The Twice Lost

Yuan was there, but closer to the bridge—thank God Yuan was suddenly there, gazing at her with a look of appalled understanding—and Luce saw her nod sharply once before she dived, pulling two other mermaids with her. Luce could hear Yuan shouting down the line, “It’s a trick! Defy them! Get back in your places and sing! No brave mermaid would ever take orders from a human! Show them that! Defy them!”

Oh, Yuan. No one is like you. No one else could be so strong.

“But Luce . . .”

It was Jo, pointing up now with one wild white arm, biting at her other hand until droplets of ruby blood burst through the skin.

“Hold the line! Keep singing!” Luce shrieked again. At least some of the mermaids nearby seemed to be singing to the water again, dipping under the bridge as they sang, though the wave was tilting now and fissured at its top into uneven, jutting swags.

Luce’s head throbbed with the shivering screams of the mermaids above her. Her face was slick with tears as she turned to join the mermaids singing under the bridge. No matter what, they couldn’t let the wave collapse. Not even if those mermaids in the net had to die—to save thousands of human lives.

Jo grabbed her arm, jerking Luce back so sharply that she gasped.

“You now have exactly two minutes. Lower the wave completely within that time or the captives will all die.”

There wasn’t even a way Luce could offer herself in their place. She could scream until her throat ruptured; the helicopter’s crew would never hear her.

“Luce!” Jo shouted in her ear. “They’ve got Catarina!”

The net jarred again, and suddenly Luce saw red-gold hair like a rivulet of liquid fire pouring through its holes. One of the frenzied, shrieking voices far above suddenly brightened and clarified, catching Luce’s heart in a shining net of its own. Jo was right. That could only be Catarina, tangled and quaking with the other captives.

If Luce didn’t order the Twice Lost to unleash the tsunami, Catarina would die in agonizing pain within minutes.

And she would die believing that Luce hated her.

* * *

Luce couldn’t move. The bay might as well have locked up completely, become an endless sheet of ice gripping her. All she could do was gaze from that fiery trace of Catarina’s hair dangling against the white sky, to the soaring water-wall under the bridge, to the ragged skyline of San Francisco. On the shore some people were fighting to crush their way onto the already dangerously overcrowded bridge or to run up the hill—though if the wave was released, they would certainly never manage to run far or fast enough to save themselves. A few humans were taking advantage of the confusion to dive into the bay. Luce could see their arms splashing up through the salt water as they swam doggedly toward the mermaids, though they were still quite far away. They would drown, too. The air around Luce’s head pulsated with screams and the violent percussion of helicopter blades—and there seemed to be more helicopters now, including some that were whirling rapidly toward the one carrying the net.

The mermaids in the net shrieked and spasmed. Luce knew exactly what they were feeling: a white pain like needles made of pure sun drilling in on all sides, pain so piercing and terrible that thought and hope and breath were all extinguished. But it was still in Luce’s power to save them. They were still alive.

“This is your final warning. Release the wave now.”

Yuan’s human friend, Gigi, was alive too, though, probably on the shore nearby. So was the man who’d spread his jacket over the murdered mermaid. So were countless humans whose hearts Luce couldn’t guess at: hearts that would vanish forever under an onslaught of water strong enough to lift trucks and level buildings— if Luce gave in and obeyed the helicopter’s insane command.

Already some of the singers were surfacing again, their voices fading away in a kind of dazed mutiny. Without them, the water-wall sloped precariously. Then one watery swag broke free and plummeted into the bay. The surface rose in an abrupt, fifteen-foot swell that lifted Luce and Jo and the others skyward and dropped them again. It raced toward the shore, broke into countless flying shards of foam, grabbed people and threw them like twigs. And that was only a small piece of the water the mermaids were supporting, a single loose scrap of sea. Any more than that . . .

Luce heard herself singing. The song broke through her awful entrancement, and she saw other mermaids turn to stare at her. She felt her new strength touch them as their voices rose again, and then their strength flowed back into her. A circuit of shared power woke the deep green waters. Her throat felt thick and knotted, but the voice that tore through it was vibrant, sweet, and powerful. Tears streamed from her eyes, joining the sea. Luce sank below the surface, her song a hovering cry for everything that was lost, for those who were dead and those who were dying now. She saw the Twice Lost holding hands in that endless chain below the bridge, their heads thrown back and fins shimmering. Yuan was there, fiercely corralling uncertain mermaids into the line, passionately driving her voice into fusion with those hundreds of other voices. There were Opal, and Jo, and Graciela, all singing, all reaching out their hands to other mermaids, urging them to keep going—no matter what happened.

Even if the song came out like sobs, even if it wavered, it still held. And with the song their towering wave oscillated and jumped . . .

But it didn’t fall. It didn’t fall.

The screams of the netted mermaids were gradually ebbing away, thinner and lighter. Luce gagged for a second with the knowledge of what that meant—then forced her voice into the song again. The others were singing more loudly too, and now along with the infinite grief in that song there was a new tone of defiance, sad and calm and still somehow ferocious all at once.

Luce closed her eyes, feeling herself suspended in an expanse of water and music made one. Almost all the screams had slipped into silence now. The glassy darkness surrounding her filled with the knowledge that Catarina was almost surely dead—and that Luce herself had made the choice to kill her queen and her friend.

Her song twisted on like a living thing, vital with determination. But while her voice still lived, Luce was sure her heart hadn’t survived.

* * *

A rattle of gunfire burst through the immense upwelling song. Lost in numbness beyond grief, Luce could only feel a dull chill in place of fear. That helicopter’s crew was enraged by the mermaids’ disobedience—of course; of course, those lunatics had started shooting in frustration. Soon the bombs would fall, and the water would burst with crushing waves of energy. For some reason those people up there wanted San Francisco destroyed, and they weren’t about to take the mermaids’ no for an answer.

It was all over, then. Everything she’d tried to do was about to be obliterated. In a dark, mournful way Luce wondered how many of the Twice Lost would die and how many would flee before there weren’t enough of them left to sustain the wave. Maybe, just maybe, they could buy some of the humans onshore enough time to escape from the inevitable cataclysm.

She’d killed humans before, Luce thought dreamily. It seemed fair enough that now she would die trying to save at least a few of them. And then Catarina was dead because of her, and soon Luce would die too; that seemed right as well. She almost smiled as she reached out her hands, touching the water around her as if it were an enclosure of glossy diamond. As the guns cracked again Luce’s voice rose to meet their outbursts, wild and sweet. There were no words to her song, but it was still shaped by an emotion so strong that the music seemed to take on language: I accept it, I accept it, I accept . . .

“Luce!” It was Yuan. Luce wouldn’t stop the song until a spear or a bomb stopped it for her, but she opened her eyes to gaze at Yuan, trying to reassure her without words. You can leave, you can live, but I’m staying. I accept this. “Luce, something crazy is happening! Those helicopters—they’re shooting at each other! Not at us!” That made no sense, Luce thought hazily. Yuan obviously didn’t know what she was talking about.

Yuan pulled at Luce’s elbow, and Luce resisted her, suddenly stabbed by fear again after that long cold lull.