to hunt us down. When they came to Calypso’s island, they took many of us, although they did not capture her. Those were very dark years.” Asia closed her eyes.
“They knew our islands, and sought us out. And so many of us took to the sea. The rage in Calypso’s heart had only grown more furious and treacherous. She swore vengeance on all men with dark hearts.”
“But how could she know who-?”
“I’m getting to that, if you would stop interrupting. We have a sixth sense.”
“You can read minds?”
“No. Not minds-hearts. Emotions. Not perfectly, but we sense anger, fear, pain, despair. We don’t necessarily know what is causing those emotions, and often they are blended with other emotions, which makes them difficult to understand. But the powerful emotions call to us… Calypso began to defend herself against rogue sailors by sensing their intentions. And then she would attack.”
Will considered the journal. The sailors had been fearful, angry, wretched over the loss of Hawken. Then Akers had unnerved them. Had those dark fears, that fury, called the seekriegers to them?
“For many years, Calypso and her mermaids have lived near the bottom of the ocean. Over time, their eyes grew larger. Their skin grew luminous. They feed on fish and other things from the sea-but they hunt men.”
“Just men?”
“Humans,” Asia corrected herself. “But sailors are-were-usually men so most often those are their victims.”
“You keep saying ‘they.’ ”
“I’m not like them.” Asia grimaced slightly, like one in pain, and Will suspected that she might not be telling the whole truth. She wasn’t lying-not exactly. He believed her when she said she couldn’t. But she could leave things out. “Calypso and her band-those are your seekriegers,” Asia told him. “I’m not with them. We’re the same kind, but we don’t want the same things. I’ve always chosen to live on land, for example. And for a long time I tried to stay away from humans, whereas they seek them out.”
“But there’s more to the story,” Will prompted.
“Much more.” Asia looked wistful. “Telemachus came for me and my sister, Melia, but we escaped him and his band. We decided that we could not stay in that part of the world. We swam toward a land that we knew was more secluded-where the natives were friendlier to our kind. There we stayed-alone-for ages. Time passed; hundreds of years, then thousands. It was a peaceful life, but lonely. When we missed the company of humans, we visited the natives, who welcomed us. Still, a thousand years is not forever. New people began to arrive, and although they looked different from Telemachus and spoke differently, we felt the same anger in them. But we lived on an island far from the new settlements, and we did not swim near them. We watched the great boats with their many white sails float by like swans.
“One evening, there was a storm out at sea. The gray sky was lit with cracks of lightning. The waves raged against the rocks. Rain lashed at the ocean as if it were an enemy.
“Our kind are often drawn to the violent sea-sailors used to call a hurricane a ‘siren’s storm.’ I don’t know why we go to the water in a tempest. Perhaps we’re seeking the calm beneath the waves. I found Melia at the water’s edge, watching as a ship slowly climbed a steep wave. Our eyes are keen, and we saw it crest the top, then plunge. The next wave was larger. The wave curled over the ship, which listed to the side. The wave crashed with the force of a mountain, and I know we both felt it-the fear of the men, the panic as their ship splintered apart. We were far, but the terror carried out over the water.
“Melia bounded into the water. Her leap became a dive, and she disappeared beneath the waves. I dove in after her.
“We surfaced near the men. One old man was clinging to a large piece of driftwood. When he spotted Melia, the panic in his eyes turned to something animal. Melia tried to reach for him, but he kicked and flailed, and finally she had to let him go.
“A young boy with huge, frightened eyes looked up at me. He was paddling like a dog, and I could tell that he could not keep it up much longer. I grabbed him, while Melia reached for a man who was floating facedown nearby. At first, I thought he was dead, but she yanked back his fair hair. His eyes fluttered open, then closed again.
“The next wave was rising, so I placed the boy on my back and started toward our island. But the old man was swimming toward Melia, shouting. He reached for her arm, but grabbed instead a fistful of her hair.
“I cried out to her, but a wave dashed down, driving the old man and the mast forward. As the wave crashed, the mast knocked Melia on the head, and I saw her go down. The old man was thrown wide. A moment later, the wave came for us. I dove and swam until the rocks of the beach scraped my fingers.
“Our kind swims fast as dolphins. Still, the boy tumbled from my back as I stepped onto the beach. His face was pale, almost blue. He was still for a moment, and then he choked, writhing, and vomited seawater-much more than I’d thought a small boy like that could hold. I stood over him as he shivered and cried and vomited more, but I was facing the sea. The wave had erased the ship. And it had erased all signs of Melia.
“I cared for the boy, and he adored me. I caught fish for him, and fed him such fruits as grew on the island. I sheltered him and treated him with the medicine I knew. He was weak for a long time. He carried a small knife in his pocket. He had not lost it in the storm, and with it, he carved small animals for me from pieces of driftwood. He carved a cat, and a mouse. A fish. A snake. My favorite, though, was a small bird. These he presented to me in silence, while his large dark eyes looked up at me in eagerness. He tried to communicate with me, which is how I first learned English.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but-what year was this?”
“Years had no meaning to me then,” Asia answered. “It was over three hundred years ago.”
Air escaped from Will’s lungs in a whoosh. For some reason, that number-three hundred-made Asia seem more ancient than the stories of the
Asia cocked her head, and he knew that she felt the change in his emotions.
“Is it hard, to have such a long life?”
Asia closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. “I don’t know. I’ve never known anything different.”
“Right.”
“Shall I go on?”
“Just give me a minute.”
“We can stop,” Asia offered.
Across the library, the mother argued with her child, warning him that it was time to leave. The world spun on, full of the mundane, full of mystery. It was hard to fit together. Will couldn’t sort it out.
“No,” Will said finally. “We can’t stop.”
“All right.” Her hands were folded, and she looked down at them. “Where was I? Oh, yes. The boy. I cared for him for several weeks. Then the weeks became months. He taught me English, and I began to teach him my language. He seemed enchanted with me, and wanted to spend all his time with me. He was becoming more and more like me every day. When I heard him singing one of our songs in his sleep, I knew that it was time to return him to his people. But I had grown fond of him, and I did not want to merely abandon him at the port. I needed to observe things, find where he might live.
“I came ashore at night and stole from a drying line the sort of clothes I would need to fit in. It was early November, but the air had turned bearably warm. Still, the clothes were stiff with frost as I beat them out and put them on. Then I waited. The next morning, I prowled about the market stalls, overhearing bits of conversations. There was a strange energy in the air-everyone was talking about an upcoming trial. The town was awash in dark feeling-there was fear, and excitement, and righteousness, and anger.
“I was pretending to pick over a pile of potatoes when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Something about the gesture seemed familiar to me. And when I turned, I saw Melia at the next stall. She was dressed in a gray gown, with her red hair tied up beneath a simple gray cap. Still, there was no way to hide the beauty of her face.
“She must have felt my gaze, for she turned. When she saw me… well, I can’t describe what came over her face at that moment. It was shock, really. Her eyes stayed on mine, but they were far away, as if she had entered a dream. I felt her confusion, and then, slowly, the confusion slipped away, like steam disappearing on the air. Her eyes returned to me then, and I saw that she knew who I was-and that she hadn’t known a moment earlier.
“A pretty young woman was at Melia’s side. She was dressed as Melia was-in simple gray, with a full skirt and
