Siren's Storm

“That stuff in the book? That-”

“We have lived among humans for a long time. Some of us, like Calypso, even married among them.”

“This Calypso?” Will pointed to the book.

“The very same.”

Will thought that over, fighting the damp, clammy feeling that was slowly creeping up the back of his neck. He held his head in his hands and suppressed the desire to run screaming from the library.

“It’s hard to hear, I know,” Asia said.

“It’s hard to believe.”

Asia blew out a sigh. “Well do I know it.”

Silence pulsed between them like a living thing.

Will tried to collect his thoughts. The persistent sense of unreality that had hung around him ever since Tim died seemed to press in further. If this is a nightmare, I wish I would just wake up, he thought. But he didn’t wake up. And so, with a deep breath, he pressed on. “You knew Calypso?”

“She was my sister,” Asia explained. “We all are sisters.”

“Then who are the Joyces?”

“Who?” Asia’s expression seemed genuinely blank.

“You live in their house?” Will prompted.

“Oh.” Asia bit her lip, looked away. “Will, this town is full of empty houses. Every year I find a seaside town, and then find a place to live. If the owners return, I simply move on to another house.”

“What will you do it they come back and find you?”

“I can usually tell when the owners are coming back.”

“So the Joyces aren’t your family?”

“I’ve never met them.”

“So, no family. And there aren’t any mer-guys?” Asia laughed. “No.”

“So how do you…” Will waved his hands, and Asia lifted her eyebrows.

“Reproduce?”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t. That is, we can have children… with humans. In the usual way.” She smiled wryly. “But those children are human, not our kind. None of us remembers our births, obviously, as you don’t remember yours. We’ve simply always been. But there are no new mermaids. When the last of us die…” Asia shrugged.

“Maybe there used to be mermen,” Will said.

“That’s what I think. Perhaps something killed them off. But I don’t know.” She breathed a gentle sigh. “You have no idea how frustrating it is to have no idea where you came from.” She traced her fingers in loops over the top of the table. “And you have no idea how terrifying it is to consider a death that’s so final. There won’t be any family left.”

“You’re the last?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re going to explain that?”

“I’ll try.”

Will decided to let that go for a moment. “All right, so-do you have any other special powers? Can you breathe underwater? Are you like Aquaman or something?” He tried to laugh, but it came out sounding strangled.

Asia turned her head and lifted her long black hair. There, behind her ear, were three black gash marks, like a dark tattoo. They quivered slightly.

“Gills,” Will whispered. He had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.

Asia nodded. “I don’t choose to live in the water. But I could. Calypso has.”

Will shook his head, dumbfounded. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts enough to ask, “And what else?”

“We’re very strong,” Asia admitted.

“Should we arm-wrestle?” Will joked.

“Only if you want me to rip your arm off.” Her green eyes glittered, and Will went cold. “Not that I would, of course,” Asia added.

“Uh, thanks, I guess.”

The mermaid chuckled.

But a new thought had occurred to Will. “So, that night-the cliff-”

“Yes.”

“Can you fly?”

Asia shook her head. “No. We can climb. And jump.”

“Jump,” Will repeated. “So-wait-”

“I was near the water already that night. I’d heard something…”

Will raised an eyebrow.

“You didn’t, by any chance, play that flute of yours?”

Will cast back in his memory. Guernsey, barking. Looking out the window. “Yeah, I did.”

Asia nodded. “That flute… it’s what we use to call each other.”

A chill swept through Will’s body. “Do you know why my brother would have had one?”

“Are you sure your brother did have one?”

“I just-” Will suddenly remembered that the flute had been found on Tim’s boat… but that didn’t mean it was actually Tim’s. “So why did you sell yours?”

“I had used it for the last time.”

Will could tell that he wasn’t going to get a more specific answer. At least, not yet. “Okay. So that night…”

“I was by the water, and I heard you calling for Gretchen. I saw you struggle at the edge. And I saw you fall, so I jumped toward you. Instead of falling straight down onto the rocks, you got knocked off course and fell onto the sand.”

“Some jump.”

Asia smiled slowly and reached a hand across the table in a feline stretch. “I’ll show you sometime.”

“Okay.” Will wasn’t really sure he wanted that. “So-wait. You’re immortal… but can you get hurt? You know, injured?”

“We don’t die of natural causes, Will. But we can be injured, yes. We can even be killed.”

“How?”

“Fire.” A shudder ran through her body, and Will remembered that she had said her sister died in a fire.

“What happened?” Will asked.

Asia pressed her palm flat against the book, as if her body were absorbing its words. “After the Trojan War, Ulysses became lost on the sea. We had helped the Greeks in their fight, and many of my kind had fallen. We returned to our homes weary, and most of us foreswore violence. But there were a few for whom battle had kindled a bloodlust in their veins. Ulysses sailed to Calypso’s island. Calypso loved Ulysses, and she thought that he loved her. He lived with her many years, before he finally decided to return to his wife, his home. He left with promises to return, but these promises were broken. As you know, my kind cannot lie, and we do not understand when others lie to us. Calypso waited patiently for Ulysses to return. Ten long years she waited, until finally she realized that he did not plan to return at all.”

“And she was pissed.”

“Please don’t interrupt.”

“Sorry.” Will grimaced.

“But yes, she was pissed, as you put it. She sailed after him, and found him safely at home, with his wife and grown son, Telemachus. And there were two new children-a son and a daughter. Rage washed over Calypso, and she killed Ulysses. She killed the children. The grown son escaped, as did the wife, Penelope. But Calypso left their entire village in ruins before she left.

“But the story didn’t end there. Haunted by what had happened to his family, Telemachus swore vengeance on Calypso and all of our kind. Penelope was a wealthy woman, and very powerful. Her mother, Periboea, was one of us, and she knew our weakness. With her help and Ulysses’s name, Telemachus found many followers. They set sail