The Twice Lost

“That’s what I was talking about,” Cala groaned. “It’s so—I never knew I could feel so sorry for humans, but this is just horrible!”

Faces. The signs had blown-up photographs on them, sometimes blurry or grainy from how much they’d been enlarged.

And they were all photos of girls, grayish in the overcast dawn light. In those poster-sized images tiny girls in ruffles blew out the candles on their birthday cakes, smiling teenagers draped insouciantly over leaning bicycles, and nervous-looking ten-year-olds held up just-unwrapped Christmas sweaters. And scrawled above or below or across those images were the names, printed in huge letters: MELINDA CRAWFORD, CARIDAD ROSARIO, PRECIOUS TAYLOR-HAWKINS . . .

Luce heard a low, keening cry, and then realized it had come from her own throat: noise squeezed up by the painful tightness in her stomach.

“Oh my God,” Luce finally managed. “They’re the parents? Of girls who vanished or . . .”

“I know,” Cala murmured. “I know. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe some of those girls are mermaids now, but the others!”

Cala didn’t need to finish the thought. A lot of those girls probably weren’t on land anymore, but their families wouldn’t find them in the water, either.

A lot of them would never be found alive.

The desperate parents screamed and pumped their signs into the air, trying to get the mermaids’ attention. Luce felt the hot salt stripes of tears crossing her cheeks. She couldn’t bring herself to look away from those signs. She didn’t think she recognized any of those faces—but maybe if she just looked long enough she’d notice a familiar smile or a name she knew.

Cala noticed the intensity of Luce’s gaze and nervously twirled an auburn lock around one finger. “I know. I keep staring like that too. I mean, I guess people whose daughters actually turned into mermaids wouldn’t care enough to come and look for them. But—”

Luce thought of her father. Before what that reporter had told her, she definitely would have expected him to be standing there too. Now everything was different. “I wish we could do something for them,” Luce sighed. “I just don’t know what. Unless we recognize one of those faces.”

Nausicaa was oddly silent, looking back at the row of humans watching her.

“So, um, general?” Cala asked after a moment. “We need to know the rules. I know you said the timahk has to be different now, but—well, are we allowed to talk to them? I know you talked to that reporter and everything, and Seb, but that was all official stuff, and I wasn’t sure if everybody . . .”

Luce thought about that. It seemed a little risky. And, ready as she was to overturn the old timahk, the idea of unrestricted socializing with humans still made her uncomfortable.

On the other hand, it would be way too hypocritical to say that it was okay for her to talk to humans—but not okay for the rest of the Twice Lost Army. After all, her relationship with Dorian had hardly counted as official business.

“The mermaids can talk to anyone they want,” Luce announced. “Let all the lieutenants know that. They can tell the girls in their divisions.”

Cala’s hazel eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Really. Just ask everybody to please remember that we all represent the Twice Lost Army, and we shouldn’t say anything that’s not true or that could make humans hate us any worse. Okay?”

“Luce,” Nausicaa interrupted sharply. “This is a dangerous decision. Many of those humans are not to be trusted.”

“We need to start trusting them, though,” Luce told her. “Because we need them to trust us.”

“You, as well as anyone, Queen Luce—you know the grief that comes of this. Allow them to draw close to humans, and soon enough a great number of your followers will be disordered by love for human males. It cannot end well!”

“I don’t see why that shouldn’t work out!” Cala interjected. “Just because we’re in the water!”

Nausicaa flashed her a dark look.

“We’ll . . . have to risk it,” Luce decided. Cala’s comment made it all too clear that Nausicaa was right, but . . .“I just don’t think we can avoid talking to humans anymore. No matter what happens. Just—ask everybody to be really careful, Cala, okay?”

Cala leaped impulsively, her dark turquoise tail breaching and flashing in the somber gray light, provoking a flurry of shouts from the onlookers. Then she darted away to tell everyone the news. Nausicaa looked worried. Behind her, the mermaids of the morning shift were streaking below the surface to take their places in the line, while those who had been singing through the night began to break away, one by one, and head home to rest.

“Do you want to go with them, Nausicaa? You could probably use some sleep.”

“I prefer to remain with you, Luce. Today I will listen and learn what I can of your singing in that way.”

Luce didn’t want to admit it, but she was relieved to have Nausicaa’s company. The frantic cries of the people on the shore clanged through her mind, and she had to force herself to look away.

Not all the off-duty mermaids were heading back to their encampments, Luce realized. Word of the new rules had already spread, and a few mermaids were swimming directly under Luce’s tail.

Heading straight for the human crowds.

25 Facing the Water

She was too far away for him to be completely sure. But as he squeezed through the mob near the water’s edge Andrew Korchak caught a distant glimpse of a mermaid with short dark hair turning away and then vanishing. “Luce!”

“Yeah!” a teenage boy standing near him called, and burst into shrill, ecstatic laughter. “Go, General Luce!”

Andrew glared at him but the boy had his eyes closed, his voice humming faintly in a drowsy counterpoint to the piercingly sweet thrum of hundreds of mermaid voices. Those voices washed through Andrew’s mind. They curled around each thought and shocked him with a kind of electrical tenderness. It was impossible to stay entirely clear-headed. Instead he seemed to sweep through a heart as large as the sea, and everyone else in the crowd drifted with him. It was glorious, intoxicating; no wonder all these people couldn’t stay away.

He’d spent a couple of days curled up in the toolshed of an empty, rickety house with a faded For Sale sign listing in the front lawn, dreaming of Kathleen and crying. Then he’d come to the decision that, even if he hated the mermaid who had killed Kathleen and even if he wasn’t so sure now that the rest of them weren’t worth hating too, still, he couldn’t blame Luce for that. Luce hadn’t personally murdered Kathleen. That much was almost certain. And if he did have a few lingering doubts, well, the only way to deal with them was to talk to Luce face to face.

He’d staggered out of his toolshed—only to find Luce’s picture splashed across every newspaper he saw.

General Luce. He couldn’t get used to the idea that anyone actually called her that. His bookish, gentle, painfully shy little girl had become a mermaid general leading a naval blockade and giving defiant speeches on television?

Did he even know who she was anymore?

His confusion only lasted until he sat down with a crumpled newspaper he’d found lying in the street and read what Luce had actually said. Those words did sound like they belonged to his Lucette, just to the side of her that she’d usually been too shy to show to anyone but him. She was still honest and deep-hearted and strong, still doing the best she could in terrible circumstances.

And then, what that reporter had said to her—that woman almost made it sound like he’d started some kind of anti-mermaid campaign, when in reality he and Kathleen had been doing the only thing they could think of to help.