, miss? Just squeeze my hand if you can hear me. My name's Harry."
The whole crew huffed and puffed into view, Jo in the lead with the black doctor's bag.
"What the hell?"
"Where did she come from?"
"What's happened, Cap?"
"Not good, not good," Jo muttered, dropping to her knees on the other side of the girl, taking stock with a wince. "If we don't stop the bleeding, she won't last another ten minutes."
"How the hell do we stop bleeding like this?"
"Cauterization is the best way," Miss Euphemia said, voice shaking. "It closes the vessels and prevents infection."
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Harry snapped. "Stick a hot coal in her mouth?"
"Who did this to her?" Agnessa said, face pale. "It's barbaric."
"There're blisters in her mouth and throat, too," said Jo grimly. "Across her lips. It looks like someone made her swallow something caustic."
"And bound her wrists -- see where the ropes burned her skin?" pointed out Katherine.
"That's torture," said Maddie, unusually subdued, the animation draining from her face. "Someone's tortured the poor thing."
Harry looked up sharply, alerted by the dull tone of Maddie's voice. "Mads, you look away. Breathe in and out. Lizzie, get her away from here. Now."
"Captain?" cut in Franky, looking from Maddie to Harry in alarm.
"Franky, go with them. Get her moving and talking and thinking about something else. Snap her out of it. Last thing we need right now is for Maddie to have one of her fits."
"She a berserker, Boy," said Lizzie, pulling a barely responsive Maddie away. "If she breaks, she liable to hurt us all an' herself."
"Maddie, let's go back to the fire, okay?" Franky said loudly, taking one of her hands and rubbing it bracingly. "You were gonna show me how to do that tricky knot, remember?"
"She's right, though," said Agnessa. "This girl's been tortured. By who?"
The water rippled and before Harry could give any warning Kaimana resurfaced, startling a scream from Zora, who staggered back and nearly knocked Marcella off her feet. Katherine pulled a curved dagger from her belt and started to lunge forward before Harry's arm went out and stopped her, knocking against her legs. "Peace, he's our mysterious friend. He's the one who brought her here."
"After he'd had some fun with her?" Katherine demanded, eyes narrowing.
"No, I swear I did no harm to her," Kaimana said, raising his hands in a gesture of submission. "When they threw her overboard, I pulled her to safety. I went for medicine," he continued, directing the last at Harry as he swam closer. There was a net-like bag over his tattooed shoulder. "Things to stop the bleeding."
"Don't waste any more time on talk, then," said Jo. "This girl's going to die if you don't do something now."
"Lift her head up," he instructed, pulling out a small corked bottle. "And someone else will need to steady her, because she will struggle."
"Why will she struggle?" asked Zora in a small voice.
"Because it will hurt," the merman said grimly. "But it is a necessary hurt -- it will stop the bleeding."
As he poured the black liquid into the girl's mouth, her eyes flew open and focused on Harry's. Her pupils had contracted to the size of pinpricks. The dark irises were glazed with an agony and terror that struck Harry like a physical punch to the gut. It was a look that would linger in her thoughts and dreams for weeks.
Then the girl's body began to jerk and spasm, hands clenching and feet kicking out. A wordless scream rose up through the blood choking her, cutting the air like a razorblade. It seemed to go on for an unnatural length of time, far longer than any human could scream, as if it was an audible manifestation of all of the girl's pain and fear, emptying her body of everything.
Harry thought of the immediate aftermath of losing Aveline, of the fire in her injured arm and the despair on Jo's face when she heard the news. The sound raging from the brutalized girl was like a magnet, drawing out all of the bleakest, most painful memories inside her head. She looked over at Jo and saw the dark, familiar face etched with a similar agony.
And then the scream ended with a sharp note of finality. The girl slumped back into Jo and Harry's arms, eyes rolling up to the whites.
"Jesus Christ preserve us," whispered Jo.
"What was that you gave her?" Harry asked, pushing past old pain to focus on the situation at hand.
"A potion my matrons swore by," Kaimana said quietly, shoving the cork back into the half-emptied bottle. "It will stop any bleeding, even from mortal wounds. Made of jellyfish and anemone."
"Sounds like a poison," said Wilhelmina, face wooden and stoic. Behind her, Marcella and Zora were both crying, holding one another tightly. Everyone gathered was visibly upset; a couple of the women stepped away with hands over their faces and eyes bright with tears.
"It would be a poison to anything not of merkind," he said.
"She's not a mermaid," Jo said.
"No. But she is kin from the distant past."
Harry looked down at the unconscious girl. She wore a dress-like garment woven from tough green fibers -- kelp, she realized belatedly -- and there was a string of pearls and polished seaglass draped around her neck. The captain lifted the hand she had been holding and examined the fingers. The nail were unusually long and sharp, and the fingers themselves were--
"Webbed," Jo said aloud, looking up from the submerged feet. She reached over and brushed the girl's black hair back from her slightly pointed ears. "And gills behind the ears."
"She's a siren?" Katherine demanded, crouching down. "I thought sirens healed from anything short of cannon fire."
"Humans didn't do this to her, at least not entirely," Harry said with conviction. "Her own kind did this to her. Another siren cut out her tongue, made her drink something corrosive."
"Yes, I believe so," said Kaimana. "I did not see and hear everything, but I think I caught enough. A sister pulled her to the railing of the ship and put her to the knife. She said it was a test of her sincerity. That it would 'seal the deal'."
"Utterly barbaric," Wil echoed Agnessa's earlier horror. "And people say intelligent species are 'enlightened' and superior to dumb animals. I don't see the beasts of the field torturing and murdering each other out of greed."
Miss Euphemia edged closer. "We should clean the poor dear up. Bundle her up warmly now. After such pain and shock, she should be kept warm."
Harry glanced at Kaimana. "Is that alright? Or should she stay here? I confess to knowing nothing of siren physiology, so I defer to you on this."
"The potion has taken effect. The best thing for her now is to sleep, and this matron is right: she should be taken somewhere warm and dry. Take this," he held out a rough box made of shells. "Put this on her lips and where the rope burned her wrists. And," he added as Katherine bent to gather the slim girl up in her arms. "Someone should stay with her. Many someones, if possible. She will need community when she wakes, else she may will herself to die."
"Poor chick, poor thing," Miss Euphemia murmured as she and the others followed Katherine back to the camp.
"Jo, can you please check on Maddie for me?" Harry asked.
"Are you--"
"Yes. Please, Jo. I just want a moment."
Harry sat on her heels and brushed the back of her hand across her forehead. Now that the initial shock and fear had broken her skin felt too slick and hot, as if from the after-effects of a bad fever. The breeze skimming inland over the ocean now was chill and sharp, and she turned her shoulder to it. "You saw the ship she was on?"
"Yes."
"Did you see the name on its prow?"
"I cannot read human tongues," Kaimana said. "But I would recognize the vessel again, and some of the humans on it."
"Was there a skeleton carved on the prow? A hooded skeleton with a scythe?"
"I do not know what a scythe--"
"A curved blade on a long pole."
"Yes. This is the craft."
"Did you see a man with a patch over his left eye and a black coat? With a scar across his forehead and cheek?"
"Yes, I did. Their captain, I believe."
"Of course," Harry said quietly to herself. "Of course it was."
"You recognize this ship? You know this man?"
"I thought I knew him, up until two weeks ago when he almost shot me in the back. His name is Wrath Drew. He captains The Charon."
"He has a black, slick aura," Kaimana said, his distaste audible. "Like oil over water. A contaminating force. I think he must rot everything around him, for his crew had tainted auras, too. And the siren who did this terrible thing -- I saw hers darken even as she drew the blade. Evil is a corruptive influence."
"You saw all that?"
"Yes."
"Wish I could see things like that. Would make it a helluva lot easier to know who to trust and who to steer clear of." Harry paused, looking at him appraisingly for the first time in the dying light. "...Is that why you've been leaving us gifts? Why you brought her here and trusted us? You could see our 'auras' and knew we were good?"
"Yes." He was returning her appraising look, utterly unabashed. Not that he had anything to be embarrassed about: he had just saved a girl's life, after all.
"I thought you were a mermaid," Harry said. "I mean, I've never seen a merman before. I've heard stories but I thought they were just fairy tales. I didn't think your species had males."
"There are as many males as are needed," Kaimana said as if it was something that should be obvious, common knowledge. "We are not vital to a pod's health, not as matrons are, so there are fewer of us. ...Is this not the way with humans?"
"No, this is definitely not the way with humans. You haven't met many humans, have you?"
"You are the first I have actually spoken to," he confessed. "But I have watched many ships that have sailed past."
"You speak remarkably good English."
"I was taught by my matrons. I know how to speak many human tongues -- many pods have adopted human tongues, and communication is important when traveling across territory lines."
"Pods are like... tribes? Crews?"
"Yes. Like your pod." He gestured toward the camp, smiling.
"And where is your pod, Kaimana?"
His smile faltered slightly. "Gone."
"There's no one else here? Just you?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been here by yourself?"
"I cannot be sure," he said dismissively with a shrug. "My people are not so accurate in the measuring of time. Have you enjoyed the gifts?"
"Yes, we have, thank you," Harry said, shaking her head slightly. "I'm sorry, my manners are awful. Agnessa's the one with perfectly polite manners."
"Well, the last gift I brought you was somewhat awful," he said. "You have every right to be upset."
"And I don't know if I ever said, but my name is Harry," she added awkwardly. "Though I'm sure you already knew that, since you've been watching us."
"The one called Jo does not trust me because of that," Kaimana said. "And I am sorry to have caused her worry. But I was always warned that humans were evil. I had to be sure of you before I revealed myself."
"Kaimana, I understand completely. Plenty of humans think the same of merfolk."
"You may call me Kai, if you wish," he said.
"Alright. Kai."
"And..."
"Yes?"
He looked to the horizon, where the moon was beginning to rise, huge and milky white. "Perhaps we could speak further in the morning? I will come to the beach, if I may, and see how the girl is doing."
"Of course."
"Thank you, Harry. This did not go exactly as I had planned," he added dryly, echoing his first words to her. "But you cannot plan for everything."
"No, you cannot," she said, as he turned and swam away.
It was a subdued crew around the fire, most still shaken by what all felt would be the siren's final scream. If she survived the night after all she had been through it would be a miracle. But Harry, usually the most doubting of atheists, found herself daring to hope. The girl clearly had a strong will to live, else she wouldn't have lasted this long. And there had been something in her eyes, something unspoken but still eloquent, that told of a burning need.
Such fires were not easily put out.
Miss Euphemia and Agnessa had stationed themselves on either side of the siren in the tent they had converted into a hasty medical bay. While the older woman sang quietly and gently sponged away the blood on the girl's face and neck, Agnessa was smoothing the cream Kai had given them over her raw wrists.
"How could anyone do such things to someone?" Agnessa said, biting her bottom lip.
Miss Euphemia's song faltered. "Every heart has its share of darkness," she said after a pause. "Some hearts carry more than others, and those hearts crack easily, spilling out the darkness until it festers. The people that do these things, child, do them because they've rotted inside like a sick tree. They're hollow, and they like to fill that hollowness with someone else's suffering. Some say they only kill and maim for profit, but that's a lie. It's because they're hollow and dead inside. Greed's just another word for the darkness."
She squeezed the sponge in her wrinkled hand, watching the red water drip into the bowl dispassionately. Then she looked back at the slack, unconscious face between them. "My, but she's a beauty," she said softly. "Almost as beautiful as my girl was. Skin just as pale."
"You have a daughter, Miss Euphemia?"
"Had, dear. Esther. Died of a fever when she was eighteen. I sat like this by her for a week. Until the Lord reached down and took her by the hand." She brushed back the inky hair plastered to the siren's forehead. "I wonder what her name is."
"She can't tell us. She'll -- she'll never speak again," Agnessa said.
"Other ways of telling a body something," said Miss Euphemia. "If she hasn't the knowing of writing, I'll teach her. Just like I taught Maddie."
"What should we call her until then?"
"I'll leave that to you, dear." She picked up the thread of her song, humming the melody as she washed the still face clean.
"Silence," Agnessa said finally, tending to her blistered lips. "Because sometimes a woman's silence can speak volumes."