The Twice Lost

know a mermaid named Nausicaa?” Luce asked at last. “I’m trying to find her.”

Luce half expected the stranger to jerk back in astonishment at Nausicaa’s name; she was disappointed to find that this gold-shining girl didn’t react at all. “Um, I don’t think I know her. But there are a lot of us out here I don’t know, so maybe she’s around someplace.”

Maybe Nausicaa hadn’t been here, then. They skimmed up for air and passed a spot where a cement-walled creek released a plume of revolting fresh water into the bay. A seal bobbed and then vanished. Then they reached salt water again and dipped under a vast ruined factory propped on a forest of upright logs. It was dark apart from a scattering of long, dimly shining forms far back in the shadows, and even though the dark didn’t stop Luce from seeing, she still had trouble recognizing what was in front of her. The water lapped gently at the pilings, and stretched here and there between them was a network of what appeared to be enormous drooping webs, each web set on a slant so that one side trailed into the glossy skin of the bay. And in their webs those glowing things were figures, some chatting quietly to each other, the subtle gleam from their faces dabbling on the water like bits of melted star.

Then Luce understood. Of course there were no suitable caves here. Instead the mermaids had adapted, stringing up half- submerged hammocks woven from old scraps of fishing nets, plastic bags, algae-slimed ropes. Luce noticed one hammock that appeared to be made from dozens of pairs of pantyhose knotted together. They could sleep here with their tails under the water, their heads above, in the last place humans would ever think to look for them.

“New girl,” the Asian mermaid announced tiredly to no one in particular. “Don’t know how long she’s staying.”

Luce looked around the black mazelike space under its low ceiling of boards just in case Nausicaa was there somewhere. She didn’t feel much hope of that anymore, but maybe . . . Condensation gleamed on the tar- smeared trunks around her. A few mermaids leaned in their nets to get a better look, though they didn’t seem particularly interested. In one of the more remote hammocks Luce noticed three mermaids laughing together. One of them tipped forward as she laughed with a voice that was at once harsh and delicate, and Luce saw her red- gold hair flaring in the dimness like a match before it vanished again behind one of the pillars.

Luce’s heart stopped. She couldn’t let herself believe it. The mermaid beside her was still talking— something about where Luce should sleep—but Luce couldn’t focus enough to make out the words. There it was again, red-gold hair suffused with its own light, and Luce was flinging herself across the water. It wasn’t what she’d hoped for, but if it was true it was almost as wonderful. A long, wordless cry rushed from Luce’s throat. Girls turned to stare at her in surprise as she dodged wildly around pilings. She smacked into someone and reeled away, gasping a vague apology, while red-gold light came tumbling toward the water just ahead. Bronze fins brushed Luce’s shoulder. Then two moon gray eyes were staring at her, wide with disbelief, and Luce finally managed to form her outcry into a word:

“CAT! Cat, Cat, it’s . . .”

“LUCE?”

There was a light splash, and shining hair radiated out through the water, rushing closer until Luce was surrounded in fiery waves. Pale hands reached up, grasping randomly at Luce’s shoulders, squeezing her face, and Catarina’s eyes gazed fiercely into hers.

Luce couldn’t even speak at first. Her whole chest heaved with sobs as Catarina’s cool fingers sank into her short hair. Then they were holding each other so tightly that Luce’s ribs ached. “Lucette,” Catarina was murmuring, “my Lucette, my crazy little Luce. Thank God! All this way. And after everything we’ve heard . . .” Catarina touched the notch in Luce’s ear, then brushed her fingertips across the imperfectly healed cuts in her cheek and the white scar on her shoulder.

“Cat, I can’t believe you’re here! Everything’s been so terrible.” Luce breathed the words out between half-sobs, but she’d started smiling now too. She was holding someone she loved again, a friend whom she was now completely sure loved her back, and that almost made the horror and loneliness of the past weeks disappear into a cloud of warm relief.

“Where is everyone else?” Catarina leaned away to look at Luce, her eyes shining with unbearable hope. “Are they with you? Are they coming?”

Sudden dread coated Luce’s insides like cold oil. She didn’t know how she could begin to tell Cat what had happened. And all of it was her fault: if she’d only become queen the way Catarina wanted, the tribe might have survived. “Dana—and Violet—and a few of the little ones. They’re the only ones . . .”

Luce broke off. It was too horrible to say out loud.

Catarina’s lovely mouth pinched with dismay, but for some reason the eagerness in her face was still stronger. “The only ones? Luce, tell me! It’s so horrible to think . . . Dana . . . Oh, but I was afraid it would be so much worse than that!” Luce stared at her, starting to understand. Her mouth opened but no sound would come. “Luce? That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it? You mean those are the only ones who died?”

Luce shook her head. “No. Cat . . . No.” The words came out in a croak.

“LUCE!”

“Cat . . . I mean . . . those are the only ones besides me who might still be alive.”

9 The Twice Lost

What made it even worse was that there was no way she could tell Catarina the story privately. Other mermaids had gotten interested; they were slipping from their hammocks and flicking closer. The dim glow of their faces dotted the water on all sides. Luce stared around, and everywhere she looked another pair of eyes gleamed back at her. The soft light of their arms curled through the water. There were so many of them, far more than in any tribe Luce had ever seen.

“You know her, Catarina?” It was the Asian mermaid who’d led Luce there, her face a floating golden disc in that crowd of bright faces.

“Yuan! This is Luce. I told you about her.”

“The one who was supposed to be queen? What happened to the rest of your tribe, then?”

“Slaughtered.” Luce breathed it out. “Those divers, with the helmets that block out our songs . . .”

It was obvious from the grim way the other mermaids looked at one another that they already knew about the divers. Luce noticed a few mermaids who were crudely bandaged, their eyes flickering with remembered terror. Refugees. Survivors. That couldn’t explain what all these mermaids were doing here, though, could it? “How did you get away, then?” Yuan asked. “If your whole tribe was killed . . .”

“I wasn’t living with them.” Luce saw Catarina grimace at that, but she couldn’t lie about this. “I had my own cave, down the coast. And . . .”

Yuan nodded at the white scar on Luce’s shoulder. “Was that the divers?”

“Yes. They shot at me, out in the water.”

Now there were too many voices, coming at her from all sides.

“Luce! What do you mean you weren’t living with them? You didn’t leave everyone with Anais! ” Catarina hissed with indignation.

“Luce? She’s called Luce? They—those humans—they said that name! They’re looking for her!” one of the refugees trilled, half-panicked.

So Nausicaa almost surely hadn’t come this far, Luce realized, or this strange mermaid would have heard her name before the divers reached her tribe. “The humans are hunting me,” Luce admitted. “If you think it’s not safe to have me here, I’ll leave right now.”

“They’re hunting for all of us!” Catarina snarled imperiously. All at once her arm wrapped protectively around Luce’s shoulders and her eyes flared, daring anyone to contradict her. “Having Luce here won’t make any difference!”

Yuan tipped her head. “We’d better get the whole story before we decide that, Cat. Luce? Can you explain